Fan-Fic Fridays: "On the Edge of Mystery" Chapter 11: Trust Your Instincts

On the Edge of Mystery

Chapter 11

Trust Your Instincts

          My mind is going berserk… sorry, poor choice of words… My mind is going wild with possible accusations, underlying connections, and the overall mystery… if there is one, which I believe there always is some type of correlation, and it is my job to find that out.

          The light of the day is past its peak, heading towards sundown.  So with that in mind my sisters and I walked home to eat supper; also herding our dragons in their stables, once we arrived, for their supper: Fredrick, Salmon with a few Trout and Perches; Spiker, chicken with some Halibut and Herrings; and Meatballs gets a collection of “yummy” Granite and Schist rocks with some sedimentary sandstone for seasoning… and of course meatballs.

          Now going inside the house, we smelled some yak stew.  We all looked at each other and knew exactly who was cooking.

          We were like, “ Yes! Haven’t had mother’s stew in a while.”

          This time mother had set the big table in the living room for supper.

          “We’re home,” I called out.

          Father answered back, “Right on queue.  Your mother and I were just talking about coming to git you.”

          Asvord then rebutted, “I think some of your grammar done did got freezened off yo brain der.”

          As mother came out with the pot, I quipped back at my sister, “Seems like whatever is wrong with father is catchy.”

          “Oh stop,” she replied.  “You know what I meant.”

          “Yeah, I guess I do,” I replied.  “Unfortunately.”

          Dagmar came in from her room saying that she is going to the Thorvalds’ for supper.  We bid her, “Goodbye,” for now.

          Sitting down on our seats: Asvord and I on the left side of the table if you come in the front door, with Elsa on the right side, and father at the head of the table with mother sitting opposite him on the other side; pausing one for one moment, mother then went around dishing out the stew in our bowls that are in front of us, ending with serving her own bowl.  The first bite of the stew melted in my mouth… it is that good.

          After a few minutes of eating, father then spoke while pointing at the stew with his spoon, “How come your stew is so much better, Svana?  I’ve made this stew before, served it, and you guys usually start talking about something by now.  Since you haven’t, I know that her stew has to be good.  I have watched you, Svana, make this stew many times, from when we were first married to now after I’ve came back home, yet the result are different.  This time I even helped you make, prepare, and cook the stew, still yours is different than mine.”

          Mother is trying not to smile while she eats, not even looking up; Elsa then pipes in, “It is because she made it with love.”

          “What!  Are you saying I don’t?” sarcastically demanded father.

          “No, no, n- I didn’t meant it that way,” Elsa began frantically.

          Asvord then put her hand up then to help Elsa with the comeback, “Well, we know you love us, father, yet with your maturity and wisdom, stew is beyond your degree of intellect.”

          Mother had been taking a drink of milk, to hide her smile, but what Asvord said in the way she said it was too much for mother to handle: Mother started laughing, nearly choking on her milk.

          I then gobbled up a few bites before mother was finally able to say, though still with a big grin and still some laughter, “Don’t eat so fast, Jarl.”

          Smiling myself a little, I then answered back, “I want to eat this stew because if Asvord goes from her incorrect grammar to an intellectual Fishlegs about stew, then I want some of that too.”

          Mother then smiled as she shook her head; father then said, “I think Asvord just told me I’m old.  Yet in the way she said it, makes me sound older.  Though it was a complement… I think.”

          The stew is a basic stew: Yak meat, potatoes, carrots, and a thick chicken broth.  Yet mother’s stew and father’s stew has two distinct flavors.  Both are good, yet mother’s is for sure better than father’s.

          As supper went on, not much more was said.  Everybody was nearly done with their second helping of stew, I am still on my first, playing with some of the potatoes with my spoon.

          Mother then softly asked, “Jarl, are you alright?  By now you would have started asking for a third helping.”

          “I guess I’m not very hungry,” I replied.  “Been thinking.”

          Asvord then said as she helped herself to a third helping of stew, “Heaven help us; Jarl’s been thinking.”

          I just rolled my eyes.

