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Dagur always thought his relationship with the man who called himself his father… was complicated. There were layers upon layers of things that made a relationship between two people. Their connection; by blood, by bond, by weight of knowing one another. Their behaviour, the way they acted towards one another. Their actions and their words and simply who they were. So yeah, like he thought—complicated.
Osvald the Agreeable was many things.
He was a chieftain.
He was a father.
He was a Berserker.
There were stories that were carried in whispers and written in scrolls that had been stacked away of a capable warrior that had conquered tribes. They were Vikings, it was what they did. He was a chief that bolstered their fleet until the Berserker Tribe had a thousand ship fleet and the strength of ten thousand men at their back. Vikings trembled in fear and balked at the name Osvald the Antagonistic for thirty years before he decided to settle down and strive for peace.
The rest of the world knew him as Osvald the Agreeable, a man who strove towards peace when he was chief.
Dagur knew him as a man.
He wasn't some kind of infallible conquerer, no Dagur wanted to believe that when he was a kid, but that wasn't the man that stood in front of him. He learned that slowly, through different trials of varying difficulty that Chieftains… that fathers were just men. Men could be chipped away. Men could be worn down.
Osvald the Agreeable was just a man.
Dagur remembered the early stories of his childhood from his cousins Haukr and Hilda that his father had lived up to the moniker of 'the Antagonistic'. Haukr and Hilda were more than ten summers his senior and they'd lived a lifetime before his father had chosen peace. Their father, Dagur's uncle—Horik the second, had been his father's right hand man during his years as a conquering chieftain. Haukr used to throw him in the air and tell him about the way his father could cut through ten men without breaking a sweat. Hilda muttered about how he'd conquered and that each tale was written down in one of the many history books in Nori's accords as she worked on her own scribing practice for the seidrmahdr.
"Your father comes from a long line of Chieftains boy." Great-Uncle Haggard's tone made Dagur's skin crawl when he talked about their bloodline. Even as a child he seemed green with envy, words covetous and feeling like sticky fingers touching him. "He was strong and proud and he led us to many great victories, following in his own father's—my brother's—footsteps."
Haukr would nod along eagerly and decided he would follow in his father's footsteps. Hilda rolled her eyes and said their father told them otherwise, but they filled his head with stories about his exploits anyway.
Dagur could've learned to grow up the son of Osvald the Antagonistic. He hadn't been prepared to be raised, mostly alone, by the Agreeable.
If it hadn't been for the fighting and subsequent peace talks, his mother would've never married his father and he never would have been born into a fate woven by the Norns.
Peace, they said, was a shared table — people gathered, needs met enough that conversation replaced conflict. Peace, they said, was a long, well-lit road — clear of obstacles and marked with safe shoulders; movement steady and unhurried.
Peace, Dagur thought in the quiet of his family's hearth, sounded like his mother's forgotten laughter. It was the sound of her soft-sung lullabies as she grazed her lips over his forehead and called him 'her boy'. Peace was a frail and delicate thing, weak and unsubstantial when it came to rough callouses on heavy set palms. Peace was delicate and feeble when met with moss green eyes that hardened to jade at the sight of his son.
Dagur knew the man beneath.
Peace crumbled in the face of death and Osvald the Agreeable was a grieving man.
A fate known by the Norns. In place of Asa the Admirable, his mother's raven locks and her gentle smile and brown eyes, was a babe smaller than he ever thought he would know. His sister.
The one he'd foretold.
At four and a half summers, he held her swaddled frame while his father cradled mama in his arms and the midwives fussed over her and what they were calling the afterbirth.
"She smells funny." Dagur murmured as he pressed his nose to the baby soft skin of her cheek and his own cheekbone brushed against the wispiness of the faint hairs atop her head. She was in his arms, all the responsibility in the world landing on his shoulders as he stared down at her. She was warm, she was red in the face, she'd started screaming the moment the midwives had taken her from her mother's breast.
No one paid him any mind as he brought it up again. It reminded him of fresh bread and goat's milk, strange and uniquely pleasant though he'd never heard of a babe smelling like that before. He didn't remember his mama saying anything about it, nor the midwives. Dagur shushed her as they were ushered out of the room. One of the midwives sat him down on some cushions, his sister in his hands. Her eyes weren't even open all the way but he could already tell they were the same colour as his own.
