Reviews time! Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to leave a review, and for those who've favorited and followed this story! It makes me really happy to know that others are enjoying my little story!
Anonymoose: Oh, I like that saying, I've never head it before. I might borrow that from you at some point. I'm glad liked it, and I hope you like this chapter, too!
RSegovia: Thank you so much for the thoughtful, kind words! I've taken a lot of care, done a lot of research, and put a lot of thought into this story, so reading a review like this was really gratifying. :)
Lovepeaceandwar: Hiksti just might have to do that! Read on to see how Elsa's relationship with Asta evolves in this chapter!
OechsnerC: Thank you for dropping a compliment!
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The next morning Hiksti sent Dapple back to the Bewilderbeast to get reinforcements. "She'll be gone for at least four days," Elsa said, already missing the beautiful Night Light. "In the meantime, we had better begin preparing for the invasion."
"Yeah, I've been thinking about that," Hiksti said.
"Oh?" she asked. She was watching Asta carefully, but the child was ten meters up a tree, as agile as a squirrel.
"You don't really have any battle skills," he said.
Elsa paused, then nodded. "This is true," she agreed.
"But there are a few things I can teach you that you may learn quickly enough to be a threat."
"Like what?" she asked. "I'm not too bad at archery." As a rather solitary sport, it was one thing that had held her interest for a while, growing up. She'd been fair at it, before losing control of her powers had prompted her to stop.
"A good bow takes too long to make, properly," he said, shaking his head. "Still, you can use mine, maybe. And you can help me make some arrows. But I was thinking about booby traps."
"Booby traps?" Elsa repeated.
"Yeah," he said. "Swinging logs and rocks, disguised pits, caltrops, snares, poison smoke, that kind of thing."
"Oh… okay," she said, sounding a bit uncertain. "I wouldn't know where to start."
"Luckily for us I've got loads of experience," he reassured her. "And with Panda and Asta helping, we'll be able to make some good ones."
They spent three days making booby traps and planning how best to lure the unlucky pirates to their doom. Elsa kept offering to use her magic and Hiksti flatly refused every time, so she worked and sweated and got blisters and calluses and sore muscles, which her husband skillfully massaged for her at night.
Asta was invaluable, finding plants for them that Hiksti needed - mostly poisonous things and vines with long, deadly-looking thorns. Panda provided muscle where needed, too, and Elsa discovered how well Night Lights were equipped to dig, carry heavy things, and help fell trees by blasting them with a well-aimed plasma ball. Every day they made an aerial reconnaissance, but there was still no sign of any ships, and no sign of Dapple with the other dragons.
And no sign of fairies.
As every day passed, Elsa came to admire her husband more and more. The sheer breadth of knowledge he possessed, the incredible work ethic he displayed, and the ever-patient way he dealt with the precocious orphan in their care increased her admiration and respect and love.
Plus, watching him lift and haul and chop and dig, all his lean muscles glistening with sweat, did rather funny things to her insides. She half-resented having Asta act as an unwitting chaperone, just by being constantly around, and then felt bad for the resentment. To make up for her uncharitable feelings she carefully tamed the wild child's hair and braided it. She was pleased to discover that once all the snarls and matting were brushed out, Asta's hair reached her waist.
And Asta, for her part, seemed to have adopted them. She fetched them water and chided them to stop and eat when it was time for meals. She tried to learn how to cook, and managed not to badly burn too much of their food. Every day she begged Hiksti for stories, and he regaled her with tales of his early years before his curse, when he and his friends rescued and trained dragons. She begged Elsa, too, and the Snow Queen told her stories of her sister, and of Olaf and Kristoff and Sven, of her parents, and of the books she'd read.
The child took to snuggling up next to her at night around the fire, and would wrap her thin arms around Elsa's waist and rest her head on her shoulder. "I can hear your heartbeat!" she said that first time, absolutely delighted. "Ba-bump, ba-bump, ba-bump!"
Elsa squeezed her tighter and rested her cheek on Asta's head. She was starting to love the little scamp, and didn't know what she was going to do about it.
Their fifth afternoon in their little camp, and Hiksti came back to them bearing a few things in a sack. "I found these in the village," he told Elsa and Asta. "I hope you don't mind."
Asta came over to see what he was talking about, and Elsa saw that he was carrying a few bronze frying pans and pots and tea kettles and some bronze tools, as well as a few rough smithing tools.
