Happiness is Nothing

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Vikings (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Heahmund/Ivar (Vikings) Characters: Ivar (Vikings), Heahmund (Vikings), Ubbe (Vikings), Hvitserk (Vikings), Sigurd (Vikings), Ragnar Lothbrok, Aethelwulf (Vikings), Athelstan (Vikings), Judith (Vikings), King Ecbert (Vikings) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Inspired by Romeo and Juliet, Enemies to Lovers, Love at First Sight, First Love, Doomed Relationship, Kinda, Rating May Change, Good Sibling Ubbe (Vikings), Heahmund and Aethelwulf are brothers Summary:

Ivar had always appreciated honesty, so Bjorn wasn't surprised that Ivar seemed to appreciate it now as well. He nodded, as if he understood what he meant. “Sometimes, I find it hard to like myself, too.”

“Sometimes,” Bjorn huffed. “I find it hard to like myself, also.”

 “You need a shave,” Ivar muttered quietly. “And sleep.”

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Vikings (TV) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ivar & Ubbe (Vikings), Bjorn & Ivar (Vikings), Bjorn & Ubbe (Vikings) Characters: Ubbe (Vikings), Bjorn (Vikings), Ivar (Vikings) Additional Tags: Modern Era, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, teen Ivar, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Minor Injuries, Protective Bjorn (Vikings), Ivar Needs A Hug (Vikings), Ivar is a Little Shit (Vikings), Ivar (Vikings) is his own warning, Fights, Brotherly Angst Summary:

Bjorn Ragnarsson did not expect to be woken up at two in the morning by his youngest brother, bruised and bloody.

“You don’t get to break him because you are tired.” Bjorn’s words cut deep. “You don’t get to beat him bloody because you are tired. You call me. You call Hvitserk.”

Chapter 32) Lyon at last

.-.-.

Utstott rode the evening wind like it owed him obedience. White wings cut the dimming sky, feathers catching the last copper light of the sun as it sank behind the hills. Below him, Lyon spread itself wide and stubborn, a city that refused to stand in the shadows of Paris and Marseille. Two rivers clasped it like hands that never quite let go; the Rhône quick and silver, the Saône dark and slow, curling around stone walls, timbered roofs, and narrow veins of streets already breathing out smoke and supper.

Utstott, unimpressed by the view, circled once, twice.

The bird knew how humans loved their walls. Even now, after a day’s travel, after dust and hunger and fear, they funnel themselves obediently through gates before nightfall, as if stone could truly keep the dark and wickedness out. Stupid, little ants. 

Torches bloomed along the streets like low stars. Bells rang somewhere, monks marking prayer, merchants cursing time. The city smelled rich even from the air: horse dung and river mud, baking bread, old piss, roasting meat. Life layered on life.

He tipped one wing and descended.

There, by the southern road, just inside the walls a cart halted awkwardly, its horse blowing steam into the cooling air. Three humans clustered atop, small as beetles from this height.

Ivar sat in the back of the cart, half slumped against the crates. The hard wood had worked its way into every joint, every old ache, leaving him sore, exhausted and foul-tempered. Piglet sat beside him, wrapped tight in her layers, utterly still. She stared out at the city rising before them, not with awe, not with relief, but the way prey studied a predator. Measuring its teeth. Its size. Her eyes traced the walls, the gates and the press of the many people. 

And the loud one, the one who might spoil it all, was agitated, restless, all teeth and nerve, voice rising as she argued with a passing man who drunkenly staggered against their horse. Today, of all days, was the feast of Saint John the Baptist. And the city was overcrowded, filled with pilgrims, thieves, whores and harlots. 

Utstott croaked softly to himself. His humans had been trying to find a proper place to sleep, but had been failing miserably. Morale was hitting rock bottom and travel fatigue settled in with every disappointing response from inn owners: excuse-moi, we’re fully booked. 

Tired humans were careless humans, Utstott knew that from experience so he kept a close eye from above. 

The white raven banked low, flying the length of the street ahead of them. More inns announced themselves loudly: painted signs swinging in the breeze, lions, saints, crossed keys. Laughter spilled from open doors. Somewhere a fiddle cried. Somewhere else, someone screamed and then laughed, the sound swallowed by the city like it meant nothing.

Utstott landed briefly on a roof beam, claws scraping old wood. From here he could see them clearly now.

The cart lurched forward again, wheels groaning. The horse flicked its ears, unhappy. His savior said something low and bitter. The sharp-tongued one snapped back. The dark girl intervened, soft but firm.

Utstott watched them with a tilt of his head toward the two in the back. They did not belong to this city; they’ve been running for too long. Too used to open roads and the quietness of forests. Walls were not shelter; but a cage. But for tonight, they needed a roof over their heads. 

The great feast had drawn the city inward on itself, and with such gatherings came the worst sorts of men. Drunk on wine, authority,  and the certainty no-one would stop them. 

Utstott spread his wings once more and circled above as the cart creaked deeper into Lyon’s streets, following the narrow path between torchlight, shadow and the inhabitants. Below him, the three figures were swallowed whole by a city famous for its wealth and saints. 

.-.-.

Ivar woke before dawn because pain is a better alarm than any bells. His body felt like it had been broken down and reassembled by someone careless. His back screamed first; hot, deep, unignorable. Then his hips. Then the familiar dead weight of his legs, stiff and wrong after hours pressed against packed earth.

Hay clung to his hair, his shirt, his mouth. After many fruitless attempts to find a room, Valerie eventually caved at the last inn; her smile that usually opened doors, got them no further than the stables. 

Ivar dragged in a breath through his teeth and stared up at the beams, counting heartbeats until the worst of it settled into something survivable. Sleeping on the ground always did this. Sleeping on the ground after a full day in the cart did worse.

He shifted an inch. The stable floor answered with a jolt that shot straight up his spine. His jaw tightened. He refused the sound that wanted to come out of him.

Next to him, Piglet slept curled on her side, her back facing him, cloak pulled tight, one hand fisted in the fabric like she was afraid it might run away. Her breathing was shallow but steady. She’d been awfully eager to lay next to him;  the entire stable riddled with unfortunate travelers who came in too late. The place occupied more men, women, and children than horses. It was a maze of limps, snoring, and at one point during the night, a fight broke out in the next box. 

Valerié lay on his other side, on her back, one arm flung over her eyes. Even asleep, she looked alert; like someone pretending to rest rather than actually doing it.

The city began to wake beyond the walls of the stable: boots on stone, a drunk still singing somewhere, the smell of freshly baked bread finally winning over the stink of horses.

Ivar pushed himself onto his elbows, slow and careful. His shoulders shook once, betraying him, then stilled. A child across from his box stared at him with large eyes, gaze pivoting between Ivar’s legs and angered glare. 

He hated this morning. He hated the firm reminder that the world never forgot what his body was. 

He glanced at his two maidens again. They’d slept close enough to touch and yet the distance felt like miles, and something sour twisted in his chest that had nothing to do with pain.

Feast of John the Baptist or not, Lyon had not welcomed them. The immense city had simply tolerated them.

Ivar exhaled, low and controlled, and won the staring contest between him and the curious child. He began the long work of sitting up. The day hadn’t even started yet, and already his body was demanding payment.

.-.-.

“Valerie, he’s blind as a bat.” Ivar stated non-impressed. “I think he just pissed himself.” Piglet mentioned quietly as she pointed at the dark discoloration on the fabric of the old man’s crotch. “I think he’s more ancient then many of my Gods,” Ivar continued scoffing, leaning heavily on his crutches as he exchanged looks with Piglet. The reaction of Valerie’s travel companions struck her nerve; she’d spent the entire morning and afternoon searching for someone worldly and willing enough to help them set a route from Lyon to Sicily. “This is Leodegar, an infamous mercenary back in the day-” Valerie bit back, only to be interrupted by Ivar. “-Very far back in the day, I’d say,” he grinned, giving the croaked back old man a once over. “Do you know the prices of maps?!” Valerie snapped back agitated, “besides I cannot read, I’m guessing neither one of you can?” She stared from Ivar to Piglet and crossed her arms, “oh wait, I know you both cannot, since I’m the translator!” This shut both of them up, for once. Valerie turned back to what hopefully wasn’t a seniel smug, because she very much sensed his guidance would have their lives depending on it. 

The old Leodegar sat on the low stone step outside the stable wall, wrapped in a cloak that had once been brown and was now every color of age. His eyes were pale and unfocused, turned slightly inward. One hand rested on a knotted stick. The other worried over a bead of his rosary, smooth from decades of rubbing.

“You want Sicily,” he said in rough, river-worn French, before Valerié had even started forming the question.

