Astrid Struck

Chapter 4
Arrival

Astrid padded down the shadowy dirt walkways towards her home. Outside of most of the homes she passed by a bright fire illuminated the external walls and near-by pathway blissfully. It was this same exact scene that she had been living with her entire life, and she wouldn't have it any other way. Somewhere deep within her she even regretted their friendship with the dragons; even as peaceful as the town was, there still wasn't quite the same excitement that there always had been. No longer were there the long, anxious nights awaiting for the screams, no more fighting for life and limb, no more prestige in fighting, nothing. It was a rather dull life now, and she knew that the others found it to be the same just by the looks they carried around Burk.

At last she reached a home without a fire raging before it, and, pulling her hands from her side, she pulled upon the knob opening the large wooden plank revealing a tranquil emptiness; she absolutely hated it. She hadn't a family to converse with after the long days, nobody to share her dreams, her aspirations, her successes, her failures, anything, just her and the ice cold walls.

Astrid sighed as she proceeded to enter the blindingly dark chamber. Setting her battle ax down onto an invisible table, she pulled her head band off and ran her fingers through her hair un-matting it from her scalp. She cautiously reached her hand over top of her battle ax and patted around the wooden tabletop until she struck something slightly softer than the monotone cut of lumber. Feeling the difference she was looking for, she collapsed her hand around the object and ran her fingers across its edge in search of something upon it that was of unusual consistency.

Finding her femalely longer fingernails beginning to tear through the edge of the fragile bag, she pulled back and allowed the gentler palm of her index finger to lift up the protruding flap of paper.

She dragged the flap of parchment back and delved her hand into the invisible contents of the packet and, grabbing a single thin strip of a rough substance, she stroked it forcibly across her metal skirt.

The room was immediately consumed in the soft glow that was emitted from the top of this small wooden stick. The orange stained straw insulation of the walls shined the brightest with the lower places upon the floor and wall receiving little to no light remaining in almost absolute obscurity. She rushed over to the wall and set the glowing wonder into a cloth wick; then, she raced across and did the same on the opposite side of the room before extinguishing the original blaze.

The room now light, she tossed the miniscule stick outside.

She yawned as the day's events weighed upon her restless body in the deep nighttime. The great Viking admitted her defeat and began to unclip the small pins beneath her stripped shirt on each side. Then she reached her hand up towards the steel plates and dismounted them from her individually and placed them with her already rested battle ax. Then, she proceeded pull her metal armored skirt to the ground slowly, careful as to not strike her hand upon any of the sharp barbs.

Having removed all of her uncomfortable battle armor she put on a loosely fitting pair of pants before proceeding to settle down into her solidly brown hued bed. She gently placed her head down onto her pillow and awaited sleep to roll over her body.

Hiccup suddenly snapped awake to the shrieking of human voice that echoed throughout the city outside. "We're under attack!" somebody yelled fearfully as they raced by Hiccup's house onto the rest of the city.

Hiccup felt his tired limbs begin to find the energy to function beyond their full capacity as he shot up from his soft bed onto the stiff floor of his darkened home. Glancing out the window Hiccup finds the entire city yellowed by the massive amount of fire's light that slowly dropped down lower and lower upon the city landscape.

He rotated his feet to face the outside door and as quickly as his wooden appendage could carry him he proceeded through the opening prepared to destroy whatever it was that was attacking. Out of the corner of his eyes he caught the glimpse of a large black dragon that stood looking into the sky with a fearful look upon its face. Instinctively he froze and reached down for any battle equipment that he had, he had none. He froze out of fear as the dragon slowly began to move towards him, its teeth were sharp and its talons were sharper. He was sure that he was going to die right there, but suddenly it was halted by a snap that came from behind him.

Hiccup's memory was rapidly returned to him as the last few days of events were pushed back into his mind through the adrenaline. He sprinted over the where his friend was and cut the thick rope that confined him to his portion of the building.

He grabbed a hold of the side of Toothless with his natural foot and then vaulted up onto to the back of him before pulling on his friend's neck sending the pair into the sky. As they climbed up into the lofty expanses of the nighttime sky he began to find that the fires raged over the entire city and threatened to engulf the entirety of their island civilization.

In the distance a large group of barely visible splotches flew away from the city to the opposite side of the island where nobody had ever placed foot. Upon the ground the people raced about to find sufficient supplies of water to fight the fires. The screams of women as they fled their burning homes and the angry calls of Vikings who had lost their loved one's lives in the anonymous attack upon the city filled the air making it nearly unbearable to hear.

Hiccup contemplated going after the distant blobs, as he was almost sure that they were the culprits, but looking at the shear distance he decided the better of it.

In the small sea-side ocean village the people stormed about in search of the attackers, in search of water, in search of loved ones, but only water was able to be found. A group of women ran up from the ocean side docks carrying massive wooden pails of water that moistened the ground as they passed by. "Over here!" somebody yelled pointing toward a massive inferno near the base of a house.

A few women broke-up from the pack and positioned themselves to toss their bucket loads onto the small blaze. A few seconds later the small blaze emitted its final brief rays of light before blinking out of existence and leaving only the darkened wood back ground.

It was the beginning of a long night for Hiccup, little did he know what was about to unfold before his eyes.

A door to a house near-by suddenly burst open and a brightly glowing outline came out from it with flailing arms and legs. It rolled upon the ground as though to expel the massive blaze from its body, but it was to no avail. Hiccup gasped as he beheld the scene helplessly from the back of Toothless.

A woman bolted over to the thing and dumped a bucket of water onto it, killing the flames.

The woman kneeled down over top of the gasping body gently with large, still fearful eyes, "Astrid, are you alright?"

A/N: Ok, now I know something is wrong with my writing. Can somebody help me out again with a highly critical review, because I need one again badly. Something is changing in my writing again and I just can't grasp what it is exactly.

Yes, there was only 1 line of dialogue in that whole chapter lol.

Hope to hear from you soon,
Cornys