Thistle Cloud woke and gently stepped around sleeping babes to stand at the mouth of the den with her tail cocked up and over her back while she stretched in the morning air. She pulled herself from the den and sat with her tail around her tails in the morning light breathing the soft misty air. She looked around studying the surrounding area, in her own way looking for dangers while she sat resolute in front of her little home.
It was becoming cramped in there quickly as the pups grew almost daily. Both Ein and Tveir were going to be large boys and it was evident by the size of their paws and the length of their legs, though she was fairly certain that Ein would rival his brother's size. Gyda she was such a sweet little girl, she imagined she would not be large like her brothers, but smaller than them both, but she could be wrong. She had a faraway look in her eyes as she thought of what the future might hold for them all. Their ritual was fast approaching and they would be able to be seen soon, and for this she was glad. Her boys were both curious beings and were fast wanting to explore the outside world.
As was Ragnar’s usual routine when he was finished with his patrols he headed back towards the birthing den, this time with a rabbit clutched in his jaws. The creature was plump, it’s fur soft and slate grey and earth brown, matted with Ragnar’s saliva where the Viking drooled around it, ignoring the instinct to tear into it’s delicate flesh and consume it despite that he wasn’t hungry and had eaten an hour previous. He carried it to his wife though whether she chose to eat it for herself or eat it for the children he didn’t know and thusly, had no intentions of asking. He was later than he normally was, if because he stopped to check in on Hati and Sköll each in turn, whom he suspected were not aware of the other’s presence in the pack. Or maybe they were and he simply hadn’t gotten time to inquire further about it. While Ragnar desired for the two to learn of each other’s presence, preferably so they didn’t needlessly continue to worry about one another when their concerns were needed elsewhere, he also desired, when Hati was a bit more recovered from her journey, for his little sister to meet his wife. He had been contemplating on and off if the Gods would be angry if he allowed her to meet his children early, seeing that she was immediate family. Presently, Ragnar had no answer and had prayed to Odinn for some sort of omen either way before he made the introductions.
His eyes took in Thistle’s stretching form as he slowed his pace upon his approach to the birthing den, pausing to appreciate the moment before he let out a muffled noise around the rabbit and padded closer dropping it to the ground at his paws with a disgraceful splat. He nudged it towards her with his nose before he drew back and studied her face as he settled upon his haunches, knowing that he had much to tell her; lest she get the wrong impression of Hati and jump to wild (and incestuous) conclusions. She had a penchant for jealousy Ragnar had quickly learned.
She blinked and bent her head to eat some of the rabbit she wondered if she would keep it all to herself of if the babes would want some later they probably would so she realized she should probably eat the whole thing rather than pick at it. What do you have to tell me dear heart? She looked up then licking her small muzzle to get rid of the small splashes of blood that lingered there while she listened and watched.
Ragnar had considered the ease of his married life if he hadn’t been so honest with Thistle about his past, how he had a bit of a reputation — that obviously still preceded him — back in the Cove as a libertine; and while they had not been mates when he had spoken to her of those things he had never deigned to lie to her. Ragnar did not, usually, lie. He liked to be enigmatic and clever and sometimes as deceptive as needed but he did not fancy himself a liar. With Thistle having already been out of the den upon his approach it eliminated the time he had to wait for her to move away from the children and exit it. For a moment, the Viking was contented to watch her begin to dig into the prize he had brought her. It wasn’t much but it was what he had found and, for the moment, would have to suffice until he got an extended moment of free time in which he could hunt something bigger, something a little bit more substantial for her.
She did not draw near him to touch him, which, instantly, made the Viking moderately suspicious and his brow furrowed as she inquired as to what he had to tell her using her favored endearment for him. The Northman frowned and deigned to close the distance, brushing his muzzle against hers leaving a small trail of tantalizing kisses along her bottom jaw in greeting, tasting the few droplets of blood she had yet to clean off of her muzzle before he pulled back giving her space to enjoy the small meal he brought her. There. That was better.
