Master of My Sea
I promised I will be updating more frequently, but I never said ~how~ frequently. To be honest, chapter 15 was difficult to write simply because it's probably the most boring of these transition chapters, but it had to be written to give context and depth to an important relationship. But don't worry, have chapter 16, we will catch up to how season 6b(?) started.
On another note, I had an idea to write a shorter mostly romantic story that is inspired by Jane Austen featuring all of the Ragnarssons. It will be AU, as it wont follow the timeline, but it will be more relationship drama, and more of a casual read, and probably shorter than Master of My Sea. It will basically be like Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility but with vikings, lol! Tell me if you're interested in that sort of thing.
Anywho, enjoy!
chapter fourteen:
THE WITCHING HOUR
Spring had given them rainfall after rainfall, and once summer had arrived, the wood was lush with deep greens. The first weeks of summer were humid, but it was a blessing from the constant rain they had endured. Hulda was in her garden, taking out weeds from her crops while Ragnar sat with Kára fletching arrows so they could hunt the following morning.
Ragnar's figure had regained weight after he came to. His face was still a little gaunt, but he no longer looked emasculated. Once it became easier for him to stand, Ragnar was quick to make him useful at the house. He helped with gardening, gathering, and caught rabbits with Kára. Then he moved onto more strenuous acts such as wood-chopping, and repairing the damages the house endured over winter.
Hulda glanced over to the two working, overhearing the conversation the two were having.
"You are terrible at this," Kára commented on Ragnar's uneven fletching.
"I am not a fletcher," he replied patiently.
"You won't be a hunter either if that is your attitude,"
Ragnar slowly looked at her and then glanced at Hulda who just gave a silent laugh and looked back at her vegetables.
"I have a good eye; I am not worried about my abilities as a hunter," he finally replied.
"It doesn't matter how good your eye is; if your fletching is uneven, it will not land where you aimed it," Kára said matter-of-factly.
Ragnar paused again and looked at her with half amused eyes, "And who taught you how to hunt? How do you know all of this?"
Kára paused as she blinked at her fingers; Ragnar could see the thoughts moving around in her eyes as she failed to give an answer. Truthfully, she didn't know how she knew. Much like talking or walking, she could not recall who taught her how to hunt, but unlike talking and walking, it was definitely not her mother. She could feel both Ragnar and her mother's eyes on her, so she resumed her fletching and said the first thing that popped into her head.
"Skaði."
"Skaði?" Ragnar repeated with skepticism. His eyes were lit with mirth at the answer, but he indulged it. "You were taught how to hunt by the goddess of bowhunting herself?"
Kára straightened up and huffed, and waved around the small fletching knife impatiently, "Yes, and that is why you should listen to me."
Ragnar gave one long hard look before giving an amused snort and shaking his head, "Were you this hard to Ivar when you taught him?"
An uneasy silence befall the area. Ragnar was told vaguely of the events that happened last autumn, though he was oblivious to the sensitivities of young women. He saw Kára's muscles tense and her fingers hesitate a moment before shaving off the rest of the feather into a sharp point. Her lips pursed before she talked.
"Don't be afraid of cutting your thumb with the knife," She said in a small voice. "Avoiding the inevidentable is the reason why your edges aren't straight."
Ragnar furrowed his brow and then looked over to Hulda who was sitting on her knees, looking over at them. Hulda locked eyes with him and shook her head, indicating that it is not a good idea to mention Ivar. After a moment of silence, Hulda called out to Ragnar to help her pull out a stubborn root. With hesitation and a glance over to Kára, Ragnar stood up with a grunt and went over to the woman, and crouched down to his knees.
"She is still upset over what happened," Hulda whispered as the two bent over the garden. "She cared for him, you know. It is like a piece of her has been cut off."
"It is my fault," Ragnar commented as he dug his hands into the dirt and gripped the roots of the stubborn turnip. "I should have been there."
"It is not your fault, Ragnar. It is Aslaug's."
