It was a week after Ragnar’s return from Blacktail Deer Plateau and only a few days had past since he had finally rid himself of the delirium fever he had received, as far as he believed from the God Odinn leaving behind a small sliver of himself within Ragnar during the process in which Thistle had prayed to Freyja and Frigg and Odinn had accepted her sacrifices and prayers as initiation into their people making her a true Viking. His strength had returned and never one to sit idle he broke from Thistle’s side before the sun rose in the cooling morning, hunting four rabbits for her, though if she ate them all in one shot or stretched them out gradually (he could not always part from the borders to bring her lunch) Ragnar did not know. He laid them gingerly just inside the mouth of the den, hidden from the eyes of the scavengers that flew overhead or hungry foxes deigned to steal what did not belong to them, but not close enough to disturb his slumber wife.

It felt good to get back into his daily routines, though he would have to break them, once more, hopefully before Thistle gave birth to seek out his half brother, Dagrún, who had come to the Ridge in search of him while he had been away. Little did Ragnar know, but was about to find out that Dagrún was not the only one from the Cove to arrive while he was on his trip. Pump’s scent was heavy on this particular stretch of the borders though likely it had been to pick up what had slacked in his brief absence that he was sure she was likely wondering about. Another scent, familiar though it was that joined with Pump’s scent suddenly and Ragnar paused, muscles freezing beneath his iced silver coat as he bent his head low to investigate it further.

He knew that scent.

It was her.

Of course it was her.

Many questions swam around the Viking’s mind though all, as it currently stood, went unanswered without her before him to respond. Black, leathery nostrils flared as he inhaled the scents again, the scent of Sif, Váli, of the Cove and her scent unique to her. Of fire and woman and lingering faintly of him. How had she found him here, so far from the Cove? Why had his Priestess sought him out in these lands? What did her presence here mean? His patrol left unfinished he followed her scent, faint though it was until it disappeared all together and he could track her no more. He summoned her then, calling Nerian to him so she might …enlighten him and make some sense of the confusion that was his curiosity.

Ragnar might have, if circumstances had been different, assumed she would simply ignore his summons for in these lands he was no longer a Jarl and he was not sure anyone would take to well to the idea of a slave not that frankly, he gave much of a damn. It was what Nerian was to him. His slave girl. As unsure as he was the day they had raided her home pack he was hit again with the question of: why. Why had he saved her when he had done nothing to stop the others from raping or killing the other woman. What made her so damn special. Maybe it was because she knew their native tongue, had cried out in it when they had stormed the denning area after taking care of the warriors that fell one by one at the Northmen’s jaws. To this day, he still didn’t know. The same way he had not known what had made him decide to convince the Amazon boy who had lost his memory when they had taken him captive that he (Sveinn) was Ragnar’s son. Sometimes, Ragnar supposed the Gods had grand designs that even their most devout were not privy too.

Icy, oceanic eyes the color of shimmering Caribbean blue watched her as she approached, her movements elegant as he had came to expect of the Priestess. For a second, the Viking was stoic, staring her down, level and unrelenting as she approached him. When Ragnar had left the Cove on Odinn’s orders he had been confident she would have ran, back to where he had stolen her from - or what was left of it. During his time as Jarl Ragnar had heard whispers that they had been rebuilding. Curiously enough, Nerian wasn’t there. She was here. Ragnar would not have tried to stop her should she had tried to escape, the truth was, he would have let her go. Though the title of slave was harsh in and of itself and he owned her, he was not a harsh master. Though ruthless in other aspects his treatment of wolves, so long as they showed him the respect he commanded, was nothing short of fair. The Cove had flourished under Ragnar’s rule, only, he would come to learn, to be destroyed by Váli’s.

