Ollie grudgingly made her way to the encampment of the Stavanger Bay wolves. All the while she was cursing at herself for getting them in that mess. For two weeks they would be stuck in this place, as captives, servants! She hoped they wouldn't be too cruel like the wolves of Bethnal Green were to their servants. The waif recalled how servants would be beaten mercilessly and get the scraps of kills, if any food at all. Gangs could push the wolves around how they wished, without consequence. Ollie hoped this pack wouldn't be like that.
She stuck by Olor's side, not looking forward to the glances she would get from the wolves. The ash-furred juvenile could smell the ocean nearby, and she wondered if they would be stuck in a miserable sea cave for a den.
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| Ragnar had trusted Surra to keep their newest additions busy as he finished his patrols. The howl he had sent out to inform the rest of the pack had been short and sweet but clear with it’s message. They had two trespassers captive for two weeks and they were to be guarded. Ragnar had made the decision to take the night shift and trusted one of his wolves to keep a close eye on them when he managed to slip in time to sleep between patrolling, tending to governing duties, and teaching his children. They were much more active than they’d been a month ago and while he did not worry about them so constantly in the safety of the Bay (plus he had awesome Sitters to keep them in some kind of check) but he had began lessons figuring they were old enough to comprehend them considering they were quickly speaking or trying too. Their speech was rudimentary given their young age but each of them seemed to be improving by the day though Tveir seemed to be the most vocal. It surprised Ragnar if only because he was the Second Born. It seemed the Ein was the quieter of the boys despite that he was overtly bossy and his little Viking Princess Gyda, seemed to be a curious little thing. They were growing quickly, day by day and he made sure he didn’t miss any of their accomplishments.
Luckily, he was well versed from Sveinn, handing leadership and parenthood and he felt that he was getting better with handling young children. He still lost his patience with them at times, but he was getting better. Like his children, Ragnar was learning. It was as he had wrapped up his patrols that he decided to check in on Surra and their Captives because he believed he, out of any of the Bay’s wolves, should be watching over them the most since he had passed the judgment and commanded the punishment. As far as punishment went it was much more merciful than the Viking was used to giving. A lesson in humility as opposed to pain, or in other cases death. Humiliation was a good motivator, at least as far as Ragnar thought because he did not enjoy being humiliated. He wondered for a brief moment how his action and decision might have been perceived by his subordinates. He valued their opinions and suggestions though in the end, it was his call to make. He had done what he had thought was best by taking the girl’s suggestion and running with it. Not to the extremes that he might have done in the Cove, granted, but her suggestion fell in line with his own culture, which made him curious about where it was she had came from.
The den site was abandoned for the time being, and without bothering to stick around the scarred Northman followed the captives’ trail to where the forest began to taper off into the shore, approaching the pair when he had them in his sights, shrugging through the thick bracken, brush and trees. They had lain close together, the girl snuggling into the man’s side in a way that reminded him, almost painfully, of Gyda. The Juvenile did not resemble the Viking Princess in the least but it had been the reminder of his fatherhood that had spared her from being his slave, and her companion from his death for growling at Ragnar in his own lands. "Settling in?" A coy smirk, trademark to the scarred man, tugged at the edges of his lips as he came to a stand still nearby, alerting them to his presence if they had not scented him before hand. It was a sardonic question, lacking the warmth it would have held to a 'normal' newcomer. |
At the arrival of Ragnar, the new Stavanger Bay captive flattened herself to the ground, pressing her ears to her skull, and then rolling over to show her belly. It might be much, but she and Olor were at the bottom of the ranks now. She was even below pups she assumed.
The platinum alpha smirked at them, though it was not friendly at all. "We're settlin' fine m'lord." She said, not locking eyes with him. For the moment they chose to lay here until Olor wanted to go find or dig a den. Until then, this would be their resting place.
"Um, m'lord." she began, nervous. "I wanted ter apologize for Olor. 'e was worried that ya were garn ter kill me. That's why 'e growled at ya earlier." That selfless act of his, though she understood the meaning, nearly got both of them killed, or worse, taken into slavery. Since Olor could say nothing to rectify his actions, Ollie had to tell Ragnar herself, though he might not forgive him for it.
