Disclaimer: I don't own How To Train Your Dragon, nor any of the characters
Dragon Army. Thats what her uniform said, floating in air as if it were water. Swimming had been useless, and her own movement was like that of gripless ice. She bounced off one wall to a box, passing other bodies in the smooth metal box she was in. Astrid set herself up, aiming her weapon down towards the other 'army' soldiers, and steadied. Her weapon was a bow that fired arrows of light, invisible, towards her target. She launched bolt after bolt at the helpless boys on the other side, and smiled. Suddenly a pair of them slid along one wall, and aimed at her back before she could move.
"OW!" She called as she awoke with a start as a heavy foot rested on her back. "Toothless!" This had been the third night she had woken up, and this had been the third night it had been because of the Night Fury. Rolling over, the pair of green eyes were as lit as the moon, partially obstructed by the beast's stretching wings. The stars were shining brightly overhead as she sat up, they and the moon illuminating the boat. A flicker of flame came close by, and Toothless just stared at it. "What?" she whined to him, annoyed. He just whined back, following in step as they approached the lamp.
"Astrid, what keeps you up at this time o' night?" a voice came from the lamp. No, that's Gobber talking, not the lamp. Please let us get to Berk tomorrow...
"Night Fury keeps waking me up. I think he's trying to kill me." Her voice was monotone, but being tired as she was, thought it was true. "Just drawing it out as long as possible." He laughed heartily, before returning his attention to the table.
"I've come up with a number of designs for a new foot and new petal mechanism, but I don' know which one to choose. I mean, it's hardly going to be a good walking platform with the way it bounces up an' down."
"Let me look," she replied, turning his paper to face her. It's a bunch of scribbles. Sleep. Kill. Axe. Where is my axe? After a moment she could see how the lines were plans for various legs and saddles. Axe is still at home, right...
"This one here," Gobber pointed to the upper right drawing, "makes it easiest to walk and move around. It's latching mechanism is good, though he'd seriously hurt his leg if it twisted even at all while he was flying." It had a rounded bottom, curved from the side view like a portion of a wheel. "It'd also make it hard to stand."
"Probably not that one, then." Her mind stopped for a moment, wondering why she said that. "Yes, I'm dictating your decision apparently, since you can't decide."
"Any input is appreciated, Astrid. Though I'd feel more confident if you were more awake. Go douse your head in sea water, that ought to wake you up."
"Okay." Removing herself from the crate's side, she grabbed a bucket and walked to the edge of the boat. Leaning down, the bucket initially resisted going into the water. Turn it sideways. Fine. Frigid liquid poured into the wooden bucket before she hoisted it up and put it on the deck. Kneeling down, her hands entered, and shivered, making a cusp to carry the water to her face.
Cold! Very, very cold!. Okay, awake, cold! A strange, low pitch laugh erupted from behind her figure. Looking back, her eyes spotted the pair of green glowing moons in the night, and a mouth heaving in what sounded like dragon laughter. Oh! You freaking-! Grabbing the now partially empty bucket, she threw the water over on top of his head. Toothless let out a yip as the cold water spread across his scales, and practically jumped in the air in surprise. Getting his senses back, her own eyes matched the Night Fury's in tone, annoyance with one another.
Then he shook. Rustled his body back and forth, drying himself as he spun the water off of him, and deliberately onto me. I give up! Defeated, she dried off and returned to Gobber, pulling up a crate to the left of him. Toothless curled up around the duo, head looking on from Astrid's own left.
"I didn' say take a bath, lass. YOW-ooh, hoo hoo!" He yielded under her strong arms, enhanced with the ever growing annoyance from this night. "Now that legitimately hurt!" His eyes were met with her own glare, and oddly one from Toothless as well. She gave him a scratch just behind his ear, and the Night Fury's eyes closed in comfort.
"So here's the second design I came up with. Its just a slight modification of a normal leg, just with the extending feature. Not so great for flying, but he'd be able to walk easy. Not the most stable thing though." She caught him glancing down at the leg he wore instead of his own flesh leg, noticing how thin it was compared to the rest of his leg.
"And what's the third option?"
"Well, I don't really like it that much. Terrible for walking, really, though I suppose he'd get used to it. It was actually my first design. Anyway, its this one." He pointed to the low, middle one. It was very square, compared to the other two. "It'd have to be made of mostly metal, though it'd be easier for standing than the other two. It's the first one I thought of, thinking mainly about getting it to hook into the petal of his without changing a whole lot. It'd be the easiest to fly with, plus you could still operate the petal with a normal foot if necessary. It's going to be heavy though. Not so heavy he can't handle it, but it'll mean he may need help walking for life, or at least he develops the muscles for it. An' we both know how good of muscles he has when it comes to being a viking, eh Astrid?
"Yes, I suppose so, Gobber. But I get the feeling that he'd go with that one actually."
"The third one, that he can hardly walk with?"
"Think about it. He's probably more concerned with flying than walking. Toothless only leaves him when I go a short distance away, like right now. If I went to the back of the boat like yesterday, he doesn't follow. About the only way I get a break from him." She paused, locking eyes with the green moons on her left for a moment. "Plus, that actually looks like something Hiccup would think of." He turned the paper back to look at it himself, and smiled.
"What do ya know? I suppose it does have Hiccup's flair for design in it."
"You're welcome, Gobber. Just keep going with that design. I'm going to try to get some shuteye, despite big, black, and not-sleepy over here." He laughed.
"Good luck wit' that!" She smiled walking away, perching herself against the head of the bed, sitting up. Toothless curled up around the rest of the bed, head on one side of her and tail on the other. Her gaze shifted to the stars, and her eyes closed.
I guess there is a lot that you need to be a good blacksmith. I've known Gobber was the best at it, but I didn't know he drew like that. It's pretty good, actually. I see where they may be an artisan to be a good blacksmith. All this time, and Hiccup has been brilliant at something we barely even knew existed. I wonder if Toothless knows...
Something spread over her body quickly covering it. Startled, she awoke and almost stood up, before the two wide open green eyes came into gaze. His wing was stretched over her, almost resting on her shoulders in the back. The Night Fury had moved slightly, in order to cover her slumber. He must have thought I was asleep. She smiled warmly at Toothless, who eased up on his wing and lowered it down onto her as she closed her eyes and laid back again.And her tiredness returned to her, yawning as it did.
I guess he's not so bad, after all.
