Renewed: The Little Four Sequel-Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons Story

Chapter 15

Hello! I just wanted to say that you, you right there, yes you, the one reading this, is amazingly awesome. Awesome among other things, like stylish, beautiful, funny, cool, and if there was only one last Twinkie on the planet, in the universe, I'd give it to you. :-)

Rapunzel

After a night of sleep(finally), we all gathered to figure out what was happening. So far, we knew that it wasn't a natural disaster, it wasn't Pitch, Gothel, or the Necromancer, and we had no way of finding out what was happening.

Hiccup, who hadn't really been listening to the conversation suddenly sat up.

"I think I know someone who can help us. There was this woman in my village, she knew all sorts of things that didn't make sense. She had told me once that I was going to live forever, and I thought she was crazy, but now I'm a guardian, so she must know somehow. She can help us!"

"Would she be able to see us?" Merida asked. The whole time we were here, they hadn't left each others side, or even let go of their hands. I felt bad for doing this, but I compared that to Jack and I. He had been distant all night and still was.

"I don't know, but it's worth a shot."

So, off we went. Jack suggested we use the snow globes, I suspect because he was worried about me flying.

We stepped through the portal and found ourselves on the front porch of a small house built high on a cliff. There was a garden out front and what looked like herbs tied up and drying.

Hiccup went up to the door and knocked. An old woman opened it. She was short and leaned heavily on a big staff. Her hair was white and in braids. When she saw Hiccup, she smiled broadly and bonked him on the head with her staff.

"Ow!" he complained, but he was smiling. She gestured for us to come in, and we did.

It was a cozy house. There was a fire going with a pot hanging over it. We did what Hiccup did and sat on the ground in front of the fire. Next to the fire was a chair, which the woman sat in.

"I'm happy to see you," Hiccup said. She smiled and nodded. "What has been happening here?"

She frowned slightly and used her staff to write symbols I have never seen before in the dirt. "The dragon attacks have nearly stopped, but not after many died," Hiccup translated. "But you are not here to catch up. What has happened?"

"At the North Pole, there was this, the whole place, decayed, in a way," I said.

"Here," Jack mumbled, pulling out some of the stuff and handing it to her.

"Could you tell us what it is, or what's causing it?" Merida asked.

She examined it, breaking it in half. She crushed some of it in her hand, letting the powder run through her fingers.

"It's from a creature," she wrote, Hiccup translating. "It's a rare creature, like an imp. It causes everything that it touches to decay, like this. They are tiny, purple, and often try to cause as much mayhem as possible. They can't hurt humans, but it can be rather annoying when they destroy everything. The only way to get rid of it is to set it on fire."

Once we knew that the thing we were up against was a small creature, a weight seemed to disappear.

She started writing again, but this time, Hiccup didn't translate it, but rather stared at her, wide eyed.

"Really?" he asked.

"What?" Jack asked.

"She can tell us the gender of the babies."

She gestured me forward, hand outstretched. She grabbed my hand like Grandpapi had, concentrating. Then she wrote in the ground.

"Girl," Hiccup translated. I looked down at my stomach, shocked. I looked back up at Jack, seeing my own shock reflected. He hesitantly took a step forward, grabbed my hand, then pulled me in for a hug. Just like that, all the tension earlier was gone.

Merida stepped forward next. She took her hand, paused, then wrote in the ground.

Hiccup was actually too shocked to say anything. Merida had to smack him before he came to his senses and said, "Boy."