Soon, I was helping Roana put the hatchling Night Fury back inside its mother so that they both could be cremated together. Aside from asking for suture thread and a needle to sew the incision on the mother loosely closed, Roana wasn't saying a word. After she had finished, she simply laid a bloodied hand on the dragon's black abdomen, bowed her head and tearfully whispered, "Ek er hryggr."
Another Night Fury broke through the crowd around us, with a sudden look of shock and sadness now on its face. I presumed this was Blóm's mate.
"Ek er svo hryggr," Roana now said, turning to him, still on her knees and bowing her head deeply. This Night Fury moved to gently nudge her, closing his own eyes as he did.
I was at an utter loss as to what to do for her, for either of them, as I watched. Finally, I turned away for a moment, only to find the huge, tooth-filled snout and head of a red Nightmare dragon staring me in the face. It proceeded to grunt at me, looking me square in the eye.
"This is Árvekni or 'Vigilance', our Great Guardian," Roana explained behind me. "He knows who you are, and is saying you have come just in time . . . that our need for you is great. He is thanking you for coming."
I looked down, bowing my head somewhat and not knowing what to say. Then I heard the dragon grunting over my head, presumably towards Roana.
"He is asking me what is wrong with you?" she relayed to me. "He's wondering if he is mistaken, if you are staying? What can I tell him?"
"I don't know yet," I reluctantly said with my head still bowed.
"Lance," Roana objected. "We need you . . . and I want you. These dragons will continue dying without your help."
"I know," I slowly replied, looking at the ground, vacantly staring practically right at the huge curved black talons of the Nightmare in front of me. "I need time to think."
"No you don't," she sadly countered. "You know the right thing to do here, Lance. Why can't you do it?"
"Because this isn't the freedom and choice you claim to cherish!" I snapped, now rising to my feet but refusing to look at either Roana or Árvekni.
"I never said choice or choosing the right thing was easy," she responded right back, "or that freedom didn't come without cost or difficulty."
I now just walked away past the Nightmare in silence, with a dragon's blood and yolk still caked on my hands. But soon, I felt two presences following me . . . one huge, and one my size. This was confirmed when I heard grunting.
"He's asking where are you going?" I heard behind me.
"I don't know," I simply said as I continued walking, before hearing a series of human generated grunts echoing my words.
"He says, 'That is your problem,'" I heard translated back for my benefit.
"How would you know what my 'problem' is?" I snapped, now stopping and turning sharply around to find my nose just inches from Árvekni's tooth-filled snout again as Roana stood beside him, translating.
"He responds, 'How could anyone fail to see what your problem is?'" Roana conveyed as the dragon grunted, looking at me with narrowed eyes. "'It is alienation, lack of trust, lack of heart. That you could turn away from helping others who are so sad . . . you are worse off than the mother and child we just lost. You are dead, even to yourself.'"
"Maybe I am," I quietly admitted as I looked down again. "But what I have been through lately back home has made me that way."
"He says, 'Then that is not the right home for you, is it?'" she interpreted. Roana then made some more grunts as she looked towards the large dragon. He simply grunted, almost nodding, before turning and walking away on his two large legs and his red, bony wingtips. Even I could see he was tense or pensive.
"I am sorry, Lance," Roana now quietly added as she stepped closer to me, "for what he said to you. Dragons speak and confront directly. They do not, as you say, 'mince words.'"
"He's right," I sighed, looking at her.
"Then why can't you make your choice?" she asked.
"I thought you said I had time here," I objected. "Even that I would know when it was time because I would feel it, or not be afraid or something. How about we clean up at the lab you've told me about? I for one would like to get this blood and yolk off me."
"That blood and yolk came from a patient, and a friend of mine!" Roana forcefully replied as she gave me a shocked and angry look. "This way!" she then said coolly as she just started walking off across the grass of the village commons without me.
"Roana . . . I'm sorry," I said as I rushed across the village grass to catch up beside her again. "I was out of line with that. As a doctor, I should have known better."
"Just save it!" she said in sad frustration.
I was stunned. That phrase was just what I tended to say when I was irritated back home. But I had never said it with her.
She stopped herself. "Lance, I am very sorry I said that," she apologised as she looked at me now, even taking my blood-covered hand in both of hers. "I do not know what came over me."
I had come over her. That was me talking within her. I looked at her and then looked away, feeling I couldn't dare let on about any of this. If I did, it was all over . . . I would lose myself to her. God, this was scary, and felt so very close now. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before.
We both just stopped for a moment, each of us trying to silently regroup, even get a grip on ourselves again.
"Come," she eventually said, trying to put on a smile for me now. "Let me show you the lab . . . so long as it will not negatively influence you."
