vikings, LA BELLE DAME

vi

"I set her on my pacing steed,
and nothing else saw all day long.
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
a faery's song"

Ragnar was invigorated as he stared at La Belle Dame after they had kissed. Their faces were close and they could feel the breath of the other, it was a drug. And for one moment Ragnar's head overpowered his heart. He could not. He must not. But how he wanted to.

"Bjorn would love you,"
He laughed at the joke he found genuinely funny.

La Belle Dame rolled her eyes at him but the words secretly broke her heart. She only had eyes for the Lothbrok in front of her.

To reply to him, she gave herself her sweet sin again, a kiss. But sins always multiply and sinners never stop.

Ragnar stopped.
He broke the kiss, leaving La Belle Dame leaning into mid air. Her red curls flowed around her in the breeze, occasionally a strand catching in her mouth. Ragnar outstretched his hand instead and brushed them gently to the side. Hopefulness filled the women, a glimmer of hope that they could actually be together; hope misplaced.

"But right now it's my turn."
There was a glint in his eyes, it turned them from clear blue and the shade of the sea to the murky and devious shade of seaweed. A look of lust, for love and lust.

     She gracefully took his hand whilst trying to act like a lady, and put on the tiara of a Princess. In reality Ragnar had always wanted a warrior, a women he deemed worthy to rule beside him but maybe he has been wrong this whole time. Maybe he needed a beautiful lady without mercy to share his crown with.

     They both stood up and the breeze never came, the air was still but it had the warmth that came with the change of seasons. It helped the couple on their feet, guiding them to the outskirts of the slight clearing where Ragnar's horse spent his time.

It should have left straight after they arrived, for no attention had been laid to the horse yet here the magnificent creature stood. Waiting for the day it would ride again with an affection for the King that rivalled La Belle Dame's.

     The mare greeted the King with love, letting the man stroke his face and neck as Ragnar chuckled. It has been too long, it was only know that he realised what he had been missing.

     La Belle Dame's innocence to the world showed as she hid behind Ragnar like a child when meeting a stranger, she clutched hold to his tunic and her cheek grazed the Vikings shoulder.

     Yet it was not entirely ignorance that kept her there. Animals could sense things that humans could not, too many times had this horse looked at her before like it knew she was there. There was risk, she did not belong in the mortal world and the natural world knew how to rebel against any cause of chaos.

     "Don't you like horses?"
     Ragnar asked with a concerned expression but a smile.

     "Only if they like me."
     She replied as the horse began to nudge past Ragnar and in her direction. She held her breath, not daring to show anything - like her lack of a pulse.

     "He seems to like you."
And as soon as Ragnar said that, it was as if she had stolen the horses heart, the hostility morphing into affection before her very eyes.