Valerié stiffened. Piglet glanced at Ivar, confused. Ivar’s brow furrowed.

“He says,” Valerié translated, carefully, “that we want to travel to Sicily.”

Leodegar’s mouth curved, not quite a smile; more like recognition. His blind eyes turned toward the people standing there.

“You lot carry road-dust and old anger. And fear that’s learned, not fresh.”

Leodegar tilted his head, listening, not to them, but to Lyon itself. Bells ringing for the feast. Drunken laughter. And beneath it all, the vast, patient breathing of the Rhône beyond the walls.

“Go south. Follow the river,” he said. “Always the river. It will teach you which way to go.”

Valerié translated, sentence by sentence. Ivar leaned forward slightly, every word catching like a hook.

“Lyon to Vienne,” Leodegar continued. “Vienne to Valence. Valence down to Arles; if the soldiers don’t decide they need your horse more than you do.”

Valerié flicked a glance at Ivar as she translated that. Piglet swallowed.

“They usually do,” Leodegar added dryly.

“When the river widens, when it stops cutting cold and starts tasting wrong; flat, heavy, then you’re close to the sea. When it tastes like salt, you’ve gone as far south as the river allows.”

Valerié frowned slightly as she translated. Piglet blinked. Ivar cocked his head.

“You can taste that far upriver?” Valerié asked for them.

Leodegar huffed a quiet laugh. “If you’ve carried wine one way and salt the other, you learn. The river tells you things, if you listen.”

“And from there?” Ivar asked in his own tongue.

Valerié passed it on.

Leodegar’s smile thinned. “From there, the world stops flowing downhill.”

He shifted, the beads at his wrist clicking softly.

“You leave the river before it leaves you,” he said. “You turn east. Toward the teeth of the earth.”

Valerié went still before translating. 

“The Alps,” Leodegar said. “The Montgenèvre Pass, if you have any sense left.”

The word landed like iron. Valerié turned to them, voice tight. “He says… we must cross the Alps. Through Montgenèvre.”

“You can make it, I’ve done it twice” Leodegar went on, “but only now. Summer is your mercy. The snow has pulled back just enough to pretend it isn’t your enemy.”

He tapped his stick once against the stone.

“Wait too long and the mountains close their teeth. Cold kills faster than blades. Faster than soldiers. Faster than hunger.”

Valerié translated every word exactly. No softening this time.

Piglet’s hands trembled. “How much time do we have?”

Valerié asked.

“Weeks,” Leodegar said. “Not months. You hurry or you die up there.”

Ivar lowered his gaze, breathing slow and measured. He knew cold. He knew bone-deep killing cold too well. 

Leodegar angled his blind face toward him.

“And don’t think courage will carry you over,” he added. “Only discipline. Only silence, because one harsh word and an avalanche will swipe you away. Know when to stop and turn around before your body decides for you.”

Valerié translated. Ivar nodded once.

Silence settled.

“And after the Alps?” Piglet asked quietly.

Valerié passed it on.

“After, if you survive,” Leodegar said, “Italy opens under your feet. Northern plains first. Towns that smell like grain and iron. Then south again. Always south.”

He lifted a finger.

“Rome,” he said. “Not for praying. For roads. Every road still knows how to bow there.”

Valerié translated, slower now.

“From Rome, Naples,” Leodegar continued. “Port city. Loud. Hungry. Full of men who promise more than they deliver.”

His mouth twisted.

“You barter for deck space. Don’t trust captains who won’t meet your eyes. Don’t trust men who promise fast winds.”

“And Sicily?” Valerié asked quietly.

Leodegar’s smile thinned to nothing.

“Sicily is a gamble,” he said. “She comes slow; or not at all. Don’t settle for the lowest price for the crossing, I hope you find a trustworthy captain.”

He leaned back against the stone, voice slipping into memory.

Valerié translated honestly. Piglet’s breath caught.

Leodegar sat as before, back to the stone, face turned toward a south only he could see. When Valerié finished translating the last of his words, he lifted one finger again; not for emphasis this time, but warning.

“I’ve told you how to go,” he said. “Now I tell you what will try to stop you.”

Valerié straightened. Piglet leaned in despite lacking the Frankia’s tongue. Ivar went still.

“Bandits,” Leodegar went on. “Not the loud kind with knives out and faces bare. The quiet ones. Men who walk like traders and smile too easily. They’ll ask where you’re headed, how far, how heavy your cart is.”

Valerié translated carefully.

“Answer wrong,” Leodegar said, “and they follow you until night. Answer right, and they do the same.”

Piglet’s mouth tightened.

“In the river valleys,” he continued, “they work in families. One distracts. One watches the horse. One waits behind you. If you hear laughter where there shouldn’t be laughter, leave the road.”

Valerié passed it on. Ivar nodded once.

“Soldiers,” Leodegar said, with a faint curl of contempt. “Worse than bandits. Bandits know they’re thieves. Soldiers pretend it’s duty.”

Valerié did not soften that.

“They’ll demand papers you don’t have. Taxes that don’t exist. Protection from dangers they invented five minutes ago. If you argue, they beat you. If you pay, they remember your face.”

Piglet whispered a small prayer under her breath.

“Never camp near a garrison,” Leodegar added. “Never drink with men who wear iron for a living. And if they offer you a kind word, run.”

Valerié translated. Ivar’s jaw flexed.

Leodegar’s fingers tightened around his stick.

“In the Alps,” he said, voice lowering, “rockfalls, wild animals, snowstorms. Paths that vanish overnight. Guides who swear they know the way and lead you straight into snow.”

Valerié hesitated, then translated.

“Don’t trust anyone who walks too lightly in the mountains,” Leodegar said. “Those are the ones already dead.”

Piglet swallowed hard.

“And the cold,” he added. “It doesn’t announce itself. It just convinces you to rest. To close your eyes. And you’ll never open them again.”

Valerié’s voice wavered on that one.

Leodegar tilted his head, listening to something far away.

“When you reach the coast,” he said, “don’t think you’re safe. Ports breed their own predators.”

Valerié translated. Piglet frowned.

“Dock thieves. Slavers. Priests who ask too many questions. Men who offer passage cheap because they don’t plan to feed you; or sell you whole.”

Piglet’s hands clenched in her sleeves. Valerié felt a chill she didn’t quite understand.

“And the sea,” Leodegar finished quietly. “Storms that rise without warning. Ships that never reach the next horizon. Gods who don’t care what you prayed before boarding.”

Silence stretched.

“Why tell us all this?” Valerié asked at last, translating herself.

Leodegar smiled, thin and tired.

“I’ve been young, foolish, in desperate need to roam the world,” he said. “I’ve had guidance, knowing the names of the teeth doesn’t stop the bite but it lets you see the mouth closing.”

Valerié translated. Ivar exhaled slowly through his nose.

Leodegar’s stick scraped once against the stone, a short, deliberate sound.

Valerié leaned in automatically. She had learned his rhythms now, when he was about to say something that mattered.

“You don’t survive this journey by being well-equipped,” the old man said. “You survive by carrying the right things. And leaving the rest behind.”

Valerié translated, softer but faithful.

Ivar shifted against the wall, attention sharpening despite the ache in his legs. Piglet’s hands folded into her sleeves.

Leodegar lifted one finger.

“Salt,” he said. “More than you think.”

Valerié repeated it. “Salt. For wounds. Food. Trade.”

The blind man nodded. “South of the Alps, salt speaks louder than coin. Gold draws knives. Salt opens doors.”

Piglet’s eyes flicked to the sack at her feet. She nodded once.

“Wool,” Leodegar went on. “Even in summer.”

Valerié frowned as she translated. “Not linen. Wool keeps you alive when you’re wet.”

The stick tapped again. “Cold doesn’t care that the sun is shining.”

Ivar exhaled slowly. That one needed no softening.

“A knife,” Leodegar said, “that you never show.”

Valerié hesitated, then passed it on. “Not for fighting. For rope. Bread. Bandages.”

Leodegar’s mouth twitched. “A proud blade gets you watched. A hidden one gets you home.”

Piglet swallowed.

“Shoes you can ruin,” he continued. “And leather scraps if you can find them.”

Valerié translated, glancing at Ivar’s legs. “The mountains eat footwear first.”

“And when your feet fail,” Leodegar added, “the rest follows.”

Silence settled, thick and practical.

“Carry something to trade that isn’t money,” he said next. “Needles. Wool strips. Iron bits.”

Valerié didn’t bother softening that one. Valerié knew.

“Coins run out,” Leodegar said. “Trade doesn’t.”

Then, quieter: “A cloth for your face.”