"I lost her love," he stated with gritted teeth as he pulled on the vegetable. "And showed no care that I had. It is what drove her into the arms of Harbard, and led her to where she is."
"No," Hulda insisted, watching Ragnar's profile. "Aslaug was always like this. Jealous, irrational, and selfish. I grew up with her and saw everything be given to her with ease and no effort. Not only is she beautiful, but her father and mother are famous. The moment she does not get what she wants, she turns into the very serpent her father defeated." When Ragnar said nothing, Hulda continued. "You did not lose her love; she lost yours and she cannot stand that."
"I have never loved her," Ragnar finally said as he tugged again at the roots, feeling a snap and tear from under the soft earth. "I loved the idea of her."
"She used that to her advantage," Hulda added. "She knew that you were destined for greatness, and knew she could give you the sons you were destined for."
"Perhaps it was not her that I was destined to have sons with," he wretched the turnip out of the ground and tossed it into the basket with the others.
"Do you regret allowing Lagertha to leave?"
Ragnar caught her gaze, "There are a lot of things I regret, Thora."
X X X
Hulda tossed and turned in her cot with furs tangled between her legs. The humidity reached inside the house, making the air thick and warm. She could feel beads of sweat trickling down her neck and down her spine. Tossing around again, Hulda settled on her back and sighed heavily through her nose.
A few minutes passed as she relaxed into the silence, but that was interrupted with an odd feeling of the tangled furs restricting around her legs. She tried to wiggle them free, but the grip tightened. Hulda felt slight movement on her back that gradually escalated to many sensations running down her body. The feeling of something coiling underneath her, moving like boneless limbs. That is when she heard the hissing in her ear and her eyes shot open. She was not staring up at her own ceiling, but a window of light. The end of a tunnel - no, a pit, where the faces of soldiers looked down upon her with disgusted satisfaction. There was a man with a crown, a small smirk on his face, and another man with a hood over his head. It was the latter who smiled kindly down her, watching the snakes bury her alive. All Hulda could hear was the chorus of hissing, and felt nothing but the sting of teeth sinking into her flesh over and over again. Suddenly, her world became heavy and her breathing began to slow down as the world around her blurred. Her body stiffened and sunk into the pit of vipers that would become her grave.
Hulda woke up in violent coughs. Her hands rose rapidly to her neck as she greedily sucked in air. She felt her face grow hot as she continued to cough and choke on nothing. Her heart raced like a stampede of horses, but that slowly died down as she found herself back in her cot. Her daughter slept soundlessly next to her when she looked over, and then on the floor, Ragnar was just as passed out on his pile of hides on the ground. Her eyes lingered on his face, which was partially lit up by the light of the moon that peaked in through the open window. Hulda placed a hand on her chest as she slowly sunk back into her cot, no longer able to sleep.
X X X
When Ragnar woke that morning, it was to the sound of a knife chopping against wood. He blinked a few times and then peered with one eye at the small window. Looking over to the cot, he only saw the small form of Kára softly snoring. Ragnar got up, and walked out of the house rubbing his eyes, only to see Hulda outside chopping vegetables. When she heard the door open, she looked up from the table and sighed.
"Sorry, did I wake you?"
Ragnar ignored her question to ask his own, "What are you doing?" He eyed the pile of chopped vegetables.
"I am preparing supper,"
"The sun just rose, Hulda."
"I made breakfast already. There's a pot of porridge inside, if you're hungry," She pushed aside her chopped potato with the flat of her knife into the large pile. "We are going to need some fish for the stew today. You take Kára over to the lake and-"
"Hulda," he grabbed the woman's arm before she could chop another vegetable. "What is wrong?"
Hulda ran her teeth over her bottom lip as she avoided his eyes. Wiping her forehead with the back of her hand, she replied, "I had a nightmare, is all. Been up for… a while, I suppose."
Ragnar took her gently by the hand and guided her over to two stools and sat down. The anxious look in her eyes concerned him; a nightmare to a völva is never that simple. He tried to catch her eye, but she avoided him by looking down at their hands.
