"Astrid, what's this?"
Astrid stopped in her tracks, groaning inwardly, bunching her up skirt in both hands.
Her mother strode purposefully across the room, running a critical eye over her willful young daughter. The matriarch took in the muddy footprints trailing from the back door,clicking to herself as her gaze finally alighted on Astrid's grubby face. Both would need a fair bit of vigorous scrubbing to get clean again. And it simply wouldn't do for the house to be dirty, not her prized pine floorboards, no.
She sighed inwardly. This didn't bode well for the rest of the week. Stooping down, Astrid's mother inspected her daughter more closely, passing a practiced gaze over Astrid's blouse and skirt. Somehow her daughter had managed to burst several of the seams, and damage perfectly good fabric. That would need a good hour of stitching and sewing before it could be pronounced halfway decent again. And the fabric itself! It looked as if it had been dragged along the forest floor, with so much soil and leaf bits and decaying matter sticking to it. Much of the damage had been hidden by hasty washing, but the residual mud clung to the clothes like ivy. She didn't quite feel like asking how Astrid had managed to do all that to a pristine set of clothing.
None of these things were particularly telling individually, and by themselves would have warranted no more than a quick talking to or even a mere glare on a better day. But taken together...
Freya, she's only five! And already more troublesome than half the boys in the village.
The two stared at each other for a moment with identical blue eyes. Her mother's lips tightened into a thin line, brows furrowing into a sharp V. Astrid couldn't remember how many times they'd had this conversation before. Her hands gripped the fabric of her skirt even more tightly, creasing the fabric into tight bunches.
"Did you sneak off to the forest again?" Astrid could help the slight wince as her mother said it. She could practically see the thunderclouds forming in her mother's mind. Breathing deeply, Astrid steeled herself, forcing a calm expression. Even a single misstep would be too much, here. Especially today of all days. She'd have to be careful.
"It's called training. I asked Father about it." Astrid replied, keeping her tone deliberately blank and even. Of course, she hadn't really asked. She didn't think Father would have told her anyway. But she'd heard Father talking about it one time Uncle Heimdallr had come over to drink, and that was basically the same thing. So there.
"I don't care what it's called. I don't want you doing it."
"All the boys do it! They get to go to the forest and play with swords and swing axes and throw daggers and everything! Even Hiccup can do it! Why can't I do it?" Astrid thought she saw her mother's face soften imperceptibly as she said it. They didn't use real swords or axes or daggers, of course. Children wouldn't ever be allowed to touch those until they'd been able to throw an axe and have it fly straight. They only ever got to use the wooden ones that weren't sharp at all. And Astrid was quite sure her mother knew it, too.
"Enough; I don't want to hear of you sneaking off again. Freya knows you're too young. Maybe in a few years, we could see about beginning your training classes… but as it is, you'd only slow the rest down."
No I wouldn't, Astrid thought sulkily. She wasn't even lying, either. Hiccup would have been the one to blame if anything of the sort did happen; he couldn't even lift a sword without stumbling and falling. She at least knew her way around steel. Or in her case, wood. She kept her face as neutral as she could manage; provoking her mother any more wouldn't help. She could feel her nails digging into her palms through the fabric of her skirt.
"Now I've talked with Eyildr. You'll be going to Gilla's house tomorrow." Her mother said it with horrible finality. There was no mistaking the sharp look in those eyes. Astrid said nothing, blue eyes staring back resolutely. The tension in the air was palpable. Finally her mother looked away, breaking the stare with a slight shake of her head.
"Go clean yourself up and put on clean clothes. Dinner's going to be soon." Her mother's voice was once more calm, betraying no hint of the heat in their earlier exchange even as she turned to go with a swish of her long skirt.
Astrid watched, motionless, as her mother's figure disappeared around the corner and into the kitchen. Only then did she dare to release her white-knuckled grip on the skirt, letting the fabric drop and revealing the blood spattered over it. She'd been lucky today, no more, no less. The last time she'd been caught had been the only time she'd seen her mother really explode. And no, she didn't quite relish the idea of Ragnarok coming early, thank you very much.
Fortunately, the stains weren't too obvious. In the right light, they could be passed off as dirt on the brown leather, or dismissed as spilt yak milk. If not, one set of clothes wouldn't be missed, not immediately anyway. At least for tonight, she was reasonably sure that she was out of the forest.
Still, it wouldn't do to have bloody clothes. Everyone knew what blood smelled like - that would give it away eventually. Mother would suspect something, and then all her hard work would have been for nothing. She'd have to wash it later. Preferably in the river running through the forest where nobody would see. And if that didn't work, she'd have to burn the set and hope for the best. She didn't like the idea, good breathable clothes were far too precious for her to part with them easily. But there was no doubt in her mind that she would have to if she wanted to keep up pretences. She couldn't risk anyone finding out the true nature of her excursions into the forest, at least for now.
Astrid walked up the stairs to fetch her clothes, careful to avoid putting too much weight on her throbbing left leg. It had been sheer good luck that her skirt covered the wound so that it wasn't visible. Still, she'd have to wash that later and clean off the dried blood and gore, or it would get infected. The village elder would give her a poultice to put on the wound without asking too many questions. Then it was a simple matter of binding it with rags dipped in boiled water. Nevertheless, it would take at least a week before it would support much more than her own weight again.
But she would master that double somersault, in time. No matter how many times she had to fall and cut herself.
In the meantime, though, she had a week of Gilla to look forward to. She'd gone to Gilla's house once, unaware it had just been a convenient place to dump the children while the grown-up women had their social evenings. All the other girls in the village had been there. And Freya, they'd been complete ditzes. All they'd done that day was try to talk like grown-ups and knit stupid pieces of clothing that nobody would ever wear more than once and do a dozen other pointless things and be silly all the time. She'd have to find a way to sneak out; she couldn't possibly imagine doing that for a whole week.
The other girls could have their dolls and needlework and pointless games. They weren't going to be the future chief of Berk. Or the first ever woman to become one. It would be hers, eventually. She'd do anything and everything in her power to do it.
Astrid nodded to herself, seeing the determined set of her mouth reflected in the mirror. She would become Chief. She just had to work at it.
Inspired by the ending of HTTYD2. It got me thinking about Astrid and her possible (hidden) wish to become the Chief of Berk. You'll find a decent number of Tumblr posts about this if you search.
Anyhoo, just something fun I wrote. Do read and review!
Cheers,
Dirac