He had named her Heather. He had looked into his sisters eyes and swore that no one would come between the bond he would have with his sister and that he would keep that bond until the day that he died-
It took moons for Osvald to break from the seemingly zombie-like state he'd fallen into when Nori and the other healers said she wouldn't recovery quickly like most experienced mothers. He saw nursemaids for Heather more often than he saw his own father. His aunts and cousins had stepped in to help.
Something distinct, he remembered, when he was a teenager; his cousin Hilda had fallen asleep in front of their fire, Dagur was tucked against her side, still half awake. He remembered that Heather was still sleeping in her crib next to the only point of warmth in the hearth as father spent another night in the Main Hall only an arm's length away, and he wondered when his mama would get well enough to come back home.
When would Osvald and mama come home? To the empty house, to the coldness of their room. So Dagur would stop waiting in bed at night for a kiss on the forehead which would never come. So Heather's cries didn't have to be soothed by a warm body or soft-sung lullaby that didn't belong to her mother. She would only ever learn the sound of Dagur's voice, or the touch of his hands, she would for the first six moons of her life only know someone else—
He wondered if she would remember Hilda's own brown hair, or her green eyes that all of Osvald's blood seemed to share while Dagur knew that his mama was in the healer's hut unable to see her children. When he knew that Heather looked the spitting image of her, slender face, high cheekbones and the unfortunateness of their father's nose. If she had been given her mother's brown eyes, Dagur might've grieved too, to have nothing tied to his sister but blood and the face of a father that neither of them cared to know, one too young and one too indifferent.
He might've been less inclined to be indifferent if he hadn't stopped recognizing the man that shared his eyes.
Six moons had passed before he finally started to see signs of life breathed into Osvald the Agreeable again. His mama was allowed to leave the healer's hut to come home. By then Dagur had learned more from the nursemaids and midwives in his village about caring for a child than his parents could've ever prepared. He'd grown closer to his cousins and uncle Horik and great-uncle Haggard.
Mama had changed then.
She was quieter, softer. Weaker when she stood and when she wrapped around him. She spent all her time fussing over him and Heather when she was awake—which was never long—to the point that Osvald shooed her own children away with the excuse that she needed to rest.
For the first year mama would scold him and say that she simply needed her children to bring her back to full strength.
Dagur learned early on the taste of resentment on his tongue.
He was seven when his father said that he had to stop bothering mama with things he was too old to be complaining about.
"Your mother has her hands full with Heather." Osvald scolded him, shoving him out of the room where his little sister, head full of shoulder length hair, was leaning back into mama's legs. Her mother was braiding her hair back with shaky hands, her face pale and her eyes half lidded.
Dagur wanted to argue that mama would braid his hair too, since his hair was longer than Heather's and mama always braided his hair first every morning, but the look on Osvald's face silenced him. A grim scowl had him choking on the words that he wanted to say, defense of himself crumbling in face of his father as moss eyes stared him down. But he was his father's son. He puffed his chest and went about the rest of his day like nothing happened.
But he remembered the taste of resentment on his tongue.
Like a bitter brew and the taste of Nori's medicine that they tried to hide behind syrup. Osvald's placating gestures were never enough to mask the truth; that with mama busy, his father could no longer hide his distaste for his strangeness. When a hand on a knife or a laughter too loud made his father snap at him, only to shake his head with disdain for his son.
"This is my son."
Cnut, a man so large that Dagur felt like a mere mouse facing Nidhoggr while standing between the roots of the world tree, shoved his own son forward. A boy who was a spitting image of him, taller than Dagur stood at his seven summers and broader than the other kids in Dagur's class.
"Hi!" Dagur had stuck his hand out in greeting, like he'd seen his father do to others in the tribe. A handshake was an appropriate greeting if one hadn't bonded in battle as brothers yet. "I'm Dagur!"
"I'm Bragi." He scowled at Dagur but the expression on his face didn't last long, replaced with something more passive and slightly sullent.
Cnut's son had a strangeness about him too, at least that was what Dagur gleaned by the shared glances between their fathers that they thought he didn't catch above their heads. Dagur wondered if he was a mouse hiding between tree roots instead, if that was something Cnut's son was used to. He was quiet as his own father squeezed his shoulder and offered him up to Dagur like a lamb to be slaughtered.
