A Ballot of the Wolf and Merc | Ubbe Ragnarsson FanFic

Those Who've Gone

"WHO WANTS TO BE KING?!"

The deposed King erupted all at once. Blackout of sound befalling the tense crowd. Each son stood in line before their estranged father. Shoulders set back and faces lifted towards the man hailing a challenger, all four remained stone still. Ubbe feeling a wisp of something behind him. Unsure what caused the chill, the eldest son prayed to the gods it was Eleri standing behind his silhouette.

Ragnar's royal blue eyes honing in on the second to youngest. Choked for a response when his father's eyes filed to him, Sigurd swallowed the dry lump in his throat. Refusing to flinch as Ragnar approach, Sigurd looked out past his father's shoulder straining to retain composure, "What about you, Sigurd? Do you want to be king?"

Met with the outward nothingness Ragnar appeased for a response but Sigurd held a motionless stance. There was nothing there. Ragnar moved on.

Tilting his head to the right Ragnar's eyes narrowed on Ubbe. A change in attention but neither son twitched. Edged right before Kattegat's eldest heir, Ragnar stared down Ubbe, "Do you want to be king, Ubbe?"

Lips in a stern line Ubbe's shoulder remained erect and even. Not a peep.

"Just kill me, and your king," Ragnar leaned in, the boom he held in his tone before down to nothing but a slithering whisper to his son, "King Ubbe!" Snapping around he announced it to the crowd.

Erratic as he was before, Ragnar's whirl around and the loud smack as his flat palm made contact with Ubbe's right cheek, "Are you afraid?!"

Rash about the impulsiveness of it, Eleri thought not of the consequences as she lurked forward to Ubbe's side. Hand on the hilt of her dagger within moments of Ragnar's actions. Her slate eyes burrowing holes into the man's body as she glowered at him.

Unexpected Ragnar tilted his head looking at the heavier set woman coming so capriciously to his son's side, "What is this?" Shorter than the caitiff viking King, Eleri's stare did not falter when her eyes met Ragnar's gaze.

Before Ragnar or Eleri could escalate the situation, Ubbe drew his sword without words spoken. Placing himself between the woman who'd revealed her presences and his father, Ubbe interjected himself back to his fathers focus.

Taking a step back Ragnar came to the center of the crowd. Attention drawn to the son who drew first. Choked reticent washing over the crowd. The crows of the mountain side heard off in the distance calling their death song to the skies.

Squeezing the hilt of his sword Ubbe did not back down as his footsteps crunched under the dry gravel of the city's ground. Nearing his father Ubbe stood, shoulders back, back straight and hand firm on his sword. Ragnar unflinching as he gazed on at his and Aslaug's oldest coming to his hailing claim of death.

Tedious silence regressing over the crowd. Neither son nor father moving a muscle. Ivar, Sigurd, Hvitserk and Eleri watching in anticipation who would move first.

Eyes closing, Ragnar exhaled and wrapped his arms around his boy's shoulders, pulling the boy to his embrace and squeezing him tightly. Ubbe dropped his sword immediately and swung his arms around his father in likeness.

"Why did you come back?" Ubbe muttered to his father, the tight hug fading as both grown men rested their hands at the back of one another's neck and pressed foreheads together sealing the display of affection amongst the viking village. Noise coming back to the deadened patrons as the anxiousness dispersed and a fight was not being ensued.

"A man's life grows lonely spent away from his family," Ragnar's hoarse voice responded as the other three boys came over, even Ivar dragging himself to the front of his other brothers. Ragnar looked around at all four of his grown children, memories of their faces so far behind him from the last time he laid eyes on them. Even Ragnar knelt down at eye level with Ivar and held his breathe before speaking, "I needed to see my boys."

"Mother says she's been desperately trying to find you, where have you been all this time?" Reserved about the sudden change in heart in his withholding father, Hvitserk was the first to question. But the look of cynical expectations he held soon spread to Ubbe, who sheathed his sword and joined beside Hvitserk, and Sigurd who looked warily at his father.

Something about the once powerful man seemed diminished to the now grown men, Ragnar rose back to his feet slower than they recalled, his gleam gone to his eyes and the ragged look nothing like they remember of the man who ruled over Kattegat, "Your mother knew I couldn't stay."

"She shouldn't have expected you to leave all these years!" Hvitserk barked, becoming less and less sure his father's appearance was welcomed, "Mother even bartered with a Varagain to find you!"

Ragnar's eyebrow shot up, "A varagain?" The term peaking interest in him. Each boy looked at themselves not sure the importance of it but Ragnar wasted no time adverting to the woman standing sidelines with the people of Kattegat, "You're the Varagain aren't you?"

Scorn for his father's diligence to shift back to the woman who nearly pulled a dagger on him, Ubbe stepped forth once more, "Mother hired her simply to deliver you a letter."

The fish didn't bite the bait, Ragnar stepped past his sons. Boots scuffing the gravel around them as he came before the woman's face. Listless about having a King stand before her, Eleri did not recoil an ounce as Ragnar scrutinized her with prying eyes, "A varagain, in my city."

Needing to defuse Ragnar's attention on Eleri, Ubbe began towards the interaction or lack of, "Father, mother would-"

"Mochyn cyfiawn," hacking up something vile from the back of her throat, Eleri's lips pursed and before Ubbe or any of the other men could even gasp, she spat a thick wad of snot and saliva on Ragnar's boot.

Choking gasps from nearly everyone in the congregation as everyone seemed to lean in expectant for the King to strike the fractious action made by Kattegat's foreigner. Holding the relentless stare neither lost sight of one another's unbreakable gaze. Even Ivar who tried to hold himself up higher ready to see his father put the hardheaded woman in her place was stunned from the silence befalling them all.

The thick slimy wad clung to Ragnar's boot and it stayed there as Eleri jerked away in a huff and stormed off. No one in the crowd even wanting to accidentally touch the disrespectful woman as they parted like a sea avoiding her. Disbelief falling everyone who watched while Ragnar did nothing and let her charge off.

Ivar discontent with his father's reaction opened his mouth about to complain but Ubbe quickly stamped out his brother's retort with a knee to his shoulder, "Father," Ubbe quick to take any words to his silent father, "Mother would be very glad to see you. Please, she's missed you for a very many nights."

Ragnar's shoulders remained still, back turned to his sons as he looked on at the now vacant spot where Eleri had stood. Letting his gaze drop to the nasty spit up on his boot, a twisted smirk fought it's way onto the jagged vikings lips. He held it down though returning to look at his sons. Unkempt as he was Ragnar nodded and did not press anything but agreed to be taken back to his wife he'd not seen in years and to the home which he'd abandoned when the four boys were barely adolescents.