Thistle nipped gently as his own muzzle at his trail of kisses and she hummed deep in her chest at his touch. She had not meant to make him frown, something she had immediately noticed, she had been merely lost in her own thoughts for the brief moment that he had seen. She really needed to work on that for fear she whould push him away. However, she would be lying if she didn't say that Nerian bothered her, but she just had suspicion and confusion, no hard evidence as to why she did so just that she did. She would just have to forget about it if she could and trust her husband, when really it was Nerian she didn't trust. Perhaps it was merely because she was a female and she knew what one could do to get a man wrapped around her paw.
She smile up at him You could have surprised me Ragnar. I always like your surprises. It pleases me though to no end that it is done. It is getting cramped in there as our sons grow twice their size at birth. she chuckled gently their pups were definitely going to be on the large size, she was wondering if even Gyda would be larger than her as she grew. Was she destined to always have large pups it looked that way, healthy strong pups she would have and that made her smile secretly to herself, proud of her ability to grow strong pups.
She lifted her eyes to his face then as he mentioned Floki wondering if her husbands friend had showed up. Someone she dearly wanted to meet. yes I remember you telling me of Floki, I would still like to meet him someday you know. Thistle smiled at the small admission of the boys tongue. that may work in my favor I would like to meet him. Since he does not know my tongue and I am learning his, perhaps it will help me to hone my language skills. Yes I would like to meet him as well. I am glad you got him from those upstarts over there. Ragnar they really make me nervous, I am ashamed to say I almost fear their proximity. And she did the more she thought about it the more she fretted. What if they had to come into their hunting grounds what of their children, the pups that would be the future of either the ridge or the forest depending on when her husband made his move to start anew...though it was almost as if they almost had a new pack as many as the new vikings were coming to the grounds. I would like to meet her too, it will be nice to have another female to talk to, perhaps she can even tell me embarrassing stories of yoru youth. She smiled at him then with bright blue eyes alight.
Thistle returned the touch with a soft nip to the fur of his cheek, Ragnar felt, as he trailed his small line of kisses before he pulled away with the intention of allowing her to finish the meal he had brought for her. He assumed no matter how wrongly the assumption was, that when she did not draw to him that it meant she did not want to be near him. That she did not desire the closeness expected of a married couple. It was likely not the case but Ragnar was a creature that craved touch. Words were not enough for him, perhaps because he was not a man of many of them. Thistle had been so worried, once upon a time (and though he did not know it probably was?), that he would lose interest in her and yet neither of them had considered — until Ragnar did just now — that maybe, someday, she would lose interest in him despite that she had warned him she was into the ‘mating for life’ commitment. In an odd, and extremely rare form of self depreciation Ragnar wondered if that was the case. It wasn’t, after all, as if he could read her mind and know that she was just lost in her thoughts.
After she was certain that the majority of the redness was from her maw she moved around the bones that lay there, she'd take them for the pups, help them learn to chew. She instead approached her husband wanting the touch that he offered. She ghosted next to him and licked his muzzle and pulled gently at his scruff and finally nipping at his shoulder as was often what she did. Then she sat to her haunches in front of him so she was closer. Very rarely anymore did they get time to themselves with all three children growing quickly. She chuckled Their own dens, I hope you will at least wait until their 6 months old Ragnar, they can't hunt for themselves until then. She laughed again already imagining what was on her husbands mind.
Thistle heard the sorrow in her husbands voice a small whine of support left her mouth. She tucked her head under his chin and nudged gently to let him know she cared. I am sorry Floki is not here Dear Heart I know how much you wish he were. Is skoll anything like him? She tilted his head as he spoke of killing them just as quickly as they stepped a foot over the borders. It made her feel a little bit better, but it did not completely alleviate the worry that was there and she didn't think anyone could do that after all, she was a mother and a mother worried all the time. She would worry when she was old and gray about her children it was a simple fact of the matter. I know you would I cannot help my mother worries though no matter how hard I try.
