"I saw pale kings and princes too,

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;

They cried-"La Belle Dame sans Merci

Hath thee in thrall!""

There are different types of dreams.

There are nightmares and good dreams. Realistic dreams and fantasy dreams. Ragnar Lothbrok was fully aware that the sight in front of his eyes was a nightmare.

He experienced a sense of being without his body, weightlessness as he he left the heat and the cold behind in the mortal world and lost all feeling in his skin.

Instead he relied on his other senses, the smell of burning willow and twigs along with the crackle of a distant bonfire he couldn't quite see. Spitting and cracking.

The light of the sunset was lovely longer here to comfort him and neither was a women.

He didn't know if he craved his senses to be invigorated by his mystery women or the familiar touch of Lagertha or even Asluag, simple Asluag in all her beauty.

"Where am I?"

He called to the sky, to the Gods and the heavens,

"Tell me where I am!"

He turned around on the spot, going in circles and circles as he stared at the familiar stars above. But this time there were no stars.

"Why do you trick me like this Gods! Why do you bring a beautiful lady into my life to then take me away from her! Why must I always be the end of your jokes, I am the one that lost Athelstan, I am the one that loses everyone!"

The calm that La Belle Dame had granted him was gone as his blood began to boil and he was angry and he didn't let it go silently as before, this time his anger was loud.

Suddenly out of the corner of his eye he saw the fire erupt, the flames danced up into the skies and little sparks and ashes were carried upwards by the wind illuminated the surrounding area.

The sound followed, like the lull between thunder and lightning. It was a ripping sound, something not explainable of the mortal world. Ragnar froze. It was the sound that followed however that petrified him; shouts of men, of angry men.

Ragnar stood and stared at them for too long, watching the congregation worship the fire. They seemed oblivious to his presence but we would approach them. He just had to think about what to say.

'Bow down before your King' came into his mind as he made the first steps but he didn't feel like one without a crown on his brow. He had given his away as soon as he stepped into the forest and his title had been crushed the minute he kissed La Belle Dame.

'Tell me where I am' was another that never made it to his lips.

As soon as he contemplated it the answer was made clear in his mind, he was stuck living in his biggest failure. The Viking settlement in England.

The sky was overcast, a world away from before and there was frost in the air that he couldn't feel but saw in the blades of grass at his feet as he slowly walked towards the crowd.

He did not want to be here. He had sworn to never think of this place again, it was a place limited to his nightmares.

The first body was to his right.

It lay not even ten paces away. Ragnar felt bile ruse in his throat but he couldn't turn himself away. King Ecbert lay on his side with shiny trails of blood still dripping from his mouth and a vine around his neck.

Ragnar forced himself to look away and glaze his eyes over as he tried to move towards the fire. Somehow his limp had amazingly started to cause him ever more pain. He moved slow and thus was forced to stare deeply at the next body.

This time the corpse lay with a thin twig protruding through the chest. But it was the large gaping open wound which had killed him. A slash from a sword that spilled blood onto his armour.

It was Erlender, son of King Horik; a Prince. He had the marks of lips on his cheek.

Ragnar swallowed and walked on, the Prince's discarded shield lay in his path. He stepped over it and carried on towards the noise.

The scene was a painful reminded of battle yet he felt neither victorious nor defeated. Instead he was looking at fallen brothers and warriors amongst faceless corpses.

None of these bodies should be here, this cursed settlement should not be their resting place amongst farmers that Ragnar doomed to die.

Next was Charles, the Emperor of Paris, who wore a crown of thorns on his head and a dead horrified look in his eyes as Ragnar tried not to look at his organs outside his body.

Still he walked on.

Yet it was the last corpse that disturbed Ragnar the most. Out of the Kings and Princes that came before this body was the least gruesome to look at initially. A fur skin covered the figure, curiosity got the best of Ragnar.

He thought about what other royalty he knew. Which King would lie alone in this wasteland never reaching the men by the fire

Removing the veil, it was the eyes that left Ragnar paralysed. The Viking felt fear, he felt sorrow but the feeling that brunt away at him was betrayal.

Bjorn Ironside lay on the ground covered with oozing red bee stings.

"My son,"

Ragnar whispered as he fell down to his knees and smoothed down Bjorn's blonde hair with hands that suddenly stared shaking,

"What have the Gods done to you my boy."

Ragnar's bottom lip quivered with the ghost of emotion. He could have spent eternity there, watching Bjorn's still chest and cursing the men that took away his son, but he couldn't.

