It wasn't so much that young Finola hated to talk as she loved to listen.
She wasn't enamored of the sounds of the world like her elder brother. She was content on observing the world around her instead of being a part of it. People were the oddest of beings, odder than any dragons she had ever seen, and just as interesting to watch.
She took in all the words they said around her, learned them, and stored them for whenever she might need them. She had gotten through life so far without being required to speak. What was a word compared to the effect of an angry look or an embrace of appreciation?
She didn't sit pondering this specifically at six years old, but knew in this to be in an abstract, child-like feeling. That was the general reasoning for lack of verbal communication, and reflecting on it when she was older, would use that as a exact description.
She still liked words though she barely used them for herself.
The words she liked best were those told in stories.
On some nights, the children would gather to tell and listen to stories while their parents socialized and drank ale or other types of beverages in the Mead Hall.
The eldest kids always got to tell stories first, because they were pushy. However,they usually told the better stories of the bunch since they used more words. Fin preferred this hierarchy of storytelling. Her sister and the Chief's eldest son were bickering on who should tell the next story.
"I want to tell a story this time!" Svenan declared suddenly and hopped right on up to the planks that surrounded the big fire that simmered in the center of the Mead Hall. He liked being the center of attention, but he also told stories with energy—Fin liked that too.
"Oh fine, as long as it isn't the one you told last time," Brig reluctantly agreed and slumped to a sit next to Fin on the floor. Only the story teller got to sit on the planks.
"Tell Daddy's story!" Icky suggested with overwhelming enthusiasm.
"Yeah! The Battle of the Red Death!" the boys were enthusiastic.
"It's called the Green Death!" Briarprick argued.
This initialed a verbal fight between her and her twin brother before Cur ended up moving himself between them.
"That's the one we heard last time anyway!" Brig objected, getting back to the subject.
"No you heard the story of how the Chief recovered from the fight!"
"Same difference."
They glared at each other.
"Yeah, I don't want to hear about one again!" Frostbite weighed in her opinion.
"No one cares what you think!" Svenan snapped immediately, to which she just gave an affronted frown.
"Okay, raise your hand if you want to hear the story!" he exercised his diplomacy—which was important because someday he would be the next chief.
Bludge, Splint, and Icky's hands shot up, but Frostbite tugged on the auburn-haired boy's sleeve with the shake of her blonde braids; it was apprehensively lowered.
"Okay, who doesn't?"
Frostbite and Brig raised their hands. Icky's sleeve was tugged once more and he barely raised it, looking at floor in a guilty manner. Svenan didn't notice.
"And what about the rest of you?"
Cur shrugged, Briarprick, who sat next to him, added, "We did basically hear it last time, tell something new."
"What about you?"
Fin was being addressed; she did like stories. She didn't mind that she had heard the tale of the Green or Red Death before, so she nodded that it was okay.
Frostbite was determined to get her way. "Well, Icky doesn't want to hear it."
"He raised his hand he wanted to!" Svenan argued. He was thoroughly outraged by her claim and obviously hadn't paid the best attention.
"But then he put it down. He doesn't want to hear it."
"Icky, is that true?"
"Yeah?" His voice wavered just a bit and he refused to look his brother in the eye which told Svenan everything.
Svenan gave a mean glare to Frostbite, probably for being a manipulative urchin.
"Then I will tell a story!" Brig stood and plopped next to him, beckoned for Fin to join her. "I know it's one you never heard before."
"Oh really?" Svenan crossed his arms with doubt.
"Yes, really!"
Fin climbed onto the planks, into her sister's lap, and settled in, wondering what story Brig knew that she did not.
"It's a story about a beautiful and brave Lord's daughter and a Viking whom she hated...at first."
That teaser elicited a couple of 'oohs' of intrigue from the girls.
"Whatever, this better have some action," the Chief's eldest conceded and reluctantly vacated his spot on the planks.
"There's a battle!" Brigid snapped with a sly smile.
"Okay!" Svenan was quick to relent and take his place among the sitting children.
"Cool!"
"Blood!"
The boys were pumped up already.
Fin knew this story, it was her favorite—and Cur's and Brig's too. It was the Rock Girl and the Viking Warrior tale. Their father had told them it.
Well, not all of it.
He had to leave without finishing it—Worst. Cliffhanger. Ever.
