The Mysterious Frozen Fire - Chapter 19: Someone Who Cannot Be Lost
The Mysterious Frozen Fire
Chapter 19
Someone Who Cannot Be Lost
“Man, your… I mean our family is messed up,” said Elsa.
“Yeah,” agreed Dagmar. “But you guys turned out well.”
I stated, “I am getting very worried about mother. She acted very peculiar and strange this morning; and she would not go away for this long without telling us exactly where she’d be going and for how long.”
Dagmar said, “Why don’t we go and see if we can track her? You guys are starting to get me worried about her, on top of what I am already for your father.”
I replied, “Yeah, why don’t we-.”
“Hey Jarl,” came a voice from behind that I recognized to be Hiccup’s. “Isn’t that-,” Hiccup he began, but I briefly answered, “Yes that is the red-haired woman. Her name is Dagmar Onundrson.”
Hiccup’s eyebrows too flew straight up. There seems to be an epidemic of that going around.
Before Hiccup could reply, I said, “Yes, that is my mother’s maiden name. She is my mother’s, oldest brother’s daughter.”
Hiccup was a little stunned, “But I thought she was or is a thief?”
“She is,” I said. “But she has her reasons; reasons that would make for a long story to try to explain.”
I also did not want to alarm Hiccup any further by telling my mother has not come back yet because he has enough to worry about with the food shortage.
“Okay,” replied Hiccup. “Could you come with me? You are needed at an important meeting.”
I answered, “Yes.” But I still wanted to start the search for mother, so I told the girls, “You three go ahead and start. I’ll catch up to you later.”
Asvord, Elsa, and Dagmar got on their dragons and flew away.
Hiccup watched them fly away, then he realized, “Was that a-.”
“A Snoggletog Wraith?” I finished for him. “Like I said, ‘Long Story.’.”
“Okay,” Hiccup said. “I don’t have enough time to ask you now about all that with your surprising relative, we’re late as it is.”
Toothless was not with Hiccup, as he told me his dragon was out looking for me some place else. I offered Hiccup a ride on Fredrick. He accepted. Hiccup told me to go to his house.
As I mounted first then Hiccup, I asked, “Late for what?”
Hiccup replied, “An exclusive, private meeting about the food shortage.”
“Why am I supposed to be there?” I inquired.
“The mystery you are trying to solve,” answered Hiccup. “My father, Gobber, Spitelout, and Gothi all agree and believe your mystery has a direct connection to the food shortage.”
“How do you think they are connected?” I asked.
Hiccup answered, “Because Gobber went back to check on the food that is left, this morning; only to find a mysterious frozen fire in the actual storage house’s fireplace. The same description of the fires you keep finding match exactly with the mysterious frozen fire Gobber found.”
Right after Hiccup finished, we arrived at his house. We saw Toothless running up from behind. Toothless came up and snorted at me.
I sarcastically said, “What? Were you thinking you were going to find me first; but were surprised that Hiccup found me, even though he was not you?”
Toothless did his “yes” growl he does with Hiccup a lot.
Hiccup chuckled. He and I then entered his house.
We found that the meeting had already gotten started.
Gobber said, “Yoou’re late.”
“Sorry,” Hiccup replied. “Jarl had gone somewhere and had not returned until I went looking for him at his house the second time.”
Stoick spoke, “Come in, Jarl. Did my son tell you why this meeting is being held?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Just my mystery’s connection with the shortage and Gobber finding another mysterious frozen fire; but none of the specifics of what you would like me to do.”
“There’s more than one frozen fire?” said Spitelout, puzzled.
Stoick began, “As you well know, Berk as a whole only has a few days of food left in storage. We might be able to last a day or two longer if the individuals and families use their own stock of food.”
“How long can we last, dad?” questioned Hiccup.
Stoick answered, “Not more than four days.”
The epidemic of “eyebrows flying off of heads” has spread. Everyone in here except Gothi and Stoick were shocked.
Gobber put it forth, “So what are we going to do?”
“That is where Jarl comes in,” said Stoick.
“What can I do?” I said.
Stoick walked over to me and Hiccup, “I need you to solve this mystery as fast as you can. This frozen fire is no coincidence. I heard some about your mystery from Hiccup and what happened with the red-haired woman. We are all in agreement that the attack by Savage was the diversion; the diversion from the fact that our food was being stolen by confederates of the Berserkers. Do what you can and do whatever needs to be done to get this mystery solved.” Stoick got grim for a minute, “I don’t want to think what would happen if this village would do if we did not have any food during the winter; and especially since this is the harshest winter in years. So I want you two to work together in any way possible to get this thing solved.”
“Yes, sir,” I nodded my head. “I have some new leads, and will be following them.”
“Unless something comes up,” Stoick stated. “I want Hiccup and the Academy Riders to help in any way.”
With that, Hiccup and I exited the house as the other leaders wanted to discuss something.
“So what are these new leads?” asked Hiccup.
I replied, “I don’t have any specifics yet, but I will have some soon. Could we have a meeting at the Academy?”
“Sure,” answered Hiccup. “At what time?”
I responded, “How about mid-day.”
“Sounds good,” said Hiccup.
“Oh and spread the word around to my friends too, if you see any,” I added.
Hiccup then got on Toothless and flew off in the direction of the Academy. I mounted my own dragon and started to fly in the direction where my sisters and Dagmar had gone.
I had only flown less than a quarter-mile when I heard and saw an explosion. It came from a house from below. When I looked down, I recognized the house to be that of Garth’s. I motioned for Fredrick to land down next to the house. At the same time I was landing, I saw Garth stumble out of the house.
“Are you alright, Garth?” I called out.
