Chapter 5: The Harvest Festival, Part 1
Having nearly passed out from the pain and blood loss, Nuffink was only partially aware of Kristoff and Anna working together to carry him inside, his arms draped across both of their shoulders. He faded in and out of consciousness as the rest of his clothes were stripped away and an unknown individual, most likely a doctor or healer of some sort, forced a bitter-tasting concoction down his throat. The strange potion made his body go numb, allowing Nuffink to drift into slumber at last.
When he finally came to, he was once more lying in a soft bed inside the castle. Only this time, it wasn't Queen Elsa's chambers, but a smaller, more sparsely furnished room. Under the thick, soft wool blanket draped over him, his arms, chest, and leg were all wrapped in bandages. Elsa herself was sitting in a chair at his bedside, presumably keeping vigil over him while reading from a small leather-bound tome in her hands. Nuffink tried to speak to get her attention, but his throat was so dry that only a croak and a cough came out of his mouth.
Elsa jolted when she realized that he was awake. Taking swift action, she set down her book and pressed the mouth of a water-skin to Nuffink's lips. He greedily gulped down the cool, sweet water that filled his mouth, and pushed Elsa's arm away when he was done.
"Where...where am I?" Nuffink asked.
"An unused room in the servants' quarters," Elsa replied. "Those scourges took quite a toll on you. You've been unconscious for nearly three days." She sighed and sat on the edge of the mattress. "I deeply apologize for the oversight on my part. My duties as queen have kept me so busy that I was unaware of the drastic measures my former captain was taking to enforce our laws. As we speak, Anna and Kristoff are making amends on my behalf to the other people Bjorn has wronged."
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but...what tipped you off that I was in trouble?" Nuffink asked.
"Ah, yes, that. You see, my escort and I took the scenic route back to Arendelle proper and came across your quaint little cottage in the woods, as well as the two arsonists who had just set fire to it. I managed to extinguish the flames with my magic, but not before they caused irreparable damage to the structure. The arsonists admitted who they were working for, and that he was preparing to give you a public scourging," Elsa explained. "Oh, and before I forget, most of your belongings remained completely intact. They all looked fairly important, so I brought them down here with me." Elsa gestured to the wall behind her, against which leaned Nuffink's staff, axe, sword, and bow. A small table nearby held a change of clothes, his necklace, his hunting horn, and his smoking pipe. "I'm sorry we couldn't salvage anything else."
"Nonsense, milady, you've managed to save almost all of my family heirlooms, and that's more than enough," Nuffink reassured her. "It looks to me like the only thing missing is my shield, and I can easily make another. In fact, I didn't lose anything I can't replace."
"Even so, I insist that you remain under my roof, at least until you recuperate from the worst of your injuries," Elsa said, standing up and handing Nuffink two folded articles of clothing. She also placed his staff within easy reach. "The doctor I sent for to stitch you up says not to put very much weight on your leg for a while. I can tell you're the type of person who likes to do things himself, so I will leave you to your own devices while I return to my duties. Good day, Nuffink." Elsa quietly left the room and closed the door behind her.
Nuffink gingerly sat up and unfolded the two articles he'd been given, revealing them to be a long cream-colored nightshirt and a thick green dressing-gown to go over it. He donned the articles and, leaning heavily against his staff, slowly hobbled out of the room.
...
Elsa sat down at the desk in her study, upon which sat the one possession she had withheld from Nuffink: The Book of Dragons, although she didn't actually know what it was called or what was within, as she couldn't make out what the runes said. She promised herself that she would return it to him eventually, but for now, she was filled with a burning curiosity the likes of which she had never known before. There was a similar book in her late parents' private library that wasn't identical, but was written in the same runic language, and the book in her possession was nearly five hundred years old. If her book was that old, something fishy might have been going on.
The runes filling both manuscripts were identical; however, Nuffink's book seemed to be in better condition. Someone with more experience than her would be needed to tell her whether they came from the same time period or not. Even if she was unable to read it, Elsa found the illustrations in Nuffink's book to be captivating. She doubted such fearsome creatures really existed, but she found herself yearning to learn much more.
