Just... pretend that belief in Norse gods is historically accurate for Germans circa 70BC

XXXXX

Agron hates horses. One of the few advantages of his position in the Faruk house was that he never had to go near them. The place had Nasir, and a lack of horses going for it. No wealth of happiness, to be sure, but what it did have, he misses now.

Sighing, Agron tries again to hold the rowdy horse he is leading in check. All of his thoughts round back to Nasir, no matter how hard he tries to push him from mind.

"We hold afternoon meal soon, I trust?" he calls to Lugo, who is walking nearby. Lugo is a jovial man, fast with a bawdy joke or a guffaw to lighten a man's spirit. He even speaks in Agron's mother tongue, a glorious respite after so many years without hearing it.

"I should hope so, sun is past its highest point," Lugo hollers back. "These fuckers don't let us break for meal soon and I'm calling a mutiny!"

Agron's heart catches within his chest. High noon has passed. Nasir is now married. He is no doubt smiling that forced smile of his as he takes his wife to bed to reluctantly fuck children into her even as Lugo and Agron speak. Agron would be a liar if he did not envy the woman for her place in Nasir's bed, however unwelcome it may be. How often had Agron lain in the barracks, or even upon his pallet in Nasir's rooms, and imagined in detail the feel of Nasir's skin under his hands, of his neck under Agron's teeth, his legs wrapped around Agron's waist?

More than her right to Nasir's body, Agron envies the woman for her place by Nasir's side. Agron had oft daydreamed of, by some miracle, taking Nasir with him to Germania. He would give Nasir his furs when the man inevitably became chilled, wrap an arm around his shoulders without fearing the gaze of others, and build a cottage with Nasir not far from the land of Agron's family. Two men sharing a home there was unusual, but not unheard of east of the Rhine, and Agron would have borne the rare sideways glance happily, if it meant he and Nasir were together.

Duro would have loved Nasir, Agron is sure of it. If not at first, then because Agron made him. Now, Agron can only tell Duro stories ––if Duro even lives–– of the Syrian from Rome who kept Agron's heart when Agron left.

"Aha!" Lugo shouts gleefully, "front of caravan is stopping. We break for meal."

Lugo spares no time tying his horse to a tree along the side of the road, then making for one of the wagons that carries the dried meats. Agron follows him with less haste, but joins the other guards as they take their rations from the tight-fisted wagon master. The traders that own the wagons of goods underestimate the hunger of their guards ––all Germanics with a healthy appreciation for large portions of meat–– but all of the guards get their meals eventually, and retreat to a patch of shade under a half wilted tree.

Agron lazily keeps an eye on the endless line of wagons that make up their trading caravan, but there are no other passersby on the road, so unless some enterprising thief has found his way to invisibility, the cargo faces no threat. Agron remembers the rushing throng that filled Rome's marketplaces and bazaars, how he had to keep on high alert, should some Roman filth with sticky fingers or sharp instruments come near Nasir.

"Our man Agron is lost in thought again," Saxa comments around a mouthful of salted goat meat.

Donar guffaws. "He has not enough thoughts to be lost in."

"Fuck yourself with a spear," Agron snaps halfheartedly.

"Ah, but I see," Lugo slaps a hand against the ground, "he is still caught in thoughts of boy he left behind."

"Worry not on him," Saxa scoffs, "he has led you to us! What is the love of some Syrian boy when you have the love of kinsmen in land far from home? Unless we are not fucking good enough?" she asks teasingly, poking Agron's back with a bare foot.

"Of course you are good enough," Agron drawls. "Good enough to scrape the shit from my shoes!"

Lugo cackles and grips Agron in a headlock. "That's my man!"

The guards fall into a familiar routine of trading barbs and insults at one another, but Agron knows that it is only the bonds of kinship that let them abuse each other so. It is a welcome contrast from the tight laced, obedient speech he had to master when speaking with anyone other than Nasir.

Agron is lost again in remembrance. What would Nasir look like as an old man? Agron chuckles lightly to himself at the thought of Nasir, ancient and wizened, gray hair hanging down to his knees, before sobering again.

