Don't realize how mean I can be [Kettil]

Yrsa had been feeling badly about the way she’d left things with Kettil after their conversation by the waterfall. She was the sort of person who didn’t like upsetting others, even if she believed everything she’d said was true and completely justified. She recalled her confusion when Kettil told her he let Gerolf talk down to him, because he was his brother and he respected him. And that hadn’t made any sense to her at all. She loved and respected her brother, but if he ever treated her the way Gerolf treated Kettil, she’d have smacked him in the head and told him to get over himself. So she simply didn’t understand their relationship, but could admit that it really wasn’t any of her business.

After running into Gerolf at the market a couple days ago, when he’d been picking out a puppy to give to Kettil, Yrsa had decided to go and stop by the stables and try to remedy the situation. Hopefully he wouldn’t hold her loud mouth against her for too long. Plus, she really wanted to play with his puppy.

Arriving at the stables in the early afternoon, with her own puppies trailing closely after her, she spotted the dark haired man and sent him a friendly smile. “Hey, Kettil,” she greeted pleasantly, hoping he was in a good mood. If he was like her when it came to animals, and she was fairly certain that he was, it would be hard for him to be in a bad mood surrounded by the horses he was caring for. "How's the puppy?" she wondered, hoping he'd be nearby so she could say hello. 

Deciding to jump right into it, because Yrsa had never been good at idle small talk when she had something on her mind, she continued, “I’m really sorry about what I said before, at the waterfall. I didn’t mean to be rude.” Hopefully that would be enough to patch things up a bit for now, because she had something she really wanted to talk to him about, but if he was still mad at her, it probably wouldn’t go over well. And if he happened to tell Gerolf, well… she’d have more than one angry Hagensson on her case, that was certain.

As usual Kettil was hanging in and around the stable. Today he had to take care of the horse gear, check if there were any cracks in the leather and use pig fat to keep it flexible. Now Rigas was gone the village was in a fragile position, and if they were to be attacked, Gunnvor wanted the horses ready. If not for fighting, then for.. But that was not what Kettil was breaking his head over. There were so many things going on in his head. The last few weeks were very.. confusing for him. His meeting with Asny, Gerolf acting weird about his next destination, the redhead.. He was so sunken in thoughts that he was startled when somebody spoke his name. Vegard looked up from the pieces of straw he was chewing on. Immediately the pup found his feet. In fact he looked more like a bear cub than a mut. His hair was just all over the place. Kettil looked up to see who was calling is name, and then he saw the familiar face of Yrsa. ”How’s the puppy?” Vegard barked, as if he understood the girl was looking for him. He jumped up and the straw in the stable rustled. ”Look for yourself.” Kettil said with a gentle smile as he tried to hide the fact that she startled him. He turned his shoulders and pointed towards the empty horse stable. The stable door was open but the entrance was blocked by some buckets. Kettil couldn’t keep an eye on the pup the entire time because of the work he needed to do. But the mut could well entertain himself in the straw.

Kettil was looking at the little ball of brown as he jumped up against the big buckets but couldn’t manage to push him over. Yrsa’s pups jumped up against the other side of the buckets, trying to reach Vegard. And then Yrsa spoke again. ”I’m really sorry about what I said before, at the waterfall. I didn’t mean to be rude.” When he heard those words he looked right back at her and frowned his forehead. ”You do not need to apologize.” He said with a little nod. It was a sensitive topic for him, but he also knew that he had to learn to feel more confident about himself. Life isn’t about running away from the truth, it is about facing the truth. By the look on his face it was visible that he meant his words. ”Think about my brother whatever you want and I think mine. We are free to have our own thoughts, but we need to be thoughtful when we turn them into speech.” He inhaled deeply and tried to raise the corner of his mouth. And then he saw Yrsa looking at the pup.. there was this spark in her eyes when she looked at the animal that he had never seen before. A spark that was in his eyes all the same, but he just didn’t knew. ”His name is Vegard.” Kettil said as he crouched and started to pet the puppies by Yrsa’s side. He chuckled softly when they jumped up against his knees and tried to lick him in the face. ”And these are?” Playfully he pushed one pup over and started to scratch his on his belly.

Almost as soon as she’d asked how his puppy was, the little thing had started barking and Yrsa grinned at Kettil. When he told her to see for herself and pointed towards an empty stable, she hurried over, now that she’d gotten permission. She immediately started laughing at the state he was in, his hair all over the place, clearly enjoying himself while playing in the straw. He started jumping against the buckets, trying to get out. Aksel & Aleksia were trying to investigate, wanting to get inside to play with him about as badly as he wanted to get to them.

“Can I let them in?” she wondered, not wanting to let the other pup out of the stable, in case he was likely to bolt. Kettil hadn’t had him for very long yet, so she couldn’t say how his training was coming. She’d happily toss her own pups in and let them play in there were she wouldn’t have too much to worry about them.

After she apologized, Kettil told her it was unnecessary, but she still felt bad. And then he basically told her to be careful what you say to people and she knew he was right, even if she didn’t enjoy being scolded. She shrugged at him. “Well, I’d want to fight someone if they said something rude about my brother, so I should’ve kept out of it.” Which was true. In fact, she had picked fights with people for saying rude things about her brother before. And with people for saying rude things about her mother. To be honest, it was fairly easy for her to pick fights when she enjoyed fighting so much.

But then Kettil was telling her the puppy’s name, and she watched as her pups attempted to befriend him. “That one’s Aksel,” she told him, pointing to the one whose belly he was scratching. “And this is Aleksia,” she added, grinning as she pointed to the little girl puppy who was still trying to get inside the stable.

