The calm surface of the water is broken with a great splash as Rowan does a swan dive from a boulder into the lake below.

It's so peaceful underwater. It's so clear that she can easily make out the plants and stones that make up the terrain of the lakebed. Her lungs start to burn from the rising carbon monoxide in her blood, forcing her to make for air long before she would have liked.

She surfaces with an exultant gasp, taking some time just to float there and let the water hold her. The sun shines down on her face, the lake is cool on her back, soothing and calming her the way it always used to.

When she finally begins to swim, she goes slowly and makes sure to keep her technique perfect while she warms up. Even though she tried to do as much as she could in Wessex, she was severely limited when it came to space and time.

Now she has both. Torvi is an unusually permissive guardian, encouraging her to explore her own interests. Rowan supposes that it's a benefit of being attached to the royal family, there is a lot of work that she doesn't have to worry about. Still, she reminds herself to not let herself become complacent and slip back into old habits, letting the people around her do everything for her.

Rowan's muscles aren't used to this kind of work. After a few minutes she realizes that, no matter how much she's enjoying herself, she has to pace herself or she'll end up injuring something. When she can sense that she's reaching her threshold, she sets back for the shore.

She's so focused that it isn't until she stops swimming and wipes the water from her eyes that she sees that she's not alone anymore. Ivar is sitting on the pile of rocks where she left her clothes and has been watching her.

With a grin, she paddles to where one of the stones juts out into the water. "Hello, Ivar." She says, resting her chin on her forearms and smiling. She takes a moment to just enjoy the sight of him after so long.

He doesn't respond, only looks at her with a carefully neutral expression.

"I missed you." Rowan offers, only now realizing how much she means it. Despite Ivar's many faults, or perhaps because of them, there is no one else here that she can be with and still feel just as relaxed as if she is by herself.

"You could have come to visit." He mutters, now looking downcast and sullen.

"Torvi said it would not be a good idea." She tries to explain. "If I upset Lagertha…"

"Their feelings mean more to you than I do?" Ivar interrupts.

Rowan blushes and hides her face in her arms, suddenly ashamed. He's right. She hasn't been thinking of what it would be like for him to have her disappear like that. This was why he was good for her. She needed someone to remind her when she was being a selfish hag.

"You're right." She looks him in the eye and admits. "I'm sorry."

Ivar appears shocked at her apology. He blinks at her dumbly for a minute before regaining his poise.

"I forgive you." He says magnanimously. When Rowan grins happily in response, it's his turn to blush and look away. For a while all they do is sit there while she grins at the shy little smiles he casts in her direction.

"Come join me." She asks.

His cheer fades instantly. "I can't."

"No matter." Rowan shrugs. "I can teach you."

His scowl deepens. "Aren't you listening? I can't!"

After having such a good day so far, his harshness is like an ice cube down Rowan's shirt. At first she's disoriented by the sudden force of it, until she sees the way he's sitting, legs bound together and stiff, and remembers.

Cocking her head to one side, she ponders this new information for a moment before shrugging again as casually as possible. "Leg's aren't needed to swim. I can still teach you."

She's surprised him again. She almost wants to start keeping a record, because Ivar the Boneless' shocked face is truly worth remembering.

"No!" He blurts angrily.

Rowan sighs. Alas for Ivar, she has made up her mind. Being able to swim is not only an important skill, it could actually help improve his overall physical condition. It's for his own good, really.

It's to her benefit that she's below him. It's easy to look up at him through her damp eyelashes, eyes widened slightly and mouth pouting.

"Please?" She asks, voice carefully tailored to convey just the right blend of hurt and hope. "For me?"

He doesn't stand a chance. It's a look that was honed to perfection on that pinnacle of cold and reserved emotion, the upper-class British aristocratic scholar. It's a look that has gotten her out of innumerable time-outs, groundings, and possibly one or two minor felonies.

"I… suppose…"

"Yay!" Rowan cheers, throwing her hands in the air.

Reluctantly, Ivar removes his boots and shirt while she covers her eyes dramatically. When it comes to his trousers and the belts binding them together, he hesitates once again. He glances nervously between his legs, the water, and Rowan.

"Pfft." She rolls onto her back casually. "I seen the inside of my own leg. After that, your emaciated arse is hardly distressing."

