A Jarl Mollerson Mystery Series Short Story - The Wedding - Part 2

A Jarl Mollerson Mystery Series Short Story

The Wedding - Part 2

Annabeth's Point of View:

         It is only the middle of the afternoon and this day cannot go fast enough.  I have waited five years for this day to come.  For this day to finish, it feels like every one of those years extended over an entire day.  That may sound counter-intuitive, but I would have never thought my life would be changed in this manner coming from what my life was before I came to Berk.

         The last several days into about a week, I have been working with Catrine and Svana, Cazi’s and Jarl’s moms to get my dress designed and created.  I wanted to have a custom dress made just for Jarl.  With that comes times where I just have stand still while wearing the dress, often with my arms out at some angle.  When we first started, this was not much of a problem.  Since it being the day before The Day of my wedding, I am not one to be standing still right now.

         For the past couple of weeks, I have also changed my hair style.  I still have the dark purple colored hair, but I have been wearing my hair straight.  For as long as I can remember, I have had a braid somewhere in my hair.  Come to find out that the way I wear a braid is the opposite of my sister Heather’s way of wearing her braid.  She always wore it that way.  Maybe when we were really little, to tell the two of us apart, our parents had us wear two opposite braids.

         Anyway, reason I have had my hair straight is because I will wear my hair down for tomorrow.  Tonight, I will get my hair done and prepared for tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I am wearing a white hair band to keep the hair out of my face.  It has worked for the most part and the hair that I would usually have as my braid still lies against my right shoulder, but it is outside the hair band, so it will get in my face ever once in a while.  Then I have to collect it behind my ear, yet it is a constant battle.

         “Never thought this day would come,” I say with my arms out to the sides in a T-pose.  “Ouch.”

         Svana declares while taking out a few pins from her mouth, “I’m sorry, Annabeth.  You still have today to go through first.”  Svana paused before she sighed a bit frustrated, “This outer skirt is not laying the way I want it to be.”

         I continue to marvel at the work Jarl’s mother has done on this dress, “I have never worn something this pretty before.  I don’t even think I have ever worn a dress.”

         Catrine, comes over with the cloak train which will be an accessory to the dress that I can wear at any time, but mainly it is my train.

         Catrine’s holds it up to check the length up on me and then check the length it will go out behind me, “We all want it to be just right for you.”

         “I am very appreciative of all your hard work,” I tell them as I look at myself in a mirror.  “But it looks fine to me.”

         “While it may look fine,” Svana stands up, and unhooks the skirt on the belt around my waist.  “The seamstress in me wants me to fix it.  I will come back later tonight, after supper, to have one final fitting before I commit to the final changes.”

         I comment as Svana gets ready to leave, “I still cannot believe that Jarl has not seen the dress yet.  For as good as he is at mystery, we sure have him fooled on this one.”

         Svana gently folds the skirt up into a fur that looks like it would be used to keep a woman’s hands warm in the cold weather, “I insisted that Stoick, Gobber, and Hiccup keep him busy with enough things that by the time he gets home, he is too tired to even bother looking.  And don’t worry, he won’t get too worn out.”

         She starts to open the door but then quickly closes it, “He’s coming.”

         “Jarl?” I guess.

         “Yes,” she anxiously says.  “We need to get you out of that before he sees you, it is supposed to be a surprise.”

         As if three school girls just saw their crush coming down the hall, we frantically run upstairs to my room.

         I hear him calling for me through an open window in my room, I yell to him, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

         “I heard you run up the stairs just now,” Jarl points out, then sarcastically thinks out loud.  “Hmm, I wonder what she could be doing?”

         The two ladies help me get out of my wedding dress, I then quickly change back into my everyday clothes, run down the stairs, and then open the door while immediately closing it behind me.  I keep my hands on the handle.  The lock of hair again came and fell down in my face.  I blow it out of the way and play what just happened as if I was totally not in my wedding dress.

         “Hello there,” I say.

         Jarl bows, “General greetings to my fair lady.”

         I roll my eyes.  He raises his hand to my right and I step down off the steps as if stepping off a royal carriage, then I just tell him, “Oh come on, let’s go.”

         “What were you doing in there?” he asks.

         “Oh,” I try to think of something to say, though I cannot help but crack a smile.  “You’ll find out sooner or later.”

         Jarl comments, “I think I will find out sooner than even soon.”

         Jarl and I make our way to The Great Hall to get a bite to eat for lunch, all the while we hold hands.  Yes, we have dragons, but it is kind of difficult to hold hands in the air while sitting on a dragon.