There is a figure riding along the road towards the caravan, backed by the sun so their features are shadowed out. Agron can tell from the bare chest of the figure that it is a man, and from his outline, he can tell that the man's hair is long.

Nasir.

Agron is on his feet, shading his eyes to gain a better view and prepared to race down the hill before he realizes that the rider is blond, and a fair ten years Nasir's senior. Another false alarm.

"Does threat approach?" Donar asks urgently, making to stand as well.

Agron gestures for him to sit. "No. It looks to be a farmer. He takes wide berth around the caravan, at any rate."

"Phantom lovers," Saxa muses, an eyebrow raised.

Lugo groans in sympathy, then rises to clap Agron soundly on the back. "Next town we come to, I take you to worst drinking house they have, get you proper drunk. Naught better for a broken heart than the distraction of addled mind and pained stomach."

"Do not think I shall be paying, you stupid cock," Agron warns. "for I will need gallons."

XXXXX

The next town is a shithole. The two main roads west out of Rome join there, and out of their union sprang a muddy excuse for a town, built of ramshackle timber shacks braced by the beggars sitting at their bases. The rich men of Rome are blithely having marble carved in their likeness as these people rot.

The drinking house is alright. When Agron and Lugo first walked in, even Agron had to wrinkle his nose at the stench, and squint in confusion at the goat comfortably chewing on a scrap of leather in the corner, but now he is at the bottom of his third jug of the weak watered wine, and the drinking house has transformed from foul to alright. Another three and perhaps it will be charming.

Agron rotates the jug around in his hands, watching the dull red liquid slosh discontentedly against the clay walls of the jug. Someone is yelling at someone else in a language he does not know, and it is giving him a headache. If he could walk steadily, he would go over to them and hit them both until they shut up, but in his state, all he can do is sit morosely on a crate and cradle his amphora of wine.

Lugo is still on his first amphora, which means he is either drinking less than normal, or Agron is drinking very quickly. He cannot tell, time feels wobbly. Lugo is saying something, and Agron squints at him to hear him better.

"You will like being back. I have made many trips to Roman heat and back, and first touch of snow–– ah, but it is good my friend. Donar always weeps when we return home, if he says I lie, then he is fucking lying. Sedullus spoke of-"

Downing another gulp of the wine, Agron leans back against the gritty wall of the drinking house. Lugo's beard is funny. It is short.

"He was so short," Agron slurs into his wine, "I could throw him over shoulder. Only did once, though."

Lugo sends Agron a look, and calls for more wine. "We drink until sentimentality is gone. Do you not understand purpose of drinking house?"

"I understand purpose of drinking house!" Agron retorts loudly. "I am fucking drinking."

"Not enough."

"Wine is too slow."

While they wait for a new amphora of wine, Agron regales Lugo with stories of Nasir. Lugo looks uncomfortable after a time. Perhaps he has had too much wine.

"His teeth were so small," Agron laughs. His joints feel loose. Is he still sitting on the crate? He is not, and he struggles to make his way back onto it. "with little gaps in between each one," he points a finger at his own teeth and pokes himself in the mouth. "Straight though. Very straight teeth. Good for licking. And eyelashes. He had eyelashes."

"And two arms and two legs and a nose and a cock too, I'll bet," Lugo chuckles.

"Yes." Agron says seriously. He does not understand why Lugo is laughing, of course Nasir has all of his limbs. He is perfect.

Lugo shakes his head, grinning. "From what you say, this man must rival Freya, or -what do they call her- Venus in beauty."

Shaking his head, Agron points out the square hole in one of the walls that serves as a window. "He looked sort of like that man. Nasir is not a woman, Lugo. That is whole point." Agron takes another swig of the wine. It gets fouler as he goes, but less watery. This jugful must be from the bottom of the barrel.

Lugo glances out the window at the man in question. He is short, and long-haired, but Agron has mistaken every long haired man they have passed in the last few days for Nasir, and he has given up hope for a miraculous reappearance. "Heh," Lugo snorts, "that one reminds me of Tyr more than Freya."

Craning his neck, and almost falling off of the crate again, Agron looks out the window to see that the man who reminds him of Nasir is now wielding a spear with ease, batting off some combatants in the street. Passersby keep walking past without a hand to help, but the short man is holding off his two attackers well.

