A lot of Ragnar’s time had been spent on the borders, patrolling them, reinforcing them with his scent to mix with the scent of the others. While the Viking cloaked in platinum silver couldn’t technically consider himself the Head Warden - if only because he was the only one that held the title, currently - though Gavriil was known to frequent the borders as well, along with others - he still fancied himself Head Warden, regardless. Ragnar had considered it his “unofficial title” even before he received the promotion as Pump’s right hand man to enforce it. His job was to train, to prepare for what the other packs in the Wilds could throw at them, to make them a strong and cohesive unit. Nothing like the more or less awkward mess the attack on the bear had been. Though Ragnar had been the only one to suffer any “severe” damage from the bear; not severe enough to put him down for any number of days but severe that he had lost blood and his injuries hindered him, much to the Viking’s inherent aggravation. It was no secret that Ragnar was an awful patient and while it was unfortunate for Thistle it was fortunate for everyone else that Thistle was their only healer. He exalted a previously unknown patience in his wife’s presence as she fussed over him, slathering his wounds with her sickly colored, mint smelling paste. If it had been anyone else (his long time past friend Floki was witness to it) he would have without a doubt lashed out at them numerous times.
It wasn’t personal - it never had been and it would never be so.
Of course thinking of Thistle, heavy with child had the Viking frowning in worry. She should have had an apprentice or a journeyman training under her all this time so that when their children came there was someone to step temporarily into her role while she stayed with the babes, because the babes would need her attention first. There was no “oh you could get to your babes later”. Ragnar bristled slightly at the consideration that any of the wolves would be daft enough to get themselves direly injured while Thistle was out of commission. The Viking’s comeback would be cruel and heartless: You might not live for a month? Too bad.
But maybe they would get lucky. Maybe no one would need her, or maybe one of the newest members had experience with healing. Ragnar would have offered to take on her duties while she was tending to their newborns but he knew next to nothing about her craft - only which mushrooms to seek to put him into the Berserker Mode, that poppy seeds worked as painkillers, and that saltwater was good for cleansing wounds. Basic, field surgery things. Ragnar shook his head to dispel those thoughts - in the end it would be what it would be, and gradually the fur that had bristled slightly had laid back down along his spine until he was limping once more, stoic and calm along the borders, ears, eyes, and nose vigilant as always.
It took Pump a while to realize that she had turned down her first genuine suitor in her life. The whole situation with Gavriil was bizarre and a total surprise for the wolf-dog, who up until then had believed that she had seen everything in her life. Apparently fate had more cards up it's sleeve than she had initially thought. Oh well - what was life without challenges. She had tackled this successfully and knew that she would take down any that would come in the future.
No matter, how tough and tomboyish she was, Pump was still a girl and the fact that someone had liked her was indeed flattering. Therefore, when she caught sight of Ragnar, who was limping along the borders, she was smiling and her eyes had a glint of a person, who had a precious secret no one else knew about. "Ragnar," she called to turn his attention to her. "Making Thistle worried, I see?"
Ragnar was not yet aware of what had transpired between Gavriil and Pump — though he had been aware that Gavriil had intended to court Pump and even at that, had been the encouraging push behind the other man’s audacity to approach Pump regarding it. Of course, when he did learn of it — because certainly Gavriil would eventually be hunting him down to either tell him he succeeded or failed — Ragnar would ascertain that he would have handled it in a very different way than his friend had done it. Then again, maybe being bold was better to be left for a ruthless creature like Ragnar where rejection would only hurt his pride rather than his heart because he didn’t have one; but Ragnar was used to getting what he wanted especially when it came to women. Thistle accepting his proposal as sudden and based off of fondness for her (at first) as it had been did nothing to help the solidification that Ragnar was just that good. In fact, it hadn’t helped it at all. If Thistle would have, alternatively, rejected him Ragnar would have licked his wounded pride, suffered through his inane jealousy and that would have been that.
Looking back on it, knowing that he was inherently and wholly in love with Thistle, he could not imagine his life without her by his side. Maybe wolves like Gavriil were meant to be more subtle with the fairer sex than wolves like Ragnar. Ragnar was assertive and cruel and carefree when it came to silly things like emotions, and Gavril …wasn’t. Perhaps advice of what Ragnar would do was worse than no advice at all. Pump’s voice called out to him and Ragnar paused in his limping patrolling to peer back at his shoulder over the hybrid woman who approached him — bizarrely with a smile and a secretive glint in her eyes.
For a second, the Viking contemplated being coy and assuming that things had went well between Gavriil and her but something (thankfully) held him back.
"You are a man of many secrets too," she replied tossing the ball back in his side of the field. Even after two months of living in the same pack with him, meeting him day to day, he still was a mystery to her. Open to people to a certain limit and then the one, who tried to read him, met a solid fence, behind which was hidden a world that was very different from the one they were living in. "Back to business though - how bad is your shoulder, really?" she asked, returning back to her old business-like self.
