"She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said-

"I love thee true,""

Ragnar Lothbrok has always been of a sturdy build, a true Viking in his book. But the sorrow and the years of physical torture and pain has taken its toll on the lining of his muscles, withering them away to his present state. Verging on a fragile and pathetic state.

La Belle Dame felt it in his fingers as they occasionally traced contours on her neck. They were more like skeleton bones on her skin which he noticed was as white as milk with veins juxtaposed as blue blood ran down them.

"Tell me, when was the last time you ate?"

She asked him, at first Ragnar felt a patronising tone to her voice. The voice of reason, he heard Aslaug for a moment. But then he felt the sincerity of her voice, it was not scorn at all, it was concern.

"I can't remember."

He told her, his mind had the ability to bid the hunger pains and thoughts from his head. The drugs had damaged every nerve it touched. Ragnar could never have done it in his youth, yet as he got older the less his soul wanted to care for its temporary body.

La Belle Dame stared into the middle distance and scanned the interwoven connections of exposed roots and newly germinated plants. She in truth did not have the faintest clue what she was looking for as her tastebuds had no experience.

She hoped her limited intelligence and instinct would tell her what to pick to rebuild Ragnar, to fill his stomach and give his morbid skin back its colouring.

"I thought so."

She mused whilst Ragnar now focused on fighting the physical pains of starvation. It came on suddenly, it was almost as if the minute he accepted he needed it, his began to crave it beyond reason.

"What are you looking for?"

He let go of the reigns and allowed the horse to roam by itself. Ragnar moved his fingers to her hair and dragged them down, pulling the hair down slightly. He reached the coarse ends and let go, the red hair springing back into perfectly formed curls.

"Liberation."

She commanded the word as she spoke, liberation for Ragnar was her only goal in her life.

She lived for him, she was made for him so liberating his starvation seemed like one of the things she had come here to do.

The King did not answer instead he shook his head whilst scoffing. He thought he needed liberation from a plethora of things, hunger not being top. He could live with physical pain, that's all he has known. Vikings were tough when it came to that form of pain, it was his mental pain that would kill him in the end.

Although what was top of his list was the liberation of a certain sinful lust.

And he wasn't sure if liberation meant fulfilment or banishment.

Suddenly La Belle Dame's instinct paid off, she saw not what she had initially wanted but something innately better; a bee.

She stopped the horse in a gleeful manner not fitting with the serene surroundings, quickly pulling herself off its back and onto the forest floor.

Ragnar sat dumbfounded for a moment before reacting by grabbing her hand before she could step away from him.

"And what does liberation look like?"

His sarcastic remark was used to hide his confusion.

"I will show you,"

So La Belle Dame dragged her suitor by his wrist and lead him to her hearts content.

A bee is a hard thing to follow for anyone, the eye has to be trained in the art of squinting and concentration to be able to fathom the path and location of the insect. Fortunately La Belle Dame was not just anyone, she was simultaneously someone and nobody.

At that moment she was a someone to the Viking and a nobody to the bee, enabling her to follow the buzzing sound of the creature.

Ragnar let himself be dragged by the women until in his peripheral vision he saw the set of wings they were following. He stopped dead and La Belle Dame only noticed as it she was suddenly able to walk faster. She turned back to Ragnar with a raised eyebrow.

"Is there something you need to tell me?"

She smiled as Ragnar's gaze did not falter from the insect in front of him.

"I do not like bees."

The statement came as a mix of a whisper and a murmur, strangely it was as if the two characters had swapped personalities.

Ragnar was at home with large creatures, those that looked like they could kill in a second but wouldn't dare to cross a Viking.

La Belle Dame, in contrast, was at home with the smaller beings of nature, the birds and bees which had no fear and even a certain liking to human skin.

"Do you like honey?"

She proposed to him. He thought for a moment, no. He preferred feast food of meat, mead and more meat. But the thought of that made his empty stomach turn.

La Belle Dame had the sweet tooth to go with her personality, and Ragnar could tell this purely by the sparkle in her eye so he told her what she wanted to hear,

"Honey is good."

"Good," She mirrored and pointed to a tree in the middle distance which had a tumour like hive thriving off its one of its higher branches,

"Let us feast."

She moved before Ragnar could have reacted taking herself out of his reach and then slowly walking backwards towards the hive. She kept her playful eyes - in which the King could see the an almost fiendish quality to - on her companion until she reached her destination.

How she completed the task without feeling a single pinch or staining her body with scratches of stings will be a mystery. Ragnar could not bare himself to look until she returned with a large chunk of honeycomb that oozed honey down her fingers as she cradled her treasure that stuck her hands together

She did not simply smile but beamed at him as he stood in disbelief,

"How did you do that?"

"Certain creatures do like me and I tend to like them back."

She chuckled and it was a high, warm laugh but it changed as she felt a glob of honey threatening to drip onto the ground. She gasped and outstretched her hand so she could attempt to pass it to Ragnar. The viscous honey adhered to her skin and they both watched in silence as eventually it heavily fell in Ragnar's awaiting hands.

Ragnar lipped his lips and wasted no time in biting into his first meal in too long. The surprisingly salty and sweet edge set his taste buds on fire along with the crunch that echoed in the pairs ears. All of his senses were ravished and it took immense self control for gluttony to not overpower the Viking.

La Belle Dame watched how he ate the meal like a student to a master, a lesson of the most basic human acts. Her stomach did not need to be filled alike to how her lungs always stay empty but she wanted this. She wanted her First Supper with all her being.

"Try some." He commanded when he finally stopped focusing on himself yet the sin in front of him filled the void perfectly. He broke off a chunk in his hands and gently presented it to La Belle Dame. She froze for a second and then leaned towards her partner letting him place the honeycomb in her mouth as she experienced the exact same as Ragnar. Euphoria.

Ragnar stopped after his next bite and sucked the honey off his fingers, the smacking sound of him finishing told La Belle Dame she should try the same. She curiously brought a finger up and licked a viscous drop of the substance off, to her the act with primitive almost primeval but the lady loved it.

So she did it four more times. She loved how different she could act with him, how on this Earth she walked like a human, she lived and forced herself to breath like a Viking.

"You are a strange one."

Ragnar told her whilst admiring the beauty she held, one he could not even begin to put into words and feelings. Beauty that made him feel young again.

"I do not like the word strange."

"How would you describe yourself then?"

Ragnar moved himself closer.

La Belle Dame answered simply, the only way she knew how,

"Yours."