         Once in The Hall, Jarl goes and gets the food while I go to the library.  The Hall is all decked out in dual decorations for Snoggletog and the wedding.  As of right now, that is the only difference.  After sundown, all of the arrangements of seating and the layout of the room will completely change in preparation for tomorrow.

         In a few minutes, Jarl brings back over two double salmon sandwiches with sides of corn and cabbage; also, two mugs of ice-cold milk.  Room temperature, any drink is cold at this point in the winter.  The meal is basic and enough to fill us up.

         There are two things with Jarl that are constant.  Well, three, but that is a given and understood for obvious reasons.  Puns and corn.  You will never see, a meal of any kind where one is not present.  The third is his love for me.

         Between bites, I ask Jarl, “Why did you want to meet in library?”

         “I know we have been pretty busy with several other things for good reason these last few months,” Jarl tells me.  “But I would like to take an inventory of the mystery of the prophecy and what those images are supposed to mean from Shadow Mountain, as well as everything else we have learned since then.”

         I smile and question, “Getting itchy feet?”

         He shakes his head, “If anything my hands may get chapped because of the cold weather.  But my mom insist I put a certain natural oil on my hands; I just forget to put it on.”

         I slow my eating down while Jarl rephrases, “Oh, you meant about a mystery,” Jarl tries to hide a wide grin, but he cannot disguise it.  “Yes, if that is okay.”

         “Sure, its fine,” I assure.  “To be frank, though that’s not my name, but to speak clearly, I have missed having a mystery around to solve too.  It feels like it has only been a week or two since our last chapter of our adventures, but it has been over three months.  And for us to get ready to leave when Garth and Lilah decide to go back.  There is a lot of waiting going on right now, and it is driving me insane.”

         “In the mystery department, “There is not a whole lot going on.  We are just waiting on developments.  At least we can concentrate on other things.”

         We finish our meal and Jarl goes about getting maps for the northwest region of the archipelago, he also gets his notes out of our last two mysteries that we have done.

         Jarl remarks as he spreads them out on the table, “While we have finished the last two mysteries, it does not seem like they are solved yet.”

         “Like they are connected and this is one big mystery?” I suggest.

         “Exactly,” he nods.

         Jarl leans on the table as if trying to think of something, then goes into stating the clues and facts that we know, “With Garth’s revelation that there is a land to the far northwest where he is from, in a whole other archipelago, and they need our help in battling in a war.  There seem to be three major players in all of this.  Vixxen, Einar, and Lilah, each with their own soldiers and or allies.  Lilah’s intentions are pretty clear:  She wants to defend her home from all enemies.  While defending a home is admirable, what is it about the land of the Izarians that warrant starting a war over?”

         “Vixxen does not seem like the kind of viking that would go into a war just for the sake of it, whereas it sounds exactly like something Einar would do,” Jarl goes on.  “And this upcoming battle sounds like it has been nearly ten years in the making with Lilah splitting up her forces and sending them away for the sake of preserving them for a later time.  The Dragon Hunters or Protectors, or whatever they want to call themselves.”

         I interject, “The people we are trying to stop.”

         “Yes,” Jarl chuckles and continues.  “The bad guys, if they are still looking for something -and this might be this prophecy- in all this time, they still have not found it?  They occupy all of the islands in the Izarian territory.  What I have finally figured out, but still doesn’t get us much further than where we were before though gives us more of a directive, is from the notes on the images I saw in Shadow Mountain.”

         Jarl brings over his notes and sketches from what he saw.  I have seen them now many times, but each time I look at them they seem like they are completely new and could have any number of interpretations.  Though, at least a few things are clear.

         Jarl points out what is fact, “Obviously, we know these islands here because they are in our archipelago as we have already gone to them and found the clues to them.  These clues led us back to Shadow Mountain where we were actually there before.”

         I chuckle but I am not laughing, “Yeah, let’s not revisit that portion of the story.”

         “But what is strange is these two other islands that are to the north of Shadow Mountain, far northwest of Berk,” Jarl says.  “The mountain is pointing us here, but the rest of the clues that led us to Shadow Mountain spoke of nothing about these islands.”

         Jarl pauses, so I add, “Neither did any of the notes my father had about this mystery.  While he seemed to have a hand in this too, he did not speak of anything about these two other islands.  Seems like he too thought that the end goal was in Shadow Mountain, yet now it seems like that whole mystery was just a first step to find the next clue of the overall mystery of the Izarian lands.”  I sigh, “It is kind of nice to go over these notes before the wedding as this mystery was one of the last things he ever did before being shipwrecked on Vanahiem.”

         There came a silent and kind of awkward pause, because I starting thinking about Osvald the Agreeable.  I bet Jarl is going to think that…

         “Maybe we can talk about this later,” He interrupted my thought, but said exactly what I was thinking.

