my heart is caged

Mercury noted the pain and fear in her eyes as he held her gaze, feeling like the prodigal son that everyone was going to hate eventually. Or sooner rather than later, perhaps. He didn't understand that her fear and pain was because of something much, much worse than him wanting to leave the Bay. Smoky black ears flattened against his skull when his mother began to speak, her words confusing and sparking a unwelcome ball of anxiety within the pre-teen's stomach and lodging one in his throat for good measure. “Yes he is,” Mercury gave Thistle an unintentional look that questioned her sanity, unsure what she meant by that. Though Mercury had never met many Vikings in his life he fully believed there wasn't anyone out there alive that wasn't more Viking than Ragnar. It was Ragnar. Mercury might not have fully understood about the whole mating thing but he had a vague enough idea to be able to keep up with his mother's rapid speech without pondering too long on any certain word. He vaguely understood that children didn't just come from the ground or whatever, and he had a vague idea of what happened to make babies — having accidentally stumbled across a mating pair of white-tailed deer on one of his 'adventures'. He hardly understood all of it but he was intelligent and quick enough to put two and two together. He didn't tell his mother that, however, too mortified by the idea and by the fact that karma was kicking his behind because he'd been lying for a while now to appease everyone; but apparently he hadn't been the only one.

He couldn't find his voice in his body, hadn't realized he'd even stopped breathing until he sucked in a greedy gasp of air as his lungs ached for it. He simply stared at her, battling between feeling horrendously betrayed, and horribly relieved. So he was actually related to Junior? They were, what, cousins biologically? “But Gyda looks like him, like Ragnar and Gunnar looks like you. I'm the only one that doesn't,” So what did that say about him? “Maybe I'm just the bastard son. It makes perfect sense because I'm the exact opposite of what Ragnar wants in a son.” Mercury's voice was full of sarcasm even though he was being quite serious about it. His sarcasm was his defensive mechanism. It brought with it relief from the overwhelming, crushing things that he felt and did not want to examine right here in front of her. “So where is he? My real father?” Mercury asked her before letting out a sharp breath.

“Don't call me Ein. That's not even a name,” He looked away from a second, swallowing harshly before he looked back to Thistle. “I go by Mercury now.”