The figures around the fire faced him, their facial features burned by the amber fire that stood between the two forces; the true Viking King and his warriors.

"La Belle Dame sans Merci,"

They cried in unison and Ragnar with one last gentle touch of Bjorn's chest, rose onto his unsteady feet.

Ragnar had recognised the name and his brain strove to make a connection, but none could form so no words left his lips.

Ragnar moved closer to them, step by step and just as they said the last words of their prophecy, the lovesick man saw their faces.

"Hath thee in thrall!"

There were four of them, bound to their spot on the Ground. They were pale, their bones somehow protruding through their sturdy figures and royal attire. They looked ill. They did not look the same as when the King has left.

They held bruises, cuts and tattoos that Ragnar had not thought they would, that he did not remember them having.

Ragnar was faced with the rest of his sons, yet they were older, they were not boys, they were young men.

However all were looking at him with twitching fingers ready to strangle him at a moment notice. Sigurd's eye deformity seemed to stare at Ragnar whilst Ubbe and Hvister tilted their necks at odd unnatural angles with bloodlust in their eyes.

Then there was Ivar. Boneless on Earth yet in this dream he could stand as taller than his father. Ragnar hid back a sob as the son he thought lost walked steadily towards him.

Despite Ragnar limited time with them a fathers love cannot be mistaken and Ragnar choked.

"Ivar..."

Ragnar's voice trailed off as Ivar squared up to his father.

The King put his two hands on the young man's shoulders, ready to do the thing he never would have dreamed doing to his deformed son; hug him.

Yet Ivar jaw was set and as he stood with his back to the fire and unmoved at his fathers touch. There was no Ivar present in this dream, it was only the things that nightmares are made of.

And they spoke to Ragnar, in a whisper from Ivar's mouth,

"La Belle Dame sans Merci, hath thee in thrall."

Ivar moved his hands and silently moved out of his fathers embrace. Then suddenly he let his body fall into the flames. It crashed into the bonfire, wood cracked under his weight and sparks flew onto his body as he lay there, motionless and quiet.

Ragnar had tried to catch him. instinctively he had let out a cry of shock and despair as he saw Ivar fall but the dream allowed his senses to come back. The fire danced on his skin fiercely and the pain stopped him from saving his son.

So Ragnar stared at another corpse. But he could no longer feel ill, he only felt empty. All his emotions were replaced with Ivar's last words being played on repeat.

Did she do all of this? Was the mysterious lady the one to blame?

Ragnar could not recall the moments before arriving here but the raven feathers that littered the fire gave him an uneasy feeling.

Was the lady a killer? And if she was, that fact made her like Ragnar, like all Vikings he has ever known and that made him hate her.

He had wanted the women to remain pure, to be better than him. He had wished for an angel but the black feathers and the weight of them were the only thing Ragnar could think of. But still he needed her. He had always needed her.

"La Belle Dame,"

Ragnar said to himself as his remaining two sons restarted their ritual,

"Help me."

La Belle Dame panicked as she watched Ragnar's body tremble and seize up in his nightmare. His forehead burned against the back of her hand.

She knew what she had to do; she had to leave.

Leaving him here would mean he could wake up and go back to his life. His life in Kattegat was waiting for him as he lay here in limbo. But despite that, despite La Belle Dame's only wanting the best for her love, she didn't plan on leaving.

La Belle Dame was stubborn when it came to her love of Ragnar, he was everything and that meant she couldn't even contemplate loosing him.

Her naivety meant that she could not see that staying with Ragnar meant she could never be with Ragnar.

If she leaves, the order of nature would be restored and she could pine over the image of Ragnar in the shadow but Ragnar would live.

The more time she spent condemning Ragnar to live in that dream the more of him she lost.

Ten more minutes she told herself, ten more minutes to be with the love of her life before her gift of life is taken away.

"Please?"

She murmured to the gods and they replied by letting a trickle of blood fall from Ragnar's mouth staining his chapped lips.

La Belle Dame wiped away the blood with her thumb, holding the King's face in her hand.

They made their message clear, La Belle Dame had crossed the line.

Instead of saving Ragnar, she was killing him.

Then she thought of something, an idea put into her head by the trickster Loki. If Ragnar does die he would live amongst the gods in Valhalla and nothing could stop them from being together.

The thought matched the black raven wings still flapping gently in her back. She would have to truly become La Belle Dame sans Merci.

She had decided. Love made her selfish, the world had made her selfish.

"Soon my love."

La Belle Dame sans Merci told Ragnar as she wiped away his tears of blood.