The Story of Olaf
Olaf received a prophecy: he would die an ignominious death — not in glorious combat, not at the hands of a worthy enemy, but in some pathetic, unheroic way that would deny him entry to the afterlife his people believe in. His response to this prophecy was to go looking for something worthy of killing him, because the only way to cheat a prophecy of dying badly is to die well first. He has been looking for a long time.
He has fought things that should have killed him. They haven't. He has sailed into storms that wrecked better ships. He survived. He has entered battles that every tactical assessment said he couldn't walk away from and walked away. Each survival is both a relief and a disappointment — he is still alive, which means the prophecy hasn't been resolved, which means the ignominious death is still coming, deferred but not cancelled.
He fights with two axes simultaneously and with the specific recklessness of someone who has decided that caution serves no purpose when your goal is to find a worthy death. This recklessness is not suicidal — he wants to die in a way that counts, which requires surviving long enough to find the right opponent. He is very difficult to kill. He finds this frustrating. He also, in his honest moments, finds it exhilarating. He is not entirely clear on whether he actually wants the prophecy resolved or simply wants to keep searching.