I don't mind, forget it, there's nothing to lose (OTA)

[ragnarsson]

who: Ivar and you + some closed prompts
what: Catch-all for August! Amnesia plot and regular prompts
when: Later half of August, the 9th onwards.
where: All over the city
warnings: None



A. Ivarsdottir. Def: Old Norse for Ivar's daughter. - OTA

While Letha seemed determined to hide Winter away like she was some hideous monster, Ivar's attitude was in a complete 180 degree direction. He couldn't have been prouder to be a father to such a wonderful little girl. Because of his impotency, he'd always thought he'd never be able to have children. To get the chance to be a father was more than he ever could have hoped for.

Anyone who might have been worried about how someone so filled with anger was going to be around a child would soon have their fears put to rest. Ivar was as doting and gentle as any new parent, wanting nothing more than to hold Winter close and gaze down at her little oddly-colored eyes.

She was still a little fragile, so mostly he was found with her in the hospital. But every so often, he got permission from the staff to take her outside, provided she was suitably protected from the sun. That pale skin, white as snow, would burn easily without her dressed up. No matter where the location was, Ivar was going to be approaching friends, acquaintances, and let's face it, perfect strangers to brag about his child. "Have you see my daughter?" He asks everyone with just about the proudest expression on his face that he could have.

B. Just fade away. - OTA

Compared to most of the denizens who have been afflicted with amnesia, Ivar seemed to be unaffected by what was taking everyone's memories. He wasn't stumbling around completely unaware of who he was or where the Quarantine was. But there's some subtle details that one might notice about the Viking that show he's not as unaffected as he's pretending to be.

He doesn't seem to use anyone's name in conversation or bring it up until the person he's talking to has done it himself. Five minutes after he leaves them, he won't remember it anyway. Also, in a first for the Viking, he's without weapons. Holding onto them had only caused a deep gash across his palm since he was unable to remember how to wield them properly. All he was keeping were the arm guards Tony had made for him. He figured the blades that could pop out of them were enough to keep him safe if anyone tried to attack him.

Finally, for anyone close that have heard him talk of his family, he seems to have forgotten entirely about one of his brothers, only mentioning three instead of four. This actually is one of the more advantageous aspects. Sigurd has been nothing but a constant torment his entire life, providing a neverending source of anger for the Viking. He's actually much happier not remembering the worst one of his older brothers. All in all, the more perceptive denizens of the Quarantine might realize something's amiss, but to everyone else, he might just seem a touch off.

C. A llama is a made up animal. - For Marco

"...What is that?" Ivar has seen a lot of strange animals in his time here. Heck, he owns a pair of fire and electric horses, for goodness sake. But every so often, there's an animal that continues to surprise him. After all, he's from a time period where very little of the world and its creatures have been discovered. This thing before him is fluffy, has a long neck, and overall is just...weird. He's never seen anything like it before.

He holds out a hand, having seen enough animals to know it was better to let them come to him instead of approaching them in what they could interpret as an aggressive manner. Besides, the wheelchair made some of them nervous. He continues talking to it in a low, casual tone. "So what are you then? Some sort of reject horse?"

Of course, he's never expecting in a million years that this funny looking creature might actually be capable of answering him back.

D. A little family just struggling together. - For Letha.

Ivar had barely been speaking with Letha. He was still furious at the way she was treating Winter. He wouldn't have even seen her at all had he not been coming to the hospital on an almost daily basis to see their daughter. Even then, she was lucky to get more than two words out of him, maybe a question of how the two of them were doing if she was lucky. When Ivar got mad, he could hold onto grudges forever. It could have been worse. If provoked again into a real rage, there was no telling what he might do, no matter how much he loved her.

But when he showed up to see Winter today, she was already being held by Letha, and apparently without any prompting by the nurses. It was such a surprising sight that Ivar merely sat there in the doorway, watching the two of them for a moment. It was such a pretty sight, so normal to see her actually acting as a mother caring for her child. "Well, that's more like it." He wheeled himself into the room and up to the edge of Letha's bed.

He reached out a hand, letting it rest upon the skin of Winter's tiny baby-soft one. "I was wondering what it was going to take to get you to come to your senses." As usual, he was blaming everything that had happened solely upon Letha. There would be no apology or soft words coming from him. There never was.

Comments

a

[unmakeme]

Natasha placed the face almost instantly. Angry kid from the festival with the tacky wheelchair, now far less tacky as it was still sporting the same coat of spray paint she'd taken him to acquire. "I have not," she answered. It felt a bit like coming in on a conversation about five minutes into it, all of the set-up gone, and now on to questions she wasn't sure he meant to ask her.

