yvorine

[yvorine]

Ghosts.

ivar is haunted by one particular ghost of his past.

word count: 978

a/n: this is a take on the meeting between ivar and katya, written from her perspective

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There is a ghost in your bed.

You’ve been haunted by ghosts since you were a kid. Mostly they were harmless – just powerful memories that cling for a while before fading away. Usually, they needed triggers. The sight of a butter knife will always commence a macabre little scene at the corner of your eye, replaying the time your father stabbed your uncle in the throat when you were twelve. Sometimes, the place itself was the anchor. Your grandfather’s ghost still haunts the eastern tower where he was locked up in his mad years.

This one is new. You don’t know which one it’s supposed to be. You don’t know anyone who would dare share your bed.

Or maybe you do. It appeared upon your arrival in Kiev, after all. Who but your future husband, Oleg of Novgorod, would haunt you before either of you were even dead? They said he killed his last wife. Supposedly, she betrayed him, but there were numerous other stories to point out that he doesn’t necessarily need a very good reason to kill someone.

Maybe it’s your fear manifesting into a weight in the bed, a form in your back. Maybe it’s your fear squeezing your neck so tight that your screams are stuck in your throat. There were nights when you think you had died too, but then you wake again to the faint sun rising outside the window.

You tuck that fear away like creases on your dress before you leave your suite. Oleg would take your fears and laugh as he played with them, so he must never see them. You didn’t want to be his slave, his trophy wife. You wanted to stand beside him without flinching at the shadows he cast.

Still, nothing could’ve hid your reaction to the Viking king he’d been keeping in his court – a stutter of your heart, a moment of blankness in your head – though your smile didn’t waver. Your smile was beaten into you from birth. It would be there when you were a corpse.

It’s you. You’re the ghost. It’s you.

You’ve heard of him, this famed commander of the Great Heathen Army. He’d fought his brothers and even became king of Kattegat, for a time. Routed out he may have been, but it was an incredible achievement for someone so young and...burdened.

“King Ivar.” You taste his name on your mouth and it is like blood on your tongue.  

How he stared so. You would think he was the one who’d seen a ghost. He didn’t even try to hide it.

Oleg didn’t remark on it much, though he was hard-pressed to miss it. You didn’t think your own subtle reaction evaded him either. He was like a snake. It was his moments of quiet that were dangerous.

You shower the little boy Igor your attention instead. He was an adorable thing, though you feared for him too. You feared what would happen to him when you get with child. Then again, you might be dead before you even get to that point.

You shouldn’t think such things. You’ve been raised around men like Oleg. You will survive him like you’ve survived your family.

But you had to deal with the problem that was Ivar. You knew it wouldn’t be difficult to find him – there was a conversation on his chest bursting to get out. All you had to do was give him the chance.

Outside the castle, it took very little time you spot him among the stalls. Your maids were barely out of sight before he approached you. You studied him. It was clear it was not a title that made him formidable, it was the power woven in his being, a kind of aura that one either had or never will. You could see how people would follow him despite his condition.

“Princess.” You brace yourself against the sound of his voice, crushing the desire to run far away before something terrible happened, crushing the desire to lean into the uncertain waver of a buried apology. “I’ve been waiting for the opportunity to talk to you privately.”

You turned and held your smile, open to hear him.

“Surely you know why I need to talk to you.” You hold your ground, letting him set the pieces. “Oleg is playing games with me.”

There was your opening. “And why do you say so, Ivar the Boneless?”

“You are Freydis,” he said with conviction.

“Freydis.” The name meant nothing, and yet it settled like a cold hand on the base of your spine. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.” He came forward, as if caught by emotion. “But it is true that you and I were once married.”

The weight on the bed. The figure on your back.

“Were we really?” He was standing so close you could see that his eyes glowed blue. Was this magic at work? Deep down, a part of you regretted wanting to know, but it was too late now. “What happened to us?”

His brows furrowed. His eyes turned away, and you knew.

The hand on your neck. The scream in your throat.

The blood in your mouth whenever you spoke his name.

The answer to the question was plain on his face. Maybe he loved her. They said Oleg loved his wife too. Still, men never seemed to have any qualms killing their wives. It didn’t matter if it hurt them after.

The weight lifted from your chest, knowing you were not being haunted. Ivar was not your ghost. You were his. A grimmer side of you managed a smile before you walked away. You could feel his gaze at your back for a very long time, keeping you anchored together.

Do I haunt you, Ivar? I hope I do.

I hope I give your wife some satisfaction in the afterlife.

a/n: my new stuff are over here: