Ragnar tried to divide his attention up equally between the three children never wanting one to feel left out as he had been as the middle son. Overshadowed by the two favorites of his parents; only to triumph over the favorites when it came to the end …at least in Eitri’s case. By the time Eitri had discovered that perhaps Ragnar should have been paid more attention too as a child it was too late and he was drawing his last, ragged breath as Björn towered over him, teeth stained with their father’s life blood as it dripped like rain from his muzzle; and now it seemed the case with Váli, too. Ragnar only hoped that Kenna did not make the same mistake as Eitri and wait until it was far too little, too late. Of course his divided attention while schedule-wise equal probably didn’t feel like it to them sometimes. Not a single one of them were, in reality, left out and all loved and praised the same. Just as they would all be punished the same when they stepped out of line.
Ragnar was not into playing favorites, his own childhood was experience enough of how that was a bad idea and so the sigh from Tveir (as if Ragnar had suddenly deduced the Thistle mini-me did not exist) had irked the father. It wasn’t true for after all, Ragnar had brought him outside before the other two, hadn’t he? He didn’t have too, he could have told the boy ‘no’ and that would have been the end of it.
He hadn’t. He had claimed them as his and henceforth loved them as his. He did not, selfishly, like feeling underappreciated as Tveir’s ‘woe is me’ sigh implied, even though Ragnar understood he was a child and did not realize he had been doing it in the first place. They only understood their own wants and needs and lacked the capabilities, yet, of understanding what others did for them. They would, in time, and reminding himself of that restored Ragnar’s previously lost patience as he fixed Tveir in his cold gaze.