He didn't back down from it, though, once she was turned to fully face him. Well past the moment when he would have realized his mistake if he'd thought her to be someone else from behind, he still seemed as though he meant to ask her about his child. He was still holding a little pile of blanket, a look of pride and joy on his face. So she bent down obligingly, reaching out to move one corner of the soft knit material. Tiny baby. Premature? Or possibly not human. Given the amount of time she knew Ivar had been in the city, the second option seemed possible, the first did not. To be born that early. No. Perhaps both? Premature and not quite human. "She's very pretty. Small, though. Is it safe for her to be out already?"

[ragnarsson]

With as passionate as Ivar's emotions tended to rule his mind, it was always apparent what he was feeling. Usually, that was pure anger. Right now, he was proud and caring, looking on his daughter with adoration. The fact he'd spoken to Natasha all of one time before made no difference to him. After all, who wouldn't want to look at the most precious baby in the whole world? Right?

Bundled up as she was in blankets and a sun hat, not much of Winter could be seen. But between the eyes, which had pale irises and red pupils, and the skin devoid of any other color but pure white, it was apparent that the baby was an albino. She was looking around with the slightly wide eyed expression of a baby who is experiencing a lot of things for the first time.

"Her name is Winter Istrid Regis-Ivarsdottir." A very long name for such a little girl, the two Norse parts of her name being rolled over easily in Ivar's Norwegian accent. "The doctors said I could take her out, but only for an hour." With Ivar holding her, the strange powers she had were negated, so anyone who touched her wouldn't be drained of their life force.

[unmakeme]

Her colouring was part of the reason Natasha was even considering the option that she might not be entirely human. "Big name for a little baby. How old is she?" She was a cute looking thing. Odd, but cute. She remembered Lila being-- well, not this small, but small. Lila had been far more vocal, though. Winter only looked around at the world silently, as though trying to drink it all in in the scant hour allowed to her.

[ragnarsson]

"She's just a couple of weeks old." Though she was small, she was pretty hardy. Which, much as Ivar was loathe to admit it, was likely a result of her draining life from people who touched her. But not him. She'd never done it to him. For Winter, her father was an instinctual source of safety and love, calming her out-of-control powers down.

"We were originally going to just name her Istrid. But I said she looked like the winter snows in Kattegat back home when she was born and the name just sort of stuck. I asked Letha if she wanted her just to have her last name, but she wanted mine in there so people wouldn't ask as many questions." Probably a bunch of details Natasha didn't need to or want to know, but Ivar was of course interested in telling everyone the minutiae of his daughter's life.

[unmakeme]

More than she wanted to know, yes, but not more than she minded knowing. "And Letha is? Human?" Natasha fluttered the edge of the blanket against Winter's cheek, watching the little baby turn her attention toward the soft brush fabric on her skin. Natasha continued to play with the baby partly because people expected everyone to love babies. Or if they didn't like them, to have a very specific reason for it, something that had broken them. Indifference wasn't often well met.

Well, Clint had nearly pissed himself laughing when he'd come into his living room to see Natasha moving his child away from her with a push broom, determined to not have to pick it up. Clint wasn't at all normal, though. Who in their right mind brought a recently defected Russian assassin to their family home in an effort to prove to her that she could be more than her job?

[ragnarsson]

Winter seemed interested in the movement, moving one tiny hand in that jerky, awkward way babies had when they weren't quite sure that their limbs belonged to them yet. She looked very content, not at all like the little monster Letha claimed healers we're supposed to be.

"Yes. She's a necromancer." Ivar seemed a bit oblivious that his daughter could be mistaken for anything but a bundle of cuteness. On some level, he was aware that Winter was different, but she was whole and healthy with no physical handicaps to speak of. That was enough for Ivar, after experiencing a lifetime of pity for being unable to walk.

[unmakeme]

"Letha, or Winter?" Or maybe both. Natasha had been here long enough to set aside some of her knee jerk reaction at hearing someone described as a necromancer. Weird was relative, after all.

The little baby succeeded in grabbing the blanket Natasha was waving at her, tiny hand balling up in the material. She couldn't pull it, but she was happy to have her hand waved around for a few moments with Natasha's movement, before she tried to put it in her mouth.

A

[advanced]

This wasn't the first time that Bucky had seen Winter, though he didn't know her name and he certainly hadn't known that she was at all connected to Ivar. To see the teenager with such an expression on his face was unusual, but-- good, it proved that all his posturing about being unable to feel emotion or connection like others was nonsense.

