Re: Camp: Lagertha/Ragnar
She was still Lagertha. Of course, but hadn't she just come from somewhere that she was not herself? She had still had her mind, but the body that had housed it had been replaced, and that was as much a part of her as her thoughts. "I am myself until I am not," she said, voice so quiet that the words may have only been for herself. But he was close enough to hear them as they were murmured into the air. "Until the gods find that I should be another." She frowned then, the thought unsettling in the worst sort of way. She had lost so much, taken by the gods as they saw fit, and while she accepted it, had no choice but to do so, it never came as easy to her as it did to Ragnar. He had the strength and faith to trust in the gods and their whims. She sometimes thought that it was one of the reasons he loved Athelstan so much, and was loved in return: a shared strength of faith even though their gods were not the same.
Maybe it was that she wished for a little of that strength. Maybe it was that she was tired in so many ways and needed a moment to rest. Maybe it was that she finally realized how strange everything had become - strange places and strange time and even stranger people. Maybe it was just that he was familiar and that those years apart had done so little to make her stop missing him. Maybe it was that smile he gave her, the one that was true, the one that was kind. The one that had helped her to fall in love with him so long ago.
The physical distance between them was already small, sitting close near the still-dying fire. It didn't take a great deal of effort to shift her weight, close that distance so that her shoulder pressed against his arm. Even with the lean, she could feel the way he barely moved, a great rock in the center of whatever gods-born wind was tossing her life around. She tried to think of her husband (her current husband, not the man next to her who once was), tried to remind herself that she was a good and loyal wife. She tried to think of Ragnar's wife (his current wife, who had born him the sons he desired when she could not), tried to remind herself how it had felt to be the one betrayed.
But she had fought a creature with wings. She had been a different person. She had seen things that no one was meant to see. She had stepped into a place that was so strange, and had then been delivered back to something (someone) so familiar. It was like the position of the sun or stars, steady and true to re-right her course.
So she leaned against him. Closed her eyes. Breathed out slowly.