slipping away with Ragnar

[thewidewideworld]

{From here}

Sinric leads Ragnar into the bathrooms, glancing around to see if anyone is around before slipping into one of the stalls and closing the door behind them.

"Do you want me to paint your prick with my lips or lift my skirts and take me standing?" He asks with a list-filled purr.

Comments

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"And only the people who really need it would come," Ragnar says. "While making sure there is no shame attached to it. Bringing food in and distributing it has worked well in this bad winter."

[manofbusiness]

"Then Leo is a fool", Childermass says bluntly. "Do you have the means to buy food?"

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric has no answer to Childermass' very correct statement but to sip his drink and lean a little into Ragnar for comfort.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar puts his arm around him, holding him affectionately by his side.

"I have the means," Ragnar says, "just not the food to buy, at the moment. I've been bringing in supplies from Milliways, secretly, the last times I was here, and will do so again this time."

[manofbusiness]

He nods. "The supply never runs out, though I suppose you must be careful if it is not widely known you come here."

[thewidewideworld]

"As must we all." Sinric is deeply grateful for the embrace. "I fear I would be burned for witchcraft if it was known a slip away to a magical place between the worlds."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"I think," Ragnar says, "half of my men would demand that I bring them so we can raid other worlds."

[manofbusiness]

"And that would be impossible, as I understand it. Unless someone opened their world to you for the raiding."

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric covers his mouth to stiffle a giggle. "I could just imagine them trying to raid the palace. Half of them would be offered places in the garrison before nightfall."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Well," Ragnar says, "somebody might open the door to their world right where their enemies are?"

[manofbusiness]

"...if they could pull that off", Childermass allows, "it would be a fine revenge. But it might get out of their control."

[thewidewideworld]

"And a fierce surprise to their enemies. I have heard to be Varangian berserkers are as terrible as the Celts of England before the fall of Rome."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar nods. "You should see my brother fight," he says. "Where he's been, nothing will grow again. And it would be so inexplicable to their enemies' allies -- oh, surprise Vikings appeared, destroyed and took everything, and disappeared again."

[manofbusiness]

"Unless they declined to leave. What loyalty would they have to their - employer, for lack of a better word?"

[thewidewideworld]

"The Varangian have always served my lord with honour and loyalty. But he has always taken pains to return that loyalty and reward service."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"If I brought a band of them, telling them about rich bounty without dangerous voyages, a fight where they can be home for supper -- of course they would come, and leave with everything that they can carry."

[manofbusiness]

Childermass laughs. "When you put it like that, it does make more sense. They would not want to stay in an unfamiliar world with no safe home to return to."

[thewidewideworld]

"Unless it was the will of the gods that they should die in battle. Is that not right?" He looks to Ragnar. "That angels called valkyrie will take them up to the golden hall. Or so I hear the Varangians tell it when they are deep in their cups."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Yes, that is right," Ragnar says. "That can always happen. But otherwise, they could go home right after battle -- with supper waiting for them, and their wives. That would be, how do the moderns put it, quite the business model?"

[manofbusiness]

"Winning either way", Childermass murmurs. "For those who believe."

[thewidewideworld]

"Better perhaps that the Christian belief that all must suffer." Sinric muses softly, a heretical thought he would never voice aloud at home.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"That's not what Athelstan says," Ragnar muses. "But his version of his religion is generally friendlier than other people's."

[manofbusiness]

"Most suffer in life", Childermass says casually. "Afterward, who really knows."

[thewidewideworld]

"Athelstan is of the gentle, learned side side of his faith. Contemplative and deep. It is the men of power within the church that would have it that we should suffer."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Including Athelstan," Ragnar says, very grim all of a sudden.