Ragnar’s scarred ear twitched at Thistle’s words, holding the attempt as it seemed to him, to soothe his suspicions and worries. It was wrong to immediately suspect Dagrún of betrayal when nothing had been done to warrant it. He could not place the blame of his other brothers upon the dark Viking and Ragnar knew it, knew that though he did not hold grudges he did not ever forget. Björn had paid with his life for what he had done to their father (and because Ragnar had fancied Tyra at the time), and Váli…well Váli was paying with the loss of the Cove, and really despite Dagrún’s protesting Ragnar didn’t really hold the elicit affair and now mateship against Sif and Váli. He could have, quite easily if he was the kind of man that held onto those things, but he wasn’t and so, simply, he didn’t. The Gods would punish them for it since Ragnar was not there to do it himself. There was no sense in wasting the energy on it. “I know, my love,” Ragnar murmured to her. “I trust him as much as I can.” He had always been weary of Dagrún, if not when they were children because the dark Viking’s mother had been an enslaved Amazon woman and she did not make her dislike of the Vikings unclear. It was this that still proved to confound Ragnar to the very day of how the Amazon woman had let Eitri plant his seed within her - but that was a mystery he would never know the answer too; maybe he didn’t really want to know.
“I know you haven’t,” Ragnar assured her, smoothing his tongue across the bridge of her muzzle. “I would have told Pump sooner if she would have asked,” He expressed to Thistle what he had not with Pump, shrugging his broad shoulders once before offering a cheeky little grin before his face became stoic with it’s seriousness. “Maybe I should have spoken up in the meeting about it but there’s the chance that they may be his biologically and if that’s true - not that we’ll ever know, and not that it matters - then there was no sense in getting everyone riled up.” Things might have went down different if Pump had known at the time that Ragnar might be the biological father of the children; but then again maybe they wouldn’t have. There was no sense, Ragnar felt, in dwelling upon it: he was their “true” father and they were his sons even if they weren’t biologically related and that was all there was to it.
The force of Thistle’s smile - bright and beautiful nearly knocked the breath out of Ragnar as she assaulted him with it. So was that what it was like for her when he smiled? He couldn’t help but wonder. “I didn’t say I accepted, love,” Ragnar teased her with a soft chuckle, but of course she knew him too well to know that he had accepted without him having to actually tell her. “It reminds me of being the lead Berserker again, I am the muscle half of the leadership.” He explained, though unlike when he had been a lead Berserker he actually shared in half of the leadership duties with her. The Viking was still on something of a leash - but now it wasn’t quite as unbearable as it had been previously.
