And here it is! The next installment of Five Years! See the note at the bottom for some important news, but other than that, all I can say without taking up too much space is sorry for the wait, and I hope I didn't screw the chapter too badly. (Also, the important news will be underlined in case you want to skip the rest of the author's note)
Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Astrid all crouched behind a bush as they looked down at a small group of dragons. There were three Gronckles just below the outcrop they were perched on, and a Zippleback off to the side. Two of the Gronckles were fighting over which one got to eat a particularly large, shiny rock while the other Gronckle napped. The Zippleback appeared to be simply lounging around, amusing itself by watching the two Gronckles' scuffle.
"Do you like any of those?" Astrid whispered to Ruffnut.
"I don't like Gronckles," the other girl whispered back.
"Neither do I," said Tuffnut.
"No one asked you," Ruff said.
"Well who asked you?"
"Astrid,"
"Nuh-uh,"
"Yuh-huh,"
"Nuh-uh,"
"Yuh-huh,"
"Nuh-"
"If you two start that up again, I will chase you down with my dragon and have her impale you on her spikes," Astrid warned the two, who quickly shut up at the threat. "You two have to get your own dragons soon. Stormfly's getting tired out carrying all three of us, you know,"
"Well the only dragons down there are Gronckles," Ruffnut said.
"What about the Zippleback? You could each take a head," it would also keep them on one dragon so they didn't try to kill eachother in midair, and maybe, eventually, get them to work together instead of fight all the time.
"Are you kidding? Who would want to share a dragon with her?" Tuffnut said.
"Are you kidding? Who would want to share a dragon with him?" Ruffnut said, in sync with her brother.
"Well neither of you like any of the other dragon species," Astrid resisted the urge to shove them both out into the open and let them get eaten by the wild Gronckles.
"That's not true," Tuff said.
Astrid gave him a look, "You think that Gronckles are too slow, Nadders are too spiky, Nightmares are too fiery, Thunderdrums are too weird looking, Scauldrons are too watery, Whispering Deaths are too hard to find, and if I listed every complaint you've ever made about what dragons you don't like, I would be talking for the rest of the week. Neither of you have complained about Zipplebacks, other than the fact that you would need to share. Could you at least give it a try?"
Ruff and Tuff exchanged a glance before saying in sync, "No, thanks,"
Astrid sighed. If those two didn't find something they liked, and soon, she'd have Stormfly drop them into the middle of ocean. She would get them their own dragons eventually. Once Astrid had set her mind on something, it would happen one way or another. All she had to do was make sure the twins wouldn't cause too much destruction in the search for the perfect matches, keep them from killing eachother, keep herself from killing them, and keep all three of them from being killed by wild dragons until she achieved her goal.
. . . This was going to take a while.
Fishlegs wasn't very good at stealth. No, he definitely was not. He was a pretty heavy boy, which didn't help much, but what helped even less was the fact that he was completely unused to spying or sneaking. Sure, when he was younger he had made those 'silent' trips to the kitchen when his mother 'wasn't looking', but even then he only got away with it because those cookies had been set out for him in the first place.
So the first few times he tried to sneak out to see where Astrid and the twins were going, he was doing more hiding than spying and let his eyes off of the three for too long, allowing them to slip away into the night. His most recent attempt went just a little bit better, although not quite as well as he had hoped. He had found a hiding place that he could actually fit in without squeezing too hard among the rocks that the three usually walked past on their way to . . . wherever they went. At first, he had been fussing over the clumps of grass he had covered the exposed bits of him with, making sure that they weren't revealing any of him, but then he had heard three pairs of feet coming towards him.
"So what're we going to . . . this time?" that was Ruffnut's voice. He didn't catch some of it, on account of wind, nature sounds, and his own breathing, but he heard enough to know that they apparently did different things each time they disappeared.
"I'm going to try to get you guys to . . . your own . . . getting tired carrying all three of us . . ." that was Astrid, and he could hear even less of what she said because the wind had decided to pick up.
