Thank you guys for following and faving and reviewing, it means so much to me. I have no idea for how long this updating spree can continue, I've already written a few chapters, but they are running out quickly...

Keep reviewing please! I want to know what you think, I really do.

Anyway, back to Berk we go.

Enjoy!

Chapter 4 The backroom

The pounding from the hammer rang in her ears as she stepped into the forge. Gobber, the blacksmith, was always swamped with work after a raid. She stood, awkwardly, not knowing what to say. After all, she had come to ask about his lost apprentice. The pounding stopped as the man noticed her just standing there.

'Ey there, Astrid. Can I help ya?'

'Eh, yes. My axe needs repairing, and I have a question.'

'Let me see tha' axe of yers. Aye, tha' is broken alright. So, wha' is yer question?'

'Eh...'

Suddenly, she was afraid to ask Gobber about Hiccup. What if he wouldn't take it well and get mad?

'Come on, spi' it out.'

'Gobber, do you... do you remember... do you remember Hiccup?'

The blacksmith froze midstrike, the hammer hanging in the air. For a moment she feared she had gone too far. After all, who was she to bring up old sorrows. But the blacksmith sat the hammer down, and sighed.

'Aye lass, course I do. But why do ya ask?'

'I... I have been thinking about him lately. I even dreamed about him last night. But not in a good way, it was a... nightmare.'

'Let it go lass. 'Iccup's dead.'

'But what if he isn't? What if he somehow survived? What if he's somewhere and he can't come home?'

'Wha' is it tha' ya want? Stir up trouble? Wha' will Stoick say?'

'I want you to tell me about him. Tell me how he was.'

'Ya were never interested in 'im when he was alive, why now?'

'I just want to know. Please Gobber.'

Gobber set her axe aside and unscrewed the hammer from his stump, replacing it with tongs. She stood, waiting, watching the blacksmith hold her axe in the fire.

'Hiccup...' Gobber sighed. 'Hiccup was strong...'

'Strong? Gobber, he couldn't even lift an axe!'

'Not like tha'!' Gobber snapped at her, turning around. 'He had a different kind of strength. Right here.' He poked her forehead with his finger. 'Kid was a genius. Could make anything he saw in his mind. Very rare talent.'

The man shook his head and went back to her axe, starting to glow red. Astrid stood silently, thinking about the smith's words.

'Ya say ya wanna know 'im?' She looked up and nodded. 'Then follow me.'

She followed the man to the backroom, where Hiccup had spent most of his days, alone. He opened the door and gestured her to step inside.

The room was dark, but as soon as Gobber lit a candle, her jaw dropped. The walls were covered in sketches. The wall opposite of the door was covered in sketches and designs of one weapon in particular.

'That's the catapult we built seven years ago!'

'Aye. One of 'is more complicated designs I might say. Took a while to figure it out meself.'

'He designed it?'

'Aye. Tha' and many other things. Ya may look around, but don't you dare destroy anything. I will never fix yer axe again.'

She looked at his face and saw he was serious. She nodded.

After bringing her another candle, Gobber went back to the many weapons he had to fix. She sat down. It didn't feel right to sit on the chair he used to sit in. After all, Gobber did have a point. She and the others had always been, well..., mean to Hiccup.

She picked up a charcoal pencil, and twirled it around between her fingers. She felt like she was violating a sanctuary. Carefully, she took the first paper from the stack. It depicted a mill, but it was unlike any mill she had seen before. The next few pages were also from the mill, but these were technical sketches. The inner structure of the building, how the scoops worked, where the gears would have to be placed. Hiccup had seen the building in his mind, and managed to draw it step by step.

After the mill came a complicated design for an irrigation system, as well as a way to get flowing water in all the houses of Berk. She flipped through the pages, every single one bringing more amazement.

She found drawings of dragons and different kind of animals found on Berk, ranging from sketches to drawings with incredible detail. She found a design for a house that would regulate temperature in both summer and winter much better. She found sketches of different kind of trees, categorized by different variables, like leafs, hight, or age.

There were also more weapon designs. Even though the boy could hardly handle a weapon himself, he had still been trying to make fighting off the dragons less dangerous to the vikings. There was, of course, the catapult they already built, but also a design for a portable bola launcher. There also was a design for a shield that doubled as a crossbow, a bola launcher and a grappling hook. She found a design for a smaller kind of catapult, which could be taken on a ship.

Suddenly she came across something that looked like a fin. An artificial fin, that is. She stared at it for a while, turning it upside down and back, but she couldn't figure out why he would have designed this or what it was for. The next page was the same fin, but now all parts had been drawn separately. She could see the rods used as a skeleton, the gears used to open and close the fin and the place where they connected to... to what?

She had no idea.

She put it to the side, on the stack of papers she had already looked through, and picked up the next sheet of paper.

Her heart stopped. It was a drawing of her. Hiccup had drawn her. It was her fourteen year old self, with her spiked skirt and messy braid. The detail in this particular drawing was incredible, as was the pose. And he must have drawn it all from memory! Certainly, she had never posed for him like she was charging a dragon. She stared at the drawing a long time, guilt growing stronger every minute she looked at it. She had always known the boy had had a crush on her, she just never realized it had been so strong.

Carefully, she laid the paper to her right, not on the other stack. After flipping through more drawings, sketches, some notes she couldn't read because they were written in some sort of shorthand code she didn't understand, she finished the stack.

She sat back, suddenly seeing a small box under the table. She picked it up. For some reason, it was the only thing in the room without dust on it. As she opened it, she gasped. There he was. Hiccup. Well, a drawing of Hiccup. She never realized he had also made self portraits. She found torn pieces of paper with numbers written on them.

1.

66.

18.

22.

45.

She suddenly realized this was never anything Hiccup had left here. It was Gobber who had put this box here. And the numbers were either the number of days or weeks since he had lost his apprentice.

Silently, she put the pieces back and placed the box where she had found it. She then picked up the drawing of her and, after blowing out the candles, left the back room, closing the door softly.

'Gobber? Can I take this?'

The blacksmith looked up, at the paper she was holding, and he nodded. He caught her looking back at the room.

'Do ya understand wha' I meant? Strong mind.'

She nodded. She did.

'Here's ya axe lass.'

She took the weapon without a word. The blades were shining again and she could see her own reflection. With the paper pressed against her chest, she made her way over to her house. She set her axe on the table and sat down on her bed. Seeing the things Hiccup had designed had only renewed her guilt, and the desire to get to know the boy better. But at the moment, that wasn't possible anymore. She was ten years to late for that.