The prattle Lagertha incited when her and the varagain where absolute out of earshot of any of the sons, hers included, was painful to say the least. Overly concerned like a broody hen Eleri never asked to be cared for. Lagertha sensible like any woman given way to maternal instincts. Wanting the young woman to let down her walls and share the pain in hopes of having some knowledged to share with the female.
Snapping a twig with vengeance over the fraying knee of her trousers, Eleri sneered at the echo of the Queen's voice in her head.
'We are all women, together we stand stronger,' Lagertha had even tried warming the normally business like interactions they had with lukewarm grog. Talking almost to herself as Eleri only stood in the Queen's alcove with her head hung low dreading the words that came out each time.
Twig snapped into four different pieces now Eleri couldn't break the wood any further and through down the waste to the sodden summer moss that clung to life around the shaded bases of a few grand fir trees. Slogging out to the nowhere in Kattegat's neighboring forest didn't settle the irked varagain. After such a trying out reach from the Queen, one Eleri never even asked for, she huffed and kicked a lump of dirt into tinier bits.
'When I was your age, I was so madly in love with Ragnar,' without a doubt shrouded in solitude Lagertha tried to liken Eleri to her youth with Ragnar. No amount of grog, warm or cold, would have let Eleri process anything the Queen said about the viking reflect upon her with Ubbe, 'He even looks a lot like his father, when I knew him when we were young.' Lagertha's tone having kindred a softness Eleri didn't know the shieldmaiden had with anyone but her one son.
Stomping down a line of trees, Eleri blind to where she was wandering, she tightened her fists hearing Lagertha's voice repeat in her head from earlier.
'Men, vikings, they are difficult,' she'd continued on even when all Eleri had done was hold the full cup of cooling liquid staring down mindlessly into the knots in the rough hewn floorboards. Lagertha came over to the bench and sat next to the young woman silent at first then she'd started up again, 'Women have an obligations in our society, just these men do. The Gods make that clearly with how they made us. While men only have one way to bring themselves glory to Valhalla, we are blessed with more than just the need to fight to earn our spot amongst the Gods.'
Eleri's snort murmured amongst the trees when she stopped in a clearing of deciduous trees, "Bearing children! Tff!" Craning her head back Eleri looked up at the afternoon sun filtering through the branches of leafy trees and limbs of evergreens. Leaving the temperature below the canopy nearly twenty degrees cooler than out in the open would be. Thankful if one is out during the day but when the sun set the tree cover did nothing but make for a chilly night alone if one was caught outside after dark.
'We are given the gift of creating life, as much as I've dreamt about taking my home village back before this point, none of it compares to how empty it would be without the love of my life,' not sure what side Lagertha spoke from, it had become clear the stance she held stronger in Ubbe's favor than Eleri's own.
The faintness of feeling Lagertha's hand on Eleri's shoulder tingled even as she wandered further away from Kattegat.
'Bjorn is my world, I love my son. I love my daughter still after all this time. Children, being a mother, it is something I would not have traded even if it meant taking back my city sooner or Ragnar never leaving. Everything I've done up until now was for my son.' Eleri had looked at her with a hidden disgust, had she really spoke as though the woman she sat with should throw away her own beliefs to give children to her step son?
Sudden spur of tears trickled down Eleri's face. Belated for sure since she'd done nothing but stare blankly at Lagertha back within the Longhouse. Now alone in the forest. Disorientated from north or south. No east of west. Isolated in a still unfamiliar terrain she'd been blind to for months.
Gazing out in slow swiveling motion Eleri was coming to terms with how dislocated she really had become with the world outside Kattegat. Mindless travel was what she'd thrived on. Making mistakes and finding her next point of interest. The next clue. The next trail to lead her forward towards her goal. There was always something.
What was there now? Alone in the forest. The visions of Ragnar's death. Repeated dreams of mutilation to her internal organs, undoubtedly from the prolonged ingestion of her pennyroyal. Nothing made sense. Nothing helped her see forward. Everything so muddled and foggy Eleri wasn't sure where she even stood in life anymore. She'd lost her way, lost her fire.
"...I'd ask you if your parents taught you not to draw attention to yourself, but, well, I'm not Ivar," remarkably even though Eleri thought she was lost in the thicket, the tender jesting voice that greeted her from behind her left side showed Eleri the complete opposite. No attempt to play sneaky, Ubbe stepped within the semi clearing Eleri had stopped within. Seeing the look of astonishment on her face made Ubbe's remark sly about how untrackable Eleri always claimed to be, "...I told you varagain, I wouldn't have been a burden on journey to those bowyers and craftsmen you spoke of."
