Video; Sleep Deprivation

[ragnarsson]

[The video shows Ivar looking a little rumpled, the look of someone who has been trying to sleep and can't. He's cleaning out grime from under his fingernails with one of his knives as he speaks and it occasionally flashes into view.

Oddly enough, he's smiling, his eyes just a little too bright. It's not a happy smile. When Ivar gets angry, sometimes, he smiles in a way that says he's going to rip your throat out with his teeth if you get too close. His tone sounds oddly cheerful as he speaks.]

To whoever is making that horrible racket that's keeping me awake, you have two options. Stop it. [Then his voice goes dark and furious.] Or I'll stop it. Trust me when I say my way will be a lot more unpleasant. [He never stops smiling even as he turns off the video.]

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video; un: username.here

[song_of_ice]

[What was that saying about a dog's bark being worse than his bite?]

There are other ways to get what you want.

[Ways that wouldn't lead to bodies in the hall.

He has that same sort of madness that Ramsay seemed to possess, but before that thought can linger in his head, he's pushing it away. No. That monster wasn't here.]

What sort of noise is it?

[ragnarsson]

[Don't tell Ivar that. His bite is far worse than his bark. As for being touched by madness, it is the truth. He enjoys killing far more than any Viking does and they're a bloodthirsty lot. Even his brothers are scared of him for a reason.]

Either someone is playing music that sound like the screams of battle or they've gotten into an loud argument with someone.

[song_of_ice]

[He would be well suited for the Wall, or maybe even the Free Folk. There was something about him that reminded Jon of Tormund or the Thenns. He was young though, a boy with a bit too much blood lust.]

I don't see that disturbing you, if it is screaming from the battlefield.

[You learn eventually to sleep through it.]

[ragnarsson]

[Far too much blood lust for comfort. It would lead to kin-slaying in the end, though that had yet to happen. You had to be filled with a special kind of rage to watch someone be blood eagled with something approaching joy.]

Screaming I can deal with. But it's vibrating loud enough to come straight through the walls. I can feel it running straight through me.

[He finishes picking grime out from under his nails and so he flips the knife over into his other hand. Ivar still isn't convinced cutting someone's throat isn't a valid solution to the problem.]

[song_of_ice]

The right sort of threat is effective.

[Says the man that used his direwolf to keep one of his brothers from tormenting Sam. He wasn't a boy now, but he knew sometimes simply asking wasn't going to be enough.]

Killing will only cause problems and interrupt your sleep more.

[Depending on what sort of punishments were merited out in this place.]

[ragnarsson]

Well, it'd give me satisfaction.

[For all of ten minutes until they hauled him off to jail. Still, he might find it to be worth it.]

[song_of_ice]

Momentarily. You might find more satisfaction in outsmarting them.

[He wasn't dim. If he was, he wouldn't have given a warning first.]

[ragnarsson]

[If there's one thing Ivar likes (almost) as much as killing people, it's being smarter than them. He's not the clever one in his family for nothing. Jon has his attention.]

How so?

[song_of_ice]

[He might be the man who knows nothing, but he does know something about getting even. Arya found ways to exact revenge against Sansa.]

My sister would say that if they are interrupting your sleep through noise, you should interrupt theirs by smell.

She would do something called "Sheep shifting."

[ragnarsson]

Sounds unpleasant enough.

[He might take it into consideration rather than his first plan, which pretty much boiled down to slitting someone's throat in their sleep.]

[song_of_ice]

She would cut a hole in Sansa's mattress, fill it with sheep shit and then sew up the hole. The smell would fill the room, but Sansa could never find the source.

[It was at least better than murder as a solution.]

[ragnarsson]

[That gets a snort of laughter out of Ivar.]

Sounds like something I would do to my brother Sigurd if he annoyed me enough.

[He really despised his brother sometimes. The two of them hadn't gotten along even as children.]

[song_of_ice]

[There's something about him that reminds Jon of Arya. She might not jump to extreme of actual murder, Ivar possessed a wildness that Jon could recognize.]

How many brothers do you have?

[He's less wary now, more relaxed. He's known men like Ivar before and been their friend. There was little reason to avoid the boy.]

[ragnarsson]

[There was very much something feral about Vikings as a whole culture and none more so than Ivar. His anger, kept so close to the surface, was what drove him most of the time.]

Four. I'm the youngest, which makes it feel like four too many sometimes.

[But he still missed them a lot here in Riverview. This was one of the longest periods of times he'd ever been separated from all of them. It was difficult considering they were the only family he had left.]

[song_of_ice]

[He wonders if Rickon would have felt the same...had the family stayed together in Winterfell.]

I'm the oldest among my siblings. Being oldest or youngest isn't easy.

They're not here?

[Some seemed to be lucky and had family in this world. Despite wanting to return home, there was a part of him that hoped to see his sisters again, even if it was here.]

[ragnarsson]

You've got that right.

[Being both the youngest and crippled had left Ivar in a difficult position growing up. All he wanted was to keep up with his brothers, be just as good as they were. He'd worked hard to prove he could be just as good a warrior as any of them.]

Not yet. But if I found my way here, maybe one of them will too.

[Hope is for fools, but he can't help it. He'd take any of them right now, even Sigurd....well, maybe not, but beggars couldn't be choosers.]