"That bad?" I wondered, glad for the lighter change of subject, as I was able to glance at her once more.
"It is primitive," she allowed.
"You have courage in showing it to me then," I replied as we began walking side by side once more.
"You would hate me if you came to feel I had deceived you," she just said openly. "I cannot permit that between us."
"You're loving me," I tried to lightly, even playfully, caution for a change with a slight smile as I looked forward.
"I am," she replied.
I looked at her as we walked. Roana looked back at me. It was all so straightforward. She was just reeling me in again . . . trying to win me, and wasn't hiding it now. She was back on her game, and once more she was taking things to a new level. That was Roana—confident, knowing, loving Roana. She was perfect. So perfect to me it hurt. I should have been relishing this, relishing her. But for some reason, I was suddenly feeling very restless and ill at ease.
"This is backwards!" I finally objected, stopping both of us for a moment and looking away. "The guy is supposed to woo the girl, not the other way around!"
"If we were going to live in your world, yes," she answered, "that is how it would normally happen. But that is not possible, not for me anyway—and not for you, if you want to be with me. You have to agree to come and live here with me, and I have to convince you. Otherwise you have to leave, and I have to drug you—either today or tomorrow at the latest. That is really all there is to it."
"That's blunt," I noted with some astonishment.
"That is how we think here," she reiterated, "how the dragons think. You have even just seen and heard it! That is what they have given us. The dragons do not see a need or reason for thinking and feeling one way inside, yet speaking differently on the outside. They are of one mind, not two. They are not confused or conflicted within themselves, or divided against their own interests. They could teach the world that, if the world was ready to listen!"
I was surprised by her sudden forcefulness. Roana noticed my reaction and looked down.
"But here is the lab," she now deflected for a moment, as we found ourselves near a pair of large wooden doors set into the hillside.
Once again, I was grateful for the distraction. We both were.
She then opened one large door, and flipped on some electric lights. "This is also my clinic," she continued, recomposing herself, "where I treat the dragons sometimes, only one at a time though in here—except if they are Gronkles or little Terrors."
She stopped as several villagers now quietly followed us into the clinic, interrupting us, as they brought back the trays and cases of surgical instruments and equipment we had been using. Roana just silently waited, bowing her head with tears in her eyes again and folding her hands in front of her, as the others quietly put the equipment away or to be cleaned later. An older village woman came to her, putting a hand on her shoulder and seeming to offer some consolation, but Roana waived her away with a subtle shake of her head and a soft, "Ekki núna."
I now felt deeply for Roana . . . having to juggle me, and now the death of a dragon friend she couldn't save. Why can't I just say yes? I wondered in my thoughts as I glanced at her. What's stopping me?
The other villagers then withdrew from the bunker, closing the door behind them.
"Roana . . ." I hesitantly began.
"Fortunately, we also have a doctor among us," she resumed her seeming tour narration, interrupting me, "to treat the humans. He was the one who monitored Blóm's heartbeat next to me with a stethoscope as we operated on her a short while ago."
"Roana," I interrupted her.
"Just let me talk, the way I want for now . . . please?" she asked.
"Alright," I relented, gently nodding towards her. I wanted to embrace her, comfort her right then—but something caused me to respect the space, the boundaries, she seemed to be wanting for the moment.
"I almost talked myself into marrying him," she resumed again with a sigh, " . . . and I use that term deliberately, because it would not have been mating. Both the doctor and I knew it though. He, and Rökkr," she sniffed, "helped me to make the right choice however, and remain single. Besides, the doctor was always really interested in someone else. Being with me helped him realize that. But the wash sink is over there. Soap is on the left side," she then gestured with a look and a hand. "Use as little water as you can though. The pressure tank does not hold much."
"You first, Roana . . . please?" I offered in a conciliatory way. I immediately almost winced, realizing I was using please the way she would. Now she was talking within me as well.
"Thank you," she quietly accepted not seeming to notice however, walking over and beginning to wash her hands and face with short bursts of water from the tap using a foot treadle.
"It's nice to know you have something of a mixed past, too," I noted, trying to fill the silence between us while she washed. "Geez, Roana, I'm sorry I said that," I then quickly countermanded myself. "It was not nice of me."
"I was feeling comforted by your mixed past, too, actually," she admitted as she finished washing and began drying her hands and face with the first cloth towel I'd seen here, moving to one side of the sink for me. "I was thinking it would help you understand me and what I want better. Rökkr has been the one really helping me though," she sighed as she looked away.
As I began washing my own hands with the homemade bar of lye and oatmeal soap, I realized I loved Roana now. But I also found myself rebelling at what was beginning to feel like a rushed or arranged marriage. I even felt like I was a zoo animal who was being just flatly introduced to his preselected mate, with the mate wanting what was going on.
