Since we've already agreed I have no right to publish anything new, I'm going to skip the apology and go right to the information about this story.
I've been in a Camicazi-ish mood lately, largely due to a person I know who is remarkably similar to Camicazi in nearly all ways. Height, hair color, energy, athleticism, ceaseless chatter and loud volume. It's a little frightening, in truth.
And so I was doing the calculations for the DAYS of this fic. I'd decided on May Day for Camicazi's birthday (explanation forthwith) and when I went to check the calendar to count, I realized today was, in fact, May Day, and that I'd better get it up before midnight.
Bookverse. Because Camicazi is shockingly underrepresented. She needs the love. Although I hope all you movie-watchers enjoy it as well. :)
There was an enormous, nearly innumerable number of days in Camicazi's life. (In fact, on THAT Day, she was exactly four thousand and thirty-two days old.) But there were only a limited number of Days. There was, obviously, the Day she was born, the Day she'd gotten her sword, the Day she'd broken her arm, and the Day she'd knocked out her first tooth.
Her birthdays were often Days. But for her eleventh May-Day birthday (as Bertha put it, she was the first divine wind of the spring,) the accompanying Day came four days later.
She was kidnapped by Romans.
Childishly, foolishly, she'd swallowed the Hooligan disguise. The three men that kidnapped her had no manners at all and didn't even give her a chance to give them a good fight. They'd grabbed her, stuffed her in a sack, and kindly took her sword as well. This should have been the first hint that something went wrong. How often do even Hooligans bring their captive's weapons?
By the time she'd arrived at Fort Sinister, she was boiling. When she was dumped out on the floor in front of men in togas, she'd known she was through. The kidnappers weren't Hooligans, she fumed, they were ROMANS. She'd never met a Hooligan, but she was sure they couldn't be much better. She hated both on principle.
She spent nine days alone in the tower with only the soldier who brought the food three times a day for human contact – and he never stayed long. She didn't even have a dragon for company. She spent three of those days refining her swordfighting (slashing the walls to bits in the process), one singing to herself (because there's only so many times a girl can sing the Bog-Burglar National Anthem), and the last five practicing her cartwheels (sometimes with her sword and incorporating her moves.) By the tenth day, her shoulders had toughened up again and she was feeling pleasantly supple and limber. And bored.
Camicazi hadn't even thought about escaping yet; she didn't know any of their secret plans (the food soldier was unpleasantly tight-lipped about everything) and if they weren't going to do anything with her, then she wasn't going to make it fun for them and escape.
Boys. They just got worse, Camicazi theorized, when they became men.
Not that she'd actually…met any boys. The closest she'd seen was a little boy who'd been born to one of her mother's lieutenants, then swiftly sent to the father. She'd wrinkled her nose and pronounced him boring, and never gave much thought about it.
THAT Day was the beginning of something. THAT Day, that tenth day of her imprisonment at Fort Sinister, was the beginning of many things.
THAT Day was the day her life changed forever.
THAT was the Day she met Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third.
.
Kidnappers dressed as women dropped the first two boys Camicazi had ever seen into her cell. They were obviously supposed to be Bog Burglars, as anyone who has ever visited the Inner Isles will know.
Camicazi had just turned upright from her six thousandth and forty-seventh cartwheel and watched in amazement at the two.
One was tall with a strangely shaped face, eyes so squinty she could barely see them, and fragile-looking spectacles. The other was shorter and much better looking, with unbelievably bright red hair poking out from beneath his helmet. They were both, to her annoyance, older than her.
"Who are you?" she'd asked, whipping out her sword. "What are your names? Who sent you? Where do you come from?" Maybe her nine days of solitude had done her in a little. Camicazi wasn't nervous – Bog-Burglars never get nervous – but she wasn't too pleased at the idea of more males. Especially in her own cell.
"My name is Hiccup," said the short one. "And this is Fishlegs – we're Hooligans…"
"I don't believe you," Camicazi yelled. Really, she'd never been so curious in her entire life, but she was also dreadfully bored, and these two were fair game. They were, of course, in her cell. "You're Roman spies!" she accused. "Draw your swords and fight like men, you Latin lowlifes!"
To her frustration, the two of them just looked at each other. They'd been nabbed from the same tribe, she supposed. They were both properly too weird to be allowed. All the other girls on her island were big and burly and strong.
The tall one laughed. Quick as a flash, Camicazi lunged and slashed through his belt. "Hey! Watch what you're doing with that sword!"
Camicazi didn't dignify that obviously non-combative statement with a response. Couldn't they see she was just having a little fun? Did boys ruin everything? No wonder there were none at home.
She dashed for the short one, screaming. To her surprise, he drew a blade (at this point, she wouldn't have been surprised if that scabbard was hollow) at the last second and engaged her.
He was a leftie.
