As I continued looking around the village for Hiccup and Astrid, I heard Ruffnut and Cami talking again, looking around the back of the Thorston house to see them doing target practice together. I decided to remain hidden, still trying my hardest to at least be partially neutral to this conflict.
"Valka's right, you know..." Cami said as Ruffnut threw her spear at the target, only for it to fly over and hit the wall instead. "Doing this the human way'd be too needlessly complicated..."
"So... you wanna kill Eret?" Ruffnut asked, with a slight hint of excitement in her voice. Cami chuckled, saying "no... of course not... well, probably not, ha ha..."
I found myself chuckling a bit as she said this, though I wasn't loud enough for either of them to notice. Cami continued as Ruffnut went to get the spear, saying "no, I... I just think we need to convince Heather that Eret's not any good for her... that's gonna be your job, Ruff..."
"Right..." Ruffnut said. "And how do I do that, then?"
"The best way to win a war, dear Ruffnut..." Cami smugly said as she drew her sword out of the scabbard on her back and gripped the handle with both hands, swinging it diagonally to split the target in half with one swipe. "Divide and conquer..."
About an hour after this, I'd finally spotted Hiccup and Astrid in the Stall together, building a new saddle for Cloudjumper. Valka had helped with the design ideas, but she'd gone back to the house and was waiting to be surprised by the ending product. Of course it was just a saddle, so this undoubtedly wouldn't be as disastrous as their last attempt at surprising her. At least I hoped not.
"Hey, bud..." Hiccup said as I came into the forge. Astrid was about to say something, though the split-second that she had taken her attention off the saddle allowed her to slam a hammer hard on her hand. "UGH! Damn it!"
"Oh Gods! Astrid, are you o..."
"I'm fine! UGH! Let's just finish this stupid saddle!" Astrid shouted aggressively, wincing as she shook her injured hand before getting back to work. As the multiple bruises and cuts all over her forearms seemed to indicate, crafting saddles was not Astrid's strong suit, especially since she didn't even have an excuse to cut something up with her axe.
"It's looking good, you guys..." I heard Heather call encouragingly as she looked through the window. When she noticed Astrid's multiple injuries, she chuckled a bit as she said "so Astrid, are you absolutely sure that you don't want any help wi..."
"Hiccup and I are building this saddle for Valka! I don't want anyone else helping! Especially not another woman!" Astrid snapped without even letting Heather finish her sentence.
Heather wasn't offended though, simply smiling as she said "alright, well... if you change your mind, I'll be having lunch with Eret in the Great Hall. Just send Toothless up if you need me..."
"We don't. Please leave."
"Okay. If you say so..." Heather said in a sarcastic sing-song voice as she walked towards the Great Hall. With Hiccup and Astrid still working on the saddle, I was able to look outside as I noticed Ruffnut stop Heather in the middle of the village. As I slowly left the forge without being noticed by the couple, I was able to see Cami waiting at the door to the Great Hall, and stopping Eret as he was about to go in.
"So... you and Heather were together once, then?" I heard Eret ask Cami as I went up the stairs. I went past them and through the door, though I hid behind it so I could still hear the conversation.
Cami was slightly embarrassed by his suggestion, saying "well, it wasn't serious at the time... it was the night I first came to Berk for the treaty signing... y'see, Heather had just shown up, and Snotface and the twins made me do this stupid stunt with Toothless... anyway, so... Heather and I went for a walk, and... well, it was some flirting, some jokes... and then we made out behind Gobber's Stall over there..."
Eret and I both went-wide eyed at this, as Cami continued with "yeah, it was about five minutes... probably the best of my life, to be honest... she tasted so good..."
"Ah, so..." Eret said. "It was basically..."
"A one-night stand?"
"Probably not even that. Sounds more like just harmless kissing, to be honest..."
I noticed Cami briefly drop the faux-affable persona she was putting on for Eret, saying "uh-huh... just harmless, passionate kissing... well, you two enjoy your date..."
Cami stormed off so that Heather didn't see her, and I came out to look at Eret standing confused. He grinned as he looked at me, saying "women, eh? Some of them are impossible to understand, aren't they?"
"So... you and Eret dated once?" I heard Heather say as I came back to see her talking to Ruffnut. She had an eyebrow raised as she said this, obviously implying that she wasn't buying whatever Ruffnut was selling.
"I'm afraid so..." Ruffnut said, attempting to sound sympathetic as she put a hand on Heather's shoulder. "I don't wanna make things awkward and ruin the relationship that you and I have built up over the last few years, Heather... I value your friendship so much... I just wanna look out for you and make sure you don't join his long list of wrongly treated girlfriends..."
"Hm... well, usually I'd thank you for your concern and advice, Ruff..." Heather began, a smug grin coming to her face as she removed Ruffnut's hand from her shoulder and added "but... Eret already told me about how your little infatuation with Hiccup last week happened because he quote-unquote 'saved' you after you fell off a perch... specifically, a perch that Skullcrusher put you on after you annoyed Eret too much with your... ha ha... affections..."
"Oh... right..." Ruffnut said, a worried tone in her voice as her eyes went wide. Heather chuckled, before saying "now, if you would excuse me, Ruff... I'm about to have lunch with your, um... ha ha... your ex... nice try, though..."
Heather patted Ruffnut on the back and winked at me as she walked past and up to the Hall where Eret was. When Heather was out of sight, Cami ran over to Ruffnut and said "so... mission accomplished?"
"Uh... I guess?"
"What do you mean you guess?"
"Well... yeah, she didn't buy it..."
"Damn it!" Cami kicked the dirt angrily. "Ugh... well... alright, looks like we're gonna have to go for animal kingdom option 2..."
"Killing Er..."
"No! At least not yet..." Cami said, her smug grin coming back as she said "if we can't convince Heather that Eret is worse than me, I'll just have to prove that I'm better than him..."
