"Ouch!" The spindle fell to the floor, taking with it the chunk of wool, much of it already splattered with blood. Ruff swore as she stared at her bleeding palm. A longer slip of attention might have sent the spindle point right through her hand. Not an impressive battle scar at all. A better story for it would have to be created.

"Again?" Astrid fought back a grin, and set down the spindle full of perfectly formed wool. "Didn't you just do that like-?"

"Two months ago," Ruff replied, tearing the wool away from the sorry excuse for thread and pressing it the wound. "I haven't done that for two months! And the last one got my arm instead of my hand. See? Completely different." She held up the forearm of the bleeding hand where a little white scar still remained in the fanciful shape of an arrowhead.

"And you're still telling people it's from falling off a cliff?"

"Feeding a dragon from my hand." The wound began to itch. Perhaps wool straight from the sheep's butt was not the best choice. "I've never told anyone I've fallen off a cliff."

Astrid nodded slowly. "Do you want me to clean that for you? You kind of got blood… everywhere."

True indeed. Now there was a nice ring of blood on the floor where she sat. It had been over a week since the big fight with Fishlegs and the last of the chalk had faded days ago, but now she would be expected to clean blood out of wood. Ruff pulled back the handful of wool and winced when it stubbornly clung. The bleeding was slowing and the nice little hole in her hand seemed clean enough save for the sheep hairs stuck in it. How ugly would that get? She ripped out what she could. No, she did not want Astrid to clean her hand. "I'm good."

"Are you sure?"

Ruff nodded.

"You have such a weird thing for scars and festering wounds and all of that, you know."

"Yeah, I'm morbid. I'm a Viking. Do you think I should wash this or throw it away and pretended it never existed? I mean, it really stinks." She held up the bloody ball of wool for Astrid's assessment.

Astrid made a face. "Throw it away. What happened there, anyway? You just started staring off into space."

Ruff shrugged. "I hate spinning."

"You looked a little tired there."

Another shrug. Probably the truth right there. No, better describe it as exhausted. Boredom sure could zap a lot of strength from a girl who really should be out over the seas slaughtering and pillaging for the pure and simple fun of it rather than cleaning and filling up water jugs and attempting to make cloth and cook. Occupied described her life now as there sure was a surprising amount to do, but actively interested did not.

"Do you honestly want to sit here doing this?" Ruff asked. "It's not like anyone is checking up on us."

Astrid knocked everything from her lap to the floor and stood up. "Get me out of here."

"Glad you're going nuts, too." Ruff kicked the spindle into the corner and jumped up. Her hand seemed to be clotting, and hopefully a good tussle wouldn't send it bleeding again. Blood was so annoying after the initial glory, but there was no glory in spinning yarn.

"Of course I'm going nuts. I'd kill for some action around here. What shall we do?" Astrid was already examining Ruff's collection of weapons. "A good spar? I'm so out of practice."

"You can take something of Fishlegs', if you want. He won't get mad." Ruff picked his sword. Or her sword. Whichever. The new one from the wedding. "Race you to the arena!" She dashed out the door, noticing Astrid gleefully selecting Fishlegs' axe.

Ruff had never before appreciated just how wonderful was the fresh air of Berk. She breathed in deeply, loving it all, including the odors of fish and sheep. The amazing world of outside! It wasn't like she was spending an absurd amount of time indoors, but right now outside was the perfect thing. She needed outside.

The arena was mainly being ignored, a few dragons lazily snapping at each other. No biggie. In fact, a random mad dragon attack could be just the thing. The girls darted inside, Astrid already swinging the axe around before Ruffnut could even think about parrying.

Axe bit into sword with sparks as Ruff tried to hold herself up. Astrid had always been excellent at fighting. Astrid was excellent at everything. But that didn't matter. It had been over a week since Ruffnut's last good fight and that was far too long. She laughed and said they should maybe consider shields.

Shields, however, just made things more violent. There was something about that wooden barrier of protection that just made it all the easier to go wild when swinging sharp things. It was wonderful, and if someone was going to madly attack you that person might as well be Astrid. Ruffnut didn't know how much time had passed before they both dropped their weapons and sunk, laughing, to the ground.

"That was fun," said Astrid as she wiped dust from her braid. "No one fights anymore. Well, they do, but not like before. Just what are we expected to do when we run into other tribes?"

