Pairing | Ivar x OC
Info | Viking Age AU
⁑ Warnings: NSFW, heavy ANGST, SMUT included, cursing, mentions of murder, blood, violence, crimes, torture, slavery, death. Caution is recommended: the following content may be triggering.
⁑ Warnings: Mentions of sickness, death. The following content may be triggering! Caution is recommended.
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"Do you think you can take care of this for me, boy? I'm tired. And I'm sure you can deal with these foreigners while I take some rest, right?"
Ivar smiled with a gentle nod towards the old king in front of him. The time had brought some visible wrinkles to his friend's face and the war, some new scars Brynjar was proud of carrying around as a good memory of the battles the two of them had fought together.
With Ivar's mind by his side, it wasn't hard to face the rebel Earls and in a matter of two years from Udir's death, the kingdom was again under his control with the enemies whether defeated or surrendered to the power of his crown once again.
Then, it came the time to replace and restore. Ivar had helped Brynjar to choose among his best men the ones who could replace the Earls and restore the balance in between his earldoms and the crown. With his new counselor, Brynjar went around his kingdom, reinforcing oaths of loyalty, taking note of the earldoms' needs, proceeding with empowering the new Earls, and unifying the whole land under a single law.
With Ivar's knowledge of his father's ways to rule mixed with Brynjar's experience, they were able to resettle the market routs and centers, making the kingdom prosper, allowing the crown to reduce the impact of the taxes over the Earls, giving them more room to offer a better life to their peasants.
At the count of eight years, the whole kingdom was able to survive completely from itself and the raids became unnecessary - something Ivar knew his father would be happy to see: people who could farm in their rich soil and survive without the need of invading and plundering. Boring for him - whose spirit was of a warrior locked in a disabled body, but full of thirst for battles and new lads - but something he knew was the goal of every civilization: the self-sustainability.
However, Brynjar wasn't young when Ivar first came to know him. And while the younger was reaching its thirty, the second was already weakened by the age. Brynjar's voice had become hoarser and lower past the last months and he was coughing, almost all the time too tired, and always leaving the competences of the crown under Ivar's hands.
Sometimes Ivar was sure Brynjar wasn't this tired as he was saying. He was sure the friend could take care of whatever was the subject - like those foreigner sellers that were knocking on their market's door. - but Brynjar would choose to leave the matters in Ivar's hands, almost as if he was testing his perspicacity and ability to reign. Yet, Ivar couldn't deny the old man was older.
And maybe it was time for him to retire.
Although Ivar still had his burning desire to come back to his lands and recover Kattegat from Oleg - whose hands he knew were still over his father's legacy, despite the gods had cursed the bastard by striking Katya's womb and denying them the heir she was carrying when he left along with her chances to bear him another. - there was Brynjar and everything he had built within those lands.