Cnut and Osvald had a conversation over both of their heads. Dagur wished not for the first time that Osvald would just talk to him instead of around or at him. He wasn't stubborn out of spite, no one understood the way he responded into things.
The other kids his age weren't so tight-lipped about being around his strangeness.
Dagur held out his hand with more insistence.
Bragi wasn't like that.
He may have been quiet but his silence was a loud and frightful thing.
Bragi didn't mind Heather. Cnut's son was an only child at age ten, he'd grown alone but he wasn't spoiled in the way that Dagur was spoiled when he was alone. He didn't throw tantrums when his father said no. He didn't cry when his father raised his voice at him and scolded him for behaving like a child—which he was, he was just a child. He certainly didn't mind Heather much when Dagur complained that mama only had time to braid her hair in the mornings and not his.
"I can braid your hair." Bragi murmured one day. Dagur remembered it. He was eight, maybe, summer had gone and his birthday had gone with it. The celebration had been quiet because mama didn't have the energy to host children at the house and a third of his cake had been squished in a tiny fist while he and Bragi split the rest between Bragi's friends from dragon training.
At sunset, when the skies had been painted orange on the beach and Bragi's mother sat with her legs hanging over the dock while her son and Bragi sat in the shin deep water, Bragi turned his head towards him and offered; I can braid your hair, like it was the simplest solution to mama not having the energy or time for him anymore.
He remembered that his hair was tied back in a long ponytail. The pieces of his fringe that framed his face were behind a metal circlet that uncle Horik had gifted him for his birthday to show his status as son of the chief. Mama hadn't braided it that morning , even if it was all that Dagur wanted from her for his birthday. She hadn't braided Heather's either.
Osvald had tried his best with Heather, when he turned his attention to Dagur he hadn't had the time or the patience.
The laugh that bubbled out of him, more a sob than anything else that he shoved down and covered with his wildness, startled the other boy. Wide, ice blue eyes stared back at him, worried that they'd done something wrong.
Dagur laughed, and laughed.
When he was finally done and the laughter stopped ringing in the air, similarly sized hands to his own sectioned out his hair and clumsily wove each part together like the Norns themselves had a say in the matter, until he had a neat braid down to the point between both shoulders.
Mama had been glad when he got home, hand stroking over his hair, grateful that Sveda had helped him have a good day. Osvald simply said he hoped Dagur hadn't caused any trouble to which Bragi's mother shook her head and laughed. Not even Heather pulling on his new braid—a better present that he would admit to anyone else—could've ruined his mood.
(After Sverri, Dagur had paid him back. Bragi never knew how much that single braid meant to him in that moment, Dagur didn't think he knew then too, ten summers past and all those feelings bubbling out of his chest into his laugh. The victory braids in Bragi's hair earned his loyalty, the earned Dagur's trust for years past their time—)
Osvald had stopped in the doorway to his room that night, his eyes lingered on Dagur's hair. For one sickening second, Dagur thought he would ask him to be rid of of it. To undo the work that comforting fingers had brought him when he'd already given up so much of his mother. He could already taste that bitter moment of resentment forming in his mouth—
"It looks good." Osvald said into the space between them, chasmic and daunting. "Like a young chief should."
Dagur squeezed his fists tight into the fabric of his woven blanket and didn't know if he felt like vibrating out of his skin from the sheer joy at the compliment, or if it was because Osvald had looked with moss green eyes and seen him as a father saw his son for the first time.
Osvald the Agreeable was many things;
A conquerer.
A chieftain.
A man.
But he didn't bruise his children under the guise of a guiding hand or a lesson needing to be learned. Perhaps that was the only saving grace for Osvald from Dagur's strangeness, as he started growing older and getting bigger and training harder. When the man's attention was taken solely by his daughter and Dagur—the first born son of the chief and his heir to the throne—had been foisted off onto lessons in the Kill Ring and training arena and dragon killing became an outlet for: "all of this".
(Said to him as Osvald gestured like 'all of this' wasn't the fruits of his labour and flesh and blood.)
Osvald the Agreeable was many things.
He was a chieftain.
He was a father.
He was a Berserker.
Vikings looked up to him in council meetings and whispered how Dagur was lucky to have a father like him capable of caring for them after his mother passed.
Dagur knew better.
When Heather had disappeared on the night of the Winter solstice with neither a hint or clue of where she could've gone or who could've taken her, Dagur learned differently.
