Displaced

Chapter 16

Ivar raised his arms above his head and stretched luxuriously, arching his back as he stretched and flexed every muscle from his fingertips down to the tips of his toes. It felt wonderful, and for a moment he was struck by a confusion as he noted the complete absence of pain.

It took him a moment for his brain to fully emerge from the fog of sleep, and for him to realise why. He hadn't forgotten, not really. He remembered that he was trapped inside his brother's body, but the full implications of that still surprised him from time to time, most often in the moments after he first woke.

The time it took for him to remember was getting shorter each day though, and he wondered vaguely, in the back of his mind, how many more mornings it would take for him not to need to remember, for him not to even be surprised by the absence of pain, but to simply take it for granted.

He wondered, too, whether Sigurd had had the same thought but in reverse.

With a sigh, he stretched one more time, then threw off the furs that had kept him warm during the night, kicked off the blanket that had inexplicably wrapped itself around his legs as he slept, then climbed out of bed. He dressed quickly, and headed out to face however much of the day he hadn't slept away.

The house was quiet; not the quiet that he found in the middle of the night, but a different kind. He could hear two servants talking quietly in another room as they went about their work, and sounds from outside the house entered through the walls. The door to his own -- currently Sigurd's -- room was closed, and instead of the quiet music that he could sometimes hear beyond the door, there was nothing but silence. He was tempted to open the door and look inside, but he resisted the urge. If his brother had managed to fall asleep after they had talked the night before, Ivar did not want to be the one to wake him and force him back to harsh reality.

The room that Ubbe and Hvitserk shared was empty, the door left hanging open. As he passed the door to his mother's room, the room that, once upon a time, the whole family had shared, he caught a glimpse of her sitting in a chair alone. She appeared relaxed, holding a short drinking horn in her hand.

As he saw her, a pang of loneliness gripped him tightly. It felt like far too long since he had spoken to his mother in anything but the briefest way, and he missed it. He missed her. He missed the way that she would smile at him, and the affection in her gentle touch as she would brush his hair back off his face when it grew a little too long, to get a better look at his eyes. Although her protectiveness could drive him a little crazy at times, his mother had always made him feel safe, and loved, and important in a way that nobody else could.

He missed her, even though she was right there. He hated that the face and the body that he was being forced to wear separated them. The things that Sigurd had said the night before; the casual way that he had challenged Ivar to try to speak to her and see the indifference in her eyes, had served as a reminder of what his switch with Sigurd might have cost him.

He knew that he was her favourite. He had figured that much out from an early age. Even as a young chile it had been obvious to him that she did not treat him and his brothers in the same way. Sigurd had probably been right; if he went to tell their mother that Ivar had done something wrong, she would not believe him. Even if she did consider that he might be telling the truth, a few reassuring words and a smile from Ivar would help her to realise that it was all a lie.

But just because he was right about that, didn't mean that he was right about everything.

He could have exaggerated things in his mind; taken the reality — that their mother had a favourite chile and that it was not him — and added to it to make himself a victim, to give himself a justification for the way that he treated his younger brother. After all, Ivar had never heard Ubbe or Hvitserk complain. Instead, they had always revelled in the freedom that she had given to them, while Ivar had been forced to look on jealously as they rushed off together to explore the city, or the woods.