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Well, Ivar might deserve to get a little hurt but it hadn’t actually been said with that intent but almost as if resigned to the expectation of it by Sigurd. After all, any concern had always been absent from Ivar about anyone but himself and then perhaps slightly their parents — if only a little there as well.

“You made a good showing of not wanting to kill me,” Sigurd says but all the same he accepts the water, shifting ever so slightly so he could drink it without spilling, every movement and breath was pain but his throat is parched at least that is one thing he can tend to.

Ivar shifts around a little with guilt as Sigurd talks. "If I really wanted to kill you, do you think I would have missed your heart?" Sigurd knew just how good Ivar was with his axe. He never would have unintentionally missed a target that was that close even in a blinding rage.

He really should go inform the rest of his brothers that Sigurd's finally woken up, but he's reluctant to leave. After watching over him for days, he's got a weird notion in his head that the minute he leaves, Sigurd will die without him there to watch out for him. Ivar's always been superstitious like that, a product of being raised by Floki, who was always going on about the god's favor and wrath in alternate moments.

"Not even you are perfect, Ivar," Sigurd mutters, even though he probably should know better than to poke at Ivar especially when there is such an intense pain and a strain to his breathing to remind him of the danger.

He takes another sip of water and reaches to try and set it down before settling back down with a grimace though he bites his tongue not to make a sound out of pure stubbornness.

"Where are the others?"

Normally, Sigurd's words would have been enough to get Ivar irritated, if not outright picking a fight, but he was still too distraught to think about rising to the bait. If Sigurd wanted to point out all his failings, he would let him.

"Ubbe has been in charge of keeping the army together. Bjorn was going to leave, but he wanted to see what would happen to you before he did." Just because their brother hovered near death didn't mean that they were going to halt all their plans. "Hvitserk is off on a raid to gather supplies." Causing carnage was definitely something their middle brother could easily do.

"I should go tell them you're awake." But he didn't move. There was still that superstition in his mind that the minute he left, something would happen to Sigurd. Maybe this was some last desperate rally of strength before he died.

Sigurd is surprised that anyone seemed to care at all. He doesn't say it out loud and He's sure it's not really about him but about Ivar's temper and instability. If he died would there be consequences and the like?

"Then why are you still here?" Sigurd mutters, glancing at Ivar again.

He still doesn't make any move to leave to go get the rest of the Ragnarssons. He stays right where he is by Sigurd's bedside. "Making sure you don't drop dead the minute I leave," he says simply.

Sorry, Sigurd. You now have an unwanted shadow for the foreseeable future.

Sigurd looks at Ivar in annoyance. "I'm sure that would make you so upset, Ivar."

He grumbles, really not knowing how to deal with anyone, much less Ivar, behaving this way with him.

"I would, despite what you may think," Ivar says with just a little bit of irritation. He knows he should apologize, but Ivar never admits when he's done anything wrong. Still, his actions tended to show more than his words did, so he was going to prove to Sigurd that he did in fact care for him.

Sigurd makes a disgruntled sound and makes to move to get up but just groans before he’s right back where he started. He’s just shy of saying he didn’t think they’d really care anyway and he mostly believes it — nothing past duty that Ubbe would feel.

“Go. I’m in too much pain to be dead before you get back.

Because that’s logical right?

"Alright. Don't you dare die before I get back," he warns. If he does, Ivar is finding a way to bring him back to life solely so that he can smack him in the face.

Ivar crawls out of the tent and goes off to find his brothers. He knows they'll all be relieved and happy that Sigurd has pulled through. They all care about him, even if he'd like to think otherwise.

Sigurd rolls his eyes, whether Ivar notices it or not. "you'll have only yourself to blame if I do."

The rest of Ivar's brothers seemed to have silently agreed not to bring up precisely why Ivar had tried to kill Sigurd. The important part was that he hadn't succeeded and so they seemed to have chalked it up to just another instance of their youngest brother's moods of anger-fueled insanity.

After Ivar had delivered the message that Sigurd was awake, he immediately returned back to Sigurd's side. The rest all came in during various points during the day, checking in to make sure that he actually was going to live through this, and making sure it wasn't just one last burst of energy before death took him. Ivar remained unusually silent during all this, carrying on his self-proclaimed duty as Sigurd's watchdog now.

