“We will go whenever you want,” Ragnar assured her with a bump of his muzzle against hers, ears slicking back to lay at half mast atop his skull, proud and victorious. Ragnar was intensely proud of Thistle, and while she might not have seen it, he hadn’t failed to notice the subtle changes being his wife had made in her. She was still the same old Thistle he had first meant officially on the day he had been wracked with fever and infection (because he had been unconscious with sleep any of the other times she had tended to him, or out ignoring her orders of bed ridden). She had acted almost scared of him burning with the fever, wound festering with the infection, her trepidation and uncertainty of him nothing but normal to the Viking who was quite used to it, and used to the stares his mark of Odinn received. She was still innocent in some ways to be sure, but Ragnar felt he could no longer consider her as naïve, or as docile as she had first been. Even at first, she had not liked the idea of being a Shield Maiden but now it seemed to Ragnar as if she were almost taken with the idea. In truth, she could be anything she wanted just as long as she was by his side as his wife where he wanted her but he didn’t mind her taking to the allure of the famous and revered Shield Maidens. As it was, she could be a Shield Maiden, wife, mother and healer - there was no reason to subject herself to just one or the other. Ragnar had never really deigned to change her, there was something about is young wife’s innocence that was still endearing to the Viking but he definitely liked that her inner strength and spitfire was not showing in brief glimpses whenever she was angry but in her everyday life and interactions without, he suspected, her conscious realization of it.
Victorious. Ragnar could not help but feel because he was, albeit slowly, fulfilling Odinn’s commands for him, hoping only that his successes outweighed his failures in Odinn’s eye and heart. It was a tireless thing, proving yourself to a God who could so easily drop his favor and find a new champion. “I will fill you in on Freya and Frigg’s roles tomorrow on our way to the Forest.” He told her, suspecting that it had been upon her mind. He had yet to give her even a vague description of either of them and it seemed appropriate if she were to sacrifice to them that she understood their roles in the life of their sons and Thistle herself.
