A Saga Of Ice And Fire

Chapter Seventeen - An Awakening

The crude blade cascaded from the man's grasp , the silver catching the sunlight on it's perilous descent down towards the pebble laden water bank. The man's coarse voice cracked the air as he howled in pain, cursing fluently though the other two adults in the vicinity were far too numb with shock to try to register the fact that three children were privy to the foul language on display at the moment.

Anna had dug her teeth deep into the man's hand while he'd been distracted and the little girl clung onto it with no indication of letting go, her brows knitted together.

"ARRRGHH !" the man roared , having forgotten all about his intention to hold the princess ransom as he attempted to swing the girl off of his arm . " YOU LITTLE WENCH! GEROFF!"

Every bone in Elsa's body told her to stay put as her mother clung onto her but seeing her sister being crudely wrangled by the man awoke a creature inside her ; a creature so dormant she hadn't even known that it had existed . Rearing it's head, the beast bared it's razor edged teeth for the first time ever, snuffing out all logic and reasoning as it took over her mind and body, claiming it for it's own, everything else obsolete. The white hot furnace that had been bubbling inside boiled over and she was able to clench it back in her fist no longer as she watched the man raise a hand to forcefully try to rip Anna apart from his arm.

"NO! PLEASE ! ANNA! " she heard her mother's terrified voice cry out from some distant, far off valley as she watched the man and the little red head girl .

It was as if Elsa had been pushed to the back and was merely a passenger now , watching everything unfold around her. Her legs seemingly developed a mind of it's own and before anyone knew what was happening, Elsa included, she'd hurled herself forward at the man just as he managed to wrench Anna from his arm. Queen Iduna rushed to her younger daughter's side to try and sheild the young princess before the man could do anything else, and she hadn't noticed Elsa charging at the attacker.

"GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER!" her face contorted crimson as a feral scream broke through from Elsa's lips , almost animalistic in nature in it's attempt to convey every bit of the rage coarsing through her . She felt her arms swinging wildly , as if someone else was controlling them.

The man barely had time to blink before a powerful blast of crystalline icy jet of wind pummeled hard into him , lifting him off his feet and slamming him hard into the tree trunk behind him . The glittering specks had barely settled to the ground as the man crumpled down to the ground like a lifeless ragdoll, unmoving as if someone had bludgeoned him in the head .

Elsa glowered at the figure of the man who had tried to attack her sister, her hands still held out in front of her, not having moved from their position. Her chest heaved with every ragged breath and her eyes had warped into a miserable, cold blue , a far cry from the usual warmth they held. Nobody dared move , for they were all too stunned , unable to find their voices.

Only when she caught sight of Anna staring at her, wide eyed , sitting on the pebbled ground with their mother clinging onto her, did the creature inside her give way and let Elsa regain control over her body again. Suddenly feeling self conscious, she lowered her arms back down, turning to see both Hiccup and her aunt mirroring the look on her sister and mother's face, gaping at her in a silence that seemed to drum down noisily on her ears. None of them had noticed the thin sheen of ice that coated the pebbled ground , spreading outward from where Elsa stood.

The sound of horse hooves approaching eased itself into the air.

~~~

Hiccup had just had an awkward dinner with the king and queen of Corona since he didn't really know them as much as he did the Arendellian royals.