Eighteen
"Enough!"
For a moment, complete silence falls – silence created by shock. Iza is shocked as well, because the voice that momentarily silenced the crowd is her own. She has never heard her voice in this pitch before, high and resolute and commanding. It is a tone she has never needed to use, because it was so much easier to gently wheedle her will into others.
But this is a directive and the villagers listen, awed and wide-eyed and wary. And Iza sits astride her dragon and can do nothing except return the uneasy looks. Seldom is it that Iza truly speaks without thinking, and now that she has, she does not know what to do next.
The silence stretches, swords and farming tools slowly lowering. Iza breaks the silence, softly repeating, "Enough. That is enough." Her words float through the air, carried by a small breeze that smells of charred mutton and heavy rains.
Belatedly, Iza realizes she is soaked to the bone. She does not feel the chill or the way her hair is plastered to her back. She does not feel much of anything, except for an extremely postponed swooping of her stomach from flying on a dragon and heart-hammering adrenalin pumping through her veins, leaving her fingers tingling. The bow in her hand which had once been deliberately dirtied to hide its origin has now been washed clean by the rain, and it gleams in the low lighting as rain continues to steadily pour from the sky. Iza does not bother to hide it once more.
She thinks that the time for hiding things has long since passed.
But she does not know where to go from here – she does not know what to say. And her silence only gives the village time to dissent, because someone mutters traitor and suddenly the mob is riled once more. Even surrounded by Eko's shield, Iza has the urge to turn and flee.
"All of you shut up!" Edvard roars as he breaks through the crowd of angry villagers. He moves to stand in front of the crowd, his back to Iza and Eko as he speaks with authority. "Iza and her dragon have just saved all our lives and ensured the safety of the entire village! You should be on your knees thanking her, not spitting curses at her feet!"
Iza's heart clenches. "Edvard," she murmurs, far too low for him to be able to hear her.
"She has a dragon!" someone cries out.
"Yes, exactly!" Edvard agrees. "She has a dragon – a dragon who listens to her commands and willingly shows Iza loyalty!"
Edvard's declaration is met with another slew of loud voices and Edvard matches each one with great vehemence, standing tall and unmoved in the face of such controversy. He handles the villagers in such a way that Iza suddenly realizes exactly why her father has chosen him for next Chieftain. Edvard has a leadership that cannot be taught. Even angry and confused, the village listens to Edvard.
He manages to calm them enough that a slight form can slip through the crowd to stand at his side. With a start, Iza recognizes Alise and the familiar haze in her eyes. "Can you not see how swiftly the tides turn with this one dragon?" Alise asks the villagers, her voice floating through the air as if not tied to this realm. "Imagine if we joined with the dragons."
"Join with them?" another villager asks with incredulity.
Alise turns her dazed eyes toward the voice. "Surely you did not think these dragons attacked by their own choice?"
And with that one declaration, Alise sends the villagers into another tizzy – this one met with even more protests and debate. Yet both Alise and Edvard are both unmoved. Iza realizes they must have spoken about this privately at some point. She wonders if she should be bothered that they keep secrets from her, but decides that she has no footing to stand on as she kept a much larger secret herself. Besides, there is nothing that Alise does without a reason.
And what Alise has just said – Iza thinks to the gaunt dragons, all scale and bone and dull-eyed, and knows deep in the pit of her stomach that Alise is right. These dragons that have been plaguing the village for most of Iza's life, these dragons who have burned houses and killed livestock, these dragons who have taken Viking lives…these dragons are being made to be vicious. It seems obvious now. Iza can tell just from knowing Eko that dragons, by nature, are not cruel creatures. They are made of magic and fire, but they are not gleeful killers.
But who could make so many dragons attack villages? And who is starving these dragons while they are enslaved? Who is the puppeteer?
Iza strokes her hand along Eko's neck, her pale, rain-soaked, mud-splattered skin a great contrast to Eko's inky blackness, and she thinks. And as she thinks, she watches the villagers debate and argue, watches as the Elders are dragged forward and as they examine Eko from the safe distance created by the amber shield, watches as Alise calmly mediates and explains her half-dreamed visions. And as she watches, her eyes are helplessly drawn to the terse, broad outline of Edvard's shoulders where he stands so resolute before Iza and Eko, fingers curled warningly around the hilt of his sword.
The rain continues to fall as the sun sets behind the clouds and the village continues its upheaval as they all strain to grasp the abrupt new order their world has begun. And Iza, the catalyst to it all, feels something settle deep into her bones – a satisfaction, a sense of a duty completed, an instinct finally sated, at least for a time.
By the time the clouds clear and the moon hangs in the sky, the humble Viking village of Forks has come to a tentative understanding.
It is not until several days later that Iza will truly know what that understanding means for her.
A/N: A short, but important chapter. Imagine what you will about these Vikings losing their shit over these dragons - I'm sure it was very loud. Also there was a huge hint dropped about Iza this chapter and super kudos to anyone who puts it together. Fair warning, it does require a more-than-casual knowledge of Norse mythology.
Anyway. No other Norse things in this chapter!
As always, be brutally honest. I can take it.
~Rae