Bliss wasn't a resting state Bonnie ever claimed with ease. More times than not blood shed drenched every attempt made to partake in such a notion. For tranquility never came to her without donning price tags. Yet despite the sky falling all around them she and her husband discovered the unattainable. A true moment of contentment in the other's arms.

Risings slipped by, and neither of them noticed not. Together they squandered countless grains of sand through the hour glass in bed. Each dedicated infinite moments to rediscovering the other. He fondled her essence and strummed her emotions. She in turn fingered his heart, conquered his body by the most savage carnal means, and thoroughly killed his mind with tongue plunging unfiltered verities. Her mouth feasted upon him as if it lingered at the threshold of starvation, while his touch snatched her Midgard from a land of devastation and pain into a bountiful utopia of orgasmic gain. Truth be told to young and old, the jones his stroke game sparked in her, she likened to a full blown Viking Era crack addiction.

Time bled together in a kaleidoscope of euphoric occurrences as they attempted to make up for fifty-eleven summers of missed opportunities. Both desperate and reckless in their endeavor to cement their bond. Never again would they be torn apart. Separation was no longer an option.

Even now they lay in bed clinging to the other. As if one of them may slip beyond the other's grasp. There, alone, they tore down walls which had divided them for solstice cycles. With every truth spoken or secret uttered a barricade collapsed. Fear, insecurity, and animosity no longer burned her when she thought to love Bjorn Ironside. For now the only flames which consumed her were stoked by the unrelenting igniting of his emotional and bodily affection. They melded together in a blend subsisting as something new. Goddess for the eternal life of her, she didn't know where Bjorn ended and she began.

In terms of hindsight being the damn business, she should've married him years ago. They'd wasted so much time. Now they'd given themselves to one another the dwindling sands of the hourglass hit more like a countdown clock than a measuring of time. In one ill-fated moment everything they'd gained could be ripped asunder by a point of a blade. Those thoughts stalked her from the darkest crevices of her mind. Hels, those thoughts cast shadows in a place which should've known only light.

Warm lips pressed themselves to her forehead. "What are you thinking?" Bjorn's chest rumbled underneath her cheek as his fingers stroked the dip in her lower back.

"How much I'm gonna miss this when we're forced to go back to Midgard," she murmured, before pressing a kiss to his nipple.

"Ah," he uttered as his hand rose to tangle itself in the hair at the back of her head. In slow gentle motions he began to massage her scalp. Flutters stirring just south of her navel provoked her to grind herself into his hip. A smirk curved his lips, while he reached down to settle her on top of him. "It isn't my wish to return before we've indulged in our full moon of honey either. Yet you have my word I shall repay the moments pilfered from us."

"If only such a feat were possible, Viking." She balanced her chin on his chest to look up at him. "For if it were, I'd ask for the thirteen summers worth of the moments I pilfered away every time I made up a reason not to reach for you or love you. I was so stupid to fight this...to fight you...especially when all roads in the end led right back to you."

"Ack, vexing you were," he scoffed, before leaning forward to peck her lips, "mulish to a fault, undeniably so, but stupid?" He shook his head. "Never. Yet you should've known all seas and pathways would end with us because I never doubted it."

"Really?" She shaded him with a bit of the side eye. For she remembered a time when he'd chucked deuces and his heart never looked back. "Even while you were living your best life in the Mediterranean without me?"

Arrogance and entitlement made a masterpiece of his features. "Even then!"

"Hmph," Her eyes rolled as she flicked one of his nipples. "Right."

"Bonnie," The levity faded from his stare as his expression took a stroke level turn, "What came of Hvitserk?"

She took a sip of air as her gaze left his to regard the headboard. Damn, Hvits was not the subject she wanted to discuss on her honeymoon. Yet Bjorn had a right to know. "He rejoined his path."

"After everything...everything he and Ivar has done, how could you offer him your forgiveness?" He asked, tugging at her chin until her eyes met his once again. Instead of anger or resentment kindling those electric depths, only genuine confusion resided there. "Your babe-,"

"Is the reason I couldn't watch him burn," she said with more fierceness than she intended. Yet despite her added spiciness the look of patience upon his face remained forthcoming. Gaslit shame flamed her ass. She pulled out of his embrace and sat up. Drawing her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around her legs. Her gaze drifted to the smoldering embers of the hearth that lit the room in a warm glow. "Faith wouldn't have wanted that end for him," she continued in a softer tone, "it wouldn't have brought her back or rebuilt me into who I use to be." Calloused fingers stroked the length of her spine. "His death would've been nothing more than added loss to what's already gone."

"I should've never—had I known-," he began.

"I can still smell her," she uttered. Her mind drifted back to the memory she could never seem to outrun. "I can still feel her slight weight in my arms, the softness of her skin..." Her vision blurred. Ayana's voice rebounded within the walls of her mind. The babe is still. "The babe is still..." Searing liquid agony overcame her lower lids, "It's what Ayana said after Faith was born. The babe is still...hmph, four words...those four words broke me. Broke me better than I'm sure Ragnarök will."

