Without the encumbering limp he had harbored while his hip and leg had been healing from the tussle with the bear he was able to move without broadcasting to every prey within a ten mile vicinity of him that he was coming once more. His colossal size did not allow him stealth in it’s entirety but wolves were hunters by nature and moving as quietly as possible was an instinctual thing learned. Ragnar nodded once, firmly, when Julooke looked from him, to the specific deer she had her eye on. Words were unnecessary to communicate that he understood. For a few moments his icy Caribbean gaze zeroed in on their chosen deer. It walked with a limp as it straggled behind the bulk of the herd, it’s head bowed in a way that Ragnar might have considered graceful if he had ever taken the time to examine his prey as docile beauty and not as a meal. Alas, the Viking did not. Silently, he waited for his subordinate to take the lead, to initiate the hunt because it was hers first and foremost. Ragnar was simply the assistance.

Julooke stepped away and Ragnar mirrored her steps, going right, instead, so they may flank it. Granted, Ragnar’s size did not grant him speed but the Viking was like a tank. If he could grasp a hold of the deer he could, very likely, cripple it to make the kill easier. It had been his tactic when dealing with the bear and while three wolves stood no chance of taking an enraged bear (much to Ragnar’s dismay) Julooke and him could take this deer. The only thing they had to watch for was it’s kicks and hoping that the stag was overly protective of their weak link and came charging back, antlers bared. The birds let out shrill cries of warning, taking to the air. There was a heart beat of a moment when every thing seemed to freeze, the herd glanced up at them and then in another beat it was over and they were running, Julooke zooming off after them. A low curse in ancient Norse left the Viking’s lips as he launched himself after her. If he had known about the hunt sooner he could have sacrificed something to ensure it was successful, yet; this was a good chance for him to observe Julooke’s Gamekeeper skills that she had spoken about.

Ragnar pushed himself further, lips splitting into a ferocious sort of grin, a small little chuckle spilling forth at the thrill of the hunt that hummed through him as he caught up to Julooke, the strenuous contraction of muscles felt as he ran, the blood pounding through his body. It was a rapturous sort of feeling, to let feral instinct grab a hold of him and take over once more. Julooke fell back to dodge a kick the hindered deer aimed at her, Ragnar had caught it out the corner of his eye when his companion went for her uninjured leg. He propelled himself off of a felled log, paws slamming against the earth as he inhaled deeply through his open mouth and bared his teeth aiming for the doe’s injured leg, instead. Teeth snapped only air the first time, there was a frightened noise from their target. The Viking tried again teeth just skimming it, tearing what had began to scab open, the taste of it’s blood staining his teeth pink.

Aside from aiding in trying to get it down Ragnar did not intend to kill it: that honor would belong to Julooke; it was her hunt and she was trying to prove herself worthy of the Gamekeeper trade.

Julooke was quick to recover from falling back to avoid the dangerous kick their prey had aimed at her, and though Ragnar did not spare the woman a glimpse — not daring to take his eyes off of their prize — he could sense her presence in the instinctual way that presences were usually sensed. Felt. Teeth snapped again at the injured leg of the creature, scraping again at the now open leg though he could have probably clamped down. It would have been unnecessary simply because in the next breadth of a moment Julooke had grasped it’s good leg and halted it long enough for Ragnar to counter. Ragnar was quick to grasp the struggling creature’s scruff. The grip might have appeared similar to how he would grasp his own childrens’ scruff but there was no gentleness to the Viking’s grip, teeth digging mercilessly into the skin, the clamp of his jaws refusing to relent. Ragnar hooked his paw and body weight onto the doe’s shoulders to attempt to hold it still as it writhed in his grip, it’s throws more violent when Julooke lunged for it’s throat before it still entirely the scent of life blood filling the man’s nostrils.

For a moment his grip held firm and true watching the crimson liquid spill freely before he released it in the next moment, moving back as it teetered and then fell with a sickly thump to the earth. A deep, heavy breath was taken and let out in several small pants, tongue smoothing across his lips, blood stained. “You are very efficient,” Ragnar offered Julooke as a compliment before he glimpsed down at the doe who was bleeding out of her throat, her body stiff in her death. She was efficient as far as Ragnar was concerned, but they had made a fairly good team, also. When wolves could work together without needing to speak was extremely useful, communications limited during the hunt to body language and eyes. Julooke had not prolonged the hunt longer than was necessary and this was a good trait to Ragnar who did not like to prolong things at all. It might have been because he was an assertive and blunt Savage but it was a quality he liked in others. Clean and simple. “Pump had spoken to me about having a pack hunt sometime, perhaps you could speak to her about leading it.” Ragnar had already informed their hybrid leader that he would not be partaking in the hunt, and still would not even though his hip and leg was all but healed. His reasons for not partaking had changed, thinking that maybe if Pump held off long enough to the point where the children did not need Thistle consistently for food that she could take his place in the hunt and he would stay and watch the children for a few hours.