Like they planned, Ollie would apologize for what Olor had done earlier. It was out of his father-like emotions for the young waif that he growled at Ragnar. Since Ragnar was a father as well, shouldn't he sympathize with that?
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| The two Captives pressed themselves further against the ground, if that was at all possible, at his appearance to ‘babysit’ them. So far they had not yet attempted to make an escape though Ragnar had no intentions of letting them go very far if they did manage it and given that he hoped they realized he was sincere when he promised their punishment would increase in severity if they did. He did not follow the moral codes of most wolves in these Wilds. Where he came from life was much harsher and more savage and the wolves, accordingly, had to adapt to the way of their world in order to survive it. This wasn’t a game and so far they seemed to have absorbed that. The girl didn’t look into his eyes as she spoke, which was a good thing considering eye contact was often taken as a challenge and he was fairly certain he could take the both of them. The male might have been as big as him, maybe smaller but Ragnar was in his prime, healthy and had been killing and taking on numerous wolves at once since he had been old enough to begin Berserker training. Though he had settled for the defensive trade of Warden he was still a very formable Berserker warrior. He wasn’t sure he liked her calling him ‘milord’. It held a finesse to it that Ragnar himself did not. He realized he had not given them his name, despite that Surra had spoken it and as his captives they weren’t exactly entitled to calling him by his name as if they were on that basis with one another despite that Ragnar let his slaves call him such; slaves were of a different circumstance though. "My title is Jarl," He corrected her though the common tongue equivalent was alpha. Either way there was no mistaking that it was the Loðbrók man that ran this pack. "I was going to kill you…both of you," Ragnar admitted to her without remorse. He wanted them to understand just how severe their actions were to him and to thank whatever Gods (if any) they prayed to that Ragnar did not kill children or women (there were exceptional circumstances to that, however). "I do not kill children," He had a weakness for them even if he wasn’t very good with infant children. "However your Youth is not an excuse to ignore borders. It granted you leniency only once. If you decide to leave when your two weeks are up and if you trespass here again I will not be so merciful. This is the only warning you will get." If there was a next time he would outright attack as he was perfectly in his rights to do as far as he was concerned. |
The waif blanched when her Jarl said that she and Olor were going to be killed for trespassing, but she already knew that Jarl Ragnar was soft on children. If he wasn't, they probably would be slaves by now and not captives, or Olor would have been dead. "Alwigh' me Jarl. I won't ever make that mistake again. I promise."
There were no real borders back home at Bethnal Green, not like here. There were things called 'turfs' and those always changed in size when gang fights occurred. She wasn't used to (mostly) permanent borders like packs had and that was perhaps the main reason for her trespassing. She had a habit back home of crossing into the turfs of other packs to steal or taunt the wolves, which made her ignore most border markings. After this event, that was surely to change.
Ollie had turned white (figuratively) when Ragnar said he would have killed them if it hadn't been for Ollie's youth. His face kept stoic and still, he already knew that. Something in the wolf's eyes had told him that when he came barrelling in. Again he cursed himself for not smelling the borders. It was his fault really, he shouldn't have been so careless like that.
| Jarl was not a translation to the Greek alpha, rather it was the equivalent of the English ‘Earl’ which in Ragnar’s complicated mind full of crossing translations (among other things) was basically the same thing as the title ‘alpha’. It translated to being the one in charge, the one who made the final decisions in the name of the pack. In the simplicity of it, it meant the same thing as ‘alpha’ with a lot more complications of how it got to be it’s equivalent in his language and in his culture. Ragnar didn’t need to be able to see the color of their skin to know that his grim words had struck home with them, he could see it in the supple way their bodies recoiled, the small ticks of fear and realization that everyone made, observed if only because the Berserker had been trained at a very young age to watch the movement of bodies on the battle field. Movements no matter how small tended to be a tell-tale sign of how they would move, where they would attack. It was training that had been hardwired into him and henceforth proved a hard habit he was unwilling to kill.
