Displaced

Chapter 19

"Hey, Ivar! Wait a minute."

The words, shouted from the door of the room, only half-registered with Sigurd as he slowly made his way through the house. It wasn't until he heard Hvitserk's quick footsteps behind him as he jogged to catch up with him that he realised his brother was talking to him and not to Ivar.

Stupid.

He hadn't forgotten of course. Unlike everybody else, he couldn't forget. He simply didn't react instinctively to hearing his brother's name in the same way that he did to his own.

Vaguely, in the back of his mind, he wondered whether he ever would. If he had to remain as Ivar for months, or even years, would he one day learn to hear 'Ivar' as his own name? He hoped not, and he didn't think that he would. Even if he could take Floki's advice and try to accept what had happened, that was very different to learning how to answer to somebody else's name.

He stopped his slow progress across the hall and turned to look at his brother.

Hvitserk slowed to a stop as he neared, then folded his arms and looked down at him. "You came back then," he said.

Sigurd frowned in confusion. "Back from where?" he asked.

"I don't know, wherever you disappeared to yesterday," Hvitserk told him. "Sigurd was looking for you, and he was really angry when he couldn't find you, but he wouldn't tell us why."

Ah. That was probably because he hadn't told him where he was going. Now he thought of it, he probably should have mentioned to Ivar what he had been planning to do. After all, he had disappeared with his brother's body, and if Ivar had done that to him, he would have been frantic too.

He probably owed Ivar an apology.

"What are you doing?" Hvitserk asked.

"I went to see Floki," he said.

Hvitserk nodded. "I meant what are you doing now?" he asked.

Right now, he wasn't doing much of anything, and definitely nothing that Hvitserk would be interested in. He had been on his way outside, but not for any real reason, he had simply wanted to be out of the house. With the exception of the day before, he had not been outside in almost a week; first the shock of the switch and exhaustion from the journey home, and more recently the pain in Ivar's legs, had kept him trapped inside. He had grown tired of looking at the walls, and it had felt good to see the sun again the day before, like reconnecting with an old friend.

"Did you hear me?" Hvitserk asked.

"Nothing," Sigurd said quickly. "I'm not doing anything. Why?"

Hvitserk nodded, then glanced away, looking past Sigurd, into the direction that he had come from. He shrugged, then looked back at Ivar. "No reason," he said. "I was just wondering."

Sigurd frowned. This was one of the strangest conversations he had had in a while, and considering everything that had happened to him in the past week, that was quite an achievement. "Well, now you know," he told him.

He started to move again, heading once again toward the door. To his consternation Hvitserk started to walk alongside him, as though he intended to go with him.

Sigurd allowed him to walk alongside him for a few steps, then stopped again and looked up at his brother. "I'm going outside," he said, hoping that giving some kind of an answer would placate his brother and he might leave him alone. Floki had given him a lot to think about, and he didn't particularly want an audience while he did it.

"Good idea," Hvitserk told him. He glanced behind Sigurd again, then scowled as though something had annoyed him, nodded twice quickly, then turned back to Sigurd. "How are you?" he asked.