Suddenly it was war inside me. Light versus dark. Love versus fear. I glanced aside at Roana as she finished drying her hands. She couldn't help who she was. She had been born into this. I felt my heart swing back from rebellion to caring about her again.
"Tell me about it," I invited as she now gave me a surprised look while she offered me the hand towel. "You and Rökkr . . . just tell me. I want to know about you two."
"Well," she hesitated, looking down, "I went through what you would call 'hell' around the time when I made my choice to answer the call, come back here and take on the medical care of the dragons . . . without having found my mate, my real mate. While I felt lost in the outside world and its different values and ways—coming back to this village, I felt I was condemning myself to a life of solitude. Neighbours and friends yes, even perhaps the occasional sexual 'exploration', or at least release. But no mate, no deep love. Having known everyone here since my birth, and never feeling very attracted towards anyone close to my age . . . which is partly why I went overseas to college . . . I did not know how I would ever find love back here, or even bring it here. Returning to this place was the hardest thing I have ever done—the hardest choice I have ever made.
"There were times in the beginning when I came back, that I felt I had to leave again," she continued. "But then I just looked at a dragon, any dragon . . . and I was able to find peace, as well as strength and faith, in my choice once more, even though I remained sad in my heart. Actually, that is when I met Rökkr. He found me crying on a hillside one day, wondering what the hell I had done . . ." her voice trailed off as she seemed to become lost in that memory.
"Go on," I invited as I looked at her with compassion, beginning to even feel admiration for her now. Her admissions, her vulnerability . . . they were helping me.
"I had buried my face in my arms, resting against my knees as I sat in the grass, like you had done on the beach that night," she said as she glanced at me. "I just sensed something as I was crying though. I looked up, and found Rökkr gazing out across the valley beside me. With typical dragon directness, he gently murmured at me, 'You need a companion.' I angrily replied, 'No kidding!' . . . that is the polite, English version of it anyway. He just repeated, 'You need a companion, a guardian for your heart, until your mate arrives.' I am embarrassed to say how I exploded at him at first, yelling in Norse, 'Do not torture me with hope!' I was a lot nastier to him than you ever were to me in our first encounters.
"He just stood there calmly next to me," she continued, "looking out on the valley as I vented, even spewed frustration and despair at him. When I had finished . . . exhausted myself . . . he simply grunted, 'Let me take you home.' He was already taking care of me. I climbed on him for the first time, and wrapped my whole self around his neck as he spread his wings and gently flew me home. It was the last time I wore my old college clothes. He burned them for me after that, out of my sight, telling me I did not need the distraction from my choice of being a Dragon Berker once more. He taught me the inner discipline, and perhaps wisdom, I have now. I almost named him Dís, or 'Angel', but he reminded me that was a girl's name among us. He happened to note a little later that he is dark, like a shadow, and that our shadow never leaves us. He has literally been my 'shadow' ever since . . . my close companion, without either he or I asking a single question about it. He is only not here now, to allow you and I to connect without distraction and make our choice."
"He is willing to share you with me?" I asked.
"It is his commitment as my dragon companion to share me with my mate, but only the right one. He growls at the wrong ones!" she sniffed with a laugh. "This morning, before you woke up though, he quietly advised me to just claim you . . . telling me that you are not happy alone."
"He noticed that about me?" I asked, surprised.
"Dragons seem at times to be in touch with a deeper perception, even a deeper truth," she answered, "seeing things in ways we cannot or will not. Even Árvekni saw the truth within you, didn't he?"
"He did," I quietly admitted.
"That is why I love them, Lance," she continued, "why I have devoted my life to them. Dragons help us to know a truth, even our true selves, that we could not know on the outside. But Rökkr, he thinks you have the makings of the right mate for me. He has never said that about anyone else. It makes this feel right to me, Lance, so right. But I should not have said this," she said as she now looked down. "I am being too direct here . . . thinking too much like a dragon."
We both paused for a moment in awkward silence, before the large wooden door was being opened again.
"Not now, please, Rökkr?" Roana quietly asked, looking at the silent intruder as she stood apart from me with her arms folded.
Coming into the lab anyway, the dragon started murmuring, his eyes fixed on me.
"I am not going to tell him that!" she objected, looking at Rökkr now as he moved beside her. He gave her a sharp bark however, glancing at her with a surprisingly angry look, before settling his gaze once more on me.
"Lance, he's demanding that I say to you, 'See what you do to her, to us, even to yourself?'" Roana translated as Rökkr continued grunting. "'I thought you were our answered prayer. But you are allowing your fear to make you a danger, even a threat to us now. You are even dividing her and I, causing a difference of opinion. That rarely happens between us.'"