“As I can speak for your skills personally,” The Viking offered her a rare, albeit small, genuine grin. “I do not see that being an problem.” Julooke continued to impress the Viking with her ambition and a small part of him considered eventually approaching her (and her partner, Verrine since they seemed to be a package deal and he, too, was working hard) to see if she would follow him when he eventually branched off from the Ridge. There was a chance, as with anyone, that she would decline and yet, Ragnar could be optimistic that maybe she wouldn’t. For now, Ragnar tucked that thought away, figuring there was no sense in speaking about it yet, he had no intentions of leaving Pump just yet; for now his children and wife remained his priority. Even Odinn could understand that.

It was hard not to feel a fondness for Julooke, even while it was strictly a platonic one; the fondness a leader felt towards his subordinate that proved to be as ambitious as himself when it came to proving worthiness. Often times, Ragnar was wary of ambition in others because he made judgments based off of himself, what he would do. There wasn’t much that Ragnar wouldn’t do — had killed his own brother for a woman whom Ragnar had only wanted because she was forbidden and once his interest and the thrill of the hunt faded he had discarded her for the next. The Viking’s ambition was a dangerous thing and yet it allowed him his freedom, it allowed him to hold steadfast to what he wanted, what he believed and remain unyielding in these posh Summer lands. He was not afraid to do what others would not, lacking the morality to tell him that something was ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. He was Pump’s enforcer, was sated by being her Second in Command because he had to be, for now, and he also respected her.

“Do not worry about it,” Ragnar dismissed with a twitch of his lips upwards. “You have proved you can organize and communicate directions well and you don’t play around. Hunts should be quick and simple.” The more they were prolonged, the more the wolves ran the risk of getting tired, as well. Exhaustion to Ragnar meant sloppy mistakes that could potentially be costly; and Ragnar did not want her obvious skills to go unnoticed by Pump because it was Pump’s approval she needed, in the end. Ragnar’s power was limited but he was devoted to his subordinates and would do what he could for them, even if it was not much. At her question he glimpsed, too, back down at the stiffened body of the doe. “I’m always hungry,” He grinned at her impishly, communicating that he was all for awarding them some of their prize. “I would take some to Thistle. It has been a while since I have given her venison,” Ragnar hadn’t spoken it as a command but as a question since the prize was Julooke’s and it was her decision on what they did with it, in the end; subtly as he did so expressing his respect for her without coming right out and saying it.

Ragnar might have been Julooke’s superior but he wasn’t a dictator nor a tyrant (that probably depended on who was asked) and he held no intentions of telling her what to do with her kill. In the end it was her prize and he would not take any more of it than she would allow him. For taking some of the venison to Thistle he wanted Julooke’s permission without actually coming out and asking for it because Ragnar didn’t ask for permission. At least, never out right. Ragnar took Julooke’s answer to imply that she didn’t mind Ragnar taking some to Thistle, later, and nodded firmly once. He eyed the small section he wanted for Thistle, almost wishing the children were old enough to consume regurgitated meats because there were so many delectable things he wished for them to try. In time, he knew, and time required a certain amount of patience.

He had joined his subordinate in dining on the catch, eating until he, too, was full, stretching out into a sphinx like position on the opposite side of the doe’s body. A yawn threatened to escape from the Viking but he bit it back and hid it to the best of his abilities. A contented silence followed for a bit as their stomachs settled from the meal, and Ragnar cleaned off his muzzle with his paw for a few seconds though the action would prove to be futile. His muzzle would only end up bloodied again when he tore of a hunk of meat to take to Thistle for dinner, later. It wasn’t that Ragnar minded being covered in blood or gore — it was something he had gotten used too a long time ago — but he felt pressed to clean himself up a bit when in the company of the fairer sex even if he was no longer out to impress or boast his physical prowess. Of course, the scars on the left side of his face had stolen the full force of the handsome creature he had once been, the unmarred right side of his face nothing more than a tease; old habits tended to die hard.