Bjorn gathered her close to his chest, and then pressed his lips to the nape of her neck. "You've always been there when I've had need of you most. Though I wasn't here before, I'm with you now and your grief is not yours to shoulder alone, it never was. Your burdens have always been mine." He rested his forehead at the side of hers, before pressing his lips to the hollow of her cheek. "So be at ease while I suffer the girth of them. For it is a task I'll continue to undertake until my path leads me to the gates of Valhalla. And I'll do so with honor if it means you'll know even a moment of respite." His arms tightened around her. "On this my vow is yours, Mystical One."

****

Ivar walked alongside Hvitserk and Igor in the marketplace. Together they threaded through the throng of citizens and foreigners alike. Although many things of wonder met their sight, the boy's face rested in a state of stoicism. Yet his bright searching stare darted about the various tables. Noticing Igor had taken a keen interest in the wood works to the left of them, he guided them over to the market table. Hvitserk, adrift in his thoughts, followed.

The man behind the counter engaged Igor by showing him several different string pulled wooden dolls. As the boy looked over the wares, Ivar watched Hvitserk from the cut of his eye. Again he wondered about his brother's banishment, and the time he spent with Bonnie. Though she'd settled a hefty sum of disdain upon Hvitserk when she'd relinquished his brother back into his custody, Ivar sensed something more may have transpired between the two.

While Igor remained distracted, he full on turned to regard his brother. "So Lagertha finally met her end, and you brother are responsible for her demise."

"Yes," Hvitserk answered in a lowered tone filched of care, his gaze flitted to various items on the table. "Yet keep hold of your gratitude, Ivar. I didn't slaughter her for the wrongs she committed against our mother. The gods manipulated her end for their own purposes, and I was but a pawn in their sports."

His lips pursed and brow rose as his head dipped in a nod. "It matters not the motives behind her end, I only care that her walk upon Midgard is done. For the gods were just, the murdering bitch received no more than she deserved." He paused for a moment, before continuing on to the point which really beheld his interest. "Yet there's one matter in which I struggle to discover sense."

"Hm," Hvitserk cast his gaze away to regard a gilded wooden doll with yield pigmented hair and aqua jeweled stone eyes. "And which matter would that be?"

"Why did Bonnie follow you into banishment?"

For a long moment Hvitserk didn't speak. He instead ran his finger over the doll's face. Even lifting the bauble for a closer scrutiny. Just when he believed his brother wouldn't answer Hvitserk spoke, "I'm uncertain."

Ivar opened his mouth to press him for more of an explanation, but a palace servant moved to occupy the space between he and Hvitserk.

"Pardon me, King Ivar," the woman said, not sparing his brother a glance. "Princess Katia requests you join her in her quarters for mid meal."

Before he could beg off from such a meeting, the handmaiden scurried away, disappearing into the moving sea of bodies.

****

"Now hold it just so," Bjorn whispered in his wife's ear as he stood at her back instructing her on the proper way to hold a fishing spear.

"Like this?" She questioned, while attempting to glance back at him.

With his hands gripping hers and his body pressed to her back, he held her in place, halting her from turning. "Yes, just so, and restrain from moving about, you don't want to frighten the fish."

"No," she muttered under her breath, while her gaze scanned the water in the inlet, "we wouldn't want that."

As she busied herself with searching for her bounty his hands slipped from hers to go in search of his. His palms slid from her arms to cover her breasts. Her breath caught, and then her body squirmed against his. In slow tormenting sways, her hips moved from side to side.

A groan shook the base of his throat. "Don't stir, Mystical One," he growled, while in turn pinching a berry worthy nipple. "You'd do well not to misremember your aim." He palmed her other breast.

"Bjorn." His name fell from her lips tangled in a gasping moan.

As he allowed a hand to roam down her stomach he said, "I shall miss these risings once we seek our leave on the morrow. Yet I try not to mourn overmuch, since I know we have a lifetime of these risings for which to look forward."

His hand stalled over her flat belly as the thought of filling her with his babe tempted him. Gods how he loved this woman. There was no pondering why none of his other joining's ever took root within his chest. For she'd staked her claim upon his heart far before any other had the opportunity. If only he'd fought harder back then to make her sight what he'd already known. Then perhaps those misused moments would be filled with their children and joyfulness. Instead of a vastness of regrets. Yet he meant every word he'd spoken to her afore. He intended to care for her more, love her harder even. For he wanted to make up for all the times when they'd neglected to love at all.

"I wish for more children," he uttered as his hand continued to caress her stomach, "and I want nothing more than to fill your womb with every one of them."

Bonnie remained silent for several grains of sand through the hour glass, before she finally whispered, "I want that too," she craned her neck to peer at him over her shoulder, "but only after we've decimated the invaders who threaten our shores. I'll not offer our enemies an easy win this time around. In this dance, they'll get nothing but the c-walking best of me."