The dragon now approached me in a truly menacing manner. For the first time, I thought he might actually turn on me.
"He is saying, 'My companion has been through enough with you,'" Roana continued to convey as Rökkr grunted, approaching still closer towards me. "'Stay or leave. Decide, or I will haul you back to your world now, in my claws.'"
"Rökkr, that is enough!" Roana now practically barked at him, causing him to stop and look back with a softened expression in his eyes at last. "Please . . ." she asked more gently now, almost breaking down herself.
The dragon relented, moving to give her a supportive nudge with his eyes closed, before turning to leave. As he went out, Rökkr just gave me a long, direct look, closing the door behind him with a gentle but echoing thump.
"I'm sorry," she then apologised, looking down. "He was protecting me . . . protecting all of us."
"Can't really argue with that," I sighed with relief. "But what does he want . . . in life?" I then asked as I looked towards the closed door, admittedly wanting to buy myself some more time to think, but also wondering if he was waiting just outside and wanting to try and be conciliatory if he was still listening. "Rökkr is owed something for all this, don't you think?" I added.
"He is strong, but very shy around females of his own kind," she replied, glancing briefly at me. "He seems to ignore them, but I know what is going on. I know he desires a mate, too. I think he even knows I will help him get one. I just . . . I do not know why I have not helped him before now more than I have. I am still weak, compared to him."
"You do what you can," I gently encouraged. "We each do. I'm right there, too. But Roana," I now admitted to her, " . . . this is a trap."
"I am sorry," she apologized. "It is for you. Even I can see that now. I . . . I should let you go then, just let you go. If you do not want to help the dragons, it is best for all of us if I do."
While part of me cringed for having let that out, I now stood there a little apart from her, finding myself weighing that option. I looked at her as she sadly looked at me. I imagined her alone again. I imagined more dragons dying in agony, as Blóm just had. All that pained me. It so pained me now.
"I'm sorry," I replied. "I didn't mean it that way."
"Yes you did," she gently countered.
"You know me," I quietly admitted.
"I hope you think I do," she patiently replied.
I looked away. Suddenly, I found myself flipping back again, and just had to speak my mind before it practically exploded within me. "Look, I find myself on the one hand, looking at a life . . . and a wife, Roana," I said, now pacing the lab in front of her. "Everybody's expecting me to just stay here. Part of me feels caged, even rebelling, over what I would be giving up . . . living here, for the rest of my life!"
"With me," she interjected. "But you told me yesterday this land, at least Norway, was home to you now."
"I did," I sadly laughed, shaking my head. "Arrrrgggghhhh!" I then said in frustration. "But, what I want to tell you now was that I just imagined you alone again here. And I can't stand to think of you that way! Roana, half of me not only wants to grunt with you, like you say dragons do with each other—I want to roar with you!"
I could see her tearfully smiling at my having said that.
"But the loss of my freedom that it would mean for me," I sighed. "Or the hell of solitude I would be condemning each of us to if I didn't give up that freedom. Can you see where I'm at here?" I asked her earnestly.
Roana nodded. "Yes, Lance," she said quietly, "I can. How can I help you?"
"I don't know!" I snapped. "Roana . . . I'm sorry for that," I then quickly said, countermanding myself again.
"I have said far worse things to Rökkr in the past," she assured. "You want me to touch you? Hold you? Even make love with you?"
"I want us to connect!" I said sharply. No I didn't, I immediately realized. She and I already were connected! That was the problem!
"Well here then," she said as she swiftly walked to me and embraced me hard. "I connect with you now! I have been trying to reach you, so hard!" she said with tears in her eyes. "I don't know what else to do! I love you, Lance Hyse! I want to mate with you! Be your one true mate—who knows and loves you like no one else ever could, even yourself!"
I pressed my face into her hair and large, loose braids with those words, shutting my eyes tightly in condemnation. She was in my internal war now, almost a victim of it. Roana was right there, and she knew what was going on.
"Rökkr told me to just claim you, and I don't know if I can stop myself from doing that anymore! I can't . . ." she sobbed as she broke down and cried. "But I want you to give me your heart," she whispered against me now. "Please, give me your heart, Lance. Give me yourself. I'll give you my heart and my whole self. I swear."
I held her with tears in my own eyes. "How do we know it will last?" I asked. "I never want to go through a break-up again like I once did."
"Choice," she said tearfully but clearly. "We choose to commit, to love each other, to put each other first, and to never break it—because it feels right! It feels good! And because the other choice feels like hell! That other one already feels so bad to me!"