"What's all this?" Elsa asked.
Asta picked up a frying pan and swung it around experimentally before she stopped and gave Hiksti a strange look. "This isn't a weapon," she told him. "My mother used to make food in this. This is mine!"
"You can keep that one, then," he told her. "But I want to melt down the rest to make arrowheads. It'll go faster than knapping more stone arrowheads, anyway." He and Elsa simultaneously glanced at their unfinished pile of arrows, knocked and fletched and awaiting points. He'd already spent arduous hours making what they had and Elsa approved of anything that would ease his work load.
Before night fell he'd made what he needed, and as each one became cool enough to handle, Elsa fastened it to the arrows. Asta helped by handing over supplies and tools, her elfin face serious and focused on the task.
Hours later, the child was finally fast asleep, and Hiksti was staring at his wife with a familiar amorous gleam in his eye. He waggled his eyebrows in silent invitation.
"We can't," she whispered, afraid to wake their orphan.
"We can, too," he countered, pulling her close and kissing her soundly.
She melted against him but pushed back and glanced at the tent. "We'll wake her."
"No, we won't," he promised. "Come with me." He raised his hand to Panda. "Guard her," he murmured to the dragon, who snuffled and nodded. Hiksti took Elsa by the hand and led her away from their camp, toward the cliff-side.
On a wide, mostly level, flatish boulder lay his bedding and furs atop a soft bed of pine needles. "My lady," he said, bowing extravagantly.
Elsa giggled and tiptoed over to them, holding his hand the entire way and then pulling him close to her. "It's been torture," she admitted, rising on her toes to kiss him.
"Mm?" He sprinkled little kisses down her neck and his hands spread across her waist.
"Watching you work," she said, tipping her head back. "So… strong and… capable…"
"You like that, do you?" he asked her, a smile in his voice. "Just wait until I show you just what I'm capable of." He lay her down on the furs and pulled the blanket over them, she giggled in delight, and for a while they were alone together, and it was sweet and wonderful and just what they needed.
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Long after the magical golden after-glow had faded, Elsa woke at midnight because the ambient magic that she felt around them at all times here in Avalon just… rippled. She gasped as she sat up, clutching Hiksti's blanket to her chest, and her eyes were drawn to the bay far below. There on the still black water rolled a soft mist, catching the light of all three full moons in the sky. Like foggy fingers, the mist stretched its grasp toward the pebbled beach, and from within it came first the glow of lanterns, and then the prow of a ship, adorned with a grisly skeleton.
Not a merchant vessel, this, but sleek and fast-looking, and Elsa estimated a crew of perhaps a hundred twenty at most. It was painted all black, and from the mainmast flew a black flag with a skull and crossbones.
"Pirates," Hikst breathed, wide awake and close behind her.
Elsa turned toward him. "Asta's murdering Sons of Adam are pirates?" She shook her head. Pirates hadn't been much of a bother off Arendelle's waters for over a hundred years. "But don't pirates usually just take other ships and steal their booty? Why sail to Avalon and harvest timber and… that's a lot of work, isn't it?"
"That's a very… fairy-tale way of looking at pirates," Hiksti told her with an amused smile. "The gold in that river is literally just waiting to be picked up. The trees aren't being guarded by anyone. Why wouldn't they come here and raid?"
She had to admit it made sense. "They used a spell," she said. "It has something to do with… with light?" she shook her head. "I'm not sure, exactly. The… moons?" She shuddered. "There was something dark about it," she explained. "Something of death."
"Great," Hiksti said sourly. "Blood magic that depends on the full moons to work. I bet you a hundred gold coins there's a full moon back home right now, too."
"That seems like a sound bit of magical logic," Elsa agreed.
The two quickly got dressed while watching the ship. It came as close to the beach as it could without running aground, and the sails came down, then the anchor came out. "They'll probably wait out the night on the ship," he said. "And start to make land at dawn." He touched her shoulder. "It's time to defend Avalon."
They stole quietly back to the camp, and Hiksti explained the situation to Panda. Elsa crawled into the tent and reached for the little girl's hand. "Asta," she said softly. "You must be quiet. The bad men are here."
Asta awoke all at once and went rigid and stared at her with wide amber eyes. "The mist came?" she asked, her voice very small.
Hiksti nodded as he stretched. "It's okay," he told her. "We've got this."
"But the dragons are not here, yet," she whined. "They are going to kill us!"
