The sea was a vast expanse of grey under a sky that promised little beyond more of the same. The Ship rose and fell with the long, rhythmic swell, with its timbers groaning softly, a familiar sound to the men on board. Most of the crew were at their tasks or resting, and a low murmur of conversation was occasionally drifting from amidships where some mended fishing nets.
It was late afternoon, and the light was beginning to fade.
Bjorn sat near his father at the stern, where Ragnar held the steering oar with his gaze fixed on the endless horizon as if he could will land into existence. Bjorn had been watching him for a while, the same question that had been turning over in his mind for weeks now rising again about the man who started everything. He shifted on the hard wooden thwart, the movement was small but it was enough to draw Ragnar's attention. "Father," Bjorn began, his voice steady in the relative quiet, "I have always wondered about your name; Lothbrok. Where did you get it?"
Ragnar's eyes shifted from the horizon to meet Bjorn's. For a moment, his expression was unreadable. Then, the corner of his mouth twitched, and a small, genuinely amused smile broke through crinkling the skin around his eyes. "Lothbrok," he mused with the name rolling off his tongue. "It is not a name I was born with, that is certain. Names like that, they are earned, Bjorn. And usually the hard way." He paused, a sly look Bjorn knew well creeping into his expression. "And not always in the manner you might expect, or even desire at the time."
Bjorn waited patiently while leaning back slightly against the gunwale. He knew better than to press him. Ragnar would tell the story in his own time, his own way.
Ragnar looked back out towards the endless grey water with his eyes growing distant, focused on something far beyond the waves. "I was born not far from Kattegat. My father was a simple farmer, with a small holding of land, nothing more. But even as a boy…" He paused, seeming to search for the right words, one hand rubbing thoughtfully at his beard. "I was… troublesome, some said. Others said clever. Restless, most certainly. I was always looking beyond the next hill, the next fjord, wondering what lay hidden there."
He shifted the steering oar almost imperceptibly, adjusting their course against a slight change in the wind, the movement was born of long habit. "When I was fifteen summers, barely old enough to claim any proper whiskers, King Froh of Svealand decided our lands in Norway looked more appealing than his own."
"Froh," Bjorn repeated softly. "I think I have heard that name before."
"Aye, you would have," Ragnar said with his voice hardening a little. "He was as mad as a rabid wolf, that one, but he was also cunning, and deadly as a winter storm. He killed King Siward, our king then – a good man, Siward was – and declared himself ruler of all Norway. Just like that." Ragnar snorted. "As if a crown could be taken as easily as a cup of ale at a feast."
"But surely the people fought back?" Bjorn asked, imagining the outrage such an act would cause.
"Some did," Ragnar affirmed while nodding slowly. "Others… others bent the knee quickly enough." There was no judgment in his voice, only the weight of an old, unpalatable truth. "Fear makes cowards of many men, Bjorn. And Froh… he was a master at inspiring fear."
"How did he do that?" Bjorn was intrigued.
Ragnar was quiet for a long moment, his gaze still on the distant sea. When he spoke again, his voice carried a strange mixture of old distaste and a grudging respect. "He fought with serpents."
"Serpents?" Bjorn's eyes widened. "Really?"
"Aye. He kept them as pets, if such creatures can be called pets. Large ones, constrictors mostly, though some with fangs too. they were tame, or so he claimed." Ragnar shook his head with a slight grimace on his face. "He would wear them around his neck and shoulders, like other Jarls wear heavy gold arm rings. In battle, they would strike out at his enemies while he fought with his sword and axe." Ragnar gave a dry chuckle. "The mad bastard turned warfare into a kind of twisted performance. Good warriors and brave men, would freeze at the sight of those fangs flashing beside his blade, their minds unable to process the sheer unnaturalness of it."
Bjorn tried to picture it – a king, draped in snakes, wading into battle. A part of him found the image strangely compelling. "That… actually worked against warriors?"
"Fear is a powerful weapon, son," Ragnar said with his expression growing serious again. "Sometimes more powerful than the sharpest steel. But it only works until someone refuses to be afraid."