Roana now drew her head back a little and looked at me with tears running down her face. "Lance, if you are afraid of jumping here . . . I no longer am. I am yours, Lance! I am your mate! And I will be for life now! I don't want anyone else. I never will! All you can do is turn me away, and leave me alone for the rest of my life! I give you the freedom to do that!" she said, now pushing herself away from me. "That's how much I love you! How much I choose to love you!"
I looked at her in shock now.
"Claim me now! I dare you!" she angrily challenged as she now moved back and stood apart from me. "What feels right to you, Lance Hyse? What really feels right?"
I now stepped back from her. "Roana," I said, shaking my head. "I don't want storms of love. I want peace. I've had anger, and angry words in my household before."
"I have given you peace, my love," she now said with quieter sadness and frustration. "But it has not seemed to reach you, not like you say you want. I just thought maybe 'not peace' would work here. You know, a little Viking rage," she sniffed with a laugh.
I looked at her.
"Lance, I have laid myself wide open now," Roana tearfully sighed. "I have all but stripped bare for you here—and I'll do that, too, if it helps. But I could not be trying to connect with you, or love you, more than I am. It is down to you making a choice. I know how hard that choice is. But now, you are making it for both of us."
"Just decide to make it so," I sighed as I looked down with tears in my own eyes, " . . . for a lifetime, here."
"Yes," she simply replied. "Lance, this struggle of yours . . . it's hurting me," she then sadly cautioned. "It says you do not love me, like I love you. You know how we will turn out together, Lance. You know it inside. I do."
"Paradise," I sniffed, feeling utterly convicted, knowing Roana was right.
"Think of Blóm . . . Flowers," she then said. "My friend was so looking forward to meeting you."
"She was?" I wondered, glancing at her again.
"She was looking forward to meeting the man who could help save her kind," Roana sadly confirmed.
I closed my eyes tightly in remorse for a moment. "I am so scared though," I then admitted.
"So was Blóm, as she was dying," she sobbed as well.
"That kind of puts things in perspective," I noted, wiping my eyes. "Real perspective."
"I'm scared, too, Lance," Roana continued. "I have touched the love I want here, with you. But I am terrified you are rejecting me, taking it all away. If . . . If I have to inject you later with memory drugs, I am going to have to inject myself, too. Because the memory of you these past few days will be too painful for me to bear alone. I am no good for anyone else anymore, because my heart is yours! It belongs to you! We are one, Lance!" she cried in agony. "We are one!"
Roana and I surged towards each other, catching one another in our arms. We cried out in powerful anguished relief together as we each buried our faces against each other's hair and shoulders.
"We are one!" I cried as well as I held Roana fiercely now. I had just taken that jump, right over the cliff.
"Lance!" she tearfully said in gratitude, seeming to sense what was going on within me. "I've got you now. I have you. Everything will be alright. I swear. I love you, and always will!"
"I-I want Blóm's death to mean something as well," I sniffed. "I can't walk away from that . . . I can't."
"Lance . . ." Roana wept with bittersweet joy. "We will save the dragons, together. Just you see."
A swirl of emotions was now unleashed within me, thinking of all that my choice now meant. "But I've just given up the outside world, haven't I?" I began to realize as I held onto her.
"You have gained a universe though . . . here," she tearfully assured, moving back a little and placing her hand gently over my heart, "and here," she then added, now taking my hand and placing it over her heart, keeping it there for a moment. "You've gained me, Lance. You have me now."
I proceeded to kiss her harder than I had ever kissed a woman in my life. She kissed me as well, completely, holding nothing back. I let it happen now, I just let her happen . . . to me, in me, through me.
I broke our kiss because I had to tell her something. "Roana," I sighed. "I am mated with you, right now. I know what it means. I do."
"Lance!" she cried, overjoyed, and hugging me tightly. "Lance, my sweet, precious mate!"
"I know I will never part or break from you now," I said burying my face against the side of her head again. "I have this intense, even violent determination from someplace that I never will."
"That is your Viking, my love," Roana told me. "Even an inner 'dragon' growing within you. And you have not even bonded with a dragon companion yet. They defend your choice within you once you have made it. Enjoy it, Lance. I am already savouring that inside you."
We kissed each other powerfully again.
"We're mated," I marvelled as I held her tightly. "No priests, no ceremony . . . yet I feel so much more than married to you. And we haven't even made love yet."
"Lance, I have to confess something to you," she said.
"What?" I asked.
"What do you think I was doing while I was massaging you last night?" she responded. "I was making love to you, Lance . . . with each touch, each caress . . . as wonderfully as I could. I couldn't help myself. I was giving myself to you, and savouring you, too, through my hands."
"Roana," I tearfully sighed, clutching her tightly and rubbing her lower back hard through the fabric of her tunic.