"Thora," he spoke her birth name, "You can speak to me. I understand it was no mere nightmare… What did you see?"
She opened her mouth and took a shaky breath, "I was… I was in a pit of snakes. They coiled around every inch of my body, biting my neck and hands and legs, filling my veins with their venom. A crowd of men were watching me from above. I didn't recognize them, but they were pleased by what they saw." She rested her head on her palm and furrowed her brow into it. "I could still feel the weight of snakes on me."
Ragnar listened to her intently and when she finished he squinted his eyes in thought, "What do you think it means?"
Hulda hesitated before turning to Ragnar, "I think I saw someone's death."
"Who's death?"
She bit her lip and shook her head and stood up, wiping her hands on her apron, "I don't know. I don't always understand what the gods are trying to tell me." She walked over to the table and shoveled the chopped vegetables in a bowl. Suddenly, she felt Ragnar's body heat behind her, and his hands gently placed on her shoulders. Hulda froze at the warm touch of the pad of his thumb rubbing her through the fabric of her sleeve.
"It is best not to dwell on it if you do not know what it means to you," Ragnar assured her. "You don't need to carry the fate of the world on your shoulders, Hulda."
The woman smiled painfully down at the food on the table, then reached out and gently placed her hand upon Ragnar's. "Thank you, Ragnar, but I've grown used to the uninvited visions of the fates of those I've crossed paths with. Everyone, except for Kára."
Ragnar tilted his chin a bit and peered at her from behind questioningly, "What do you mean?"
Hulda sighed and gave a light shrug, "When it comes to my own daughter, it is like peering into a blizzard. The winds push around images in incoherence. It is as if Freya cannot decide what Kára's fate is." She patted Ragnar's hand on her shoulder and continued, "Speaking of, you should wake her up, and break your fast. Then the two of you can prepare to go fishing."
After a beat, Ragnar silently nodded and slipped his hands off of Hulda's delicate shoulders and retreated back into the house with a head full of questions. He walked over to the cot and peered over the young girl, then gently parted her hair away from her face. Kára was peacefully sleeping, almost appearing like a child. Ragnar missed having a daughter- he hadn't thought about Gyda in some time, mainly because it was far too painful to think about her. However, with this girl now primarily present in his life, the memories of Gyda kept on coming back, and nostalgia sunk its teeth into his heart.
Ragnar looked away and took a stray pillow off the cot and looked back at the girl. Then he whipped her on the head with it several times, until she woke up yelling obscenities at him.
X X X
It was well past midsommar and the days were starting to get shorter, but the weather was still warm and the skies were clear. Ragnar enjoyed those summer nights, which he hadn't had time to enjoy whilst he was King. His most favourable memories were he was just a mere farmer, where he and Lagertha would lay in the grass with an infant Bjorn and stared at the stars and northern lights. He'd lay quietly beside Lagertha as she pointed at the stars and told tales to Bjorn about the gods.
While Hulda and Kára were asleep inside, Ragnar crept outside to lay on the grass roof of the house to look up at the stars and the lights that night. He chewed on a piece of grass, and peacefully enjoyed the dancing ribbons of light in the sky. Ragnar must have lost track of time, because he then just realized the position of the moon. It was three past midnight, which meant dawn was only in a few hours.
He heard the door move before he made a move himself to get off the roof. Ragnar peered over the edge and saw a cloaked figure in the darkness walk out of the house in silence, with the door left wide open. Ragnar furrowed his brow as he wondered what was going on.
"Hulda?" He called out, but he got no response. The Witch continued to walk until she left the clearing and entered the forest. Ragnar crawled off the grass roof and called out her name again, but like before, he got no response. The viking followed closely behind her, every once in a while calling her name and asking what she was doing, but never getting an answer. After a few moments of doing so, he suspected something was wrong. Was she sleep walking?
He continued to follow her through the forest, staying under 20 paces behind her. For a sleepwalker, she navigated the forest as if she was awake using the aid of a lamp. Ragnar had to rely on the moon and auroras to keep her within his sights.