         I assure, “No, this is fine.  Because you are here, it makes it all worth it.”

         Jarl asks me again, “Are you sure?”

         I try to hide a smile as I say, “No.”

         Jarl stands up, tilts his head back a bit to look a little further away at me, “I am… Oh, I see now.”

         “You do, okay,” I give a sarcastic sigh.  “I was like, ‘If he does not get this, then is he slipping?  Do I need to marry someone else?”

         Jarl raises his eyebrows at me, but quips, “Well, you’d be out of yaknog at that point because I have never met someone else before, so I think you are safe there.”

         I poke, “I’m Annabeth, right here.”

         Jarl dips his head down and just shakes it, “Anyway… Annabeth-right-here, shall we go on?”

         I laugh.

         “You bring up a good point about ‘The overall mystery with the Izarian lands.’  These lands are the central point of this whole thing, why someone is defending and attacking.  I cannot get help but get the feeling that there is another player in all this, I just cannot think of whom,” Jarl states.  “But one thing is for sure, we will find out soon, but later than soon and sooner than later.”

         Jarl gets back to his point, “What I am trying to say is that I believe these two islands that Shadow Mountain is pointing to are two islands in the lands of the Izarians.  By Garth’s description, there are massive islands and other islands in their archipelago, it is just that their centralized part of their people on the big islands take up most of the archipelago.  Still, there may be even more lands than even they know about.  Once we get there, this is something I want to figure out before Vixxen and or Einar show up.”

         Jarl then says, “We also need to find out what happened to Michia.  We were on his trail, or so we thought.  Then with all that happened with the end of the mystery, I got side tracked.  In the time after we were done, we restarted the search.  But it is as if Michia has just fallen off the edge of the world.  Ali is worried, as if something might have happened to him, but the one comforting clue that we did find is that Michia was seen in the Northern Markets last month trading.  For him not to stop by is not like him, but maybe he is busy.  All the witness that speak to what he was doing and how he looked say was happy, not nervous, and looked like he was just there to trade.  Then nothing else came up.  Ali is still worried, but with a sense of calm.  I am sure Michia will show up at some point.”

         To switch gears, I ask, “What else do we know?”

         Jarl brings over his notes of the most recent mystery, The Crimson Storm.  Man, was that a hurricane of a mystery that broke the epic scale.

         “Thinking of what Viggo said to you when you ran into,” Jarl tells me.  “About the prophecy, I think Viggo was spouting words just to talk himself out of that situation.  While I still believe that Einar has an alter motive to all of this, the Masked Vikings that remain, contend that they really don’t remember what the prophecy was about.  It has something to do with why they were exiled from their home, but that was even longer before then what Einar was letting on it was.  The date from now when they say when their people were exiled was many years before even Lilah said it has been since she and her forces retreated from the Isle of Izar.  They told Lilah and she told me that Einar said all the right things to them, so his knowledge of the prophecy is extensive.  That being said, it must have some connection to the Izanians, unless Einar has been busy some where else and gotten the information from someone or found it himself.”

         I comment, “Einar sounds like the kind of guy that would much rather someone else do his dirty work and he steps in to take all the glory.  I bet Einar learned of this from someone else and saw an opportunity to get back at Lilah and her people.  Since he was separated from going back to the Isle of Izar, Lilah’s forces kept him from ever returning and he was cut off with no way of getting word to his main forces on Izar, he made the most of his time away to see about defeating Lilah here instead of back where their war began.”

         “Good point,” Jarl commends.  “So, for all we know, the prophecy made be something completely different from the versions that have been told to us.”

         “I mean,” I add.  “At the end of it all, the Gale Heart dragons seemed like it was an afterthought to Einar.  He is affiliated with the Dragon Hunters after all.  Did you think that maybe he would sell the dragon to Viggo or even to someone who would have information of an ancient prophecy?”

         “Could very well be,” Jarl agrees.  “This prophecy is something that we need to clarify and get more details on when we do go to Izar.”

         Jarl sits down next to me on my right, “While we know quite a bit, I still get the feeling we know nothing.”

         I encourage him by giving him a side arm hug, “With how every many sides are at play in this mystery, you will do what you do best.  Come at it with a fresh perspective than anyone else and solve this thing… At the very least, you could just distract everyone with your pun, annoy them, they give up the information, and are ultimately defeated by your puns.  They would think that your puns are annoying, but it is one of your best tactics.”

         Jarl shrugs a bit, but I smell a pun, he speaks, “But they don’t work all the time?”

         “How so?” I question both him and if there is a pun.