"Well, mine had better be the most destructive . . . can imagine the mayhem . . ." that was Tuffnut. So whatever they were doing appealed to the twins' love for chaos, but somehow also Astrid's . . . Astrid-ness. Maybe they were practicing things for dragon training? Or perhaps trying to build something . . . What was he thinking, Hiccup was the one who always built stuff, not Astrid or the twins.
When they passed by him, Astrid was saying, "You can't put it off forever. If I have to push you both into a pit full of dragons to make it happen, I will."
"Ha ha, right," said Tuff, like he didn't believe her. "Wait, you didn't really mean that, did you?" Astrid and Ruffnut kept walking while the intellectually challenged boy tried to figure out what his sister's friend had really meant. "Hey, wait up! You didn't really mean that, did you?"
Their voices became fainter, but Fishlegs heard Astrid respond, "What do you think?" before distance and wind volume obscured what they were saying altogether.
The minute he thought they wouldn't see him, Fishlegs poked his head out of his hiding place. He looked down the way Astrid and the twins had come from, then down the direction they had gone in. He then deemed it a good time to come out and attempt to track them before the trail ran cold, but was met with a small problem – No matter how hard he strained, he wasn't able to unwedge himself from the crevice he had been concealed in.
It took a good amount of time, lots of wriggling, and no small amount of physical exertion before the large boy managed to free himself. He halfheartedly considered the footprints that were still somewhat visible on the ground, but resolved himself to follow Astrid and the twins some other time. Preferably when he had come up with something that would not only allow him to see them coming and listen to what they said as they walked by, but would also make it easier to come out and follow them without detection.
. . . This was going to take a while.
After three days of having to stay in bed, Hiccup had been allowed to get up and go outside to work his muscles and assure Toothless that he was still alive. Tora -the strawberry blonde healer apprentice- had helped him out by being his human crutch in the absence of any real ones, and had given him a little tour of the village. It was smaller than Berk, and most of the houses around the edges didn't have occupants, but it was a nice place. Everybody knew everybody else, and lots of the people acted like they were family.
It was situated on the shore, in a relatively flat area of land on the edge of the rather large island it was located on. It was bordered on two sides by forest, on one side by the ocean, and on the last side by more flatland. They didn't have quite as many cliffs or seastacks as Berk, but it was just similar enough to remind him of home. Most of the land that the village had been built over had peculiar little hollows spaced randomly throughout, most of which had been converted into outdoor storage or pens for animals.
The healer's place where Hiccup had been stuck for the past few days was, apparently, not the main one. There were two, the larger one in the center of the village and the smaller one on the egde. The one on the edge was for the cases when there wasn't time to bring injured people any farther, or as an overflow for the main one. Hiccup had only been kept there for so long because Briar hadn't wanted to parade him around until he was capable of walking himself, and because people had felt uneasy at the idea of Toothless's prolonged presence in the heart of their village. As it was, the heart of the village was the first place Tora showed them .
At the center of Rudich was an enormous building called the gathering hall. One corner and a good part of one of the sides seemed to have been carved right out of a large hunk of stone, the rest made of thick oak wood. The center of it was also carved right out of the ground in the form of a large, round stone table with a hollowed out center that was used as a fire pit. The doors were smaller and more practical than those of the similar building back on Berk, and the ceiling wasn't quite as high. There were two extra rooms attached on the sides, and a raised balcony going around the edges about halfway up the walls. Tables were scattered here and there, mostly near the center, and Hiccup noticed that they didn't have a line of badly done father/son portraits of their chiefs over the years.
Around the exterior of the gathering hall, there was a wide ring of cobblestone where the four roads of the village met. One branch led down towards the seashore, one went in the direction of the fields, one went in the direction of the forest, and the fourth struck towards a different part of the forest at first, but then curved around to intersect all the other ones in a wide ring. It was mostly within and just outside this ring that the inhabitants of the village resided. The village itself resembled an oval with wobbly edges, but the inhabited part of the village, if one drew an outline around it, would look like a smaller circle with a few spikes and one long tentacle leading down towards the docks, none of which came very close to the edges of the aforementioned oval.
