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Where winter wolves bark - due South/A Companion to Wolves amalgam story
Title: Where winter wolves bark (1700 words)
Fandom: due South/Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear's A Companion to Wolves amalgam (no spoilers)
Summary: Frasr was not immune to the irritation his fellows felt as they waited for the konigenwolf to come into heat.
Pairing: Fraser/RayK (AU)
Rating: Adult
Notes: The reason there are no spoilers for either canon is that this is an AU; none of the characters or, indeed, places in this story are present in the novel. My faux-Norse is worse than ACtW's; one of my pre-readers advised a liquids warning for it. Thanks to carla_scribbles for encouragement, sageness for Diefenbaker's name, and brown_betty for beta reading.


Brief summary of the borrowed conceit:

Men are psychically bonded to wolves. Their duty is to fight off trolls in the frozen north.

Women don't bond to wolves. Dominance of the communities of wolves-partnered-to-humans is controlled in the main via the konigen or queen wolves and whom they mate with. When the female wolves come into heat, their human partners have sex with the male wolves' partners.

Everything else I have borrowed is faux Norse and hierarchy.

Read the novel! The worldbuilding is no more mine than Benton Fraser, and I only hope I have done it sufficient justice here.

*


The process of forming a new wolfheall was one which required great patience as well as sudden action. For the wolfcarls waiting for the young konigenwolf's heat, it was a frustrating time, full of fistfights and the enervation of boredom. Many men wished to be wolfjarl, and the choice rested in the golden paws of a single and singular bitch.

Frasr was not immune to the irritation his fellows felt, though he dealt with it differently. Rather than allow himself to be drawn into brawls, he went to the woods, his brother Doeffenbaekr his only companion. His shieldbrothers were safe in their own heall, tangled in their own packsense, and he had not endeared himself to any of the men or wolves who had come to Shikkagford for the open mating.

He was attuned to the packsense of Shikkagford enough that he felt it even on the hunt, miles from the heall. Doeffenbaekr complained on occasion that they might somehow miss the onset of Stjerne's heat which had brought them there in the first place. With Frasr's encouragement, he spent enough energy chasing after caribou to quiet his complaints, if not his fears.

"Besides," Frasr said, when they made camp for the night in a nest of fragrant spruce boughs, "you don't honestly believe you'll win, do you?"

Doeffenbaekr's score at that flooded over their bond, heavy with the sense of desire and the smell of a female wolf's estrus. He was thinking of the way Stjerne felt in the pack, as bright as the smell of stars on snow. That he also sent the sharp, jittery smell of sulphur and clean sweat that was her brother's name to the wolfthreat was merely a sign of his irritation with Frasr.

"You act as though you're the only one with ambitions." Frasr got up to bank the fire and Doeffenbaekr huffed at him. They had been hiding from all of the other ambitious members of the Wolfmaegthreat for days on end, but Doeffenbaekr let Frasr know with a flick of his tail that he was hardly the only one who wanted her -- but he was certainly the only one who deserved her.

Frasr was far from the only man who desired Rajkk Stjernesbrother, and he was less certain than his brother about his own merits. He had no more claim than any other man in the Wolfmaegth, no greater accomplishment than his willingness to fight trolls at whatever cost to himself. Doeffenbaekr's tendency to leap into danger -- possibly one he had learned from Frasr -- had cost him his hearing, though not at the paws of a troll. He had leapt into a frozen river to save Frasr's life when he was a yearling, and though Frasr could not fault him for his bravery, the consequences made Doeffenbaekr's optimism ludicrous. Stjerne's open mating was certain to be harsh as the other ones they had seen over a lifetime spent in the heall, and without his hearing, Doeffenbaekr was at a great disadvantage.

Stjerne was a young konigenwolf, golden and proud, who had distinguished herself in the last incursion of trolls. Her brother had been knocked unconscious by a blow, and, according to the men who had been with them at the time, she had savaged five trolls in less than five heartbeats before she stood over his body, saving not only him but the other men present. It was little wonder that Doeffenbaekr wanted her favor.

Frasr knew better than to count his infatuation with Rajkk as anything but a distraction. As a responsible wolfcarl, a man on the verge of being a wolfsprechend, Rajkk could not let his own emotions color his wolf's choice. Besides that, Frasr was hardly the only man captivated by Rajkk's quicksilver moods and bright smile; Rajkk was no more shy than he was especial in his attentions.

Compounding the problem was Frasr's concern over the source of his own ambitions -- he had more desire to make what suit he could to Rajkk than to be wolfjarl, though he felt that he could handle a wolfheall with as much skill as any man. Lust and affection seemed poor reasons to put himself forward in this mating.

He had spent many hours debating over the wisdom of his choice in what privacy he could find within his mind, mainly while Doeffenbaekr snored peacefully at his side, his grey and white ruff rising and falling with his breath. Doeffenbaekr faced more danger in this than in anything shy of a pitched battle, and should he prevail by whatever means, there would be consequences both good and bad for the threat, and for the heall.

