CHAPTER 50- The Snake's Tale


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"What do you mean, 'How do I know'?" Janna growled. Something in her tone made Anna's horse whine and shudder under her. The crows circling above them seemed to get suddenly noisier, too. The princess wasn't scared- Janna didn't scare her. But she was immediately very conscious of what had happened to Niska.

Elsa coughed politely. Anna got the sense that it was meant as a warning to both of them.

"I'm not..." She decided to put a bit more effort into asking the question sensitively. "When you wake up, and you're a boy, and you weren't before. Or a girl. What makes it... geesh, I don't know... what's different?"

Janna seemed to accept the question, relaxing in her saddle a little and leaning forward to scratch her jaw with her good hand without letting go of the reins. Anna hadn't seen her use her right hand since being bitten...

"You really don't get it, do you?"

The Lady of Crows was eyeing her closely. Anna looked down at her hands, feeling awkward. "Not really... sorry."

"And yet... you accepted me. Immediately and without question. Huh..." Janna grinned pleasantly. "You are a rarity, you know that?"

"I, uh, you're welcome, really." Anna mumbled sheepishly, not having expected her to say something nice.

'You're dumb, but really nice with it' was a bit of a mixed complement, but right now she'd take it.

The piratical princess whistled. "Sink me... I've never been good at describing it. Well, if you must hear it... everything is different."

Elsa looked confused. "That makes no... What do you mean?"

"Everything and nothing..." The Lady of Crows screwed up her face in concentration. This seemed to be a struggle for her. Had they pressed on a sore point? Well, if she got upset it was Elsa's fault.

"Okay, then. My head is like... You're royals too. Do you have those pointless rooms back in your castle that are just full of paintings and pictures and tapestries, all over the walls?"

Elsa nodded. "A hundred of them. I keep wandering into one I don't even recognise. Anna knows them all like the back of her hand, somehow."

Well, it's not like I had much else to do...

The Myrtlean princess snorted. "Aye. Castles, right? Okay, well, imagine your mind is like one of those rooms. Crowded. Your thoughts and memories are the paintings and tapestries and rugs, all images and colours, and the whole room is lit by this..." She tilted her head to one side. "let's say a blue light. This light is your womanhood. Femaleness. Whatever. When you look at your thoughts, and feelings, and memories, they're always tinted by its soft blue light- but you don't know it, because it's always been there, since the day you were born. Like a ticking clock you stop hearing."

Where had this come from? And where was she going with it?

"Now, being a boy, on the other hand... suppose someone changed that light. It broke or something, and they put in a new lamp. But this light is... red, say. Whatever colour manhood is. You would look at your thoughts, and feelings, and memories- the same pictures, in the same places- but they'd all look different. They'd have a different quality, an different hue. You see a new side of some images, and other details fade. There are different patterns in the carpet, or so it seems. Everything coloured by manhood."

Janna looked up at the sky, starting to cloud over. "The whole world changes in another light."

"That's what gender is", she shrugged. "It's nothing, but it affects everything. Like seeing a place in winter instead of summer- everything is the same, but different. So boys and girls are... the same thing, but done in a different way, seen in another light. Does that make any sense?"

Anna looked at her, a little stunned. "Kind of..."

Actually, she had been lost after 'tapestries'. This was so complicated- what happened to 'girls have the babies'?

Mind you, back in Arendelle Sara the blacksmith was hardly likely to have babies, and insisted that she was a woman, in spite of the beard...

Janna looked flustered all of a sudden. "We should, um, maybe speed up a bit. We want to reach Arendelle by sundown." She spurred her horse on up the rocky path. Moody...

"And with that, she runs off..." Anna commented. Her elder sister looked back disapprovingly.

"Did you actually follow all of that?"

Elsa nodded, a smile curling the edge of her lip. "In parts. And it's progress."

She tutted fondly. "'The whole world changes in another light'. Overthinking things herself... She could have just said that and saved the tortured metaphor. But it's alright- her honesty matters more to me than eloquence."

Ah, so Elsa was trying to 'reach' her, or something. And here she was, gazing after the skittish rogue, practically aglow.

Anna grinned. "That's a nice look on you."

"What is?"

"Pride... "

Elsa flushed. "This isn't... she lost her parents, Anna. Even if the Queen lives, she isn't here. We both know what that's like. And- then she lost Captain Rinne, too. And she's no time to mourn any of them." She lowered her voice. "I don't know all of it, but I suspect that Rinne may have been the only one she had to talk to, who knew and halfway accepted... And I... well..."

She knows what that's like. Anna was struck dumb, feeling like an idiot yet again. It was too easy to forget that, bad as it had been for those three years after losing Mamma and Pappa, it had been even worse for Elsa. She had been left with no one, in a bedroom that had grown more like a cage.

