This isn't really anything yet, just a proof of concept. If you like it leave a comment and let me know what you like about it, if you never want to see anything like it again, let me know that too. Lyrics belong to Brothers of Metal and Characters belong to Disney, yadda yadda. If the music catches your fancy and you have a thing for metal I HIGHELY suggest you look into them. They are pretty awesome.
It started with an explosion of sound. Corona was shaken by the thunder of a hundred drums and at least that many voices. The tent city in the center of the square erupted with the strange visitors from far to the north. Women in flowing skirts and bare feet danced in dizzying circles while their male counterparts stomped the ground in heavy boots. All wore strange, faceless serpentine masks that concealed their faces. Bare chests were streaked in red and blue lines like war paint and for a moment, Corona thought it was under attack. But as the dancers moved and braziers were lite, it became more and more obvious that this was some form of ceremony.
Horns sounded, rising up over the pounding rhythm of the drums and all the while the same odd chant kept perfect counter rhythm. As the dancers and chanters continued their fevered motion, a woman in a unique, though still serpentine, mask stepped out of the largest tent. With her platinum blonde hair tied back in a crowing braid it could only have been Istrid. Her breast heaved, and from behind the mask came a voice that could brake hearts with its beauty.
Deep beneath the surface lurks a mighty beast, a reptile of the ocean. A viper, unleashed.
Her voice was joined by another's. A harsh, male voice that growled even as he sang. Rapunzel did not see to whom the voice belonged, but it harmonized and complemented Istrid's in a way that was both beautiful, and terrible at once.
This creature is enormous, with fangs as tall as trees. The wretched spawn of Loki that was banished to the seas.
Istraid danced as she sang. Her shoulders flowed like water and her hips writhed like a snake. Her bare feet were graced only by sea shell anklets that tinkled and clacked as they glided over the cobblestones. Then the tone of the song took a subtle change. The allegro rhythm became staccato.
Eyes. Glowing red on the dark of the ocean floor. As the serpent awakes.
Rapunzel could feel the chorus coming lines before it arrived. The music surged as did the performers. As one the leaped out toward the crowd, each individual making themselves as large as they could, driving home the imposing size of the creature they sang of.
Powersnake.
You will fade under the shadow of, the Powersnake. The Wingless Dragon.
Stormfiend. Rival of the Thunder God.
Stronger than all!
Rapunzel swore she heard the roll of thunder and felt the hair raising prickle of distant lightening in their words. She'd been around it enough to recognize the magic in this song. But the music had faded back to where it had been when Istrid had started to sing.
Driven off by Odin, no place to call his home. Cast out to the ocean, to the great unknown.
His lust for vengeance rising, with the power of the waves. This pure abomination of a child has many names.
Different voices called out three different names.
Lindworm!
King of serpents!
Girdle of the Realm!
This guy has nothing left to prove with size that overwhelms.
Jormngandr!
Midgard Serpent!
Bane of Thor!
This snake will get his sweet revenge come the final war.
Rapunzel didn't have time to wonder at the phrase "final war" because the chorus was building again. But it was subtly different than before. The dancers were in unison this time, as was Istrid and she was now holding a beautiful, polished steel short sword.
Eyes, glowing red in the dark on the ocean floor. Mighty serpent roar-ing in the deep. He's a beast that devours all. And the serpent awakes.
The chorus broke in again and the troop was in motion, tapping heels to the stone as they continued their performance. When the chorus ended this time, the drums stopped and the horns faded to be replaced by gentle flutes and the soft strings of lutes. Istrid was once again unarmed, her hands clasped before her almost in prayer.
So elusive and mysterious, Nessy is no match. The only thing in all the seas, Thor could never catch. With scales tough as shinning steel and steel in heart and mind. Across the world and back again his body can wind!
Rapunzel was not able to enjoy the loveliness of her voice or the beauty of her motions as she sang. As soon as she finished the music took a sinister turn, the dancers throwing their arms up in monstrous posses as they advanced in the onlookers, terror clear in their intent, Istrid leading the way.
The powersnake will drag you down and drown you in his flesh. Beware to swim and fear the sea. He likes his dinner FRESH!
Children and parents alike shrieked and ran away, but it went totally unheeded by Istrid and her troop. They were lost in their music, headless to anything else going on around them. The chorus rose for one final time, somehow louder than ever with Istrid's beautiful voice a clarion call over it all. She alone held out the last note of the song as her troop fell to the ground in worshipful poses around her. The song ended and the music over, the silence was deafening and the local Coronans clearly didn't understand what they had just seen or know how to react. So they awkwardly shuffled off, back to their lives. Confused and vaguely terrified.
The group fell into worshipful poses and went quite for the moment. The drums stilled and the horns were laid down. A soft chanting rose from the group, little more than a whisper compared to their earlier cocaphy. Rapunzel took the moment of quite to approach the troop, confused and worried by what she had seen. She made no secret of it either, approaching the woman she had thought her friend with caution.
"Istrid?"
The woman in the center of the group, the one whose hair could only be Istrid's, lifted her masked face. Her eyes! Her eyes glowed an angry red where before they had been the deepest azure of the ocean. The pupils were slits. Angry, hateful things that were at once baleful and hungry for life itself. Before Rapunzel could speak or scream, the masked woman lifted a finger to the lipless plane of the mask where her mouth would be. She lowered her head and resumed the almost gentle, and yet malevolent chanting.
Although terror gripped her heart, the dauntless princess stood her ground and waited for the…prayer or ritual to end. Eventually it did, the chanting fading to a whisper on the wind before evaporating completely. It made Rapunzel quake with cold or nerves or something else she didn't fully understand. And there was clearly much Rapunzel didn't understand. Finally, the masked woman who could only be Istrid rose to her feet and removed the mask that had hidden her face.