Now that he was back, he must have forgotten because he had stopped telling them. Fin always wondered what became of Rock Girl, and if she did marry the chieftain of the tribe? Would Brig make up her own ending? Would Cur like it? Most of all, would Fin like it too?
As Brig talked, the children were quiet because no one else knew it and they were anxious to know the outcome. The only sounds were that of squaggoring dragons and mumbled adult voices. But that was ignored and all focus was on Brig.
The boys were excited during the battle narrative Brig told. They liked the crashing walls and rock throwing.
Fin liked the character named Rock Girl because she threw rocks at the Viking when they met. It was a funny way to meet someone. The maiden had been taken to the Viking homeland and was supposed to wed the clan chief, but that was all they knew.
So Brig made up the rest, since it was a story after all.
"On the day of the wedding, Rock Girl had disappeared..." Brig told and waited appropriately for them to gasp and wonder. Some of the boys weren't as enthusiastic anymore, though, since the story had turned to pure fluff.
"What happened?" Frostbite demanded, since she was not tired of the plot at all.
"They searched for her. They didn't know that the Viking Warrior loved her, or else they would have been more suspicious when he had planned a fishing trip on the day of the wedding."
"Fishing is fun though!" Icky interjected. Everyone ignored his pointless remark.
Finola could see her father not far off at a table with the Master Ingerman and Tuffnut the Brazen with a mug of ale in hand. Instead of laughing with them, his attention was in Brig and her story. Finola had to wonder if her father would ever tell the rest of it, though Brig seemed to handle making up her own ending. Did her father like this ending? Was it the right ending?
"When the villagers entered the Warrior's home, it was empty, like someone had thieved from it!"
"Awesome!" Bludgeonstick punched the air. He had seemed bored with the remainder of the story up until Brig mentioned thieves. "And then the Viking warrior came back and slaughtered those robbers as punishment!"
"NO! It's MY STORY!" Brig about threw Finola off her lap as a projectile at the obnoxious Thorston but Fin grabbed Brig's dress and anchored herself while her sister re-composed herself. "AND it wasn't robbed. The Viking Warrior had taken his lass and sailed away, to never return. He would be with her no matter what, for the Gods themselves could not tear them apart."
That must have been the conclusion. It was rushed because Brig had seen the crowd starting to turn on her. Frostbite clapped with vigor. Bludge was downcast because there no real robbers and Icky still maintained that fishing was fun. They could hear Svenan saying with incredulousness, "That it? No other battles?"
"Way to betray his tribe," Buzzkill, a kid no one really liked added in his opinion.
Brig only gave them a glare for their unsatisfactory feedback.
Their father still stared at them rather solemnly before excusing himself from the table and wandering away so even Fin couldn't see him anymore.
"I know a story, it's a true one!" Icky shot his hand up.
"What story?" Svenan demanded to know.
"The Pale Nadder!"
Everyone seemed to groan or snicker at the boy.
"Icky, you know that is not a real story," Svenan reasoned.
"Yes it is! Gobber told me!" he argued, which fueled the children's laughter. Most children knew to be wary of Gobber's tales.
"Gobber says the moon is made of cheese," Briar howled and pointed at him.
"He also says Trolls stole his socks," Brig agreed.
But Finola had never heard of a Pale Nadder true or not. She wanted to know. She leaned forward insistently and uttered the word, "Tell."
All of them became quiet, some never recalling her say any word in their lives. Her own Siblings could count the words she had said on only two hands while they had known her.
Icky looked unsure now, but Finola's sharp eyes insisted to know the story.
"Well, Nadders are usually bright colors and travel in groups, there is a white-scaled Nadder that roams the islands by itself. It is a vicious dragon that will melt any human face it sees. It is cursed to be alone and pale. It used to be a regular Nadderhead but one day a hunting pack of Vikings found its families nest and boiled the eggs. They ATE THEM! This was the old days before our Dad made dragons friends. So the Angry Nadder hunted down the Vikings in their village and killed them all!"
Icky paused for breath and spread his arms while making angry sounds that were supposed to be a Nadder killing all the people. His noises garnered attention from the Terrible Terrors that were lazing about in the ceiling. They sailed downward and emulated the noises.
Fin got a surprise feeling of frenzy and began kicking her dangling legs against the side planks.
"Sit still," Brigid bossed. Fin obeyed, yet that feeling stayed.
