"Nope. They taught me to kill my elders for being too slow to keep up with me any longer," Ivar says cheerfully. Really, he'd rather stay young forever than grow old and decrepit. He'd seen what that had done to his father and wishes to avoid a similar fate.

At that, Ivar flat-out blushes. "I only ever tried to not only be the equal of all those around me but to exceed what even they could do." So many Norsemen were given so much, like his brothers, and yet were content with mediocrity. Ivar would never understand it. All he's ever wanted was to be just like anyone else, and when he finally got there, he decided he wanted to be better then all of them as well.