Staring at the sky and paddling in a circle, she can't see Ivar's reaction, but she does hear him mutter something about her Norse being much improved.

"Guthrum is a great help." She says sunnily.

"Guthrum is a smooth-faced vargdropi." Ivar snaps back.

"That is interesting coming from you, skegglausi."

There is a growling sound from Ivar's direction. A splash signals his entrance into the water and a hand reaches out to try and grab Rowan's ankle. With a laugh and a kick she propels herself out of his reach.

Her goal of getting him into the water achieved, she has to wait for the anxiety of being in the water to soothe his ruffled feathers before she approaches again. He clings to the overhanging rock for dear life, which really does nice things for his arms and…

Rowan shakes herself out of that line of thought hastily. She reaches out her hands, beckoning him to take them. Ivar looks at them as if she were offering two red-hot branding irons to him.

"Ivar, do you trust me?"

"No."

It really is like dealing with an overgrown toddler. Same favorite word and everything. So that is the way she approaches him, gently taking one forearm and coaxing him to let her support him.

"The first thing you learn is to float."

It's the way her brother taught her when she was little and afraid of water. He'd held her there in the water, instructing her how to relax every muscle from her head to her toes. At some point, he'd lowered his arms just an inch. She'd been so soothed by his voice that she hadn't realized that she was floating until he had told her.

Now, with Ivar, Rowan can feel it herself when he starts to relax as she tells him to close his eyes. It's more difficult for him to float due to his having very little body fat and a great deal of muscle, but he's a fast learner and listens well when she tells him to adjust his position.

Once he realizes that it's possible, a pigheaded determination sets in. Rowan has to practically put him in a headlock to keep him close by and remind him not to get overconfident. It isn't until hours later when they are both exhausted that they finally help each other out of the water.

"I've never felt anything like that before." Ivar marvels as they lie on the rocks, sunning themselves like a pair of lizards. "Like my legs weren't holding me down."

"Having strong arms will help." Rowan replies.

In his linen underpants, his legs are bare to the knee. Rowan is interested to confirm that there is no deformity other than a severe lack of muscle. Curious, she retrieves her bronze hairpin and gently drags the point over the sole of one foot.

"What are you doing?" He sounds annoyed, but not overly upset.

"Can you feel this?"

"Yes."

She repeats this with the other, noticing that he twitches at the ticklish sensation. All the nerves seem to be intact. She lays back beside him, frowning as she thinks about the possiblities.

Hesitantly, Ivar props himself up on one elbow so he can see her expression. "Rowan, what does Beinlausi mean to you?"

Rowan sits up, hugging her legs to her chest while she ponders what to say to him. Ivar is unusually patient as he waits for her to speak.

"I don't know." She replies, biting her lip. "In your faith, can a soul return to Midgard and live another life?"

"Yes." Ivar says, unfazed by the non sequitur.

Rowan is surprised by the simple response. It's obviously not a strange concept to him at all, and it gives her the courage to continue. "Then, do you think a person could, somehow, return to a life they have lived before?"

He frowns, silently prompting her to explain more.

"I don't remember from before this." She gestures at her scar. He hasn't spared a second glance at it this whole time. "I remember… a different life."

It has occurred to her before that another way to describe her experience is that Bothild woke up from her injury that day with Rowan's memories. It's at least simpler than trying to explain time travel.

"A life from before?" Ivar asks.

"No." She shakes her head. "A life from after. Long after."

Ivar lays back down, contemplating this information before replying. "My mother had dreams of the future. Perhaps you are another kind of seer."

Rowan flops back beside him in relief. He really doesn't think she's crazy!

"Did the other English know this?"

"No." She shakes her head emphatically. "They would call me mad. I have to pretend I forgot everything. I didn't even know how to speak their language."

"How did you learn?"

"One man knew. He taught me everything but…" Rowan trails off.

"He is the one who died?" Ivar asks. She can't respond, a hard lump having lodged itself in her throat, but he doesn't need her to. Sometimes, silence can speak volumes.

Ivar becomes suddenly excited by some thought and rolls quickly to his side to face her. "Then, in your memories from this time to come, you heard my name?"

"Perhaps." She says.

He grins. "When? How long will my name be remembered? What did you hear?"

Rowan sighs and turns to look at him seriously. "Stories. That is all. Over a thousand years after now people will speak your name, but remember nothing."