          “What’s on your mind, son?” questioned father.

          As a family, we have been raised to not keep a secret unless the secret is to protect or serve the family better by keeping the secret, secret.  Our parents teaching us always to be honest with each other and to those around us; because, if we have a problem with something or worried about it, then the best way to figure it out and-or fix is to talk about it.

          So I did, “It is what I’ve learned recently about a few of the mysteries.”

          “Yeah,” stated father.  “I was going to ask about that.  What have you learned when you went to see Annett about her adventures?”

          “I’m not sure if I want to follow through with the clue to see where it leads because…,” I began.  “Remember that symbol on the ships in that graveyard we saw?”

          Mother answered, “Yes, with the two swords angled down to the middle of the mast.”

          Father added, “And the swords having three or four humps on them.  That symbol is the symbol Annett has on her diary.  To boot, not only is her home island connected with this symbol, this is also her family crest.  If that was enough, Annett’s diary holds the whereabouts of a possible treasure and… old Dragon Hunter bases.”

          Both mother’s and father’s eyebrows were raised followed by them nodding their heads; father then said, “That would be a lot to think about.”

          “I’m not done,” I answered.

          “Oh,” he chuckled.

          Continuing I said, “Annabeth went after her missing dragon, Sirena.  Sometimes she can be determined, setting her mind to something, and not stopping until it gets done.  She never stopped to find Anora, though allowed us to help her find her dragon.  Now she is a lot better in welcoming help, but first she would want to try it on her own before asking for help.  I just can’t shake this sick feeling in my gut about her.  It is nearly ready for sleep and she isn’t back yet.”

          Asvord stated, “That hasn’t stopped a viking yet.”

          “But she left immediately after we went to Sirena’s home island to go searching for Sirena.  One reason I have this feeling is because she didn’t take any provisions with her,” I declared.

          Mother tried to assure me, though her face said otherwise, “She is a resourceful girl.  She can take care of herself.”

          “Anything else?” wondered father.

          “Well, I did get attacked while at the Thorvalds’,” I finally said.

          “What?!  Are you okay?!” demanded mother.

          “Yes I’m fine,” I reassured.  “Surprised you didn’t notice when I came in, though I think it is going to be one of those black eyes that don’t surface until morning.”

          As mothers will do, she got up to come over and look at my face.

          “Annett helped me attend to it, so it shouldn’t be as bad as it could have been,” I said.  “I got ice on it immediately following.”

          Mother demanded that I explain, so I did.

          “There can’t possibly be anything else, can there?” asked father.

          I smiled, “Actually there is.”  Father just chuckled as I continued, “I know what happened to Vemund and how I helped him get back, but I also have a weird feeling in my gut that something is off about him.”

          “You do have a lot on your plate,” said mother as she and the girls stood up to get the dish to take them into the kitchen.

          Father then looked at me, putting his left hand on my right shoulder, “Don’t down play your gut instinct.  We don’t know how we get it, but we vikings do.  For ages, vikings have lived by their instincts.  If not, some of us wouldn’t be sitting here today; some even without limbs.  Some, like Gobber, if they hadn’t trusted their instincts, a limb might have been more that they had lost.  I believe we were given this gut instinct for a reason.  If it just doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.  However, when you do follow your gut, be wary of your surroundings as that bad feeling you had about something bad happening, might be what happens to you.  But if you don’t follow your gut, something bad might happen anyway.  It is usually up to the person who has the gut feeling to lessen or hopefully get rid and fix whatever bad thing might happen into something else.”

          I told my father I would be careful, as we both knew what I was going to do next, in the morning.

          After taking the last couple of dishes into the kitchen and father taking the pot in to store it for lunch tomorrow in the fireplace, we all said we should get ready for bed.  And we did.  Just as we were going upstairs, Dagmar came home and did the same while going to her room.

          Saying our goodnights and going to bed, though first bedding down our dragons for the night, we went up stairs and took turns in the wash room to change our clothes and then brush our teeth together.  We did not literally brush our teeth together as that would be difficult and our arms would be in a pretzel knot.  Then saying our goodnights to each other, we then closed our eyes.