The girl whose name he realized he still didn’t know, though he knew the male’s name only because she had spoken it to Ragnar when she had apologized for him, spoke that she promised never to do it again. Ragnar believed her, if only because she seemed to realize the severity as he intended, and the fear of death for wolves who did not look forward to it as he did tended to be a rather useful motivator. His gaze moved from her to the her companion wondering their relation or …relationship if that was the case (who was he to judge his wife was younger than him though not that young in reality) before deciding it was better, for now, he not take too much interest in their lives. They were his Captives and that was that. "What is your name, child?" Not that he intended to call her by it because that created a familiarity that he wasn’t willing to establish |
"So, um..." she stammered. "Do ya need us for anyfing?"
| Gradually, though the process was undeniably slow for the Viking whose native language was not the common tongue, it was becoming easier by small degrees to understand the girl when she spoke to him. Again, it brought the consideration that his own accent made understanding his common tongue hard but it wasn’t a comparison he could make because he heard himself talk every day. She introduced herself giving him what he assumed was her full name, and then a nickname. Not one that he would call her, granted, but it was good information to have, nevertheless. There was little doubt in the Viking’s own mind that he would stick to calling her ‘child’ during her two week imprisonment within his Bay; as for the male who did not seem to talk …well Ragnar had no intentions of addressing him personally lest he decide to growl again but even then the type of addressing the scarred Northman intended to do wasn’t a verbal one. At her question, Ragnar was silent for a stretch of a moment, thinking through if he needed them for anything. He didn’t particularly want his prisoners near his children (it was kind of scary how easily the words ‘his children’ automatically included Junior) so any aspect of using them to baby sit his heathens was off the table. Ragnar was picking about who he let near them, anyway. "We will decide where it is you will sleep," It seemed as good a time as any, and while Ragnar wasn’t going to give them any real preference he had no idea where he was going to house them even though he intended to keep watch over them during the night sacrificing his normal sleeping schedule to make sure they didn’t try to sneak out. He didn’t really think they would given his absolute seriousness and easy disregard for their lives but he had always felt it was better to be safe than sorry. |
| A long moment passed as Ragnar stared, stoic and impassively at his captives, silent even as the girl responded. He was still considering where they would stay, and for future reference, where he would keep his captives period. He sincerely doubted that Ollie and Olor would be the last trespassers the Bay ever had, though, he was likely to be less kind to the next ones. He was territorial and protective by nature alone and the amount of children the Bay was currently housing his children he had no choice but to be assertive and aggressive. The wolves of these Wilds would learn that Ragnar didn’t joke about what he had done to wolves, what he was willing to do to them; if they thought he was bluffing at the gruesome tales or that he would feel no remorse for doing it they were sadly and sorely mistaken. He was not a creature to be crossed, and he didn’t just say it to sound like a total badass. In Ragnar’s case it was true. It wasn’t as if killing enemies was looked down upon by his Gods or culture. Eyes of Caribbean ice studied the land around them, surveying the thick foliage and gnarled limbs of aged trees. They could either see if they could find a cave to have them stay in, away from the majority of the pack’s denning grounds, or the two of them could sleep here without shelter. Ragnar did not particularly like the idea of the cave figuring that the closer they kept their captives to the majority of the pack the less of a chance they had at escaping without someone noticing them. "This is as good a spot as any," The Jarl remarked, his eyes lighting back down upon them. "No den though, you will sleep above the ground so I can better keep an eye on you." After all, they were captives and in retrospect deserved to be treated worse than slaves because unlike slaves captives had committed wrong against the pack. Ragnar wasn’t trying to create some posh living space here where his captives had the luxury of a roof over their heads, he was creating a prison. |
She felt a protest wanting to bubble out of her throat but she kept only inside. That would be horrible if she did something like that. "O-okay, me Jarl."
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| The girl, for a moment had a look on her face like she was actually going to protest and it was as luck would have it that she had bit it back and settled for something more complacent in it’s place. Ragnar’s gaze hardened but the Jarl didn’t speak. She had caught herself before a protest had verbally worked it’s way out which had spared her having to answer his And why do you think you should get any luxuries? When the simple fact was: they were lucky to be alive. With that the Jarl reclined on his haunches, sparing them no further words, preparing to get comfortable because he wasn’t going anywhere until someone came to relieve him of his duty of watching them or someone had a job for them to complete. |