“I didn’t say it wasn’t …but I don’t recall saying it was, either,” Ragnar taunted her in jest, a smirk that might put the Cheshire cat to shame tugged at the corners of the Viking’s lips. “They are going to get too big someday and when that day comes I fully expect them to go out and den on their own away from us.” It wasn’t because Ragnar didn’t want his children or any sort of silly nonsense likewise. He was a huge advocate for not coddling and for letting them have their freedoms to go off and do their own thing when they came of an age to do so. He would encourage it. After all, they couldn’t live with their parents forever. Of course in the terms of remaining in the same pack as their parents creating generations such as Odinn Cove had done they could in that sense but his mindset was more along the lines of denning. Besides cramping and intruding on the intimacy of the parents it would also hinder the children’s own intimacy experiences when they came of age.
He acknowledged what Thistle had spoken in regards to Floki but did not comment further, despite that his lips pressed together tersely as his ears slid to rest at half mast against his skull. He did not wish to speak of Floki and the mad healer’s continued absence in Ragnar’s life. Sköll was not Floki but in it a way it was something of a sign from him, entrusting Ragnar with the care of his son despite that Sköll was, by all rights, an adult and was more than capable of handling himself; maybe not where language was concerned but as far as survival went. “I don’t see how it’s shameless if I’m just being honest,” How many times had he warned her that he was dangerous? Possibly more than she knew. Possibly more than he was willing to admit. It showed like an ugly nightmare of a devil living within him when he so casually spoke that he could watch the Isle wolves all starve to death on their stupid island and not care but to ensure that they continued to be unable to eat and survive. He would kill others for the survival of him and his own. Gladly so, even, without so much as a thought that it was wrong because it wasn’t wrong to him.
He raided and killed for a lot less.
He would kill a wolf for trespassing without even bothering to question, to ask why and wouldn’t even feel bad about it. There was no conscious trigger, no rules of morality to hold him back. He and his lived and fought as if they had nothing left to lose …maybe because he didn’t fear death so it wasn’t as if his life was any sort of bargaining chip with him. No, he would embrace Valhalla with open arms just as his comrades who had fallen did before him.
So in a very real sense Ragnar was shameless and not in the way that his wife had meant it when she had teased him of it. A wry twitch of his lips was given as he inhaled deeply and settled his gaze to the horizon.
