Virago - Ivar The Boneless

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As the days passed, Iona didn't venture any further than her own cabin after returning to it. She didn't have any visitors but she did have Astrid waiting outside of her door at all times.

It had been quite a few days since the Ivar incident. There was evident bruising around Iona's neck but she didn't let it phase her, hoping by ignoring it, it would go away. She knew that wasn't how things worked though, only time would heal the marks on her.

Today something was afoot, Little Bear could feel something in the air. 

When she heard a tapping on the door, her eyes looked over before the door opened. Walking into the room was her mother, Largetha. "What are you doing here?" Iona asked her as her mother walked towards her before sitting opposite her at the table. 

"I think it's time we talked," she told her daughter as she placed her hands on the table. 

She didn't want to talk to her mother, she didn't want her to know a damn thing. Not now, not ever. She had missed her mother for so long, now she was here and it wasn't how she imagined it at all. 

Little Bear looked down at her mother's hands, they were empty. She knew it took a lot for her mother to come here without a weapon on show. "What do you want to talk about?" 

Largetha looked at her daughter's neck before looking her in the eye again. "What happened to you?"

"This?" Iona touched her bruising as she kept her gaze on her mother. "That's how I like it," she lied to her. She didn't want her mother's help, she didn't want her to know there were problems here in the camp. 

Her mother tried to work out the blonde in front of her. She was no longer the innocent woman she had sent away with her brother. Largetha wanted to know more about the woman Iona had become but she could see it was going to be hard. "You have grown," she told her not knowing what else to say in return to her daughter's crudeness. 

"I had to grow up quickly," Little Bear didn't want to be here with her mother right now. 

Largetha sighed, "You are the daughter of a Queen, Iona-"

"Don't call me that!" Little Bear snapped as she slapped her hand on the table. 

"You are my daughter, you are the daughter of this Queen. Not only will you respect me," Largetha got to her feet as she stared down at her blonde daughter. "You shall respect yourself. There are to be no more random men, no more bruising and no more sleeping anywhere else but here. You will follow me, do what I ask of you."

Iona's eyes narrowed as she watched her mother. She didn't speak before Largetha left the hut. 

She didn't agree with her mother's terms. She didn't usually do anything that her mother had told her couldn't. There was no way she would let her mother think she was doing as she was told though.  Iona turned to her bed, grabbing her large fur coat from it before wrapping it around her and leaving the small cabin she'd been kept in for so long. 

"If it isn't my future bride!" The voice surprised Iona. 

Turning around she saw Hvitserk, she smiled widely before he ran to him. Honestly, she felt like he was the only one who understood her sometimes. Wrapping her arms around him she held him tightly, she didn't speak straight away only melting into him. 

"Hey," he looked down at her and shook his head to himself when he saw her eyes were closed before he rested his chin on her head giving into her for a moment. "I've missed you too."

She pulled away from him and smiled up at him, "Have you just got back?" She had so many questions for him, so much she wanted to tell him but she didn't want to bombard him. 

"Our ship just docked," he told her before he looked at her neck. His smiled dropped before she realised what he was looking it, wrapping her furs around her covering her neck, he looked back into her eyes. "I have to see my brothers," Hvitserk informed the blonde woman. "Bjorn has gone to see his mother."

Little Bear leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, "I'm glad you're home, I have missed you." She smiled at him before she walked away towards the training area in the woods leaving Hvitserk to reunite with his brothers. 

When she arrived, she found Ivar sitting on the tree stump. Her foot stood on a twig and his movements were rapid as he turned to look at her, throwing an axe in her direction. 

The axe skimmed past her ears cutting it as she didn't flinch, instead, she just stared at him. She could hear her heart beating loud in her chest, her eyes widening when she heard the axe hit the tree behind her.

"What are you doing here?" He asked her, his voice laced with poison and rage. 

She walked towards him, her right hand reaching for her ear before she looked at her fingers which were not covered in blood. "I was hoping to be alone," she crouched down and picked up an axe from the ground before looking up at him. "It seems I just can't get a break." Standing back up, she wiped her bloody fingers over her bruised neck as she looked at him. "Tell me, Ivar," she held the axe at her side. "Do you like what you see? Do you like hurting me?"

Ivar's fists tightened, the anger sizzling through him. His eyes trailed over the blood and bruises on the throat of Iona. When he attacked her yesterday, all he could see was her mother. She was the best substitute at the time, he would deal with Largetha in his own way, soon. "Leave," his request was short and simple. He spoke in a calm manner as he told her what to do. 

Second chances didn't happen every day. Little Bear turned away from Ivar, she walked away hoping that like her own mother, Ivar would not stab her in the back as she walked away.