"Yes," she whispered as she pressed herself against me, savouring the same love I was now giving her through my hands. I reached under her tunic, just needing to press my hands against the bare skin of her lower back again. Roana kissed me powerfully in agreement, in reward. If there had been a soft surface anywhere in that lab, she and I would have taken each other right there.
Roana was the one to stop us this time though. "Lance," she sighed amid our aching passions for each other, "I so much want to do this right between us . . . but not here."
"Okay," I could only sigh as I withdrew my hand from the skin of her back, and smoothed her tunic down instead.
"However, I have another confession for you," she added.
"What now?" I smiled, touching my forehead to hers.
"Remember when I told you about something that would just screw things up between us?" she asked.
"Yeah," I gently replied as I could not stop my hands rubbing her back, even through her tunic.
"That is when I really mated with you, when I gave myself willingly to you," she confessed.
"I know . . ." I admitted with wonder, now holding and rocking her gently with deep appreciation. "I knew right then you had given yourself totally to me. That I wasn't ready to do the same . . . that hurt me."
"I knew that, too," she replied. "But I knew it would take all of me, all that I was to convince you to stay with me . . . to win you. So even last night, I had already jumped for us. I just knew I could not tell you in full though."
I could only reward her with kisses, practically breathing her into me as I did. "I knew," I finally said between kisses. "I knew it happened between us last night, even today. When you said, 'Just save it,' that was me talking inside you. It's a phrase I've used when I'm frustrated. It was all but over for me, right then."
Roana just smiled at me now, shaking her head. "Well then," she invited, "let's just save this . . . for later."
We both laughed as we kissed and hugged each other hard one more time.
"What do we do now?" I gently asked as we held and rocked each other, gazing deeply into one another's eyes, as if we had just indeed made love.
"How about we take a look around the lab here," she suggested. "Tell me what you think, and if you will need anything."
"Alright," I sighed, almost as if I was being told to stop playing and get back to work. "But Roana . . . grunt."
She practically melted against me again. "Grunt," she lovingly echoed as we squeezed each other. "But now you will have to love me as a dragon loves his mate."
"Show me how," I invited.
"I will . . . tonight," she assured. "But now, lab."
"Okay," I sighed with a smile as I gave her one more hug, and then turned to look around the stark space we were in as Roana and I remained close, arm in arm.
"Well . . . at least it's concrete lined," I noted, trying to look on the bright side.
"I know it is primitive," she said apologetically as we started walking around the stark and minimally equipped space a little. "Even I had better facilities in my freshman year at the university. But at least we have electricity here. Banks of batteries provide it . . . recharged by the mobile wind turbines, and bio-fuel distillate auxiliary generators from a wrecked freighter when needed. This is the only place we can power though. We do keep some community cold storage for food here as well outside of winter . . . off through that door on the side there. I know there should really be a separate entrance to the outside for that. It just has not been a priority."
"I might want to eventually hack out a separate underground room on the other side here, and move the lab into that," I noted. "I will need a sterile environment. But we can make this work," I sighed as we continued to walk around the lab. "I'll need more powerful microscopes though, and some finer tools to work with tissues and specimens at the cellular level. I'm not seeing surgical grade air compressors or vacuum pumps, either. Plus, I'll need culture incubators as well."
"As long as it can be brought on the back or in the claws of a dragon, I will see that you get what you need," Roana assured, "even if we need to bring it in pieces."
"Ships or even boats can never call here?" I asked.
"We deliberately picked an island that was basically only accessible by air . . . still mostly just with dragons, as there is not enough flat land for an airstrip," she replied. "There are no natural harbours, and such a jumble of rocks and hazards all around us that no sailors would dare approach. It is how we have been able to remain hidden for so long. We found this place, and moved here, all by air from ships offshore. Those of us who moved here gave up seafaring almost a thousand years ago."
"You were that desperate to escape with the dragons and survive?" I remarked with some degree of awe as I paused to check out some workbenches with her beside me.
"Read the rest of the journal," she replied. "I have a copy in the house. We will read it together actually. It tells of our exodus. That our people did that though . . . it is why we continue their work, and their purpose."
"That's good enough for me," I accepted as I gently kissed her again. "But I suppose there are a couple someones I suppose I should still meet here, don't you think?" I now suggested. "Where are your parents?"
"When they went with me as I started college," she noted, "they decided they liked the outside world, and wanted to become Outside Berkers, while I definitely felt called to come back and care for the dragons, despite my mate issue."
"Problem solved there now," I assured as I kissed her again.
Roana smiled briefly.
"Unfortunately," she continued, then losing her smile, "they died in a car accident several years ago, while returning to visit my uncle at the inn. He has been a father to me ever since, especially as his own wife passed years ago and they had no children, and I have no brothers or sisters either. He is my family now. His one great wish has been for me to find the love I want . . . someone to come to share my own commitment to the dragons."
