Sleeping Dragon Out of my league

The Thistle Cloud that Wildfire described to Gyda was not the Thistle that Gyda had known. Her mother had been cool and collected even when standing between Ragnar and whatever unfortunate fool had gotten upon the Viking's bad side. On the fringes had never been words anyone would have uttered about Thistle...before Ragnar's death, it seemed. Perhaps, Gyda realized, in the same way she was a stranger to her mother, her mother had become a stranger to her. For a moment, guilt twisted in Gyda's gut enough to cause a flash of pain across her expression before she composed herself. If she would not have been at Odinn's Cove playing the warrior queen that Ragnar's loyalists had wanted her to be...if she would have only escorted Nerian and returned home perhaps she could have been there, perhaps she could have saved Ragnar. Perhaps she could have saved her mother and aided in raising her siblings. It had become too easy to misconstrue what had happened — all out of Gyda's control — to be her fault. The short answer was: it wasn't. The Gods had decided their Fates long ago and there was nothing that could be done to change what they had already ordained. Gyda knew this, but she supposed her guilt and the what-if scenarios were only natural to feel and ponder.

“I wish you could have known her before,” Gyda whispered with a sad smile to Wildfire. “She was something fierce to behold, I suppose Ragnar's impact upon her life was too strong for her to move on from.” Something that in some ways Gyda understood well. “It is alright,” The Viking Queen spoke to assure the flame colored girl. “I had noticed that myself when I had ventured south to visit before Thurin and I founded Sleeping Dragon officially.” But there was little to be done about it.