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"If you're Alfild then why aren't you wearing her warpaint?" Sigurd spoke up.
This made Alfild chuckle to herself, her smile illuminating the clearing with beauty. "Do explain, dear Sigurd, what the purpose of wearing warpaint would be on a simple stroll through the woods. If you wish to battle, please allow me a moment to go and prepare my warpaint."
Her sarcastic response to his older brother made a smirk crawl onto Ivar's lips.
"How do you know who we are?" Ubbe questioned.
To this, Alfild gave a small shrug eerily similar to one that the ragnarssons had witnessed Ivar give many tines before. "Well, how could I not recognize Ivar The Boneless. And the rest was just simple deduction."
"I could have been any old cripple. That isn't enough evidence." Ivar stated, with a confrontational tone. Though, that was Ivar's tone in most conversations so one could never quite tell.
Again, Alfild smiled. "I didn't recognize you because of your legs, Ivar. I've heard many stories of you since I was a small girl."
"Funny." Ubbe interjected. "We were thinking the same thing of you."
Alfild gave a fake gasp, "Ubbe, you were a small girl?"
At this, the other brothers laughed, before all of them decided to make their way back to Kattegat. On their way back, the brothers continued to stare at Alfild as she walked alongside Ivar's crawling frame.
He glanced up at her constantly, his ocean eyes peering into her emerald green ones. She noticed, of course. A smug grin slowly creeping onto her lips.
"I heard you killed a child when you were six." She broke the silence.
Ivar nodded at the gruesome memory. Though it had been the first in many future killings, Ivar never found the memory particularly pleasant. Perhaps it was because of how the other child had tormented him beforehand. Perhaps it was just because the memory reminded him of how people treated him in general.
"I always used to listen to that story from the older women when I was a slave." She spoke again, this time making Ivar's head shoot up. The idea that she enjoyed listening to that story shocked him slightly. In fact, the idea she'd ever even heard of him shocked Ivar.
"You used to listen to stories about me?" He asked, genuine curiosity soaking his voice.
She gave a small shrug, her emerald eyes sparkling in the sunlight, "I liked rooting for you. It's actually your story that inspired me to kill the girl that tormented me."
This made Ivar beam, even if only momentarily. The girl he and his brothers had almost idolized for most of their youths was inspired by him. Not Ragnar. Not Bjorn. Him. Of course, Ivar didn't tell the girl that he'd almost obsessively listened to tales about her as a child. Instead, he remained silent and soaked up all the glee that came with hearing her talking about him.
Though she could've been talking to any of the ragnarssons, Alfild decided she wished to talk to Ivar. She'd heard stories of all of them growing up, they were the sons of Ragnar after all. But Alfild had always admired the way Ivar fought past the cruelty that came with being crippled.
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