Ghost Of You ~ An Athelnar One Shot

Ghost Of You

Ragnar's PoV

Ragnar quickly opened his eyes.

He immediately knew where he was, as he heard no sound, not even the wind outside. There was always some kind of noise, it was never completely still. He had this eerie, otherworldly feeling once again that engulfed the atmosphere around him in the way of a protective blanket rather than in an oppressive way.

He felt at peace, his mind as much as his heart.

He was dreaming.

Not a normal dream.

But one of those dreams.

Where the dead visited the living to console them.

He knew simply by the feel of the dream. It was different than the one you got during normal dreams, even though you couldn't really put it into words.

So excitement rose in him almost immediately after realizing the difference of his current dream and Ragnar immediately stood up from the place on the carpet he seemed to have fallen asleep on by the crackling fireplace, looking around himself, eyes searching.

Ragnar didn't feel scared even though he subconsciously felt he wasn't alone and that was how he knew that whoever was visiting him in his sleep was friendly and not of evil or harmful spirit.

He didn't know how he knew where to go nor did he understand how but his feet seemed to start to carry him forward almost on their own, leading the way for him.

It was just like the first dream.

Ragnar could think about little else as he continued onward, pushing himself through the curtains separating his quarters from the main room of the Great Hall.

Ragnar couldn't shake the quickly raising hope that swallowed him up in a matter of seconds, he simply couldn't help it.

It was just like the first dream.

The first dream he had actually met or seen Athelstan or should he say the ghost of him - not just hallucinating about him, weakened, at the brink of death as he had in Paris - for the first time after the Priest had been brutally murdered.

Ragnar's heart still painfully ached for Athelstan.

On some days more, on some days less, but it always ached.

It did so continuously, without pause, ever since the Priest had been gone. The Priest and his presence suddenly ripped away from him from one day to the next without any kind of warning.

Life was a cruel thing.

Damn Floki and the demons he listened to.

Damn them to Helheim.

Damn them, because now his heart was broken, an important, huge part of it having died together with Athelstan and there was nothing that could ever fix it.

There was no fixing it, fixing the loss of a loved one and he could only learn to live with it, carrying on from one day to the next and then repeating the circle all over again ... and again and again.

Movement caught Ragnar's eyes.

A shadow slowly walking down the dark Hall not far in front of him.

Ragnar immediately sped up his steps, to catch a glimpse at the moving shadow, yet no matter what, the distance seemed to stay the same.

So Ragnar could only follow, his eyes fixated on the moving shadowy person in front of him.

Athelstan, is that you?