Displaced

Chapter 2

This was bad.

This was monumentally bad.

Until this moment, Ivar had been just about able to convince himself that he was wrong, and that the impossible thing that he was experiencing was not real. Now, he found himself looking at another person wearing his body, and his face, somebody else looking back at him from behind his own eyes, and he could no longer do that.

Now, he knew that the only way that he could be seeing what he was seeing, was that he had gone mad. Well, that, or the impossible, unthinkable thing was true.

He hoped for madness. At least madness, he could understand.

The person sitting not far away from him, was unmistakably himself, or rather was unmistakably wearing his body. He recognised his clothes first, and the buckle-on leather gloves that he wore to support his wrists and protect his hands. They were unique, made specially for him, as was the strap that he wore around his legs to tether them together

The cut and colour of his hair were also recognisable, somewhat, but his face less so. After all, he did not spend long amounts of time looking at his reflection in polished metal. What would be the point? But he had seen his face, and despite the fact that it was being worn by somebody else, he did recognise it as his own.

A wave of disorientation washed over him, and he wanted to look away but he refused to give in to the urge. It was partly stubbornness, and partly a horrified fascination. Sigurd -- because it had to be Sigurd in there, nobody else would have called out to Ubbe and Hvitserk for help -- remained very still, eyes closed and head shaking just slightly from side to side, as though if he could continue to deny what was happening, he could make it not true.

It appeared not to be working.

Ivar moved himself nearer. He remained close to the ground as he traveled, but did not move in his usual way, using his hands to walk and pulling his legs behind him. He couldn't. He had found already, on the short journey here, that his arms tired too quickly in this wrong body. Sigurd -- because if he was not himself, he realised that he must be Sigurd -- did not have the upper body strength to move like that.

He supposed that walking would be more practical, but he felt too uncertain on his feet to even try to stand, and so he covered the short distance between them by sitting on the ground and shuffling forward using both his arms and legs.

It occurred to him that he probably looked ridiculous, but at least nobody was watching him. Or if they were, it was Sigurd that they were seeing.

He stopped when he was right next to his brother. Sigurd did not react; he remained where he was, eyes closed and head still shaking slightly from side to side in silent denial.

"I do not think that will work," Ivar told him.

Sigurd either did not hear him, or chose to ignore him. Ivar hesitated for a moment, then reached out to touch him, hoping to jar him out of his denial, but thought better of it at the last moment and pulled back his hand.

"Sigurd?" he asked. He was reasonably sure, but he needed to be certain of who he was dealing with.

The head-shaking slowed to a stop, but his eyes remained closed. Sigurd drew in a slow, deep breath. "What?" he said.

Ivar didn't reply. He couldn't think of a single thing to say. Instead, he waited in silence until his brother finally, tentatively, cracked open an eye to look at him. He closed it again immediately

"Ivar," he said. It wasn't a question, simply a statement of fact. "No," he added, and began shaking his head again.

"That will not help," Ivar told him, for the second time. He hesitated, then added. "Believe me, I have tried."