"So he found me for you?" I deduced.
"Single, top-level biologist with learning in inbreeding issues, a Berker, albeit 'long-lost', who is a son of Hiccup no less?" she tallied up. "Yes, he found you for me. He only wrote tourism letters to single gentlemen. There have been a few others ahead of you, but they all washed out. They could not accept Rökkr, the journal, or often even the idea dragons exist. One I did not even try with . . . I could not get past lunch with him. The rest I had to drug, pretty much before we ever left the ground there."
"I'm sorry you had to go through all that," I replied.
"Well, why not make it up to me then?" she smiled as she drew closer to me.
"Roana, I would love to . . . my swan," I decided as I gave her a kiss.
"Lance, thank you for accepting this, and me," Roana said with tears emerging in her eyes as she drew herself tight against me again. "I am sorry this is so backwards," she softly added.
"No," I gently countered as I embraced her tightly. "It's the most wonderful forwards now I've ever known."
— — — — —
Finally grounding and composing ourselves again, Roana and I emerged from the 'biological bunker' as I began to think of it as, and back into the bright light of day. I had walked in as my own uncertain self. But I walked out as Roana's now.
"Lance, I am sorry," she apologised.
"What is it this time?" I smiled, looking just at her.
"For all this," she gestured as I now also noticed the much larger crowd in front of us now.
Dozens of people and dragons were now gathered in front of us.
"They find me or us this interesting?" I asked.
"I think they want to tell you through their silent presence how much they want you to stay with us," she replied. "How much they need you."
As she was telling me this, both Rökkr and Árvekni now emerged in front of the crowd, looking sternly at me.
This time, I looked right back. "Rökkr, would you come here please?" I calmly requested.
The Night Fury, whose strong gaze had practically turned me to jelly just a little while ago, now approached.
"Rökkr, you were right about me . . . but just a little bit late," I smiled. "Roana had already claimed me last night. I just had to accept it, which I've now done here. I have said yes . . . to both her, and all of you."
Rökkr slowly nodded, with a satisfied look on his face before he nudged firmly against me. I laid a hand on him in acknowledgement, while keeping an arm around Roana, as everyone began cheering around us.
"What's going on?" I asked with some confusion as I looked around while Rökkr still nudged against me.
"It is a ritual of true mating in our village," Roana replied, "the dragon's recognition and acceptance of their human companion's chosen mate. They cannot be deceived, and they can also sense a bad or flawed match. As I told you, he growled at every other man I ever got close to once I had bonded with him, doing so even when we were at the inn. But he has never once growled at you, although he did give you a hard talking-to."
"I deserved it," I was now able to smile.
"But by his nudging you," she then continued, "everyone knows you are staying now, and that we are mated."
I looked at the Night Fury as he once again looked at me and began murmuring.
"And he says he's now sorry for what he said earlier," she conveyed.
"It worked, Rökkr," I gently smiled to him.
"He says, 'I already owe you more than I can ever repay,'" she translated again as he grunted, "' . . . for Roana's happiness, and my kind's future.'"
"Rökkr," I decided as my hand still lay on his head, "I think I owe you just as much."
I turned and looked at Roana now as she tearfully looked at me with indescribable joy. I could only hug and kiss her again. The cheering around us grew even louder.
"They don't wait for a ceremony?" I asked as we ended our kiss.
Roana just shook her head and smiled. "We are mated, my love . . . both to ourselves, and now to everyone around us."
"So you celebrate the moment the choice is actually made here," I marvelled, "rather than do it all in a formal ceremony later?"
"That is it exactly," she confirmed. "We celebrate the real act of choice and decision here, not just an externalized or packaged symbol or ritual of it afterwards. There will still be a feast for us though, and we can add some rituals and ceremony to that as we like. As I said, it's what the dragons have given us. We do not care about ceremonies as much as we once did, or as much as most any humans do elsewhere. Sorry if you felt like you missed it all though."
"I do feel like I missed it," I sighed. "It seemed like we were debating, even arguing in there, and suddenly, voom! We're mated and everyone's celebrating here."
Roana just kissed me again with understanding. I kissed her deeply as well, while noticing Árvekni was stepping forward out of the corner of my eye, giving me a very hard look as I turned to face him.
"Just be honest with him, and yourself," my new mate advised next to me. "I will translate."
"Árvekni . . . you were right about me," I admitted as Roana translated for me. The dragon then interrupted me with grunts as I was about to confess and apologise further.
"He is saying, 'I know,'" Roana conveyed. "He is just glad you can see it, too . . . and welcomes you to New Berk."
