been called a monster, called a demon

If he had known that Pump did not think their attack had been weak he would have disagreed. Less than half of the pack had arrived to deal with it and they — all of them — were just lucky that serious injuries, or death, had been avoided. Ragnar had taken the worst of the bear’s ire and though he might have argued that it had not been luck but fate that the bear had not ripped him to pieces, it was something he realized could have been a whole lot worse. The fact that they could have killed it, if more had shown up, hung in the air between them, taunting Ragnar. While they had managed to successful chase it out of the territory, hopefully with wounds to remember them by when it thought of coming near their land again, that did not mean they were free of it. It could come back and threaten their lives all over again. It was on this that the two found their heads butting (so to speak) Ragnar’s culture demanded punishment, he wanted those to be punished to ensure that the absolute lack of apathy did not happen again and that if it did the consequences would be severe; however, Pump did not seem to want to hear it.

There was nothing short of frustration in the Viking’s expression when she firmly closed the subject, reminding him that he had no real weight in decision making. He could talk and argue until he was blue in the face but if her mind wasn’t being swayed then she would always have her way. He thought it was a mistake to just let it go, to turn a blind eye to it and pretend it had never happened. His culture was less forgiving than the posh-ness he found here, and more and more Ragnar found it was getting harder for him to stand these “moral” wolves. They were weak because their ‘morals’ proved to weaken them, held them back. If it had been Odinn’s Cove majority of the pack would have rallied to fight the bear, and the ones who did not take up arms would be standing by the aid in injuries. “Four wolves isn’t even enough to stop a raiding party let alone a full on invasion if another pack decides to exploit us because they think we are weak.” Was all he said on the matter before he let it drop because she had won and he had lost and they would always be at odds on that particular subject. Ragnar was all for letting the enemy make a wrong assumption, it worked out well in the end; but then again it wasn’t a wrong assumption if it was true.

When the conversation made it’s way to Nerian and Pump rephrased her question he visibly hesitated. In that, she had caught him. In truth, it went against all of his beliefs that ‘Naturalist’ trade; instinctively he did not like it. If she wanted to play as a ‘Naturalist’ who was he to stop her? Just as long as she didn’t go spouting it to his face given how it more or less said his Gods did not exist and because of it he refused to believe in it. “No, I do not,” Ragnar spoke firmly. “Yet it could be argued that my Gods don’t exist, too, just because I have nothing to offer as tangible proof.” He saw Odinn, and felt their presence in many things, heard Thor in the thunder but that didn’t qualify as ‘proof’. “It is the same principle. It is what she believes in, so what is the harm in letting her believe?” It was vastly different from his own beliefs, and his beliefs were not shared here by many and yet that had not been a reason to keep him out of the pack.