Displaced

Chapter 13

He was going to fall.

Sigurd held on tightly to the edges of the stool where Ivar had placed him, and looked down nervously at the ground. It was too far away, and he tried not to think about the damage that he might do to Ivar's body if he were to topple from the seat. Reflexively, he gripped the sides of the stool a little harder.

The tips of his toes barely brushed the ground, and that added to the discomfort, leaving him feeling unbalanced. There was no backrest or arms on the chair for him to lean against, only a flat piece of wood to sit on, and he couldn't use his legs to steady himself. Normally, it wouldn't be a problem, but in Ivar's body, he felt unsafe, afraid even to move for fear that he might unbalance himself and topple headfirst to the ground.

He took a deep breath and tried not to let the panic show on his face. His legs, dangling uselessly in front of him, felt uncomfortable, verging on painful, and he wondered how Ivar, who was far more accustomed to this body, could possibly have thought this was a good idea.

"What?" Ivar asked.

Apparently, he hadn't been quite as successful at hiding his feelings as he had hoped. He shook his head. "Nothing," he said, then wondered why he had lied. After all, he needed to get down, and to do that he would need a good reason. 'I am probably going to break a few of your bones when I fall' sounded like a good reason to him.

On the other hand, Ivar wouldn't have put him up there if he thought he was going to injure himself, which meant that Ivar probably wouldn't have a problem sitting up there, and that it was Sigurd who was the coward. "It's just..." he began, trying to think of a way to express that he didn't want to be up there without actually saying it, "Wouldn't a chair be better?"

Ivar frowned as though he was trying to figure out what could have prompted Sigurd to ask that, then shook his head. "No. Why?"

"Because it would be lower." The stool was only slightly higher than some of the chairs that Ivar had spent the past hour or two teaching him to get in and out of, but that short distance made a big difference. For a start, Ivar hadn't even bothered to try to teach him how to get up there by himself. Instead, he had, with Sigurd's help, lifted him up there and placed him on the high perch. "And it would have a back to lean against," he added. "And maybe arms."

Ivar gave him a look caught somewhere between amusement and pity; one designed to tell the recipient that he was being stupid, and that it fell to Ivar to point out the obvious. He shook his head, smirking just slightly. "Do you not think that perhaps armrests might get in the way when you are trying to swing a sword, hm?"

Ivar was right of course, but the truth was, he would be far more comfortable not swinging a sword. He had only agreed to this in exchange for Ivar teaching him how to get around, and now, it was beginning to feel like a very bad deal. It had been in Ivar's best interests to help him, so that Sigurd did not embarrass him with his inability to do things for himself.

"Maybe you should just practise by yourself," Sigurd suggested. "I can watch and give you advice if you want, but I don't think that fighting me like this will give you any kind of feel for what it is like to fight while standing. You would be better off fighting Hvitserk or Ubbe."

"Both of whom believe that I am you," Ivar reminded him unnecessarily. "They would be expecting me to fight like you, and to be far more experienced at this style of fighting than I am. You are just as unsure as me; that puts us on equal footing."

Sigurd felt himself almost flinch at Ivar's choice of words. "That is not funny," he told him.

"What isn...?" Ivar began, and then rolled his eyes as he realised what Sigurd had heard. "That was not what I meant," he told him.