Her words were steel tipped, her voice courageous speaking out against him in a way that would have made a lesser man hurt her for sheer insubordination. Ragnar was not a lesser man. But, he wasn’t about to explain himself to her as if he had too. “Priestess,” The once upon a time Jarl murmured to her, the word lazy and drawn out in his heavy accent. He drew nearer to her, the familiar flutter of possession grabbing hold of him as he invaded the pretty Priestess’ personal space. He moved to brush his muzzle against hers in a greeting, familiarity, unaware of the anger she held against him. He pulled back to look at her, to ask his questions. “I thought you would have escaped when I left the Cove. Why are you here?” The fact that she was here - and she had to have known he was here too - gave the impression that she didn’t wish for her captivity to end. While that might not have been true, it was how Ragnar chose to interpret her presence here.

Nerian did not back away from him, did not deign to place any distance between them as he closed it. He was a heathen to her, a Pagan, a demon, or devil - whatever words they had spat at the Northerners as they raided and took. She had never outright called him that to his face, whether it was out of fear or some ill guided respect but he knew she was thinking it, saw such words in the accusations of her eyes. Ragnar did not often acknowledge what she truly thought of him - confident that she thought of him as a heathen only and nothing else - because he felt he had treated her better than any of his ilk would have. Ragnar never maimed her, raped her, she never went hungry, and she was still alive. Which was more than could be said for the others that had been brought back to the Cove as slaves. “Then enlighten me, Priestess,” The Viking encouraged her taking a step back to see that at some point she had closed her eyes.

It was a little while before her eyes reopened but when they did they were accompanied by words, giving him the answer he had sought. Not that it made much sense to Ragnar. Then again the Priestess had never made much sense to Ragnar with all her restrictions and rules and her talk of “sins”. “Your God must be greedy; like Loki. We have greedy gods too,” This wasn’t the first time Ragnar had thought it, but it was the first time he said it aloud to her. At her talk of returning home as a free wolf, cleansed of her “sins” - there was that word again - he was thoughtful, silent as he looked out at the horizon. She had come all the way here, joined this pack just to ask for her freedom? “You make no sense Priestess,” He scoffed at her, finally, looking back to her. “Why go through all the trouble just to ask me for your freedom? Why not ask me at the borders hmm?” He just …could not make it add up.

“Fine,” The Viking told her backing up another step. “You can run back to your people.” In truth, Ragnar did not want her to go, not because he had risked much to save her, and because if he should decide to split ways with Pump she would be useful, another addition to his Viking pack if that would happen. The choice was hers. Either she would turn away or she would come to him.

Ragnar simply stared at Nerian, torn. The idea of owning a slave had never been something he had nurtured even when he was a young Berserker and nothing more but the Jarl’s son and then when Björn took over, the Jarl’s brother. It still uninterested him in most manners, though he found it useful only to call upon her if he would need her to help him found a pack, a revised version of the Cove in these Wilds as Ragnar had always planned to do since Odinn had sent him out upon this journey. “Have I not always taken care of you, Priestess?” The Viking asked the woman, if only because he was not ready to relinquish his hold on her, afraid that the moment he did that she would run, or turn against him. Such a thing would not have surprised Ragnar, who was clever and understood what she was saying even if he pretended otherwise. He also understood that there were certain consequences for freeing her and ones that he was not yet ready to face; even as it occurred to him that his hold on her might not be acknowledged in the Ridge, that surely Pump would not allow Nerian’s single handed devotion to her master even if it was only because he “owned” her and nothing more.

“Your sins,” Ragnar hissed the word, though it sounded foreign and strange on his tongue, heavy with his accent as it was, though in truth, the word itself held an enigmatic meaning at best for the Viking. There was no such thing to his Gods and they did not stop loving you just because you did something “wrong” though the Pagan’s did not seem nearly as strict as Nerian’s own “God”. “What sins, Priestess? What have you done that is so wrong, hm?” The Viking asked canting his head to the side in a manner that resembled a bird, his eyes as demanding as that of a raven’s. What little Ragnar knew of her religion was only from what she had chosen to share with him, though it was enough to make Ragnar realize that he didn’t like Nerian’s God much. Neither did he make much sense to Ragnar no matter how many times his Priestess attempted to explain things to the Viking.