The firm hold Eleri had kept on her watery eyes quivered when they laid sight on Ubbe. Like a blessing she didn't know what to do with Eleri fought off the threat of the dam keeping her tears at bay. Blinking away the dewy water line of her lashes Eleri stared wordless at the viking far out of arm's reach of her. It wasn't until the lump in her throat only successfully came out in a squeak of a question, "..w-what are you even- how-"
Dropping those sparkling blue eyes Ubbe could be seen shifting his weight nervously from one foot to the other. Obviously unsure of how to speak before the woman, "...I..I had...well I wanted to...I wanted to say sorry before you left." Ubbe's confession came with him looking back up over at her, "We are going to rally a war against Aelle's actions....and I wanted to give a proper apology before you took your separate way."
"Apology?" Eleri's mind muddled not making a solid connection out of what the man before her was saying.
Ubbe's shoulders rose a little as he took a deep breath only holding it a moment before letting it go to calm his nerves, "...I was selfish, in...in how I've been the last few months. As well as when Ivar did what he did. I shouldn't have lashed out at you, Ivar was in the wrong doing."
Eyes going from dry as a summer day to flooded with big globs of shimmering tears that rolled down her rosy cheeks, Eleri too overwhelmed to even figure out how to use her voice. Ubbe did not insist on her saying anything. Instead the viking approached the stone still varagain with gentle intent. Moving his gaze over the woman's face, like he'd seen her for the first time all over again, Ubbe bit down on his bottom lip when the tears only steadily flowed down her cheeks when he approached.
Slowly reaching into his left pocket Ubbe had no problem producing the small leather satchel Ivar had desecrated not too long before. Offering it to her only for Eleri to take what she expected to be her empty satchel in her right hand. It wasn't empty though. Quite the opposite as the pouch was stuffed full. Confused Eleri unbound the knot she clearly didn't tie on it. Only to find it packed full of new pennyroyal. Not just picked and stuffed in. The herb actually stripped of its stem, dried to perfection and layered thick in the leather confines. Aghast by being handed the full sewn hide and not just the empty container she'd last seen it as, Eleri was frozen in place with slate eyes darting up to look at Ubbe for an explanation.
Her surprise distinct, Ubbe inhaled a nerve calming breath and nodded before speaking, "...I thought what I wanted was the right thing. That I was right, like I've always been with the other three." Ubbe's eyes moved from the satchel in Eleri's hand to meeting her grey ones that poured with dribbling tears, "You aren't them. You aren't my Mother, you aren't Margrethe. You aren't even a viking...and I was wrong."
"Ubbe I-" Eleri attempted to stop him even when the woman's bottom lip could hardly stop quivering and the tears flooding her face made it hard to focus.
The viking didn't let her deter him, following with the words pouring from his mouth, "I told you I was nothing like my father, but here I am doing nothing but proving you right. I'm nothing more than another one of Ragnar Lothbrok's so-"
Seizing a fistful of his tunic and wrenching the viking forward far past her personal space, Eleri smashed her cold, snot and tear covered lips firmly onto Ubbe's warm bearded ones. One more word out of him and she wasn't sure her heart could take it. Urgent to wrap his arms around the woman's frame and Eleri did the same scrambling to yank their bodies as close as two people could. Without thought she'd dropped her satchel of pennyroyal and Ubbe didn't care one bit about the little film of snot dribble and salty tears on her lips when the kiss deepened. Like a million life times had gone by since they'd last kissed. More than just the first time their lips met.
"I'm so sorry- I'm-" words muddled between hasty pecks of their lips together, Eleri tightened her arms around his shoulders as the tears rolled down her cheeks but the hitch in her words was leaving, "I- I didn't mean to hurt you- I..I've had so many nightmares- Waking up in blood, I didn't understand, I didn't know how to tell you- I wasn't doing it to hurt you- I-- I was scared of it...of what would happen-"
"Shh, shh hush now don't- " urgent to cup her face in his warm palms, Ubbe did his best to quell the sobs leaving with her confessions hitting all at once, "It's my fault, I didn't even think- I wanted you to stay, I thought...I thought if we had a family you wouldn't leave me-"
"Ubbe! I'm not going anywhere!" twanged with some fury that he expressed doubt in her pledge to stay with him, Eleri feverishly shook her head denying him, "I told you! I told you I was here for you! For your brothers- I promised I would-"
Frantically kissing all over her face Ubbe's scratchy beard tingled all over Eleri's jaw line when the viking showered her in attention, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry please forgive me for ever doubting you...I...I just...I don't know what to do-"
"And you think I do?!" pulling away so their eyes met Eleri expression slightly irked even with her tearful eyes and blotchy red cheeks.
