It was always the same memory that crept into her sleep every night.
The small figure of her mother. So fragile and thin. She didn't know her mother could cry like a child, so desperately and weak. The terror of the helplessness of the one she once thought to be invincible kept her paralyzed.
'Do you see? I love you? You see I don't have a choice'. Her mother's eyes were pleading, pain pouring down her cheeks.
But the girl was too small to read her eyes. She saw her mother stepping away. Leaving.
Her mother had made the choice. And that was not her. She was not wanted.
'Mommy!', the scream splitting her throat, tears chocking, as were the pairs of hands grabbing her up and carrying backwards, as if she weighed nothing.
In truth, she WAS nothing. The child born in between the worlds.
She didn't even have a name. Not the one that would please the Gods.
The gate closed with a thud.
The void tore open.
Drakkars and longboats were coming on and on with no end in sight. Some of them were filled with gold and glory. Some with grief. Ireland hadn't been as welcoming as England. They had to pay as well. The price was the pathway straight to Valhalla. Not that high for a hero, but too huge for the families.
The crowd was enormous. They were already shouting and waving their hands at the arrivers.
Ivar was always wondering what it was like to walk through the aisle of the crowd as a winner. To hear their cheers addressed to you. He knew no one believed he would return. Not even himself. Now he will prove them he is not a pitiful cripple, but a great warrior and konung. He smiled to himself, his heart trembling with anticipation.
But then he saw her. There, in the front row she was standing. Her shortly cut hair, brushed to the right as always, covering half of her face, was unmistakable. She was waiting.
Not like he didn't know. Of course she would be there. So many wounded. So many dead.
She's been always on the grief side. Where the cheers and joy never got to. The bodies were carried down, a few no longer breathing.
All the excitement gone with the realization of how much he hated her face, how much he had not been missing it. And how much he hated himself for it being the first thing he saw on the shore.
The crowd swallowed them like Sköll will swallow the sun at Ragnarök.
Stabbing his crutch into the ground, he felt hundreds of palms patting his back and arms. He felt anger rising inside him.
He threw an eye on where the unarmed healers were fighting with Gods to tear the warriors away from them. They were losing so far.
With a couple of young girls she was sitting beside a red-headed man, putting some ointment to his chest and slightly leaning forward over him to examine the wound. She rose to her feet and ran up to one of the men who helped to bring the wounded and pointed to the lying man's feet. It was broken.
Together with a couple of other people they grabbed his leg, fixing it firmly so he couldn't move it.
Ivar winced and turned away. He knew what they were about to do. He knew the pain.
When he finally broke from the chains of praising hands, he turned his head one more time to meet her eyes. She noticed him. She looked worried. He looked away.
His fingers got almost white clenching his crutch.
He wanted to kill her.
'Hail Prince Ivar!'
Because she knew.