Engendered
Genre: Pain and grief
Story Type: One-shot
Rating: M+18
Summary: Lagertha’s grief causes her to make a decision that may change things forever.
A/N: I know it’s been a minute since I’ve posted anything. Truth is, I’ve hated everything I’ve done lately. But, I had a dream about this and just decided to write it. For some reason, I find writing internal conflict to be so much easier than fluff.
As always thanks to @xbellaxcarolinax for being my beta reader.
Engendered
en·gen·dered / ənˈjendər·ed / - verb; (of a father) beget (offspring).
“Be careful, Shieldmaiden Lagertha, Once Queen of Kattegat. Wishes granted by the gods are not always what we, in Midgard, seek.”
When the Seer had spoken those words all those many years ago, she had thought the old man crazy. Truth be told, the entire village thought him crazy, but none would admit it. He, with his blackened lips, fleshed-out eyes, and collection of potions and poultices that cluttered the small hut in the side of the hill that could scarcely be called a home. This hovel, with its animal bones hanging from the scaffolding like ornaments was hardly a dwelling fit for a pig, yet they had always flocked there to see him.
She was no different from the rest of those who sought his visions. She needed him to tell her what the gods had in store, no matter the cost. The Seer’s readings were often so cryptic, they hardly could pass as law. Other than pondering the true meaning behind his words the price to pay for his company was relatively small.
What harm could come from licking his palm? Possibly the same harm that could come from enacting a ritual for the goddess many years past?
Lagertha should have known better than to be so trusting, especially when galdr was involved. Nothing good had ever come from witchcraft, even if it was blessed by Freya, herself. She hadn’t been in her right mind. She was hurting and she needed him to hurt just as much.
When the new Queen of Kattegat had her first child, a son called Ubbe, Ragnar was overjoyed, and it crushed her even more.
She remembered seeing that sparkle in his eyes when their children were born. At Bjorn’s birth, the women of Frigga who had assisted with his delivery commented how beautiful he was and was destined to be a great warrior. When Gyda arrived, Ragnar announced that the goddess, herself, would be jealous of their daughter’s beauty.
How proud both she and Ragnar had been.
Both times Lagertha had seen Ragnar’s eyes shine like the stars in Asgard. How she had looked forward to seeing that twinkle in those crystal blue eyes again with the birth of their third child.
Their son, the boy that she would call Eluf, though he would never live to hear himself be called that name, looked so much like Bjorn.
Eluf came too early.
He proved to be the one thing their union could not overcome. His death would not make Ragnar stay.
That is why she called him Eluf, if only in the confines of her heart. For he would always be her eternal heir, even if his father had forgotten the promises he made to his family.
She tried to keep their family together. Oh, how she tried. The queen of Kattegat tried to save her marriage, much like she tried to save her stillborn son. She prayed to Freya and Frigga for strength and protection. She held onto everything she loved as tightly as she possibly could, suffocating Ragnar with her love with the same strength she used to clench her thighs together to ensure her precious Eluf stayed inside of her.
But her grasp weakened and as he drew closer to Midgard, he tore her apart from the inside out.
How much like his father the boy had been.
Just as her precious son had pulled away from her, so had his father. Ragnar’s growing obsession with England made the promises of returning to the simple farm life they once shared a fantasy. How could a homestead with children ever again be enough for a man with such ambitions?
Lagertha would swear that she could feel pieces of him tearing away from her every day. It was that tenacity that forbade him from being by her side when she needed him most.
Secretly, she hated him for it.
Ragnar’s prophecy was told to him at their marriage that he would have many great sons. It was the idea of building such a home that kept them so in love and happy in their lives past. Lagertha had always assumed that she would be the bearer of those sons; the gods already blessing them with Bjorn.
Never once did she imagine that she would have to endure the heartache of seeing Ragnar’s eyes dance with such pride over his sons born to another woman.
Witnessing the birth of his first son born to a new wife was devastating, but then came another and another. With every healthy birth of Queen Aslaug, more of her died inside.
Why should this interloper take everything that was rightfully hers?
This woman, this völva, had traveled to the former queen’s home and prospered from her pain. Lagertha had loved Ragnar from the very beginning, when they had nothing, were nothing. She had encouraged him, fought with him through his rise to power - buried two of his children, all to be replaced by this ... despot?
What right did they have to be happy? What right did Aslaug’s sons have to live when her beloved Eluf did not? The gods could not possibly be this cruel.
It was her grief that made her do it - always going to the mound of earth in which her beloved Gyda and Eluf lay, desperately trying to make soft flowers grow in the frozen earth that covered their bones. No matter the strength of the frozen wind that whipped through the valley in the winter, or the smell of rotting wood from docked ships that rose from the lake in the spring, she was there, knelt at their marker whispering to her children.
Lagertha just wanted a sign - some signal that the Valkyrie had taken their souls to Odin and been permitted to enter Valhalla on the merits of their ancestors.
That’s how she knew that Freya had answered her prayers when the sedir had come to her at dusk that day. The rain had finally slowed, producing only a light drizzle and the smell of the earth was fresh. The soil that she had been running her hands over for hours, weeping and speaking to her children was soft in her hands.
The hand on her shoulder was gentle and the voice in her ear was almost a whisper. She sounded like Freya, herself. The woman told her that Gyda was safe and was now enlisted as a Valkyrie.
The witch with the voice of a goddess also told Lagertha of a way to see her son again and get revenge on those who scorned her. For so many years she had prayed for this. She had asked, no begged the gods for help in mending her broken heart and here Freya was answering her prayers.
