Sleeping Dragon red: the color of desire

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What could Gyda say about Ragnar? As her daughter, his granddaughter settled beside her, encouraging the telling of it Gyda felt her smile grow sad. She mourned his death, still. She always would. The last she had seen Ragnar alive they had fought and a lot of things had been said that she had not meant. His distrust that she was speaking the truth to him had hurt her and unable to stand the pain that he did not believe her she had unfairly and regrettably lashed out at him. Gyda felt his absence, and though she knew he was where he wanted to be — Valhalla — she still grieved. She shouldn't have; but she did. “He protected his wolves and they trusted him. Some even loved him. I doubt there was one of them that would not have answered a call for help would he have ever given one. But sometimes when you lead, there will be hard decisions you have to make, Freyja and you have to be able to make them justly. Ragnar was not afraid to make those hard decisions. He was true to the Gods and he was true to himself. He did not ask anything of his wolves that he, himself, was not willing to do. He respected them.” Without subordinates a leader was nothing.

Gyda did not realize how talking about him still hurt her. It was no easier, now, close to a year later. “And when I overtook the throne of Odinn's Cove I ruled as I had seen him rule.” She spoke so softly it was nearly a whisper. Gyda had done well in the Cove. She had prospered and beneath the guidance of Ragnar's half-brother she had grown to be loved among the Cove wolves. It all felt like a lifetime ago now. Perhaps, in a way it was. That was a different life and she was not so sure the way in which Ragnar, and even herself, had ruled would fit Freyja.

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