With a sigh, Elsa leaned back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. She was exhausted. Between her duties as Queen, trying to make up for lost time with her sister, and neighboring kingdoms demanding to know when and whom she would marry and produce an heir with (purely for the sake of their diplomatic relations), Elsa was functioning on very, very little sleep. And while she was excited for it, the upcoming Harvest Festival was further complicating the issue. Having become an expert at masking her true emotions, even when she no longer feared the exposure of her magical powers, all anyone saw was a strong, confident, capable ruler. Not the frazzled, disorganized mess she was slowly becoming. Taking advantage of this respite, no matter how brief it would undoubtedly be, Elsa closed her eyes and took slow, deep breaths, feeling her tense muscles start to unravel slightly.
A sharp knocking at her bedroom door startled her out of her tranquility, so much so that frost formed on the armrests of her chair.
"Begging your pardon, Your Highness, but your sister and Kristoff have returned. They're waiting for you in the gardens," said a feminine voice with a moderate Irish accent, the bubbly redheaded girl it belonged to poking her head through the slightly ajar door.
"Thank you, Aoife. I'll be there momentarily," Elsa replied with a smile. Out of all of her servants, Aoife was probably her favorite. Shortly after gaining control of her powers and reinstating herself as Queen, Elsa, along with Anna, Kristoff, and Marshmallow, disrupted a gathering of nobles who were buying and selling slaves. The nobles were arrested, and the slaves were either granted employment or safe passage back to their homelands. Aoife was one of the few who opted to stay, claiming it was her family who double-crossed her and sold her to the slavers in the first place.
Elsa closed both books, stood up, and walked out of the room after composing herself. However, she wasn't expecting to encounter Nuffink as he roamed the halls. The Viking sheepishly explained that he was only exploring his surroundings so that he wouldn't get lost in the future. Elsa found his flustered stammering strangely amusing, and with a small chuckle, she asked Nuffink to accompany her to the gardens.
It didn't take long to figure out why Kristoff and Anna wanted to meet her there, of all places.
"Ye gods, man! You stink!" Nuffink gagged, holding a hand over his mouth and nose.
"Alright, what happened?" Elsa demanded, her face blank except for the twitch in her right eye.
"Sooooooooo...remember yesterday, when Kristoff and I kept getting doors slammed in our faces?" Anna began, to which Elsa replied in the affirmative. "Well...the house we just came from took it just a liiiiiiiiiiiiittle further than that..."
"They dumped a chamber pot over my head," said Kristoff, who was covered from head to foot in brown slop that reeked like a barrel of long-dead fish.
"There has got to be a better way to do this," Elsa groaned in frustration, pinching the bridge of her nose.
"If I may, Your Majesty," Nuffink piped up, "It's been my experience that when people have been wronged like this, it's hard to earn back their trust. My advice is to give it time. I'm sure it'll blow over by the time this festival of yours rolls around."
"That's...surprisingly good advice. Thank you, Nuffink," Elsa replied, looking somewhat relieved.
"My pleasure, Milady. My father was the chief of our tribe, so I know a thing or two about political squabbles."
...
A few hours after Kristoff returned from washing himself in the creek, Nuffink once again joined his hostess for dinner, this time a pot of rich, hearty stew with bread rolls. Anna and Elsa both had glasses of wine, while Nuffink and Kristoff settled for flagons of ale. After dinner, the four adults retired to a sitting room and were joined by Olaf the snowman. The others had to explain to Nuffink how exactly Olaf came to be before the Viking could run him through with the fireplace poker. While slightly unnerved by the blank white moonstone that occupied his left eye socket, the others found Nuffink to be pleasant company. Especially when they all began to tell stories from their respective childhoods.
Nuffink listened intently to Elsa's story as he puffed away at his pipe. Anna and Kristoff filled blanks in the story as needed. When she was finished, Nuffink voiced his thoughts about her predicament.
"No offense intended, Milady, but it seems to me that if you'd learned how to properly harness your powers instead of trying to suppress them for all those years, then you wouldn't have lost control like you did." He paused and blew a smoke ring. "I can sympathize with your isolation, in a way. I came early into the world, so I was frail and sickly for much of my childhood. By the time it was determined that I was strong enough to venture outside and do light chores, I was already ten years old. Until then, I was practically bedridden. My parents wished they could spend more time with me, but alas, the way they divided my father's chiefly duties between them didn't allow it. On the other hand, my grandmother and older sister hardly ever left my side, telling me stories to keep me entertained and holding me close when my pain became unbearable."
"Aww, that's so sweet!" Anna gushed.
"As strong as you are now, it's hard to imagine you so sickly like that," Kristoff stated.