"Nasir could wield a spear," Agron mumbles. "I taught him. Best student I ev'r had. Only."

His eyes are not focusing well, and mixed with the dim light of the drinking house, the man out the window truly does look of a form with Nasir. Agron sighs heavily and scrunches his eyes shut, attempting to cast weakness from them. The man is not Nasir. Nasir is miles away and married.

Lugo squints out the window. "Is he fellow German?"

"What?"

"No, his coloring is too dark."

"What?"

"I say only because that move with spear," Lugo mimes a downward swinging motion, "would work better with hammer. Maybe German-taught."

Knowing he will only be disappointed, but too foolish to let his curiosity go unsatisfied, Agron stumbles to his feet and weaves his way to the window. Nasir is German-taught, Nasir has a spear, he thinks groggily. Bracing his hands on the windowsill, Agron leans his head out just in time to see the short man execute a perfect swing with the spear, knocking the last of his attackers to the ground, then smack the butt of the spear against the man's temple to send him to unconsciousness.

Agron knows that maneuver. He drilled it into a yet blood-shy Nasir many a time when they were boys.

The man outside the window turns around, and Agron dazedly wonders what was in the wine, because he thinks that he is seeing Nasir through the glassless window, but that cannot be right.

Not-Nasir blinks once, his long eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks, and then his hand floats upwards, as if through water, to land upon Agron's cheek. This cannot be, Nasir is in Rome, Agron is never going to see him again.

Then Not-Nasir's thumb softly brushes back and forth over Agron's cheek, and Nasir is the only person that has ever shown Agron that manner of tenderness. Nasir listens to Agron's middle of the night whispers and tells Agron to rest his injured shoulder because he treats Agron as though he were formed of the finest crystal.

"Nasir?"

Nasir's face splits into a wide grin, and Agron knows that face. He knows it like he has known few others. "Yes. Agron?"

Agron can feel his own face growing a smile to match Nasir's, and he nods. "Yes."

Nasir pulls Agron into an embrace through the window, his solid arms wrapping around Agron's waist and his face tucking into Agron's neck. Agron has missed this, missed holding his little man away from the reaches of the meaner world (although looking at Nasir's attackers strewn across the ground, Agron notes with a jolt that Nasir may not need it.) He holds onto Nasir, suddenly found after days of being lost.

"How?" Agron asks when the burning need to surround himself with Nasir has subsided enough that he can pull his face from Nasir's hair.

Laughing incredulously into Agron's shoulder, Nasir replies. "I left. I simply walked out." Agron feels his head shake. "I realized I was not free, and sought to remedy it."

Agron grips tighter. Nasir has more courage in him than any other he knows.

"I had almost lost hope of catching up with you on the road," Nasir whispers fervently into Agron's neck.

Agron rubs gently over one of Nasir's shoulder blades. "Then it is good thing Lugo brought me to get drunk."

"Lugo?"

"Oh," Agron twists his head to look for his kinsman. He is still sitting on one of the crates, obviously trying to not look at them. "I will introduce you."

"In a moment."

"What-"

Nasir's lips cover Agron's, pushing against them desperately. Agron knew he had forgotten something. He surges closer still to Nasir, reveling in the taste of him that he had so feared forgetting. Agron feels full, as though what parts of him that had been missing have finally been replaced. For so long, he had thought that he would have to choose between freedom and love, but now both have miraculously fallen into his hands, and he finds himself lost in his riches.

When Nasir eventually, reluctantly, pulls away, his cheeks are flushed and his lips are wet. Agron examines the sight in satisfaction.

"Now you may show me your friend," Nasir says smugly.

Chuckling, Agron slips a hand down to smack Nasir's ass, then steps back so that Nasir can climb through the poor excuse for a window and into the drinking house. It may have been easier to have Nasir come around the building to enter through the doorway, but Agron would not have them parted so long.

Keeping one arm around Nasir's shoulders, Agron leads him to Lugo.

Lugo raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms. "So this is Nasir."