The houses were different from the ones on Berk, too. They were generally shorter and spaced more closely together than the ones back home, and they weren't shaped like upside down ships with the ends chopped off. They also lacked carved figures of dragon heads above the doors, Hiccup couldn't help but notice. Tora had shown him the inside of her own dwelling, and he had noted that the rooms were more conservative of space. There was the front room, which doubled as the dining room, and a small kitchen to the side of that. Three doors led to three bedrooms, one of which was being used for storage since Tora had no siblings, and a narrow staircase led to the attic, which had been split into two separate rooms as well. About ten feet away from the back door was the restroom, which had very strongly scented plants growing around it that masked the less savory smells adequately but not entirely. Tora informed him that the other houses all had similar layouts.
Also in the ring around the gathering hall was the forge, the main medical house, and an empty area that was set aside for special occasions that Tora didn't want to say anything about, preferring to keep them as surprises for some reason. There was another forge down closer to the docks, but it had been partway destroyed some time in the past and no one used it anymore.
Hiccup had wanted to see the entire village, even the empty parts, but apparently Tora was on orders to keep him within shouting distance of the main medical house, her or Briar's own home, or the smaller healer's outpost closer to the edge of the forest. While that was a good idea on account of his injuries, it was not all that appealing to the people that were out and about. The villagers were giving them lots of space, many looking curious but not wanting to come within twelve feet of the dragon. Some took one look at Toothless and immediately went in the opposite direction, and others glared suspiciously. Many of them looked on in awe and caution, and a few seemed more reserved but still cautious.
As they finished up in the area around the gathering hall, Hiccup noticed a small group of teenagers, likely around his age, who were talking among themselves with much pointing and gesturing in his and Toothless's direction. One of them, a black haired boy who looked about eleven or twelve, called a greeting, "Hey, Tora!"
"Hi, Joey!" Tora called back, with a wave. She looked between Hiccup and the group of teens a few times as if deciding something, then started to lead the dragon rider towards them. Hiccup followed behind her slightly hesitantly- Was she certain it was a good idea to let Toothless within five feet of the resident humans just yet? What if one of the kids freaked out?
When Hiccup and Toothless got close enough for normal conversation, one of the kids, a girl with long brown hair braided over her left shoulder, seemed to have had too much and ran off in the direction of one of the nearby houses. Well, there was the panic he had been expecting. What would the others' reactions be?
There were four people left, now that the brown haired girl had gone. There was the boy who had greeted Tora, another boy who looked exactly like him, a boy with very dark brown hair, and a girl with streaked red and dark blonde hair. The two identical boys had black hair, gray eyes, and one wore a blue shirt while the other wore green. They didn't seem too phased by Toothless's presence, more like curious with a bit of wariness mixed in. The other boy had backed away a bit and was standing slightly behind the first two, his eyes fixed on the dragon. He had dark brown, almost black hair, blue-violet eyes, and wore a dark brown shirt under a reddish brown jacket. The girl with the red and blonde hair had blue eyes, fair skin, and wore a bright yellow shirt along with a dark blue skirt that reached just below her knees.
Something seemed weird about them, and Hiccup quickly saw what. None of them wore helmets and none of them carried axes or swords like the teens from Berk. In fact, now that he thought about it, no one in Rudich did.
Hiccup's thoughts were interrupted when the boy in the green shirt stepped forward slightly and said, "Hi, I'm Jed."
"And I'm Joey," said the one in the blue shirt, and Hiccup noted that their voices were just as identical as their looks.
"And you are?" asked Jed.
"My name's Hiccup," said Hiccup.
The girl with red and blonde hair snorted, "What kind of name is that?"
"What kind of name is Ellis?" said Jed before Hiccup could formulate an answer.
"Stop it," Tora interjected sternly. She turned to Hiccup and gestured at the four kids, "These are some of my friends, Jed and Joey Fisher, Ellis Dimmons, and Spencin Anderson."
"Nice to meet you, Dragon Boy," Ellis said.