"Be diplomatic?"

They both laughed.

"Seriously," said Ruffnut. "I think the two of us should start randomly attacking people in the village just to keep everyone alert and on their toes."

"Only you would come up with an idea like that."

"No, think about it. Someone wakes up in the morning, groggily wanders outside, and bam! There's you with a sword."

"Could it be someone annoying?"

"Sure. Anyone and everyone. We should start it today." She yawned. She was more out of practice than she had thought. "Or tomorrow."

"You mean you don't want to fight the dragons?" Asrid asked.

The dragons, two Deadly Nadders, were now studying both girls.

'Though if our fight didn't set them off," she continued, "Nothing will."

Ruff toyed with the idea of tossing a sword at them. She loved dragons, loved riding them, using them, having them around, but there was still that secret thrilling dream of getting in a good life-or-death brawl with one. "Did I tell you what I trained my Zippleback to do?"

"I thought your brother had it today according to your weird custody system." Astrid was on her feet, slowly making her way to the exit.

Ruff followed. "Oh, this was weeks ago. I had actually forgotten about it. I trained him to attack Fishlegs."

"What?"

"Well, not attack, then. Just get very, very threatening."

Astrid laughed. "Why would you do something like that?"

Ruff shrugged.

"You have so many issues. Shall we go back to spinning?"

"Nah. The sun is setting. Forget that."

That seemed good enough for Astrid, who probably wanted to go back to spinning, for all Ruff knew. She smiled. "Good. I'll just grab my stuff and tell my mother I actually did work today."

Barely had Astrid spoken than wings beat above them louder and louder until a large Night Fury landed in the middle of the path.

Okay, Ruff had to admit tame dragons were still cool that way. "Hi, Hiccup," she said, waving to the boy on the dragon. Still the dorkiest boy in the village.

"Hi," he replied, but Hiccup's eyes were on Astrid. "Ride?"

Astrid gave that little blush-and-grin thing she did. "Ride. Bye, Ruff. I'll get that stuff later." She hopped onto Toothless' back and tossed the axe back to Ruff.

Ruff waved again and watched them take off. That sounded fun. When was the last time she had gone for a dragon ride? Maybe she should steal the Gronckle. She had yet to ride one of those.

But instead she found herself pushing open the door and dumping the weapons onto the floor. No sign of Fishlegs quite yet, though she imagined he would be home soon to spend the evening the way they always did, doing their own things.

Cooking. She should probably cook something. She was beginning to be able to fry up a fish without too much drama. Except the only fish she could think of were drying outside and she had no real desire to head out that way. She stuck her hand into the grain basket with the mild idea of making a few biscuits but jerked it back with a gasp.

She had so not touched grain in there. She tossed the basket lid aside and stared down.

An eel. Several eels, actually. She gingerly pulled them out and tossed them onto the table. Disgusting. What in the world were…

She closed her eyes. Fishlegs. Oh, how cute and clever eels were. That was just gross.

And was that honestly the best he could come up with?

She picked them up again and tossed them on tops of the books in his precious shelf. There. Much better.

Though she had to admit she had lost any and all appetite. Well, the eels had been his idea. He could figure something out for food all by himself. The moment he walked through the door, that was what she was going to tell him. She could give a pretty good chewing out when needed.

She jumped onto the bed to await the moment. The wool and spindles still lay in the corner. Oh well. Though that did remind her to check her hand. Then she yawned again. Barely sunset and she was already this tired. Well, she didn't have to be sitting. She stretched out over the bed.

What seemed a moment later her eyes flew open and stared into the darkness lit only by the glow from the hearth. She had fallen asleep? She sat up quickly, but the blanket over it forced her back down. She pushed it away, shook her head, and stared out the window. Middle of the night, definitely. On the other side of the bed was the sleeping form of Fishlegs. Great. She was supposed to have yelled at him. Now she had missed that and now that she was thinking about it she was still ridiculously sleepy.

She'd have to yell at him about the eels in the morning. Or wait for him to find them. Which would be better?

She settled back against her pillow and pulled the blanket back over herself. Funny. She had just lied back on the bed. She didn't remember getting underneath the blanket.

Her thumb rubbed against her palm. She also didn't remember bandaging her hand.