"And that someone was you?" Bjorn asked while leaning forward slightly.
"Eventually." Ragnar's smile returned, but it was harder now, edged with an old, fierce pride. "I joined what was left of Siward's loyal men. I was young, barely a man grown, really. Just a strip of a lad with a borrowed spear. But I had a rage burning in my blood, and no patience for tyrants who thought true strength came from such theatrics and foul trickery." He paused with his hands moving automatically to adjust a rope for the sail as the wind shifted again. "The thing about serpents," he continued, his eyes regaining that distant look, "is that they will strike at anything they see as a threat. Exposed skin, moving limbs – anything that is warm and alive. So, I thought, what if there was nothing for them to strike at?" He grinned.
"I fashioned myself a coat and breeches from the thickest, hairiest animal hides I could find – old bear pelts, wolf skins, anything tough and shaggy. It took me weeks to sew it all together with thick sinew. It was ugly as Hel's own undergarments, itchy, and it stank to the high heavens, but it was thick. Thick enough, I hoped, that no fang could easily pierce it."
Bjorn laughed despite himself. "You must have looked ridiculous."
"Oh, I did," Ragnar admitted, chuckling. "The other warriors, the older ones, they mocked me without mercy. Called me 'bear-boy' and 'the walking fur pile,' and other names less kind. But when the final battle came, and Froh himself came charging across that muddy field, his serpents writhing around his shoulders like living, scaled jewelry… well, let us just say the laughter stopped." Ragnar's eyes grew distant again, seeing not the dark sea before them but a blood-soaked battlefield from years past. "Froh was a skilled warrior, I will give him that. He was strong, fast and vicious. But he had grown too dependent on his serpents to do half his work for him. When they struck out at me, their fangs found nothing but thick hide and coarse hair. They recoiled, confused. And Froh, seeing his pets flail uselessly against me, he hesitated. Just for a moment."
"And that moment was enough," Bjorn breathed, understanding.
"Yes." Ragnar's voice was quiet now, almost reverent. "That moment was everything. That is why I have always taught you, Bjorn, 'never to hesitate'. In battle, a single moment's hesitation is often the only difference between going home to feast with your family, and going to feed the crows before joining the gods in Valhalla. I put my spear through his chest before he could recover his wits or his balance."
They sat in a comfortable silence for a while then, the only sounds was of the endless wind in the sail and the eternal, rhythmic wash of waves against the hull of the Ship. "And that is when they named you Lothbrok?" Bjorn asked finally, breaking the quiet.
"Lothbrok – 'Hairy-breeches.'" Ragnar confirmed, the name spoken with a certain fondness. "Right there on the battlefield, with Froh's blood still warm and steaming on my spear tip." He shrugged as a self-deprecating gesture, but Bjorn could see the deep pride in his eyes. "Not the most glorious name, perhaps. Not as grand as 'Thunderer' or 'Wolf-heart' or any of those titles young warriors dream of earning. But it meant something real. It meant I had found a way to survive when many others, good friends among them, could not. It meant I had used my mind as much as my strength to win the day."
Bjorn nodded slowly, considering his father's words. "It suits you."
"I have grown fond of it over the years," Ragnar admitted, a smirk playing on his lips. "Though I have collected a few others along the way. Some flattering, some… less so." And they laughed together then, Ragnar continuing with other, shorter tales of his youth, his voice rising and falling with the cadence of a born storyteller. Bjorn listened, asking questions, absorbing the history of the man who was his father in this life, feeling a warmth spread through him that had little to do with the weak afternoon sun. It was simply a father and son, sharing a quiet moment on a long voyage.
By the next morning, the sky had turned into a thick, unbroken grey shroud. The sun was lost entirely behind clouds that stretched endlessly from one horizon to the other. The mood on the ship was subdued, the lack of clear direction adding to the men's weariness.
Bjorn brought out his small wooden compass while shielding it from the worst of the wind, he watched the needle settle then adjusted their course slightly, his voice clear as he called out the new heading to the steersman. The ship turned, its prow now pointing resolutely westward into the grey unknown.