He wasn't about to judge him being a father so young, he knew that men became fathers and women became mothers a lot younger in the time that Ivar came from, though it was sad in a way to see him have to grow up so fast. He hesitated when the baby was presented to him, eyebrows raised slightly.

"I didn't know she was yours."

[ragnarsson]

"Not technically. She's from Letha and her husband." There was a fierce light of possessive love in his eyes. "But she's mine in all the ways that count." Ivan had rarely felt love for anyone in his life. But he felt it for Winter. She needed him, especially with the way her mother had all but rejected her. He knew exactly what damage that could do to a child growing up. Despite his youth, he was considered an adult by Viking standards. He was going to be the father his own had never been for him.

"Her name is Winter Istrid Regis Ivarsdottir." It was a name nearly longer than the girl herself, but the first part of it was obvious. Her coloring was white as snow, pale without a trace of color. She was currently looking around with a slightly sleepy expression on her face.

[advanced]

A tiny part of Bucky couldn't help but judge that name, it sounded a bit long and pretentious for his tastes, but he would never say so out loud. Not just that, but it seemed to him kind of cruel to call an albino baby Winter, she'd get enough trouble in her school years without giving easy ammunition to the bullies.

"I met her before, I saw her in her Ma's arms."

That had been an awkward meeting to say the least.

"What brought you to adopting some other man's baby?"

[ragnarsson]

Ivar shrugged, Winter jostling slightly in his arms at the movement. "It was the right thing to do. Letha and I have been together for awhile and raising her up by herself was no way to do things. Children need fathers." Ivar sounded adamant and firm about that last part. He'd grown up without one and would be the first one to admit how that had screwed him up worse than he already was.

Then his face goes dark. "Besides, with the way Letha is behaving, she needs me all the more." He was still quite mad at her for all but rejecting her daughter.

[advanced]

"You need proof that you have that empathy in you, that's it right there." He probably shouldn't say it so baldly, but he did better with things when they were right out in the open. "Not a lot of fellas will step up like that and love a baby that didn't come from them like it was their own, you should be proud, and she's a lucky kid."

He doesn't push for information on how Letha is behaving. He doesn't know the woman well at all, and it's not his business what problems there might be in the relationship unless Ivar actually chooses to confide in him.

[ragnarsson]

Ivar looks faintly surprised at Bucky's assertion. For all that he can read other people, he's not very perceptive when it comes to himself. Empathy isn't something that usually comes naturally to him, but in this case, it had been instinctive. He'd felt love for Winter from the first time he saw her.

He also looks a little pleased. Apparently, he's been making more progress than he's given himself credit for. "Is that what you'd call it?" He looks down at Winter fondly. "She is lucky. I know what it's like to be different, to have the whole world is set against you from day one." He wished someone had been more supportive of him growing up. His mother has been there, but she only saw what he couldn't do, not what he was capable of.

c.

[brightline]

Being a llama is not ideal.

Not only is a llama completely unsuitable considering where he is, in the middle of the outdoor market where he'd been shopping only a few minutes before, but it's also totally useless basically anywhere that isn't the exact situation he acquired it in. On one hand, the unexpected morphing means there's quite a bit of space, at least, because a lot of people ran away screaming, but on the other, his secret identity gig is completely shot, and he's not sure why he morphed right here in the first place.

All in all? Total mess.

On top of that, there's a guy in a wheelchair holding a hand out to him like he's a skittish animal (and really, Marco can't say he doesn't feel like one, just a little bit). It's the final straw when he starts talking, though, his tone of voice not matching the words he's saying.

<Excuse me? Who are you calling a reject horse, buddy?>

Soundless, the words will simply be in Ivar's head.

[ragnarsson]

Ivar's mouth drops open, and for once, he's entirely speechless, shock stamped across his face. For a moment, he thinks he's gone crazy. Then he looks around for the source of the voice in his head, sure it has to be someone nearby. But the only thing that appears to be looking at him is the fluffy creature with the weirdly long face.

"....You can talk?! What are you?" He's assuming the talking factor has something to do with the type of animal. Maybe all llamas can talk. How is he supposed to know otherwise?

Unlike some people, who might decide a talking animal might be the slightest bit dangerous or disturbing, Ivar instead wheels closer to the fluffy beast. This close up, he can see the feet, split into two sections, more like a goat's hoof than that of a horse.

[brightline]

Tilting his totally adorable llama head back and giving it a bit of a shake, Marco stretches out to his full llama height and regards the guy in the wheelchair with a deeply judging llama eye.