And it was the same startlingly beautiful face that had greeted her a week ago in this very square. Her eyes were the bright sepia blue of the ocean that made Rapunzel'a heart flutter to look at. The sensual womanliness of her continued to at once spark feelings of desire and jealousy in the young princess. Istrid was so effortlessly beautiful in a wild, exotic way. Her surprisingly girlish giggle drew Rapunzel back to the moment.
"You look at me like a long lost lover" the platinum blond teased in her barbaric accent. "Something you wish to confess to me, princess?"
Istrid waggled her eyebrows at the princess in a manner that called to mind Flynn Rider and it made Rapunzel's cheeks hot.
"No" Istrid answered herself. "You come in fear and confusion."
Her voice had lost its teasing, playful tone. Rapunzel nodded, found her voice and her nerve.
"Istrid, what was that?"
The princess gestured back to the lingering crowd of Coronans still lurking fearfully on the cusp of the square.
"And you're eyes! What did you do Istrid?"
"Peace, princess. You're people are under no threat from us. We are not a Viking this season."
Istrid paused a long time, handing the mask to a young girl who carried it off out of sight. Then she took the Princess's hands and led her into her tent.
"Did you think the only magic in the world was of the Sundrop and Moonstone?"
"How do you…"
"Does it matter? I know. What you witnessed, and what you saw in my eyes, was a very old magic. A prayer to Jormngandr, the serpent who encircles the world."
I don't understand, why do you worship a monster?"
"Because he is there. Do you not hide away food from the local predators and appease them with scrapes when you cannot? It is the same with Jormngandr. Proclaiming the Powersnake evil and cursing his name does not but anger him and draw his ire unto you. Better you appease him, so that he might pass you, your people, and your city by."
"But it's just a story, Jormngandr isn't real. He's not anymore real than any other myth."
Istrid looked aghast at the Princess's words. Then she looked angry, shaking her head and speaking softly in her own tongue. She bustled about her tent, pulling out a bowl, a skin of water, scales, a snake skin, among other things.
"Not real?" she said finally, her voice an angry hiss. "Why should my gods be unreal? Are not your gods real to you?"
Rapunzel was a woman of science, she didn't believe in God or gods. But she wasn't about to revile that now, not while Isteid was so hot with intention.
"I will show you" Istrid hissed, pouring salt water from the skin into the bowl. Into the salt water she tossed the unknown scales. Then she ground the snakeskin into powder and sprinkled it into the water. Handfuls of other strange things she sprinkled and dropped into the potion. Istrid muttered and waved her hands over the bowl. A wind kicked up and extinguished the candles, bathing the tent in darkness. But from that darkness an eerie corpse light rose from the bowl.
"Drink" Istrid commanded and shoved the concoction at Rapunzel. Rapunzel made to decline but Istrid would not be denied.
"Drink" she insisted with a raised voice.
Rapunzel took the potion and lifted it to her lips. She made to only sip the concoction but Istrid pushed the bowl up and a torrent of the foulest water Rapunzel had ever tasted rushed down her throat. She coughed and gripped at her throat, the mixture burning its way down. Istrid drank the rest of the potion and gripped Rapunzel's hands.
"I will show you my god." Istrid's eyes glowed red, and Rapunzel was shocked to discover that hers had begun to glow as well.
"Take a deep one." Istrid sucked in a deep breath, and Rapunzel mimicked her.
Just in time too, because all at once they were surrounded by water. The icy cold of it crushed down on them in oppressive, dark silence. Rapunzel blinked, and though she was still most certainly sitting on something solid, she was also moving through the water as if swimming. Istrid caught her attention and pointed down. Down, down, down to the bottom of the ocean's floor Rapunzel's gaze was drawn, where she could see the spine of a massive mountain range. The undersea mountains stretched off from horizon to horizon for as far as she could see. Rapunzel had read theories of mountains like this exciting but she never thought she'd see them. But then, she saw the endless mountain range move. It was a subtle shift to the great creature, something the thing might do in its sleep, but so vast was the serpent that it set the seafloor trembling. And then they were off, shooting off along the seafloor at speeds she could not well understand. The water grew impossibly cold, then delightfully warm and then back to paralyzing cold. And then she saw it, a draconic head so large it could swallow all of Corona and its island in a single mouthful. Terror gripped her but she could not look away. This monster was of a scale her mind nearly broke to encompass. Seeing the thing made her question her eyes. How could such a thing exist? How could it not be a god?
And then, horror of horrors, an eye taller than the tower she had grown up in opened and looked directly at her. Rapunzel screamed. She screamed a scream unlike any she had screamed before. It was the scream of a mind snapping like a twig. Of sanity breaking cleanly in two. All of creation dissolved to her scream and that single, hateful eye.
And then she was back in the tent, drenched in cold sea water with her insane scream still echoing in her ears. But it wasn't sea water that soaked her skin and ruined her dress. It was sweat. The sweat of a woman mad with terror, unable to do anything but scream until her throat bled. But Rapunzel was a dauntless woman, and though terror tore at her psyche it was not enough to break it entirely. Rapunzel trembled in a terror she had never experienced before. It was the mortal dread an ant felt at the mercy of a man. A hopeless, inevitable dread, as sure as the March of death itself. She shook, violently and of or weren't for her exceptional courage she might have wept and called for her mother. Istrid was there, though, a strong steady hand on her shoulder, grounding her in reality.
"I am sorry, Princess" she said somberly. "I went too far, I should not have let you see. But now you have, and now you know. The World Serpent has seen you."
Rapunzel started to weep, it was all her mind could think to do, and it helped. The terror drained from her with her tears, her tightly grasped sanity settling back onto her as she cried out her fear.