Moonspear nothing can stop us

Thistle would never know what her words did to soothe her daughter's worries, which had not truly ceased since the moment she found Stavanger Bay to be abandoned and to be left to the assumption that it was Ragnar beneath that great ash tree at it's heart. “Oh mother,” Gyda sighed, teary eyed, her voice catching only once. “I miss him.” Those words did not even feel adequate enough to explain the hole left in her heart by his ascension to Valhalla. Gyda knew it was something to rejoice, that she was meant to celebrate where Ragnar had always dreamed of one day being: fighting and feasting alongside Oðinn. Out of every brave warrior she knew ...Ragnar had deserved it the most and she would never dispute that. Yet, no one had ever told her how much death, despite the joy she was supposed to feel, hurt. It ached like a festered wound, stubbornly refusing to close. Perhaps it never would. “And I have missed you,” Gyda spoke, willing her mother to cross the borderlines so that she might seek the comfort of her embrace.

“Are you mad at me?” Gyda asked after a pause, voice soft, timid as it was when she had been but a girl. In her mother's presence ...that was how she felt: like a child once more. Not the queen nor woman she'd become but the small girl who adored her father's stories of battles and Gods. Romanced by the Valkyries and their Queen ...one of three that Gyda had aspired to be just like. The Second (though not in second or third place by any means) was the woman standing before her. She had strong women influences in her life: her mother being the strongest, stronger even then Frigga and Frejya. “Perhaps it makes no difference but the Priestess was scared and she needed me, she needed my strength; she needed me to protect her.” Though Ragnar had always made her feel like she was the apple of his eye, it had been nice to be needed, and she allowed the Priestess to rely on her. Her brothers were boys, they were expected to be stronger, and Ragnar had never made a secret out of wanting boys.

“I have lived among the wolves of Oðinn's Cove,” She took a pause and added, demurely, humbly. “And I have led them, mother, as Ragnar did. I ended Vali's tyrannical reign,” Gyda did not specify how, knowing that Thistle would be privy as to how it happened, smart enough to put the puzzle pieces together. It was simply how the Vikings did it. An honorable fight to the death. “but my home is here and so, too, shall my rule be.” Gyda spoke. “I made a friend from a neighboring pack to the Cove, her name is Thuringwethil and together we will lay claim to Sleeping Dragon in the North.” Gyda informed her, pausing to take a small breath. “You could come with me.” She did not speak it as a plea, nor would she.

Gyda never wanted her mother to feel obligated to do anything (not that Thistle would do anything she didn't want too), even so she left it open as an option ...for now and later should Thistle decide that she wished to depart with Moonspear.