He shrinks back in disappointment, but she continues to press her point.

"That is a legend. One story will not agree with another, and no one remembers the man."

"But he is remembered." Ivar protests.

"True." Rowan agrees. "But I would rather be remembered by one person who knew and loved me than thousands who don't."

He snorts in derision. "You sound like a Christian."

"Well, yes." She retorts. "That's because I am."

They've managed to annoy each other once again. For once, Ivar is the first to try and resolve the tension by changing the subject.

"What is your name?"

"Uh, Rowan." The 'duh' is heavily implied.

"I mean the name you remember."

"Rowan." She repeats. "I gave you the name I call myself. The people of Wessex called me Bothild."

Ivar seems pleasantly surprised by this. "You told no one else? Only me?"

He's feeling all special again, practically preening beside her. For all his volatile tendencies, it's sadly easy to make him happy. Just a couple weeks ago he was threatening to kill a woman, which was frankly a little bit terrifying. Now he looks like a dog that's been called a 'good boy'. Rowan feels compelled to pet him like one too, running her fingers through his wet hair so it's pushed back from his forehead.

"That looks better." She says, admiring the new style. "You look less like an acorn."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Never mind."

"Was that an insult?"

"Not entirely."

Ivar grins at Rowan's teasing with such openness that it's almost blinding, his happiness as radiant as his anger is black. It distracts her, when his face suddenly draws closer to hers she almost doesn't react in time to avoid his attempt to kiss her. In a flash she's rolled to a standing position.

"Rowan!" Ivar immediately reaches out to stop her as she goes to get her dress, catching her foot in his hand.

She closes her eyes, trying to take deep, calming breathes through pursed lips and clenched teeth.

"I won't…" His voice catches in a suspicious way that Rowan does her best to disregard. "I will stop. Just don't go."

She doesn't want to be like this. But how can she explain to him that what happened before can never happen again, should never have happened in the first place. She doubts he would understand the concept that she's been raised with her entire life, that it's fundamentally creepy and potentially damaging for a 22-plus-2-year-old to have sex with a 16-year-old.

"I promise." Ivar all but whispers. "Don't leave me."

"You promise?" Rowan looks back at him. She should cut him off now while she has the chance, but she did miss him. He averts his eyes and nods, embarrassed by his own neediness, but unable to stop himself. Her resolve crumbles. "Then I'll stay."

He obviously isn't entirely happy with this, but is at least willing to accept her terms.

He'll be fine, Rowan tells herself, he's a teenage boy. She'll come to visit him and his brothers, she'll teach him how to swim, and soon enough he'll find someone else to lust after and forget all about this little hiccup in an otherwise excellent friendship.

~…~

"What do you do to spend time?" Rowan asks as they make for the fishing cabin. Ivar had been insistent that she come back with him for the evening meal.

"Has Sigurd's cooking improved?" She asked.

Ivar made a face and shook his head 'no'.

"Well, with such a meal to look forward to, how can I refuse?"

He'd snorted in amusement as he finished buckling the belts back around his legs. Now he crawls beside her with a dexterity that surprises her. She's never actually seen him do this before, and it's a little troubling for her to see how he's been forced to move about his entire life.

"I play Tafl, I wander. Sometimes I work in the blacksmith's." Ivar replies to her question, moving nimbly over the terrain.

"Really?" It's a surprising answer. Rowan hadn't ever thought of him as someone who had experience with actual work. Of course, from what she'd seen, blacksmithing was viewed by many to be a skill akin to magic. It would make sense that Ivar would be drawn to it.

"Come to the forge someday." He says. "I will show you."

"I will." She agrees. If anything, it would at least be a unique experience to see Ivar somewhere where he's actually comfortable.

When they arrive at the cabin, Ivar pushes the door open before them. Sigurd looks up from the fire, surprised to see her. Ubbe frowns from his seat at the table.

"We have a guest, brothers." Ivar pulls himself onto a bench and gestures for Rowan to sit beside him.

She smiles at the older Ragnarssons. "Hello Ubbe, Sigurd. I'm sorry it has been long."