"They won't," Elsa promised. "You need to stay here in this camp, far up in a tree, just like we practiced. You hide, and hide well until the danger has passed. Promise me."
"I… promise," Asta said, and she was sealed to that promise by Avalon's magic. She grabbed a hard bread roll and an apple, her water canteen, and then scurried squirrel-like up the tallest tree in the camp. With her green and brown coloring she was camouflaged almost instantly.
"Panda, you know what to do, first," Hiksti prompted. "I can't come with you, for this. Are you ready?"
Panda nodded, then took off into the air, firing a plasma blast just before he cleared the tree tops, flying through it, and becoming invisible.
Elsa and Hiksti ran quickly toward the cliff. At a certain point they dropped to their stomachs and crawled the rest of the way to stay hidden, peeking toward the moonlit bay through a concealing bush.
Panda wasn't quite able to make it to the ship before his scales cooled down and he became visible again, but a quick blast and he regained his stealth. Not quite quick enough, however, because a lookout on the ship shouted and started ringing a bell. In moments, men boiled up from the belly of the ship, shouting and looking around, carrying bows and arrows and crossbows. All of their looking was for naught, however, as a sudden plasma blast hit the ship dead-center at the water level.
The pirate ship immediately began to fill with water. Three more blasts hit the deck in rapid succession, and men screamed as they died while others jumped overboard into the bay. Perhaps sixty men made it off of the sinking ship and swam for the nearby shore. Behind the ones who escaped, the ship was on fire, and sank inexorably into the inky water.
Panda strafed the water again and again, taking out another ten men or so before one of the pirates made it to the beach and started firing arrows at him. He had to go into stealth mode again and retreat, and a minute later he landed behind them on the cliff-top.
"Great job, bud," Hiksti said, making sure to give the dragon an affectionate scratch beneath his chin. "You stay out of sight, blast whoever you can. No matter what, don't let them see you or they'll shoot you. We'll handle the rest of them from here." Panda nodded and turned, and slipped into the woods.
Elsa watched him go until even his snowy white scales were lost in the gloom. "At least fifty men made it to the beach," she told him. "We've got to start luring them up the ravine."
"That's where you come in, my dear," Hiksti told her. He pulled her close and kissed her until she was breathless. "Remember, keep your distance."
"I can't promise," she told him gently. "But I'll try."
He briefly closed his eyes, but had to accept it. With one final kiss he left her and melted into the trees.
Elsa found her designated spot and settled in to wait.
The men on the beach gathered together in a loose crowd, most of them facing outward and anxiously scanning the skies with their crossbows at the ready. With their ship gone, most of the men must have realized that they were stuck here in Avalon with no way home, in a land populated by dragons and fairies which had every reason to be hostile to them.
She waited until the sun came up, and then she started singing.
Elsa had a powerful voice, and even the rush of the river through the ravine wasn't enough to cover it up.
It didn't take long for the pirate's curiosity to overcome them, and they followed the sound of her haunting voice up the ravine. Once they reached a certain point, she stopped her singing and held up her hand. "Stop," she commanded. She had excellent English, with only the slightest accent.
It appeared as if they were all there, spread out on the east side of the little river, as the west bank was directly against the cliff wall. Their position left her no escape downstream.
"Not a fairy," she heard one of them say to his companions. "A woman. A beautiful woman. All alone." A few low chuckles escaped the men, but Elsa wasn't afraid of them.
"Are you pirates?" she asked them.
Their leader took just one step forward. "You saw our ship, did you?"
"I did," she affirmed. "I ask again, sir, are you pirates?"
"Well, that we are, there's no denying." He grinned at her. "But have no fear, miss, we wouldn't harm a hair on your pretty little head."
"Why have you come here?" she demanded.
"I reckon you can guess," he bit out.
"To gather gold?" she asked. She glanced down at the river, where even now golden nuggets gleamed in the swift waters.
"Obviously," he said. "That's all we want, a bit of gold, and home again."
"And the dragons?" she asked.
"What of them?" the man sneered.
"Do you hunt them?"
"Only when they show up," he told her. "Dragon flesh sells for a premium. Worth more than its weight in gold."
"The fairies, too?"
"Now those are rare," he hissed. "Hard to find, but not too hard to kill. Are you a fairy? You haven't got wings, your ears are round. You look human to me."
"I am," Elsa told him.