“Because I wanted answers, because I knew you wouldn’t go,” He wanted, though, to see it for himself, despite that she had her best chance to run back home when he had left the Cove. “Why are you really here, Priestess? You could go to the others and have them wash your soul,” Not that Ragnar was still all that certain on what a ‘soul’ was but it seemed pretty important to her, adamant as she was that everyone - even he - had one. “What do your sins have to do with me?” The only thing Ragnar could figure was that he was tied to her by whatever sins that lured her all this way, back to him, was because he had taken her as his slave. Did that mean, then, if Váli had taken her as his slave instead that she would shadow him around and ask for the cleansing of her soul?

The Viking watched, stoic, as his Priestess moved closer to him, and then against him. Though Ragnar did not, in turn, jerk away, the muscles beneath his coat pulled taunt as he glimpsed over his shoulder to watch her, ears slicking back to his skull when she nipped at his tailbone, the small divot where his tail met his torso. She rounded him, he watched, and rubbed herself against his other side then, their scents mingling together, the contact and teasings unfamiliar to Ragnar who had come to accept her celibacy long ago. Her “God” was her husband and her body was pure for him. It had seemed stupid, still did, to deny yourself carnal pleasure for a God that would never touch you. Maybe that was the point, it had occurred to Ragnar before as it did now, but it still seemed stupid. Her question was odd, light and teasing and for the moment the Viking returned her smile with a lazy, slow smirk tugging at the edges of his lips. “No.” He murmured to her thickly, simply.

No, he was hardly afraid of her.

Nerian’s words were enigmatic at best on the topic of ‘washing away her sins’ and the Viking’s brow furrowed as he considered them carefully, trying to find whatever hidden meaning lay within them. The only conclusion he could come to was that she was speaking of death. “You want me to kill you?” Ragnar asked her dubiously, unable to keep the skepticism out of his voice. Maybe he had simply interpretated her words wrongly - which was not something that was admittedly uncommon his Priestess had an enigmatic way about her and sometimes her wording left the Viking feeling like there was a hidden message he was meant to pick up on. Thus far, he had been lucky that he was clever. The Viking rolled his eyes at his Priestess then, not understanding - and likely he never would - what was so horrible that she had done; and if she had, indeed, done something horrible than he had not been around to see it happen. “Váli would not leave the Cove,” Ragnar told her firmly but he was confused by the implications that Váli had done something to her, and further by her speech of Váli killing her though neither made any sense.

Váli had not been like that. Björn, yes. Váli? No. Which left Ragnar to briefly ponder if they were even talking about the same wolf.

“What as Váli done to you, Nerian?” It was a rare instance when Ragnar addressed her by her name, but he wanted her to know that he was taking her seriously. That he trusted her to tell him the truth. “He cannot kill you. You are not his property.” Ragnar assured her, unsure why he had the sudden urge to comfort her but only knowing, simply, that he did. Her prodding last words did nothing to ease the Viking’s puzzlement. “What sin did I lead you to commit, Priestess?” Why couldn’t she just come out and tell him? Why was there so much dancing around? As if she were afraid to admit it to him. He, who according to her and her sisters, was a heathen. Surely a heathen would understand what he had done to her, if she only told him.

“I cannot free you yet, Priestess,” He murmured finally, knowing that she deserved an answer. He would give her the truth as he trusted her to give to him. “I need you,” It was a simple truth, but genuine all the same. “If I am to start my own pack, make the Cove anew here, I will need you to support my ranks,” He drew nearer to her once more, “Do this for me and you will have your freedom Priestess.” He promised her softly, his muzzle closer to her ear as his voice dropped to a softened murmur for only her to hear. Ragnar was nothing if not a man of his word.

Ragnar eyed her with the frustration latent of two people that no matter how hard they tried seemed to fail at understanding one another. “That is stupid,” He muttered under his breath, rolling his eyes at her ‘temple’. He could not make him understand why they had one specific place to worship, and why those who were most devout to their “God” had so many rules, so many harsh punishments. To Ragnar, Nerian’s deity did not seem like one to worship with reverence but to spite and to hate. No matter what Nerian tried to say to him he would never understand her God, and never understand why she loved her God so. Especially how he rewarded her, and abolished her for whatever exactly her sins were - of which Ragnar still held no clarity. Ragnar was surprised but hid it well when Nerian’s eyes jumped to his at his simple truth, but it was less of the courage it took to meet his eyes that surprised him as it was what he saw there in the briefest of moments. Suddenly the Viking began to make sense of things. He understood.