<I think the word you're looking for is who, dude, not what.>

Marco says it in the huffiest manner possible, tilting his head to the side and shifting on his hooves, making little clattering noises on the cobblestones.

<I'll have you know that I was a llama the first time I got on TV.>

[ragnarsson]

Don't you judge him, llama-boy. He will judge you right back, folding his arms with their braces on across his chest. "Excuse me for not realizing a funny looking fluffy animal can talk. The only ones I've seen talking around here are humans." He pauses, thinking of Garrus. "Well, human-shaped, anyway."

He looks the llama over, trying to figure out just how he's talking. Psychic llamas are not something that the Norse legends of his home prepared him for. "So who are you? And what? I've never seen anything like you before." Also, can he touch you? Ivar's always been a tactile person and the urge to run his fingers through that fuzzy fluff is awful strong.

[brightline]

<Scuse me, who're you calling 'not a human'?>

It sounds incredibly huffy, and Marco tosses his fuzzy llama hair while he says it, the absolute picture of disapproval. Still, if the guy's talking to a llama then he's probably not a Yeerk, and that's a relief. As much as the Yeerks are toast where Marco comes from, this is a new world and who knows what this universe's version of Yeerks are doing?

<Uh, I guess I'm a llama, right now. But my name's Marco.>

Shifting, he skitters forward a bit on his little llama hooves and peers at Ivar.

<Usually I'm human.>

[ragnarsson]

The Viking just gives Marco a flat look when he gets huffy about not being mistaken for being human. He's got four hooves and a fur coat. Of course Ivar isn't going to recognize him as being human.

Ivar's lips twitch into a small smile at hearing the inherently funny sounding word. "Somehow, that word exactly fits what you look like right now." Okay, Marco's within petting distance right now. Sorry, buddy, Ivar's going to be leaning up, petting your head, and scratching you behind the ears. Hmmm, just as fluffy as he thought he was going to be. "My name is Ivar The Boneless."

Finding out that he's not always in this shape makes something click in Ivar's head. "So you're a shapeshifter then?" Norse legends were full of them, people who had been cursed or granted a gift by the gods to turn into another form. Usually, it was the form of a wolf or bear they were granted, but every so often there was an unusual form granted, like that of an otter.

A

[mysophobic]

[ If Ivar spent a lot of time in the hospital he's probably seen Shigeru around, given that he's one of the doctors there. But he doesn't really deal with children or babies much so when he's confronted by the other he gives a sheepish smile and a nod.

He'll take out his phone to type something. ]

She's very cute! What's her name?

[ragnarsson]

[Ivar cocks his head when he sees Shigeru take out his phone. He's seen him around before, but never has had the chance to talk to him before. He stares at the sentences on the phone blankly. Was he deaf or mute? Ivar had gotten around to memorizing most of the letters of the English language, but actual words were still beyond him.

He looks up at Shigeru, one of his fingers currently in the process of being grasped by Winter's weak, kitten-like grip.]

Do you have a text-to-speech function on your phone? I can't read.

[mysophobic]

[ Oh. Ah. This is awkward. He might sheepishly smile and nod his head when asked that. He remembers Dodger and Gladio putting that function on his phone. So he'll switch to that instead, even if the robotic voice is a bit unnerving to hear. ]

I'm sorry! I shouldn't of just assumed. Is this easier?

[ He's never had to deal with someone who couldn't read. So he apologizes for assuming!! ]

[ragnarsson]

It is easier. Oh, look at what she's doing now.

[Winter turns towards the unusual robotic sound, blinking her strange, pale eyes with their red pupils. This is a new noise, one she's never heard before. As young as she is, the entire world is a curiosity.]

One of these days, I'll learn how to read something besides runes.

[He shifts Winter around in his arms, her weight so slight as to be practically nothing to someone as strong as Ivar is. Nothing can keep his mood down for long right now, happy as he is with his daughter.]

[mysophobic]

[ Shigeru will watch her and he can't help but smile back at her as she eyes his phone curiously. ]

She's very inquisitive, isn't she? Oh! Maybe you should take her to the school playground. I bet she would enjoy it there!

[ Lots of things to get into a play with. ]

[ragnarsson]

[Shigeru has just risen about ten points in Ivar's book by generally seeming interested in his daughter. As far as he's concerned, she's the most precious thing he has in his life.]

Perhaps I will. She's still a little fragile right now, but she's getting stronger by the day.

[He eyes Shigeru, focused on on his face rather than the robotic voice coming from the phone.]

Are you a doctor here at the hospital? I've seen you around before.