It was amazing she hadn't gone crazy from loneliness. Well, she had, in a way. Of course, Anna had made a few less-than-rational moves herself, what with Prince-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named and all.

And now another bereaved, hurt, magical person in sore need of a good friend had fallen into her lap. What else was she going to do?

She cleared her throat. "So, you feel like you could be that person for her?"

For a second Elsa seemed startled by the question, as if she hadn't been thinking of it like that. Then she nodded quietly, cheeks reddening. Anna felt like hugging her- it was so adorably, crazily weird to see her oh-so-collected and dignified sister acting like this, stumbling this way and that like a shy teen with a crush.

So, yep, it's pretty serious between them now. As if Elsa could ever not be serious...

Anna looked ahead. The North Mountain dominated the skyline. Was it still the 'North Mountain' from this side? Much closer, Janna rode back towards them along a branch in the road, gestured toward it shaking her head to indicate the way was no good, and set off down another. The goof was trying to act like she wasn't avoiding company.

"Any idea what's going to happen with you guys, once we're back home?"

Her sister's blush paled rapidly.

"Absolutely none", she admitted.

Anna gulped, her gaze drifting back to the rocky path ahead. Well, come evening, you're gonna have to have figured that out, Elsa...

I sure hope she can work something out. She needs her own Kristoff. Everyone needs their very own Kristoff, all big and snuggly and strong, and totally making life better with just a smile.

But I've got the best Kristoff. Except for the reindeer smell, but I kinda like it now...

Anna decided to drop back for a bit and collect the bear cub from Gerda on the wagon. She needed somebody to hug all of a sudden.

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"We're back on this?" Janna was getting prickly. The glow in her eyes wasn't too bad, though, so it wasn't true anger- she was just being grumpy. And Elsa felt she could read her... 'girlfriend'... well enough at this stage. She watched her holding her hands over the hot air rising from the ground, rubbing them together to warm them, and wondered what frostbite even felt like.

She needed to keep pushing her gently to talk about things. Anna's natural talkativeness was a fine stalking horse- her younger sister kept asking prying questions, and she could more subtly follow them up.

Elsa herself was an expert on shutting things away, and maybe could have done with someone to busybody her, once upon a time. This girl... Humour masked anger, anger masked pain; it was like talking to an onion. But if she persisted, one day, she might achieve candour.

Janna might really talk about her father, for instance.

Some day. But not today... Elsa sighed patiently, adjusting her ivory plait over her shoulder. She liked the style; once upon a time she had solely worn her hair tied up, self-conscious about its striking colour. Now she wore it like a crown. A mark of something she refused to be ashamed of any longer.

"We're just curious, my sweet." She gestured to herself, Anna and Olaf, sitting around a hot vent. Anna brushed crumbs from her mouth and nodded, still chewing something. "It's still new to us."

Janna rubbed her eyes. Elsa wondered if the fire was actually uncomfortable. Did it literally burn? Was she immune to it? If so, what about regular fire? Oh, too many questions...

She had kept her magic secret too. Had she once been ashamed?

Those scars on her arms. Starving her...

My parents didn't know how to help me either. But they never hurt me.

Mamma, I still miss you.

"I don't normally switch so often. It's just these last-"

"This steam smells weird..." Olaf interrupted as he pointed down the vent. "Is it supposed to?"

Not now... Elsa could have throttled the little snowman. Not that that would even work.

"It's not steam", Janna retorted impatiently. "That's a dwarf chimney. There's probably a whole castle below us."

Elsa had no idea whether to believe this or not- paradoxically, the Myrtlean sense of humour was often a mystery to her in spite of its lack of subtlety.

"Do they come up through it?" Olaf asked, wide eyed with trusting wonder.

"No, they turn to stone in sunlight. They only emerge in the dead of winter, and it means you're royally sunk, 'cause- oh."

Elsa had politely coughed, hopefully indicating to her fair companion that she should get around to answering Anna's question, or at least giving a firm refusal.

"Look", she finally began, rubbing the bridge of her nose like anyone did when coming down with an Olaf-related headache, "It's not a single neat package. I think... I think I've always switched, but didn't get what was happening. And I only came into my powers nine years back. But then I was always marked as a potential Lord, so I can't say there's no link."

"Marked? Who by?" Anna asked, while trying to divide the rest of her lunch ration equally with a protesting bear.

"Not like that." Janna pressed a thumb to her tattooed décolletage, not wholly concealed by her new scarf but at least shielded from the bitter wind. "I was born covered in blotchy birthmarks. Down my front. It's a Marttila thing. When I came a Lord, they developed into this mark."

It's not actually a tattoo?