Árvekni then just turned around and left as the crowd parted respectfully for him.
"But I hadn't finished," I quietly said aside to Roana.
"He saw and heard all he needed to from you," she replied as we both watched him go. "You will find he is a dragon of few words, and just not much for conversation. His sole focus is the safety and wellbeing of this village. When one problem is resolved, he goes and looks for the next one. It is why he is our Great Guardian."
Another authoritative figure now emerged through the crowd though. I saw Roana look towards him and straighten herself up.
"Our Chief," Roana introduced as a man with rugged blonde hair and a thick beard, with streaks of grey in it all, and dressed with a shaggy-looking cape, now stopped in front of us alongside Rökkr, "Roald Hofferson."
"A descendant of Astrid's family," I recognized from the journal.
"Very good," she smiled at me.
Roald now spoke to us with such a thick accent however, that even though I knew Old Norse writing, I could not make heads or tails of what he was saying. I looked to Roana.
"First, he is asking if you are one of us," she explained. "His further response and everything else will hinge on that. You must say so. I will translate."
"All this nudging and cheering wasn't enough?" I quietly wondered.
"He is our Chief," she whispered in my ear. "He and the Great Guardian are basically equals, and they each like to have their 'public moments' shall we say, verifying things in their own ways and to their own satisfactions. So just say it, alright?"
I smiled, almost quietly laughing as I put my arm again around Roana, glancing warmly at her before I looked at him and replied, "Yes, I am one of us now . . . and my loyalty is to this village, our people, and the dragons . . . and my love for Roana."
"I will alter that in translation for you," she quietly advised to me with a smile, "as the dragons always come first in our priorities here. And I would like to be a little higher on your list myself, if you would not mind."
"Sorry," I apologised to her with a smile as well.
Roana then translated a more proper version of my assurance to the chief. A growing smile broke out on his face as she did. He then seemed to speak warmly, even enthusiastically to me, as he first shook my hand, hard, then slapping me on the shoulder with an apparently warm welcome. Before Roana could translate his remarks to me, he then talked to her briefly, seeming to ask a question.
Roana smiled and looked down for a moment, in modesty or embarrassment, before replying to him with a few words as she moved closer to me.
"What's all going on?" I asked, looking at her.
"Okay," she sighed. "First he welcomes you warmly, even welcomes you home as a long-lost son of Berk, and is glad you share our commitment to the dragons now. He adds that we have so much needed a scientist like you to help them. He then thanked me for 'recruiting' you and bringing you here, and asked if we are truly mated."
"I just said I loved you," I whispered aside to Roana. "That, along with the nudge of your dragon and all the cheering, isn't good enough for him?"
"He's getting old, okay? And maybe he was not around to see that," she whispered back. "Just answer the question."
I sighed, but strenuously avoided shaking my head for fear of giving him the wrong idea or insulting him. "Yes," I then formally answered as I looked at him again, "Roana and I are mated." I was realizing that even Berkers seemed to have their own versions of quirky and even bureaucratic customs.
She translated my assurance, smiling and glancing at me as she did. The chief then spoke to her again, looking at me occasionally. Roana seemed to answer him with one word, before he continued speaking to her. Then, she just gave him a look of amazement, before taking a deep breath as she turned to me.
"Alright, this is . . . unusual," she said, searching for the right English word. "He first asked if you were indeed a son of Hiccup and Astrid. I said yes you were. He then offered to hold our mating feast in Old Berk village . . . the first time that has ever been done. Most everyone here, and many Outside Berkers would come to Old Berk to attend. It would be a huge event, perhaps the biggest our people have had in our history."
"Wow," I noted, now somewhat taken aback myself. "We're that important?"
"You, what you represent as a returning Ýsa, and what you can do are," she replied. "Plus we have friends on the outside now who can keep the curious away from that island, for at least one day; so a growing number of us have been looking for a suitable occasion to return. Now, you and I are providing it."
"What do you think we should do?" I then asked Roana, still with an arm around her.
"It is up to you as well as me," she sighed. "But it is an honour I do not think we should, or really can, refuse."
"Then, as long as you agree," I replied, "we should accept. Please tell him that I, and you if you like, are grateful and humbled." Then I moved closer and whispered in her ear, "But could we celebrate before then?"
She looked down for a second and really smiled, before glancing at me and then trying to straighten her face to translate our first shared decision together.
"Þat er okkr heitr at samþykkja," she replied. A cheer went up from the crowd as soon as Roana had uttered her words.
"You know, you people do stage things, too," I gently noted.
"We know it is an after the fact celebration though, and not the real event itself," she countered. "But . . ."
"But what?" I asked.
"Grunt," she then whispered in my ear.
I just had to kiss her now . . . hard.
