Two weeks passed since Dagur showed up. He was the new focus of the family and for good reason. After his angry outburst at Vivian and day drinking time with Jon he was trying to fit in with them while understanding everything. Iris thought he was going to stab the tape player when her mom brought it out and turned it on. He probably would have if he had anything to attack it with. She calmed him down with a smile and switching out the language tape with a music one. That made him curious enough that the language tapes would be safe.
As long as he'd focus the tapes stayed on. Iris never knew her mom had English teaching tapes for Norwegian natives. She had just shrugged and said they came as a set. It her mom's look had been anymore pointed Iris would have been stabbed. Afterall, she was the reason the tapes were here and had only been used once.
Everyone took turns staying with Dagur but Iris spent the most time with him. She did her own studying while he learned English. Now she was having second thoughts of going to college even for a semester. How could she leave her parents to deal with a random person? It wasn't at all because she was interested in learning all she could from her favorite character and wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. She wasn't that immature.
"Iris," Dagur said as they sat in the kitchen. She was working on some advance math calculations while Dagur was going over the tapes for the fourth day in a row. "What you do?"
"What are you doing," she corrected.
"What are you doing?"
"Math." He looked at her blankly. "Um. Adding numbers together?" Did he cover this on his tapes yet? She pushed the book to him and walked around the table to sit by him. "See?"
"Math."
"Yep! Here. Let's say you have four sheep." He nodded slowly. "A dragon eats two sheep. Now you only have two sheep." He gave her a look of amusement. Okay maybe that was way too simple. "Ok here. I have one hundred and eighteen sheep. I need to get them from point A to point B. I know point A is-" She continued on, drawing basic images and writing out the formula she would be using. This wasn't something she'd use off grid but it was a prerequisite for her welding class so that was why she took the class.
"And there," she said proudly. It took her a second but she realized she had completely forgotten about Dagur and was talking out loud while solving the problem. She blushed, glancing over to see him leaning on his fist watching her with a slight smirk. "Sorry. I got too into it."
"Beautiful," he said quietly. She froze in the middle of closing her workbook. "Iris is beautiful."
"I hear mom calling me," she said quickly as she jumped to her feet. Without looking at Dagur she fled the room, ignoring his soft chuckle that followed her.
She bolted through the barn door and stood on the other side of the closed door, holding her book to her chest as she breathed heavily. As a preteen going through puberty, she fantasied about falling in love with characters from her books and going on adventures with them. As she got older she grew out of the puppy dog romance but some of the characters still held a special place in her heart. One such character was currently sitting in her kitchen and just told her she was beautiful.
Her face was on fire and her mind was a mess. Part of her was squealing with glee that he was interested in her while part of her freaked at the fact he wasn't from this world. He was from a story book for goodness sake! Still he was flesh and blood and alive. Very much a real live person.
Would she be this confused if she was a normal person with a normal life? A person who experienced the things she read about? Living off the grid didn't offer a chance at a normal life, not that she would trade it for any other life. However she didn't know if what she was experiencing was normal or just from inexperience of dealing with people on an everyday basis.
"Maybe I should leave," Iris said to herself. "See the real world for awhile. Mom and dad can handle things on their own. They don't need me. I'm sure they'll be able to handle Dagur. Alone. Without me."
The idea of leaving left an ache in her chest. Before she had been anxious about leaving but was excited since she would come home. Now though, things were different. There was a whole adventure unfolding in front of her. College could wait. Still, her grandparents would be so disappointed.
Her grandparents had given up everything to move to Alaska. They left family and friends to be near their son and his wife and future grandchildren. Granted they were in a nice little town that had more accomdies than here but it wasn't like living where they had been. During the summer they trekked out to visit but never stayed long. Iris missed them.
"Knock knock," Vivian said sometime later. Iris had moved to sit in the hayloft, her legs swinging off the edge. "Dagur said you ran off during lessons. Wanna tell me what happened?"
"I was explaining my math class and got too into it," she grumbled. "He was staring at me and called me beautiful."
"At least his eye sight is okay."
"Mom!"
"What? He isn't wrong. You are a beautiful young woman. Do I approve of him saying that? Well, not really but I can't yell at him for stating the obvious."
"He was one of my favorite characters." She scooted over so Vivian could climb the ladder and sit next to her. "I loved how he went from being a bad guy to a good guy, how he grew up realizing his mindset was too narrow. I would read his parts over and over until I could quote them by memory. Ugh." She buried her face in her hands. "I used to write in my diary about what kind of adventures we would have if I was in the story. I even drew little hearts with his name in it."
"So you had a crush on a fictional character," Vivian drawled. "So what? Every woman has had a crush on someone of the fanciful type. Some its radio hosts, actors, dead artists, tv characters, story characters, you name it."
"Its not that simple Mom! He's, well was, sitting in our kitchen! He's not just some picture in a book, he's flesh and blood and alive!"
"Isn't that every fan girls dream?" Iris groaned and flopped back into the hay. "I get it. Right now though, he's in a place that is completely different than where he's from where majority of the people can't even speak his language. Chalk it up to a survivor's crush. You were the first person he saw, like a duckling."
"Dagur the duck." She snorted at the idea of Dagur dressing up like a bright yellow duckling following her around. "What about college then? This big adventure is unfolding in front of me! I can't leave now! But-"
"Your father will handle your grandparents," Vivian soothed. Iris looked at her as she stroked her forehead like when she was little. "None of us understand what's going on, not fully. Your father will go into town to get some extra supplies and get the latest news. Do you want to go with him?"
"That would leave you alone with Dagur."
"I think I can handle an injured Viking. You forget, your father isn't the only military person in the family."
"But you learned how to treat people!"
"And I learned how to dispatch them to defend myself. Now enough of this. Get up and help me cook supper. And for God's sake tell the boy you aren't mad at him. He's been giving the door pitiful looks for over an hour."
"Yes Mom." She watched her mom climb down the ladder. "Hey Mom?"
"Yes?"
"I love you."
"I love you too. Now hurry up."
She jumped down into the pile of hay below the hay loft, much to her mother's disapproval. Hay stuck to her everywhere and she couldn't get it all off. It wasn't anything new.
Dagur tried to stand up when she followed Vivian in. Seeing him wince she hurried over and made him sit down. His face was full of worry and anxiety making her feel terrible.
"I'm sorry," she said. "You just surprised me. Sorry for not saying anything."
"Sorry," he said as well. Gently he touched her hand that was still on his shoulder. "Not sorry for truth."
"Let's not start," Vivian drawled in both English then Norse. "Iris, come peel potatoes please."
Ducking her head she grabbed a basket of potatoes and took a seat at the table. While Dagur watched she quickly began peeling potatoes, tossing the scraps into the bucket near her foot. After a few potatoes Dagur gestured at the peeler with a face full of curiosity. She handed it to him along with a ready to peel potato.
The look on his face was priceless. No matter how hard he tried, he could only peel the potato skin and not cut the rest of the potato. He could peel more of the bulk of the potato off. She giggled and gestured for him to hand it back. With a grin she showed him how she could peel in either direction with it only to burst out laughing at the surprise and awe on his face. He laughed with her.
He was cute when he was laughing and it was a good laugh. His whole body moved when he laughed. It made his green eyes glitter and left a contagious smirk on his face. She watched him only for him to catch her staring. At his wink she busied herself with her potatos again. Damn that smug grin of his.