Piglet looked up at that.

Valerié explained. “Dust. Snow glare. Sickness. And sometimes… anonymity.”

Leodegar’s head tilted slightly, as if listening to the Rhône through memory alone.

“Food you can eat cold,” he said. “Fire draws eyes. Sometimes you don’t want eyes.”

Valerié translated slowly now. The list was becoming a weight.

Then Leodegar paused.

This pause was different.

“Pack one lie,” he said at last.

Valerié’s spine went straight. She translated word for word.

“One story,” Leodegar continued. “Where you’re going. And why.”

Piglet’s breath caught at that.

“Rehearse. Say it the same way every time,” he said. “Lies kill when they disagree.”

Valerié didn’t soften it. Didn’t look at either of them.

The stick tapped once more.

“And one thing,” Leodegar finished, “you must decide to lose...”

Valerié’s voice faltered just slightly as she translated. “...Something you won’t try to save.”

“If everything you carry matters,” Leodegar said gently, “you’ll die trying to keep it.”

The words settled between them, heavy as packed earth.

Piglet stared down at her hands.

Ivar lowered his gaze, jaw tight.

Valerié looked away, out toward the noise of Lyon.

Leodegar leaned back against the wall, list finished, as if he’d just handed them a map no one survives reading twice.

“That’s all,” he said. “The rest, the road will teach you.”

And for a moment, even the city seemed to listen to the old fool reminiscing over old memories. 

Leodegar had gone quiet.

Not the thoughtful quiet from before, not the drifting-into-memory kind. This was sharper. His fingers stilled on the worn beads looped around his wrist. His head tilted; not toward them, but upward, slightly to the left, as if listening to a space that shouldn’t have held sound.

Valerié noticed first.

“What?” she asked, cautious now.

Leodegar didn’t answer her. His blind eyes narrowed, not focusing, but measuring.

The air above the stable felt different. Heavy. Pressed flat, like a held breath.

Piglet felt it then too. She drew her shawl tighter around her shoulders without knowing why.

Ivar’s jaw tightened. He didn’t look up. He didn’t need to.

Leodegar spoke slowly.

“You’re not walking alone,” he said.

Valerié frowned, then translated, softer than his tone deserved.

“He says… we won’t be alone on the road.”

Leodegar shook his head once. A small, almost amused motion. He lifted one hand, palm up, fingers crooked, as if feeling for rain that hadn’t started.

“There is something above you,” he went on. “Watching.”

Valerié hesitated. Then translated anyway, choosing her words carefully.

“He says there is… something near us. Above. Not a person.”

Piglet’s breath caught. Her eyes flicked upward, scanning rafters and shadows. 

Leodegar smiled faintly, the expression of a man who had learned long ago not to trust his eyes.

“It knows the road better than you do,” he said. “Knows when to move, and when to stay still.”

Ivar’s fingers curled slowly against the wood of the cart.

Valerié swallowed. “He says… whatever it is, it knows when to act. And when not to.”

Leodegar lowered his hand.

“For that,” he added, almost kindly, “you should be grateful.”

A pause.

Then, quieter, so quiet Valerié almost didn’t translate it.

“Just remember,” Leodegar murmured, turning his blind face southward, “things that see without eyes rarely belong to men.”

Valerié let the words pass between them unchanged.

Above them, unseen, Utstott shifted once, feathers brushing air that no one else could feel.

Leodegar’s mouth twitched.

And then, just like that, the moment passed and the old man held out his hand to claim his reward for counsel and guidance. 

.-.-.

A coin clinked against the cobbles and rolled to a stop by Ivar’s boot. He didn’t move at first, just let his eyes follow it, then bent his head and murmured, “Merci,” in a voice roughened to sound humbler than he felt.

For once, his useless legs were good for something. Festival crowds were thick with pilgrims eager to prove their virtue, and a cripple in the dust made an easy target for mercy. Ivar sat low on the ground, crutches set beside him, his legs twisted awkwardly on display, because shame didn’t buy bread. It wasn’t dignity, but it worked. The coins kept coming. Ivar figured that if they wanted to stand a change during their journey towards Sicily every form of silver he could get was welcome. 

Piglet stayed pressed close, knees tucked in tight, her shoulder nearly brushing his. The crowd surged and shifted around them; too many boots, too many voices, and she clung to the narrow safety of his space without ever lifting her gaze, as if looking up might let the city swallow her whole. She’d found a daisy somewhere between the stalls and was plucking it apart one petal at a time.

“I miss Stumm,” she said softly. 

Ivar turned his head, slow. The name hit him like a forgotten bruise. The daisy in her hands, white, simple, looked like the ones they’d left on the grave. He realized he hadn’t thought of Stumm in weeks. Maybe longer.

“Sometimes I wish we never left that forest,” Piglet went on. “Life was hard, but… I think there were moments when I was happy, truly happy.”

She tore another petal loose.

“I’m no longer a slave, but a free woman,” she whispered, “and yet, this city-” Her voice faltered. “-I thought it would make me feel safe, like walls meant protection for once. But this place…” She glanced at the crowd, the stone, the shouting merchants, “-this place scares me to death. It’s not different then de Haar, not at all.” He just watched her fingers shred the flowerpedals to nothing. Ivar stared straight ahead, chin lifted just enough to sell gratitude to the next passerby. A coin clinked near his knee. He murmured merci without looking.

Piglet hesitated, then spoke so softly it almost vanished beneath the noise. “Sicily,” she said. The word itself seemed to make her fold inward. “What if we never get there?”

Ivar didn’t answer right away. Leodegar’s voice rose in his memory like a curse: mountains with teeth. Soldiers. Bandits. Cold that kills faster than steel. Sea that decides for itself.

There was no comfort in lies. Ivar knew that. 

“We might not,” he said at last.

Piglet’s fingers stilled around the leftover of the flower. Just for a breath.

Ivar shifted his weight, the ache in his legs flaring sharp, grounding him. She didn’t pull away. 

“But,” he added, after a moment, “we’re already past places that should’ve killed us.”

Piglet looked at him then, finally.

“De Haar, a river, forests, settlements” he said. “The road north. Lyon.” His mouth twisted. “My ego.”

That earned the smallest sound from her; not a laugh, not quite, but something warmer than silence.

“I don’t know how to get you there safely,” Ivar admitted, “but I’ve made you a promise, I will always protect you.” He shrugged, rough and honest, “and our Gods must favor us, because we’ve done the impossible so far. I’m a cripple, you’re a reeking wildling, former slaves. And yet here we are.”

Ivar closed his eyes for half a heartbeat, “if we die, we die. But if we survive-” another coin landed near his foot, he ignored it, “-then Sicily will just be another place we didn’t let kill us. 

Piglet nodded once, slow. The daisy in her hands was nothing now but a torn stem. She leaned closer, her shoulder pressing fully against his arm, and for the first time since Lyon had swallowed them whole, she stayed there without flinching.

Ivar murmured merci to a passerby, but the word was meant for neither coin nor crowd.

.-.-.

A/N: Yes, back to the adventurous side of the story (sorry for the delay in smut/romance, believe me I’ve written plenty more)! I must say I did use a little help with the outline of how to get them from Lyon to Sicily. Thank you googlemaps! I felt like Lyon had to be their base for a few days to collect their courage, enough supplies and finally come up with a proper travel plan travelwise. Thank you Leondegar for the route and warnings. I’m sure they are now thrilled to get going. 

And… did Piglet and Ivar have a little moment just now? 

I’d love to hear what you think and if you’re either on #Team Piglet or #TeamValerie

Xoxox Nukyster 

The kickass beta: @sarahh-jane

The tagged ones:

@youbloodymadgenius

@xbellaxcarolinax

@saldelys

@shannygoatgruff

@pieces-by-me

@apenas-mais-uma-pessoa

@readsalot73

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@sarahh-jane

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@khiraeth

@funmadnessandbadassvikings​

@ dekusdante  @neondragons7

@bitter-post-millennial​

@noway4u​

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Vikings (TV) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ivar & Sigurd (Vikings) Characters: Ivar (Vikings), Hvitserk (Vikings), Sigurd (Vikings), Ubbe (Vikings), Bjorn (Vikings) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Season/Series 04, Sigurd Lives (Vikings), Sigurd retaliates, Ivar is a Little Shit (Vikings), Sigurd is a Little Shit (Vikings), Sibling Rivalry, anger issues, Injury, Near Death Experiences, protective Sigurd (Vikings), Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Hurt Ivar (Vikings), hurt sigurd (Vikings) Summary:

He was dead, and he would take Ivar with him.