As always a smile from her husband was like taking oxygen out of the air for her even if it was a wry smile. She smiled back You dear heart are such a dangerous man. She hummed again in pleasure chuckling after.
For a few silent and world stilling moments Ragnar closed his eyes to the touch of his wife’s tongue against his muzzle, her attention moving to his scruff where he felt her teeth lash through the silken tendrils of fur there tugging upon it, simply reveling in it. It was only when he no longer felt her nipping at his flesh did his eyes open to find her sitting in front of him, much closer than she had been to him previous. The proximity was nice.
Thistle smiled up at him I am glad you got to know him too Ragnar. He sounds like he was a fast and loyal friend. She herself would like to meet the famous Floki, both because her husband was his friend and because she really wanted to pick his brain. He probably knew herbs that she didn't and she was always trying to add to her already extensive knowledge of herbs.
Tyr was another one she wanted to meet, but she was unsure if she ever would. It seemed that once you were of a certain age in Viking's terms you went your own way and sometimes your family saw you sometimes they didn't unless that was just the case here in this area, since it was not the north nor Viking home. Thistle laughed out loud at her husband's words and spoke quietly you dear heart are shameless. She nuzzled his neck then laughing still.
He acknowledged what Thistle had spoken in regards to Floki but did not comment further, despite that his lips pressed together tersely as his ears slid to rest at half mast against his skull. He did not wish to speak of Floki and the mad healer’s continued absence in Ragnar’s life. Sköll was not Floki but in it a way it was something of a sign from him, entrusting Ragnar with the care of his son despite that Sköll was, by all rights, an adult and was more than capable of handling himself; maybe not where language was concerned but as far as survival went.
He raided and killed for a lot less.
He would kill a wolf for trespassing without even bothering to question, to ask why and wouldn’t even feel bad about it. There was no conscious trigger, no rules of morality to hold him back. He and his lived and fought as if they had nothing left to lose …maybe because he didn’t fear death so it wasn’t as if his life was any sort of bargaining chip with him. No, he would embrace Valhalla with open arms just as his comrades who had fallen did before him.
So in a very real sense Ragnar was shameless and not in the way that his wife had meant it when she had teased him of it. A wry twitch of his lips was given as he inhaled deeply and settled his gaze to the horizon.
Thistle listened to him, and smiled at his smirk. She was a bit more genteel, than her husband. She thought maybe, just perhaps she did coddle the younglings, but they were only little for a little while. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that in part, her coddling was due to the fact that all too soon, they would be on their own adventures. They would not need her anymore, and they would make their own mistakes. She would just be there to pick up the pieces, at the end result.
Thistle laughed outright at his remark of being shameless versus honest. Yes Ragnar, you are honest. I think that is one of the best things about you. I do not like lying, it is better to just get it all out there. This was true she hated lying. She also hated omitting something that was just as much a lie. Regardless, if it hurt or not the truth, a lie always hurt worst. Then on top of the pain and the suffering, which came with lies; there was also the simple fact that you had to remember them. You always had to be on your toes, when lying. You also had to have an extremely wonderful memory, that way you could keep track of them. It just seemed like too much work in her opinion. Lies they are just too much work.
She saw his wry smirk, and she gave him a smile of her own. Stepping forward she spoke quietly Ragnar, how soon are you going to do the rite? I only ask, because it is getting extremely difficult to keep the children inside. She chuckled then, and looked at him with a glint in her eye. Especially Your Sons. She was teasing, she really didn’t mind when the ritual was happening she would do her best to keep them inside, but they were starting to fight her. Tveir at least spent every waking hour that he was not eating, looking outside at the den mouth. She had to lie in front of it, constantly.