Ragnar had followed Hulda for quite some time; the moon crept across the sky and the auroras began to fade. He attempted to call Hulda again, but like many times before, got no response. The trees began to thin out to show the lake and a silhouette of a small abandoned fishing cabin. Hulda walked past the cabin as if it wasn't there, then began walking straight into the shallows of the lake.
That was when Ragnar began to speed up his pace to catch up with her. He hopped over a fallen log and trudged through the muddy earth, looking up at Hulda just when the water reached her hips.
"Hulda!" He shouted, "Hulda, wake up!"
Ragnar reached the water and started to wad through it as fast as he could. The force of the waves kept on pushing him back, but somehow pulled Hulda farther in. By the time Ragnar was able tread water, Hulda was already shoulder deep.
"Hulda! Hulda!" He shouted louder, "What are you doing?!"
Suddenly she stopped swimming and the lake was completely still, the only sound was Ragnar's splashing as he moved through the water to get to her. When he noticed that she stopped moving, he did too, expecting her to turn around dazed and confused. Instead, in the silence he could just barely hear her speak three words:
"I don't know."
There was no time to interpret her words, because as soon as it was spoken, Hulda was pulled under the surface of the water. It was as if someone had grabbed her foot and yanked her underneath. It happened so fast that it took Ragnar a second too long for him to react.
"THORA!" The viking shouted so loudly it echoed in the mountains.
He dove into the water, and swam faster than he ever had towards Hulda's sinking form. Her robes flourished around her in a great black mass, successfully camouflaging her body in the dark water. If it hadn't been for the vividness of her red hair, Ragnar would not have seen her. When he reached the woman, he wrapped his arms around her waist and attempted to swim back up, but her robes weighed them both down. In desperation of oxygen, Ragnar quickly pulled off the heavy fabric from her body and snaked her nude form out of it and up to the surface.
He dragged her limp body towards the shore until he slumped in the mud next to her. The man took no second to collect himself; he immediately began tapping her face and calling her name over and over. Her lips were parted and turning blue, and that made Ragnar panic. He plugged her nose with his hand and brought his lips to hers and started to breathe into her. He pulled away and pumped her chest eight times before repeating the process again. After the second try, Hulda began to cough up water.
Ragnar helped her up on her elbows and rubbed her back as she continued to cough. Her eyes finally opened and her coughs started to break up. When she began to focus on the world around her, her expression changed to one of frightened confusion.
"Where am I?" Hulda looked around, and then noticed her bare body which she immediately covered.
Seeing this, Ragnar pulled off his tunic and rang out of the water, "You were sleepwalking."
Hulda looked up at him as he gave her his tunic, which she gratefully took and pulled over her body. It was still wet and heavily dirty with mud, but so was her nude body. She had a pained look on her face as she pulled her dirty hair over her shoulder. Hulda looked around to see where she ended up and caught sight of the fishing cabin. The blood drained from her face.
"This is where I met Ulf," she pulled her knees to her chin.
Ragnar looked over at the structure that was now just a skeleton. He kneeled down next to Hula and placed a hand on the back of her neck comfortingly. Hulda slowly leaned into him and rested her heavy head on his shoulder. Ragnar wrapped his arm around her and held her close, as they both looked out at the still lake. After a beat of silence, he finally spoke, but only above a whisper.
"What was your dream?"
It took a moment before she spoke. Her throat was sore from the coughing and the water purging from her throat. "I saw how he died," her voice was soft. She didn't need to say his name; Ragnar knew who she meant. "He died here, too."
"You do not need to speak about it."
"He was talking to someone," She continued as if he hadn't said anything. Hulda squinted at the lake trying to recall if she saw someone, but all she witnessed were the blistering white winds biting her skin and eyes. "But no one was there."
"What did he say?"
"He...He just said the words 'I don't know'," Ragnar looked down at her, but remained quiet. "And then I was in the cold water, and the white of the snow began to blacken as I sank deeper."
