“What the hell dae ye think ye’re daeing?” Freya demanded as Tristan attempted to shoulder past her into her own home with a smarmy grin on his face. “Ye have nay right tae barge in here like this!”
Tristan smirked. “I think that ye will find that we dae.”
“If the man in yer house is a danger tae the village Freya, like we have good reason to think he is, then he needs to explain himself at once.” One of the council members said and motioned for her to move out of their way.
“A danger?! Ye keep throwing that word around, and fer what? This is a man who needed help, and I am giving it. Same as I would tae any of ye miserable lot were ye injured out on the water! He’s just a lost soul!” Freya insisted.
“Ye ken nothing about where he came from, or what sort of nasty business he is involved in.”
“Ye have just decided tae vilify him? Nae a single word and ye have just concocted a whole fairy tale about him and whatever sort of life he must lead?” Freya continued.
“Enough of this, woman! Step aside!” Tristan said and then had the nerve to put his hand directly onto her waist in an attempt to physically move her in her home.
Naturally, she smacked his hand off her person immediately. “How dae ye even ken that he is awake in the first place?!”
Tristan only smirked.
“... have ye been spying on me?!” Freya demanded. Her nose crinkled in distaste. He didn’t even have the decency to deny the claim. He didn’t care if she knew he had been shamelessly spying on her. It made her feel dirty. How long had he been doing that? What sort of thing had he seen when she thought she had been alone? Why did nobody around him seem to have the slightest issue with the fact that he was creeping upon her privacy?
“How else are we tae ken that ye are safe, Freya?” Tristan continued, putting on a mask of concern as if she didn’t know that being controlling was his only true motivator. “Everybody in the village has been worried sick about ye! Ye have treated the freeloader long enough. Now he needs to explain and be on his way.”
“Step aside, Freya,” said Craig, one of the council members of the island. He was an older man, with a greying beard and a pair of rheumy eyes which seemed to be glued right onto her sleepingguest. Even in the commotion, he had not awakened, his body still demanding rest.
“And if I dinnae?” She sneered.
But they would have none of it. Tristan was only too happy to remove her. He put his hand on her once more and yanked her out of the door, where the council members then rudely shouldered and shoved past her until the men were now dominating most of the space in her cabin.
She couldn’t cry.
It was so invasive, and she had done nothing to deserve being treated like this by people who had always regarded her as extended family. Now they had not only broken her trust, but she felt as if she was looking at strangers. Men that she had once looked up to, some that she had even admired now standing over a man who had only just stolen some time back from death’s hands.
The men started to shake him crudely, and while she wanted nothing better than to yank them right back out, she was helpless. She wasn’t a match for any of them physically, so she had to watch as their rough actions threatened to undo everything she had been working on day and night.
Rough hands were jostling him around, turning the pain in his ribs and spine from discomfort into agony. It wasn’t the soft, soothing hands that he had come to be so accustomed to when he had been conscious enough to realize that he was being touched.
Which begged the question in his groggy mind of who the hell was touching him like that.
He was forced out of sleep too suddenly, his heart pounding and his eyes wild and wide as he looked from one stranger’s face to the next. Where was the healer? Had they done something to her? Out of what he assumed was muscle memory, his mind supplied his body with the command to grab his weapon, but neither would his arm move, nor was he armed. He didn’t even have clothes on from what he could tell. He couldn’t calm down when they were all glaring at him like he had stolen their parritch right from their tables.
“Who are ye?”
“How did ye come tae be here?”
“What dae ye want with our village?”
“Yer name, lad!”
The questions all came as a sudden barrage, one on top of the next one. He could barely speak at all, let alone answer all of their questions at once.
“Dinnae just lay there! Speak!” One of them, significantly younger than the others, practically shouted at him.
That one he was going to choose to ignore; he didn’t much care for his tone.
“I dinnae ken who I am.” He answered finally in a cracked voice, hoping that would suffice to answer their questions en masse.
The younger man scoffed and shook his head. “Likely story. How very convenient that ye have nay idea who ye are. I dinnae believe ye!”
He tilted his head, looking at the man like he was mad. “And yet, it is the truth.”
