Work Text:
England
Ivar limped back into the room he shared with Sansa at the great hall in York, apparently startling her where she sat by the fire. She quickly got up and brought him a drink where he sat, helping him to unbuckle his braces and wash his face and hands. Her touch was gentle and loving, but whenever he caught sight of her face, he could tell her thoughts were far away.
“What have you done today?” he inquired of her.
“Very little,” Sansa laughed, sitting down at the table next to him. “People came to clean the room and brought me food—I’ve never had servants before.”
“They’re slaves,” Ivar corrected. The distinction seemed important to him.
“I was thinking of making myself a dress,” Sansa went on, a bit sheepishly, “but… somehow I have not started yet. What have you done?”
Ivar was only too happy to have someone to share his plans and complaints with; the city must be fortified against further attack, a system of communication set up with the warriors who were guarding the ships, plans made for raiding the surrounding countryside. Sometimes it seemed like he was the only person who had thought of these things, who saw their importance. He finally admitted that his brothers had been doing things, too, but they were things Ivar didn’t find very interesting, like taking an inventory of the grain stores and visiting the wounded warriors.
“Is there anything that I ought to be doing?” Sansa asked him, a bit worriedly. “I do not know what is expected of me.”
Ivar took her hand. “No, you may do what you like,” he assured her, which maybe wasn’t that helpful, from her expression. “Did you go out today? You should always take someone with you.”
“No, I did not go out,” Sansa told him.
Ivar had something on his mind; sometimes things took a while to get through the maze into the light. “Are you afraid to go out?” he tried, stroking her fingers. “It is good for people to see you, take Hrolf with you, just in case you get lost.”
“I suppose I am a little afraid,” Sansa allowed. “I will make sure to go out tomorrow.”
“Good.” Ivar was pleased to have solved this problem and started cutting up an apple for them. “So what were you doing in here by yourself all day?”
“Nothing, I suppose,” Sansa shrugged, taking the slice of apple he offered.
The something on his mind wriggled forward more. “Were you sleeping?”
“No, I was awake.”
“But what were you doing?” Ivar persisted.
Sansa squirmed a bit uncomfortably. “I was thinking,” she finally said.
“About what?”
“Oh, nothing. It is so unusual for me to not have chores to do,” she added brightly, in what Ivar saw as a clear attempt at distraction. “To have the leisure to spend all day thinking about nothing.”
“Were you bored?”
“No, no, I was not bored,” Sansa assured him.
“Or lonely? I am sorry to be gone so much—”
“No, I was not lonely,” Sansa promised with a smile. “I miss you, but otherwise I like to be by myself.”
“Doing nothing, thinking about nothing?” Ivar reiterated. Sansa shrugged a little. The something on his mind finally came to the forefront, and then he struggled with how to express it tactfully, which was something he didn’t usually bother with. “Sansa,” Ivar began slowly, and she looked up at him, “you are my soulmate, and whatever you are is sufficient.” She smiled warmly and squeezed his arm, and he almost decided to just stop right there. But he pressed forward anyway. “But I am just curious, whether my soulmate is really someone who has nothing in her head.”
Sansa smiled again, a slow, secret smile, almost a smirk. It was not an expression an empty-headed person would make, Ivar thought. It was too complicated, had too many layers. “Do you really want to know what I was thinking about, Ivar?” she asked him, as if he might regret learning.
“Yes,” he replied confidently. “That is why I asked, I was not just making small talk.”
She suddenly seemed hesitant again. “You might think it foolish,” she hedged.
“I can’t think of anything more foolish than nothing,” Ivar told her. “Come on, out with it, my love.”
Sansa took a deep breath. “There is a kingdom, called Alianora, where the—”
“Where is this kingdom?” Ivar interrupted. “I have not heard of it. Alianora? It does not sound English.”
Sansa gave him a look. “We will get to that,” she demurred. He preferred his questions to be answered now. “The king and all the royal family and everyone who lives in the castle are asleep, and—”
“Asleep?”
“They are under a curse,” Sansa explained, and Ivar frowned. “They will all be asleep for one hundred years—”
“They will die in their sleep,” Ivar predicted.
Sansa huffed. “No, it is part of the curse, they will be asleep for one hundred years, and then wake up just as they were. Around the—”
“How long ago did this happen?” Ivar wanted to know. He could see she did not appreciate the interruptions, but this was a very strange thing she was describing.
“I am not sure,” Sansa shrugged without concern, and Ivar rolled his eyes.
