[Listen.... if he doesn't have to wrestle himself into his unholy proto-leg braces only to take them off and have to carry them back, he's not going to.]
[One of the greatest requirements for this piece - outside of a valiant attempt to keep it looking as thematically appropriate and period-accurate as possible - was that it could fold up, for ease of transport. It’s simple enough now, snapped in together with the padded leather seat sandwiched between the wheel-locks, slung over one shoulder on a strap. Fairly ingenious overall; he’s glad he found the people willing to put in the time for construction.
It’s a short walk to the spire and shorter still to find Ivar’s door. He almost knocks on the jamb with the intention of waiting before thinking that locks are probably not a viking’s first concern.
Nate enters, suppressing the deep desire to over-analyze every corner of the space, barely looking for Ivar.]
[There are... a lot of weapons. A lot of weapons. Ivar, as it turns out, has a bad habit of nicking them from the armory and a very Viking aversion to returning anything that he could make his own just by, you know, not doing that. A lot of knives are scattered around, some bows and arrows, a truly dizzying amount of axes, and even a sword or three just in the main living space alone. On the table sits a few inexpert wooden carvings in Odin's image, and there are furs draped over all the apartment's seating, as well as over the floor in place of rugs. There are probably too many candles, and are those monster bones hanging above the couch? There might also be some runes inscribed on the walls in a worryingly dark red color. Don't question it.
Listen, Ivar is serious about interior redesign. Also about asserting dominance over the space lest the nice, unassuming Christian king that he and his older brother have seemingly accidentally stolen feel like he's got just as equal a claim to it. Can't have that!
When he hears the door opening, he comes crawling out of one of the bedrooms on his belly, like he do, and he immediately perks up at the sight of the thing slung over Nate's shoulder.] That is it? [He pulls himself up onto the couch so he can get a better, non-ankle-level look.]
[To say it feels very "pagan" is unfair, because that implies a certain simplistic worldview and, frankly, is sort of patronizing given the realness inherent in execution and design. Old gods required flesh and blood as payment. New gods gave their own in transubstantiation, more metaphorical than literal. Faith comes in believing whether a priest waving their hands over a wafer means it's really the Body of Christ, or just an unleavened piece of bread that tastes like cardboard.
Nate tries to avoid getting too distracted, meandering over to the fur-covered sofa and slipping the wheelchair from his shoulder. As with many models from his time it folds open, the metal a matte black, the leather dark, the handles stained wood. Trying to come up with something moderately sympathetic to Ivar's time period was a combination of labors from multiple people.
He crouches next to it, pointing the different features out.]
So, you sit here. Feet go here. These handles on the back are for pushing, but you can actually direct yourself by using the round ones against the wheels, on the side. Using both together will make you go straight, but holding one while moving the other will let you turn. Kind of like a rudder.
[The wheelchair's design seems so obvious in retrospect. Maybe it wouldn't have been the perfect solution back at home, traipsing across England like he had been, but here where everything is so much more smooth and uniform than he's used to...
He reaches out to touch it when Nate is done pointing things out, pulling at one of the wheel's handles to see how it turns for himself. Helpful, considering that Viking ships don't actually have rudders (or keels), part of the reason they can go so far inland on shallow rivers.
He's no good at saying thank you, never had much reason to practice, so he doesn't really bother now. But he does seem, maybe, less prickly when he pulls himself up off the couch to sit in the wheelchair. Not so much of an imperious shitlord in the way he glances back to Nate like he's double checking that he's doing it right. It's, you know... pretty cool. This thing that Nate did for him. (Not that he needs it!!!)]
Who came up with this? [Ivar's nose wrinkles while he re-thinks the question, considering what he knows of Nate's situation, wheeling himself back a few steps experimentally.] Or, when?
[Par for what Nate anticipates being Ivar's usual course he helps himself to the seat, and any encroaching upon what he views as his personal self-sufficiency would be taken as an insult. Better to avoid disrespecting the guy by offering any assistance beyond the tool he can use to help himself.
He hangs back, then, seating himself on the fur-wrapped couch instead. Elbows braced on his knees he watches as Ivar acquaints himself with the sparse bells and whistles.]
The ancient Greeks, I think? Or the ancient Chinese.
[For all of his arbitrary points of specific knowledge, Nate is less familiar with how disabilities have historically been treated outside of the blanket (and shitty) perspective of "burdensome." He also feels a little bad applying ancient when it probably only happened a couple centuries before Ivar.]
Most of them involved other people pushing, though. I don't think wheelchairs you can steer yourself came until later.
Ancient? [Ivar asks, a pointedly skeptical look thrown in Nate's direction before he goes back to examining and tentatively utilizing the new contraption beneath him.
Being more or less raised by Floki has given him some residual fascination over the structure of things, how they work, how he might try and build them. He leans over the side to look down at where the wheel connects to the chair, running his hands down the spokes. It's the axle that he finds particularly interesting.]