Sigurd was sure that once the others had come through that Ivar would leave him alone. He still slept a lot, not really having much of an appetite and still in too much pain when he moved to even sit up much at all, though he'd tried when others came. Ubbe had promptly told him to stop being stupid, though.

But now it was just Ivar again and Sigurd sighed heavily. "Are you just going to stay here, really, Ivar? Don't you have anything better to do since no one else can possibly know anything but you right?"

He's bored and in pain, what else is he going to do but prod the bear.

Ivar was busy using one of his knives to scrape gunk out from under his fingernails. He removes some from under his thumbnail and then flicks what came out expertly towards Sigurd. "I don't know better than everyone. Just you."

He hadn't answered the first question because it really was very obvious that he wasn't going anywhere. He was staying with Sigurd for the foreseeable future and possibly even well beyond that. He'd made a promise to the gods to be a better brother if they let Sigurd live and he was going to live up to that.

Sigurd makes a face at Ivar’s action but there really isn’t much that he can do about that. He sighs in annoyance. It’s not as if he can walk off and get away from Ivar the way that he usually could. He is currently the one more crippled.

“now you’re just lying. You argue with Ubbe all the time when he is often the one more right than you are.”

Ivar snorts at the comparison, moving to clean out his thumbnail. He kept careful care of his hands. Without their use, he'd be helpless. "Ubbe only thinks he's right. He likes to think everyone is as good and noble as he is." He says this with a bit of contempt.

"I don't think he'll ever learn otherwise." Much as he and Sigurd butted heads, one of the things they had in common was that they saw life and people as they were, without any illusions in place.

"So, you're contradicting yourself now," Sigurd points out rolling his eyes. He let out a heavy breath.

"He could and has been right about many things just as much as you've been wrong about things only you're too stubborn to see when you've been wrong."

Ivar glares at his brother, hand straying close to where he keeps his knives. "You are really trying hard again to get stabbed, aren't you?" Whether Sigurd chooses to see as such or not, Ivar is trying to behave here.

Sigurd doesn’t miss the others movement but this point he refuses to cower either. After all all Ivar could do at this point was put him out of his misery.

“You know I’m right.”

Sigurd says instead of a direct answer.

Ivar looks furious for a moment before he childishly turns away and refuses to look at Sigurd anymore. What little patience he possesses is sorely being put to the test.

"Why do you always have to be like this?" Not that Ivar doesn't give it back as good as he gets, but neither one of them ever seem willing to give in even an inch.

Poor Ivar! Sigurd snorts at Ivar’s question, rolling his eyes. “I could ask you the same question. The answer is probably our wonderful mother and father,” the sarcasm drips off the word wonderful but the answer is what he thinks is probably true anyway.

They both like to blame everyone but themselves for who they are.

"As if you ever acted like you even wanted to be a member of this family," Ivar snaps out. He's well aware of the faults his parents both possessed, but he chooses to ignore them. Even Ragnar's abandonment had been swept under the rug the moment that he'd come back and shown the smallest scrap of affection to his youngest son. It was one of Ivar's traits, that any bit of kindness shown to him made him forget the recipient's worst traits in an instant.

"Maybe they should have considered leaving you in the woods instead of me."

“None if you ever wanted me around!” Sigurd said and his voice raised and by the end of the sentence it was strained and ended in coughing. He dropped back down with a grimace.

“Leave, Ivar. You’re making me wish I was already dead.”

"You never even put forth an effort like that's what you wanted. Ever since we were children, you just pushed everyone away, and then liked to complain about poor Sigurd, so unloved and ignored." His voice is full of contempt and anger. If only Sigurd had met him halfway at any point, they wouldn't be in the situation they are right now.

Ivar snorts at Sigurd's words. "Stop being dramatic."

“You don’t know as much as you think you do!” Sigurd really wishes he had something to throw at Ivar, namely an axe or something otherwise painful.

“Ubbe and Hvitserk has no interest in spending time with me and you were too busy sucking mother’s tit not that she’d let you actually play with anyone anyway,” he really shouldn’t bring that up again, right? Oh well.

“I only had siggy and no one even cared that she died except me. Björn barely gave her a thought. You all were terrible.”

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