Re: Sigvard's Hall: Lagertha/Ragnar
It was true that things had changed for her when she had left Kattegat. She was a woman without a husband, one with a son that needed caring for. She had needed to weigh her options at hand and make the choice that needed to be made. She had needed to become a more careful sort of wife, one that placed her steps with great thought lest she misstep and find herself (and her son) out in the cold.
She did what was best for her son. She always had.
With Bjorn gone (missing, hopefully someday to return), she found the disgust for her husband rising in the back of her throat. He had become worse over the last years, complacent and drunk and cowardly. He let others do his work for him while he remained in this hall and poured ale down his throat. She had convinced herself, somehow, that it was not so bad. That while he was hardly the greatest man out there, he was good enough. But now, seeing him with Ragnar at her back, her side, her husband turned her stomach.
She nearly turned and stalked again from the hall to leave him behind, to avoid whatever it was that would happen, but then Ragnar was stepping forward, speaking. And those words, the tone, made her fingers twitch in memory of where her knife sat on her belt. They were proper and even, respectful in meaning. But she had known Ragnar for too long to be fooled. She knew how his temper ran, how he measured a man and made judgement swiftly. And then acted on it. There was blood in his voice, and she watched as he stepped forward.
Obvious to her, the violence behind his words, and obvious enough to some of those who sat in the hall, their eyes wary even as those among the edges began to surreptitiously slip away. But Sigvard knew nothing but the words and his own drunken insecurities. Those internal voices that whispered the truths of his wife's feelings for her previous husband. His eyes did their best to focus on Ragnar, to truly see the man before opening his mouth to speak again. "She dares to bring you here? After taking my fighters and my son and depriving me of my wife, she brings you here?!" Even as he began to rave, Lagertha stepped forward, more steps than Ragnar, to place herself between him and Sigvard, already with words on her lips to attempt to calm. "Husband, he speaks only the truth. I have told him of you. Told him of the man I choose to be with now. He wished to visit your hall to meet you."