Would Ragnar not have suspected that Pump was joking with him — despite how strange it was to hear Pump joke of whom Ragnar had with obvious falseness assumed was only serious all the time (even if it sounded ridiculous) — he might have taken offense to her words. However, her tone was light, teasing and it was easy for him to pick up on the fact that she was, indeed, just poking fun at him. He ignored her jest though this was mostly because he was unable to come up with something adequate to say in return; thusly he settled for an incredulous snort and offered his hybrid Queen a wolfish, perhaps even impish grin. It would seem to the Viking, that her definition of baby and his were two entirely different definitions that did not match whatsoever.
"No need to bother," her back had been sore and a bit stiff for the first few days, but it had gradually got better. Besides she found out that the more she moved around, the less the hit bothered her. "There will be a hunt," she explained. "There has been a flock of deer wandering on the other side," she beckoned with her muzzle in the direction, where the northern territories of Horizon ridge lied. "We have our seaside and numbers in advantage - I believe, we will be able to take down at least one of them."
She brushed off his subtle correction — if indeed anything could be considered subtle with the Viking — and had equally as he brushed off his own wounds, listened as she brushed off her back. Likely, she had not gotten as injured as he but even then Ragnar hardly considered his wounds to be anything more than scratches. He listened patiently, thoughtfully when Pump declared that there would be a hunt. His eyes, a shining Caribbean blue followed the direction of her muzzle of where she had supposedly seen the herd and nodded gravely when she spoke that they had the sea and their numbers working to their greater advantage.
"Well... they are forgiven this time," she said understanding, what the viking was getting at. "Not every person has the guts to attack a bear," even part of her considered herself as a total fool for engaging in such a dangerous activity. "Speaking of which... you seem to know that lass Nerian more than me. What good is she?" Pump asked, recalling that, when she had met the she-wolf for the first time, she had boasted to be a naturalist. Whatever it meant.
It had been a hard thing to say for Ragnar, to tell Pump that he intended to sit out the hunt and let the other take his place during it; even so it had been the right choice. His wounds would not be healed by the time she decided to take action on the herd and he would either harm himself further by tearing at the wounds, or cost the pack their victory because of his temporary slowness. Besides that it wasn’t really fair, the Viking considered, that Thistle had to sit everything out alone. It would be easier, also, to keep his newborn sons safe when he was lingering close by. Ragnar had half expected Pump to comment on his decision though it had been made and would not be swayed, though the silver Viking appreciated the lack thereof, nevertheless.
His head lowered them to sniff at the breeze that blew around his paws, black, leathery nostrils working to inhale and analyze the scents it carried. Once he was satisfied there was nothing unusual upon it he glimpsed back up at Pump, tail brushing against his hind legs, sweeping near the paste Thistle had smoothed on it, as he listened to Pump’s following words about forgiveness for those who did not join in the bear chase. It had been a pathetic display of the pack’s supposed might and though Pump was easy to forgive, Ragnar was not.
This was not Odinn's Cove, and Ragnar was only the Second In Command and he could only tell Pump his opinion on the matter.
The conversation took a twist then, surprisingly, to Nerian. He looked at Pump and then to the trees of Ravensblood in the distance, where he could swear he heard the whispers of Odinn, summoning into the forest’s depths. Summoning him home, but Ragnar had turned, however briefly it was to be, away from his ambition in that respect, putting his family before his own desires. He had a wife, had children to think about now and it was not as simple as it had once been. He sighed heavily and then, gradually fixed his eyes back on Pump.
"We know, who we can trust," she said, closing the subject. She wasn't going to waste her energy by going and punishing them. They weren't worth it. Ragnar repeated more or less the same the girl had told, when they had met on the borders. "I will rephrase my question - have you any proof that that stuff actually works?'' Moon cycles, weather patterns, stars - all of which she had lived quite well without.
If he had known that Pump did not think their attack had been weak he would have disagreed. Less than half of the pack had arrived to deal with it and they — all of them — were just lucky that serious injuries, or death, had been avoided. Ragnar had taken the worst of the bear’s ire and though he might have argued that it had not been luck but fate that the bear had not ripped him to pieces, it was something he realized could have been a whole lot worse. The fact that they could have killed it, if more had shown up, hung in the air between them, taunting Ragnar. While they had managed to successful chase it out of the territory, hopefully with wounds to remember them by when it thought of coming near their land again, that did not mean they were free of it. It could come back and threaten their lives all over again. It was on this that the two found their heads butting (so to speak) Ragnar’s culture demanded punishment, he wanted those to be punished to ensure that the absolute lack of apathy did not happen again and that if it did the consequences would be severe; however, Pump did not seem to want to hear it.
