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

[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.

[manofbusiness]

Childermass looks at him.

"Miss Seddon spoke to me of a man she was helping with a communication spell. To reach another who had suffered greatly."

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric reaches up to stoke Ragnar's arm, comforting at mention of Athelstan's suffering. "It is Ragnar's message the spell carriers, to Athelstan in his exiled captivity."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Yes, to tell him I am on my way to free him," Ragnar says. "To tell him to have hope. I am very glad tha Rae is going to help me."

[manofbusiness]

"What was done to him", his voice low, "is beyond all conscience."

He's cut a few throats in his time, before he worked for Mr Norrell, but he draws the line at torture.

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric nods in emphatic agreement. No truer word said.