Julooke claimed his attention when she rolled upright, suddenly to the Viking, broaching her subject with his name, though the question she asked took the savage off guard. It wasn’t as if he ever expected it to come up and Ragnar, at that, did not understand what had inspired Julooke to ask about it, regardless. For a moment he stared at her, brow furrowed before he snorted at her with a shake of his head and smirked coyly at the woman before him. “What is this ást this …love you speak of?” The Viking teased her for a few seconds before his face morphed into a serious expression, not wanting her to think that because he had teased her he had not realized the importance of the question for her. “It wasn’t romantic, and well after we were mates,” Their mateship had not been founded on love and Ragnar wasn’t sure if Julooke had known that or not. “We were having a fight,” Of course Ragnar remembered it clearly. Thistle had been absolutely livid at him because of Dagrun, because of Sif’s pregnancy (which now he was relieved the children had not been his). It had been upon his return from Blacktail Deer Plateau and there hadn’t been a better time to pop the three tiny but significantly massive words that had brought the carnal Viking to his knees for one woman and one alone. “There was a lot of yelling back and forth. I had realized that I had been falling in love with her for some time and I had meant to tell her upon my return from my trip to the Plateau anyway. Just …not in the middle of a lovers’ yelling match. The circumstances that I said them did not make them any less true, though.” Just in case Julooke thought it was a heat of the moment matter. It had been but it hadn’t, either.

The love story of Ragnar and Thistle Cloud could scarcely be considered romantic but not all love stories could be the things of fairy-tales. It was what was realistic for the both of them. Not ideal to some but it worked.

Ragnar could not hide his initial surprise that Julooke found the lack of romance in the story unexpected since he had assumed that Thistle had shared the story with Julooke. Either Thistle hadn’t told it right or this was the first time Julooke was hearing it. “That’s right,” Ragnar responded to her question. The woman’s voice had held no judgments but Ragnar understood that the normal mate-ship was based upon ‘love’ and not for convenience, attraction, ‘fondness’ or whatever had initially inspired Ragnar to ask Thistle to be his wife. He wasn’t sure what it had been underlining the jealousy of imagining Thistle with another man and while self interested jealousy had certainly played a big part that day it had not been the only force of power at work. It just so happened that for some far stretched reason Thistle had decided to accept his offer of mate-ship though at the time neither had loved the other. In fact, Ragnar was confident that she had still feared him a bit at that point. “I think some of it was responsibility,” He mused suddenly and then explained, “I was not the first to have Thistle in her heat season but there was a possibility that the children were of my seed and since her first lover had …taken advantage of her and left she deserved for someone to step up and claim the children.” It hadn’t been …nearly as heroic as he was probably making it sound. It had still been selfish of him and the fact that he had mated with her behind Pump’s back when she was in her heat cycle was apparently a ‘bad thing’.

Regardless of how rocky, or unorthodox the founding of their mate-ship had been no one could claim that the Loðbrók couple was not in love with one another, now.

The reason for Julooke’s question became abruptly apparent to the Viking with her following words: that she was in love with Verrine and that she did not know how to tell him. He waited until she was finished speaking, voicing her fears of losing his friendship on the chance that he didn’t feel the same way but that thought had not, and did not cross Ragnar’s mind. “When I came across the two of you on the borders I thought you were mates,” Ragnar confessed to her, fixing her in his piercing stare. “I think you are worrying about nothing. If I had to guess, from how he acts around you, that he feels the same way about you, Julooke.” Women tended to worry about silly things that men …didn’t. “Someone has to make the first move and confess their feelings outright. Sometimes there is no room for subtly. Sometimes you have to be brave and take the leap.” Then again, Ragnar was a very blunt creature who did not adhere to ‘beating around the bush’ very often. “You’ll never know unless you tell him how you feel.” Unless of course she came across the ability to mind read but since Ragnar did not see that happening any time soon he gave her the best advice he could: to be honest and open about her feelings.

Julooke’s frown told Ragnar that it hadn’t been what she had been expecting and Ragnar couldn’t help the soft chuckle that slipped from betwixt his lips. “I once told Thistle that I wouldn’t be her charming prince, and I’m not a knight dressed in white,” Ragnar wouldn’t have pinned himself as the villain either stealing the virtues of the young and innocent but he certainly wasn’t the hero of anyone’s fairy tale. “I am what I am. A Viking. A savage, a heathen I’ve been called too. For some reason she doesn’t seem to mind and returns my love.” It wasn’t a terribly romantic story but it was a love story in it’s own unorthodox way. At her declaration that he was going to be a good dad the man smiled softly at his subordinate. “I have had some practice. My eldest son might disagree with that,” Ragnar laughed once more but it had been a long time since he had last seen Týr and though the Viking worried for the boy’s welfare he trusted that Floki and him had taught him enough that he would endure and survive no matter what obstacles were in his way.