         Jarl then leans and nudges me to the left a little bit, “I’m marrying you, aren’t I?  You’ve put up with them to this point and you are still going to go through with this.” Jarl quickly adds, “Note, none of my puns were to annoy you or drive you away.  I was only trying to needle you.  I notice I was walking a fine line and decided to step back before I went any further.”

         I fold my arms, but smile, “Even if you started digging a hole, I would have jumped down with you.”

         “Thank you,” Jarl says.

         “Yeah,” I chuckle.  “I’d hand you the shovel.”

         We both shake our head.

         Then we start cleaning up.  I do the dishes and Jarl collects his notes and the maps.

         Jarl wants to help me, but I insist and give him a wink, “I’m going to have to do this pretty soon, might as well continue to practice.”

         I walk back over to the place to give the dishes to The Hall vikings who take care of the food served to the island.  A few minutes later, Jarl meets me as I start the way to the front doors.

         While we near the doors, Aiyana comes in, “Oh, I have been wanting to talk to you.  Well, simply ask you something.”

         I greet her by giving her a hug, which she is still not expecting, “Hi Aiyana.”

         “I still don’t see it,” Aiyana states.  “Why me?”

         Jarl inquires, “Why you what?”

         Aiyana stutters a bit but then comes out and asks, “Why me, of all vikings, would ever ask me to be one of your bridesmaids, Annabeth?  Not just simply be invited nor want me to come to begin with, but ask me to be one of your bridesmaids?  I still don’t know why you offered this to me.  I was so shocked when you picked your bridesmaids last week when all the girls got together to plan some of your stuff for the wedding and just talk about it.  I didn’t know what to say then and was surprised that everyone congratulated me on being picked and were happy for me.  I don’t deserve this.  There has got to be someone else-.”

         Step forward and politely interrupt, “I choose you because I see myself in you.  Maybe to the other extreme of starting out, but I see the potential in you that you don’t see in yourself.  Jarl saw that in me from the start when we two first met.  When I came to Berk, I did not see what I would have to offer to anyone let alone having any friends.  I thought I was a nobody and would never get a chance to change it.  I want to give you that chance and also as a way as apologizing to you for what I said about you and thought about you.”

         Aiyana resists by saying, “But I tried to kill Jarl.”
         I grin, “You’re not the first.  I did try twice before.”

         Aiyana’s face changed to complete surprise.

         “Let me quickly explain,” I swiftly come back.  “The first time I was undercover and had to make it look convincing.  The second time I was actually hypnotized by Vixxen or what or whoever it was, but I was ‘awake’ the entire time yet could not do anything about it.  So, you trying to kill him once when I did try to do it twice- Though, maybe it is just one time because I was faking the other time, so maybe you got me there.  And I did blame you for poisoning Jarl, so you may think that it is twice.  But the point is,” I assure her.  “After what you had to deal with and make some of the most difficult choices that I understand why you chose what you did, I want to make up for what I said about you and because I remember what happened with Anora.  I forgot about it at the time as I was focused on Jarl, but I was in the same position as you were.  My Anora was captured at one point a few years back, and I was not going to let anything or anybody, including Jarl, stand in my way of getting my dragon back.  So, thinking back, I wanted to give you a chance because you have shown all of us that given a chance as you were once you got Kaimana back, you were right with us the moment you could join.”

         Aiyana tries to hold back some tears, but a few drops fall from her eyes, her voice cracks into a whisper, “I- I… Don’t know what to say.”  She hugs me and says, “Thank you.  No one has ever treated me like this.”

         “Well,” I tell her as we all walk out of The Hall together.  “Then it was just high time someone did.”

         In parting ways, Aiyana mounts Kaimana, who is happy to see us, Aiyana chuckles, “At least I know who not to get on the bad side of.”

         Jarl and I wave to her as she goes about her day.

         Jarl wants to stop by Gobber’s shop for something that he has been waiting, he says, “Since Fishlegs rediscovered the formula for Gronckle Iron.”

         That is all that Jarl has said on the subject, so I have been intrigue as to what he means by it.

         The walk to Gobber’s shop takes a little bit, but when we get there, we are greeted by a seemingly always happy Gobber.

         “Well,” Gobber says hi as he bangs out a bent out of shape sword.  “If it isn’t the two lovebirds.  I think I know what brings you here.”

         Gobber exchanges the grabber attachment for his hand, that he was holding the sword with, to his normal hook.  From behind one of the tables, he reveals two large, round shields completely made out of Gronckle Iron and gives one to each of us.

         “What,” I try to nudge Jarl with my shield but he blocks me with his shield.  “Are you afraid it might get violent tomorrow.”

