She is the god's fae, condemned to look upon the Viking King Ragnar in silence and watch him as he killed, loved and lost and fall in deep love with him in the process.
Then one day on the cold hill's side, Ragnar battle worn and asking for death t...
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"I saw their starved lips in the gloam, And horrid warning gaped wide, And I awake and found me here, On the cold hill's side."
The nightmare continued and the longer Ragnar stayed there, the more it started to feel like reality. As soon as he felt the heat of the fire it would not go away no matter how far away he ran. Unthinkable thoughts crept into his mind, the longer he was away from reality, the more he lost his sanity.
It was his body adjusting to this new state of limbo. For a man that has killed more souls than he can count, being around corpses was maddening. Knowing you were about to become one like them was even worse. It was Hell.
The man screamed, he screamed until he could feel his throat turn raw and his mouth run dry. He was angry, more enraged than he had ever been in his mortal life.
He directed his anger at the world, frustration at the gods and rage at La Belle Dame. She was the reason he was cursed with this, she had lulled him into this nightmare.
She was Eve. She was Loki. She was the devil.
He ran around the deserted scene and he jumped over the littered corpses, his heavy boots crushing snail shells and trampling flowers. Yet he always ended up by the fire never reaching the the huts or the surrounding countryside. He could run for what felt like eternity as he tried to block out the never-ending chanting but soon the fire blocked his path again.
His two sons had become statues, static by the flames. Ragnar wanted to see them again, to see how stubble lined their now taunt cheeks but the survival instinct - fight or flight - stopped him from taking that crucial step forward. He could never get close enough to see their chapped lips from repeating the same sentence over and over again,
"La Belle Dame sans Merci hath thee in thrall."
His concept of time had gone in this nightmare as the sun never rose and the sky never changed. He did not feel fatigue in his eyelids or pains in his stomach or even the need to breath.
Ragnar Lothbrok's true body was not there only his spirit wondered this place.
He did not think it could get worse, every emotion he had has been purged off life and soul but then Gyda appeared. His only daughter, the one bargaining power the universe had on him. She was just as beautiful as the days when she was alive, a pure child of the Earth.
She stood alone in the field, the moonlight illuminating her pale features and small pink lips. Her lack of scars and war wounds was enough to bring a tear to the King's eyes. He walked slowly towards the ghost, she was a shadow in his memory, the finer details escaping his memory. But the important things stuck, like her high pitch laugh when he picked her up and the way her blue eyes shone when she looked at her father.