There was nothing short of frustration in the Viking’s expression when she firmly closed the subject, reminding him that he had no real weight in decision making. He could talk and argue until he was blue in the face but if her mind wasn’t being swayed then she would always have her way. He thought it was a mistake to just let it go, to turn a blind eye to it and pretend it had never happened. His culture was less forgiving than the posh-ness he found here, and more and more Ragnar found it was getting harder for him to stand these “moral” wolves. They were weak because their ‘morals’ proved to weaken them, held them back. If it had been Odinn’s Cove majority of the pack would have rallied to fight the bear, and the ones who did not take up arms would be standing by the aid in injuries.
When the conversation made it’s way to Nerian and Pump rephrased her question he visibly hesitated. In that, she had caught him. In truth, it went against all of his beliefs that ‘Naturalist’ trade; instinctively he did not like it. If she wanted to play as a ‘Naturalist’ who was he to stop her? Just as long as she didn’t go spouting it to his face given how it more or less said his Gods did not exist and because of it he refused to believe in it.
Ragnar had misunderstood her question. Pump didn't care, what her subordinates believed in (be it a god or a rock in the river), as long as it didn't interfere with their ability to work and live with others. What she had meant - did the "moon phases" and "stars" really affected the outcome of the hunt? For a person, who had known Nerian longer than Pump, Ragnar should know. "I don't question her beliefs, I want to know, is there any use of "naturalist" as it is?"
Ragnar might not have fully believed that any of the packs around these Teekon Wilds were bold enough to attempt raids (he would be wrong on that assumption, but he did not know that) but considering that it was all he knew he was suspicious of it, nevertheless. The Cove had never been raided — they had always done the raiding but he had learned to expect it because it was something that he would do. That was how he thought, sometimes, contemplating what he would do as to determine if it was a threat or not; and then there were other times in which he simply chose to lay low and wait to see what would happen. While Ragnar had no particular attatchment to the land of the Ridge itself, it was their land and it was, for whatever it was worth, home. The thought of fleeing it just because someone rose to arms against them was cowardly and not something that Ragnar had in him to do. He could not flee, not if it meant the enemy winning and pushing them around.
Pump corrected her question for him — it had became apparent to the Viking that he had not fully understood her meaning — lately, he’d been struggling with that as if he were losing the fluency in which he understood the common tongue. It was true that it was not his first language but rather a secondary, learned one for the sake of being able to communicate with ‘outsiders’. Even then, Ragnar could give Pump no different answer. The wolves of Odinn’s Cove had no need for a ‘Naturalist’ and scoffed at the notion because to believe in what she said more or less went against their beliefs and culture; that the earth was ruled by pattern and not the Gods.
It was rudimentary and resolute for Ragnar. To him, there was no other reasons for this and the connections they held were no more and no less.
"I wonder sometimes, if we should listen to them more," she said to Ragnar. Pump had her set beliefs about life and the way a pack should run, but at the same time she wasn't totally unwilling to learn something new. Thistle's skills were out of the question - they were too complicated, but bits and pieces of Ragnar's and Gavriil's background she found easier to relate to. And maybe Nerian's profession as "a naturalist" would prove to be useful too.
"Like you - for example," she turned to Ragnar. "Your task was to spread knowledge of your culture, yet I have heard very little about it," she didn't deny the fact that she hadn't shown much interest in it and had frowned at the idea of existence of gods in general. "Do tell."
Ragnar’s weight shifted and he studied Pump for a few silent moments as she spoke about wondering if they shouldn’t listen more to a naturalist.
Which Pump seemed to be doing, currently. Specifically asking him to tell her about his culture.
For a few moments he stared at his hybrid alpha, perplexed. When paused to scratch behind his ear, black, leathery nostrils flaring as he inhaled and then exhaled, deeply. She had not asked for any kind of specifics and the vague ‘explain your culture to me’ wasn’t going to cut it for Ragnar. It was a vast culture and he had generations of knowledge, passed down from the Cove’s fore founders. He didn’t even know where to begin except at the very beginning to where everything — the earth, the sun, the moon — started and how it would end (since they sort of coincided).
Where to begin? Pump never asked or requested anything without a particular reason and hers was to get to know Ragnar better. His background was the key in having a better understanding of what kind of person he was. His morals, his view of life and how pack worked was strongly based on his culture and the way he was raised. "The important bits," she said after a thoughtful pause.
Again, Pump was not overly specific about what she wanted to know about his culture and for a few moments Ragnar simply blinked out at the horizon. His brow had begun to furrow in concentration and the Viking offered her a momentarily silence as he contemplated and in turn, attempted to condense it. The problem with “the important bits” was that to him, everything, every single little part was important and trying to pick out bits and pieces of what he could consider as the ‘most important’ would not paint the broad picture. It was like trying to dissect something that was already dissected: impossible for him. Ragnar heaved a hefty sigh and murmured an