These things, this life- they don't like going smoothly.
Sometimes Ruffnut feels like she's got too much energy. Constantly, she feels like she's torrid, buzzing… radioactive.
One for sorrow,
The first person she kills, it's a fat stranger with oily hair and chunky rings.
It's in grief and remorse. In tears that blur your vision and it is along the coast, where the jackass wind does not care for the blunt trauma you're suffering in these soul shredding moments. It's the apocalypse to you, but the wind does not care. It is making your hair lash and draw blood from your scrunched and confused face.
She does not like to give details about that kill. The closet anyone has ever got is the old fisherman who found her, crumped and covered in blood. Another's blood. She blubbers and cries- "He deserved it. He deserved it! He killed him!"- this is all that they know.
Two for joy,
The second person she kills, it's a young boy under five who was rosy, bucktoothed and cheeky.
It's a stupid, well-meaning offer to her Aunty, weighed down with pregnancy and four young children. She volunteers to take the two eldest out into the meadows. To give the women at least some peace; two less toddlers to worry about.
The children don't want to just race insects in the flowery farmer fields; they want to explore the woods. They want to explore the cavers and waterfalls, the things that Mothers and Fathers always forbid them against.
Ruffnut agrees because, well, they have all got the same grotesque rebellious streak and they are all rather young. The sister dares the brother to climb a tree. He gets up high, but wants to go right to the top.
You know… the top. The top where the air is colder and the branches couldn't hold a bird let alone a Viking.
He falls.
Ruffnut had heard the boy's branch snap. She had known that she was too far away to even try catching the child, so she did the best thing possible. She clapped her hands over the young sister's ears and turned the child's face away. Because Ruffnut remembers, the crunch and the scream are worse than the images.
She chose to lead the shell shocked child home, so young, so young it could be possible that she won't even remember. But Ruffnut knew, and everyone knew when she got into town and delivered the news, that it was at the price of the boy. He would be eaten by now, especially since night had just fallen.
Ruffnut takes full responsibility for the death, because, she killed him. She wanted to take two children off the worn mother's hands for a day, but instead she took one permanently.
Three for a girl,
The third person she kills, it's not a person really, it's a dragon. But it's intelligent and it screams so it's a killing in her eyes.
It's a yellow hued dragon with gorgeous green fire. Dragon's, just like humans, have their criminals and psychopaths. There is nothing much heroic or unfortunate to this killing, the only thing being that she was protecting the life of a seven year old at the time. It was the sister from her second killing. The irony cuts deep.
One could - no- some did say that it was her repayment to the family. She was responsible for the loss of one of their children and now she had saved the life of another. Ruffnut does not like to get philosophical or spiritual about life. She is a very straightforward Viking. Though, she has a special hate for some mystical sayings and things after this third killing. Like when people think that grudges continue on, even after rebirth. That you can "recognised" this "reborn" someone by just looking "into" their eyes.
That brothers are hunting you down in revenge for a childish dare. She thinks its stupid, so she tells the girl that.
Four for a boy,
The fourth person she kills, it is just images, of chain mailed and war painted warriors.
It's really, actually, a lot of taken lives all taken in one tumbled. A huge war. There is not much to say on this killing either. It was just duty. Just war, where killing is heroic for a brief time.
There are factors that make it worse though; that it was the honourable thing at the time, that she is celebrated for those actions, that she didn't even know them, that they are just faces and so she has to image their names and their lives and their families. All done, just on the word of Hiccup. They killed so many for just one person.
In his name, these acts, and she sees that it has changed the man, the deaths are on his conscious and they weigh him down, they sit on his shoulders, nibbling and making his tender ears and cheeks bleed from their hysterical scratches. Everyone did it for their chief, all for their village.
Died and killing and, in general, lost their sanity altogether.
Five for silver,
The fifth person she kills is a gnarly old lady who has lived her life away in a hut, brewing soups and cursing people who come too near.
It's that she has stolen Ruffnut's silver ring, her silver ring. The old woman was nasty and she was mean and she was rude.
"You mean this ring? Well you can't have it! I found it, so it's mine, no you can't have it! Mine!" Old people die so easy, especially when you are a small women used to fighting iron clad brutes. She really was sorry, but…
Accidents happen.
Six for gold,
The sixth person she kills is a rich business man who wanted her to be his mistress.
It's just that he lavishes her with jewels and fine fabrics, trying to win her over and buy her affections. She sees this neat little profit she could make and so takes him up on his offer. By the fifth month she had amassed boxes full of fine, expensive wares. She decided that it was sufficient enough for her liking, more than sufficient actually (she had gotten a bit greedy in the end there) and breaks the relationship with the filthy man.
Of course by break she meant cut and by cut she meant slice and by slice she meant his neck. It would just be terrible if the pig started to brag about her, his most "dangerous mistress" by far.
Indeed, he really didn't know exactly who he had been truly dealing with. Did he now?
Seven for a secret
The seventh person she kills is a-
Never to be told.
"One for Sorrow" is a traditional children's nursery rhyme about magpies. According to an old superstition, the number of magpies one sees determines whether one will have bad luck or not. This particular version is used in the counting crows song "A Murder of One." In Ireland, it is common to recite "Five for a wedding".