"Yes," Agron replies. If Lugo and the others do not take Nasir in, then he and Nasir will be making the long trip to Germania alone, a difficult feat at best, a fatal one at worst.

Lugo lets out a single, loud, laugh, claps a startled Nasir on the arm, and booms, "I told you going to drinking-house was good idea! But we should head back now, you are having enough trouble walking, we don't want you to have trouble fucking, eh?" He winks lewdly, and Nasir smiles hesitantly.

"It... is good... to know of you," Nasir stutters out carefully, and it is only then that Agron realizes that he and Lugo had been speaking in German.

"Apologies, Nasir," Agron turns to press his forehead against Nasir's, "I had forgotten you did not speak German."

"You taught me some," Nasir objects.

"Enough for a talk with small child."

Smirking, Nasir shoots back, "so I shall be able to speak with you in mother tongue?"

Agron makes a put upon face and kisses Nasir's forehead simply because he can. "Lugo says only that we should move back to caravan."

Brow furrowing, Nasir notes, "I would not think that the merchants would take kindly to a sudden new addition to their party."

Agron translates the words into German for Lugo, who laughs, and ruffles a disgruntled Nasir's hair. "The merchants are too rich for their own good, and stupid. Do not worry."

Lugo's words prove true, and when they make it back to camp unhindered, Lugo blithely replies to the caravan master's confusion, "you not remember Nasir? You lot never remember who you hire. He is guard!" and Agron wonders when his life became so easy.

There is a blur of introductions, of directions being given and acquaintances being made, but their memory is scraped away as scratches in sand are swept off by a wave when, in the small hours of the morning, Nasir follows Agron into his tent, lays beside him, and captures his lips in an ardent kiss.

Neither man is greatly experienced, having only ever had meaningless, half-clothed rendezvous in corners with strangers, so Agron and Nasir fumble, they catch limbs in clothing as they attempt to remove the offending fabric as quickly as possible, they lose balance and tip over, their teeth clash as they rush into kisses.

It is the best that Agron has ever had. Their efforts at working over each other's bodies may be amateurish, but it is Nasir who trembles in his grip, whose hands inexpertly move between Agron's legs, whose eyes catch Agron's in the dim light and invite him to share in the joke, so Agron minds not. Nor does he mind making a fool of himself in Nasir's eyes, for he has naught to fear but the quirk of Nasir's smile and the reassuring touch of his hand against Agron's face.

Eventually, after the second or third time they spend themselves, their feverish movements slow until there is only Nasir, splayed across Agron' chest ––who is in turn splayed across the sparse pillows of the tent–– and their hands working lazily in between them, more for the enjoyment of the motions than in any pursuit of release.

"I am lucky," Agron confides to Nasir.

Nasir looks up from where he is kissing the skin over Agron's heart. "I did not consider you a man to think of himself as such."

"Nor I, before today," Agron tangles his fingers in Nasir's hair, relishing their smooth slide against his digits.

Smiling gently, Nasir leans up to kiss softly at Agron's mouth. "I feel the same, though my words are now but an echo of yours."

Agron returns the kiss, then smiles wickedly at a memory. "Ah, but you have been echoing me all night."

Nasir looks at him questioningly.

"Yes! When I moan, you moan, when I cry out, you follow in suit-"

Slapping Agron's arm, Nasir admonishes, "Do not taunt the one that holds your cock in hand. Who knows what I may do with it."

Thrusting more enthusiastically into Nasir's hand, Agron murmurs into Nasir's ear, "and what might that be?"

"I- nnn... oh."

Agron has no choice, then, but to flip them over, hover over Nasir's perfection and taunt and tease him until he is muffling his cries into his arm, his giddiness matched only by Agron's own.

Saxa wakes them the next morning with a bucket of water, but they do not mind, for they have each other's company to stave off the chill.

XXXXX

"By the gods," Nasir marvels, kneeling down to run exploratory fingers over the substance that has just begun to cover the ground, "what is this?"

"That," Agron answers with satisfaction, "is snow."