Or: Ivar throws his axe at his brother Sigurd, but this time Sigurd retaliates in kind.

Chapter 26) A dreadful long night 

.-.-.

Valerié descended the narrow staircase of the inn, her feet light despite the weight in her chest. The hour was late. Most of the guests had gone or passed out at their tables. The fire in the common room had burned low, casting everything in a soft, orange hush.

Ivar sat near it, alone. His elbows rested on his knees, hands clasped loosely. He looked up at the sound of her approach. 

He didn’t look like he had earlier—no longer so monstrous, no longer the upperdog. He looked drained. Tight around the eyes. Less dominant. Less frightening. His mouth moved like it had a hundred things it wanted to say and no idea where to start.

“How is she?” he asked, quietly.

“Clean and asleep,” Valerié replied, standing just across from him, her hands folded before her as if reporting back from duty.

Ivar exhaled sharply. Relief. Or guilt. Maybe both.

“Good.”

He reached into his belt and pulled out a few coins, pressing them into her hand. The weight was modest—enough for a bed, a meal. Something soft seemed to come over him.

“For a room tonight,” he said. “You’ve earned it.”

Valerié didn’t thank him. She turned the coins over in her palm, cool and pragmatic, still unsure if it was optional to let her guard down around him. Before turning away, she paused.

“The water is still somewhat warm,” she said.

Ivar swallowed, dryly,  throat tight and nodded as for an answer. She saw his hands tremble once before he tucked them back under his arms.

Valerié didn’t say anything else and she left him sitting there, staring into the fire, wondering if warmth could ever be enough to wash away what they’d done.

.-.-.

The stairs loomed at him again like an unforgiving mountain.

Ivar stood at the base for a long moment, crutches wedged tight beneath his arms, breath already shallow. The wound in his side pulsed with heat, angry from the day’s travel through the city of Djion, but it was nothing compared to what churned behind his ribs.

Clean and asleep.

Valerié’s voice echoed in his mind. Flat. Unapologetic. He wasn’t sure if it was meant to comfort him or punish him.

He shifted forward, planting one crutch on the first step, then the next. The wood creaked beneath his weight. Every motion sent a dull fire through his leg and his side. By the fifth stair, he was sweating. By the ninth, his vision blurred.

He kept going.

The water is still somewhat warm.

It hadn’t been a kindness. It was a message: I did my part, took care of her. Now it’s your turn.

He reached the first floor, panting, leaning hard against the wall. His crutches scraped softly on the worn floorboards as he moved toward the bedroom. The door was slightly ajar. He pushed it open with the edge of his shoulder.

Piglet lay fast asleep in bed, hair still damp, her dark skin washed clean, her breathing slow and shallow. Her chest rose and fell with each breath, small, steady motions that made Ivar’s throat tighten.

He limped inside and shut the door quietly behind him.

The memory hit hard—waking up by her body twisting on the mattress, dropping to the floor. Her mouth frothing, her eyes wide but not seeing. He’d tried to hold her still. He didn't understand how he even managed to keep calm until it was already over, cursing her damned God for allowing the Djinn to blaze through her body like wildfire. Until she’d gone limp in his arms, like a puppet with severed strings.

This morning he thought he had killed her. With his betrayal. With the weight of it.

She had screamed after. Not from pain, but from some animalistic terror he didn’t know how to soothe.

Ivar lowered himself onto the stool beside the bed, crutches clattering gently as he dropped them. His body ached in every direction. He hadn’t bathed since.....not since they fled the castle of de Haar.

Now there was only this: a quiet room, the woman he claimed to love barely holding on, and the filth of everything he couldn’t undo caked onto his skin.

His hands trembled as he pulled off his tunic, fingers catching on the laces. The old wounds from the boar—half-healed—throbbed under the bandages as he stripped them away. His chest was streaked with sweat, dirt, and dried blood. He stank, badly. 

One leg at a time, he removed his trousers, wincing as he moved. Then, naked and unsteady, he limped toward the tub. He gripped the edge, bracing himself, and eased in.

The water around him bloomed cloudier with grime. It stung his wounds. He let it.

For the first time since de Haar, he scrubbed. His hands moved slowly, over arms, neck, chest, and the hollow of his throat. It wasn’t indulgent. It wasn’t comforting. It was necessary. A ritual of penance. 

Across the room, Piglet stirred faintly in her sleep, but didn’t wake. Although covered with a woolen blanket, the features of her body were very clear. He watched her for a long time, water dripping down his face, fingers resting over the facial scar left by the boar’s tusk. It wasn’t often he saw her like this—bare, unguarded. Her hair was still uncovered. She hardly ever allowed him to see her hair. It was a boundary she'd kept with quiet devotion, like the prayers she whispered beneath her breath, the long scarves she wrapped with care and faith. 

Now, in sleep, that boundary had slipped. And he was struck by the intimacy of it—not sexual, not possessive, but sacred. As if he'd stumbled into a place he had no right to stand.

It made the ache in his chest sharper.

Because he had seen her like this once before— in the dappled light, right before everything broke.

He lingered in the tub only a few minutes more. Then, slowly, gritting his teeth, he heaved himself out. Water streamed down his body in rivulets, splashing against the wooden floor. He toweled off as best he could, wincing as he dried around the old wound, then turned to the pile of clothing he’d left near the fire.

The tunic was still stiff with dried sweat. His trousers smelled like travel and blood. The bandages were stained and half-useless, but he wrapped them back over the wound all the same. The clean warmth of the bath clung to his skin, but the moment he pulled the filthy clothes over his body, it was as if he’d never washed at all.

Ivar crossed the room, crutches tucked under one arm, and lowered himself to the floor beside the bed—just as he had the night before. Just close enough to hear her breathing.

He shifted, finding a position that didn’t light fire in his side, and rested his head back against the side of the bedframe. One hand dropped to the floor. The other curled in his lap.

Piglet didn’t stir again.

And Ivar didn’t sleep. He just listened to her steady breathing.  

.-.-.

Morning light filtered in through the wooden shutters, pale and diffused, dust dancing in the beam across the room. Valerié lay still for a moment, her body curled beneath coarse linens that didn’t smell of anyone else.

The bed was empty. Clean. Her own.

For once, she hadn’t had to earn it on her back.

Through heavy lids she stared at the wooden ceiling overhead, worn smooth by years of smoke and breath. It was strange, waking without the ache of someone else's hands clinging to her skin, or the weight of sweat and expectation pressed into her bones. Just the faint soreness of last night’s words.

Piglet’s words and her own.

Valerié sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was still damp at the roots. She dressed in silence, tying the laces of her bodice with deft fingers, her yellow fading skirt falling over her ankles like a curtain drawn closed.

Downstairs, the inn was already stirring.

She descended the steps slowly with the soft sound of clatter of clay cups and the creak of benches on old floorboards.

Ivar was already seated at a low table near the hearth, bent slightly forward with one crutch resting against his shoulder. He looked exhausted — even worse so than the night before. The lines around his eyes had deepened, but the storm in him had settled into something quieter. Heavy, but no longer thrashing.

As she approached, he looked up and gave a short nod.

“She’s still sleeping,” he said.

Valerié slid onto the bench across from him. “Good. She needs it.”

They sat in stillness for a few beats. No accusations. No sharp words. Just the sound of spoons clinking and a child somewhere laughing.

Then Ivar shifted, his hand fishing into the pouch at his hip. He pulled out a few more coins, not many, and slid them across the table.

“Fetch some food. Something light. For her, not me.”

Valerié eyed the coins, then met his gaze. “Bread, cheese, maybe some fruit if there’s any left.”

He nodded.

“And something to drink,” he added, after a pause. “Water, milk. She won’t stomach anything harsh, she doesn’t drink alcohol.”

Valerié stood, tucking the coins into her palm. She didn’t ask why he didn’t want anything for himself. Ivar had barely made it up the stairs last night, aside from exhaustion he should be starving, too. Then again, he wasn’t her concern. 

The kitchen was warm, heavy with the smell of hearth ash and old barley. A cauldron steamed over the flames in the corner, and shelves sagged with clay jars, crusty loaves, and wheels of hardened cheese.

Valerié rapped lightly on the doorframe before stepping in.

The innkeeper was already up, sleeves rolled to the elbows, his thick forearms dusted in flour. He was a broad-shouldered man in his middle years, sun-worn and plain, with a nose that looked like it had been broken in some long-forgotten tavern brawl.

“Ah,” he said, glancing over. “Didn’t hear you come down. Room alright?”

“It was clean,” Valerié said. “Quiet, too. Not something I’m used to.”