"Forget all this! Tell the tale!" Olaf suddenly exclaimed, bouncing up and down. Elsa was starting to regret bringing him. "How did you get your powers? Was it exciting? What happened?"

Elsa offered Jani an apologetic look. "Sorry... he didn't get a story last night."

"Although..." Anna looked curious herself. Actually, Elsa was burning to hear the story, but only if it was one Janna wanted to share with the others. It might not be, given what little she had revealed about her home life.

Janna scratched her head with an unsteady hand, trying to decide on a beginning.

"It was the second, and last time I tried to run off to sea."

Pinning the bear cub down while she broke a biscuit in half, Anna looked up at her wide-eyed. "You ran away from home twice?"

Janna snorted. "No, lots of times. But after that, not a ship. You're cornered."

She gazed up at the grey sky, reminiscing. Elsa warmed inside. The pirate did love telling stories, and told them very well...

"The first time, I was seven. I went to the docks and signed on with a trading ship as a poker." Elsa gave her a quizzical look. "Poika. A ship's boy. Myrtlean pinnaces have lots of pokers- orphans, poor and the like- fetching, climbing ropes, and so on."

She smiled a melancholy smile. "And yeah, like I said, I don't think I understood, that first time, why I was doing it. Why I put on boys' clothes, chopped off my hair with sewing scissors, stopped being Janna. I mean, whom could I compare myself to? It was really only when I found a copy of the Knight and the Lady in the palace library that I realised that I was basically Sir Radulf in reverse..."

Elsa understood the comparison. The Knight and the Lady was a... rather ribald fantasy tale about a knight who found himself cursed to spend every third month as a woman. It had always seemed rather insulting that womanhood was considered a curse, to be honest, although it did cause him a lot of inconvenience. But oh, the things that libertine got up to... he wasn't much of a lady...

Janna grinned the filthiest of grins at her. "You've read it, haven't you?"

"No!" Elsa felt the warm rush in her cheeks that meant she was blushing like a tomato.

Janna shook her head. "Bad liar."

"I got found out pretty fast, that first time. Didn't know a thing about passing. They were actually pretty nice about it. Cute little girl, wants to be a pirate, isn't it sweet... Still turned the ship straight around and dropped me off with the customs officer, of course. 'Cause shite, can't have a girl on the ship."

"Why not?" asked Anna.

Janna groaned. "Because its bad luck to have a lady around... ooh..." She waggled her fingers spookily. "Seriously, no Myrtle captain would ever sail with a human female onboard. It's ridiculous."

"But..." began Elsa, "If women can't travel by ship, and Myrtle is ringed by mountains..."

Janna nodded. "Then you see the problem. We got to go abroad once in my whole childhood, and Mother had to hire a foreign crew to take us. Myrtle is... special, in so many different ways, and will always be my home. But ultimately, any place you can't leave starts to feel like a prison."

She swallowed, frowning. "The second time I tried the same thing I was twelve. Bad ship. Hardcore raiders. I was caught again. They... weren't so nice..."

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Jani blinks in the sunlight. They have dragged him onto the deck, where the captain sits hunched on a crooked little stool, as if holding court. The wall-eyed bastard snickers when he sees him.

No wonder- he must look a state right now. They have pulled his hat off. A loose bundle of reddish-blond hair hangs in front of his sea-grey eyes, twitching as he trembles. He tries to flick it out of the way by jerking his head, but it just falls back and dangles there, unwashed and matted. His grubby shirt has been torn open, and the belt he was using to bind is pulled down to his waist, exposing him to general view. He shudders.

The day is hot. He misses that hat.

The man holding him is huge. Blubber and muscle. Strong. He has both his wrists gripped tightly behind his back- Jani can barely feel his fingers.

The fat man's breath smells of onions.

...Bloody hell, this looks bleak...

But... it isn't quite fear which is making him shake. He doesn't have a name for it, but his heart is racing. Pulsing. Kicking at the walls of his chest. His limbs seem to hum with a dozen different notes.

The captain is talking about him, but he doesn't really notice. What he does notice is the very fine cutlass fastened to the captain's side. He must have seen it before, lots of times, but now it is like he is looking at it through new eyes.

It is the most beautiful sword he has ever seen.

It seems to call to him, not hypnotically as such, but with a subtle certainty, as eyes that meet across a crowded room. And he knows, somehow, that it will be his.

His nerves are on fire. His mind is full of mud. His skin itches like a thousand ants are scurrying across his flesh, the buzz somehow focusing in on the blotchy birthmark below his collarbones. A pressure builds in his chest, squeezing his lungs, making him gasp.

The first mate says something inconsequential, sidling up to him and running a finger down one cheek. They are talking about what to do with him, as if that is in any doubt. Death, at best. For a moment he considers telling them who he is. No, foolish...