XXXXX

Agron had not thought he would be terrified, and yet here he is, poised on the verge of the creek that runs just outside the village he was born in, with his heart pounding in his chest, and sweat on his palms as they slip around Nasir's hand. Fires are not uncommon here, what if, after an untold time of walking, he and Nasir come across naught but ash and charred timber in the place of the village? Or perhaps they will find the buildings intact, but the people inside struck down by plague. Perhaps none of his family will recognize him, and they shall cast him out with fire and stones in suspicion.

Nasir leaps over the creek, and holds out a hand. He says, "it is but a short leap," but Agron knows he means more than that. Yet he takes Nasir's hand and follows suit over the fitfully gurgling creek, for he knows that he can follow Nasir anywhere.

Even as Agron struggles to tamp down his growing fears, Nasir walks with a spring in his step as they move ever closer to the village. Nasir is intrigued by the new world they are entering, while Agron feels it may have changed too much for him to fit inside it as comfortably as he once did. It had been years, and now they are less than a day's walk away. Agron can barely fathom the enormity of that fact.

"Who will be the first person we see?" Nasir asks, pulling one of his many furs tighter over his shoulders.

"We'll, ah, come through the outer farms first," Agron replies, slinging an arm over Nasir's shoulder to tug him in closer to his body heat. "Perhaps Adalberht or one of his sons."

"Adalberht is the one with the orange beard?"

"Yes. Though it may be gray now." Adalberht had taken great pride in that beard once. He had called it the fire on his chin. Agron would not wish to see that taken from him.

Nasir's brow furrows. "I sense a mournfulness in you."

"It is nothing."

"I do not take you at your word. To hear you, one would think earth splitting open and casting out all of the souls of Hades in bursts of violet flames would be 'nothing.'"

Agron sighs. For better or for worse, Nasir knows him like the back of his hand. "I but wonder what changes time has wrought."

Nasir hums in agreement. "The village will have changed, in the years you have been gone. Yet for all that Adalberht's beard may have changed color, or the longhouse in the village center may have been rebuilt, or the elderly ones of passed on and new ones born, I think it shall still be home, and those that remain shall be glad to see you, at the least."

Smiling, Agron stops to pull aside Nasir's hood so he may kiss his cheek. "And they shall be glad to see you as well, if you can offer to them but fucking fraction of the solace you give me."

When the shape of Oda and Regin's house materializes in the distance, Agron tightens his fingers around Nasir's, but keeps walking forwards. He recognizes the unusual latticework of the fence surrounding their vegetable garden, and the rough stone carving of Fenrir still sits along the perimeter of their land. He and Duro would rub Fenrir's nose every time they passed him as boys, and it looks as though the tradition has continued, for Fenrir's nose is worn into a featureless nub.

Agron mentions this to Nasir, who, intrigued, passes a palm over Fenrir's nose.

"Hello!" a voice calls from the field. It holds the accent of this village, one that their friends in the merchant caravan did not have, the one that Agron has not heard for years.

To make up for Agron's shocked silence, Nasir calls back "hello!" his accent barely noticeable after the months of traveling with the Germans.

Agron forces himself to look up, and sure enough, there is Oda, her braid longer, her waist wider, but her face still bearing the indulgent smile she wore to many a meal with Agron's family.

Clearing his throat, Agron raises a hand. "Hello, Oda."

Oda leans on her hoe and squints towards them. "Do I know of you?"

"Ah..."

"Don't stutter, come here, boy. You and your bundled up friend there."

Agron dutifully steps to, remembering the sharpness Oda could wield when little boys did not follow her words.

"I, my name is Agron," he stutters stupidly.

Oda's eyes widen. "Agron? Not Linza's boy?"

"The same."

"Boy!" she admonishes, "you should have said that at the first!" She gathers him up in her arms, and for all that he has long since surpassed her in height, he feels as a child again within the embrace that had comforted him after many a skinned knee or bruised arm. "I had thought you dead! We all did!"

He shakes his head. "Enslaved. Far from home."

Oda makes a sympathetic noise and her arms tighten further.

"But I am home now," Agron reassures her. He would not know what to do if Oda cried, for such an unnatural thing must mark the ending of the world.

"That you are." She pats a hand against his cheek, then looks to Nasir, who has been tactfully looking the other way. "Now you, I know are not long lost son of village."