When Frasr faltered, he could hear his father's voice in his mind, harsh as Othinn, chiding him for womanish fears. "You have a duty, son," his father had said; as wolfjarl of Yukkin for half Frasr's life, he had had no patience with Frasr's dithering over any sort of decision.

But he was dead, slain by a troll in its lair. He and his wolfbrother had saved the heall with their bravery, and to mourn them long after their passing was not the way of wolves. It was the sort of death they both would have wished for, and the skald had written a song that Frasr hummed as he tied together a travois to bring the caribou back to Shikkagford the next morning.

Doeffenbaekr had little patience with Frasr's musing on the past, even in the form of an epic ballad. He thought again of Stjerne and ran ahead, making Frasr listen more closely to the packsense.

When he became properly attuned to it, he abandoned the travois where it lay and ran after Doeffenbaekr. Stjerne's heat had begun, and they were half an hour's walk from the heall.

Frasr would have said it was a ten minute run, but as he chased the grey blur of Doeffenbaekr at full gallop, he lost all sense of time.

When he reached the heall, barely behind Doeffenbaekr, Stjerne was surrounded by a circle of wolves, and though her presence in the packsense was heavy with her heat, she snapped at any who ventured near. Her brother knelt on his furs near the fire, gloriously nude and glassy-eyed. The wolfcarls were all near him, but not touching him or each other. They should have been fighting, but there was no aggression in them.

The tableau made Frasr frown in the last moments of thought he had before Doeffenbaekr leapt into the ring of wolves and Stjerne surged forward to catch him by the throat. They tussled for a moment before the bitch growled at the others and drew her tail aside for Doeffenbaekr.

The main room of the heall seemed as vast as a glacier, and as difficult to traverse. A black wolf bumped Frasr's knee and nearly knocked him over, but he was hardly aware of it, or of anything more than Stjerne's scent, thick and intoxicating in Doeffenbaekr's nose, and the way her body felt under his. He removed his garments with no care for where they fell, only the certainty that he needed them gone.

Rajkk met his gaze when Frasr finally reached his side and said, his voice hoarse, "Some shieldbrother you are." He took Frasr's hardness in his salve-slick hand, and then they were both beyond themselves, joining as urgently as their wolves.

It surpassed open matings, with their frenzy and packneed; it was wholly unlike the embrace of a woman; it was not, except in the most base particular, like what shieldbrothers did for one another. It was a melding of need and need which forged something greater in its flames.

When they were exhausted, they slept entangled. When Frasr woke again, Doeffenbaekr and Stjerne were pressed against them, as close and fond as puppies. Rajkk did not wake until Frasr moved to rise, whereupon he opened his eyes and threw an arm around Frasr's chest. "Your shieldbrothers aren't here."

"No," Frasr agreed, and embraced him in turn. "And yours --" They were both lonely, he realized, leaving their healls with whatever young wolves would follow them. They would be working closely together for at least a season, and it would be easiest if they could become friends.

Rajkk shrugged easily. "My wolfsprechend --" he blinked, grinned, and corrected himself "-- my old wolfsprechend always said if I found a wolfjarl who would be my partner outside of the furs, it would make a hell of a difference in them."

"I have no objections," Frasr said. The thought of sleeping so close each night made his heart speed in his chest, but he did not know Rajkk well enough to trust him with such a confession. They were bound together by Stjerne's choice, but they were not yet truly friends.

Rajkk shifted against him and rolled them over until he was straddling Frasr's chest. "No objections?"

Stjerne woke, then, enough to stick her nose in Frasr's ear and snuffle a konigenwolf's approval -- and warning. Frasr looked at her, then at Doeffenbaekr, who was insufferably smug in the morning light. "It would be an honor," he amended, afraid that anything more informal would offend Stjerne.

Rajkk leaned over and kissed him heartily. "Othinn take honor, Frasr. The honor comes with being wolfjarl, but we don't have to do more than that."

Frasr shuddered with pleasure and tangled his fingers in Rajkk's hair. The kiss warmed him as much as the press of Rajkk's body against his; it was more trust, more affection than Frasr had allowed himself to dream. "If you'll have me, I'll be anything you wish of me."

"That's more like it." Rajkk took Frasr's throat in his teeth lightly, a gesture that made Stjerne whine. "We should go talk to people. Get the men ready to go."

Frasr ran his hands down Rajkk's back, savoring the feeling with a languor he had been denied in the frenzy of the night before. "Soon."

Rajkk chuckled and shifted against him. "Indolence doesn't seem like your style."

"I've never been wolfjarl before." Frasr arched his hips slightly. "I'll have to find out how to do it as I go along. With your help, of course, my wolfsprechend."