i dreamt you fed me blood pudding

For a few, stretching and silent minutes Ragnar simply stared down at her as she nuzzled and nipped and licked different parts of his face and neck but he could not bring himself to enjoy her touch, nor seek the comfort she was offering him. Even though it had been just a dream it had felt real enough and he remained, for the lack of a better word, spooked, the hackles bristling slightly again. Again, his stomach felt like it had dropped and his chest felt tight with icy as he wondered, then, if it was not the part of Odinn left behind within him that was warning him. A foreshadowing. The ‘what if’ scenario of that was not exactly pleasant and despite his previous determination that he was not going to worry Thistle with it, that he would not tell her that gruesome scene, lingering unbidden and unwelcome in the back of Ragnar’s mind as all nightmares did a low growl rumbled in the Viking’s throat for a few seconds, though it was hardly aimed at his wife. Ragnar was not sure he truly wanted to remain in the Ridge, confident that Pump would either keep coming up with excuses as to why he could not have the Beta rank - not to mention he would challenge her eventually, it was unavoidable and Ragnar did not want the Ridge - or pick someone over him.

He was tired of the ball and chain he wore, but held back from moving forward because it would be stupid to move Thistle now, not when she was due any week now, and even then the pups would not be able to be moved until they were at least a year old and even then sneaking them out of the borders might serve to be hell. Pump had him by his tail and there was nothing he could do about it, currently.

“I dreamt that you were crying, and when I went out to see why I dreamt that someone had torn our sons from your womb and killed them, and no matter how much you groomed their bloodied bodies, or nudged them towards your breasts they were lifeless still. And when I told you to give me a name of who had done it well…I awoke then.” Not that, even so, Ragnar had expected dream Thistle to give him a name for she had not spoken at all in his dream. Quietly, darkly the Viking whispered, “Do you think Odinn is trying to tell me something?” Because Ragnar did. Her words broke through his newest scenarios of what if’s and briefly he touched his muzzle to hers, curling himself back around her, holding her close to him to find comfort in the intimacy that it brought, in the presence of her body against his. “Once I dreamt I fed you blood pudding,“ He murmured to her letting the shadows take his voice. Knowing she would not understand the symbolism of that he explained, “It means I have given you my heart.” Which was a fancier way of telling her he loved her, too.