Boat dreams: Athelstan/Ragnar
The boat was not unknown to him, though it was different than the one he was currently on. Some things were still the same -- the ever present smell of fish, the sway it made on the waves, the lines that he knew.
He'd been growing his hair out and it was long enough now to tuck into a pony tail, but it was currently down as he stood at the bow of the ship. The English coastline was in front of him, but it was the one from centuries ago, not as it was now.
A modern ship in an ancient world, like a mirror image of reality that had been corrupted. "Ragnar," he whispered again, a name he had not been able to say, not even in his dreams for decades.
And then he heard him, a voice as welcome as the tug on a line, as that first minute of being back on a boat after leaving land behind. He couldn't help the smile, or the way his head ducked as Ragnar came up to stand beside him.
"You were always intended for greatness, Ragnar," he said quietly, glancing to him. "I have not--" met mine either, he finished only in his mind. He still believed, but it was a thread belief, interwoven with things that the Bible had not prepared him for, with the knowledge of Ragnar's Gods. "I would have liked to visit you."