All she had to do was open the earth and remove the blood-stained rag of Eluf’s.
She also needed to retrieve a strand of hair of Aslaug, who was again with a child, sure to be Ragnar’s fourth son with this trespasser. Once she had those items, she was to burn them in an open flame and the goddess would do the rest.
It could not have been more simple. The ground was already soft enough for digging and though it would break her heart to disturb the resting places of her babies, she would do it. If it would make the pain stop, she would do anything. Including being cordial with the queen and wishing her well on her fourth child. Sitting at the table with her and enjoying a meal, getting close enough to her to hug her and take a hair, would be easy. It would please Ragnar to see his two loves befriending each other. Lagertha could play that part.
And as the open flames grew hotter and the items were dropped inside, Lagertha closed her eyes and begged Freya to heed her prayers.
That is when Queen Aslaug doubled over in pain, knowing that this pregnancy was unlike any other she had experienced.
********
“I understand everything perfectly. I want revenge.”
She had thought she saw glimpses of familiarity in his eyes before, but it was so fleeting that she dismissed it. Since the ritual in the woods, Lagertha hardly ever thought about Ragnar and his queen or his tribe of boys. Her son, Bjorn Ironside, had proven himself a mighty warrior, and she too had grown in reputation. She had taken over Hedeby. With so much to celebrate, she hardly had time to ponder on the absent Ragnar or his drunkard wife.
Admittedly, there was a tiny bit of guilt when the youngest boy, Ivar, was born with twisted limbs. Lagertha knew how disappointed Ragnar had been knowing that he could never truly be Viking. The shame that must have put on his head. The same type of shame he should have felt for abandoning his first family.
And the pain the queen had to deal with having a child that needed so much. Lagertha was sure it hardly matched the pain that she felt at losing not one but two children by the same man that she now called husband. Let alone not having that same husband not be there for the death of either of them.
The goddess had fulfilled her promise, no matter what the Seer warned.
Yet, there was something not quite right about the fourth boy. He had a dark presence - a brooding about him. Always sheltered, but always in pain. Not just physical pain, there was a pain behind his eyes. Lagertha saw it in the few interactions she’d had with him.
It was not until that day that he slid across the floor of the Great Hall with all in attendance, while Queen Lagertha addressed her subjects, did she fully understand.
Each time his knives stabbed into the wooden floor and he slid closer to her, his eyes became clearer. She had seen those eyes before. Not Ivar’s eyes, or even Ragnar’s, but someone else’s - an acquaintanceship with something behind them.
The boy, Ivar, perched himself on a stool and glared at her with such hatred.
Eluf?
She stepped down.
Eluf?
She stepped down from her throne.
Eluf?
She stepped down from her throne and tried to speak calmly.
Eluf?
She stepped down from her throne and tried to speak calmly, placing her hand on Ivar’s shoulder as if to touch her son through him.
How was it that her son inhabited this boy’s body? Why was he speaking to her in such hateful tones? The words seeking revenge for the death of Aslaug were not Ivar’s, they were Eluf’s. She could tell by the cold, dead tone behind his eyes.
She had seen it before. The quick flashes she thought she recognized between the vibrant deep blue of Ivar’s, to the murky pools buried deep within. Had those been the eyes of Eluf staring at her all that time?
Surely, her baby boy wasn’t telling her that he wanted to kill her?
But he was. He did all the time.
Eluf, her sweet baby, who never drew his own breath, breathed deeply through Ivar Ragnarsson. He wreaked havoc wherever he went. He was masterful and spiteful. He was brilliant and cruel. He was beautiful and destructive.
Eluf brought about pain and death.
This was not what the goddess promised. This was not what was supposed to happen. Ragnar was supposed to suffer the way that she suffered, she had not meant to suffer the whole world. Never did Lagertha mean to raise her boy from his peaceful death and reanimate him into the destroyer of Kattegat.
Watching the flames lick the rooftops of the home just outside of the center of Kattegat, Lagertha could smell the rotting stench of the dead lying in the street, mixed with the burning tar and charred remains of her fellow countrymen. She thought back to how the Seer had warned her.
Was that truly Freya that had spoken to her years ago, or Loki? What right did she have to ask the gods for revenge? She should have not interfered; just let them do their work with Ragnar’s fate.
All of this was her fault. All of this death was her fault.
And to know that she would meet her death at the hands of one of his sons. But which one: Bjorn, Ubbe, Hvitserk, Ivar or Eluf?
Oh Odin, what had she done?
******
“You are a god.”
Legs dangling off of the back of the cart, Ivar watched as Kattegat grew smaller in the distance.
The inexplicable anger in him had been sated for now. That inner voice, the one that made his heart pump faster and his jaw clench seemed to be at peace. He could rest; if only for a moment, he could rest.
He knew this would not be the last time he saw his home, just like he knew no one would ever doubt him again.
Maybe this time, with the voice silenced he could find happiness. He thought he had found it with Freydis, but the voice grew louder than her most days. In the end, the voice was right. She was just like the rest, an obstacle in his way to greatness. She needed to be quieted.
She had been right about one thing, he was a god. Not in the traditional sense, he now understood that. He had been engendered by the gods. Created by the seed of his father, in the womb of his mother and fused with Hel’s knowledge provided by his brother.
He would go on to do many great things. Kattegat was just the beginning.
The world would never forget Ivar the Boneless.
His brother would always ensure that he would be ruthless.
Fin.
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