Camicazi nearly dropped her sword in shock and turned a cartwheel to cover her excitement. "Fight, you nano-eating, locust-baking, toga-wearing Jupiter-worshipper! Oooh, you're actually quite good at this-" And indeed he was. Barely breaking a sweat, the boy ducked and parried every single strike. He held the sword lightly, with admirable ease, despite it being frightfully old and a little too big for him. "For a boy. I've been getting so bored, you have no idea…"
"Can't we just have a quiet talk about this?" The boy was short of breath, though. Probably nerves, thought Camicazi. It seemed to really fray those who fought her.
"I see you know the Grimbeard's Grapple, and the Flashcut Lunge, and the Deathwatch Parry-" she lauded him, twirled her hilt and sliced off the boy's sleeve. "And the-"
"Will you stop," cried the boy. "My name really is Hiccup," he insisted, "And I really am a Hooligan…"
"I don't believe you," Camicazi returned, doing a backbend and illustrating her point with her sword. "You're a Roman spy! Admit it, or I will unzip you from your breadbasket to your oystergobbler!" Careful not to cut all the threads of his clothing, Camicazi pulled her sword from his stomach to chin. He gasped.
"Oooooooh, your defense is a bit weak, you know, you should really work on that…" Indeed it was. But, Camicazi supposed, he didn't want to hurt her. "Otherwise, a person (meaning herself, of course) could just nip through – and…"
Camicazi drew her blade all the way from his wrist to shoulder, the second sleeve falling limp around his arm. "Woops," she laughed. "There goes the other one!" And with a quick turn, she pushed him against the wall.
"I – am – not – a – Roman," choked the boy in a half-shout, his helmet tilting and eyes wild.
Camicazi stopped. What a boy. Didn't they understand she'd been here for nine days? "Well, a Hooligan isn't much better," she said primly. "My mother says the only good Hooligan is a dead Hooligan."
"That's funny," the boy responded immediately. "Because my father says that the only good Bog-Burglar is a dead Bog-Burglar – and the really amusing thing is, unless we join together, in about two weeks' time, we are both going to be very good, and very dead."
He knew something. She knew he knew. And somehow, this longish and obviously thought-out speech wasn't horribly geeky or nerdy. It was actually clever.
"Oh, bother." Camicazi blew out her breath and looked around at Hiccup. "I was really looking forward to spilling some blood."
He gulped. She grinned, then continued loftily, "You know, you're not a bad swordfighter, actually, for a boy, of course…"
"Thanks," gasped Hiccup in a tone she was sure she'd come to recognize as flattered. Camicazi stuck out her hand. "My name's Camicazi, the Heir to the Bog-Burglars. Nice to meet you. What are you-" she enunciated with all the contempt and spite she'd always heard her mother speak with when of Hooligans, "doing here, anyway?"
Hiccup blinked. "We got kidnapped just like you. And we're also," he added hurriedly, "looking for a dragon that I've lost. He's about…" Hiccup held his hands a few inches apart, "so high, green eyes, a Common-or-Garden…"
"Oh, yes," said Camicazi, nodding as if she knew what he was talking about. "The soldier who brings the food told me about him," she lied. "He bit the Prefect on the nose when they brought him in!" she bluffed.
"Good old Toothless," said Hiccup, not even mildly surprised. Toothless? A pathetic name for a pathetic dragon for a pathetic Hooligan boy.
"The Prefect really doesn't like him," Camicazi added. Hiccup just looked resigned. "Yes, I know," he sighed. "Toothless once did a poo in his helmet, and a Treacherous never forgives."
"They've put him in Level Seven, Top Security," Camicazi continued. This got a reaction. "Oh, poor, poor Toothless," moaned Hiccup. "I can't bear to think of him being trapped. He hates small spaces – he can't even go down rabbit holes, despite rabbit being his favorite food; he stays at the entrance shrieking his head off-" Camicazi was too amused by this anecdote to say, and was fiercely anticipating seeing the little beast. She'd slice off anyone at the wrists who stood in her way.
The door opened. Camicazi, quite beginning to feel that her nice and homey cell had been turned into a harbor, turned and saw a soldier speak to Hiccup in a nasty string of Latin consonants that he didn't even blink at and threw something hard and green at him, hitting him right in the stomach and knocking him down.
Camicazi leaned over and saw a little dragon unfurling itself, making annoyed hissing noises. To her very great and eternal astonishment, Hiccup gleefully grabbed up the tiny little thing and responded with the same kind of noise, clacking his teeth and whistling. Her first thought was that he was speaking to it. But of course, dragons couldn't speak, and anyone who thought they could was a fool. Perhaps Hiccup just thought he could speak to it.
Toothless – she supposed it had to be him, no one else on the Earth could have a dragon that tiny except Hiccup – put his little scaly arms right around Hiccup's neck and licked his face up and down.
Fishlegs and Camicazi exchanged disgusted looks. She poked her tongue out. He twitched his eye. Suddenly, they were laughing, and Hiccup turned around to see them without quite understanding what the joke was. He put Toothless on his shoulder and stood up, and Camicazi gave him a good hard whack on the back, girl style. He winced and coughed a little and gave her a smile.
Camicazi wasn't aware of it yet. But THAT Day would be the beginning of everything.