"Very well, then let us slaughter them all so we may bring our babes into a Midgard that knows nothing other than peace," he agreed as he pushed two fingers into her.

A low guttural moan clawed its way up from the pits of her gullet. "Oooh...fuck me real slow," she hissed, splaying her legs wide to offer him more of the bounty he sought.

"Slow but hard," he growled next to her ear, "just as we both favor it."

The fishing spear slipped from her hold. She turned about within his arms to capture his mouth with hers. With ease he lifted her, and then angled them back towards the shore. He wanted nothing more than to take his first meal of the rising on the stone table back in the cabin.

****

Katia had just knelt in front of the table for mid meal when Ivar entered her quarters. Without consent her gaze wandered over his strong but flawed form. Though flawed in form he remained one of the most captivating men she'd ever encountered. Every turn of phrase he thought to utter or foreign eccentricity he moved to convey compelled her beyond sound means. His presence alone motivated each one of her passing risings. Regrettably, however, she believed herself to move him not at all. A belief he more than confirmed whenever their paths had the fortune...or misfortune to collide. Now after all the crossings she'd burned to dwell within the land of the Rus, she couldn't help but ponder if she'd committed a misstep.

When Oleg lured her from her father's kingdom and protection, he'd offered her something she'd never known within her sire's walls. He'd offered her freedom. Freedom to live her life by any means she chose. Being a woman...a princess even, didn't allow her many options. So his offer of escape seduced her in a way other declarations of affections had spectacularly failed. Though Oleg's proposal came with a price she'd chosen him without much deliberation. And now there she sat facing a man one and all knew as the Boneless king daring him to find favor in her. By the gods...or god!

"I was told you wanted me to attend you, Princess Katia," he uttered in a leaden tone.

She waved a hand at the table adorned with mid meal. "Please, King Ivar, sit."

"Why do you insist on referring to me as king," he hissed as he took a step closer to the table, "when you and I both know I no longer have a kingdom to claim. Is it your meaning to mock me or pander for favor. For I assure I have not a mind to offer you consideration for either."

"Hmph, I assure you, King Ivar," she said, putting an emphasis on king, "I reserve disrespect for the deserving and pander is one of the few languages in which my tongue is not fluent. When I refer to you as king, I only mean to afford you the title your exploits and presence demands. By the Gods man, you almost brought to heel the entire shitty wetlands of England! Who before you can claim such a feat? Certainly not Wessex's ailing King Alfred."

His glare searched her face, before glancing down to inspect the contents of the table. At the completion of his assessment he then took great efforts to sit upon the cushioned pillows. Aiming his chin toward the ceiling he stared down his nose at her. Ignoring his curtness, she filled a small China cup with the dark fluid her handmaiden acquired from the marketplace.

As she placed it before him, his narrowed stare flared. Disdain corrupted his features as he waved a hand at the cup. "As I told you afore, I do not favor tea."

"A verity of which I'm still very much aware." She gestured towards the setting before her. "That is why I refrained from offering it to you. Mine is tea, while yours is the foreign beverage you spoke of to me."

His stare narrowed once more. "Coffee?"

"Yes," she huffed, while endeavoring not to roll her eyes.

His glare searched her face for a moment. At the conclusion of his scrutiny he lifted the cup to his lips, and then sipped from its rim. Soon as the brew filled his mouth his face turned in on itself. A series of gags and hacking coughs shook his chest. The liquid sludge shot from his mouth onto the table, and the floor.

Slamming the cup back down to the table his glare rediscovered her bulging stare. "Is it your mind to poison me, Princess Katia?"

"Poison?" Shocked she snatched the cup from in front of him and sipped from the delicate rim. A foul bitterness tainted her tongue. Foulness which could only be likened to the hind end leavings of a horse. Just as King Ivar did before her, she spit the coffee to the floor. "Are you cracked? That's shit not poison!"

For several moments he stared at her with a bulging stare, while she in turn braced herself for the most blistering side of his ire. Yet instead of unhinging his jaw and devouring her whole, he did something of which she thought him incapable. He tossed his head back and...laughed? The sight snatched her mouth wide, and nigh relieved her head of her eyes. Which of course only provoked him to cackle louder.

"What is wrong with you?" He managed to utter through wheezes.

Her mouth flapped opened and closed several times before producing sound. "Wrong with me?"

"Woman, I tell you it's poison and your initial mind is to drink from the chalice as well?"

She opened her mouth to argue her point, but his sound reasoning snatched her lips back together. Grudgingly, she admitted, "I see your point."

Her admission doubled him over in another fit. Discarding her prim breeding, for a more laxed state, she waved over her handmaiden. "Bring the Kvass, Vada," she instructed, and then turned back to regard him. "If we're to pass from this life to the next due to shit poisoning I'd rather travel beyond the veil a bit out of sorts, wouldn't you?"

Her inquiry only incited more laughter on his part.