Sigurd nods at her in greeting. Ubbe looks between her and Ivar, his body filled with tension as he takes in the way Ivar leans into Rowan's space as he fills a cup for her before draping one arm around her shoulders. The drink isn't the weak ale she's used to choking down, but sweet mead. It's delicious, and she has to keep herself from draining the cup while her stomach is still empty.

Her eyes meet with Ubbe's. She can feel his suspicion and disapproval and tries to diplomatically nudge Ivar further away. His only reaction to her elbow in his ribs is to smile at her while his hand plays with a lock of her hair.

"Let me see if Sigurd need help." Rowan says quietly as she gently moves his hand. He nods and gives her fingers a squeeze before releasing her. Ubbe watches her every move like a hawk as she goes to see if she can use what little Torvi has taught her about cooking to salvage the meal.

Sigurd looks up and gives a start, his eyes widening as they zero in on her scalp. With a flush and a glare she pushes him to the side so she can see what's in the cooking pot. He continues to stare at her scar as she does her best to ignore him and focus on the food.

"How did that happen?"

Rowan turns on him, ladle clenched in a white-knuckled grip. "A fight." She hisses out in a heroic feat of self-control. "With a bear."

Ivar straight up guffaws. The sound sends a ripple of astonishment through the room. Rowan lets the tension drop from her and smiles back at him, bizarrely pleased that he remembers their joke. She waves the ladle at Sigurd and orders him to sit himself down.

She sets to work finding a suspiciously full container of salt and a few dried herbs that she can add to the stew. Behind her she can hear Sigurd ask Ivar in wonder if she really fought a bear, which sets Ivar into another fit of laughter.

"Who plays?" Rowan asks when they're all finally seated together. She gestures with her spoon towards the corner, where she'd noticed a guitar-like instrument sitting during her earlier search.

"I do." Replies Sigurd.

Rowan smiles in pleasant surprise. "True? Will you play some?"

Sigurd nods, too distracted by the wonder of seasoned food to give a proper response. Ivar, though, frowns and is beginning to visibly sulk.

Ubbe leans back from the table, arms crossed over his chest, and points at Rowan and Ivar's wet hair with his chin. "What have you two been up to?"

"Swimming." Ivar replies, suddenly perking up. Sigurd chokes on his bite of food and Ubbe leans over to pat his back while looking at Ivar as if he's pretty sure his brother is joking but can't be positive.

"You don't swim." Sigurd smirks when he's finally regained control. "You don't even bathe in open water."

"Rowan is teaching me." Ivar's smile is tight-lipped and humorless.

"I'm impressed." Sigurd turns to Rowan. "You must have a great deal of patience to try and teach anything to Boneless."

Ivar's teeth are beginning to grind together. "Don't call me that."

Rowan leans over to Ubbe on her left as the argument continues. "Are you going to finish that?" She points hopefully at his half-full bowl of stew.

Ubbe raises an eyebrow but pushes the bowl towards her. She gives a happy shimmy and starts to eat again while carefully dodging Ivar's wild gesticulations.

"Are they always like this?" She asks Ubbe curiously.

He glances between his younger brothers, still leaning back comfortably, and responds with a shrug and a facial expression that says, "Eh, pretty much."

Rowan sucks on her spoon thoughtfully as she looks between the belligerent pair. "Are you going to stop them?"

Ubbe shrugs again. Apparently he's mostly thrown in the towel with these two. As long as they haven't escalated to the point of breaking objects or each other he has little interest in wasting his energy. Rowan watches in amazement. True, she and her brother had been unusually close, but even by normal standards the sibling relationship on display before her is horrifying.

"Were you going to play the…" Rowan ask Sigurd loudly, motioning to the instrument in the corner, hoping that she can distract them.

The boys turn to her, briefly annoyed by her interruption. Sigurd finally supplies the word she'd been searching for. "Oud. It is called an oud."

"Oh." It's not an instrument she's heard of before. At least the question has ended the fight for now.

Rowan moves to sit beside Sigurd as he begins to play, taking her cup of mead with her. She's always admired people who can play an instrument. She'd tried to learn piano, but had never had the patience to do something that took time and practice for her to be good at. The song he plays is jaunty, and she nods her head to the beat and hums along as she starts to catch on to the tune.

"Does it have words?" She asks him, and he begins to sing. The song is about his own grandfather and namesake, the hero Sigurd who slayed a dragon.

