milliways_bar | (no subject)

Sinric joins him. Because Sinric knows. Sinric knew as soon as Ragnar stepped through the door that part of his heart had come back to Milliways.

He doesn't speak, just sits at Ragnar's side, resting his head on Ragnar's shoulder.

"She's had her child," Ragnar says, putting his arm around Sinric. "I had to come here. Need to think."

He'd not meant to come back before he'd found Athelstan in their world. But he had to.

Sinric nods and tucks himself in Ragnar's arms. "Your son." He nods quietly.

"Only half a son," Ragnar admits, whispering.

Sinric gives a rueful snort and squeezes Ragnar's hand. "As I am only half a man? Are our bodies what make us?"

"You are you," Ragnar says. "But his lower body is just..."

He helplessly flaps his hands.

Sinric turns to kneel on the couch, to embrace Ragnar, to let the Viking hide his face in Sinric's neck. Hide his frustration and his undeserved shame.

"I cannot tell you what his future holds." A lie. But a small one. He will not. Because Ragnar isn't ready to know it. As a father, Ragnar needs to make this choice on his own. "With one so young there are too many possibilities. But sometimes the twisted trees grow the strongest."

"He won't ever walk, and he won't ever be respected by my Vikings," Ragnar says. "A burden. Somebody to make sport of unpunished. Spurned by women and despised by men. Never to fight in battle, never to kill, never to know victory."

"Will he not then be something else? Not a Viking perhaps, a your warrior way. But then, nor am I. Or might he rise higher, fight harder, just to prove himself. He is your son, after all."

"How can he prove himself without even a leg to stand on?" Ragnar says. "He would be better off with Athelstan's people than with mine."

"Perhaps." Sinric shrugs, picking at Ragnar's tunic. "Perhaps he will go there and make a life as Athelstan did work you. Or maybe he will find a way to rise high, even without legs."

"I..."

Ragnar hesitates.

"I took him to the place -- the place where -- fathers do that," he whispers. "She brought him back, and won't let me touch him now. She hates me now. Not that I ever loved her, but her sons..."

"Then the choice has to been made. And is no longer yours." he brushes a stray hair from Ragnar's face. "It won't be easy. But then, nothing powerful every is."

"I could make my own power known, and dispose of him," Ragnar says. "But I -- I don't want to. When he looks into my face, I am touched by both love and destiny. But I should..."

"When has Ragnar Loðbrók ever done what he should?" Sinric smiles teasingly. "Rather than what he wished. Come, my beloved. Let it go."

"It is an entire life in possibilities," Ragnar says. "Not easy to let go."

"Let the possibilities unfold." Sinric urges. "Let the boy grow. And carve for himself whatever place he can."

"Trust the gods?"

"In the gods, in yourself. In the strength of your bloodline."

Ragnar nods. "In the future, and in fate."

Sinric leans in to kiss Ragnar's brow. "If you wish, I will go into the tree for you?"

"Yes," Ragnar says. "I would like that. For the sake of Ivar."

"At dawn then. Will you stay the night, to wait for me?"

"Oh yes," Ragnar says. "And I will stay the night with you, if you have a use for me."

"Ragnar." Sinric chides sweetly. "I always want your company. I have missed you deeply."