The man grunted in agreement, pulling a round loaf from the shelf and tapping it with a knuckle to check for mold. “Most aren’t. Not these days.” He fetched a knife and began slicing off hunks of the bread, not too thick, not too thin.

“You came here with the crippled one?” he asked.

“And the dark girl upstairs,” Valerié confirmed.

“She’s the one who had the fit?”

‘New travels fast’, Valerié nodded, unsure how much the man had overheard or seen. “She’s resting. Needs something soft. Nothing heavy.”

“Cheese, maybe honey,” he said, already reaching for a pot. “Got a few dried apples left. They’re tough on the teeth, but I can stew them a little.”

Valerié watched him work, his hands quick and practiced. This was the kind of man who survived by waking early, saying little, and minding his own. It made her like him more than most.

“You’re not from here,” he said, not unkindly, as he began wrapping the food in a cloth.

“No one ever is,” she replied with a half-smile.

He snorted. “Fair.”

She took the bundle from his hands when he was done, heavier than she expected — enough for two people, and then some. It surprised her.

“Thank you,” she said, sincerely, handing over the coins Ivar had given her. 

He waved her off. “You lot look like you’ve been running from hell.”

Valerié returned to the common room, the warmth of the kitchen still clinging to her dress. Ivar hadn’t moved, though his fingers tapped absently against the table’s edge.

She placed the bundle of food down, but he didn’t look at it.

Instead, his eyes lifted to hers.

“Take it up to her,” he said. Not a command. Not quite a request either. Just… necessity due to his own misfortune. 

Valerié hesitated.

She searched his face, but whatever emotion flickered there was carefully locked behind fatigue and pain.

Without a word, she turned toward the stairs. Back to the girl she’d bathed. The girl who got under her skin. The girl she’d hurt. The girl who’d allowed her to bathe without expecting anything in return.

.-.-.

The stairs groaned under Valerié’s feet as she climbed, the bundle of food warm in her arms, wrapped tight in linen. The closer she came to the door, the tighter her throat felt. She wasn’t sure what she expected after last night’s bath — silence, a glare, a smile, maybe Piglet throwing the food in her face.

She nudged the door open with her hip.

Piglet sat on the bed, a small wooden comb in her hand, fighting her curls with growing frustration. Her hair — thick, black, and still damp from the night before , tangled stubbornly around her fingers. Her face was tense with effort, jaw tight, eyes narrowed as if she were trying not to cry or scream.

She didn’t notice Valerié at first.

Valerié stepped inside softly and shut the door behind her.

Piglet looked up, startled, but didn’t speak. Her posture stiffened, but the comb stayed in her hand.

“I brought food,” Valerié said, holding out the bundle like another peace offering.

Piglet hesitated, then nodded. “You can put it there.”

Valerié crossed the room and laid the bundle on the bed beside her, careful not to brush against her. The air hung heavy — not hostile, but fragile, like they were both afraid to breathe wrong.

“You’re tearing your scalp,” Valerié said quietly, watching Piglet attack a particularly stubborn knot.

Piglet huffed. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not.”

Piglet said nothing, but her shoulders slumped slightly.

“Let me.”

Piglet didn’t move, didn’t agree, but she didn’t stop her, either.

Valerié eased herself behind her, took the comb from her hand, and began working gently through the curls. She started at the ends, careful not to pull. The hair was thick and unruly, matted. She dipped the comb in a cup of water left on the table and ran it through again, patient.

For a while, they sat in silence, broken only by the soft scrape of wood through hair and the distant sounds of the inn waking up downstairs.

“Did you sleep?” Valerié asked finally, her voice soft.

Piglet nodded. “I think so.”

“Good.”

Another pause.

“Are you hungry?”

Piglet glanced down at the bundle. “A little.”

Valerié finished one last curl and placed the comb aside. She moved to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling the cloth open to reveal the food: thick bread, a small wedge of soft cheese, a few slices of dried apple, and a smear of honey wrapped in waxed paper.

Piglet picked up a piece of bread and began nibbling. She didn’t offer anything. Valerié didn’t expect it. She just watched her eat and started combing her own hair. 

Then her stomach growled.

Loudly.

Piglet looked up.

Valerié stiffened. “Ignore that.”

Piglet blinked, then broke a piece of bread in half and handed it to her, awkwardly.

“Here,” she muttered, eyes lowered.

Valerié hesitated. Then took it when her stomach growled again. 

“Thank you,” she said.

For the first time since they'd met, they ate in something close to silent peace. 

“I haven’t had honey in years,” Valerié murmured as Piglet handed her a piece of bread, a thin smear of amber sweet pooled in the middle.

Piglet glanced at her sideways. “You looked like you were going to cry when you saw it.”

Valerié gave a short huff of laughter. “Almost did.”

They both chewed quietly, each staying carefully in their corner of the bed, like two cats tolerating each other for the sunbeam. The food was simple, but it filled the belly: bread still warm near the crust, a few slices of dried apple, soft cheese. It felt more like a meal than anything Valerié had eaten in weeks — not because of the food, but because she hadn’t had to pay for it with her body.

Piglet broke off another corner of bread and dipped it into the honey. “There was a woman in my home who made sesame sweets during Eid. Sticky things with honey and dates — they’d melt in your mouth if the sun didn’t get to them first.”

Valerié smiled — not mocking, but real. “You’ve got a sweet tooth, then, mon petit?”

Piglet raised her chin. “You don’t?”

Valerié tilted her head, thinking. “There used to be a woman who sold candied chestnuts outside the brothel during feast days. They were always a bit burnt, and sticky as sin.” She smiled faintly. “I’d nick one when no one was looking.”

Piglet gave the ghost a smile. “Just one?”

“Well, maybe two or more.”

They lapsed into a more comfortable silence, chewing slowly, letting the morning settle in around them. Outside, someone was shouting to a mule, and a cart wheel clattered over loose stones. Inside, everything stayed soft — the hush of shifting sheets, the creak of old floorboards beneath their bare feet.

“I can braid your hair,” Valerié stated matter-of-factly, still unsure wherever they stood on the thin ice of their recent thrush. “I learned this braid from a Moorish woman, once,” she said after a while. “She used to plait her daughters in crown braids — tight, neat, keeps the hair off the neck.”

Piglet hummed in agreement. 

The comb moved through the curls with growing ease. She split the sections with her fingers and began to braid — not too tight, letting the curl have its way where it could, winding it gently toward the crown of Piglet’s head in a style that was practical and pretty both. She’d seen noblewomen wear crowns with gold pins and emeralds. But it belonged just as well here, in this little rented room, on a girl who’d survived something feral.

“You’ve done this before,” Piglet said, her voice quieter now.

Valerié didn’t answer at first. Her fingers kept braiding. “More than once.”

She didn’t explain. Didn’t speak of the other girls — the younger ones in the brothel, the ones who cried before their first night and needed their hair done before they were being sent into the slaughterhouse. 

She just finished the braid and smoothed it down with the flat of her hand.

“There,” she said.

Piglet reached up and felt it, still a little skeptical, but not hostile.

They sat quietly for a long moment.

Then Valerié’s stomach growled again.

Piglet raised a brow, lips twitching just slightly. “You want more?”

Valerié hesitated.

Piglet broke off a piece of apple and handed it back over. “Here. You helped.”

Valerié took it. “Thanks.”

And they ate like two women who weren’t waiting for the other to draw a knife.

.-.-.

He hated sitting still.

Even more than the ache in his side or the dull burn in his legs, it was the stillness that clawed at him. His crutches leaned against the wall beside him, close but useless. The room spun slightly, the wooden bench too hard beneath his weight, and the scar at his lips throbbed like a warning drum.

He could crawl, but crawling in public was different than crawling through deserted forest floors. Here, people looked. And when people looked, they remembered. And he didn’t want to draw any unwanted attention now that their small group was so damaged. 

So he sat and drank, which didn’t help. Or maybe it helped too much.

He’d learned how to ask for it from Valerié — the rough local word for mead, hydromel, an alcoholic drink made from honey and whatever fruit they could scrape together. It was weaker than what he was used to, but he’d drunk enough that his hands didn’t feel steady anymore. The cup sat sweating on the table, half-empty, sweet and sharp on his tongue.

He wanted Piglet.

No, not wanted. Needed. Needed to see her, to know she still breathed the same way she had as she’d done in her sleep. But she was upstairs, in the rented room, and he didn’t possess the strength to reach for that door again. Not yet.

He stared at the wood grain in the table, following the knot as if it might spell out what to do next.