Ragnar remained quiet, but started to stroke her hair. The blue sky began to lighten over the mountains as dawn approached. He was in no hurry to leave if she wished to remain, but he knew in a few hours Kára would awaken and find the house empty.
"There is something wrong with me," Hulda said quietly, her eyes glazed as she watched the sun turn the navy sky into shades of pink and orange. "These dreams are becoming more frequent."
"The Seer may have answers," Ragnar replied.
"I am not allowed in Kattegat," she reminded him, then sighed and lifted her head from his shoulder. Hulda closed her eyes briefly as the light peeked over the mountains and began to make the lake glitter pink. "We should clean ourselves before returning home. I don't want my daughter to know what happened."
The two carefully ascended from the ground and walked back home, where the lake narrows into the river. Ragnar held onto Hulda as they navigated through the forest in silence. By the time they reached the river spot where Hulda normally bathes, dawn lightened the sky in brilliant oranges and pinks. The water shined and gently lapped underneath a flat rock overhanging the river. Hulda untangled herself from Ragnar's arms and walked over to the rock's edge, and then pulled the muddy tunic over her head. Ragnar watched in silence and awe as the light of the sun made her very aura glow. He could see even the smallest hairs on her soft skin against the morning glow. Then there was her long hair, that despite the mud, caught fire under the sun. Even after all these years, Hulda was still unworldly beautiful.
Hulda extended her arms above her head and dove into the water. Ragnar watched in admiration as her pale body split through the water like a graceful swan. He then started to undress his breaches and laid them with his tunic, and dove in after her. The viking met her under the water, where they stared at each other as if for the first time. Ragnar's blue eyes glowed like sapphires through the water, and Hulda's hair was like a flickering flame of red fire. Her slender hand reached out and touched his cheek and his large one reached out and took the back of her neck. Together they pulled their bodies closer into an intimate embrace, and their lips touched as they once did many years ago.
X X X
The house was nice and toasty with the fire roaring and the mounds of furs that Kára was buried under. With the harvest completed, the weather chilled twice more in a matter of days. Nights had begun to grow longer, resorting to the three of them spending longer time in the safety of the house telling stories of the gods and of the past. That night, Ragnar was retelling the story of how he defeated King Froh and saved her mother.
"It seems so long ago," Hulda said fondly. "You were so young then; barely had any whiskers on that chin."
Ragnar squared his shoulders and immediately began to stroke his long beard, "Less scars too."
Hulda giggled and pinched Ragnar's cheeks together. Kára looked at this closely. For a few moons now, Ragnar and Hulda's relationship had become closer and more intimate. They always had eyes on each other, and Kára was aware that Ragnar seemed to be smiling more when he was around her mother. Initially, Kára was a bit caught off guard with how familiar they were with each other, but remembered that they were once romantic once upon a time. After some time, she grew used to the idea that the two adults were picking up where they left off, and Kára didn't mind… It was almost as if… They were a family.
"So, let me get this straight," She brought their attention back to the story. "You are telling me that you got your name because of your trousers?"
Ragnar nodded, "Very thick trousers, yes."
"So," Kára steeped her fingers together and stood up straight in the cot with a serious look on her face. "You are… Ragnar Shaggy-trousers, King of the Cat's Asshole?"
A pillow came whipping through the air and smacked the girl on the side of the head.
"It is about time you go to sleep, Greenfoot," Ragnar said through his teeth and proceeded to smack her again as she laughed and attempted to fight back the assault. "Before your cheek runs away with your tongue."
"It is time for all of us to sleep," Hulda stood up, collecting the empty pitcher of warm mead and placing it on the kitchen table. "It is nearly midnight, and you two need to set traps for game after you break your fast tomorrow."
After a few jabs between Ragnar and Kára with the pillows, the two complied and began readying themselves for bed. Ragnar had been upgraded to a shared cot with Hulda only a few weeks ago when the weather started to chill. And with Kára growing rapidly over the months, he constructed her own cot. There were a couple of nights when the three of them shared the bed to keep warm, but that resulted in Kára endlessly kicking Ragnar's back until he flopped on the floor.