"Um . . . hi," Hiccup said, unsure exactly what to do here- it's not like he'd been in the situation before.
There was an awkward silence for a few moments, as none of them were quite sure what to be doing just then, until it was broken by Joey- or was that Jed? One of them, anyway, said, "So . . . nice dragon you've got there."
The other twin then said, "Does everybody where you're from do, well, you know, that?" he gestured at the dragon and rider with both hands.
Hiccup hesitated to answer, glancing around to see the genuine curiosity on all of the other teens' faces. "Well, no, actually. Vikings usually kill dragons, but I- Well, I was different."
Ellis nodded thoughtfully, then realised something and said, "Wait, Vikings? You're a Viking?"
"Yes- well- no, I'm not sure. I think I was banished," Hiccup said, recalling exactly what his father had said that day. Had he been banished? Or just disowned?
"You think?" inquired Ellis, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms.
"I'm not sure," Hiccup repeated, "I'm having trouble remembering exactly what he said . . ."
"What who said?" asked Jed. Or Joey.
"Your leader?" asked the other one.
Hiccup debated whether to tell them that his father had been the chief, and had at once banished and disowned him. Or had it only been disowned? He could remember talking about it to Astrid right before leaving, but couldn't quite recall exactly what had been said.
"Stop it, guys, maybe he doesn't want to talk about it," Tora scolded.
"It' not that," Hiccup said, "It's just . . . I can't remember exactly what was said. I can't remember much of anything, actually." He could still remember most of what had happened in his life, but specifics were evading him in most cases. He clearly remembered his romantic flight with Astrid, the beginning of his fight against the Monstrous Nightmare, running through the village during a raid, random bits of time in the smithy, quite a few times when he had snuck out to train Toothless, and some other, less important memories before those. Everything else was jumbled and a bit fuzzy, likely caused by head trauma.
His confused thoughts must have expressed themselves on his face, because the five Rudichians gave him weird looks, until Tora gained an expression of realization. She gasped and said, "I've got it! Eria and Luna found you and your, eh, dragon, and it looked like you crashed out of the sky, right? Well, it makes sense that you didn't just hit your arm and leg. You must have gotten knocked on the head, too, and it's scrambling your memory."
Now the odd looks were directed at Tora.
"That, actually, makes a lot of sense," Hiccup said.
Ellis jumped in in what Hiccup was now realizing was her usual manner, "Well, I hope you still remember how you trained this guy," she gestured at Toothless, "Because I'm your first student once you're able to walk normal again."
"Student?" Hiccup asked, not entirely confused but not completely understanding what she meant, either.
Spencin spoke for the first time, "They assume that you will be showing us how to befriend dragons, since you agreed to help us with our Night Fury problem. Ellis even took bets on it." The brown haired boy's voice was cool and even, stating facts rather than opinion and appearing to remain impartial. Hiccup guessed that he was one of the 'intellectual ones', if you were to go by stereotype, similar to Fishlegs and himself only more . . . neutral about his knowledge.
Hiccup had nearly forgotten the other boy was even there and took a moment to reply, "Well, I didn't think people would want to-"
"Ha!" Joey- Jed- no wait- the twin in the green shirt said, pointing at the other one, "That's five points to me."
Hiccup found himself falling back on the tactic he used with Ruffnut and Tuffnut- ignoring. "But I'll see what I can teach you if you really want me to."
"Aaaand five points to me," said the twin in the blue shirt triumphantly.
"Awesome!" Ellis said, pumping her fist, "Can you teach me something now? Like how do you get one to-"
"He's not teaching anyone anything until he's completely recovered," Tora cut in sharply. She turned to Hiccup and said, "Sorry, but it's true. Until you're completely better and you can move all of your body parts without any pain of any sort, Briar is the dictator of your life."
"Well that sounds wonderful," Hiccup said with his trademark sarcasm. It didn't sound horrible, but then again it didn't sound interesting or fun, either.
"You get used to it," said the twin in the blue shirt.
"After a while," added the one in green.
