*makes super cute puss n' boots face* Reviews? Pwease?
Chapter 4
None of the noise picked back up again, even after my father finished his announcements. Everyone slowly picked up their things, leaving a fairly large mess, and slowly filed out of the large doors of the great hall.
My father disappeared exceptionally quickly into the crowd, and I was unable to talk to him. I somehow got the feeling that he was avoiding me.
Staying behind at a table so as to avoid the large and slow-moving mass that was exiting, I sighed and was promptly joined by Ásmarr and Lattie. Lattie is very frail and sickly, so she's usually kept indoors, if not also in bed. Everything about her seems frail, from her thin waves of brunette hair to her long, lanky body. Well, that is, until she speaks.
"What the matter with your face, cutie-pie?" To anyone who didn't know her, you'd think she was shouting, but that was just how she talked. Her voiced echoed around the hall, resounding again and again in my ears with that cutesy high-pitched tone that she has.
Noticing this herself, she promptly says, "Hey, my voiced really echoes in here!"
If Lattie was good at anything, it was entertaining herself. No doubt due to several days in a row being confined to a bedroom with nothing to do.
Finding the echo to be increasingly amusing, she clicks her tongue, makes popping noises with her lips, giggling as everything she did came back to her. Listening to her giggles only made her laugh more, until Ásmarr placed a hand over her mouth and let out a fatigue and slightly annoyed sigh.
She ended her performance with a muffled "Okie-dokie!" and proceeded to sit there with an almost stupid grin plastered on her face.
"Though she quickly lost her train of thought, Lattie had a good question." Asmarr said to me, moving his hand off of Lattie's face. "What's up? A second ago you were booming an awesome story to the whole of the village."
"Well, first off, it got away." I said. He smiled, remembering how I had told him that I let it escape alive. "And my dad didn't seem the least bit impressed. He didn't even ask me anything!"
"Well," Lattie starts, and we hold our comments, knowing this is going to be long, even though she talks almost ridiculously fast. "First off, he's got a lot on his plate. I mean, we all got off really lucky that everyone got through the attack, many not even harmed in the bit. Plus, lots of our houses were burnt really badly. Several of the villagers are going to be homeless for the time being. He's also got to figure out how to deal with these vicious new dragons, and get everyone to work together to keep the village safe from future attacks. Not to mention, it's got to be hard for him to attack dragons, since they've been his friends and allies for so long. Also, I think he was disappointed in your lack of respect for the Nightfury." She said, wrapping it up and resuming her smile.
"What?" I say. I had been drifting away in the middle, but her last comment snapped me right back. "Disappointed?"
"Yeah, I mean, we've dealt with Toothless before, and we know lots of stuff from him, so I doubt he thinks we need to treat it the same way as the rest of the new dragons. Meaning as an enemy." She says, never losing that silly smile. She lifts her hand to eye-level and points one finger up. "I'll bet he just wanted you to try to be nice to it, instead of 'letting it get away with its life-blood intact.'" Her voice deepens as she quotes me.
Even though it's Lattie saying all of this, it all did make a lot of sense. I realized that I should tell my father the straight and true story, not getting any of the details get mixed up in the glamorous falsities of a 'good story'.
"You're probably right Lattie." I say, and stand up. She quickly gets up to join me, Asmarr following her with a wary eye, in case she collapses. "But, I don't think I'm ready to go home just yet. You guys want to come up to Raven Point with me and look at the stars?"
Lattie excitedly nods her head, and Asmarr nods, but maybe not quite so energetically.
The doors have been long shut, and the villagers are all in their own houses.
Whitefang is with us as we leave, but she's tired from a long day and the battle. Asmarr gives her permission to go home and rest, and the three of us make our way to Raven Point. It's not far off, but it's even further up the mountain than the great hall. But it's the best place to look at the stars from.
We reach Raven Point and proceed to sit down a few feet away from the edge.
Lying on my back I look up at the stars. The large expanse above, stretching as far as I could see, far beyond the horizon in any which way.
It was all so calming. My worries about the Nightfury, my father, the new dragons; they just all vanished.
All I could think about was that I was here, with my two best friends, looking up at the hundreds of star that twinkled above me, and wishing that everything could stay just like this forever. I reach out both of my hands, taking Lattie's in one and Asmarr's with the other. We all seem to give out a calm sigh at the same time. Nothing else mattered.
Somehow, I had drifted off into sleep lying there on the grass. As I awoke, birds could be heard chirping off in the forest, and the sun was creeping up over the horizon. I slowly sit up I notice that my fingers are still interlaced with Lattie's and Ásmarr's, who are both asleep. Lying on each of us is a separate blanket. Releasing my fingers from Lattie's, I lift the blanket up to my nose, smelling. The scent, though not as unclean as I would have thought, did not give anything away about the owner or the person who brought it. After thinking about it for just a few seconds, I shrug it off, assuming one of our parents brought it up after realizing we were gone.