*.*.*

Ivar watches them, expression gloomy as he sees Rowan showing interest in his brother's passion. A muscle twitches in his jaw when she starts to try and sing along. He hasn't heard her sing since the nightmarish voyage from England, when the sound of her voice had been a lifeline he had clung to amidst the waves. He wants to reach into her throat, take that sound before it can pass her lips, put it in a jar and bury it in a hole where only he can ever find it.

Ubbe has been watching him, watching them since they stepped through the door, but he can't bring himself to care what his older brother thinks of his inability to take his eyes off of his little person.

"Be careful of her, brother." Ubbe murmurs to Ivar so that only they can hear. Ivar rolls his head to look at him with exasperation. "She's in Lagertha's control now. She will not choose you over a family and safety."

"Like Margrethe?" Ivar shoots back. Ubbe winces, the blow hitting its mark with deadly accuracy. "Rowan is nothing like that slave."

"What is she like?"

Ivar turns back to the girl in question. Sigurd is trying to convince her to try the Viking style of singing from the throat.

"I can't make that sound." She protests. Her wide, full lips are parted in laughter. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes bright.

"She is…" Ivar pauses. "Not afraid." He finishes.

The first time he saw her she had been. He'd seen fear her eyes before she'd turned tail and run, but not because of his legs. Over the years, he'd become an expert at seeing the revulsion that people tried to hide when they saw him. That look has been completely absent from Rowan, even when she saw his bare legs earlier.

This is what Ubbe doesn't understand. He's only seen her soft English eyes, he doesn't realize that her bones are made of Viking iron.

When Ivar has been angry and raged, she never cowers or tries to placate him. She refuses to lower her expectations of him because he's a cripple. She treats him as if he were a normal man.

Ivar doesn't want her to see him as a normal man, he wants her to see him as a special man. Her man. But after the incident earlier, he has to accept that she never will.

At first, he'd been confused by the way she would freely touch him, and then immediately become cold or upset when he tried to take it further. Now he understands, his worst fears confirmed.

He'd fucked up that last night together in Wessex. Even if his prick had worked, he'd apparently been such a horrible lover that, now, she doesn't even want to speak of it. He failed with her just as surely as he'd failed with Margrethe.

Only this is Rowan, who makes him laugh and confused and thoughtful. And he is pathetic and desperate enough for her company that he's willing to let go of the memories of the scent of her hair and the warmth of her body if it means he can be near her, see her smile, talk to her, and hear her tease him.

When she touches him, it must be out of a sisterly affection. She had told him once that she had an older brother. Only with what she told him of her memories, he realizes that this brother is likely lost to her. If that is what she needs from him, a brother, he will become that. Ivar is the youngest of five boys, and he tells himself that he likes the idea of a younger sister, that it will be enough, that his heart doesn't hurt.

Ubbe brings Ivar out of his thoughts with more of his cynical nonsense.

"I only want to know what she wants from you, Ivar."

What does his brother know of the relationship between him and Rowan? He's certainly never been friends with a woman. Of course he would immediately assume that she is some sort of social-climber, trying to use the poor crippled prince to advance her station in life.

"Is it so hard to believe that she wants to be my friend because she likes me?" Ivar asks.

Ubbe looks briefly ashamed, but Ivar waves away any attempt to retract his words. They both know that's exactly what he meant.

"Ivar." Rowan's voice breaks through into their discussion. "You saw Odin?"

He surmises that Sigurd has been trying to impress her. He looks distinctly annoyed that she isn't fawning with admiration at the tale of their visits from Odin.

"He came to tell us of father's death." Ivar explains.

She raises an eyebrow skeptically. "Did he tell you about the pit of snakes?" Her tone is sarcastic, her comment meant to be offhand, but her words send a shock through the brothers.

Ubbe rises to stand over her, nearly shaking with pent-up anger. "How did you know about that? Who are you?"

Vargdropi – "Son of an outlaw"

Skegglausi – "Beardless"

We have an Ivar POV! I've always had plans to have bits here and there with other characters' POV, but this sort of snuck up on me. It just seemed like the perfect point to start getting a look into his thoughts/feelings.

Question 1: What do you think will happen with Rowan's little slip-up?

Question 2: How easy/difficult will it be for Rowan to balance maintaining relationships with both Ivar and the brothers, and Torvi and her side?"