It was a full moon Ragnar saw as he glimpsed up at the rapidly darkening skyline, the fires of dusk streaking through the heavens burning brighter than any of the stars that laced through the velveteen darkness. The orb glowed silver from where it hung in the sky, larger than it was most nights. Caribbean blue eyes lingered across the burning skyline, glimpsing at the trees of Ravensblood in the near distance, admiring how the tree line was engulfed in the brilliant golds, oranges, and reds of the sunset as if the sinking sun was setting the world on fire around it in it’s last push of defiance before it would sink fully beneath the horizon. The night was crisp, warmer than many of the night previous had been but still relatively cool as Ragnar made his way across the void of land considered “no man’s land” between Horizon Ridge and Ravensblood Forest. His patrol had just been neatly wrapped up but had began to coincide with the temptation and saccharine scent of Thistle’s hormones, calling to him like a siren’s song as he was sure it did to every male that resided within Horizon Ridge.

At that point, afraid that he would follow it to where she was and that tonight would be the night that he would become a reckless abandon - his goal of the Beta rank sang firmly and demandingly in his mind as if to counter the decadent allure of Thistle’s sexually mature body - he had veered left instead of right, heading to the Forest he had deduced was sacred to the Allfather. Surely within it’s catacomb of trees, within the tantalizing dance of the fog and the silver caress of the moonlight he would be safe from any ruinous temptations.

In truth, Ragnar had not thought much of Thistle’s admittance of the tryst between her and the faceless Plateau male other than to contemplate on the rare times it weeded into his brain, as to why he was the first of knowledge about it and why she had not gone to Pump who was the actual leader of their ragtag band while Ragnar remained just the aspiring one - though as far he was aware only Pump and himself knew of his ambitions for the position of her Second in Command. It couldn’t have been because Ragnar - if he had been the leader - would have let it go. In Odinn’s Cove illegitimate pups were not uncommon, often the result of copulation between a slave girl and either her master or whatever male decided to mount her, and typically, allowed to live. Thistle was no slave and the stranger that had stolen her maidenhood was not even apart of their pack so the circumstances were admittedly, different but still, the Viking wouldn’t have made a huge deal out of it even if she had actually became pregnant.

Ragnar’s black, leathery nostrils flared when a familiar, heady scent, dreaded and adored as it was, tickled across his nose, causing the siren’s song he had been trying to dull to flare up with a spiteful vengeance. The girl and her infernal hormones would be lurking in Ravensblood, wouldn’t they? He froze when he heard a sigh - no doubt from Thistle who likely had the same reaction to stumbling across him as he did her. “I should be the one sighing mær,” He murmured under his breath keeping his distance from her in the small clearing they had both found themselves awkwardly placed in. “I didn’t expect you to be out of the Ridge,” He admitted attempting to ignore the call of her hormones while attempting to hide the gravitational pull and reaction they had on him.

It dawned on him then the possible reason why she was out here and he said keeping his face stoic, “Did you find him?” Of course the answer was evident - there was on one there but them (and Odinn admittedly), and no musk of man or sex that would have otherwise clung to her. But Ragnar had to ask it because as long as he was talking it was easier to ignore the call of her body to his.

Ragnar heard Thistle sigh once more and contemplated with a small smirk that she was likely not all that thrilled to be in his presence once more. It was true that he had seen and knew her the most out of all his other pack mates - not including Pump who he saw on a regular and daily basis at the borders, or intercepting loners, or whatever. At first, their time together had been only because she was the only healer and he and his infected wound had needed her expertise. Ragnar was not aware of it but if she had not been there he likely might have died from the infection and severity of the wound that had cut to the bone. He was reminded of it now, of the rudimentary wrappings Thistle had dressed it in, the fur hot and itchy beneath the webbings and leaves. For the sake of avoiding her ire on the subject he did his best to simply ignore it. She was fierce when she needed to be, and it seemed especially when it came to rowdy, disobedient patients such as himself. Admittedly, Ragnar had never been very good with being patient in regards to healing wounds as Floki, would he have been there, would have gleefully told her.

For a moment Ragnar contemplated telling her that he had hoped to avoid her by staying the night in the Forest, away from the lure of her sexually receptive body that was, possibly quite literally, driving him insane but decided against it thinking that it might hurt her feelings. “This forest is scared to Odinn, I come here often,” He settled for the second best truth, instead. Or, rather, what he knew to be the truth (or stubbornly believed was the truth, whichever). He moved them, the bear like Viking having managed to ghost slightly to his left, though his Caribbean blue eyes were focused instead of her upon a dark circling shapes above them. “Look,” Ragnar whispered to her then, gesturing with his muzzle, not wanting to spook either of the bird. “Huginn and Muinnin.” Ragnar introduced Odinn’s ravens to her with breathless reverence before he looked back down at her, his smile fading at the sad undercurrent of her tone when she spoke that she had been a passing moment to the Plateau wolf.

