King Ivar spends much of his time with his infertile first wife: neglecting his second wife, the mother of his children, a Freyjasdottir. Eventually, it catches up to him when a foreign King Sverri invades his lands.
tw: abuse, character death, etc.
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Bodies stack on a pyre. At first glance, it might have seemed like one or two wooden and straw stacks-- but there are more speckled with odd purplish bruising underneath pale skin. They were stacked together for burning, some with flower crowns and others with nothing but pendants for their trip to the gods. In the middle of a the mess, Ivar took up a torch with Kitta by his side. Naturally king and queen should be the ones to see these ones off. He shoves you back from the plagued bodies towards your line of thralls, Ragnhild absent.
"You should not be out here." He tells you. "Don't go see her. Go inside."
To some extent, you walk away from Kitta whose hand is interwoven in little Uxi's. He calls your name as Kitta holds him in place by her side, dipping down to hush him. Since this dark plague shaded Kattegat, you hadn't been around for little Uxi much. Both because Ivar wanted you to keep yourself away in your room while brewing his newest heir... but also because there was someone special that needed you without Ivar's knowledge--
You came into the Great Hall where Ivar keeps many of those diseased to care after. Better to quarantine the plague rather than let it run across the land, he meant to snuff it out-- with out without deaths.
"How is she doing?" You ask a healer.
The older woman turns her head to a bed upon the ground with your own silvery furs. Below those furs-- a slight girl who has just come to the intended age of being a woman lays. She was your young thrall, unmoving under the furs. Ragnhild heard question everyday and as you come to her side to press a meager cloth against her forehead, her eyes are open. Wide... but not looking. She just seems to exist in this space of consciousness while you tend to her care. Even with the other thralls around, your heart pangs to see her wretching sticky coughs or boiling hot skin under your touch.
"Chilly–" She coughs to the side, sure to avoid you to the best of her abilities. Ragnhild is a good thrall. Even now, she seems more concerned with sickening you than herself. You reach out to stroke your fingers through Ragnhild's knotty brown hair, loosening the ties of strand to strand.
"You have a fever." You mumble, glancing up to a thrall who brings you a wooden bowl water to clean your hands with.
"You shouldn't be here, my Lady." Ragnhild says. "For the baby."
You've heard that before.
Ragnhild is getting better— by and by, but you had ran out luck with Kitta. If you've run our of time with Kitta, you know that Ivar is close behind. He had been... unpleased. He found lies in your words that you felt no fondness for whatever brother had taken your virginity. But perhaps, as you promised, it wasn't Hvitserk. His other brothers were far away; Bjorn a King and Ubbe underneath him. The dinner table is silent. More so with Ivar catching the rumours spreading of your visits to Ragnhild while with his child. His mind is brewing.