Ragnar had never pretended to be anything less than what he was: a stern father. He remembered actually worrying that he might be too stern for infant children considering in that sense he was a new father. Sveinn had been old enough for Ragnar to be stern too without feeling the ugly and unnecessary weight of guilt that tended to plague him when he was a little too stern with the boys (in particular because Gyda had yet to do anything that required him to be overly stern towards her). It wasn’t, he realized, necessarily a bad thing if Thistle coddled them because it was something he had no intentions of doing and in that way, similar as it was to in most ways, they balanced one another out. Thistle was the good cop and Ragnar was the bad cop (literally).
To Ragnar there had always been a clear line between being deceptive and outright lying. He was as deceptive as he needed to be as the situations arose, but he was not a liar. To others, perhaps, this manner of thinking was horrendously flawed where it was a fine line to walk. Ragnar’s thought processes didn’t seem to follow along the lines of what was ‘normal’. The Viking spoke what he meant because he didn’t like to encourage any misgivings. He wanted to be understood clearly and definitively at the very least when it mattered. Admittedly, there were times when he had allowed other’s their wrong assumptions of him, especially when it came to raids and he was a small team against an entire force of a pack.
Or in Ragnar's case: men.
Ragnar watched as Thistle ghosted forward a step and he scratched absently at his side with his back paw as he considered her question.
He liked to think he was a loving father but he would also not take any crap, either, whether it’s because it was how Eitri raised him or because he was simply a harsh man Ragnar wasn’t sure.
Thistle knew that much like their everyday life, that she and Ragnar would balance each other out in the parenting. She was just a more gentle being than her husband, and he did not shirk that. He told you he was not gentle, that he was savage and a heathen. She knew this, and her sons they would probably in a way be the same, Gyda she was not so sure yet how she would be.
Thistle chuckled shaking her head at her husband. He was as insufferable in his teasing, as he was when it came to his flirtations and when she was trying to heal him. She did not mind though, the day that he quit teasing her would be the day she would worry for her future. However, though she may be jealous and a bit cranky when it came to females, she had no doubt that her husband would not hurt her, at least not emotionally. He may accidentally hurt her, if he got to physical in a carnal act, but that was all really and that kind of pain she could deal with and perhaps even enjoy. (Ha-ha she’s a sadistic little thing).
Thistle stared at her husband as he all but reprimanded her. She raised an eyebrow a little irritated; she was not a child to be talked at as such. However, she bit down hard on her tongue, knowing that he didn’t mean it as it sounded, and she supposed she could be a bit sterner with them, but the simple fact of the matter was no matter how stern, they would push boundaries. it does not matter how stern I am Ragnar they are children, very active very healthy children. Therefore they are going to push every boundary they can, they get reprimanded they will be calm for a time being, only to push at the fold again. Did you not push your boundaries as a child? I certainly did, I still push my boundaries sometimes. She laughed quietly at his next words he thought they could comprehend; she nodded Yes Ragnar they can comprehend things very well. They are also very smart children.
Her stare was steady when he informed her that he thought she needed to be more assertive with the children and Ragnar got the distinct feeling that while she did not, she wished to speak against his choice of words which, admittedly, had been reprimanding. Ragnar hadn’t meant to scold his wife as if she were a child in need of it and in reality understood he couldn’t tell her how to parent. They were two opposite people with opposing views on how children should be raised. Ragnar clung to what he knew of parenting, raising them how Eitri and Kenna had raised him and his brothers considering it was the only example he had to run with. It had been effective enough for Sveinn …then again Sveinn had been a boy grown when they had captured him not a mere infant. Ragnar did not want his children to become the monsters, the true heathens that he and his ilk had been accused of being on numerous occasions. He wouldn’t tolerate blatant disrespect, not even from his own children. He had decided that a long time ago and would not be afraid to do what other wolves, what other parents couldn’t bring themselves to do. If pushed he would push back and they would find themselves on their asses and packless without so much as a bat of an eye from Ragnar.
Maybe that made him cruel. Yet, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He had warned her, numerous times, that he wasn’t a gentle man. He loved his children, would always love them no matter what they did but they weren’t pardoned from their actions because he was the Beta or their father.
