Ragnar had long ago came to the conclusion that Nerian and him were never meant to understand each other’s ways, even if she tried and he, as well. He was curious about her life, her people, her God but he had used the information to raid again, to learn about them only to further gain himself and his Cove. It didn’t insinuate that he didn’t want to understand her because despite his failures he yearned too. How can you be happy with nothing? Essentially it was what she had had when he had found her: nothing; yet Ragnar bit that back because the question if it were to be spoken from betwixt his lips would only lead them, uselessly, around and around each other again. It got them no where. Tail lashed behind his haunches in frustration, black, leathery nostrils flaring as he inhaled and exhaled her scent as he had drawn closer.
For a moment Ragnar was absorbed in feeling the rises of skin beneath her pelt, the scars he could not see but now felt. Scars that he knew he had not given her. Váli. The name was like a hiss, a curse, a deadly promise as it writhed like a tangible and living thing within Ragnar’s mind. Gone, it would seem, was the good natured shadow of a younger brother Ragnar had once known. Now two brothers had betrayed him, and like Björn, Váli would pay for it with his life, some day. Ragnar did not hold grudges, yet he tried to believe in justice and punishment. Váli had committed crimes, defied the laws of their culture; laws that had been in place since their predecessors so many unfathomable years ago had founded Odinn’s Cove. It’s life as a pack was ending at the paws of a once good man. Ragnar was drawn from his thoughts, almost startled, when Nerian began to sob on his shoulder.
He could feel the cool kiss of her salty tears as they stained and dampened the fur there but the once Jarl did not move, did not speak. He simply let her cry there. Ragnar had never been good with tears — remained unsure how exactly to handle them and figured the best thing to do would be to let her cry them out of her. Ragnar was not a sentimental beast and even if he had wanted to say something to her, it would not have been with condolences. Ears, scarred and unscarred slicked back to his skull as his Priestess continued to cry upon him as he considered that keeping her his slave was in part, causing her to do this. To cry. While he might not have treated her like a slave was normally treated the title was still branded to her. And he did need her, he would need her help to branch off from Pump, eventually. He needed wolves that he trusted at his back, and he trusted Nerian.