Myth Lies Bleeding
Fandom: Lost Girl
Characters: Trick, Tamsin
Rating: T
Summary: Kindred spirits, of a kind.
She'd been eyeing him over the bar for the past few days.
She was far more than she appeared, Dyson's new partner, the dark fae woman Tamsin. Her nature sang to him from the moment she first entered the Dal and she, looking back, saw through him.
It always came down to blood.
Give credit where due. She waited, biding her time, refusing to sacrifice her dignity. But inevitably she came to him after the bar's closing, seeking audience.
Trick steeled himself: this was how it began. This was always how it began. Supplicants came, wanting to shelter under his mantle, needing to prove their usefulness.
It became harder to turn them away, every time.
"I greet you, Blood King," Tamsin said softly, a reverence in her tone he'd heard her give to no one else.
There was no point in dissembling. Trick chanted quietly, "Three times nine girls, but one girl rode ahead / white-skinned under her helmet..."
Tamsin had gone very still. "I have served a lord of blood and wisdom."
"Is that what this is?" Trick found his voice turning unaccountably harsh. "A wish to return to service?"
The valkyrie moved closer, smoothly dropping to her knees. "You know what I am. You know that a weapon without a wielder turns dull."
Once it would have been easy, too easy, to accept her offer. To consider her obedience a right and privilege of his station. Those days were long past, and good riddance. "I will not take your bond." Trick reached out to raise her chin, catching her gaze with his own. "You are free, child. Don't sell your independence so cheaply."
Tamsin laughed bitterly. "You of all people know how much of an illusion that freedom is." But she nodded, getting to her feet, her pride not at all battered. "One day, not-my-lord, this polite fiction of dark and light will fail. You may yet wish for a shieldmaiden at your side."
"So it may be," Trick agreed, his voice steady against the pounding of his heart. Not every word a valkyrie spoke necessarily rang of prophecy and yet, and yet. It never hurt to hedge your bets. "Until such time...one for the road?"
Tamsin threw back her head and laughed, all her former solemnity discarded. "Only if you're pouring the good stuff, old man."
Trick grinned and retreated back behind the bar, his sanctuary, reaching into the dusty recesses for a rare bottle. His own nerves could do with some settling as well.
His dreams that night were full of battlefields and blood.
Chant from the poem Helgakviða Hjörvarðssonar, in the Prose Edda.
I actually wanted this to be Tamsin/Trick (because dammit! Trick needs lovin' too! and wow, am I glad I never finished that Bo/Trick drabble), but it turned on me. ...at the last moment I realized there's a link between valkyies and the Morrigan, too, so that's another angle to be explored.