“I was surprised to find out that you were not mates, Julooke,” It was of the general assumption that if two wolves of the opposite sex on the borders were not siblings that they were mates. Of course, this wasn’t always true but the way the pair had interacted with each other on the borders had led Ragnar to his wrong assumption. He watched her as she moved closer and then used the carcass as a pedestal as she exclaimed that he was right, and that she was going to declare her love for Verrine. It was similar to the conviction in which Gavriil had marched away to declare his love for Pump (even though Ragnar had warned him not to be so blunt about mateship right off the bat with Pump). It was …interesting to see the way his words had an effect on the wolves of the Ridge, though Ragnar was not sure if it was his personality or the learned traits from his time as Jarl that was able to inspire such things out of them, even if it was something like their love life.

Either way he was honing his persuasive skills finely though he had not realized it up until this point. He only wished Julooke had more success that Gavriil though Ragnar did not think that would be a problem. Julooke’s situation was very different that Gavriil’s and Ragnar was confident that Julooke had a very good chance of succeeding than Gavriil did with Pump who did not strike him as the type of woman that wanted a mate or children.

Julooke had began to march off, mentioned something about going after they took care of the meat, earning a coy smirk from the Viking. “That is smart,” He commented with a teasing glint in his eyes. “I would have taken the meat for myself if you hadn’t returned.” He teased her. Of course he wasn’t serious, he would have divided the meat up for the caches and took what he wanted to Thistle without her but with her help it would go much faster for the both of them.

Ragnar glimpsed at Julooke to see that her eyes were narrowed playfully at him when she spoke about him calling himself a ‘heathen’. For a moment he was silent in contemplation before he answered, “I have been called it many times,” He told her, honestly and while Ragnar left it at that he was pretty sure that she didn’t want to see just how cruel and savage he could be. It was easy to draw conclusions while Ragnar was being modest about his ways because he did not have the liberty to be entirely true to his culture. While he refused to change who and what he was, he restrained himself from things simply because he was not in charge. It seemed that Ragnar was well adept at surprising Julooke who had appeared to have been taken off guard by him speaking of his eldest son as she asked him how many children he had. “Just four that are living,” He shrugged. “The newborns and my eldest, Týr,” He hesitated for a fraction of a second before he spoke quietly. “My third wife …the one before Thistle aborted our litter. Three boys and a girl. If we’re counting the deceased, eight.” He did not often count the deceased. In fact he rather hoped to forget about that horrible night, his anger at Odinn, at Dagmar and how he had nearly attacked her out of his rage because he couldn’t attack the Allfather and she was the closest living thing to him. It wasn’t Ragnar’s proudest moment but it was hard to forget it when all during Thistle’s pregnancy he had been haunted by it relentlessly.

He laughed, glad for the conversation change, grasping at it eagerly when they went back to the doe. “You might be surprised,” Ragnar taunted her playfully as he aided her in ripping it apart in smaller pieces so they could easily move it. If Ragnar had been a loner and didn’t have a family and wolves to worry about he would have taken it all for himself but given that he wasn’t and did have a family and pack to make sure got fed he had no intentions of stealing it for himself.

Julooke’s face took a sour turn when he admitted that Dagmar’s litter had been aborted. She did not hold back when she inquired as to why it had happened and then a beat later apologized and told him that he did not have to answer it. He knew he didn’t, and frankly, he couldn’t tell her why other than what Floki guessed what had been wrong. “I do not know the Gods took them from me,” Ragnar admitted. “Floki, the Healer of the Cove…said she was sterile.” Ragnar couldn’t say if Floki’s judgment was correct or not. He didn’t know but there was no use in trying to figure it out. He had dismissed Dagmar almost as instantly, glad to be rid of her, and was more focused on his life at present than in the past. The past was important, of course, but he had a wife and children now, here, and they needed his attention and thoughts. Not a past conquest who had failed him.

“If you are sure,” He told Julooke, willing to stay and assist her if she needed it. After a moment he ripped off a chunk for Thistle though and tucked it to the side so he would not forget it. Ragnar offered Julooke a soft smile when she asked about the puppies though she used the word in his native tongue though her tone brought about her slight trepidation. “Yes, very good.” He praised her. It was a start. Languages were not learned in a day, after all.

Ragnar nodded as she spoke that the Gods had blessed him with three healthy children. That, they had. Just as they had blessed him with Sveinn. They were not his by blood, any of them, but they were still his children all the same and in a way a jump in the right direction of the prophecy the Cove’s Seer had told him: that he would have many sons. She seemed eager to shoo him away and Ragnar smiled at her, snorting softly to himself, muttering to himself jokingly about her eagerness to be rid of him in his native tongue before he grasped the chunk of deer meat he had pulled off of their catch for Thistle in his jaws and offered Julooke a farewell and good luck (on admitting her love to Verrine) chuff, despite that it was muffled by his mouthful, before he turned and loped in the direction of the birthing den.