There was consequence for everything. The story of Odinn giving his eye to acquire knowledge spoke evidently of that heavily. He wanted knowledge and paid for it with his eye after he had hung himself from Yggdrasil (because Tokio is pretty sure he had to hang himself for it, too). It was important that they learn it quickly and soon.
It occurred to Ragnar that maybe his felt need to reprimand her for being to soft with them was born of the small swell of jealousy he felt towards her. She was a natural mother and was great with the children. He …not so much. He liked children, always had, and of course loved his unconditionally (all of them Sveinn included) but he wasn’t good with them yet. It was the first time he had ever dealt with infant/small children in such a capacity and he was learning just as they were. He lost his patience with them more than he cared to admit and felt guilty about it because it wasn’t their fault. Not really. Sveinn had spoiled the Viking and the infants were like a slap of reality to the face. He was an aggressive (sometimes), assertive and callous man — a true savage to his core — trying to learn how to be a gentle man and a good father. It was a struggle and just when he thought he was beginning to gain footing he would slip and find himself back at the base of the mountain, looking up again.
He was broken from his thoughts of his metaphorical treacherous and steep mountain that fatherhood was to him when Thistle spoke, his ears slicking back to his skull as she in turn reprimanded him. It was fair, but he didn’t have to like it.
In a way it filled Thistle with trepidation as she thought of the future and what it may hold. Her husband was not a gentle man at his core, he could be gentle at times. He could even be loving and doting at times, but the inner beast that he held was savage and feral and she knew this. She had known it since the day she had met him, but she also knew that their children even if not born of him, had the potential to be the same. And that was enough to scare anyone, because she knew that if they butted heads and they fought it could turn ugly quick, and as a mother it would kill her, but as a wife she would have to take a step back, after all it was her husband who would be hers forever, not her children. Well they would always be hers, but once they gained their independence she could not keep them chained to her, they had their own choices to make. They were only hers in a physical sense for a short time, then they became their own beings and went on their own adventures.
If her husband was jealous of her she did not know it. If she had known it, it would worry her, for in jealousy bred contempt and it would make her worry that he would grow to hate her in time. As far as she was concerned he was a good father, and they would learn to mind, probably mostly due to him rather than her, and she was okay with this. By no means would she always be their friend there would be times when she would have to reprimand, but her husband would make a more lasting impression and they would listen better because of it.
She shook her head at him and stepping forward she licked his muzzle That works well my savage husband, I will be gentle you be stern. She nuzzled him then, she hated fighting with him, well not all aspects of fighting the making up was always fun, and it wasn’t even really fighting, they just agreed to disagree about how to raise the children and he was right they were both good at separate things, and that would make for balanced children. That will make for balanced children you know.
Ragnar was a family man, he had always been this way because it had been how his father had been, it was how his culture was. Family was important, just as marriage was. Admittedly, before Thistle Ragnar had kind of disregarded that as he went through wife after dalliance, after wife; but he had been young and eager and rather liked his reputation as a libertine to attempt to break it. He loved his children, would always love them — that was his job as their father — and yet he could not get Floki’s warning out of his head, either: Unfortunately they will be like you, which means they will want to do better than you and you will hate them for it. It wasn’t as if he was a Seer and it didn’t mean there had to be merit to the words. Currently, it wasn’t them overshadowing him that concerned Ragnar. It was their constant need to push the boundaries he had set up for their protection. They did not know that the Gods could take just as easily as they gave and they would take without mercy when their ire had been invoked. He did not think the Gods would listen to ‘they’re just children they don’t understand’ when he was their parent and it was his job to make them understand and teach them.
Ragnar loved his Gods (especially Odinn) and yet he feared them just as much.
Ragnar watched as Thistle drew forth, his whiskers trembling in anticipation in the seconds before her tongue glided against his muzzle, her words making him smirk before he felt her nuzzle against him. The Viking reveled in this touch of his wife, barely even hearing her following words in regards to balanced children.