As Freya spread chicken feed under the coop to lure the chickens back into the safety of their pen, she wondered about what had chased her earlier. It seemed quite large. Could it have been a Jotun? Perhaps a troll? Did those things really exist in America, or were they only in Norway? Her parents had seemed pretty convinced that they did exist here, though perhaps not quite the same, much like how there were magpies both here and there, but they were a little different from each other. Freya supposed it made sense, even if it was hard to understand when she hadn't actually seen any. She had certainly seen other things around! There was at least one nisse on the ranch that the twins ate breakfast with every morning. The twins didn't always eat honeyed porridge for breakfast, but the nisse did. Freya was pretty sure the nisse was the main reason they had never lost any chickens. They didn't really have to feed the nisse every day; once on Winter Solstice would've kept him plenty satisfied, but neither Freya nor her brother saw any harm in guaranteeing they'd never offend the little house-spirit.
"Ahem."
Freya squeaked and dropped the mostly-empty feed bucket, fumbling and just barely catching it before it fell and spilled its remaining contents. She whirled around, eyes wide and heart pounding. Her eyes narrowed in a glare at the annoyingly good-looking Apache man standing just outside the gate to the chicken pen.
He gave her a sheepish look.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, Freya."
"Nantan, what the hell, you can't sneak up on a lone girl like that," she scolded, setting the bucket down and putting her hands on her hips.
"Don't be cross," Nantan said, leaning on the fence and smirking at her in the lamplight. "It's not my fault you spook easily!"
"No, that'd be the vaesen, but you not calling out doesn't help."
"Vaesen?" Nantan frowned and straightened. "That is your word for an evil spirit, right?"
"Something like that," Freya nodded.
"Did you see it?" Nantan asked, looking more concerned.
"No. I didn't try to look at it until I was inside the barrier."
"Good," Nantan said, relaxing a bit. "Some things are not meant for humans to see."
Freya glanced at him sharply, always noting the way he worded certain things. Sometimes she wondered if he himself was some kind of vaesen, but it might also be a language barrier. Neither of them spoke English as their first language, but both had been brought up learning it alongside their native language.Frey knew she was lucky though, because there were no laws banning her mother tongue from being taught. Nantan had been raised in a mission, originally stolen from his family. He'd managed to run away and find his way back to his people in his pre-teens, but many of his peers were not so lucky, and never got to be with their own people. Nantan likely would've been among them had he been even a year or two younger when he was captured.
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