Valerié was off running errands. He’d sent her because he couldn’t himself. She’d taken the coin, uncharacteristically quiet, and gone to the market. She was meant to bring back fresh linens and clean tunics — undyed wool for him, something simple and wide-sleeved for Piglet, and a veil like the ones Piglet used to wear before they ended up at the mercy of the forest. She’d sacrificed her dress and headscarf for him, for months her curls would peek out from beneath the thinned fabric, no matter how tightly it was wrapped. She’d scowl at him when he pointed it out.

Valerié was also allowed to bring a new shift for herself, probably coarse linen, something cheap but clean, and a little less obvious and revealing.

He grunted, shifted his weight again, and took another sip. The bench was too low, it hurt his ass and back. Or maybe he was too tall, too drunk.

His hands itched. Not from pain — from inaction. From not being able to climb stairs. From not knowing what he should say to make everything seem alright. 

Piglet could have died. All because he lay with a woman. And the worst thing was, she didn’t even know about all the filthy thoughts he’d had over her images in the dappled light. 

Surely he wasn’t alike Ludolf.

But as he’d sat there — alone, the weight of what he’d done pressing like stone against his chest — he couldn’t help but feel it.

A shimmer of that lopsided bastard. A flicker of the same rot in his marrow.

He pressed a hand over the wound at his ribs. Not the one from the boar — the other one, the one that no one could bandage. The one that burned through his breath whenever he thought of her eyes rolling back, her body seizing under his hands.

He tipped back the last of the mead and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The sweet taste lingered, he wanted more. No, needed more. 

The door creaked open behind him.

Valerié stepped inside, wrapped in a simple linen shift the color of clean ash, a woolen cloak draped over her shoulders, unfastened. She moved with that same fluid self-assurance she always had, but her eyes flicked to him with something too cautious to be disdain.

In her arms were the rest of the items he’d asked for — a bundle of clean tunics tied with string, the veil for Piglet, a fresh shirt for him, and new hose and undergarments folded roughly beneath. The cloth still held the faint scent of market woodsmoke and sheep grease.

She set the bundle on the bench beside him.

“You’ve been drinking,” she said, not accusing — just observing.

“Learning the language,” Ivar muttered, barely glancing at her, holding up the jug to alert the inn keeper for a refill. 

She raised a brow. “You learn fast.”

He grinned stiffly. “Not when it comes to women.”

Valerié let the comment hang. Then her eyes lowered to the empty mug and back up to his pale, drawn face.

“Have you eaten anything,” she asked dryly, “or just decided to drown in honey-wine before noon?”

Ivar looked away, toward the hearth. “Haven’t. Trying.”

Valerié sighed and shook her head, folding her arms.

“You’re useless like this,” she said. “Drunk, unable to protect her, let alone take care of yourself.”

That last part was a stretch. Probably deliberate. But hearing it made his throat tighten.

Valerié reached over and untied the bundle, sorting through the garments quickly. “I got her clothes and a long scarf like you asked.”

Ivar nodded. His voice had gone somewhere he couldn’t reach.

Valerié paused, her hands brushing over the wool. “You want me to take them up to her?”

Ivar shook his head.

“Then what do you want me to do?”

He looked up at her, eyes dark and glassy, the empty cup still gripped loosely in one calloused hand. Ivar’s voice was quieter now. Tired. Slurred at the edges.

“Have a drink with me.”

.-.-.

Valerié hesitated. She wasn’t in the mood. Not for pretending to care, not for comfort, not for being anyone’s soft shoulder. But he was the one paying her. The one feeding her. The one who’d just sent her to the market with silver and hadn’t blinked when she bought herself a cloak as well.

And so she sat down beside him with a sigh.

“All right.”

He poured the mead. Sloshed a little on the table.

She took the first sip and winced. Sweet, thick, heavy. Like drinking fermented syrup. He didn’t even flinch.

They didn’t talk much, not at first. The fire popped in the hearth. Someone down the hall was arguing over spilled stew. Outside, a dog barked once and then fell silent.

Ivar drank like a man trying to forget the shape of his own name. Valerié drank slower, watching him with a sideways eye. Her cheeks warmed, and the heaviness of the day softened at the edges. Her cloak slid from one shoulder, but she didn’t bother fixing it.

By the third pour, Ivar’s words had begun to blur. By the fourth, he was slurring openly.

“I don’t know what t’do,” he mumbled, staring into the mug like it might answer him.

Valerié blinked, slow and lazy. “About what?”

He gave a breath that might’ve been a laugh. Or a sob.

“About her.”

His hand gripped the cup like it might float away. His other trembled slightly, the one scraped from the boar’s tusk, the knuckles still swollen.

“She hates me. Should. I don’t— I never meant—” He swallowed, his throat clicking. “She was bathing in the r-river, and I couldn’t stop looking. Then I ruined it. I ruined us because of you. I fucked it all up because I wanted to know what it’s like to be with a woman. And now she’s up there, and I’m down here with my cripple useless legs and this terrible drink, and I don’t know what to do.”

Valerié leaned back, trying to weave some sense from his word-vomite, slightly impressed that he didn’t put all the blame on her. Her head was tipsy but still steady. Her voice was even. “What did you expect? That she'd forgive you right away?”

“No,” he said. “I expected her to never speak to me again. And piss in my drinks. And that’d be fair, I could have lived with that.”

He put the mug down harder than necessary. Mead splashed across the table.

“I keep thinking about how she looked,” he said, voice ragged. “When it happened the second time. Her body just— she couldn’t breathe. She—” He stopped, fingers curling into fists. “I thought she’d never come out of it. I thought I lost her.”

Valerié didn’t reach out. But she didn’t look away, either.

She’d seen men cry before. Most were liars about it.

But this wasn’t performative. This was a man who had no one else to fall apart in front of.

“You didn’t lose her,” she said, more gently than she meant to.

“Not yet,” he whispered.

He dropped his head into his hands.

They kept drinking.

The mead was almost gone, and neither of them seemed willing to name the point where they should’ve stopped. Ivar’s words slowed, dragged out between long silences. Valerié didn’t listen intently because he had stopped making sense about half a cup ago. She sipped with the sort of patience only whores seemed to master.

Halfway through her cup, Valerié shifted and stood, brushing crumbs from her lap.

“I should check on her.”

Ivar didn’t answer, just swayed slightly, eyes half-lidded and dull.

Valerié left without ceremony, her bare feet silent on the stairs. The rented room was still as she cracked the door open — Piglet was curled beneath the blanket, breathing steady, mouth slightly open in sleep. Her braid had unraveled at the nape but the rest held. She hadn’t moved much. Still worn thin from the seizure, and perhaps from the unspoken war she and Ivar waged in silence.

Valerié closed the door again and went back down.

The scent hit her before she reached the bottom step.

Mead. Sweat. Vomit.

And shouting.

“—bloody crippled fool, I told you not on the floor!” the innkeeper barked, voice sharp with disgust. “There’s a bucket, isn’t there? Gods, it’s right there—”

Ivar was hunched over in a miserable heap, his shirt clinging to him with sweat and sickness, one crutch knocked sideways under the bench. His skin had gone a waxy shade of grey, and there was a wet splatter on the floorboards that the innkeeper was furiously scrubbing at with a rag and a curse.

A bucket clattered against the table leg.

“Up,” the innkeeper growled, trying to haul Ivar into a more upright position with very little success. “If you’re going to be sick, do it like a man, not a dog.”

Ivar muttered something incomprehensible, his head lolling sideways.

Valerié stood at the foot of the stairs, arms crossed.

“Well,” she said dryly, “at least he’s not crying anymore.”

The innkeeper gave her a sour look. “He's yours, or I toss him on the street.”

“Fine,” she said, stepping forward to help, while silently cursing her luck. 

Ivar groaned, slumped sideways, then retched again into the bucket with a sickening splash.

The innkeeper muttered a curse and threw a rag over the first mess on the floor, scrubbing hard while Valerié crouched beside Ivar and righted the bucket. He vomited again, this time mostly bile, his hands trembling, breath shallow.

“Saints save us,” the innkeeper growled, tossing the rag aside. “You’d think this was a stable, not an inn.”

Together — one lifting under the arms, the other at the legs — they heaved Ivar upright. His head lolled forward, dark hair damp and stuck to his face, and he mumbled something neither of them understood.

He was heavier than he looked. The crutches clattered to the floor as they dragged him toward the stairs.

“I ought to charge you extra for this,” the innkeeper snapped, half out of breath.

“You can add it to the bill,” Valerié muttered, teeth clenched as they hauled him one step at a time.

It was slow, awkward, and undignified.

By the time they reached the top, sweat was beading at Valerié’s temples. She nudged her rented door open with her shoulder and together, they shoved Ivar through it and dumped him unceremoniously onto the narrow bed.