"So you're a witch," the man concluded.
"No," Elsa said. "My name is Mrs. Haddock, and I have found you wanting. You are true villains. If you don't leave now, only your doom awaits."
The man tipped his head back and laughed heartily, and his men mostly joined him. Swords were drawn. "Call me Smith," he introduced himself. "Our doom?" he chuckled. "I doubt it. You tell us how to get home again, see, and we'll let you live, witch."
"Back through the mist," she told him. "Swim if you must, but leave here, and never return. This land is protected."
"I don't take orders from witches," the man sneered. "We'll take what we want, when we want. And right now… we'll take you," he promised. "Teach you a lesson or two, and make you show us the way home."
Elsa's resolve hardened. These men weren't worth saving. "You will rue those words," she told him. She turned and retreated, scrambling up the ravine over the wild, rocky terrain, around the tall evergreens. Smith gave a shout and he and his companions pursued her.
There was a very particular path to take, and Elsa leaped nimbly over a few tripwires. The pirates, being unaware of their existence, did not, and said wires were, in fact, tripped.
It was small, as far as rockslides go, but Elsa knew from first-hand experience how devastatingly effective falling rocks are against one's mortality. The grinding, rumbling sound of them falling spiked her fear and she ran even faster, not wanting to die this way again. Once was enough.
Five men were taken out - three died outright, one was half-pinned beneath a large boulder, and another just screamed and screamed at the bloody stumps where his legs used to be. He bled out quickly. The rockfall had distracted them long enough for Elsa to grab Panda's dangling black tail and be hauled up into a depression, where they crouched behind a conveniently-placed bush.
"Was that you, Mrs. Haddock?" Smith bellowed, rage in his voice. "Did you cause those rocks to fall?" His voice bounced off the ravine walls.
"How could I cause the rocks to fall?" she called back, her own voice echoing from wall to wall.
"You must be a witch," Smith yelled back. "Only witches can open doors to Avalon! Everyone knows that!"
"I'm not a witch!" she shouted.
"We'll find you, you will show us to your door, and if you're a good little girl we'll give you a quick, clean death. It's better than being burned at the stake!"
Elsa kept silent.
Warily, the men advanced up the ravine, crossbows raised and eyes darting to and fro.
Hiksti waited until there were quite a few of them in a good spot, and released the second booby trap. Huge logs embedded with sharpened stakes swung down and toward the men. Some of them managed to jump out of the way, but seven were hit, of which three were impaled. On the backswing their corpses left a gruesome, bloody trail. Just as the remaining men were recovering from that sight, two more logs swung down out of nowhere, and three more fell victim.
In rage, Smith slashed at the vine holding one of the logs aloft on one side, and managed to sever it. The weight of the swinging log was too much for the other side to handle and that vine snapped. The log flew helter-skelter off its course and brained another man.
There were now thirty-four pirates left, including Smith. They huddled together, eyes wide. "Fine, fine, you win! We just want to go home!" Smith shouted. "Cease your attacks, and we swear not to harm you!"
Elsa didn't answer.
The pirates were rather stuck. Their path back toward the beach was blocked by the rockfall, unless they wanted to swim the river's swift, deep course. None of them had tried that before, as the gold they always came here for could be had easily enough in knee-high water. Their only option was north along the bank, upriver. They realized this, and they weren't eager to follow an apparent witch into more traps.
"I'm going for it," one of the pirates said. "I'm a good swimmer."
"Wait!" hissed Smith, but the pirate paid him no mind and jumped into the river.
"It's not bad," he called back to the others. "We should be -" but what he was going to say is any man's guess, for he was swept beneath the rushing waters by the strong, fast current. He never resurfaced.
Elsa quietly clambered atop Panda and buckled herself to the saddle, and the dragon shot two quick plasma blasts at the pirates in the back of the group, killing several and prompting the rest to run for cover beneath the trees. A few of them tried to fire their arrows toward the source, but they hadn't gotten a clear idea of his location. Right up until he jumped out and flew upward. A final plasma blast from him before he cleared the top of the cliff and landed well out of sight and danger. The final plasma blast ignited another booby trap.
Damp wads and bundles of poisonous leaves began to burn, letting off copious amounts of smoke which filled the bottom of the ravine. The rushing course of the river created its own little wind at the bottom of the cliffs, and hurried the noxious smoke straight toward the pirates.