"I get the feeling it would be. To this day, I'm still a bit on the small side for the average Viking," Nuffink said, which surprised the others, as Nuffink was taller than all three of them. "I had my own struggles with self-worth for a while. I just felt so useless compared to my bigger, stronger peers, so I was desperate for a way to compensate for my shortcomings. As such, I began to secretly study the mystic arts. Most people don't realize this, but all of creation, from the Big Blue Whale to the smallest grain of sand, is surrounded by and filled with magic. It just needs a little...persuasion to make itself known." Nuffink held up one hand, and a small tongue of flames flickered to life in his palm, captivating the other three adults as well as Olaf. "I halted my studies of sorcery so that I could pay attention to my father's lessons about becoming the next Chief, and by then it was discovered that I was physically much stronger than I looked, so I was trained in combat as well."
"This makes me curious. In your opinion, how would your fellow tribesmen have reacted to meeting someone like me?" Elsa asked. Nuffink snuffed the flame in his hand and pondered.
"It's difficult to say, because Vikings are a stubborn lot," he finally answered. "Most likely, the majority of the tribe would think you're a witch and try to kill you on sight. My family, on the other hand, would think that you carry a blessing from Skadi, the goddess of winter, and advocate in your defense."
"Wow. Your family sounds really nice," Anna commented, prompting Nuffink to smile wistfully.
"Yes, they were. They had the kindest hearts in the Archipelago, yet they were still some of the most cunning warriors in the land..."
They kept talking until Anna started nodding off in her seat, then retired to their bedrooms.
...
The next morning, Nuffink applied a simple healing spell to each of his injuries, healing them just enough that bandages were no longer needed, and he could dress in his regular clothes. Sadly, focusing on preparing to receive the mantle of Chief when his father retired meant that Nuffink had forgotten several of his more powerful spells, and he was very much out of practice. As a matter of fact, the tongue of flames he'd summoned the previous night was the first piece of magic he'd performed in years. Furthermore, he had yet to find another magical tome like the one he taught himself with as a child. Nonetheless, he was able to join the others for breakfast with nothing more than a heavy limp that was moderated by his staff.
Anna voiced her concerns about the sheer number of scars Nuffink now bore, only for him to inform her that all Vikings, men and women alike, wore their scars with pride in recognition that they lived to fight another day.
Once again, Elsa insisted that Nuffink take it easy until he was fully healed, so while the Queen was busy holding court, Nuffink found a nice, shady spot in the courtyard to sit and hone the edges of his weapons. That's where Anna found him a while later: sitting under a tree, scraping a small stone along the edge of his axe.
"Hi! How's it going?" she asked somewhat awkwardly.
Nuffink shrugged and replied, "Honestly, it could be better. Then again, it could also be much, much worse." Anna sat next to Nuffink under the tree, and for a long while, the only sound between them was the rasping of stone against metal. Finally, Nuffink paused his work and said, "Back home in the Archipelago, we had a once-yearly natural phenomenon that we called the Midnight Sun. When it occurred, the sun shone brightly for two straight weeks without ever setting. The constant sunlight and absence of night allowed for extra work to be done, so the first week was our most productive time of the entire year. Day eight, on the other hand, was when the side effects started to surface, manifesting differently for different people. For my mother, it was boundless euphoria. My sister became extremely lethargic, to the point where she had to be dragged around by a rope around her ankle to do her chores. Me, I developed an insatiable appetite-"
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but what exactly is the context for this story?" Anna asked. Nuffink sighed.
"The point I'm trying to make is that I've experienced enough Midnight Suns to be able to recognize the signs," he explained. "Right now, your sister is so sleep-deprived that she can barely stay on her feet. If this pattern continues, it won't be much longer before her health begins to sharply decline."
"I know. I've been trying to convince Elsa to let me take over some of her less important duties, but she keeps refusing," Anna admitted with a heavy sigh of her own. "She thinks that she has to do everything herself. Even Kristoff can see that she's about to burn herself out. The thing is, I'm her only living relative in Arendelle; if she were to suddenly drop dead or abdicate, I'd become the next Queen! I need to be prepared for the very unlikely event that either of those things happen!"
"I understand; Viking hierarchy is no different," Nuffink said. "But just like the villagers you've been trying to apologize to, Elsa just needs time. I'm sure things will improve once this festival of yours is over with..."