I have never seen anything like it. [He squints back at Nate suddenly.] Were you a craftsman? Where you are from. [An occupation like that would hardly explain all those scars...]
[Ancient. His mouth twitches briefly apologetic for the word, but since Ivar doesn't press the matter Nate doesn't elaborate. He's trying to be sensitive to this "twelve-hundred years behind the times" thing.]
A craftsman? No.
[Nate actually chuckles at that, shaking his head. He's fairly certain that he has destroyed more things than created them, though usually by accident.]
Like I said, I was born in Boston - it's a city built on a peninsula, facing the ocean. I haven't been there in a while, though. I used to move around a lot.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[text] 4/13
no subject
where?
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[Presumably it would take some doing for Ivar to get there, and it's not as though they don't have an abundance of time.]
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[Listen.... if he doesn't have to wrestle himself into his unholy proto-leg braces only to take them off and have to carry them back, he's not going to.]
Spire three on the first floor
[And he Very Impatiently waits!]
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It’s a short walk to the spire and shorter still to find Ivar’s door. He almost knocks on the jamb with the intention of waiting before thinking that locks are probably not a viking’s first concern.
Nate enters, suppressing the deep desire to over-analyze every corner of the space, barely looking for Ivar.]
Hey. It’s me.
no subject
Listen, Ivar is serious about interior redesign. Also about asserting dominance over the space lest the nice, unassuming Christian king that he and his older brother have seemingly accidentally stolen feel like he's got just as equal a claim to it. Can't have that!
When he hears the door opening, he comes crawling out of one of the bedrooms on his belly, like he do, and he immediately perks up at the sight of the thing slung over Nate's shoulder.] That is it? [He pulls himself up onto the couch so he can get a better, non-ankle-level look.]
no subject
[To say it feels very "pagan" is unfair, because that implies a certain simplistic worldview and, frankly, is sort of patronizing given the realness inherent in execution and design. Old gods required flesh and blood as payment. New gods gave their own in transubstantiation, more metaphorical than literal. Faith comes in believing whether a priest waving their hands over a wafer means it's really the Body of Christ, or just an unleavened piece of bread that tastes like cardboard.
Nate tries to avoid getting too distracted, meandering over to the fur-covered sofa and slipping the wheelchair from his shoulder. As with many models from his time it folds open, the metal a matte black, the leather dark, the handles stained wood. Trying to come up with something moderately sympathetic to Ivar's time period was a combination of labors from multiple people.
He crouches next to it, pointing the different features out.]
So, you sit here. Feet go here. These handles on the back are for pushing, but you can actually direct yourself by using the round ones against the wheels, on the side. Using both together will make you go straight, but holding one while moving the other will let you turn. Kind of like a rudder.
no subject
He reaches out to touch it when Nate is done pointing things out, pulling at one of the wheel's handles to see how it turns for himself. Helpful, considering that Viking ships don't actually have rudders (or keels), part of the reason they can go so far inland on shallow rivers.
He's no good at saying thank you, never had much reason to practice, so he doesn't really bother now. But he does seem, maybe, less prickly when he pulls himself up off the couch to sit in the wheelchair. Not so much of an imperious shitlord in the way he glances back to Nate like he's double checking that he's doing it right. It's, you know... pretty cool. This thing that Nate did for him. (Not that he needs it!!!)]
Who came up with this? [Ivar's nose wrinkles while he re-thinks the question, considering what he knows of Nate's situation, wheeling himself back a few steps experimentally.] Or, when?
no subject
He hangs back, then, seating himself on the fur-wrapped couch instead. Elbows braced on his knees he watches as Ivar acquaints himself with the sparse bells and whistles.]
The ancient Greeks, I think? Or the ancient Chinese.
[For all of his arbitrary points of specific knowledge, Nate is less familiar with how disabilities have historically been treated outside of the blanket (and shitty) perspective of "burdensome." He also feels a little bad applying ancient when it probably only happened a couple centuries before Ivar.]
Most of them involved other people pushing, though. I don't think wheelchairs you can steer yourself came until later.
no subject
Being more or less raised by Floki has given him some residual fascination over the structure of things, how they work, how he might try and build them. He leans over the side to look down at where the wheel connects to the chair, running his hands down the spokes. It's the axle that he finds particularly interesting.]
I have never seen anything like it. [He squints back at Nate suddenly.] Were you a craftsman? Where you are from. [An occupation like that would hardly explain all those scars...]
no subject
A craftsman? No.
[Nate actually chuckles at that, shaking his head. He's fairly certain that he has destroyed more things than created them, though usually by accident.]
Like I said, I was born in Boston - it's a city built on a peninsula, facing the ocean. I haven't been there in a while, though. I used to move around a lot.