The grey peace did not last. Later that day, the sky ahead began to bruise, turning a sickly dark purple.
There was no horizon anymore. Only darkness.
The sky became a deep threatening black. Rain began to fly sideways, driven by a wind that made a loud and high screaming sound. The sea moved violently beneath them with great swells rising and crashing. The ship's wood made loud, protesting cracking sounds with every wave that hit it.
And lightning lit up the dark sky again and again.
White cracks of lightning appeared in the sky, each one closer and brighter than the last.
The crew was silent now, their earlier shouts to secure the rigging gone, replaced by a grim, focused effort to simply survive. These were hardened warriors, men who had fought in shield walls and raided foreign shores. Now, they pressed themselves flat against the ship's sides, or clung to the mast, their faces pale and wet in the fleeting, stark illumination of the lightning. Some trembled so hard they could not speak.
One young man retched violently over the rail but the sound was swallowed by the storm.
The great square sail, already partly furled, tore away from the yardarm with a sound like a gunshot, and broken ropes whipped through the air with sharp, dangerous cracks.
Through the driving rain and wind, Floki's voice rose, thin and strained with terror. He clutched a piece of the broken rail near the mast, his eyes were wide and wild, rolling in their sockets. "We should not have come this way!" he shrieked with his voice barely audible above the wind. "Thor is angry with us! I can hear his hammer! He has seen us! THE ALL-FATHER TOLD HIM WE WERE COMING! ODIN WHISPERED OUR NAMES TO THE WIND!"
Rollo, his face a grim mask of effort, fought the great steering oar, trying to keep the ship's head into the monstrous waves. "Damn it, shut up, Floki!" he roared.
Floki staggered as the deck tilted sharply, falling to his knees. "Now he will tear the ship to pieces!" he wailed. "He will drag our bones to the bottom of the sea!"
Rollo gritted his teeth, his knuckles showing white where he gripped the oar. "Hold fast!" he yelled to the few men still able to hear him or move. "Tie down what is loose! Hold on!" His voice was strained. He knew, as they all did, that their human strength was nothing against the fury of a storm like this.
The wind howled, it was a deep and strange sound that did not seem natural, almost like a monstrous voice.
But above the noise, the screaming wind, the crashing waves, and the panicked half-formed shouts, there was laughter.
A quiet, steady laugh, coming from the front of the ship.
Bjorn.
He stood perfectly still, alone at the very prow, where the dragon head plunged into the black, churning water and rose again, flinging spray high into the air. His hands were rising slowly, palms open, as if he meant to greet the storm, or embrace it. His dark cloak whipped around him like a frantic, living thing.
In the brief, blinding flashes of lightning, his eyes seemed to collect the light, holding it for a strange moment.
Ragnar, who had been desperately trying to help secure loose gear amidships, saw him. He scrambled forward, his voice was a desperate yell that's barely carrying. "Bjorn! That is enough! Get down from there! Now!"
Bjorn didn't turn. He didn't seem to hear, his entire being focused on the raging elements before him, as if he were possessed by something far older and wilder than himself.
He took one slow, deliberate step forward right to the very lip of the prow, where black waves rose high and were clawing towards him.
The storm seemed to answer him personally.
A bolt of lightning split the sky directly above the mast, forking in a burning and impossible spiral. The wind doubled its force in an instant, making a high tearing sound. The ship tipped hard to one side, throwing men and loose gear across the deck.
Water poured over the side in a torrent.
Ragnar's face was stark with raw fear for his son, "Rollo! Grab him. NOW!"
Rollo, his expression grim, pushed himself up from where he'd been thrown against the gunwale. He charged towards the prow with his heavy boots slipping on the wet and violently tilting deck.
He reached out a large hand, lunging for Bjorn, and the moment his fingers brushed Bjorn's arm
— CRACK—!
Lightning struck the sea not ten feet from the ship. A huge arc of electric blue light flashed across the deck, illuminating everything in a ghastly, actinic glare. Rollo was thrown backwards as if by a giant unseen hand. He landed hard against the mast, his tunic smoking where the light had touched him, his body was twitching for a long moment before lying still.
