Ragnar returned home very late at night.
But even though he was dancing over the floor in light steps, his calculated and hunter-like steps, she heard him, and she was wide awake when the door to the bedroom opened.
She smiled when she saw the panic flash over his eyes when he noticed her alert eyes, but she quickly shook her head as he entered, humming lightly at his return. "No, don't worry, I was already awake."
Ragnar sent her apologizing eyes, but something else shone from them. Pride, somehow.
Frida widened hers. "Did you find one?"
Ragnar nodded his head smugly, causing the braiding falling from the back of his head to swing over his shoulder, a smile curling his lips. Frida sat up straight in the bed, clapping her hands excitedly.
"Oh, you are so good!" she exclaimed, a bit louder than she intended.
Ragnar sent her accusing eyes as he dramatically waved his arms in the direction of their sleeping children. "Love, would you mind?" he flared in a demeaning tone, eyeing her hard as he took a couple of steps towards her while buttoning up his outer fur.
Frida rolled her eyes at the broad Viking approaching her, but her eyes did travel quickly to the children's faces to see if they had been disturbed by the noise. They were sleeping peacefully.
"Bjørn found it," Ragnar's voice rasped tiredly, and she felt him sit down on the bed beside her. "I was surprised, actually."
Frida raised her hand to brush it lightly over the side of his head, her eyes roaming over the ink art on his skin there. It was a raven, just above his ear there. It reminded her of something.
"Why?" she asked absentmindedly, letting her finger sway over the dark patterns in his skin.
Ragnar hummed lightly, and closed his eyes for a short moment. "He tracked it for a long time, before any of us noticed it. I had no idea he was hunting it before he fired the arrow."
A surprising tone sounded from Ragnar's voice as he turned his head to look at her, and she noticed a slight look of defeat in his face.
"He is very clever, Bjørn, indeed," Frida smiled in a breath, her hand still playing lightly over the dark patterns on his head.
She curled her lips at him. "He was raised well."
She was surprised when she saw something painful in his eyes, a quick spark of the past burning from within his mind, but he soon turned his head slightly away from her, avoiding her searching eyes.
He soon nodded, smiling: "Yes, Athelstan and his mother did a wonderful job."
Frida furrowed her brows at him, as he pulled off his dirty undershirt, and she could sense his traveling eyes avoiding her still.
"Yes, of course they did," she smiled, reaching up her hand to grab his braid, forcing his face in her direction. "And oh, how much he is alike them. There's barely a trace of Ragnar Loðbrók in him!"
Her heart warmed when she saw a smile sneaking over his lips, even if he did try to hide it from her. He shrugged his shoulders.
"His veins run with the same blood as yours, Ragnar," Frida breathed at him in a gentle voice. "He is Bjørn Ironside, and everyone knows of whom he is a son for a reason. Ask everyone, ask Ingeborg."
Ragnar breathed out something between a chuckle and a sigh, looking at her with confused eyes. "The Götaland princess?"
She raised her brow at him and barked out a small laugh. "Yes, my love. That was one of the first things she asked me. If he was like you."
She scooted closer to him, and let her hand travel down to help him push down his leather-armored hunting pants, feeling his confused stare piercing over her cheeks.
She saw him staring ahead of himself out of the corner of her eyes, smiling curtly and shrugging his shoulders.
"And… What did you say?" he asked shortly, his Norse tongue curling so beautifully into the dark room.
She let her hand travel up his back and to his shoulders, rediscovering all the markings and scars along his skin there, and she sent him a flirtatious smile.
"That she was to be prepared for an uncanny resemblance," she whispered. "And she was glad to hear it. That is as much as I'm going to say."
Ragnar turned his eyes to hear, sending her narrowed but loving eyes. She raised her hand to the side of his head again, inspecting his dark ink marks there yet again. She breathed out.
"Does it hurt?" she asked silently, feeling his hand suddenly under the fur, searching for her warmth.
She smiled when his hand touched her stomach.
"My skin paintings?" he smiled quickly, reaching his hand up to touch hers. "Uh, no, not much. Why?"
Frida smiled, her mind wandering off to some place far away. The night was very silent around them, as if it was listening to their conversation itself.
"I'd like to have one."
She felt her cheeks blushing when Ragnar's crystals turned to pierce at her face. He turned around in the bed, positioning himself in front of her.
His eyebrow was raised, and his face was as smug as ever. His beard curled sweetly over his upper lip, as a smile prevailed on his mouth.
"Where?"
Frida giggled.
He did not even ask of what the painting should be.
She widened her eyes enthusiastically. "Here, over my face," she whispered dramatically. "Of the skull of a bleeding man! That will certainly frighten our enemies!"
Ragnar chuckled before grabbing both her hands, throwing her down onto the bed, following her to soon have his face only inches from hers, chuckling breathily out over her face with warmth.
"Tell me the truth," he rasped in a soft voice, his eyes traveling all over her face, from her mouth to her eyes to her cheeks to her hair.
