athelstanthescribe | (no subject)

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Athelstan is sitting outside the hall, working on repairing a net that belongs to one of the old fishermen.

Lagertha doesn't need him just now, and it's something useful to do with his hands while he waits for Ragnar, because surely he'll be back any day now.

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"Not only the young." He lifts his head to look into Ragnar's face. "And what reason could the gods have to be angry with you?"

"Why are gods ever angry?" Ragnar says. "They just are, like cranky old men with a bad knee, sometimes."

He looks down into Athelstan's clear eyes.

"I an thankful they have given me you," he then declares. "Never leave me, Athelstan!"

"I'll never leave you." It's a promise. "Not if the rest of the world does... or if I must, I will return."

"Always return, Athelstan," Ragnar says, quietly. "I need you."

"Then wait for me. However long I may be gone, if I live, I will find a way back."

You are all my world, is in his thoughts, but he's not daring enough to say it aloud.

"And for now, I am going nowhere."

Edited 2015-03-28 22:09 (UTC)

Ragnar looks down into Athelstan's eyes, then pulls him close again, takes deep breath, then turns his head to lean his cheek once more against Athelstan's hair, a bit awkwardly.

"Good."

Athelstan settles in Ragnar's arms, taking the comfort of it, and leaving the matter of going back to the house for a little while longer.

It is some while until Ragnar says, "You're right, we should go see Lagertha and Björn."

"Yes." Reluctantly, he pulls himself out of the circle of Ragnar's arms. "They'll have finished talking by now."

"They will need us."

Other people needing you is always the best reason to pull yourself up again.

"We need you", Athelstan says softly. "Will you be staying for a while, or is the king sending you on more business?"

Ragnar starts walking towards the houses of Kattegat. "I will stay as long as I can," he says. "The Jarl Borg problem isn't resolved yet. Rollo stayed on as a token of good faith."

Athelstan keeps pace with him.

"So you've returned just to report back, and see what the king orders?"

"No," Ragnar says. "I'm going to stay home and think about the next raid to England. Unless something gets in the way and needs to be dealt with."

" - but then how long must Rollo stay?"

"He gets on well with Jarl Borg," Ragnar says, "even though that man is constantly teetering on the brink of dangerous insanity. There's no accounting for taste."

That worries him, a little, because he's an observer of people. But Rollo is Ragnar's brother, so he says nothing.

"Perhaps he'll have some success winning him over."

"That's what I'm hoping," Ragnar says. "He might be able to reach the more sensible side of Jarl Borg. If one uses 'sensible' loosely."

Ragnar shrugs. Rollo isn't very sensible himself; perhaps they can connect in not being sensible.

"Then may it all end for the best."

"That's what we're doing it for," Ragnar says, bracing himself for the people in this house, and their grief.

Athelstan pushes the door open, holding it for him, and they go in.

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