Then all he can feel is his heart. There is a buzzing in his ears- no, in his head. He can't-

...I am... I am burning...

...

Blood and bone.

Flesh and fire.

Black and blue.

Anew.

His heart explodes, blazing, boiling, hot fire searing through his veins, bubbling up into his head. The buzzing becomes a chorus of whispers, rising for miles around.

Something sparks behind his eyes, and for a moment the ship is gone. Jani has fallen off the edge of the world, and there is no sky, no sea, only an unending expanse of swirling storm clouds, lit up with sparks of sapphire blue which are many miles distant, yet he somehow knows that, whenever he wants, he could reach out his hand and grab one. The ship's message crow lingers above him, a hovering bolt of lightning, jabbering with excitement, barely intelligible.

Then the clouds are gone, and he is back on the ship, both bare feet on the ground, with his hands behind his back. And everything is perfectly clear. He looks at the captain. He smells of chewing tobacco and drunkard's piss. Jani sees every blemish, every stain on his coat, every hair in his knotty beard. He realises that he is laughing, and the captain doesn't understand, muttering something about mad girls. The fat man tightens his grip.

The captain jumps to his feet and strides up to Jani, but his threats do not matter. Jani sees it now, clear as the yellow teeth of this walking dead man. He feels his power in his bones and in his blood, and nothing will ever frighten him again. He feels the sword calling to him now, a subtle vibration in the air, a suggestion of harmony, of common nature.

Of magic.

The man behind him is strong, but still has shins. Jani breaks one with his heel. It is obvious what to do, child's play. At once his hands are free. Jani's limbs burn with bright power. He is fast, faster than he imagined possible, and he steps toward the captain quicker than he can even draw that perfect sword, that destiny sword. He slips behind the rusty old runkku, skilfully cracking his kneecap on the way, deftly punches him in the kidney, and, wrapping an arm around the sweaty body, draws the sword himself.

It is... everything he imagined. It gleams like the sun on the sea. Its magic joins with his, seamlessly, hand in glove, bringing strength, clarity, focus. God, this is what sex must be like.

He draws the blade first through the mate, splitting flesh and bone as if they were blancmange, then whips it back through the captain's head with a bright and bloody spurt. The sword seems to guide his hand, nudging his strikes in the right direction, elevating his form to a perfect dance of laceration. Beautiful as their collaboration is, it is scarcely needed, as his blood tells him where to step, when to block and thrust, muscle memories from other lives. The sword soundlessly sings a greeting to him.

The bodies thud against the deck, blood spattering the boards, and he knows he should be shocked, horrified, but all he can feel is joy. He has come into his own. He is fire. He is blood.

The message crow lands on the captain's body, and peers at him. Echo. His name is Echo. He awaits.

They've been waiting for him. Raven, crow, magpie and rook, bright souls glimmering in shadowed skies. They've been waiting for so long.

The rest of the crew advance upon him, dull blades in hand, feeble mites all. He is not afraid. He will never be afraid again. He will never be weak again. He will never be out of his depth, and never lost. Never unarmed, never without allies.

He knows now. He is lord of the crows, master of the carrion birds.

And they will be fed.

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. .

"Oh, good gravy."

Anna had her hands over her mouth. Elsa wasn't sure whether it was shock or amusement. She was a little overwhelmed herself by the story's... intensity...

Don't think about the mark. Don't think about looking at the mark. Definitely don't think about feeling the mark...

"What?" Janna retorted.

Anna eyed the Lady of Crows' scabbard. "I... just realised why you call your sword Snake..."

But, what would... Oh!

Janna laughed out loud, rocking back on her seat- which was in fact a rock. "Precious- only took you a couple of weeks." She wiped a tear from her eye, patting her blade affectionately where it lay against her hip. "Wasn't exactly subtle. What'd I have to do, just outright call it Kyrpä? Or, the Iron Cock?"

"Janna!" Elsa exclaimed, nodding towards an as yet possibly, hopefully oblivious Olaf. She had warned her suitor more than once to mind her language around the sometimes... unworldly snowman.

Looking puzzled, Olaf scratched his cheek, lost in careful consideration...

. .

A full minute later...

"I don't get it. Should we play a game?" Olaf slumped back onto his butt and started watching the clouds.

Elsa breathed a sigh of relief.

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Blood and bone exact their due

Flesh and fire re-alloy

Black and blue

Master new

Death undying, we destroy.

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Notes:

50 chapters... and we're not even back at Arendelle yet. Don't worry, we're nearly there. And then more drama. And then some more. There's plenty more of this story to tell. Thanks to everyone still reading and reviewing :)

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