"I merely followed one here," Nasir acknowledges.

"Nasir is the one token of my time in Rome that I consider worth the hardships," Agron explains fondly.

Oda nods and winks. "I see your meaning. A faithful one, too, to come so many miles."

Nasir ducks his head.

"What of my family?" Agron asks suddenly. Oda always knew what happened in the village. The answer to his questions lies before him, and he does not take advantage of it?

Oda rubs a hand over her head, collecting flyaway pieces of hair. "They live. Your mother and brother are hale as ever... oh! Duro has married!"

Agron's heart leaps. Not only alive, but thriving, then. "The bride?"

"Rosmunda!"

"No!"

"Yes! It seems their bickering over all those years was fueled by something other than hate."

Agron laughs. "I remember when Duro slopped pig fat into her hair for a laugh!"

"Well she has clearly gotten over any grudges from that," Oda smirks knowingly. "Your cousins are well, though Tancred, Swanahilda and Waltherhave had so many children between them, I can scarce keep track, and I helped with each birth myself!"

"Brilliant!"

"It is at that! Beautiful children. All of Tancred's are mischievous brats, but what else can you expect?"

Of course they would be. Agron can picture them, all bearing Tancred's sandy curls and shameless smile. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to be with them, changes be damned.

"I must see them then," Agron claps his hands together. "Oda, we shall return on the morrow, but now, there are others to see."

As they stride down the worn path to the center of the village, Nasir notes warmly, "it is good to see such excitement in you."

Agron casts a look to Nasir, whose perfect face is shining up at him. His new family will be meeting his old today. How many times has he wondered what he would say to Duro about Nasir? Now, such questions will be answered.

In a fit of delight, Agron hoists Nasir into the air, spinning his little man in a circle.

"Put me down," Nasir objects, "lest you meet the fate of those raiders from Athens."

Wincing, Agron sets Nasir down. The last ill-fated attempt by thieves to take the merchant's cargo had been struck down almost by Nasir alone, who had fought with such vicious skill that even Agron's bones were set to chill.

Nasir straightens his many cloaks as he is set back upon his feet, then points a finger straight at Agron's nose. "I am no doll to be thrown about."

Agron kisses the tip of Nasir's finger, and Nasir's sternness breaks into laughter.

XXXXX

The center of the village has both weathered and grown. The smithy's roof has been replaced, yet the red painted door that graces the building is more worn even than it was when Agron was a child. Children Agron does not recognize prance around donkeys and goats, yet he can make out the wizened features of a few lifelong village residents. He considers greeting them all, but if he pauses to reintroduce himself to every last person in the square, it will be the middle of the night before he reaches his mother's goat farm. Agron recalls well her wrath at being woken in the middle of the night.

As it is, they would be out of the square by now already, were it not for Nasir's insistence on a pair of gloves from the furman's stall. Agron fondly watches Nasir barter with the vendor. Nasir is fair with those he does business with, except when they try to keep him from warm clothing.

"But look at the stitching on sides," the vendor protests, "surely that is worth a fucking coin or two more!"

"For being stitched the way they should be?" Nasir shoots back skeptically. Agron is so proud of Nasir's german.

"For being stitched exceptionally!" the vendor retorts, raising his eyebrows in consternation. There is something familiar about them. "This takes very fine bone needle. Hard to come by. Expensive," he adds pointedly. "Here, you," he looks to Agron, "surely a proper northerner knows true value of a fine pair of kid gloves. Teach your friend."

Agron examines one. The stitchery is fine indeed, but he would prefer to agree with Nasir and sleep warm tonight. "Fuck, my kid brother could sew better than this."

The vendor snorts, tugging on his beard. "Then wherever you are from, babes are taught how to skin a goat from the cradle. In real world, in this village, these gloves are best you can buy."

"Iam from this village, and I can say-"

"Really?" the vendor cuts him off skeptically, smirking. "Having lived here all my life, I can say you are fucking not."

Damn. The man, near to Agron in age, must have changed enough in his teenage years that Agron does not recognize him now. So much for Agron's bartering tactic.