He groaned but didn’t stir.

The innkeeper stood panting in the doorway. “Don’t let him piss himself.”

Valerié waved him off. “Get out.”

The door shut behind them with a dull thud. Ivar lay sprawled in her sheets, pale and soaked with sweat, stinking of mead and vomit. Valerié stood over him a moment, rubbing her sore arm, then reached down and pulled the bucket up beside the bed, just in case.

She stared at him.

“Idiot,” she muttered.

And then she sat down on the floor and leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, waiting for the next disaster to come knocking.

.-.-.

He’d drank so much he lost the concept of time, but there were candles flickering so it must still be night. 

His skull was splitting. Not with pain — no, pain would’ve been a mercy. This was worse. A low, thick pressure behind his eyes like the world had been packed in too tightly and now threatened to leak out through his ears. His mouth was dry as bone, his tongue thick and sour, lips crusted with some awful mix of bile and stale mead.

He blinked.

The ceiling above him was unfamiliar. Cracked wood. Low beams. Not the ceiling of a shed. Not the forest. Not helheim, though it might as well have been.

He moved slightly and immediately regretted it.

The nausea hit like a wave.

He groaned, one hand flying to his stomach, the other searching blindly for anything to ground himself. His legs throbbed — one in particular still swollen from the wound. He tried to sit up, but the room tilted sharply, and his vision blurred.

And then he saw Valerié.

She was standing near the window, half-dressed — wrapped in the same shift, her cloak discarded somewhere out of view. Her long legs bare beneath the hem, blonde hair twisted and sweaty. She looked like someone who’d been taking care of someone heavy and someone she didn’t particularly like. That would be him, that would most definitely be him. 

She turned at the sound of his gagging, one brow raised in cool irritation.

He barely registered her scrunching up her nose before the nausea overtook him again. He gagged violently — nothing came — then again, this time sharp and painful.

Valerié didn’t flinch.

Instead, she walked over and kicked something wooden across the floor. The bucket skidded across the boards and thunked against the side of the bed, right by his hanging arm.

“Here,” she said flatly. “Try to aim this time.”

Ivar fumbled for it and dry-heaved into the rim, the acidic sting of last night’s mead burning up his throat. His whole body trembled. Sweat slicked his hair to his face. For a moment he thought he might black out entirely.

When it passed, he collapsed back into the mattress, panting, the bucket still gripped in one shaking hand.

Valerié sat beside him on the bed, arms resting on her knees and sighing deeply. 

“You’re not the worst mess I’ve seen,” she said, watching him with vague amusement. “But you’re close.”

Ivar groaned something that might’ve been a curse.

Valerié leaned over slightly, pulled the bucket from his hand, and set it upright again.

“Sleep it off,” she muttered. Without much fuss she crawled over him to face the wall. “Try not to die mon cherie.” She added as she pulled the blankets over herself. “And don’t you dare piss the bed.” 

.-.-.

A/N: I’m not going to lie, writing about Ivar getting drunk off his socks was so much fun. I’m not sure what’s been the worst torture, him being beaten to pulp by the Giant or him beating himself up over his feelings for Piglet. The poor guy poured his heart out, simply to receive a very cold and frightened shoulder. I’d be pouring myself something to drown my sorrows too. 

And…Piglet and Valerié, could it be? Are they bonding? No catfight? Could it be that they realise that they aren’t so different after all? Took about eight chapters, a nasty secret spilled and Piglet showing the whites of her eyes…but still, we are getting somewhere. 

Nice that some bonds are mending, yet one is still damaged. Between Piglet and Ivar, fates might be intertwined but even though they’ve had their fights and ups and downs, him confessing his feelings really did push them off a point of no return. Love to read your thoughts on this chapter,

Xoxoxo Nukyster 

The kickass beta: @sarahh-jane

The tagged ones:

@youbloodymadgenius

@xbellaxcarolinax

@saldelys

@shannygoatgruff

@pieces-by-me

@apenas-mais-uma-pessoa

@readsalot73

@lauraan182

@conaionaru

@sarahh-jane

@peachyboneless

@adhdnightmare

@khiraeth

@funmadnessandbadassvikings​

@ dekusdante  @neondragons7

@bitter-post-millennial​

@noway4u​

A/N listen to Haevn - Fortitude while reading

Chapter 24) Everything

.-.-.

The inn stood squat and sullen at the edge of the large city of Dijon. Its timber frame was dark with age and soot, the wattle-and-daub walls cracked and patched, and the thatched roof sagged as if bearing the weight of too many winters. A crude sign hung from a post—depicting, perhaps, a boar or a barrel, though weather and time had worn it near abstraction. Beneath it, the door was thick oak, banded in iron, scarred by age and maybe the occasional drunken knife fight. The air inside the inn was thick with smoke and the smell of roasting meat, mingled with the scent of sweat and leather. It was warm; the crackling fire in the hearth casting flickering shadows across the low wooden beams. A few travelers leaned against the wall, still laden with damp cloaks. Locals hunched over wooden bowls and cups, muttering in the Occitan or Frankish tongue. The floor was slick with spilled ale and mud carried in from outside. But it was a welcome reprieve from the endless nights spent in the elements. Even Uttstott favored the presence of foreign tongues embedded into the rough cloak hanging over the shoulders of his savior. Valerié had already begun exchanging words and silver with the inn keeper as Ivar arrived late, leaning heavily on his crutches. Still stiff and far from healed, Ivar moved at his own pace, dreadfully slow. Step-drag, step-drag, his right leg trailed behind him. A few heads turned amused, one of the younger travelers laughed and pointed at the cripple on display. Ivar did not rise to it, did not blink. His eyes pale as river ice slid across the man like he was already dead. The youngster looked away first. Uttstott clicked his beak with a sound like snapping twigs toward the young traveller, it wasn’t just noise, Utstott hurled  his caws with sharp precision, a harsh ragged staccato that managed to tear through the buzzing voices. No-one, other than himself, was allowed to ridicule Ivar. Well, maybe there was another being. She earned her credit after all this time. Uttstot watchfully observed the inn keeper taking Piglet upstairs; she lay lifelessly in his arms. Ivar stared dejected as the pair of them watched their suffering companion brought to one of the bedrooms on the first floor. Although half blind, Uttstot spotted Valerié passing through the maze of people eager to disappear. And she did, without another word, she exited the inn. ‘Goodriddance,’ Uttstot thought, and it let out one last furious caw toward the thick oak door. 

.-.-.

Ivar stood at the foot of the wooden steps, leaning heavily on his crutches. His bad leg trembled with the effort of simply standing. Exiting the ox wagon had been a battle itself and now these stairs, it might as well have been a mountain. He gritted his teeth, adjusted his grip on the crutch and hauled himself up the first step, awkwardly, laboriously. His good leg managed most of the work, while the bad one dragged behind him like a reluctant servant. His crutch thugged against the wood with every movement, followed by the soft scrape of leather as he shifted his weight. By the third step, sweat clung to his brow, his breath came short and uneven and he paused- more from necessity than choice- glaring up at the steps as though they’d personally insulted him. People passed without offering help, not that he would have taken it anyway. When he moved again, it was slower, his body leaned unnaturally, compensating with every joint and it hurt. He muttered under his breath; curses, prayers, and kept going. He had no other option. Piglet lay on a narrow bed tucked in the corner of a small room, wrapped in a woolen blanket that had seen better years. Her back was to the door, breathing calmly. And Ivar stood there, in the doorway, soaked from climbing the stairs, head tilted sideways like a little boy waiting for a flogging. The candlelight caught the hollow of his cheek, exposing the tight way his scarred lips were sealed. His eyes never left her. “I didn’t come here to defend myself,” he began quietly without any indication that Piglet was awake, “only to say that I’m truly sorry, because everything Valerié said is true, everything.” She didn’t move. “I’m sorry, Piglet,” stepping forward he tried to be careful and not let the floorboards groan too loud. The small room was meant for coin pinchers and wandering traders, but to him it felt like a confessional. Her breath caught, just faintly. Piglet shifted under the blanket and he could see the way her shoulders tensed at the movement; she was sore from the convulsions. Though half-hidden in shadow, he saw her turn over to face him. “You fucked her,” she turned slightly, just enough for him to see her face in the candlelight. Her expression was unreadable, but her voice came low and cold. “I trusted you,” she said, eyes never leaving him. Her voice had sunken into something deeper now, cold and still. “And you fucked her.” “I did,” he confessed dejected, there was no denying that, “and I’m not asking for forgiveness, I-,” he paused to swallow a thick lump in the back of his throat and continued, “I just want you to know that everything she said is true, Piglet,” he said, barely above a whisper: “I love you.” She looked at him, long and hard and that was how Ivar saw something inside her shift. Not crack– freeze. “No, you don’t,” she told him firmly, voice steady; the edge of it was icy carved from distress, “don’t love me.” “Piglet, I-” He gritted his teeth as pain launched through his legs. The crutches dug deep into his underarms and he had trouble keeping himself from falling. He moved a step towards her and she flinched. “Don’t love me,” she said, her voice low, steady. “I never asked you to.”