Lattie has begun to stir, owing probably to the now lacking heat in her hand. She props herself up on one hand, rubbing her eye with the other.
"Aw, morning already?" She groans, voice slightly slurred. "I was having a really good dream."
Giggling slightly, I ask her, "What was it about?"
Her hand stops midway in between a rub, and she looks down at nothing for a few seconds.
"I don't even remember." She decides, and resumes that happy-go-lucky smile of hers, stretching out her arms in an attempt to wake up.
To my other side, I hear Asmarr grunting, also trying to wake up, though it will be much harder for him. Asmarr was definitely not a morning person. As I ponder this, I also realize that my hand is still holding onto his. I quickly snatch it away, looking around as if a group of people were there watching us as my cheeks flush.
When Lattie starts to stand up, I follow suite, making sure she doesn't overexert herself. This was also a good excuse to give myself something to do. Surely sleeping outside on the cold ground couldn't have been good for her. Or us, for that matter.
I look over at the horizon again, judging the time of the day. "Well," I started, "We should probably be headed back soon." I walked over to Asmarr, who had curled up into a ball of morning-hating flesh. His eyes were shut tight, and there were slightly dark circles under them.
Shaking my head, I walk over to him, grab his arm and hoist him up onto my back. He's not that heavy for me (every Viking over the age of fifteen has to be able to carry something the same size as them. I'm just stronger than that), but he is asleep, which makes it difficult to carry him.
Not to mention his head rested on my shoulder, with his hot breath hitting my neck again and again. I began recalling the different types of dragons I had seen yesterday, trying to keep my mind off of him.
I ran out of dragons before we reached the village, so I started coming up with names for them. When I ran out of dragons to name, I recalled what each one looked like, noted specific qualities about each, and supposed weaknesses of each. The walk home from Raven Point had never seemed so long before that trip.
Finally, we reached the village and went to Ásmarr's house first. I threw him down in front of the door, perhaps a little too harshly, but I was ready to get him off of my back and stop breathing down my neck, literally.
He grunted and finally woke up, jolting up, and he placed a hand on the back of his head, rubbing the place where it hit the ground.
"Uh, I think I'm going to go with 'ow'." He said, agitated.
I shoved my foot right by his head, resting it on the wall behind him. He instantly looked up at me. "Where's your pride?" I scolded him. "A girl just carried you down a hill as you were fast asleep like a little princess!" I moved my foot from the wall and placed it back on the ground. He continued to look up at me, flabbergasted.
The door opened to our right and out steps Asmarr's mother. "Oh, it's you, Nanna." She says when she sees me. She then turns back into the house to yell, no doubt to her husband, "It's only Nanna!" He replies with "Of course it is," and a chuckle.
She heads back into the house, and I turn around. I stop before walking away to say "I'm planning on telling my father about those dragons. I'd better see you there to volunteer for patrols."
And I walk away, muttering just loud enough for him to hear, "Babe.*"
*Meaning a baby, not as in, "I'll see you later, babe." *wink**
Lattie trails after me, skipping to the best of her ability.
"Well, at least now I know your weak-point." He yells after me, and as I turn back around to face him he taps the side of his neck.
He had been awake?
I turn back quickly as I start to blush furiously, and I hear him laughing as I stomp off towards Lattie's house, the phrase 'That jerk!' repeating itself over and over in my head.
After I made sure Lattie had gotten home alright, I bolted off towards my own home. When I got within feet of it, my father exited out the front door, an arm of rolled-up papers in one of his arms.
"Ah, Nanna." He greets me. "I was hoping you'd be home soon. I'm heading up to the great hall to start the lesson. I'm sure you got a good look at some of those dragons, and you're handy with a pencil. Think you've got anything useful to share?" He asks me, as we start walking up the hill.
Happy to finally feel useful for once without a dragon, I nod my head vigorously.
"Good. Thank goodness I brought extra papers. Looks like some of the others are also bringing some of their own information." He says as we look back down the hill. Many of the villagers are starting to make their way up the slope as well, several carrying papers of their own.
"Let's hope we won't ever have to use it." He says, and walks through the doors of the great hall.
Hearing that, I suddenly noticed several things. First, this whole 'us or the dragons' thing was eating him up inside. It wasn't until he said that that I realized how much he hated fighting against them. Another thing I noticed was that he looked years older within hours. He seemed extremely stressed, his face looked as though it had gained some wrinkles overnight, and in the right light some of his hairs looked distinctly gray. The sight of him made me feel a mixture of anger, depression, and upright determination.
I knew that I had to do something, but I had no clue what.