Reborn

21 - The Voice

Kristoff watched anxiously as the Læknir inspected Elsa. She was now sitting up, quiet and withdrawn. She just stared at her hands, mumbling something unintelligible occasionally whenever the Læknir asked her a question.

Eventually, the Læknir turned and motioned for Kristoff to follow him outside the tent while Olaf kept Elsa company. "What's wrong with her?" Kristoff asked, getting straight to the point.

The Læknir sighed. "From what little I can tell, she was possessed."

Again.

"There's still something inside of her, thought I can't figure out any way of removing it from her. It appears to have distressed her, which is what woke her up."

Obviously.

The man then looked him straight in the eye. "But whatever it is, it's growing, or a more appropriate term is spreading inside of her." He paused to let it sink in. "But I'm afraid that there is no cure."

~

Elsa didn't even hear Olaf's chatter. She rubbed her forearms as she thought about that moment when she woke up and found her hand gripping Kristoff's wrist, his hand and arm turning to ice.

How could I?

She figured out that it was the Evil making contact again. I'm a danger to everyone. I really should leave.

She remembered hearing Pabbie's voice inside of her head. Then...it was lost. He was lost. She suddenly couldn't breathe.

He was trying to warn me of something. What was it?

She then became aware of the Læknir and Kristoff standing in the tent's doorway. "Come, my dear," the Læknir said warmly, his grizzled face breaking into a kind and welcoming smile. "The people await."

~

Kristoff kept an eye on Elsa as the Læknir gently led her by the hand to the centre of their...for lack of better terminology, tent community. Seeing Sven anxiously waiting for him, Kristoff went over and nuzzled Sven's nose. "Hey, Sven," he greeted. Sven practically leapt for joy and gave him a look that said Well? Where's the carrots?

"Sorry, bud. All out," he informed him and then saw that Elsa had been seated around a pit of fire where there were five older people seated on the opposite side of the pit, staring at her and him intently. He went and sat down next to her, sensing that was what he was supposed to do, and stared right back.

"Why did you bring us here?" Elsa asked, the first time she had really spoken since she woke up that morning. She raised her eyes to look at them, her voice void of any emotion.

A man in the middle of the Five - who looked rather old - answered. "I received a vision and in that vision a voice told us that you four would be coming," he answered. Kristoff recognized him as the man who had said "You have come...You have come, like it said..."

He gave the man a skeptical look. "Then why bring us in chains?"

The man raised an eyebrow in a way that indicated that he thought the reason was obvious. "Her," and he pointed straight at Elsa. Elsa flinched like she had been stung. "The voice in the vision says that she will be the destruction of us all."