         “No,” he retorts.  “If I was, then why did I give you something to defend yourself?  I would have only had Gobber made one, not two.”

         I sarcastically grunt, “Well…”

         Gobber goes back to his work and tells us, “Just don’t get yourself killed the day before your wedding.  Let your time after tomorrow do that to you.  You may be happy now, just wait ten years and I’ll ask you again when you two have three girls and two boys.  No, make that two sets of girls and boys, wouldn’t want there to be an uneven number in the family… There may actually be peace in a typical viking family.  Having Berkian kids is bad enough, you might get an old Hiccup to deal with.”

         I raise my hand, but Gobber jumps back in, “Not old as in the actual Hiccup, that you would get a runt of a litter and have to deal with what we had to deal with for years of the worst viking Berk had ever seen.  Now with your Berserker blood, lass, mix that with a Berkian, you may have double the trouble to deal with than just a Hiccup.  When your kids are screaming their heads off or fighting, I’ll ask you again how much you love each other.”

         Jarl and I merely shake our heads but laugh, I tell Gobber as we step away backwards, “Ask us again in ten years and if all that he say happens exactly that way, I will tell you that I will love every minute of it.”

         Gobber smiles, “Then you two are perfect for each other.”

         Jarl then tells me to go get my dragon of choice and he will go get his.

         “I might have a difficult time choosing,” he quips.  “Should I take the dragon I can actually ride or the one that I would squash?  Terrible Terror or Thunderdrum?  Its not like I have the choice of a Razorwhip, a Death Song, or even a Titan Stormcutter.  That would be an easy choice.”

         I shove him on his way, “Oh, just go get your dragon.”

         Going back to the house, I go behind to the stables and pick Anora.  I then meet Jarl in front of his house because he had met me.

         “Talk about girls taking forever to get ready,” I tell him as he is just now leading his dragon out of his stables.  “Its been ten minutes and you are just now ready?”

         “Sorry,” Jarl states.  “Got into an argument with my sister.”

         My first question, “Did you win?”

         “Of course,” he says.  “I asked her what dragon I should pick.  Next thing I know I am winning an argument over who would win in an argument, me or her.”

         Curious, I ask, “Why did you think you won?”

         “I know I won,” he contends.  “I said that the only arguments I will be able to win is against everyone else but you.”

         I begin to open my mouth, but all I can do is just put my hands on my hips.  I look for something to throw… Duh, there is snow on the ground.

         I jump off Anora to grab some for a snowball, but Jarl exclaims, “Let’s get out of here, Fredrick!”

         Though on his dragon and starting to fly away, he is only ten yards away from me.  But between Aiming higher and running forward to throw for a target at fifteen yards, I hit him square in the back as he flies away enough that he goes right where I thought he would.  Anora runs up to me and I hope on her while she goes and then she pushes off the ground to launch into the air.  I chase after Jarl and Fredrick.

         Jarl leads me to the mountains of Berk, nearly all the way to the top.  He lands on top of a ledge a few hundred feet short of the mountain peak.

         “Ready to try our new course out?” Jarl asks me.

         “Thought this day would never come, yes, I am.  Give me some competition, please,” I raise my hands to the air and look up, stretching, and then pump my fist.

         Jarl then declares, “Well, I hope this will be the last time you will be sad because this will be a win for me.”

         “Oh, come now,” I look at him.

         Jarl points his hands to the slopes, “Ladies first.”

         I counter, “Age before beauty.”

         Jarl and I then just stare at each other.  I notice or dragons look at each other and then up at us, then I look back at Jarl and he looks at me.

         We wait for a moment… Then we both urge our dragons at the same time to jump off the ledge and start racing forward!

         Because I picked Anora, her shiny black, slick scales allow her to take an early lead as she glides across the snow.  Fredrick is slower to gain speed.

         “It is over before it even starts,” I call out to him.

         “Don’t count your bridges before your chickens are crossed,” Jarl retorts back at me.

         I yell back at him, “This is so totally over.”

         “Oh yeah?” Jarl calls to me.  “I still have time.”

         “Your time is running out,” I call back… Then pile of snow hits my face.

         “It was her idea,” I state.  “But I approve.”

         Jarl says something to his dragon that I cannot hear.  Fredrick snorts as he leans closer to the ground, for a Thunderdrum at least.  Jarl must have encouraged him to be patient.  Knowing Thunderdrums in any type of race, sure you might get an early lead, but they are one of if not the best dragon to keep momentum of speed because of their flat profile.

         Jarl and I race down the side of the mountain, Dragon Sledding.

         I whisper to Anora, “Get ready for an epic showdown!”