Page 10 of Heart of the Mountain King

"Everyone happy, except Sten," Rask guessed. "Why?"

"I…Are bergsrår ever attracted to others of your own kind, Rask?" Sten asked in words so low Rask almost didn't catch them.

Rask grunted. "Rask's mate was bergsrå."

Sten rolled his eyes. "No, another man — male, I mean."

"Hjarta was that too." Rask shrugged. He'd heard this about humans, but he'd never been curious enough to inquire about their crude and backward ways.

He couldn't say why he was permitting the human all these questions. It wasn't that he was striking — he wasn't — or that Sten was interesting — only a little — or that he commanded attention in any way.

Boredom, Rask supposed.

"So, you do know what it's like," Sten said, relieved.

Rask looked away, but… He would feel guilty, he knew, if he let Sten believe the lie.

"No," he said, his attention back on the human just in time to see his shoulders slump once again. "Rask might guess…but Rask not know. Man, woman, both, neither; for bergsrår, no difference."

"…Sounds nice," Sten said mournfully. "Wish my village was like that."

And Rask…

Bane and blight; guilt ate at Rask now, as if he'd said something wrong. He grunted, wishing the obstinate human would leave him be. Rubbing his fist hard against the small, discordant note of protest humming away in Rask's chest, he shoved it down.

△▽△▽△▽△

Frustration chased Rask's heels the whole way to the human village, his guilt growing in weight with each footfall as Sten's silence stretched out longer.

Twice, Rask almost gave in, only biting back his words at the last moment for fear they wouldn't be welcome. An odd compulsion gripped him; the need to point out a particular view or specific rock formation reared its head often with a startling strength. The urge to earn himself another of Sten's lopsided grins, or at least break the unruly quiet hanging in the air between them.

Perhaps it'd been too long since Rask'd had anyone other than his goats to talk to.

Finally, the steep grade of the mountain leveled out, and by nightfall they'd passed the boundary stones that marked the outer edge of the quarry. Here, the Song was almost painfully weak; thready in some places, a soured cacophony in others. It grated across Rask's senses like a foul note, compounding his guilt all the more.

It was a bergsrå's duty to ensure the health of the Song within their domains. A duty it was clear Rask had sorely neglected.

"Lars was up on that scaffolding when it happened," Sten said, pointing at a series of freshly cut planks glowing golden in the moonlight against the age-weathered boards to either side. "He was on his way to the northern face, so I suppose we should start there."

But Rask shook his head, the beads in his hair chiming against each other with the motion as he headed for the human's temporary platform Sten had pointed out. "Vættir not care for maybes, only what is. Where Sten's friend going not important. Better Rask look where friend fell."

Kneeling in the gravel directly below the repaired patch of scaffolding came with all the bracing force of wading into an early spring's stream running high with snowmelt. The vættir below Rask's feet churned in agitation, riled up; their melody set to a frantic pace.

"Rask?" came Sten's voice, thick with worry. But it was distant, from somewhere outside the space Rask currently existed, trying to find the moment to join in with his own piece of the Song.

When he found it, he did not hesitate; Rask's magic rumbling out in a deep bass, reverberating where it met stone and seeping into the cracks. Weaving his melody with that of the vættir, it became a multi-layered duet; he would ask, and they would answer. And when they had questions of their own, Rask did his best to reply in turn.

"I didn't know you could sing," Sten said quietly after the last of Rask's notes finally faded, blinking unfocused eyes open to look up at him.

Sten was staring down at the bergsrå, wearing an expression almost as strange as his words. From this angle, Rask mused, the human did not seem quite so small.

"All can Sing," Rask ground out harshly, his throat rough after so much magic. "Some just better, or louder, or more pleasant to listen to."

"Shows you've never heard me butchering the hymns in temple every morning and twice on ninthday," Sten replied, his mouth slanted into a wry sort of smile. "Even my tone-deaf granny wouldn't call that singing."

Rask frowned. "Sten singing right now," Rask corrected him, forgetting himself enough to reach up, touching the tip of his forefinger to Sten's chest, just over the steady rhythm of the little human's heart. Forgetting himself a great deal, it seemed, between the drink and magic and… and being so far from his cave perhaps, but —

Without thought, Rask reached further up, flattening his entire palm against the warmth emanating through the thin material of Sten's tunic; all of Rask's attention focused now on the life pulsing within the man.