Garth started with several coughs, “Yeah, I am alright.”
“What happened?” I asked.
Garth said, “I was working on my addition to my glider. It is a flame thrower.”
“A what?” I said as I did not think I heard Garth correctly.
“A flame thrower,” Garth repeated. “I had been tinkering with the idea of this ever since I started building my glider. I am at a standstill with my underwater saddle, after the last explosion when we the first time. So I decided to stop working on the saddle and focus my efforts on my glider. But then I ran into a problem with the joints that allow my glider to fold from gliding to cape position. I need to redesign the joint to allow more leeway in the folding back and forth between the two positions; it was just too difficult to fold it back and forth. That is one reason I haven’t been out because I have nearly lived in my workshop since the battle with the Berserkers. I started working on my flame thrower the same day I got back. Just today was I very close to finishing it, until…”
I finished as Garth had trailed off when he looked back at his house, “Until you had this explosion while working on the flame thrower; thus destroying the mechanism and forcing you to start from square one.”
Garth was surprised, “Wait, how would you know that? That is exactly what happened.”
I replied, “It seems to always happen like that with pretty much anything. You get to the point where you are almost finish working on a project when if one little thing goes wrong, it wipes out all of your work and you have to start all over again.”
“That is very true,” Garth added.
I then told Garth about the meeting that was going to be held at mid-day at the Academy. Garth replied he will be there. He added that this house was his workshop, not his actual house.
“Yeah, I think it would be better to do what you do in a separate building,” I stated.
“Especially when your parents get aggravated when a science experiment goes wrong,” Garth said while he walked back into his shop and waved, “Goodbye,” to me as I flew off to get back on track.
I then pointed Fredrick in the general direction that I thought the girls had gone; because how do you track something that is flying? I guess ask your dragon to find other dragons. Even though Fredrick is a Tidal Class dragon, he is intelligent so he could at least try to find them.
“Hey Fredrick?” I asked.
He perked up, turned his head back, and looked back at me with his eyes.
“Do you think you can find Asvord and Elsa? Go find Asvord. Go find Elsa,” I stated.
My dragon then looked ahead and took off. His take off was a little more than I was expecting; kind of like he wanted to take the lead in the first place instead of having me wander.
It only took five minutes until he found the girls. They were on the other side of Berk on the north side down near the snow covered beach. Five minutes? Well at the rate Fredrick was going, I am surprised we did get there any sooner. Fredrick flew me right to them. I pulled back on Fredrick to slow him down, so we could land and not plow into the others.
I was expecting something witty from either Asvord or Elsa because I came in so fast, but they both looked sad and worried. Dagmar, especially, looked the worst of all.
“Who stole your socks?” I said sarcastically.
But none of them answered right away.
“What’s wrong?” I questioned, starting to get worried.
Asvord slowly walked over to me, put her hand on my right shoulder, and looked up at me, “Jarl,” she said very seriously. “Mother is gone.”
I was stunned. “Gone? How?” My heart started to race.
“I wish I knew,” replied Asvord. “We tracked her footprints here. There looked like there was no struggle, which is weird. She must have had something happened to her before then. Also, she must have gotten into a ship as her tracks stop at the edge of the beach.”
My breath started to get short and my heart seemed to start racing as fast as a Night Fury. “This cannot be happening,” I grabbed Asvord by both arms and shook her twice. “I can’t lose another parent!”
“I know, Jarl,” she said grabbing me and calming me down. “But we don’t know where whoever they are took mother to wherever they were going.”
I did calm down and collected my thoughts, “We may not know where she is, but do have a place to start looking.”
Elsa spoke up, “Where?”
I then turned to Dagmar who was at the edge of the snow covered beach looking out into the open see, “Dagmar,” she turned around when I said that. “Where is this place where whoever you are working with is located?
Dagmar replied, “Northeast of here. It will be rather a long trip, but probably just as long as it takes to get to Dragon Island. And it is a lot colder than this up there.”
“Alright that is where we are going to start,” I started walking back to Fredrick.
“Where are you going?” Dagmar question. “Don’t we have to get to the island as soon as possible?”
“Yes,” I responded. “But we have a meeting we have to go to. For one thing, we cannot go half cocked and rush into something. We need a plan and supplies when we leave for you island. Also, we are going to bring friends with us. Whoever our enemy is must have numbers. So we need to bring more vikings to even the odds. Still we may not have the numbers we need, but we will always have surprise. Though I could almost guarantee you that they will be expecting us," I finished with, “But you three need to come to the meeting too, including you Dagmar," who looked like she was getting ready to leave as she had mounted her dragon.
I finished and walked back to Fredrick. I mounted my dragon while everyone else followed suit.
On the trip back, I kept thinking about mother. A tear came to my eye and slid down the side of my left cheek, “I can’t lose another parent! I just can’t! I am going do what it takes to.. get.. her.. back!”
First, Flamethrower gliders... then your mom is gone... and this is the second to last chapter...
I think the final chapter is gonna be Alpha and Shadow size. Maybe even Alpha and Shadow "This Ends Today" size.
Turns out I did manage to finish reading haha. though, it was nice not having to stop. Until now >.< but I like your plot so far ^_^ It gets more and more interesting ;) dont know if i asked before (or if you said before) but are you going to continue with another sequel to this? Anyways, keep writing! I'll try to check back more often now. Well, TRY ._.
As I suspected: Svana has been captured, or brainwashed. Now the real question is who is it?
I just caught up since i needed some stress relief. Linear Algebra does a number on the neurons.
Note: My next chapter will be posted sometime later this week.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, as I am planning two surprises. One that will should come in the next chapter and the other one at the end of my story. So stay tunned!