After washing her face in the basin, Kára crawled into her small cot and curled under the furs and watched as her mother and Ragnar did the same. Smiling to herself, she pulled the fur up to her shoulder and rested her head and said, "Sleep well, Shaggy-Trousers."
X X X
The air was hot and sticky; it smelled like blood and sweat. A battlefield filled with bodies boiling under the blistering sun. Ragnar could feel his skin blister under the weight of his chainmail and boiled leather armour. The only way you could see through the blood and sweat that dripped into your eyes, and the only way to ignore the sun burning you alive was to go berserk. It was the only way to cope with the situation, and Ragnar, young and hot-headed, allowed his mind to dissociate into rage and bloodlust.
Men and women were cut down in swift movements of his axe and sword all around him. All he could hear was the sound of blood pumping in his head and his growls and shouts of that of a mad bear. His axe swung across the jugular of a man and a spray of blood splattered across his face. He stood with his arms extended with both weapons at hand, shouting to the gods in ferocity. Like a rabid animal he whipped around to spot his next prey. There were no colours in his world, just black and white and skeletons tangled in the dance of war.
In the sea of grey he spotted a flame of colour. She was coloured in red, from her head to her toe. Another predator in a sea of sheep. Ragnar locked eyes with her across the field; her hair was a mess around her shoulders, her eyes coated in the blood of her enemies, and in her hands she held a broken spear and a dagger in the other. She bared her teeth at him and clenched her fist around the hilts of her weapons and began to run at him like a one-woman pack of wolves. Ragnar mimicked her movements and came charging at her too.
When they met on the battlefield it was nothing but a flurry of steel and hair whipping around as they danced around their attacks. Dagger and sword discarded in preference to their clashing axe and spear. When her spear slashed across his lip, he swung through the air to catch her brow. In the chaos of their movements, Ragnar's leg extended and kicked her clean under her feet, knocking her down and cracking her head onto a rock behind her. He stepped over her, holding the axe above her head and looked her in her eyes. Her eyes...wide and frightened, and blue-green like a warm spring. Her hand extended out to stop him and her mouth moved in pleads for not her life… but of another. Suddenly Ragnar began to feel the heat of the sun, and see colour come to life around him. He could hear a voice, that of a child all around him, calling out "MOTHER NO!" It got louder and louder until it felt like it was right next to his ear.
"MOTHER!"
X X X
"HULDA STOP!"
A strong hand wrapped itself around her wrist and jerked her away, violently waking her up. Hulda blinked in the darkness in surprise and fright, because the very first thing she saw was Kára curled up on the floor with her back pressed against the stone wall. She had a cut on her cheek that went down to the corner of her lip. Blood and tears trickled down to her chin as the girl looked up at her mother with wet eyes and a look of pure fear.
"What-What's wrong?" Hulda asked, now aware that Ragnar was holding her from behind in a firm grip. She looked down at her hand when she felt the weight of something still clutched into it. To her horror, she was holding the woodcutter's axe. Panic jolted through her veins and she immediately dropped the weapon. Her body began to tremble from her legs to her hands, "What did I do?!"
Hulda began shouting those four words over and over again as she crumpled onto the floor. Ragnar moved over to Kára to check her wound, and then scooped her up and placed her in the bed. She still cried and would warily look over at her mother and then the axe before burying her face into Ragnar's chest. When Hulda saw this, she cried harder and crawled over to the bed to grasp Kára's hand in her own and began to kiss it tenderly and feverishly, begging for her forgiveness. Ragnar remained quiet, holding Kára in one arm, and using the other to stroke Hulda's hair. He rested his chin on Kára's head and allowed their weeping to fill the room as he gazed out the window where he could see the first snowflakes of winter descend from the sky.
