A Ballot of the Wolf and Merc | Ubbe Ragnarsson FanFic

A Bride's Butterflies

The tight woven fibers of the lilac linen dress had finished it's last day with the expert hands of Kattegat's own weavers and tailors yesterday. Today it slipped over the pale working woman's frame like an attuned glove. Golden fringe around the breast over lays and tapered in at the waist with a sham of a flaxen belt cinching in the flowing fabric of the skirt. Margrethe stood nervous but proud before the ensemble of women who'd helped her all morning.

Lagertha doing the honors of helping the bride to be into her dress. It was hard for the Queen to not smile and reminisce about her own on such a happy day. The good with Ragnar overpowering the bad for the day her step son was to wed this lovely young woman. Though certain she was to keep Margrethe, like all of the late Aslaug's slaves, under her employment. Admirably brave for the son to come up to the Queen, in hand with her worker, and confidently ask for Lagertha's permission to wed Margrethe.

Years gone by since her and Ragnar shared their vows. Feeling even longer from when Lagertha renounced those same words for the sake of her own sanity and a young Bjorn. Hvitserk facing the Queen, on Lagertha's own soil, all to make sure his love for the slave was known. With as cold as she'd been, even Lagertha couldn't stand in the way of the one thing she always found more valuable than power or wealth. That was love.

"....how do I look?" speaking like an anxious mouse Margrethe's pale blue eyes flickered on each of the familiar faces in the room. Even glancing to Helga as the sail weaver ducked from behind the bride and smiled at her handy work with last moment fixes hours before the ceremony.

"You look beautiful my dear," Lagertha beamed a smile on the youth filled with butterflies and nerves. Looking back to Astrid and Eleri hanging back amidst the group, Lagertha gestured to a woolen shawl knitted with a small loop texture, folded on the table next to the Varagain, "Will you bring me that, one of you?"

Sharing a look the Queen's consort and Queen's guard glanced at each other then the article Lagertha requested. Surely Astrid did not budge from her spot, Lagertha's consort a bit surly since the Queen began fawning over the to be wed woman. Everyone aware Lagertha was thinking about Ragnar, and Astrid strongly against it. Eleri not caring as she scooped the folded wool up and brought it to the Queen skeptically tweaking here and there on the bride.

Tucking a fair piece of hair behind Margrethe's left ear, Torvi, Bjorn's wife, smiled at her accomplishment getting such divine waves throughout the pale blonde locks of hair. Lagertha's daughter-in-law moved away and Lagertha proceeded to drape the wool shawl Eleri brought over Margrethe's shoulders, "There." Reaching a peak of her own perfection Lagertha took a step back beside Eleri and radiated a simper from her head to her toes.

Nervous Margrethe lowered her face and kept tucking floating strands of hair behind her other ear, "...will Hvitserk like it?"

"He'd be foolish not to," Torvi came next to her Queen and shared the same contagious smile looking on at the young woman with such a brooding hen expression, "Oh how I still dream about Bjorn and I's wedding. It was the happiest day of my life."

Helga could be heard with a little snigger and she shared the adoring gaze all were giving Margrethe, "My Floki, he never looked at handsome as he did on our wedding day."

Hearing the sweet memories from the older woman made Margrethe's nerves quell a bit. Able to relax as she adjusted to the change from drab working clothes. To the new crisp clean feeling of such rich fabrics hugging her body, "I never thought...I mean," Margrethe looked up from her dress over to Eleri who stayed quiet most of the morning fetching this and that for the women, their vastly different shades of blue eyes met and Margrethe offered an awkward smile, "I didn't think I was going to beat you to this Lady Eleri."