King Ragnar Imagines

Sweet Little Lies

"See (Y/N), you should not have gone there." You mutter to yourself. You had come to Kattegat for Yul. Except in a way, you were wrong to. Ragnar had made it evident that you weren't welcome in Kattegat but swore to you that any romance between Aslaug and he was dead. Except– it wasn't and stupidly, you had believed him.

"Why didn't I stay home, why didn't I stay home, why didn't I stay home?" You say as you pull a warm, fuzzy fur around your shoulders. One that Ragnar had hunted and made for you while you stayed in his cabin last winter. That warm little cabin that you couldn't stomach going back to right now, hood draped over your head.

"Where are you going?" Ragnar had been hot on your tail for minutes now, trousers sloppily done back up from where you had walked in on Aslaug and he. Your leg still burned where you slipped over Ivar's bassinet.

"I'm going to find aunt Helga." You mutter as you pass Ragnar, harshly shoving him away when he grasps your arm with a forceful grip attempting to anchor you in place.

"Don't touch me!" You bellow out at him. He raises his hands up into the air lifting his hands away from your body.

"It was only sex, (Y/N)." Ragnar supplies, sliding in a half circle to stand in front of you. "Aslaug had certain needs... to be met."

He curves the words as his voice picks up into a small shameless smile, eyes glistening. You know that she had needs to be met. You had needs to be met! Every woman on Kattegat had needs to be met!

"What about me?" You ask, tears impossible to keep in. "Were you thinking of my needs?!"

"You aren't having your needs met because you came here– where I told you not to come. Didn't I?" He leans in with his lips to your ear.

Your lips curl in. Here, Aslaug ruled. She was the Queen. You could pretend in your little home on a farm that Ragnar was your husband but... you were unmarried. Everyone knew so. Everyone but you. You turn your face to his, lips grazing his all too slightly. Ragnar's hand grazes just under your chin.

"Don't take me for an idiot. You'll regret it. You'll regret this." You say grasping his hand, clenching his knuckles tightly. You scrunch them tight before thrusting his hand back towards him once again. You turn away from him– he calls out to you as you shove through snow white slushy ice. No answer. "What are you doing?" He hisses. "You're pregnant!"

"I WAS pregnant!" You snap back, whirling around to slap your hands on your dress. His eyes shift down, over a thick and heavy swell of your stomach. The swell was still heavy with your uterus so distended. Ragnar could feel a lump burrowing deep in his throat– had you come to Kattegat to see him for comfort?

"You're lying." He murmurs after a brief silence. "The baby is getting to your head."

No, you were here like Aslaug had been– to ruin his family life. That was as deep as this could have gone. He couldn't bare think that he would make another mistake. The last time he had, he lost everything. If he listened again, he might lose what was left.

"I lost the baby." You rasp. "I lost him and I needed you! I had to come– how else could I tell you?"

This time, it is Ragnar who turns away from you.

If Aslaug hadn't hated him before, she did now. News quickly spread of Ragnar's newest fling– pregnant from the bump set in your stomach and running off in tears from him. You were staying with Floki and your aunt Helga so that you did not have to travel. He saw the changes occuring in your body almost as if you ceased growing, but he couldn't admit it was true. As the days passed, he realized that you were no longer beside the beach.

You always walked across the beach.

It only got odder and odder when Helga came rushing into town for a midwife, claiming this was more than she knew how to deal with. Eventually, he decided to chase after Helga with the midwife.

"Take me to her." He hovered over her like a raven on her shoulder. Gentle Helga was panicked, running with her hair bobbing against her back.

"I can't." Helga whispers. "She doesn't want you there Ragnar."

She stops at the doorway of her home, nodding as the midwife dips inside the room. He doesn't hear anything but desperate sobbing from inside. His hands come up behind his head, grasping the heavy braids there.

"Did she..." He begins to inquire when Helga abruptly stopped him by reaching out to set a hand flatly against his chest, nodding.

"Gone."

He waited outside, pacing in the snow for what felt like hours. Ubbe had come to his side, staring blankly at him with Hvitserk until the midwife stepped out of the door. She spared Ragnar a look, eyes hooded and almost pitying. She nods before slipping past him. Ragnar's hand slips off of his sons's flaxen hair, shoving them to go back to their mother. Then as he presses inside the home, he can smell it in the air. It's not from the smell of death, but the way that Floki looks at him.

Like he wanted to fix it– because everything he did was for Ragnar. There were no words that the man of the gods can say when Ragnar stops beside you, trousers at level with your hand that shifts around a scratchy brown blanket. As he looks into your arms, the small peeling of skin on his child's face and limbs is enough combined with the reddening of lips to know the child has gone. His lips are widely apart and eyes are just as much as his lips.

He looks away, eyes climbing up your soft cheeks that are moist with rolling tears. He knows he's fucked up. He hadn't come to see you once, thinking that you were lying to him about his child passing. He thought that you would come one day to the Great Hall to dispose of Aslaug. Yet never once had you. What were the words?

"A boy?" He asks.

You gasp smally, pained. "My only son." You say with a dry throat, denoting him of any responsibility in creating the small boy with you. Ragnar's lips purse with a clicking notion of his tongue.

"Leave me alone." You say in a hush whisper.

"I'm... I was wrong about everything." He bends down, eyes with yours and extends his hands out to the little boy. You snap him back.

"I SAID TO GO AWAY, Ragnar!" You bite. "Leave me!"

Ragnar's hands curl back, kneeling a little closer when your hand lurches out, smacking him clear across his face. Your palm marks his beard and pale skin both and as he comes to the realization of what just happened, he stands up. With nothing but a breathless and pained grin to Floki, Ragnar walks back out of the door one last time.