surely you have heard the story of

[valdyr]

WHO: Ubbe Ragnarsson
WHERE: Inn by the fireplace!
WHEN: Evening of 2/20
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: None! (Please warn for adult content or anything triggering)

---

Almost every evening since arriving, Ubbe goes to the hall most call the "Inn", which is somewhat appropriately named given most go in to gather and prepare food and eat. But the Viking goes for the fireplace and for the warmth it brings. He spends hours there, staring into the flames while it takes him back to many evenings at the Great Hall in Kattegat.

One thing he remembers well is how loud and busy it is when everyone comes together with men and women and children celebrating for many different reasons. Most times, it was the return of their people from successful raids and to feast and drink to the ones who had died glorious deaths in battle and earned their way into Valhalla to drink with Odin and Thor. They gathered to celebrate weddings and births and to honour traditions like Jól and Ostara.

It was a place that brought back a flood of memories for the displaced Viking.

Tonight, Ubbe remembers the stories told around the fire in the middle of the longhouse. The ones overheard by the men and women, their travels and the riches they came home with. The ones Floki would tell with such great enthusiasm and intensity in his eyes. It was the way he laughed while telling them that always seemed to make the tale a little scarier than it should be. But mostly, Ubbe remembers the way his father, Ragnar, told them to him and his brothers when they were young boys. His voice always seemed to bring life to them better than anyone else and that makes him smile.


[ Feel free to catch Ubbe quietly reminiscing or smiling in memory! Then sit down and let him tell you a story :) ]

Comments

[whipshots]

All of Ubbe's reasons for gravitating to this pseudo-great hall, really, are the same ones that lead to Brigitte living in the inn itself, and settling cheerfully into its main room most nights. Even if she isn't eating with someone, that hum of background conversation still soothes her, helps her unwind after a long day of working at the forge, letting herself drift into the noise of a chattering community and company. (All the more reasons why the inn was so eerie and unsettling and upsetting when the village was mysteriously cleaned out, most of its inhabitants transported away.)

Spotting Ubbe by the fire, she wanders over and settles down on a chair beside him, carrying a bowl of food and her tea. Not the mead yet, unfortunately, since that's still a few months off. But someday.

"There's not a salamander in there or anything, is there?" she asks, nodding towards the fire. The gentlest of teases, considering how rapt he was by the flames.

[valdyr]

Ubbe can't break his stare from the fire but he was still aware of what was going on, who was coming and those who were leaving or retiring to their rooms upstairs. That sort of thing was quite new to him, too, but so were a lot of other things around the village. The Viking had been busy learning a great deal since his arrival over a month before.

At Brigitte's entrance, he smiles and only looks at her after she situates herself on the chair beside him.

"I was thinking of my brothers and the stories my father told us as boys," he tells her. It was better to think of those days than what had become of Sigurd, Ivar and Hvitserk.

[whipshots]

It takes a certain kind of personality to be so still and quiet, so content to wait and think. She likes to think it would be soothing: staring into the fire, being transported far away. "You should tell me about them," Brigitte says as she tucks her legs under herself and rests the cup against her knee; and for a moment, it's unclear which part she's referring to.

"--Your brothers or the stories," she clarifies then, considering. Whichever part he's comfortable sharing.