For a moment Ragnar was silent as he stared at her, not really sure he had any business speaking on the matter because it didn’t really concern him and technically he could have been considered just as bad if not worse than Crete which didn’t leave the Viking with much of a leg to stand upon. “Then he is a fool,” Ragnar deduced his soft, heavily accented voice breaking the silence he had created between them before he glimpsed back up at the ravens, wondering what their semblance was here, in this moment, with her.

“Because ravens haunt it, because it is called Ravensblood, because I have heard him here, heard his voice whispering through the trees to me,” There were many reasons and so he didn’t deign to pick just one.

Ragnar hadn’t meant to laugh so hard when Thistle had attempted and utterly failed at saying Muininn’s name, adding a couple too extra “nin’s” at the end. It had caught him off guard though, breaking the silence and admittedly sending the ravens to cry out in protest as his unexpected mirth and they settled on branches above, one on either side, observing the wolves with their beady black eyes. Eyes that would show Odinn when they returned to Asgard what they had seen of the nine realms. “Muininn,” Ragnar stressed the syllables for her slowly, the old Norse slipping off of his tongue like velvet, a caress like a forgotten lovers’ name. “Their names mean Thought and Memory,” He had unconsciously moved closer to her, his soft voice lowered to set the mood he desired when explaining about his beliefs. “They belong to Odinn. Do you remember that I told you Odinn gave his eye to acquire knowledge?” Ragnar asked her smiling down at her before he looked back up to the ravens somehow having found himself joining her in the middle of the circular clearing. “Well they gather knowledge for him. Every morning just before the sun rises he sends them into the sky to scour the nine realms where they see everything and each night just before the sun sinks fully into the horizon they return to him and transfer everything they have seen of all nine realms to him,” Ragnar paused grinning up at the birds. “They are very important to him, and to me. They mean that Odinn is watching.” While other cultures saw them as bringers of death Ragnar saw them for what he believed they were: vessels of knowledge.

The touch of her muzzle against his sent a jolt through the Viking who had actually, for once since realizing he was in her presence had not been thinking about how badly he wanted to take her and plant his own seed within her womb. In a matter of seconds a wild fire had blazed to life within his body filling him with a feral hunger and aching need. He might have been able to ignore it if she hadn’t touched him, if he hadn’t felt the sparks travel along the nerves of his muzzle. His eyes had fluttered closed only to burst open, his pupils having swallowed all but a small sliver of bright oceanic blue halo as he looked at her. No matter how loudly he reminded himself that this would put him jeopardy of the Beta rank he could not stop what she had unknowingly started having sent it propelling into action. He returned her gesture, teeth nipping playfully at her jaw line as he moved closer, inhaling the saccharine scent of her body, as he worked his way down to the curve of her throat, drawing his tongue across the silky fur there each kiss more sultry and urging as the last, attempting to encourage her to rise to her feet once more otherwise his mounting of her would be awkward and incomplete.

"Thistle," He purled against the delicate curve of her throat no longer having the capability to pulling away or stopping himself.

“I feel the closest to him,” Ragnar murmured truthfully, opening up in a proverbial floodgate about his beliefs and culture to her. Something he did not do often, and never with someone he didn’t trust. “I am his great descendent,” Or so that was how his father had used to be fond of telling the story during Ragnar’s childhood, anyway. That they were descendents of the Allfather. Whether it was true or not Ragnar didn’t know and in reality it didn’t matter. It didn’t make him any more special. He had to earn everything he had just like everyone else. “Yes, muinnin,” He whispered the second raven’s name into the darkness letting the wind carry it until it disappeared. “I would pay much more…,” Ragnar admitted with a thoughtful musing in response to her speaking that Odinn sacrificing his eye for knowledge was outrageous.

Ragnar would have given his eye, his arm, his ear, his entire being if it meant he could know all of the secrets, of everything, anywhere. Even to know what Odinn himself already knew. For a moment Ragnar had to force himself to pause in his onslaught of sultry kisses upon her body, tasting the delicious scent that lingered all over her scent that would soon mix with his musk - exactly how he wanted it to be -, as she rose to her paws and nipped at his neck scruff. Her eyes were giving him the permission he had sought and been rejected previously. For a moment, he thought she was kidding him, leading him on, teasing him.

The word, whatever word that she had attempted to speak had came out utterly unintelligible to him - unintelligible in her desire in the hunger that mirrored his own. Sliding closer to his chest was pressed against her side he peppered sultry kisses down her spine, as he shifted, lifting a foreleg over her back before the silver fur of his belly meshed messily with the sandy color of fur at her spine as he mounted her, grasping her hips, teething sinking against the plush fur of her scruff...

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