"Yeah, but I'm first in line once the old lady lets you out," Ellis said firmly.
"Sure, sure," Tora said, grabbing Hiccup's uninjured arm and beginning to pull him away, "Come on, Briar also said to keep you away from bad influences like them."
Hiccup exchanged a 'these people are weird'' glance with Toothless, who seemed to share his sentiment, but didn't fight the healer girl.
His opinion of Rudich so far was that it was a fairly normal village, if you didn't count the oddly shaped land it was built on and the fact that half the houses were uninhabited. It wasn't Berk, that was for sure. In fact, based on the teens' reaction to his mentioning them, the people weren't even Vikings. The houses were built weird, he hadn't heard or seen anything that indicated that they had a chief, and they didn't even appear to have a kill ring like they did back home. He figured that he could get used to it, though.
His thoughts were cut short -this seemed to be happening quite often, he noted- when three small forms rushed past him, nearly knocking him over. Tora caught him, however. When the dragon rider turned around, he saw Eria and two little blonde kids that looked about her age. Toothless was looking down at them curiously as Eria approached, dragging the blonde girl by the hand while the blonde boy followed behind more tentatively. Eria pointed at the Night Fury and said to her little friends, "That's Toothless."
The two other kids both nodded, as if they were being taught a very important lesson. The blonde girl asked, in an impossibly squeaky voice, "Since that's your fwiend, does that mean dwagons awe nice now?"
Eria used a voice that was apparently supposed to make herself sound smart, informed, and superior as she said, "Only the nice dragons are nice. Everybody knows that. Now come on, I have to show you where we found them!"
The trio of shorties ran off, and Tora continued to lead Hiccup back to the medical house. Not thirty seconds later, Luna ran up. She paused, panting, and said to Tora, "Have you seen Eria anywhere? She's trying to take Luke and Lucy into the forest."
"The Trio of Terror? They went that way," Tora said, jabbing her thumb in the direction the smaller children had gone. From her easy tone and unpanicked posture, it seemed that this sort of thing happened quite often.
Rudich had just gone up on the oddness scale, almost right up there next to Berk. Hiccup figured he could still get used to it . . . eventually.
. . . This was going to take a while.
If I did chapter titles, this one would be called 'This is Going to Take a While' :{D
I hope you liked the OCs. I know I didn't use a lot of other people's characters, but I did use couple of suggested names (if one was tweaked slightly) and make a reference to one. If anything seems unrealistic or Mary-Sued or flat out stupid, I need to know so I can fix it! Tell me in a review, if you want to make any observations!
Also tell me in a review if you have any suggestions for, well, anything. I may not use all of them, but little plot ideas or scenes or possible instances or pairing ideas would be awesome. I'll try to stick in references, at the very least, and at the most mutate them into something enormous that has major play in the story. Character building is awesome and fun and I would love for my amazing readers and reviewers to participate in it with me! :{D
Oh my goodness, we've almost reached a hundred reviews! That's the most reviews I've ever had and it just keeps getting higher! IswearI'msohappyrightnowIcouldjusthugyouallthroughtheInternetand- Okay, don't ask what that was. But if you want to help me bring it up to the triple digits, drop a review!
So- important news. I will be occupied greatly with school and life in general for the next . . . very long period of time, and unfortunately this means I will not be updating again for quite a while unless I actually manage to get some free time. I don't want anyone to be anticipating another chapter next month, or the month after, or even the month after that. I have no idea how soon I will be able to update, and as a few of you already know, even when I think I have an idea I usually turn out wrong. Just thought I'd put this out there so that you awesome readers know that I won't be updating a whole lot, but I am definitely not abandoning this story. It's just . . . on hold until further notice, I guess you could say. I hope nobody wants to kill me now!
And even though I just said that this thing is sort of on hiatus now, and already asked three times, I would love it if you left a review!
Also- if any of you are artists, and you are the type to do fan art, and you did or are doing something for this story, I'd love to see it! I need an actual cover image, so it would also be rather useful. You don't have to if you don't want to, I'm just putting it out there.