If things had not happened how they had, if he had never have left the Cove he might have pursued her as a potential wife. She was not of his people, or his culture, but that had never stopped any of his kinsmen before. She was pretty, delicate and yet she had a resilience about her that he found admirable. But things had happened they way they had, and Ragnar’s heart belonged to Thistle. Nerian was given his affection because she was a good slave, a good “Christian” (not that he really understood what it meant to be one). And just like that she broke their brief eye contact but it had been enough for Ragnar to see.

“Do you not want the things normal women want, Priestess? Do you not want to be loved by a man, a husband? Do you not want children?” Ragnar could not give her any of those things, but there were other men that could. Dagrun would probably take her, or the other men in the Ridge. “Why marry yourself to a being that has many wives and doesn’t love a single one?” It made no sense to him. It never would, and likely, they could argue with each other about it until they were both blue in the face and it probably would have not made any sort of difference. He listened as she spoke about Váli and Ragnar wondered what kind of stranger had stolen his brother’s body. The Váli she described was not the one that he knew, but he trusted her words if only because they matched up with the words Dagrun had told to Thistle.

Her body was cowering away from him, as if he were the one that might hurt her, but stubbornly the Viking drew nearer to her, and reached down to comfort her. “I will protect you, Priestess.” He vowed to soothe her and because if Váli came within ten feet of him Ragnar would kill him, for ruining the Cove, for chasing out family.

Ragnar had long ago came to the conclusion that Nerian and him were never meant to understand each other’s ways, even if she tried and he, as well. He was curious about her life, her people, her God but he had used the information to raid again, to learn about them only to further gain himself and his Cove. It didn’t insinuate that he didn’t want to understand her because despite his failures he yearned too. How can you be happy with nothing? Essentially it was what she had had when he had found her: nothing; yet Ragnar bit that back because the question if it were to be spoken from betwixt his lips would only lead them, uselessly, around and around each other again. It got them no where. Tail lashed behind his haunches in frustration, black, leathery nostrils flaring as he inhaled and exhaled her scent as he had drawn closer.

For a moment Ragnar was absorbed in feeling the rises of skin beneath her pelt, the scars he could not see but now felt. Scars that he knew he had not given her. Váli. The name was like a hiss, a curse, a deadly promise as it writhed like a tangible and living thing within Ragnar’s mind. Gone, it would seem, was the good natured shadow of a younger brother Ragnar had once known. Now two brothers had betrayed him, and like Björn, Váli would pay for it with his life, some day. Ragnar did not hold grudges, yet he tried to believe in justice and punishment. Váli had committed crimes, defied the laws of their culture; laws that had been in place since their predecessors so many unfathomable years ago had founded Odinn’s Cove. It’s life as a pack was ending at the paws of a once good man. Ragnar was drawn from his thoughts, almost startled, when Nerian began to sob on his shoulder.

He could feel the cool kiss of her salty tears as they stained and dampened the fur there but the once Jarl did not move, did not speak. He simply let her cry there. Ragnar had never been good with tears — remained unsure how exactly to handle them and figured the best thing to do would be to let her cry them out of her. Ragnar was not a sentimental beast and even if he had wanted to say something to her, it would not have been with condolences. Ears, scarred and unscarred slicked back to his skull as his Priestess continued to cry upon him as he considered that keeping her his slave was in part, causing her to do this. To cry. While he might not have treated her like a slave was normally treated the title was still branded to her. And he did need her, he would need her help to branch off from Pump, eventually. He needed wolves that he trusted at his back, and he trusted Nerian.

“Nerian,” He called to her as gently as he could, as if she were a small animal Ragnar was afraid of frightening away. “You are safe here. You are safe.” Ragnar murmured to her in his native tongue, the old norse slipping off his tongue old and familiar.

