Author's Note: Set during "Raid." The conversation about Athelstan's status stuck with me and I imagined it taking a slightly different direction. So, here it is. This is my first attempt at a Vikings fic. I hope Ragnar and Athelstan don't seem too out of character! Reviews are always much appreciated.

~Pleurez

"Am I still your slave?"

The words hang heavily between the two men. The silence becomes so thick and so oppressive that it seemed to drive the very air from the room. Calculating blue eyes fall upon the priest. Ragnar's face remains inscrutable. Thoughtful, but not giving the slightest hint as to what those thoughts might actually be.

"Does it matter?" The words are light. Flippant and capricious as the man so often is. And then he watches.

His priest is a patient man. Its patience that keeps him so often silent, meek and humble in the presence of his master. Often, but not always. He sees it in the twitch of the priest's jaw. A subtle tightening, and then his head turns to the side. His chest heaves, drawing in what is meant to be a bracing breath. Gathering himself. Willing himself to hold his tongue, as he knows it remains in his head only so long as it pleases the master. A hand raises, fingers running through dark curls. They pause, curling just a little as they brush against hair where it ought not to be. Really, he is not so hard to read as he likes to think even in his silence.

"From what I've seen, your people treat their slaves worse than dogs." His voice is soft. Meek, somehow, despite the hostility of the words. There is precious little fire there. And yet, there it is.

Eyebrows raise just a moment. There's a glimmer in his eye that's almost playful. "Hmm. And do I treat you as a dog?"

The changes are subtle, but they are there. The set of his shoulders is just a little more rigid. Ragnar can see the tension working its way up his neck. He licks his lips and swallows. Another deep breath. Of late, perhaps Ragnar hadn't. His master is kinder than others, to be sure. And yet visions of his brothers slaughtered and strung up, as if mere livestock waiting to be butchered reminded him of what a low bar kinder truly was. So low that it had been cleared even while tugging the priest along, tethered by a rope around his neck. Even while walking him right by the bodies of the others. The rope was no longer there, and yet sometimes Athelstan would swear he could still feel it, rough and chafing against his skin. It's enough to rein him in, at least for now. And yet now it's Ragnar who refuses to let the matter drop.

"Of what have I deprived you, priest? Do you go hungry? Thirsty? Have I worked you to death?"

He closes the distance between them. His hand moves and Athelstan flinches, turning his head as if bracing for a blow. But Ragnar doesn't strike. Instead, a rough and callused hand takes hold of his chin, turning his head and forcing him to look the Viking in the eye for the first time since the question has been asked. He allows the priest his silence for just a moment more before he prompts, "Well? Answer."

He feels the muscles of the jaw clench beneath his fingers. There it is again—that turn of the head. At least as far as it is able to in Ragnar's grasp. For a moment, he wonders if the priest might dare to defy him. But then the silence is broken with a quiet, "No." The priest's eyes are downcast, not quite meeting his master's.

"What was that? I didn't hear."

There it is. Blue gaze shifts to finally meet Ragnar's. "No," he says again, this time more firmly.

"No," Ragnar confirms, lips twitching with something like amusement. He releases the priest with a light pat on the cheek. He has the grace to look a little chastised. But the fire is still there, simmering just below the surface. His priest has patience and restraint in spades. Ragnar will give him that much. But sooner or later, his reserves of both would run dry.

He turns to walk away, shoulders rising in a casual shrug. "We make distinctions between our own and those captured in battle. It's—" He hears something that sounds suspiciously like a scoff. He turns back around, an eyebrow raised. "Something to say?"

He ought to let it drop. It's irrelevant, anyway. Ragnar may not have answered his question in so many words, and yet his actions… The way Ragnar feels so free to lay hands on him and the command given demanding an answer had already told Athelstan all he needs to know on the subject. He closes his eyes. "No. It's nothing." Still, he can't quite banish the hardness from his tone.

"It's something," Ragnar counters. He folds his arms across his chest, sizing up the man before him. He's trying so very hard to gather himself, to will himself back into the role of the timid monk. It's written in the furrow of his brow and the forced and conscious way he lowers his shoulders, which had begun to creep up towards his ears as muscles grew ever tighter. Ragnar doesn't let him. "It's something, and I demand to hear it." He lifts his chin in something like a challenge as he presses, "Speak."

"Battle." The word doesn't take very much coaxing at all to draw forth. Of his own accord this time, Athelstan lifts his head and turns his eyes on his master. "Is that what you call stealing from children?" He doesn't raise his voice, and yet there remains in his speech enough venom to hone each word into arrows, flinging Ragnar's own description of his adventures back at him.

Another man might have grown angry and struck the slave for his insolence. Ragnar does not. Instead, he spreads his arms wide in a gesture that clearly says so what. "I hardly think it our fault that the battle was easy." His tone is light and teasing. As if exchanging idle pleasantries with a friend rather than discussing the destruction of everything Athelstan had once held dear.

"We were unarmed!" There it is. The answer comes quick, near instantly. His voice has risen, stripped bare of the last vestiges of caution. "What threat did we pose to you?" There's something raw and so deeply pained in the priest's voice that Ragnar almost regrets his prodding. Almost. And yet even the eyes, bright with tears that refuse to be shed, don't quite manage to move the man to remorse.

Still, he says nothing. There is more, he knows.

Athelstan takes another heavy, pained breath. Ragnar can hear the shudder in it. He is no longer raising his voice, but the anger and the hurt remain. "Call me what you will, but don't call that a battle when it was no such thing. It was a massacre, committed in cold blood. And you know it."

Ragnar lets him finish. Another man—one who treats his slaves as dogs—would not have. He is quiet for a moment, as if contemplating. And then he simply says, "Finish cleaning the fish. In silence."

Athelstan obeys. His movements are stiff and jerky and Ragnar hears the labored breathing of a man working very hard to beat back tears. A man unwilling to cry in the presence of his master. He watches his priest in curiosity. He is not so meek as he would pretend. There is fire in him yet. And that fire is Ragnar's to stoke or to quell as he sees fit.

As of yet, he hasn't decided which pleases him more.