Turning to Kettil, Yrsa fell quiet for a long moment, trying to decide if she should bother trying to interfere in his life again. The intelligent part of her brain told her ‘no, he’d probably just shut her down again for not minding her own damn business.’ But the rest of her brain told her to do it anyway because she was a nice person and even if he did shut her down, at least she’d made the offer. She picked that part.

“So, I may have overheard more of your conversation at the waterfall than I’d originally let on,” she began, trying to read his face to judge his reactions, but she found he wasn’t exactly the most expressive person, which didn’t help her out at all. “If you wanted to learn how to fight, maybe I could help?” She wasn’t really sure why she was even sticking her neck out like this, to be completely honest. If Gerolf ever found out, he’d probably try to kill her. Though, there were some days she honestly wished he’d try it. She was just reckless enough to face him. “But if you’re not interested, can I still stay and play with your puppy?” She added, hoping to lighten the mood in case he got mad at her for sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong. Again.

Yrsa asked if she could let her pups in with Vegar, and Kettil nodded. At the same time he took the bucket to the side, and all the pups jumped onto eachother. Vegar had followed him around the entire day, and bolting was one of the last things the pup would do. But him sticking around his legs like they were covered in glue, prevented him from doing all of his work. So he had put the pup in one of the empty stables, because he knew he would be able to have fun there by himself. All the straw that was in his fur, only emphasized that. With a gentle smile he looked at the dogs, but that smile slowly disappeared when Yrsa spoke again. ”Well, I’d want to fight someone if they said something rude about my brother, so I should’ve kept out if it.” Kettil raised his shoulders. ”I was mad indeed, but I would never pick a fight over something like that. I would never pick a fight over anything, in fact. Because I would already know the outcome of that.” Again he raised his shoulders and sighed deeply. The only thing he was good at, was running from his problems, just as he had done by the waterfall.

Yrsa introduced her pups to Kettil, and he crouched to pet one of them -which appeared to be Aksel- over the belly. The little pup placed his teeth playfully in his hand and jumped back up, only to be pushed over by Kettil again. The wagging of all the three tails made his heart melt in an unexplainable way. Animals had such a calming influence on him. When Yrsa spoke, he turned his head towards her and tried to focus on her eyes. He frowned his eyebrows when she told him that she had overheard something more about their conversation. And her offer came very unexpected. ”If you wanted to learn how to fight, maybe I could help?” Kettil scraped his throat and found his feet again. In the meantime all of the pups were playing in the straw. Kettil pointed his eyes to the ground and thought about her words while he felt a nauseous feeling coming up in his head. Was this the moment that could change his life? ”But if you’re not interested, can I still stay and play with your puppy?” He looked at the pups for a second again, but wasn’t really focused on that part of her sentence. ”Is this an offer that needs an answer right now?” He asked her softly and scratched over the back of his neck, obviously sunken in thoughts. ”I would..” He swallowed away the words and closed his eyes for a second. By the Gods, why was this so hard? ”Why would you want to help me anyway? What do you care about my life?” Kettil felt a certain anger raise up again, even though he knew it was wrong to take it out on her. It was just, his powerlessness, all his weaknesses, it made him loose his mind sometimes.

Yrsa was trying her hardest not to force her friendship onto Kettil. If he wasn’t interested, he wasn’t interested, and she wasn’t too worried about it. But she liked people, and she knew decent people when she spotted them. Anyone who liked animals as much as he did had to be a decent person, right? Naturally. The problem with trying to befriend Kettil was that he thought about things in a very different way than she did. He seemed inclined to more negative thoughts while she didn’t waste her time on them in the least. For example, his answer to her about how he’d been mad at her for the things she’d said about Gerolf. He seemed to have a rather low opinion of himself, and while she could easily blame that on Gerolf, she just couldn’t understand it.

She’d run into this same problem with her own brother, when she’d gone to Kattegat to visit him during the harvest feast. His insecurities and self doubt had had her scolding him right there in the great hall because she hadn’t liked the way he spoke about himself, and she simply couldn’t understand why it was so hard for him to just be confident in himself. Luckily, now that she’d had that experience with Garth, it was a little easier for her to not just blurt out every borderline rude thought she had in regards to Kettil’s comments.

The pups seemed to like him, and she quite liked his, and everyone was getting along, so she didn’t want to ruin it by making Kettil mad again. Plus, she really didn’t like it when people were mad at her. But it was comments like that one that had made her mind up about offering to help him learn to fight.

He asked if her offer needed an immediate answer and she shook her head at him. “Not at all. I just… got the feeling you might be interested and wanted to ask about it.” Yrsa kept her eyes on him, trying to read his reaction through his body language. The good news was, he wasn’t glaring or yelling at her, so he couldn’t be too angry. The bad news was, that was about all she could figure out about it at the moment. He said he would, though, and Yrsa grinned at him. That was a step in the right direction, she decided.

His next few questions were not so polite, though, and she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow and tilt her head at him in a mildly irritated fashion. Like, sure, they weren’t exactly the best of friends, but she was a nice person, and she wanted to help. What could he possibly find so suspicious about that? “Is it really that hard to believe that I just want to help?” She wondered aloud, more than a little done with his attitude. One time, she’d said something rude about his legitimately insane brother, and she felt like he was really holding a grudge about it. “If you want to learn to fight, and don’t have any way to do it, I am willing to help you.” She shrugged at him. “If you’re not interested, or need some time to think about it, that’s fine too.” It’s not like she had a very full schedule or anything.