The villains began choking and gagging, and tears welled up in their eyes as they flailed their arms in a vain attempt to fan away the smoke. While the smoke wasn't terribly thick, it was terribly effective. More than a few pirates fell to their knees and retched and vomited.
It was while they were thus encumbered that Hiksti loosed his own arrows. In less than two seconds four men were dead, and he ducked behind his concealing boulder. He was situated in a very favorable location, high up and far away. Two tall boulders were only 17 or 18 centimeters apart, and left a natural archer's window for him to take advantage of.
When no return arrows came his way, Hiksti chanced a peek and realized that the pirates were stumbling around so blindly that they hadn't even noticed when a few of their number died. He quickly fired off a few more shots, getting three more before someone realized they were being fired upon.
Twenty-two pirates were left. They fought past the choking smoke and Smith viciously kicked the smoking bundles away and into the river, where they quickly sank out of sight. "Rrrrraaaaagh!" he roared. One of Hiksti's arrows just missed him, and buried itself in a tree a scant inch past his ear. Smith ducked behind the tree, panting and counting his men. They were cowering just as he was.
"Piracy is generally frowned upon," Hiksti said, letting his voice boom and echo from the cliffs around them. "So is threatening women and the murder of innocent people."
"Who are you?!" came Smith's startled voice.
"The witch's husband," Hiksti drawled. "Protector of fairy orphans, defender of dragonkind, inventor extraordinaire… and your doom. Remember the doom bit? She did warn you."
An arrow glanced off of the boulder to his left, and Hiksti knew his time was up. "Did you know that dragons are intelligent?" he asked loudly.
"What?" Smith called back.
"Oh, yeah, they're smart. As smart as humans. More so, in some cases. Such as yours, I'm betting."
"Come out and face me, Haddock, you coward!"
"Now, you see, there's a difference between cowardice and cunning," Hiksti lectured. "A coward would never have gone through the trouble of setting up all these booby traps. A coward would have just run back home and let you guys come and go as you pleased. But I'm not a coward."
"You are!" Smith bellowed. "You will not fight me man-to-man!"
"Only because you have a score of evil henchmen invested in the idea of my death," Hiksti said, his tone conversational. "It would be really stupid to face you. And I'm a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them." He paused and shook his head, knowing Smith couldn't see it. "No, no, I prefer to use my cunning to even the playing field, first."
"You can't kill us all, Haddock," Smith said. "You and your witch are all alone out here."
"But back to dragons being intelligent," Hiksti said. "You'll wanna pay attention to this, this part is important."
"They're dumb animals!" Smith protested. "Nothing more!"
"Wrong! So very, very wrong!" There was a smile in his voice that he hoped Smith could hear. A smiling enemy usually was a very bad thing. "Dragons can communicate with each other, and with people, to a point. They can understand us, and make themselves understood. Some of them can even draw, isn't that fascinating?"
Smith scoffed, happy to play for time as his men edged closer and closer to Hiksti's hiding spot. One of them had managed to start carefully scaling the wall, dagger in his teeth. "I'll believe it when I see it."
"The proof of dragons being able to communicate is already here," Hiksti told him happily.
"There is no such proof!"
"Wrong again!" Hiksti said in a sing-song voice. "In fact, several days ago we sent a dragon friend for reinforcements. She's taken longer than I'd hoped, but finally, she's back."
Immediately following his words, Dapple, a blue Dramillion, two Deadly Nadders, and a Monstrous Nightmare flew into firing range and began spitting fireballs at the pirates they could see hiding beneath the trees. The pirates began shooting arrows, but the speed of the dragons combined with the panic of the pirates to foul their aim, and none of the dragons were hit; pretty soon all of their arrows were spent. Panda had joined them within moments, neatly picking off the one climbing toward Hiksti, and in moments all but Smith and three of his fellows were dead.
Hiksti stepped out from behind his boulders and descended to the ravine floor. "Four against one," he said. "I like those odds." He drew his sword with his left hand and then used his right to beckon them forward.
Smith and his terrified companions raised their swords as one, and Smith screamed a battle-cry. They charged bravely across the terrain, making straight for Hiksti, intent on spilling his life's blood. So intent were they that they didn't even notice the leaf-covered pit until they were already falling into it. Gravity asserted her dominance and brought them slamming down onto the spikes lining the bottom.
"Well, that's that," Hiksti said, stepping to the edge and looking down at them as they died. "Justice served."