Ivar’s legs trembled beneath him—half-dead things that no longer obeyed but still remembered the shape of standing. His knees buckled once, then again, but he locked his arms around the crutches and held fast. At her words he raised his head, as if the weight of them took time to settle in. 

Sweat ran cold down his spine. His jaw clenched so tightly it felt like his teeth might crack. And still, he stayed upright.

“All I ever wanted from you,” she continued, “was protection. That’s all.”

She turned to him then, her voice growing sharper, colder.

“And you cannot be that for me—not if you love me. Because you're a man. And men are all the same.”

The silence that followed was brutal. It filled the room like smoke from wet wood—thick, choking, making it almost impossible to breathe. 

Ivar moved without a word and sat down on the edge of the stool beside the bed, with slumped shoulders he hung his head down, his hand trembled faintly when he reached for his tunic. 

His fingers closed around the hilt of his knife.

And it was not drawn in rage.

But drawn in pain.

He held it at his side, blade down. But then he looked her dead in the eye, and the heat in his voice cracked through the coldness between them. 

“You honestly believe what you just dared say to me?” he whispered, his face so close they were nearly touching noses. “That I’m like them?”

She didn’t answer.

“I nearly died protecting your virtue,” he said, voice shaking now—not with anger, but something more dangerous. Despair. “I drew blood, his blood, and in return took thirtynine lashes for you, lay there bleeding in the dirt while all of de Haar watched.” His grip on the knife tightened.

“You think I’m like him? Like Ludolf?”

Still, she said nothing. Her jaw was set, her breath shallow.

Then—without asking—he reached out and grabbed her hand.

Not cruelly, but firmly. Desperately.

He pressed the hilt of the blade into her palm and brought her hand up to his throat.

The steel met flesh. His. 

“I’m nothing like him,” he said, voice low and breaking. “But if you truly believe what you said—if you look at me and see him—then kill me.”

Her hand trembled in his, the knife tip pressing just enough to draw a bead of blood beneath his jaw.

“Because if you believe your words to be true,” he whispered, “then I don’t have anything left to live for.”

For a moment, the only sound was the muffled voices from down below and the wind battering the walls of the inn. Time froze between them—man and woman, blade and throat, pain and truth.

The blade’s cold tip pressed softly against Ivar’s throat, his steady gaze locked on hers. But beneath her fierce exterior, something shattered.

Her breath hitched, sharp and uneven.

Her hands trembled, the knife slipped from her grasp with a soft clink. She sank down onto the rough wool of the bed, the weight of everything crashing over her all at once. Tears spilled freely, hot and relentless, carving silent tracks down her cheeks. Her shoulders shook as the walls she’d built crumbled under the weight of his words and actions. 

“Please don’t love me,” she whispered brokenly, voice cracking like thin ice. “I cannot lose your protection.” 

She buried her face in her hands, sobbing openly now. “You cannot be that if you love me—because you are a man. And men are all the same.”

Her voice trembled as she looked up, eyes red-rimmed and wide with pain.

“I can’t lose you,” she said, barely audible, “not after everything, please don’t love me.”

She curled into herself on the bed, trembling, tears flowing freely—her heart breaking in the dim candlelight.

Ivar slowly sank to one knee beside her, his crutches resting against the wall. His voice was soft, almost a whisper as he took her trembling hand in his.

“Can you feel my heart?” he asked, pressing her hand against his chest, warm beneath her palm. “Until it stops beating, I swear to you—I will always protect you.”

He looked up, his eyes fierce despite the pain.

“I know I cannot ever be the man standing beside you,” he said, voice thick with emotion, “but I will crawl to the ends of the world for you, my queen.”

She blinked through the tears, the fierce weight of his words settling into the shattered pieces of her heart. She said nothing. Her still hand lay against his chest, feeling the thud of his heartbeat—steady, strong, and real. For a moment, she just listened to it. The silence around them swallowed the world outside, the creak of the old timbers, the dying candle. All that remained was breath and heartbeat, and the raw, unspoken bond between them.

Ivar kept kneeling beside the bed, his gaze lowered, voice rough and quiet now.

“I’m not asking for forgiveness,” he said. “Only that you let me stay.”

He hesitated, like he was afraid to say more. Then he added softly, “In the room, I mean. Just till morning. You can throw me to the road after that if you want.”

He looked down at the floor, the flickering candlelight drawing long shadows across the scars on his face and the sharp bones of his jaw. There was no pride left in his voice. Only longing. Only exhaustion.

A long silence passed.

Then, at last, she turned to look at him.

Her eyes were swollen and red from crying, but her jaw was steady. She looked tired—bone-deep tired—but not empty. She stared at him for a long moment. Not speaking. Not crying anymore. Just seeing him.

Then she nodded—just once.

Wordless.

Permission.

Ivar didn’t move. He didn’t thank her or try to come closer. He only bowed his head, his shoulders sinking with a kind of quiet relief that didn’t need words.

He pulled his crutches close and, with effort, pushed himself upright. He didn’t reach for the bed.

Instead, he sank slowly onto the floor beside it, resting his back against the wall. The knife still lay between them on the wooden planks.

She lay back down without a word. Her face turned away from him, toward the wall. The candle flickered one last time, then guttered out, leaving the room in silence and shadow.

But he was there.

And she let him stay.

For now.

.-.-.

A/N: I already have a ring on my fingers, but Ivar, dude you are proper wedding material. Sometimes as a writer you write a chapter that makes you shrug and go ‘mweh’. But not this one, oh boy I was so scared to write this chapter, pissed I MYSELF was the one that needed to write it. I had some sort of guideline of what I figured should happen and then this all happened and it turned out ten times better than I expected it to be. So sincere and emotional, thoughtful, like dude are you trying to kill me. If someone finds him too soft, then please get out because it took ME years (literally) to get him here. He said the L word, he did it all just perfectly. Just to have Piglet shatter by his revelation. 

Please do let me know what you’re feelings are 🙂

Xoxox Nukyster 

The kickass beta: @sarahh-jane

The tagged ones:

@youbloodymadgenius

@xbellaxcarolinax

@saldelys

@shannygoatgruff

@pieces-by-me

@apenas-mais-uma-pessoa

@readsalot73

@lauraan182

@conaionaru

@sarahh-jane

@peachyboneless

@adhdnightmare

@khiraeth

@funmadnessandbadassvikings​

@ dekusdante  @neondragons7

@bitter-post-millennial​

@noway4u​

He felt a sudden flare of joy when he overheard her mumble hamar, and he felt a solemn sense of happiness. It was foreign and yet, familiar. It took him a while, drifting in between consciousness and unconsciousness to determine the feeling. 

🫀One Must Sway The Non-Believers⚔️

This drawing took me about three or four days to finish but I’m finally posting it. It’s fanart of the show Vikings, more specifically Bishop Heahmund and Ivar the Boneless from seasons s5-s6 of the show. I loved watching this series a few months back but due to studying and burn-out I could not create any good fanart, until now. Heahmund is a fascinating character, a warrior bishop with unhealthy habits and sadistic tendencies who still wanted to prove his worth to his God and his religion, fight for a cause yet use his animalistic hatred for pagans. Meanwhile Ivar himself was a disabled viking warrior and a pagan with a god-like complex, who saw potential in him and wanted to understand him better, until it was too late. But their dynamic was so profound and messed up in the same time, it could’ve been interpreted in many ways, ecstatic love or conflicted friendship, it’s up to the viewer ‘s interpretation (I personally shipped them even if i dont ship characters that often😭)

Historically wise, I am also interested in the real story the tv show was based on. Bishop Heahmund of Sherbone was an actual figure and according to historical records he was canonized pre schism, so hes a lesser known saint in the catholic tradition and orthodox aswell. So I added some symbolism for that and the contrast between a bloodbath and religion, sacred and profane.

(Unrelated I was listening to a lot of ROME/Jerome Reuter songs while drawing this because obviously they’re something else, especially how militaristic they often sound)

Oh and this small edit I made contains a quote from Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, a book that reminded me of the reoccurring themes of the show.