Dagrún did not waste time pulling Ragnar into a brotherly embrace, which the bastard of Eitri did by grasping Ragnar’s scruff and causing their chests to collide in what might have been considered a bear hug if bears could hug at all, that is. “And you, Dagrún,” Ragnar paused then a compliment on the tip of his tongue only to bite it back at the last moment and finish in a cheeky tone instead, “Well I always was the better looking one.” Arrogant teasing aside Ragnar let his eyes skim over his half brother ascertaining that he was healthy and strong. Exactly as Ragnar remembered him to be. It had come to seem to Ragnar, rather abruptly, that Dagrún, despite being only a half brother through their father was more reliable than his two, full blood brothers. Or, at the very least, Dagrún had yet to stab Ragnar in the back. There was always a slight suspicion, had always been a small sliver of a thing, that maybe Dagrún would. His half brother’s mother had been a slave and not just any slave but one from the Amazon women pack to the west of them, fierce and wild, stolen on a raid that had left their young and new queen backpedaling (ironically it would come to pass that Ragnar stole said queen’s son and through the circumstance of memory loss on the boy’s part would claim the boy as his own flesh and blood). Naturally, the animosity that came from the exotic slave might have been passed to Dagrún, though it was surprising that the Amazon woman had allowed Eitri to touch her at all and doubted she would have fought him to her death if she had not consented to that union. Ragnar had never asked because he couldn’t stand to think that Eitri had forced himself and his seed upon a woman who was not willing to have him.
As it was Ragnar had always suspected that while loyal Dagrún always strove, much like Ragnar, for more than he had. That kind of ambition, as Ragnar knew first hand, was dangerous and led a man to do things he would not normally do. Naturally, Ragnar was apprehensive of it only because he understood it.
“That is because she is pregnant, Dagrún,” Ragnar snapped half heartedly in a condescending tone at his youngest brother, rolling his icy oceanic eyes. “My wife is close to giving birth, you’re lucky I came at all,” Ragnar spoke to his brother in a quiet tone, chastising as if Dagrún were a small puppy that needed it. “She assures me they won’t come for at least a week yet, and I do have things I would like to talk to you about.” Things that Ragnar did not want to wait upon. He was not an impatient beast, but there were somethings that he desired, as anyone else, in the here and now. That was not always possibly, of course. In this case, it wasn’t possible. “I know you are here to ask me back to the Cove, but I cannot go. My family is here and Odin wants me to be, “ Ragnar told him sternly, grimly. Váli was the Cove’s problem now and either they would usurp him or they would fall. “but I have something that I want to ask you, brother.”