“Well, someone ought to be keeping track,” he judged. “Did it just happen? Are the hundred years almost up?”
“That part is not important,” Sansa tried to tell him, but to Ivar that was clearly wrong.
“It is very important,” he argued. “If everyone in the castle is asleep, it would be easy to go in and steal all the treasure. Unless it’s been long enough that someone else already thought of that.”
“Ah,” replied Sansa, as if he had hit on something relevant. “As part of the curse, the castle is protected by a wall of thorns. No one can get through.”
If she’d thought that would stop Ivar’s questions, she was wrong. “How high is the wall? How thick?”
“It is so high, you can just barely see the top of the tallest tower sticking out,” Sansa described. “And it is quite deep… If you try to cut through it, it will close up behind you and trap you. So it is filled with the skeletons of people who thought they were smarter than the curse,” she added pointedly.
“I would set it on fire,” Ivar proposed.
“No, that would not work,” Sansa assured him. “The thorns are magic, after all.”
Ivar thought a little longer. “If the top of the tower can be seen, it can be hit with an arrow,” he reasoned. “If it can be hit with an arrow, we can get a rope to it. If we can get a rope to it, we can build a bridge to it, over the thorns.” Sansa was shaking her head, though. “No? Why not?”
“The thorns would reach up and grab you!” she insisted. He opened his mouth again. “And you cannot dig underneath them,” she added. He looked very put out. “It is a curse, and it will find a way to stop anyone who tries to get into the castle.”
“All these things have been tried, hmm?” Ivar asked skeptically. “I would like to see it for myself. Tell me where this kingdom is.”
Sansa was not very impressed with his arrogant tone. “The kingdom is in my head,” she revealed.
Ivar blinked at her. “In your head?” he repeated.
She curled in on herself a little, picking at a spot on the table, as if she expected him to disapprove. “Yes, it is based on a story my grandmother told me,” she explained slowly, “but I have thought about it a lot, and made the story… bigger.”
“You have made it up?” Ivar checked.
“I have made up many parts,” Sansa confirmed. “We have mostly not gotten to the parts I made up, although my grandmother did not think about setting the thorns on fire.”
“Aha!” Ivar exclaimed. “So you don’t know that won’t work.”
“Of course it will not work,” Sansa insisted anyway. “It would not be a very good curse if you could just set it on fire.”
“Well, who put a curse on it?” Ivar wanted to know.
“It was the Dark Fairy,” Sansa replied, in a hushed tone. “She is very wicked and jealous and petty, but also, she has had a difficult life and many disappointments, and she does not take trouble to make nice with other people anymore.”
“That seems reasonable,” Ivar shrugged, relating. “What is a fairy?”
“In this case, a magical being of great power,” Sansa told him.
“Is she a goddess?”
“No, not that powerful,” she judged. “But much more powerful than humans.”
Ivar took a drink. “And this is all what you have made up?” he asked again.
“I have made up some about how the Dark Fairy became wicked,” Sansa clarified, “but mostly we are still on the story my grandmother told me.”
“Let’s get more comfortable,” Ivar decided, letting himself down from the chair and crawling over to the bed. He propped himself up against the headboard as Sansa brought some food over. “Tell me a part that you have made up,” he requested, eating some grapes.
Sansa took a fortifying breath. “Today I have been thinking a lot about the economy of Alianora,” she began, and Ivar choked a little.
“The economy?” he sputtered.
“Yes. The castle and everyone in it is asleep and unreachable—this was the administrative center of the kingdom,” Sansa explained. “It was also a major market for Alianora’s chief product, which was bilberries. The royal court ate a lot of bilberries, and had their own cheese-dyeing operation, because a major foreign export of Alianora was blue-dyed cheese, using bilberry skins. Well, now the royal court is not buying the bilberries and no one is producing blue cheese, so obviously that is going to have a major effect on all the farmers and merchants." She paused and took a peek at Ivar to see how he was reacting.
“Go on,” he encouraged her.
“There is a merchant named Arya Iceflower, who used to sell blue cheese across the border in another kingdom, Venetria,” Sansa continued, digging in deeper. “She got along okay for a little while selling her cheese at higher prices because everyone knew it was running out, but now she doesn’t have anymore, and she has to come up with something new to sell, in order to support her children and her sister and her sister’s children who live with her.”
“They are widows?” Ivar guessed faintly.
