Kingdom Come

XIV. Welcome To The Jungle

Welcome to the jungle, it gets worse here every day

You learn to live like an animal in the jungle where we play

If you got a hunger for what you see, you'll take it eventually

You can have anything you want, but you better not take it from me

Jaehaera walked through a campground in the early morning light, she didn't recognize the wood around her. She had never been here before, but the tent in front of her looked familiar. An obvious dane tent meant for an Earl, she had seen Ragnar's look like this before. Jaehaera looked at the world around her, there were no other tents. That's strange, where were the warriors? She thought. No birds were singing their songs in the trees, and there was no breeze. There was though, a taste in the air she had tasted before. Death.

Jaehaera cautiously walked toward the tent in front of her, her stomach dropping with each step she took. When she got closer she could see blood on either side of the opening, like someone's hands had been bloody when they had walked out. Carefully she walked inside and the sight before her was never one she wanted to see.

Ragnar, her only Uncle lay dead in his bed. His sword stuck in a woman's belly on the ground a few feet from him. "Ragnar?" Her voice broke, and tears formed. "Ragnar?" she walked to her uncle and knelt by him. He stared soullessly up at the tent above them. The life he had once been filled with was all gone from him. Jaehaera lowered her head as she sobbed, hugging her uncle one last time.

When she lifted her head she realized he had no sword in hand, no weapon. Quickly she pulled out her dagger and wrapped his lifeless hand around it. "Ragnar, take it," she commanded him. "Wrap your hand around it, Uncle, please," she sobbed. When she let go, the dagger and Rangar's hand fell onto the bed once more.

Jaehaera sobbed, "no!" She shook her head and tried again. "No! Ragnar!" Then her voice no longer sounded like her own, and she standing next to the bed, not kneeling.

She now looked at her aunt Brida on the bed above Ragnar, holding his lifeless body. Brida continued to call out brokenly for her husband, but he never woke.

"Jaehaera!" Sihtric's voice called to her and suddenly she was being sat up in bed. Finan, her father, Rickon, and Osferth also gathered around with worried faces. She had been shocked awake by Sihtric shaking her apparently, as he held her in his arms. Jaehaera broke down in sobs. "Jaehaera, it's alright, it was only a dream love," Sihtric soothed as he held her close to him, brushing her hair lightly.

Jaehaera continued to sob and hyperventilate in his arms and she felt her father take Sihtric's place holding her. He rocked her gently and hushed her like he had when she had had nightmares at a young age. "Shh," Uhtred whispered gently as he rubbed her back and held her.

"Ragnar," she sobbed against her father's chest. Sihtric kept his hand on her leg gently as he knelt next to the bed as she had in her dream. The others watched on, faces never changing. "Ragnar, he is," she could barely get it out.

"It's alright, I've got you," Uhtred whispered to her. Uhtred nodded to the others to give them the okay to leave. "Breathe, darling, breathe please," he commanded the girl gently and she did. She matched her breaths to her fathers, as she began to calm down. "What about Ragnar?"

She couldn't bear to say it, she didn't even know if it was true. She had only ever experienced this once when she had been little. She had seen her grandparents passing having never been told before then. It had also been like this, a nightmare. "Ragnar is dead," she whispered. So soft Uhtred barely heard it, and his stomach fell wishing he hadn't. He held his daughter tighter as he brushed her hair through his fingers. "He's not in Valhalla, I can't feel him like Old Ragnar and mother."