The decadent feel of her small, decidedly female body against his as it always did, caused the Viking’s muscles to quiver beneath his coat of platinum silver at the woman’s touch. It had always been forbidden to him and that was why he relished in it now. Still, it was forbidden to him and though Ragnar understood and knew he should create a chasm of distance between them he could not bring himself too. Even if Nerian was not willing to admit it to him he was confident that she was vulnerable and that it was his job, as her master, to protect her while she was weak. To take care of her like he had always done — or rather like he had thought he had always done. The touch of her cheek against his was a subtle gesture, and the Viking’s black, leathery nostrils flared with his deep breath.

Her question, seemingly so simple, was one that Ragnar struggled with for a few moments. Where do we go from here? They could not be stuck in the past, and though Ragnar did not hold a grudge against his brother for the atrocities Váli had committed Ragnar would kill him plain and simple if he came anywhere near him. “We go forward, Priestess,” It was a lot easier than most would except, from Ragnar’s experience with ‘going forward’. “I am,” The Viking replied with a deep breath. “I have taken a wife in these Wilds and she is pregnant with my sons.” He told her in his quiet, softened tone. He had not expected to take a wife here, but falling in love with Thistle had knocked him literally onto his ass — unexpected and wonderful as it was — leaving Ragnar with the confirmation that Odinn had always fated it to be so.

Because their lives were ruled by fate. Pre-determined at their birth.

Nerian’s question did not, despite the simple surprise that it had came from her, come as entirely unexpected. He had heard it many times, from many different wolves — male and female alike. It was not something he ever had to explain at the Cove, because of course, his kinsmen understood and had similar thoughts of their own. “Yes, Priestess, sons. A man’s job is to have many sons,” He told her. He knew, despite his desire to have many sons as the Seer had prophesied, that it had been harder for him to bury his lifeless daughter’s body than it had been to bury the stiff bodies of his sons when Dagmar had miscarried them. He did not tell her that he had loved his daughter — more than his sons — and that it had enraged him as it broke his heart to bury her alongside her brothers whom had never gotten the chance to live. She was a woman and Ragnar assumed that would only make her feel sympathetic towards him and he did not want sympathy. He had buried it with them and sent the lingering traces of that painful and angry memory far away as a gift because he hadn’t loved Dagmar and could never love her.

Ragnar ignored her apology, and felt her body tense besides his before, strangely enough, it pressed tighter against his, until he could nearly memorize every womanly curve, the soft, pliant muscles beneath her coat. Her next words had the silver Viking silent as he listened, astounded by her bold words. Her …confession of what, her love for him? Was that what she was saying to him in too many words? Why? Seemed to float around his mind as he questioned, re-questioned and tried but failed to find a conclusion to Nerian’s confession — especially since he had just admitted to her that he had taken a wife and not only was he married, his wife was also pregnant. If Ragnar had known what Stockholm Syndrome was he might have pointed it out that she may have developed it.

The silver Viking drew in a deep breath, knowing that he could not just ignore it, and that if possible, he could not allow her to continue to feel love that would only remain unrequited by him. He felt something for her — affection certainly — but he had never viewed her as a potential wife because she had made it abundantly clear, over and over, that her husband would always be her God; and Ragnar did not want to compete with a deity he didn’t even believe in. “You will make a man a good wife, Nerian,” But I am not him, “but we both know I cannot compete with your God, Priestess. I have given Thistle my heart, just as you should give yours to someone who doesn’t mind sharing it.” He inhaled again, in time with hers, and let it out. “You are a good Christian.” With those words he twisted so he was facing her and kissed her brow, and put the distance in between them that he should have put much earlier. He had tried to make his words gentle, as gentle as the truth could ever be.

Ragnar could not have both women, Thistle had made that very clear upon accepting to be his mate and so he had been forced to choose. He did not want Nerian to entirely cut herself from his life, she was trusted, and a friend but he could never be to her what she wanted him to be. It was fate. "I will see you later, Priestess." With those words he departed.