Bludgeonstick looked very into this story already and Fin spied Frostbite trying to make a grab for one of the Terrors, probably to cuddle one to death. They smartly dodged her. Fin sighed a breath of relief for it, feeling for it.
"But it killed the wife of the chief who was gonna have a baby and the elder was not happy so she used her magics and they sent an avalanche upon the Nadder from the mountains above and it was stuck so long in the snow that it's scales got so cold they blended in white. So now the Nadder had no family and hates all humans. It's the Pale Nadder."
Everyone sort of stared uncomfortably at Icky. His narration skills needed work, to say the least, but he kept grinning ear to ear like he had told the most epic tale in eight generations. With everyone staring blankly or with sneers, though, it quickly deteriorated his pride.
Finola's face betrayed no emotion, but she felt bad for the Nadder in the story. She didn't feel that bad for Icky though, he wasn't a very good story teller, and that was why they hardly ever let him get his say in story time.
Frostbite finally smiled and gave a few claps to support the kid and that made all the difference. Icky's face flew into a wide smile, self-assured that he did it good that time, even though no one else really thought so.
"Why are you clapping? That was terrible! Except for the killing!" Bludge asked, but Finola saw Frostbite kick him and then she joined the girls on the plank.
"I have a story!" Frostbite cried, seeming with sudden inpiration.
"No one wants to hear your stories!" Svenan objected.
Finola slipped off of her sister's lap knowing Frost would end up getting her way and telling a love story. Already the boys were groaning and Svenan was doing his best not to pull Frostbite down. She suspected the reason Svenan didn't pull the blonde down was because Brig would hand him his rear. Finola was actually tired of those kinds of stories.
Her sister liked romantic stories well enough and stayed put on the planks even though she wasn't the one telling the story anymore. It was just warmer right there.
The boys were already fed up with Frostbite's prologue and began to get up and wander about. There were a few dragons snug in the Mead Hall at the moment. Usually they weren't allowed in the Mead Hall but for special occasions because they all couldn't fit. But a lucky few who had not flown away at winter were either snoozing or preening their wings in the warm smoky room.
Finola passed the Thorston Zippleback and its left head nipped at her skirt playfully. She gave a squeak of surprise, frowning inwardly, projecting a warning thought of discontent around her instead of shouting outright and hurried along until she bumped into her father.
He had refilled his mug, and he looked down on her. "I thought you liked stories?"
She bit her lip and reached up, signaling she wanted held and the High Commander easily scooped her up into one arm while maintaining his mug in the other.
She wanted to ask him what really was supposed to happen to Rock girl and the warrior Viking , but it was too difficult to ask in words. She imagined her question, saw it, and wished her father could see it too.
He did notice something was odd with her. They made it back to the bench and he set her down, "What's wrong, little flower?"
She opened her mouth to articulate and at the same time her father's eyes widened just as much with encouragement—seeing she was about to speak.
"Rock Girl," she half-whispered, her voice like a seed on the wind and very light. But it was clear enough to her father to make him pale.
He didn't respond for a few moments. Instead, he blinked and asked, "What did you say?"
But Fin didn't want to repeat herself. Every word she didn't say gave it more of an impact for later. And obviously, a simple utterance of a made-up character's name rendered her father in a look between melancholy and horror.
She just imagined the last scene, the true scene of the original story when the Rock Girl and the Viking Warrior had shared a dance, then it faded to black because she knew no more.
She didn't answer her father to spare him any further looks of such sadness, but turned around and bumped smack into the Zippleback. It had followed her. She reached out to steady herself but it was counter-productive because she fell against the moist green and yellow scales anyway.
Suddenly, an image so bright and clear replaced the fading black. She saw her image of Rock Girl being pushed towards a Monstrous Nightmare by the Viking. She was frenzied and fearful, but the Viking Warrior took her hand and laid it on the dragon's snout. Fin never knew Rock Girl was afraid of dragons, at least her father had never said that in the story. The image was gone as soon as it appeared and Fin blinked a few times, looking around and wondering where that image came from—that visual answer appearing so suddenly that answered what else happened in the story her father had yet to tell.
She looked up, craning her head back to see two heads at the peak of the two skinny necks and both heads were grinning at her, as close as a dragon-grin could be.
It made her wonder.
A/N: Thanks to Ikaro of the Desert for proofing this! She's my new Beta! also Oneil for giving some insight to little boys, it helped make their reactions more humorous and believable.