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The worst part of being a walking cripple was to have to endure the need to be in the goodwill of the only other cripple you knew that could walk as well.
"Ow!" Your fingers deepen in strokes upon the bird whose claws hollow the glove you wear. The blacksmith recoils from your nasty cry in the back of the royal quarters. Your earrings jingle as you shake your head to rid yourself of the sting that came from the blacksmith's clanging. Your friend rears his head from his goblet of ale to your seat, grinding tooth together.
"What are you doing to her?" Ivar seethes. "She is screaming."
"It is too tight on her legs, King Ivar. It is restricting movement." He rumbles. "I was only adjusting them for improvement."
Ivar droves off of his chair, dragging himself along the floor toward you. He sits himself up, dragging the leather strap of his bound legs directly in front.
"If her legs come out of that injured, you'll answer to me, hm?" Ivar resounds with his war pick, flipping the blade at the blacksmith to reassure the man without question what will become of him.
"Uh– of course, of course, my king. I will take these for repairs" He slips the braces off of your legs again, pulling the heavy straps of metal onto his arms as he stands. It doesn't escape Ivar's notice that you quickly chuck your dress over your notched legs to shield them from your view. Mangled legs, he reminds himself.
"Goodman," Ivar replies with sycophantic smoothness as the man makes himself scarce from the room. You sit with your hands in your lap, one on top of another. Your lips have gone flat, calming your strokes across the bird. "Goodman... (Y/N)?"
"Yes?" You look toward the silken straps that bind your legs down. You need to bind them to be able to return home, this time on your forearms. The spirit of relaxation that you previously had with Ivar seems to have eviscerated in exchange for a tense and wary background.
"I did not mean what I said of your legs. And the prince. I was led by anger." He reaches out to set his hand upon your knee.
"Rorik?" You say, leading him on to say the prince's name. Ivar much rather eat his words than say the ruddy-haired prince that came with strange Persian, Swede and dark-skinned thralls. Yet if he had to in order to repair this relationship, he would.
"Rorik of Novgorod." His thumb strokes your kneecap through your warm dress. Then, bouncing off your knee, he looks to you. "Sigrunn told me you saw him in the waters the other day. You enjoy his company, don't you?"
"More than anything." You answer too quickly. Enough that his face drops completely at your assertion. They are too soon, too raw. He clenches his jaw to avoid a raw reaction, tightening his grip upon your knee. He's about to blow again, you know. In order to curb his brash reaction, your hands drop down to his gloved fingers. His Viking skin is calloused– reflecting the days of his childhood and those of being truly Viking. The first touch that you had given him since the wedding and so he'll take it.