"Fine," Agron allows, "I have not lived here in many a year. Still," he adds, widening his eyes and switching tactics, "I only ask that you lower price somewhat for Nasir. We have travelled from Rome, and yet do not carry warmth enough-"

"Rome?" the vendor asks. There is an odd timbre to his voice. "You are... you are from here, and have spent time in Rome?"

"Yes, I had been trapped there many years..." Agron is uncertain of the vendor's angle.

"A- are... Agron?" The man stutters out.

Agron's heart stops beating within his chest for a split second. The way the vendor said his name, the slight emphasis on the "r," the upward lilt of his eyebrows as he spoke... Agron recognizes the way that voice wraps around his name, has recognized it since the voice was high and reedy and called "Agwon" instead of "Agron."

"Duro?" he gasps.

Duro's mouth splits in a grin that cracks his face in two. "The same, brother!"

Launching himself at his brother, Agron wraps his arm around Duro's neck and loops his head in for a knuckling on the top of his skull. Duro squawks and pinches the weak spot on Agron's side.

Howling, "you fool! Why did you not tell me you had grown a beard?" Agron twists to toss his brother to the ground of the square.

Duro slips out of Agron's grasp like a fish, just in time to dodge a violent meeting with the cobblestones. "And why did you not tell me you had grown two hand lengths in height?"

"Time makes fools of us all," Nasir remarks wryly from where he stands aside to watch the brothers tussle.

"That is does," Duro agrees. "But happy fools, at that." He pull Agron into an embrace, locking his elbows around Agron's neck. "We had thought you long dead since the slavers came through."

"I am tougher than that," Agron objects playfully.

Duro snorts disbelievingly. "I shall hear tell of the past years in time, I am sure. But tell me who accompanies you," he nods at Nasir. "And why he is so insistent on cheap gloves."

Agron reels Nasir in until Nasir is fully within Duro's view, and also has his back against Agron's chest. "He is Nasir," Agron answers, wrapping an arm around Nasir's waist and glowing with pride. "And he is a Syrian, prone to cold."

"And the affections of a certain giant?" Duro eyes Agron pointedly.

"Those as well."

Duro spreads his arms wide. "Then welcome, Nasir! Take gloves on me, for family never goes cold."

Agron gives Duro a grateful smile. It is good to be home.

Epilogue

Agron wakes, as he does every morning, to Nasir's hair splayed across his face. Nasir freely admits that his lengthy hairstyle is inconvenient, but they both prefer it that way. Brushing the hair out of his face, Agron glances out the window. The snow still lies in heavy heaps. Winter is his favorite time in these cold places. There is naught to do but ensure the livestock is fed, then hole up someplace warm and drink until the snow melts from the fields.

Nosing over Nasir's neck, Agron sighs happily. As a boy, his winters were never so warm as they are now, with a naked body pressed against his own, sharing heat as though they were one body. It has been a good winter here.

Nasir stirs, reaching one hand blindly out for a lost cover. Agron uses his longer reach to grab it himself, tucking it around both him and Nasir's shoulders. Humming in gratitude, Nasir presses himself further back into Agron's groin. Agron inhales sharply. Even mostly asleep, Nasir is temptation personified.

"Good morning," he whispers softly. If Nasir does not hear him, Agron will let him be and save their lovemaking for later.

"Good morning," Nasir whispers back in german.

Agron lets his hands drift lower from where they were tucked over Nasir's chest.

Nasir squirms in delight, his feet tangling with Agron's. "Very good morning," Nasir adds, twisting his head for a kiss.

Luckily, they finish their enjoyment of each other's company long before Duro and Rosmunda tramp in, shaking snow from their cloaks and brandishing breakfast.

Duro sits on the bed with no care for Agron's disgruntlement, and passes Nasir a leg of something. "Good morning, beautiful," he greets Nasir jovially.

Rosmunda rolls her eyes at Agron. "My husband's favoritism for yours is endlessly amusing."

Kissing his wife on the cheek, Duro conjures up a packet of dried fruit for himself. "Is it my fault Agron has good taste? No. I fear for Nasir's, though."

Duro spends the rest of the morning cackling and dodging Agron's kicks from under the bedspread.

Life is good, indeed.