The Viking watched as his Priestess turned to face him after a few moments that seemed to tick by with the conscious awareness of the achingly slow momentum of time in those few seconds, her tail hanging limp behind her. For a split second their eyes met and then she closed hers as if he were a nightmare and she were a child trying to will him away. If only it could work. If only he could be willed away like a figment of imagination. It wasn’t that simple, of course; he was real and he stood on tumulus ground, rocked between the most basics of instincts of whose embers were stirred alive at the hormones her body was putting off, beckoning him to draw forth, to come nearer and do the carnal act that had been done since the dawning of time to create and seed children. To claim what no man had been allowed to claim before, to show her what true corruption of what was once pure felt like.
No. Because he couldn’t. Because while he definitely could he knew he shouldn’t. Because the image of Thistle’s heartbroken face if he did was enough to feel like a clawed hand had grasped his heart and squeezed mercilessly, because though she had spoken of anger and killing him with her poisons (and he did not doubt that she would) he could not help but think that more than anything she would be hurt and he did not ever want to be the source of her pain. Because he was trying to convince himself he was a loyal man and a loyal husband.
Of course, it wasn’t Nerian’s fault. She couldn’t help that she had gone into heat. No more that Ragnar could help that he had caught the scent of it on the wind. There were elements out of their control at work here, too, and it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Her question made the Viking realize that he might have slipped, that he might have clued her in on what was happening in his body and mind currently; he knew he had to fix it before this situation became measurably worse or escalated into something the both of them would, no doubt, regret. To hide it Ragnar gave her a careless, coy smirk, a trademark of his.
The Viking shrugged and pushed away from the tree he had unknowingly rested against trotting ahead of her a few meters pausing at the next tree to lift his leg and mark it. Marking borders was what he was meant to be doing not Nerian. As long as the distance was kept between them there was a chance that they might both make it out of the day without guilt or regrets and so that was what Ragnar was attempting to do. Keep distance between them and focus on marking the borders.