all change

*Ragnar* · July 03, 2014, 11:21 AM

Ragnar and Thistle hadn’t actually discussed what they were going to do with their newest addition, though their first answer should have been simple, no questions asked: return her to her parents. Except was it really that simple? Any pack scent she had carried prior to being carried by the current of the river had been erased when they had found her. If her parents had assumed she was deceased would they really continue to send envoys out to the nearby packs looking for her? He had lost children once though the circumstances had been largely different, and he knew that there came a point when death had to be accepted. He had buried his stillborn, aborted children hating Dagmar and hating Odinn for taking them from him. The line that had been drawn for him had been obvious. They had been deceased possibly before Dagmar’s body had aborted them and there was no breathing life into them despite how hard the Danish Princess had tried to no avail. Even if there had been a sliver of life in them upon their birth they were not developed enough to survive but a few seconds after being forced from her womb.

Accepting death had always been easier for him, rationalized by his culture as a celebration as a personal victory. However, it hadn’t stopped his fury at Odinn and it hadn’t stopped the pain from losing his first, legitimate children. Perhaps the line was not always easily drawn. He hoped that he never had to find out. Burying stillborns was one thing but he imagined accepting that a child as old as Junior was deceased was probably harder still.

For now she was an orphan to him, and until or if they ever got answers she was under ~~his~~ their care. It was Odinn wanted him to do and so he would do it without asking questions of the All-Father. Junior in question appeared a few moments later, breaking the scarred Northman from his busy thoughts and memories. He offered the rambunctious child a soft smile when she greeted him, appreciative of her submission but shook his head as if to communicate that it was unnecessary. She was their guest — an honored guest since his Gods had brought her to them in his mind — and Ragnar had begun to think of her as another one of his children with a shocking amount of ease (that would bite him in the butt if/when she decided to go back). "If you are feeling well enough would you like to patrol with me, Junior?" The Viking asked the child feeling confident that even if they did run into any trouble he was more than capable of protecting her.