He groaned as he positioned himself better, his naked body soon pressed against Frida's, only the covering furs of the bed between them. She giggled out and tried to wriggle herself out of his grip.
He laughed out a pathetic laugh when she failed, and he started kissing her face roughly. She laughed out breathily from the sensation of his beard tickling her soft skin.
"On my… On my arm, on my arm," she giggled out in surrender, and Ragnar soon turned still above her.
"On your shoulder?" he asked in a still voice, his breath warm on her face.
She shook her head, and smiled innocently at him.
"No, on my arm. You know, the whole arm?"
Ragnar widened his eyes at her, and a surprised smile soon appeared on his lips. He scooted to the place beside her on the bed, a look of shock on his face.
"What?" she rushed, as he crawled under the covers, staring into the darkness before them with still widened eyes.
She grabbed his arm.
His eyes fell back to her. "No, nothing… It will take a long time. And it is not pleasant, love, not for one like you," he rushed in short words, causing her to tilt her head at him.
She saw him rolling his eyes when he noticed the look she was giving him.
"One like me?"
He shook his head dramatically, whispering a silent 'here we go' as she raised herself up on her elbow, staring down at him with big eyes, a wide smile hidden under thin lips.
"I'll show you what one like me thinks unpleasant," and she straddled him like a horse under the covers, grinding her pelvis against him.
The surprise on Ragnar's face soon turned to hunger. She rode him silently.
…
"Is it done yet?" Sigurd's impatient voice was heard from behind some of the barrels outside the skin painter's cottage.
She heard Ragnar chuckling.
"It is done when she comes out, dummy," his teasing voice sounded, causing Frida to smile only shortly, before the needle once more pierced her skin.
She thought Ragnar's stare could be uncomfortable at times. This was so much more, this was repeating, over and over again, in and out of her flesh bearing ink and the sensation of being stabbed lightly in the skin with a dwarf's blade.
She felt another set of shivers run over her body. She was glad it was over soon.
She had sat in this chair for two days now, all day, and she was getting very sick of everything. The sound of a dog barking had made her almost lose her mind a couple of hours ago.
But she was done soon, the painter had told her, and so now she only awaited the last time the needle went through her skin. She did not even care about the results, she just wanted to get it over with.
Alright, she did care a little bit about the results.
These paintings were to be permanent on her skin, there forever, until her death. And she dared not to look at them before they were finished, she only knew how they had looked this morning, when only the outer lines of the symbols were inked over her skin.
The many small holes that the needle had carved into her skin had bled during the night, and she was very sore when he first began.
Now it just felt like her entire arm had caught a disease, or as if some sort of poison had been poured into it, painfully throbbing with each punctuating stab of the needle.
She felt him running a wet cloth over her arm, instantly feeling a joyful cooling sensation run along it. "You're done," he growled, before turning away to wash his hands in a bucket beside him.
Frida instantly rose to her feet, and put down the small bag of coins she had brought the painter as payment.
"Thank you, Roar. I'll rinse it daily with the pasture. Again, thank you."
She turned around only to let her eyes fall to her arm, and she sighed out in awe.
Over the skin of her right arm, black as the night, ran the image of a big tree trunk from her wrist, turning around her arm like a snake, only to develop itself into an explosion of skillfully detailed branches with leaves. In the marvelous crown of the tree spired four pairs of antlers, each of them curving differently over the dark branches, and in the middle of the tree trunk a squirrel was apparent, its eyes staring out easily. The roots of the tree snaked around down at her wrists and tied the whole painting into an end, cutting her hand clean, like the sleeve of a long shirt.
Frida sent a smile back to the painter Roar. "It is beautiful," she complimented before leaving the house out into the cold spring air.
She felt her cheeks blushing when the others saw her, when Ragnar saw her, but she thanked them when they complimented it.
Ragnar actually appeared to be the one who liked it the most.
She felt it in the stares he gave her as they had gone back to rinse it at the longhouse. And she felt it while they dined in the long-hall later that evening, even as she fed Ragnvald and Halfdan. Did she feel it when he turned in early that night, crawling into their bed once more with a hungry light in his eyes, handling her delicately, so her arm would not hurt.
When they had journeyed together, Ragnar hummed her a silent song, his voice calming her gently.
*"An ash, I know it stands,
it is named Yggdrasill.
High tree, sprinkled brands
with white mud skill.
There from come the dews
that fall over the dale.
It stands always green in views,
the source of fortune's grail.
There from come the maids,
much knowing three on.
Their dwelling under the tree blades,
Urdhr is named one.
Verdhandi the other,
and the third is Skuld.
They score wood together,
they set up the laws.
They decided on the lives
every child of man draws.
They declare as fate derives."
Frida let her finger run over her arm where the tree eyes were marked into her skin with blackness. Urdhr, Verdhandi and Skuld.
They had decided her fate with the gods.
* This song is inspired by a beautiful poem from the old Norse Völuspá.