          Within a half hour, Elsa was fast asleep as well as Asvord… though yours truly was not.  I kept thinking now about what dad said about a gut instinct-feeling.

          “That was a ‘perfect’ thing to say to someone… right before they go to bed,” I thought.  “Kind of like a nursery rhyme gone bad.  I never got why you would sing the one about the baby in a tree.  What kind of irresponsible parents would stick a baby in a tree, let alone in a cradle that if it rocked, it would break, and down would come baby cradle and all.  I know that is how it goes, but when you think about it, it isn’t that great of a song to sing.  The tune is… more or le…ss what… puts….. the per…. son… to……. slee-.”

          Next thing I know I am waking up the next morning.

          Getting up with my sisters as we all woke a first light, I said rhetorically, “You are supposed to get rest when you sleep, right?  But how come when you wake up the next morning and remember what you did or say before you fell asleep the previous night, you feel that you only got a couple minutes of rest yet you sleeped… slept for several hours?”
          “Jarl?” Asvord said stretching.  “Shut up, you thinks too much sometimes, out loud in this case, and especially in the morning.”

          We went down stairs and got some buttered bread with a little bit of the stew, from last night, for breakfast this morning.  Wanting to have a light breakfast, I only ate one slice of bread; although the slice was fairly large.

          Mother and father said they had meeting to attend with Elders and Chief of the tribe, so that is where they were going. My sisters and I decided on a morning flight.  So now going out to our dragons, feeding them, then getting them ready for a morning’s flight, Ali and Undyne along with Angie and Nina came by asking for Asvord and Elsa.  My sisters went along with them… apparently only a girl thing.

          I and my parents flew up to Gobber’s hut to see about the work ahead, but he said he got all the work done earlier and told me to take the day off.

          “How’d the soup work on Gothi last night?” I asked as he started walking towards The Great Hall for the meeting.

          “Oh that?” Gobber said then downplaying the “What if” factor.  “Pfft, I had that woman eating out of the palm of my hand by the time she got done eating.  Not literally of course, but there isn’t anything I can’t fix that woman that she can’t resist…. It’s the old battleaxe’s weakness.”

          Gobber went on to say, “And found out that the key to opening the Dragon Eye, as they call it, is a Snow Wraith’s tooth.  That would be a mouth I’d like to work on, though not when I’m on the menu.  Anyway, the gang with Gothi left for Glacier Island very early this morning, even before daylight had come so they could get there with plenty of daylight to spare.”

          “Glacier Island?” I thought.  “That’s further north than Icestorm Island.”  Then I said out loud, “I hope they have success with their trip.  A Snow Wraith is trickier than a Night Fury to deal with, let alone train.”

          “Aye, that is lad.  Well I’m off for the clan meeting.  We’re discussing some defense plans for Berk’s always-ready catapults.  So there might be some extra work going into setting them up over the next week, as we need to fortify Berk even though Dagur would dare come this close to Berk.  But if Alvin has the gull to do it, so can Dagur.”

          He and my parents started up the steps to The Hall and entered.  Fintan and Marigold went in with them.  Their dragons hardly ever leaved their side.  But since dragons have been allowed in The Great Hall, as long as they do not cause a fuss, everybody that has a dragon sometimes brings them in.  Fintan and Marigold have bounded so well together, that they are as inseparable as my father is to my mother now.

          Before I was able to start thinking about what to do next, Cazi swooped in on Electic, nearly knocking me over with the wind that she carried.

          “What’s the big hurry?” I asked.

          “Plenty Jarl,” Cazi said, rather worriedly.  “Annabeth didn’t comeback last night.  To boot, she hasn’t comeback for breakfast either.”

          Gut feeling coming again.

          “That’s not all,” Cazi said, sounding more fantically.  “Anora flew back just now wanting me to follow her.  I’m off now to go follow her, you should come too.”

          “Okay,” I replied.  “Let me stop at home to get some supplies.”

          On the way home, it felt like someone sucker punched me in the gut…

          Gut feeling intensifies!