The prompt is: „My soul sees ist equal in you" – The Wrath and the Dawn, Renee Ahdieh

When you had decided to join your friend Bjorn and his mother the infamous shieldmaiden Lagertha in fighting his psychotic brother to regain Kattegat you had never expected to end up like this.

You were one of the best shieldmaidens of Scandinavia, you had trained with the fiercest warriors, Bjorn Ironside, Ragnar Lothbrok and Queen Lagertha being only the most famous. You were much younger than all of them, rather Bjorn's brother Hvitserk's age, but Bjorn had seen your potential when you were still a young woman and had helped you become the strong and independent woman you were now, for which you were eternally grateful. This had also been one of the reasons why you had decided to join him in his mission to regain Kattegat, your admiration for Lagertha being the other.

You had fought in many other wars already though you had been very young, making you very popular. Many said you were the second most famous shieldmaiden in the world, after Lagertha.

You always only shook your head smiling, it wasn't anything you liked to hear. You didn't become a shieldmaiden for the glory or the fame, or even the attention of your fellow male warriors, you became a fighter because it was the only thing that came naturally to you. The thing you felt good at.

Bjorn had seen that and had helped you, his fame gaining you the best teachers there were and making you famous for your skills in the process.

Bjorn was like a strange mix of a brother and father figure all melted into one.

So siding with him came naturally to you, and you wanted to fight. Especially after what you had heard about the brutal psychopath sitting on Kattegat's throne, beheading, burning and torturing where and whenever he liked. You had heard more stories of the cripple than of any other famous viking, you hadn't even heard as many Ragnar stories as you had heard stories of his youngest son.

And though his stories always fascinated you you were never entirely sure how true they were. Some stories spoke of Ivar making himself a God, some spoke of his genious in battle and some talked about his impotence, and the murder of his wife after he had found out she was with another man's child. They sent shivers down your spine, though you had heard many stories about many monsters, his always stuck with you.

Maybe it had been fate calling you in, the Norns braiding the thread of your life together with his, you felt about him more than you felt about any man.

It wasn't that you understood him when you heard his stories, you didn't, but you felt for him, though you wouldn't admit it.

The day on the battlefield you had felt this call again, you knew he was there because you felt his presence. And for the first time before a battle you had been afraid.

You knew something was different, and though you didn't know what it was yet you knew it had to do with him. You were no seer and you didn't have visions or dreams as long as it didn't have to do with Ivar the Boneless, but when it came to him you felt and knew more than what you should.

On the battlefield, in the midst of fighting, men and women shouting and crying in anger or agony suddenly something changed and you stood straighter, the hairs on your body sticking up and you could only focus on one man's voice, one man's angry cry.

You knew it was Ivar. You turned around on the grass soaked with blood and you saw him for the first time.

It was like in one of those stories, you saw what others saw what others saw in him. And though his appearance scared you, you knew there was more.

You were immobile now, not able to escape his eyes as they interlocked with yours.

He was sat in his chariot, moving through the mass of people with ease, swinging his sword left and right, though his eyes stayed on you. It was only seconds, but they felt much longer to you.

Without knowing what you were doing you watched him come towards you in godspeed, until he reached you and the look in his eyes changed, from a sense of recognition to something cruel as you felt the handle of his sword make contact with your skull, making a sharp pain run through you and blackness envelop you.