"You always knew what you were doing, you've been so confident and strong I- I couldn't keep up-" admitting to his insecurities that had arisen in the last few months, Ubbe's normally clear blue eyes shaded over as his lashes were the only thing keeping his tears from falling like hers already were.
Eleri bursted with all her worries all at once, "Ragnar's dead, the reason I came here is nothing anymore, I've been poisoning myself because I'm too weak to be a mother, I'm afraid to loose the only idea of a family I've had since I was little, I've given up my freedom and worst of all Sigurd and I-"
Cutting herself off one syllable too late, Eleri couldn't retract the last part no matter how desperate she thought about hoping Ubbe didn't connect the two. Immediately the varagain's blood ran cold and she was terrified at the kind of reaction the viking might have.
A rustle in the limbs above them. Ubbe still like masonry. Eleri panicked did the first thing to pop into her head. Lurching down to grab the pouch of freshly dried pennyroyal. She fumbled to get a lump of the herb in her system as soon as she could. About to shove just the plain dry leaves in her mouth. Ubbe's hand stopping them before they could make it to her lips.
Eleri's eyes shot to Ubbe for interrupting her, "What?! What are you doing?? I'm sorry I can fix it just let me-"
"Don't," calmly Ubbe's voice stayed soft between the two of them. His eyes not looking at her but at the clump of dried green in her hand, "Don't because of that."
Worried Eleri tugged away a little but Ubbe's hold on her wrist stayed, "Ubbe I have to or it-"
"I don't care," eyes coming up to look on at the patchy pale and red skin of the flustered woman, he shook his head and brushed the pennyroyal he'd personally picked and dried for the woman, onto the forest ground, "If it happens, it happens. I will love you and them all the same. Because no matter what it would be mine."
Like before a lump lodged itself in the woman's throat. For only perhaps the second time since they'd met, Eleri collapsed into Ubbe. Giving way her normal sturdiness to latch onto the taller lanky viking and burying her face into his scruffy neck beard. Even out in the crisp summer air the lingering musk that she always found on his skin greeted her senses. Taking a deep shaky breath Eleri cinched her arms around him and only squeezed him instead of letting words fall from her mouth.
Nothing came as Ubbe nestled his face into the slightly shorter woman's curly waves of dirty blonde hair. Arms settling around her waist to keep her body close to his own. Nothing but the restless summer wind singing in the tops of the trees as midday sun gave way to evening angles and tall shadows cast all over the forest from the tall trees. In unison they both took a long deep breath from their bellies. The only shame being the third of pennyroyal Ubbe had spent so long collecting, preparing and drying for a gift to the varagain.
Finally peeling away from the tight hug. Ubbe's hands remain on her hips, Eleri's resting on his forearms. Giving a chary squeeze before their eyes met in silence. Before any words spoiled the moment. Viking and varagain leaned into each other. A ginger kiss passed between their two lips. Holding a long moment before the tickle of Ubbe's mustache was too much and Eleri's warm breath slightly tickled his upper lip.
Raising a hand and cupping Eleri's face, Ubbe spared her forehead a kiss, "...I do not expect you to fight with us vikings against King Aelle. I know my father-"
"Your father owed me his life," Eleri brashly cut Ubbe off. Stern eyes set forward to the man making sure there was no doubt in her words, "King Aelle had no right to kill what was mine. He will pay with his life."
No matter how many times she said it. Each time Eleri staked her claim to fight for Ragnar, even if for her own ideas, it surprised the viking for her conviction. Heart fluttering to life in his chest Ubbe couldn't help the smile creep up on his lips when his hands moved from her hips to the woman's hands.
Eleri felt the gentle squeeze even as she held Ubbe's gaze. The smile tipping her off enough to what the viking was thinking, "Ivar and Lagertha's son can fight for it. But I will kill King Aelle with Rangar's sword. Just watch me."