Dagur's "Dagger"

Dagur's Response

Dagur stared at her, she was amazing, she was special, and more so then he could've imagined. In his past, he would've heard this secret and used it as blackmail or sought to reap it's exploits for himself by making it a weapon. Now, all he wanted to do was learn more about it, study it, but not if it made Josephine uncomfortable. He reflected on the child he used to be for a moment and wondered what it would've been like for him if Josephine had been around then. In his shattered mind, the echo of taunts and threats rampaged, his own words now haunted him. He shuttered at the thought and was thankful she wasn't. If she had been, if she had seen, firsthand, who he used to be, she wouldn't be standing here now. But Dagur smiled warmly at her. "So that explains a lot..." 

Josephine stared worriedly at him. "What do you mean? " She asked.

Dagur dropped the smile as his face shrouded with worry. "Josephine, you know I'd never hurt you right?"

She looked up at him and slowly nodded.

Dagur hugged her. "I would never tell anyone if you didn't want me to or make you answer anything you feel you can't. I love you, and you don't do those things to those you love." Dagur found himself wishing he had realized that way sooner.

Josephine smiled and hugged him back. "I trust you."

Dagur pulled away and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "I meant that this secret explains why Obsidian seems to understand us fluently. He even responds with Viking-like gestures. It's amazing, and it seems that residuals of your mind's influence stuck with him." 

Josephine thought about that. Did her being in Obsidian's mind change him? "I've never thought of it like that before." And thinking of it terrified her to her core. She changed his original being and made him more human-like. In short she had tainted him. She shook herself. No, she hadn't, Obsidian was happy and he didn't seem to mind that she took him every so often, since she only did it in dire need.

Obsidian turned to her and growled softly, telling her to quiet her doubts and focus on her husband to be. And so she did. "Dagur? May I ask you something?"

Dagur nodded. "Of course."

"Are you afraid of me...knowing this?" Josephine said, worrying over his reply.

Dagur's eyes softened. "No, Josephine, I am not. But speaking of secrets and being afraid of them...there's something, well...a lot of things you should know about me. I know you're smart, love, and I know you've heard things that make you wonder who I was in the past. I'll tell you, but it's not pretty and you won't like it."

Josephine's head lifted as her curiousity and wonder increased.

Dagur sat on his bed, knowing it was going to be a lot for him to handle, and knowing it probably would be for Josphine as well, he invited her to come sit with him.

She smiled and accepted the offer, she listened intently to what Dagur had to say next.

"Where to start?" Dagur chuckled nervously. "Well, I guess it should start with when my father went missing, his name was Oswald the Agreeable and he was the last Chief of the Berserkers. And when he went missing I seized the throne by claiming I had killed him though I hadn't."

Josephine started racking her brain to try and figure out why.

"I know, Josephine, I see you trying to figure it out, so I won't leave you hanging. I was not the center of attention as a child, I was the eldest of two children, and the attention always falls to the youngest, which was my sister Heather. She got everything, every privillage, every toy, every pet that I didn't. And I was jealous, but my jealousy over the years grew to hatred, hatred for my father and for Heather. So, right after I claimed the throne, in anger, I casted my baby sister out to sea to die, and turned my attention to hunting dragons and ruling the archipeligo as a whole." Dagur looked to Josephine to see her reaction to that, but she didn't. There was no flinch, no look of horror on her face. She just was just listening. So he continued. "Flashfoward a bit and I'd have hunted many dragons, but in the process, I became obsessed with killing more and more to impress my people, to hear their praise and cheer me on. I was attention-deprived and now I had craved more of it. And I had heard that my scrawny brother from another family had killed an enormous one, and lost a leg in the process. I was amazed and also a bit doubtful, how could Hiccup ever kill anything, then I heard a supposed rumor that he had trained a dragon, a night fury no less and went to Berk to investigate. Berk was so desperate to keep the peace knowing I was now the Berserkers' chief, and so they pretended to still be a people of the barbaric dragon-killing ways when they weren't. But eventually not even my clever little brother could keep hiding from me, I discovered Toothless wearing a saddle, and as Hiccup explained that they didn't hunt dragons but ride them on Berk, I raged and declared a full and total war on him, his tribe...I rallied a call for the night fury's head, and without listening to his explanation, I only saw my sick twisted version of how hiccup had betrayed me." He sighed sadly, regret forming in his eyes. "I wish I could say it ended when he defeated me, but I can't. Our battles went on for a while after that until I got so desperate to kill Toothless that I dragged Stoick into our petty war, I held him hostage and threatened to kill him if Hiccup didn't deliver his dragon to me and surrender. And to no-one's surprise he defeated me again and saved our father. And our battle's lasted throughout the years up until recently when I had joined the Dragon Hunters and Viggo Grimborn, long story short with that group of criminals I realized that I did love my sister, and Heather was also with us, as a spy, but nonetheless, I realized that it wasn't Heather's fault she was the second borne and more adorable than even I was at that age. And I became protective of her, but all too soon, Viggo found out that she was a spy and tried to have her executed, I freed her, and I knew she hated me and wanted me dead but I wasn't going to let Viggo harm her. She thought I was going to kill her when I brought down the axe on her cuffs. She spoke, but I couldn't hear her and couldn't reply. The rush of the danger, the trouble I would be in, and the emotions of saving her prevented me from speaking, but I had also freed her dragon and pointed at her telling my sis to leave. I nearly died for how I betrayed Viggo that day. But I escaped, and shipwrecked on an island where I had nothing but time to think over my life choices and reconsider my alliances. I realized, all the while I thought Hiccup was wrong and betraying me, it was actually the opposite. I was the bad guy, I was the villian, and I had nearly murdered my entire family and their friends multiple times."

Josephine saw the guilt and horror and anger building up in his eyes.

His mind shrouded to the past, he felt like he was living it all over again, trying to kill everyone, trying to control all of the archipeligo, he saw it all from the time he set Heather adrift to the last battle he had had with Hiccup. And then it started again, like he was locked in a war that would never end. He tried to tell himself to stop, that things were different now, but it did no good, he was trapped in the nightmare that was his mind.

And Josephine saw it as Dagur's eyes glazed over and he gave what was almost a whimper, a cry for help. And she planned to answer it, she closed her eyes and enter Dagur's mind with her gift, she could see what he saw, and she wasn't afraid of what he was, she was impressed with the person he had become. She didn't need to see the whole thing, she found Dagur in the darkest corner of his mind and dragged him back to the surface, and as she did, she was pushed out of his mind and back into her own.

Dagur sat there blinking the remnants of the the flashbacks away. He then looked to Josephine who had layed on the bed because she was drained from the effort it took to bring him back, but she was conscious and so he approached her. "You-you were there, I saw you back then." Dagur said softly.

"No," Josephine said weakly. "It was all flashbacks, you were having some kind of traumatizing memory reel and you looked terrified, so I may have...entered your mind and brought you back." She expected him to be mad, to be angry for her entering his mind without permission.

But Dagur wasn't mad. "You did that for me? You brought me out, even after what you saw I did for yourself?"

She smiled. "You said it yourself, that's not who you are anymore." And then she closed her eyes and fell into peaceful sleep.

Dagur smiled, pride swelled within him, no one outside his family had ever done something like that for him, namely because they couldn't. And then he layed next to her and held her close, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

Hey guys, back again with chapter 9 (cause I'm not counting "update" as a chapter) and it took a lot of work, but I'm proud of it. I hope you will be too. Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions. See you in the next chapter.