When he had lost his sister—because it had been under his watch, they'd taken her to the festival, they'd tucked her in that night and kissed her on he forehead and Dagur had tucked his favourite straw dragon in underneath her arm and made sure the blankets were tight around her shoulders—he realized that all fathers had the capability to be cruel. It hadn't just been Cnut and all the words his father had told Bragi had all been lies.
She hadn't even been old enough to come to the next treaty run. She hadn't been able to explore the different tribes that they had alliances with. She would never be able to meet the people that Dagur met. Dashed were his dreams of having his sister with him as they sailed across endless seas, salt spray in his hair and the change for him to hear her joyful shrieks. He thought of one day helping her to hunt her first dragon, of seeing her start her training in the arena. She already showed an interest in axes and swords and watched them with rapt attention when they trained.
She was his sister. His only sister.
The look from Osvald stung more than he liked to admit. Wary and suspicious, prudent and alert and cautious like he did not belive that Dagur could've done such a thing but at the same time, could not believe that Dagur hadn't.
"I didn't do it." He insisted. because his father didn't trust him, straw in his hair and Bragi standing quietly behind him, a silent presence and the proof that Dagur was innocent. "You can't just accuse me like that, she's my sister! I would never hurt her!"
"You were always so strange!" Osvald continued, the words barbed and sharp in defense of his only daughter. "Your mother said it was just you, the way you were! But she was blind to your true nature! Deranged! She is your sister! Who did you send her away with? Where have you taken her? Answer me!"
He still felt so hazy and heavy. Everything was so sharp.
Osvald's voice grew louder and louder.
"For once, if you were actually home she wouldn't be gone!" Dagur snapped back, sizing up to his father. He'd never realized just how short his father was, not when he himself was growing taller. He was never as broad, but he was eye-level with Osvald's shoulders now, tall enough to see the tension in them and to realize-to realize that Osvald didn't trust him.
He'd been trembling with rage, broiling beneath his skin as the accusations laid heavy on his shoulders. He thought of how Heather's cheeks had been warm and pink from the cold and and her never-ending pleased grin. He remembered that she'd promised to not eat all her candied sweets until the morning. He remembered that she had been fine.
"She's my daughter!"
Resentment flooded his tongue, a rage familiar to what he felt when the advisors on his father's council questioned Bragi's loyalty to their tribe and made him kneel made his heart pound in his chest. How dare he?
"She's my sister! Maybe if you looked past the fact she looked like your dead wife and saw she was an actual person—!"
That rage had flipped to fear in one, painful instant.
Blood dripped onto Bragi's lips.
The look from the rest of the tribe bounced of Dagur's wild strangeness wielded like a shield and armour when the whispers began to start that Dagur, in all his strangeness, had been the one to dispose of his own sister. His mama would've been rolling in the ashes of her pyre. His mama would've knocked some sense into Osvald for even considering that Dagur would've touched a beautiful, raven strand of hair on his sister's head. Similarly to a dragon protecting the rest of their flock, Heather was his (maybe not his daughter, but she was still a child under his care), how dare they say that he had set her adrift or fed her to the wild ones when it was him who held her in his arms as a newborn.
The whispers grew louder.
"Dagur."
Bragi's voice was calm but calculative, he stood by Dagur's side, blood family turned to ash. His friends were standing behind him; Ethel, who looked like she could've been Bragi reborn as a woman. Ragvild, smelling of sea salt and brine in his dry and spikey black hair. Ansson, who stared at him with thinly veiled warriness in his eyes.
"Dagur don't listen to them."
"Lies." His own voice came out more confident than he felt. Louder. Sterner. Deranged. "They're all lies!"
He raised it loud enough that vikings around them startled and flinched away out of fear. None of that stung, not in the way that mattered. Not when Bragi stood by him and said that they believed him and put to task to end the spread of rumours that followed. None of it stung the same as Osvald checking out of the search parties. Or eyeing Dagur with distrust whenever they crossed paths. None of it mattered anymore, none of it mattered at all.
In a cold and empty house filled with too many bad memories, there was a panic in his chest, strangeness in his heart. On the other side of his childhood bedroom, Bragi was strapping on his armour like he was about to go to war. Osvald the Agreeable was many things.
At fifteen summers, there was a single thing that Dagur knew him as;
A coward.