In the truth of things, Ragnar would have told Pump sooner if she had asked. While the fact that he had not told her on his own without her prompting could have easily been seen as deceptive (and maybe in some aspects it had been) the fact of it was that it hardly, truthfully didn’t matter who the biological father was anymore because the DiSarinnos did not want anything to do with their wayward brother’s bastards. Not that Ragnar had intended to give the children over without a fight as it was. He couldn’t help the suspicion that Thistle would have been devastated if that would have happened. As the Fates would have it, Peregrine didn’t seem the least bit interested and that had been that. “Yes,” Ragnar responded in his softened, heavily accented tone at her following question about if he could answer whatever was on her mind with honesty.
His cleverness might have looked like deception - for often the two tended to go hand in hand with one another - but he figured there was no point in lying. He did not intend to be deceptive.
What do you really want?”
In hindsight it was a simple question. Yet, it wasn’t, because Ragnar was more complex than his barbaric and simplistic culture may have led others to initially believe. “You know what I want,” He told her softly, and this was true. He had made no moves to hide his ambition even from the very start. Yet, maybe that very ambition was the root of his particular question. He did not want the Ridge, but he wanted leadership. He wanted respect. He wanted …much. He wanted Ravensblood Forest, but despite the things he had already set into something of a motion between Thistle, Nerian and Dagrun he also didn’t truthfully want to leave. “Aside from that, though, I want my little family to grow. I want respect. I want to stop disappointing my God, Pump,” It was a rare admission, one that he hadn’t even spoken to Thistle of. “He sent me here to spread my culture and if they will have it my religion, the ways of the Northmen. I have done it only in the small measure of Thistle. I want his approval, to prove myself to him, to live to his expectations.” And so far Ragnar was left feeling like he was doing a very poor job of it.
