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| Teeth bared as his head whipped towards her when she laid into him; it was not in the literal sense but it still infuriated him, nevertheless. Hackles bristled like spines along the curve of his neck, as she spouted off about his redeeming qualities and how he should accept them. She wasn’t getting it and she seemed to be contradicting herself, as far as he was able to see, when she spoke of what their sons could become while basically naming off what he and his ilk, essentially, were. Killing his own brother in cold blood because he wanted his wife was mindless killing and though Ragnar himself had never partaken in raping the other Berserkers had. Just because he had his own opinions and his own mind didn’t make him better than them. It just made him insignificantly different. "I killed my brother for a woman who I lost interest in the second she became mine and you do not see that as mindless killing?" He laughed harshly the gesture devoid of mirth. He was angry and Thistle was only provoking the tempest, pulling it closer to shore. Later, when he had exerted all the pent up irritation and frustration and horror that his sons would be just like him he would feel bad about this and make it up to her in the only way he knew how …if she let him.
If he didn’t love her and didn’t care he wouldn’t be arguing with her about it. He would have let it go. And maybe he was just looking to pick a fight because dammit he needed this. The last time he had fought anything had been the bear and that had been a long time ago. He was a Berserker and having him go so long without fighting was bad for him.
"You’re not understanding. Everything you just said they could become they will. Eventually. My brethren kill and rape and torture. I have tortured," The Blood Eagle ritual, specifically, came to his mind. "I have stood before a man and tore apart the skin at his back and I broke his ribs off with my teeth and then pulled his lungs out and laid them upon him to resemble the folded wings of a great eagle." Execution in the form of torture. In a way his body had looked reminiscent of Pump’s except Ragnar had not severed the spine. He realized he had wanted their sons to become Vikings and he didn’t regret it but he did not want his sons to harbor his ambition and saying they would, like it was something to be encouraged, only served to irritate him. Their ambition could lead them to kill him someday, or her. Or each other. It wasn’t cute. It was dangerous and if he instilled nothing else in them he would make them realize the price of ambition. "It is the truth!" Demeaning himself would mean that he was something more than he was, something he wasn’t. It couldn’t be demeaning if it was only the cold, harsh and unforgiving truth.
He wasn’t in the mood to be flattered with compliments, not with Floki’s words haunting him and not on his lack of sleep. "Do you even understand how I worry everyday that they are making me into something I am not? That they think I have changed? I haven’t. I won’t. I will raid again. I will torture. I will kill." He did not want them to lose their respect for him because they had misgivings though Ragnar was careful to always be honest about himself and his past, of where he came from with them. "It is all I know." It wasn’t that Ragnar wasn’t good with power, nor that he couldn’t handle the ramifications that came along with it. It was that he couldn’t handle barely any sleep and the lengthy time between battles. Even as the Jarl of the Cove he had fought and raided on a consistent basis. Unable to do either he felt like a caged animal and unfortunately, Thistle was in the cross hairs of his disposition because she had spoken of their sons being like him.
Because they would be better than him. They would do better than him. And he would hate them for it, just as Floki had said. |