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| Ragnar didn’t see what particularly good qualities Thistle was referring too. The way his wolves put him up on a pedestal was …troubling to Ragnar. Of course he could not control how they felt about him, and though their respect was appreciated by the Jarl he was left with the uneasy feeling that they were painting him in good lights that he did not deserve to be painted in. It wasn’t that he was trying to be the modest hero, even, he was simply realistic. He was glad that the wolves that followed him liked him but at the same time he didn’t want them to be disappointed when they realized that he hadn’t been trying to be modest all along. He raided. He killed. He took slave and captives. He sacrificed not just prey but also wolves; and he did it all without batting an eye of regret. Of course none of these things were wrong to Ragnar who had grown up knowing no different but to those who did not share in his views he knew it was wrong. He stared stoically away from Thistle, knowing that he did not want his children to be like him at all, not even the adopted ones. Ambition was well and fine in moderation but if left unchecked, if gone to the level of Ragnar’s own …it lost it’s goodness. It became unmoral (if it had ever been that to begin with). It had led him to kill his own brother for a woman, among other things. "‘It means they will be just like you, therefore they will strive to do better than you and you will hate them for it’. Floki told me that once in regards to my sons. Ambition is good in moderation but it is a sickness if left unchecked. It is not good." He knew and he just needed her to see that. It led to jealousy and possessiveness and the will to kill his own blood to get what he wanted. Why should the ambition of his sons be any different? She had said it herself where did he draw the line? His honest answer was: he didn't. His ambition had no end, only the beginning.
He caught her smile out the corner of his eye but was in no mood to return it, not even with a coy smirk; in truth he couldn’t really say he had never killed a child. That he would never. There were exceptions: there were always exceptions. Ragnar had killed an infant cougar as a sacrifice to Odinn and would have done it again without a second thought. He would kill Majesty’s offspring in a heart beat, too, if he ever got the chance. Sins of the father and all that.
His scarred ear twitched back to her but his expression didn’t change and he still was contended to stare coolly at the ash tree, imagining Yggdrasil and Odinn’s eye if only because it distracted those truthful and ugly thoughts. "I will go." He left no room for discussion about it because it wasn’t a negotiation and his mood was that of a gathering tempest. In fact he had an itching to fight something because he needed to let out his pent up frustration and he needed to let his anger out on something. Anger that his sons would be like him. Anger at those who had been stupid enough to trespass. Anger that she thought he was a good man when he had told her, over and over, that he wasn’t. He was a savage. He was a Viking and all the implications that word entailed. He was not some shiny knighted King. "The males would be wise to keep themselves in check. Besides the permission I give to a couple who seek me for it I am the only one allowed to breed freely." And now, the Jarl wondered if Pump didn’t have the right idea of killing bastards. If Odinn’s Cove had done it then Dagrun wouldn’t have taken the beating he took growing up. He was angry and moody and he knew it. Knew that it was why he was thinking and feeling the way he felt. |