Re: Dinner: Athelstan and Ragnar
"You would have taken them with you," Athelstan said. There were ways, and he knew that if Ragnar could survive losing them, he would have found a way to keep them. Found a way to make them return to him as others had, as Athelstan himself had.
"Sit and look pretty?" He squawked and laughed. Never in his life -- "I have never sat anywhere and looked pretty--" he laughed. "You could do your own laundry then, I remember watching you and Lagertha do it together." And remembered, as well, that sometimes the laundry would not get done and the water would be everywhere because they had sex in the tub.
Then it had been his responsibility to do the laundry. He smiled at the memory, but he followed Ragnar into the kitchen, because he wasn't going to sit anywhere and be pretty.
"I want to be here with you, Ragnar. That hasn't changed." Some things had changed, some things he knew now that he hadn't known then, but some things were unchanged, as much a part of him as his memories and the breath in his lungs.