Ragnar cried out, "Rollo!" He started towards his brother, then froze, his horrified gaze snapping between Rollo's still form and Bjorn, who remained untouched at the prow. The crew stared, and those who could still see, their faces slack with terror, were unable to move or speak.
The storm had heard.
Bjorn's chest rose slowly, as if he took a deep calming breath. He tilted his face up to the black, raging sky with rain pouring down over him, plastering his hair to his skull.
His voice came then, it came as low and strange, almost a whisper at first, but every man on board heard each Old Norse word clearly above the wind, as if spoken directly into their minds.
Bjorn said with his voice resonant and cold, and unnervingly calm) "Ég sé þig." (I see you.)
Another thunderclap answered, so loud the ship itself seemed to shrink and shudder beneath their feet. Bjorn took another step, out onto the very dragon head of the prow, his bare feet planted firmly on the wet slippery wood, with nothing before him but the raging sea and the furious sky.
Bjorn, raising his voice as if challenging, was filled with an authority no boy or man should possess. "Ek veit, hverr þú ert. Þrumuguð, Ægisdjǫtunn." (I know who you are. Thunder-God, the Ocean Jötunn.)
The black clouds above twisted and moved with unnatural speed, and for a horrifying moment, in the flash of lightning, they seemed to form vast, burning shapes like ancient forgotten runes. A gust of wind hit the sail-less mast with such power that it made a loud, deep cracking sound, as if it would break apart.
Bjorn, shouting now, his voice deeper now and resonating with power) "Ef þú krefst ótta—TAKT EITTHVAÐ MEIRA!" (If you demand fear—TAKE SOMETHING GREATER!)
The storm roared back, a wave of pure sound and fury that vibrated in their bones. More waves slammed into the ship, throwing it around like a child's toy. The world became nothing but wind, stinging rain, and terrible deafening noise.
The crew clung to whatever they could find, some trying to crawl under benches, others simply covering their heads with their lips moving in silent, desperate prayers to any god who might listen, hiding from what was unfolding at the prow.
Bjorn spread his arms wide as if inviting the storm to strike him, to take him.
Bjorn, his voice was different now, it was vast and echoing, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, and no longer fully his own "Hver er ég að stíga á andlit guðs?" (Who am I to walk upon the face of gods?)
His eyes. They changed.
And in the next flash of lightning, they were silver.
They were bright and burning with a cold, inhuman light.
Then lightning struck again, it was a blinding spear of white fire directly above him, but it did not touch him.
It seemed to bend.
It seemed to wait.
And Bjorn spoke one last time, his voice now a whisper that cut through the thunder, a statement of ancient and impossible recognition. "Þú manst mig." (You remember me.)
The sky was torn apart by the longest, loudest bolt of lightning yet, one that lit up the sea and ship like full daylight for three, four, five heartbeats, showing every terrified face, every strained timber, every drop of freezing rain.
Then there was sudden, complete silence.
No wind.
No thunder.
Just rain falling gently now, and softly.
The sea, moments before a raging monster, became calm.
The great waves went down.
The clouds above began to slowly move apart, revealing a sliver of watery moonlight.
Bjorn let out a long slow breath, a sound that seemed to carry all the weariness of the world, then his knees bent.
And he fell heavily to the deck with his eyes still glowing faintly with that silver light, and his chest was rising and falling quickly and shallowly.
Silence stayed on the ship, and the crew did not move.
No one dared to make a sound. They just stared at Bjorn's collapsed form.
Except Ragnar who moved slowly and carefully towards his son with his own face pale that was etched with an emotion the conscious Bjorn had never seen there before, something akin to awe, and a profound, terrible fear.
He knelt and his hand that is usually so steady, trembled as he reached out to touch Bjorn's face. Bjorn's skin was very cold to the touch. His breath was light, almost imperceptible. The silver glow in his eyes began to fade, leaving them dull until they closed.
The storm had passed.
But something had been taken, or given in its place.