X X X
The morning of the incident, Hulda had decided to visit the Seer to inquire about what was happening to her all year. She left Kára and the house to Ragnar for three nights. In her absence, Kára and Ragnar talked very little and with winter's arrival silence was in even more abundance in the forest. When Hulda finally returned home, it was in the afternoon on the fourth day. Ragnar was cutting firewood in the yard while Kára was skinning rabbits for a stew.
At the sound of her footsteps, Kára and Ragnar paused what they were doing. The former dropped her flaying knife and rabbit pelt on the ground and immediately ran to her and enveloped her in a long embrace.
"You're back!" She shouted.
Hulda wrapped her arms around her teenage daughter with a sad smile, and held her close and as long as possible. Her solemn eyes looked over her shoulder at Ragnar as he approached them both.
"What did the Seer say?" He asked.
Kára's face was still buried in her mother's shoulder, so she couldn't see the pained look on her mother's face.
"We should go inside. There is much to tell you, and It would be best if the air was warmer."
Worried, Kára unlatched herself from her mother to give her a curious look. She opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but before she could finish her sentence, Hulda led her to the house with Ragnar. Once inside, Ragnar stoked the fire, and the two women sat on the cot with sheep pelts over their shoulders.
"What did He say to you?" Ragnar asked again when he sat himself on a stool next to the hearth. "Why are you having these dreams?"
Hulda's pained expression deepened. She reached and gently took Kára's hand in hers and kissed the knuckles before cradling it on her lap.
"It is difficult to say," she began. "He told me that it is my time."
"Your time?" Kára furrowed her eyebrows in concern. "What does that mean?"
"It means it's time for me to embrace my purpose in Midgard," Hulda explained. "My path of being a wife had ended, and now my path of being a mother has ended. Now it is time for me to become fully devoted to the gods, and live my life in solitary, as all Völva do once they reach their crone years."
Kára felt her mom squeeze her hand as she spoke, but she couldn't fully process what her mother was saying until she looked at her sadly. Which also means, my sweet daughter, that I must leave you."
"What?!" She pulled herself away from her mother and stood up. "You can't just leave me like that! I still need you! You are my mother!"
"Kára, you are no longer a child. You are a woman now, and you do not need me anymore. The gods have a fate for me that I must follow."
"Screw the gods!" she shouted.
"Kára!"
The girl continued, "You do not have to follow their paths. Stay here with me and Ragnar. We can be a family, and be happy. Everything we need is right here."
Ragnar shared a look with Hulda before they both looked sadly at Kára. Hulda slowly stood up and placed both her hands on the girl's shoulders. The girl had grown so much over the last year, that she was nearly as tall as her mother. Her waist was starting to narrow as her hips were growing wide, and her breasts, while hidden under her tunic, was starting to mound the older she got. Hulda rubbed her shoulders with her thumbs and looked at her sadly.
"I'm sorry, my love. If I stay here, the dreams will get worse. I do not wish to repeat what happened the other night. I cannot stop what is happening to me. The only choice I have is one that I wish I didn't need to take, but I fear that if I continue to ignore Freya's call, then I will only get worse over time."
Kára sucked her lips into a firm frown and squinted her eyes as they filled to the brim with tears, "But I'm not ready for you to leave me."
Hulda gave a sharp inhale of sadness, "Oh, my sweet girl…" She pulled Kára into a tight embrace and cradled her head into her shoulder. "You are more ready than you know. You are the strongest woman I know, in this life and the next. We will see each other again, that I'm certain. And even though I won't be with you in this stage of your life," she looked over at Ragnar who stood from the chair and approached Kára from behind. His hands reached out and placed it on Kára's shoulders.
Hulda smiled at him, "You will be in capable hands. Of that I'm sure."
A lil romance for our Ragnar and Hulda
Also, Kattegat literally translates to the cat's asshole, and I needed to fit this into this story at some point. It needed to be said.
Next chapter will be primarily a Kara and Ragnar storyline, but there will be a lot of time jumps. It's mostly a summary of significant events that happened while they were together.
