Vikings Imagines

Captive: Part 3

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Long time, no talk. We're just pretending that the last episode didn't happen, and everything was resolved for the sake of the story. Ok love you, happy reading.

It had been almost four years since I had seen Ivar's face, nearly three years since I had last heard his name spoken aloud. Four years felt like a lifetime after I left the fortress at York, everything moving like it was in slow motion. After I was taken back by my father and Alfred, I was escorted to the King's villa, a shell of who I once was. All I knew was agony those first few weeks. Every dream was haunted by Ivar's piercing blue eyes, the timbre of his laugh, the lilt of his voice, I both craved and dreaded sleep. Every time I closed my eyes he was there, his face glowing in the light of the fire. Beautiful glimpses of his breathtaking smile, a smile that he only let me see. All I had left was my dreams. My heart was shattered in his absence.

I left York in a fit of anger, feeling as unhinged as I ever have. The tears I shed were both in agony and fury. How could he let me go? How could he fold so easily? What happened to Ivar The Boneless, terror of England? He and I had fallen in love and he allowed his enemies to take me so freely. Alfred's men that had the duty of escorting me avoided my gaze as I wailed, clutching my chest and calling for my lost lover. I mourned him as I left him, sure I would never see him again. How could I? In my father's clutches once again I was under constant supervision, under guard everywhere I went. There was never a moment that there weren't eyes on me. My father feigned his concern as safety and security after I had been captured once already, but we both knew he knew the unspoken truth. He watched me as I crumbled into myself for weeks, thinly veiled disgust smeared across his face as he scowled, unable to speak the words we both knew were true. Maybe he hadn't known who exactly, but that did not matter. Unwed and in a camp of Northmen, the rumors had already begun to swirl even before my return. He knew yet he dared not ask, for if he asked it would become real and he would have to live with the knowledge that his daughter had lived in sin amongst the heathens. What value would I be to him then? So he carried on, content to keep me contained in my chambers until I could hide my sorrows.

When word came that Ivar left England the rest of my heart shattered to dust and drifted away with the cruel winter winds. It was then that I had come to realize I would truly have to move on. Hope had been abandoned. All the daydreams of spiriting away in the night to find him were gone. Why hadn't I gone tried I had the chance? I no longer had the choice to wait for him, I had to abandon him as he had abandoned me. My sorrow was amplified, but the deception and betrayal began to edge it out, replacing it with a hollow ache. I couldn't have meant to him what he meant to me. There is no way I could have. Ivar has massacred entire armies for less. How could he let his enemy take someone he loved and simply resign to going home? He wouldn't. I let my own heart betray me, I believed that he could feel what I felt. The anger consumed me, and yet, I still ached for him. He still came to me in my dreams.

I slowly began to heal as the months trudged along. The tears slowed, my heart was still splintered but the pain was subsiding day by day. I had begun to learn how to live without the person I craved most, a calm resolve washing over me as I accepted the truth of my unrequited love. Sometimes his absence loomed over me, but I took comfort in the memories rather than curse them as time moved on.

Before I knew it, four years had passed and I felt mostly healed. I would never be able to give myself wholly to another, but I was able to toy with the thought of marrying and starting anew without feeling like I was drowning. Ivar's shadow would always be looming in the halls of my heart, the glimmer of what once was. He would haunt me as long as I lived. This I knew.

Deals were made with the remaining Norsemen settled at York to preserve Wessex as it stood in its lonesome, the rest of England had fallen captive to the Norse and Danes. Alfred was maintaining the peace the best he knew how to protect his people as he saw fit in the face of the Vikings. He maintained the peace as it were, able to keep Wessex in the hands of its King. Time moved on. The world moved forward. I moved forward. Mostly.