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| The child did not seem to be able to hear him, or if she had she was in no fit state to respond to him as Nerian slathered the medicine upon the girl’s wounds. The girl thrashed and screamed again and then fell into what Ragnar suspected was unconsciousness. Though it left him with a severely injured girl at his borders, passed out and utterly useless at least for the time being he was, in some part glad that she had succumbed to her unconsciousness. Her stillness would be easier on Nerian and likely it was a kindness to the girl. A temporary reprieve from the pain in which she had endured up to this point. The pain of the wounds being inflicted and the pain of them festering. She told him ‘not to be silly’ and yet she had not been there when the girl had called out to him using a name. A name he determined if only because the child’s ears had slicked back and the appeasing whine that had slipped from her lips had been a fearful sounding plea. For what, the Viking didn’t know, but he had enough puzzle pieces to put together that being associated with ‘Bughuul’ whomever it was, was not a good thing.
"She remembers something," He snapped at Nerian’s blatant dismissal of his assertion that she’d have emotional scars. "You know as well as I do Priestess that it is the tragedies we remember well." Good memories faded, they always faded but it was the horrific memories that they clung too, subconsciously. He remembered watching Björn slaughter Eitri in single combat, and likewise remembered the plea from Björn’s lips seconds before Ragnar had granted him death, the vivid show of his elder brother’s life fading from his eyes until the torn and bloody corpse was just that: a corpse.
"Only Frigg knows if the child will be able to be healed," Frigg, the Queen of Valkyries, wife of Odinn, and Goddess of matrimony, expecting women and healing; he trusted in her to decide the Fate of this girl if the Norn had not already done so. He believed heavily that their Fates were set and it could, following that logic, that just like Junior this girl was Fated to show up here. The feral Scandinavian knew he was facing a decision and only as Nerian pulled back from the girl for the time being, the mixture of her plants and blood assaulting his black, leathery nostrils. To a more compassionate creature the decision would have been an easy one, perhaps one with no contest, but Ragnar wasn’t compassionate and he was extremely careful. He knew nothing of the girl, nothing of her personality, nothing of how she had gotten those injuries. He could not, in not knowing, induct her into the pack. He didn’t know, even, if she’d want to stay or what skills she had. He just didn’t know. Yet, he realized that if he did not grant her, at least, temporarily shelter until she healed she would die out here.
The past week had been an interesting one for Ragnar Loðbrók. Three trespassers - now- captives, a gift of the Gods in the form of an orphaned child, and now this. Nerian turned to face him and he made the mistake of looking at her face clearly identifying the pain and fear she didn’t even bother to hide there. Pain of his rejection, still? He had told her once he had a wife and that he loved Thistle - something that could not be claimed for the previous ones - and yet she had still pushed. Though his irritation and anger now was nothing compared to what it would have been if he would have actually given in, he only sought to move on. He didn’t like lingering in the past which was probably why he tended not to hold grudges. "We will see," The Jarl spoke coolly, looking away from Nerian to the girl, his lips a terse and stiff line. "I cannot make a decision on what to do with her until she heals and is lucid. For now, you will tend to her. I will check on her progress when I can." Ragnar commanded of her, not giving her a chance to speak against him because he wasn’t negotiating anything. He was simply telling her with the expectation that it wouldn’t be a problem.
He let out a sigh unsure what else to do at the current point. They couldn’t move her, and until they assessed what other damage she might have had it was a good idea to just let her there; and Ragnar didn’t have the luxury to stand there with her and Nerian until she awoke and was lucid enough for conversation. With four children, a wife, three captives, patrols to make and a pack to run he was an extremely busy man. He liked it that way, liked having plenty of things to fill up his time. "I have patrols to finish," The Jarl spoke dismissively, sensing that Nerian probably wanted to talk about them not that there was a ‘them’ beyond Jarl and Subordinate, Master and Slave and this wasn’t the time; and as far as Ragnar was concerned there was nothing to talk about. He wasn’t the libertine man he had been in the Cove and that was all there was too it. "Call for me if anything happens." And with those words he turned and headed back on his patrols. |