Disclaimer: the Characters of How to Train Your Dragon belong to Dreamworks
Everything else is by Travis Church
After the story, Stoic walked over the table Ilias was sitting at. He pulled himself a chair and a tankard of ale and asked, "Ilias what's wrong? Did that scare you?" He laughed while giving a slap on his back.
The elder straightened his posture at the jolt of pain and said without the shell, "More than you know."
The cries and calls of joy resonated throughout the dining hall as Hiccup and Toothless walked to the two adults. When they approached the table, Hiccup pulled forward a sagging version of Decessus.
"Ahh, Hiccup! I was just telling the story where you-"
"Dad, I need to tell you something," he cut him off curtly.
They walked away from the table and Ilias left his seat to help the mercenary to a chair.
"What happened to you?" He asked while offering some mead and bread.
"Ughh, he found me using Opium in the forest," he said as he pushed away the lunch.
"Oh Allah, we have no time left. I hoped we would have longer before this would happen."
"What are you going to do Ilias?"
"Hope for the best," he paused and saw the father and son fuming as they approached the two and then continued, "And let fate take hold of our destinies."
"Alright, who are you people?" Stoic began. "We let you into our home, give you our food and drink, and give you the right to trade as foreigners. As foreigners!" He said pointing a meaty finger at Ilias. "Why are you here?"
Ilias, with infinite amounts of patience and composure, stood from his wooden chair and offered, "If I may ask to be heard by all your people then I shall explain myself."
Stoic grabbed Decessus from his seat and shepherded both the merchant and the mercenary to the center of the hall. He called everyone to the center and told Ilias, "Who are you and why are you here? If you lie," he began to brandish his sword, "You shall feel no mercy."
Ilias took his shell from his white robe and took some invisible air and placed it to the floor so he may not have to cradle it. He gave much deliberation about the words he was about to say, for it may be the last time he may ever speak to the people of Berk.
"I am here not as merchant and neither he as a mercenary. I left Mecca for Constantinople, received my accompaniment, approached the Caliphate in Baghdad, obtained our task, traveled to Muscat, sailed out of the Aegean Sea, through the Mediterranean Sea, past the Iberian Peninsula, and North. Throughout that voyage, we had never considered ourselves to be adventurers or characters in an epic poem."
"But on my visit to the Caliphate, I had a vision. I saw something so heinous and awful that it rivals any demon, monster, and terror you can imagine. I saw a fire. A fire that burns in an inhuman way and burns for all eternity. A fire that secretes smoke so thick and putrid that you would believe it to be floating tar. A fire that laughs and cackles as it engulfs people, buildings, and the Earth in its red body. This fire, this horrid fire, originates from a being so wretched and cursed that mankind knows it by its modern name for its ancient name is too difficult to pronounce."
"It is called the Rage."
"At that very moment, I searched for every myth and legend conceived to dispose of the fear that there is such a fate. Yet inside one of my books was an illusion to a fable, 'a void separates the fire and ice and one day it shall spill into the emptiness and destroy all.'"
"I believed that there was indeed such a fire!" He then said desperately, "Countless hours devoted to speculating and proposing theories that could define the origin of the fire! But nothing in the numerous tales or references I possessed could show the origins of the fire."
"I had hoped for the best, assuming that although the fire was indeed inevitable, the cursed fireplace was mere myth and laid it to rest assuming it was some unearthly punishment that is to be doled out to the worst of mankind in the far off 'end of days.'"
"We arrived on your shore and I prayed that I may return to the task that the Caliphate assigned, which was to trade with you and become peaceable with your people, but I still needed to satisfy the yearning to confirm or deny my greatest fears. And listening to your stories of the Green Death, I believe that I have now affirmed the worst possible fate."
"The description of the island where the Green Death resided matches perfectly with the vision I received of the Rage," Ilias said with a somber tone.
He then adopted a more hopeful tone as he carried on. "It was fate that brought me to Decessus in the market at Constantinople, it was fate that gave me the ability to deceive our wisest leader, the Caliphate, into granting patronage for my false voyage, and it was fate that created winds that drove us to Berk swiftly and safely. And it is fate that my deepest fears have come to light. "
He paused for a moment to regain his breath. "Have you seen an entire city swallowed by a sandstorm with its wretched mouth? Have you seen an entire people transformed into pillars of burning salt, their faces showing no other emotion than agony? Have you seen a continent fall into the sea, no salvation as the waves sweep away everything in plain sight? Have you?" He asked the crowd, never expecting an answer.
"If you were given the chance to guide those people out of the now nonexistent city, would you not take that chance? " He continued to plea with the crowd, "If you were given the opportunity to cure that horrid disease, should you not do so? If you were given the chance to build a ship that could take every passenger on that sunken island, ought you not do so?"
"This is not a question of practicality or strategy; this is a question of morals!" He cried out to the Viking audience.
"And Allah as my one true witness," he said in a near whisper and continued with his bellowing voice, "I shall do what I must to prevent such a disaster!"
"There was no doubt in my mind that I would have to defend mankind. But there is doubt as to how I can defend mankind. But none the less, I refuse to let any blood be spilled because I had not acted. I refuse to let any innocents be tortured because I had not spoken. And I refuse to let any beast onto the Earth to unleash its unholy wrath because I had not been so brave!" He yelled in outrage.
"I am an old man, but I am a wise old man. I see that you have all suffered losses and pains that are no longer possible because of Hic-cough. If you had the opportunity, would you not attempt to release all of your pains and agonies in one moment just like him?" He pleaded onwards, "All the empty lover's beds, all the quiet family rooms, all the broken bones and spilled blood: gone in a single moment."
He inhaled deeply and sighed. "I lied to you, deceived you, and did so intentionally so that way I may be closer to that moment. The moment where man is closest to peace and the light of tranquility rushes upon him and liberates all pains and suffering. The end of the Rage shall bring forth a catharsis. A catharsis that shall wash away the fears and uncertainty of today and leave behind the spirit to move along with our lives. That is an experience that every man, woman, and child deserves to see."
"If you do not accept my true intentions and you are so deeply offended then I must leave. I shall let no man, no force of nature, and not a single fear prevent me from confronting the Rage."
"But if you do," he looked over to Stoic and Hiccup, "I ask that you forgive me for I had sinned. And I had failed to give you my true self and my true intentions. And I ask that you aid me. It is a wretched thing, a burning that will engulf all and leave nothing but a callous charred remain of what once was. I, only a merchant, and he, only a mercenary, can do so much. Will you aid us?"
Ilias had finished his oration and looked into the faces of the villagers. He saw nothing from these Vikings; no emotion, no man eager to assist them in their cause, no sign of hope. It had seemed that fate and her good favor had left the room.
A/N: We're almost done with the first part, then we can see Hiccup and Toothless take a front seat in the plot. Yay Hiccup and Toothless!
But now that I've gotten over the big climax, I'm going to take a bit of break. So what that means is that I'll be developing my newest fic Pomona and I'll be writing more reviews for other authors and The Strangers will just be on the backburner for now. I now feel like I have more time because I don't feel as pushed to get over this hurdle. So you drop me a review and I'll make sure to do the same!
A big thanks to Spyden, Yuro-Faita911, and a really big thanks to the amazing A Frumious Bandersnatch for the plug in Chapter 5 of Valkyrie! Go read it, it's amazing!
Rate, review, and give me your thoughts!
