i
“O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.”
Blood trickled in a thin line against his skin before it dropped into the stream. The water around his cheek turned red as his nose bled. All was still as the sound of water over pebbles rushed into his ears.
He didn’t think about what caused it - withdrawal symptoms and the chill in the air - not because he didn’t care but because it happened so often he was tired of thinking about it. Blood had never been unusual to him but now it was a daily occurrence.
The taste of the blood mixed with the freshness of the water reminded him of Lagartha. He heard her voice in his head but he couldn’t picture her. He hadn’t seen any face in six months. His tongue tasted bitter.
Ragnar told himself he liked it that way, he didn’t wish to see ghosts haunting his new life.
He just didn’t know one particular phantom had been haunting him his whole time on Earth.
The sinister laughter of his sons could not console him, his true wife’s face offered no comfort. Floki was a reminder of Paris and the sweet French wine he licked off his lips. His brother was no longer his brother and Aslaug, his beautiful wife was no longer a lover.
The only ghost left in his life flicked in the corner of his vision. A rustle of leaves.
The water rippled as he left his resting place. He had passed out there yesterday morning after he reached down to cup water in his hand to drink. He stayed there even when the water turned to ice and thawed again in the morning.
“Who’s there?” His voice cracked under the sudden use as did his back as he stood up.
The air was piercing on his cheek. He stared around like a deer, his eyes wide waiting for danger. The Viking in him was loosing the war against insanity. Nothing had moved. Nothing had moved in a long time.
He cracked his neck in the other direction. Nothing.
He swore he had heard the same sound yesterday but time passed in a daze for the King. No longer was their order, the sun and the moon meant nothing.
Time passed by neither quickly or slowly, it was no longer a entity. It was simply the slow dance the moon played for him and the sun danced for him.
It plagued him with great pains in his sides and a longing for herbs and remedies no longer available to him.
Ragnar was as broken as the cracks on his lips.
He would not admit but he longed for the company of ghosts. He longed to see Floki laughing at his side or Bjorn sipping his ale. He longed for sights he knew he would never be able to see again and the early spring melt he followed to this spot.
It was now the cusp of autumn, too cold to be summer yet not enough to be winter. Ragnar hated it, he hated how the gods could not make up their minds.
“Why do you play with me?” His voice was raspy and hoarse, he swallowed.
He kicked the water, sending droplets up into the still and soundless air. Not one living creature could respond but Ragnar believed these conversations to be the best in his life.
The insects never questioned his plans, the fish always listened. The Gods however - Ragnar had lost hope in the Gods.
Loki was playing his tricks again. The God of Mischief was to blame for Paris, not his own flesh and blood under the Frankish flag or his boat stained with him.
Thor was an unjust judge delivering Ragnar the torture he didn’t deserve; a scratch for his lost daughter, a cut for betraying Lagertha, a wound for letting go of Rollo and a slow death for loving Athelstan.
“What about my Christian God? Can you change the weather? Or is it beyond your power?”
He crouched down, subconsciously putting his hands together under his chin.
Ragnar didn’t know if he was praying but he knew if he did the gods wouldn’t respond.
Anger was what drove Ragnar on, what made him get out of his bed - a small abandoned farm building - and live. He did it all out of spite.
Spite that the gods left him for dead yet left no invite for Valhalla. They had denied him his glorious death in battle and his Christian God had stopped him on the way to Heaven. Or maybe Ragnar had been saved from Hell. So he lived on in purgatory.
He had left Kattegat, his only measure of time being the beard that scratched against his skin. Six months and he had begun to crave a human voice and touch. He longed for it. Craved it because his clothes could never be warm, no matter how much he burned them by the fire.
La Belle Dame waited in morbid curiosity. Her measure of time was infinite for she never grew tired and never turned bored. His actions kept her as busy as did the voices in her head.
At first she mistook Ragnar’s outcry for one of them. She hadn’t heard the man talk since he entered the wild before now he only mumbled to the wind and grunted to the water.
Now she was able to watch the way the King cried to the creators. She knew they hadn’t abandoned him. He was too precious.
She had always seen something in Ragnar, something that drew her to him. She has seen it change since his isolation, his humanity becoming even more broken and starting to mix with insanity.
But then again she did not know the ways of mortals that had both elements intact.
She knew every detail of Midgard, the earth she walked upon yet nothing of the flowers that bloomed underneath the forest litter where she lay. She had never ventured far from Ragnar, once she did and found her heart - or where she supposed it was meant to be - ache. The women came back, she always did.
La Belle Dame was waiting for her time to reveal herself. The moment to come face to face with Ragnar and for him to finally see her. To finally touch him.
Even though she couldn’t see the details of his smile, when he did smile - as he did once every blue moon - she felt herself feel the same way she had ever since she saw him first.
She didn’t know what mortals called it but La Belle Dame named it love.
She was wrong, the gods never made her to feel such a mortal emotion yet here she was. Watching Ragnar’s eyes glance around the trees and the lying voice in her head told her that her heart was racing. But what was she to do now?
