"I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She looked at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan"

How can you fix something that is already broken?"

La Belle Dame asked the King who was still grasping her arm, his hands large and scabbed at the knuckles.

"I can try."

He told her, something about her had changed Ragnar. She had messed with his emotions, making him feel things he truly thought he would never feel again; happiness. It may be superficial for now but it was something.

La Belle Dame raised an eyebrow as his eyes scanned the surroundings looking for a splatter of summer colour in the monochrome world.

"What bothers you?"

The maiden asked.

"The weather bothers me."

He told her as he spotted what he longed for; flowers. They were a pale and dainty white with petals delicately floating in the breeze. Ragnar watched as one swam down to the ground, getting caught in the wind and lifting before falling again.

"How would you change it?"

The women asked, she was not fond of winter. It reminded her of cold days when she only wanted Ragnar's warmth and not the fire that raged in whatever room he was in.

"I would stop the frost."

He led both of them out of the water.

"You cannot stop Ullir."

La Belle Dame spoke from experience. She had begged the God of Winter to look favourably on Ragnar, to bade the season away for his toughest year, instead he has pushed more snow upon Kattegat and a heavier heart on the maiden. But for now, La Belle Dame managed to melt the frost just for the King.

"I would love to try, when I finally meet him."

His resolve was there but he decided he would rather lie down a little longer with the women. He gently pushed her down with him onto the grass, the sound of her dress rustling was music to his ears. He had grown numb to it before as it meant Aslaug was near, Lagertha never wore such a thing.

"Do not tempt fate Ragnar Lothbrok."

She warned him, running her hands over the blades glistening with water droplets.

The Viking sat down too quickly, his side Sharp in pain and he groaned. La Belle Dame started to rise to help him, but Ragnar stopped her with a simple turn of his hand. He turned away the help because he was a Viking; strong and stoic.

"I think the Gods are tempting me up to Valhalla."

He gave his signature smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes and gave off a slight aura of madness.

The maiden wished to tell him the lengths the gods were going to keep Ragnar alive and the strength it took her to believe she was defying them.

Lying down far from his usual place by the water Ragnar turned to his front and propped himself on his elbows. Flowers lay all around him and the women, they smelled delicious; fresh and pure. His nose itched. The craving was back; he needed a high.

It was a feeling always at the back of his mind but as he picked a flower and smelled it, the addiction took control. The aroma of this certain flower was as sweet as bubbling honey, it couldn't satisfy him. He wanted spice; he needed burning fire.

"What are you doing?"

La Belle Dame asked as she too smelled a picked flowers, her lungs filling with the sweetness of tea and the colours of pink and white.

Ragnar immediately snapped his head towards her and the sudden phrensy of emotion in his eyes unsettled her,

"Nothing. Just a memory."

"Sometimes it is best to forget memories."

She advised.

"They are memories for a reason, you only remember the things that are important in life."

Ragnar counter-argued as he split the stalk of a flower clean through, his fingers being too broad and heavy for delicate work.

He clenched then into a fist for a moment but then uncoiled them, he was better than this. He was better than the medicine his slave had intoxicated him with.

"Importance doesn't equal happiness,"

She said as she watched his next attempt at splitting the stalk, she laughed slightly as just a drop of his strength completely destroyed the daisy,

"Now what are you doing?"

"You want to be less plain, yes? Then I am going to help you,"

He picked another daisy and pulled her hand over, dropping it in the centre,

"You split these and I will thread them."

She nodded slightly and did as instructed. It was the simplest of tasks that enabled the pair to talk as they completed it.

"I did not think a King would know how to make flower garlands."

La Belle Dame noted as her fingernails turned slightly brown with dirt.

"I did not think I would meet a women who wanted any,"

Ragnar laughed slightly at himself and the girl couldn't breath for a second,

"You do know you are not plain at all."

"I am not as pretty as either of your wives."

She told him, looking down. It wasn't true, La Belle Dame was dainty and fairy like. She wasn't a warrior like the other two, she was different.

The reason she thought she wasn't was the Gods, they oppressed the feeling of self-love in the girl, making her rely solely on Ragnar Lothbrok like a life support.

"All of you have your own type of beauty."

He commented, he fell for Aslaug's beauty and paid the price. Yet at this moment, he fears that he might fall hard for this women's eyes and smile yet never have to pay for it. He was wrong.

"Do you think I'm beautiful?"

She asked timidly, as he finished a flower garland for her head.

Ragnar looked at it in his hands, it was so pure against his dirty and scarred tissue. He lifted it up and delicately placed it on her, crowning her frizzy red hair that wrapped around the daisy petals and set them on fire.

His hands lingered a second, he knew what was coming. A longing that he hadn't fed for what seemed like years, a need that caused his downfall, that lead to him to here. His lust.

He traced his finger down her jaw and then finished at her chin, pinching it slightly. He was stronger than he thought, but it was him fighting with his emotions; he shouldn't but, oh, how he wanted to. He wanted to pull the strangers lips that he felt he knew into his own. To taste them and let himself fall into her. But he shouldn't and so he didn't.

Then their eyes connected and Ragnar saw his future and his past in the women. He saw it all and more in the way they glimmered in the sunlight and the way they watched him and glanced down at his lips.

Ragnar Lothbrok shouldn't commit his soul to this new form of torture, worse than any isolation that came before it. Yet he has shunned all of this doubt from his mind and changed the course of events to the one this story follows.

"You are beautiful."

He whispered, she had already closed her eyes, trying to savour every syllable that came from his mouth. And so she did not see when Ragnar gently began to place his lips onto hers but her sight was replaced with the sensations that shot across her body.

His hand on her neck slowly grazing through her hair and La Belle Dame was stunned. She had never felt so alive, she had never been so human. She was the one who couldn't react. She couldn't decipher the messages and voices in her head.

The gods told her to let go and leave, Ragnar would follow her back to civilisation. Or they told her to hold on and to enthral him even more until the Viking could no longer stand his solitude.

But La Belle Dame's voice was stronger. She was stronger than they all knew and so she listened to the small whisper that told her to kiss him with no inhibitions.

So she kissed Ragnar with the simmering passion of two hundred years of waiting in the shadows.