“Yes, their husbands were killed several years ago fighting an infestation of mountain ogres that were driven down from the Green Peaks that form part of the border between Alianora and Venetria, because the evil queen of Venetria was told by her magic mirror the mountains were a good spot to build her summer lodge--"
Sansa stopped talking abruptly and Ivar looked over at her. “I am listening,” he promised. “Though, I would rather hear about fighting ogres than the cheese economy. You should talk to Bjorn about that. He likes trading and merchants.”
“I do not usually talk to people about this,” Sansa admitted carefully.
“Why not?” Ivar asked, sincerely.
“Because it is a made-up place, and people think it is foolish to think about made-up things so much,” she spelled out.
“It is a story, and stories entertain people,” Ivar shrugged. “If you can tell yourself a story, then you will always be entertained. Again, I would go for ogres rather than cheese, but it is your story.”
Sansa smiled at him warmly. “You do not think it is… idle?”
“Well, it is hardly idle, it sounds like a lot of work,” Ivar countered. “No wonder you did not have time to go out.”
He seemed serious, but Sansa narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. “Are you making fun of me?” she wanted to know.
Ivar was startled to be so accused. “No, of course not.”
“People usually make fun of me, if they find out,” Sansa admitted.
Ivar frowned. “I suppose they are jealous,” he reasoned, “and maybe a little afraid. Because their minds are very small, and they do not understand how whole kingdoms, whole worlds, can fit inside your head.”
Sansa smiled at him. “Do you have whole kingdoms inside your head, Ivar?” she wanted to know.
“Whole worlds,” he corrected. “Worlds I have conquered many times over. I think about it, like a story, and plan and prepare, and sometimes it even helps me conquer something in real life. But mostly it helps me get through Bjorn’s boring speeches without killing anyone.” Sansa laughed. “Or when I was young and my legs ached, I would tell myself stories of the gods and heroes, and make up new stories about heroes who could use their intelligence, instead of their legs.”
“Like building a bridge over a wall of thorns?” Sansa asked knowingly.
“Well, you claim that would not work, but I think none of your heroes have tried it,” Ivar reasoned. “How does the hero overcome it in the end?”
Sansa shrugged. “After the hundred years are up, a hero comes across the thorns and begins to cut through them, because they are no longer magical,” she explained. “Everyone has forgotten about the castle and the curse at that point—”
“That is—” Ivar interrupted, then stopped himself. “Is this a part you made up?”
“No, that is the story.”
“It is stupid, then,” Ivar judged, and Sansa smiled. “No one would forget, it is only a hundred years. There are people in Kattegat whose parents were alive a hundred years ago, and told them many things about what the world was like then. They go on and on about it, you cannot stop them,” he added, rolling his eyes. “Everyone would know about the cursed castle and be waiting for when they could enter. Which is boring, the hero should find a way to overcome the curse, not just wait it out.”
“That is a good point,” Sansa allowed, “but it is not how the story goes. I suppose I could always change it.” She became very still with a thoughtful expression on her face.
Ivar let her go for a few minutes, then gently touched her knee. “I am sorry to disturb your magic,” he assured her, “but we should go to supper soon.” Already distant noises could be heard from the great hall.
Sansa got up hurriedly, rushing to brush her hair and change her dress. “It is not magic,” she told Ivar, slightly embarrassed but also pleased that he seemed to understand.
He gestured for her to return to the bed, where he could lace up her dress for her. “Your eyes were open, but you were seeing something else,” he noted. “Your body did not move, but you went somewhere else. If that is not magic, I don’t know what is.”
She smiled shyly at him. “Not a bad magic, though?” she checked. “Some people would say it was bad.”
“I suppose if you are meant to be doing other things, it is bad,” he conceded. “But if you do not have something else to do, or you can work while also telling yourself a story, what is the problem?” He pulled her close to give her a quick kiss. “My wife has whole worlds in her head,” he pointed out, pleased. “And that is far better than ‘nothing.’”
Sansa appreciated that. “Just don’t tell anyone,” she warned him quickly. She was glad she’d said something, because he looked surprised. “It is private,” she tried to explain. “They would not understand. Or, they would demand to hear a story, and then be disappointed.”
“They could not be disappointed,” Ivar insisted, “unless they are idiots.” He paused to think. “Some would be disappointed,” he revised, though it was clearly their own fault. “But alright. We will keep it private. But I want to hear sometimes,” he added, which Sansa could get behind.
“Perhaps you will tell me some of your stories also,” she suggested, buckling his braces back on.
“Perhaps. They are quite violent,” he warned.
“I am not surprised.”