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Hard raspy breathing filled his room within the Great Hall.
"What if Ivar does not go to Valhalla?" His son Reginald was beside his side, hands stroking across his withered skin. Tired but not gone, he leers at his son.
"Who are you to question the gods, coward?" Ivar says through harsh breaths. His chest was rising and falling with force of being so worked up. "You think because you are my son you can question them?"
"Father shhh." His other son Halfdan intervened.
The old man slips his head back upon the pillow, eyes scanning the room he grew up in. The same bed that his mother nursed him in and in the coming days, the same bed he would pass in.
"Father, where do you think you will go? If the gods gave you the chance?" Another son, Olaf spoke.
Ivar run his tongue against his lower lip. "I have someone to see in Hel."
Who?
"Björn, there's a disturbance outside." His mother came in from outside.
"What is it?"
"A girl." His mother answered
A girl? That hardly seemed like reason for alarm and the annoyance was evident in Björn's voice as he rose to stand. As the other brothers fell in line behind Björn, Ivar took dragged himself out. The closer he came to the heavy oak doors, he heard the jaunty tunes far more happy-go-lucky than he was used to. Music of celebration and glee.
In the middle of such a celebration, there was a girl in ravenous deep red hues. Her feet barren save thinly wrought toe rings. Something no one else but the cripple would notice. The thin white underskirt of her dress flipped up, revealing the silky skin of her legs.
"Dance! Dance!" The crowd cheered, but the girl leapt about when she caught sight of the princes.
"Play with me!" She spun out towards Sigurd and grasped him by the hand on his oud. He stumbled into the formed circle as if he were a ghost. His fingers frozen against his instrument.
But what was most striking about this girl was her insistence on dance. She was dancing alone! The realization brought Sigurd to play— and more musicians that were dragged in followed his lead.
"What is she doing?" Ubbe's gruff voice asked of Björn. His muscles were tight and focused; only failing when the girl leapt forward again, swiping Hvitserk and he of their places and into the middle.
"Dancing." Ivar grunts, lowering himself onto his forearms. His legs began to itch as she took the last of his brothers with other noblemen.
She was like a bout of sunshine on an otherwise dark day. When he thought he was forgotten as he usually was, she leapt into a roll beside him. Mimicking his frown with one that was pathetic.
