Apologies for the wait. My muse is still partly on vacation. Add in college taking away my free time. I just wrote a little whenever I could. Anyway, onto the chapter.

A Pain in My….Leg

Pain. That was the first thing that I felt. A sharp pain and soreness in my lower leg. Why did my leg hurt so bad? What had happened to me? I remembered Halla's worried face, and blood on her hands as she helped me back to the village. My blood. The boar. We had been out picking plants before the storm hit and the boar had attacked me, thinking me a threat to her babies. But what happened after we had gotten back to the village, after Stoick had carried me to the Hall, I couldn't remember.

"Kendra? Can you hear me?"

The voice was familiar, and I was glad to hear it. A sense of comfort came with hearing it. The voice was young and male. Hiccup.

"Halla! I think she's waking up!"

Slowly I became aware that I was lying on a hard surface, something soft elevating my head slightly. The room was warm and something soft had been draped over me. A blanket. I heard rapid footsteps and then felt a hand on my forehead.

"Temperature is fine," said Halla. "Kendra, can you open your eyes?"

It took a moment for me to process her request. My eyelids feel like lead, but somehow I managed to get them open. Everything is a blur for a few seconds and a face appeared above me. Then it sharpened and I recognized Halla, who looked relieved. Another face appeared on my other side. Hiccup.

"Thank the gods," he muttered.

The corners of my mouth twitch upward and somehow even that little bit of movement hurts. "Hey."

I winced at the sound of my voice. I sounded like I had a frog shoved up my throat, which also throbbed when I talked. The saliva in my mouth also tasted disgusting. For a moment I wonder why, but then I remembered screaming. Halla had stitched up my leg and I had passed out not long after she had started. Sure, I'd had stitches before, but back home where there was laughing gas and lovely pain medication like vicodin.

"Hiccup, go get her some water," Halla said, glancing up at Hiccup, who nodded before moving away, disappearing from my line of sight. Halla then returned her gaze to me. "How are you feeling?"

I swallowed some of the disgusting saliva. Ow, even that hurt. "Like hell," I croaked. Halla cracked a smile. "How long was I out?"

"About a day," she replied. "Storm's still going. It hit not long after you feigned."

Well, that explained the hard surface that I was laying on instead of the bed downstairs in Halla's house. And as I woke up more, I became more aware of things beyond Halla. The smell of a fire and cooking meat. The soft chatter of people.

Hiccup returned a moment later with a cup, which he handed to Halla. With her help, I managed to take a sip. The water was nice and cool and felt fantastic going down my sore throat. It also helped with the horrible taste in my mouth. Halla moved the cup away from my mouth as I swallowed the last of what she had given me. My stomach thanked me for sending something to it after so long, even if it wasn't food.

"Better?" she asked, setting the cup down somewhere out of view. Possibly the bench.

I nodded. "Thanks."

Halla smiled again. "I'm going to check on your stitches."

"Okay," I said as she moved down the table I was lying on to check on my leg. I looked over at Hiccup as I felt Halla messing with the wrappings. Now that I was more awake, I could see that Hiccup looked tired. No, not tired. Exhausted. "When was the last time you slept?"

He frowned slightly for a second before saying, "The night before the ships got back."

"So you stayed next to me the entire time?"

Hiccup looked down sheepishly. "Pretty much."

"That has to be…the sweetest thing anyone's ever done for me," I said, a soft smile on my lips as Hiccup looked toward me. He returned the smile after a moment. "Now go get some sleep. You look like you're about ready to fall over."

He laughed and ducked his head. "Right. I'll see you later."

"I'll be here," I said as he moved away. He glanced back as he walked, a grin on his face. "Since I can't really walk at the moment."

"And it'll probably be a couple weeks before you can without help," Halla said, coming back up to stand beside my head. "The boar didn't go very deep, but it was a good size."

A couple weeks. Couldn't say I was really all that surprised. And since they didn't have crutches, as far as I knew, I'd have to rely on help to get anywhere. I nodded. "Okay."

"Now, you just rest. Try to sleep. I'll get you something to eat when you wake up," Halla said as she readjusted the pillow under my head.

"Alright," I said, nodding. She smiled before I closed my eyes.

"Sleep well, Kendra."

It was two days later when we were finally able to leave the Hall. With the help of Halla, I had been able to sit up and eat the day after I had woken up. My stomach had been so thankful to have something in it other than water and my saliva. Hiccup had spent most of the days we were all stuck in the Hall by my side. Halla would occasionally give me a look, but said nothing. Perhaps she was realizing that Hiccup was a good kid. That or she had finally realized that I was going to be friends with him no matter what anyone else thought.

When the time came to leave the Hall, I had tried to tell them that I could make it without being carried, that I could do it with Halla's help. Did they listen? Nope. I ended up leaving the Hall the same way that I had entered; being carried by the chief of the village. And this time I was aware enough to feel a bit embarrassed. I was eighteen years old, had only been in Berk maybe a month or so, had been injured twice, and was being carried in the arms of their chief like a child. Again. If the elder was right and gods or something had brought me to Berk, they seemed to have it out for me.

When we stepped out of the Hall, I was hit by a wave of cold that caused goose bumps to pop up everywhere. I shivered slightly. If Stoick noticed, he said nothing. The sky was spotted with fluffy white clouds. Glancing around, I could see that the village was now covered in several feet of snow. If any buildings had been damaged, I couldn't tell. Hopefully no one's home had been damaged.

Hiccup had been just behind us when we had left the Hall, though by the time we arrived at Halla's he was nowhere in sight. Halla had to clear some snow away from her door before we could enter, but everything looked to be in order when we did. Though it was cold. As Stoick carried me over to the bed and set me down on it, I could hear Halla working on getting a fire going to warm the place up. "Thank you, chief. Hopefully this is the last time I get injured."

He gave me a small smile. "Hopefully. Either way, once that leg is better, you'll start training with a dagger."

"See if the Hofferson girl can help her," Halla said as she stood up from beside the now blazing fire. It illuminated the room and slowly began to fill it with warmth. "She and Kendra have similar builds."

Stoick nodded. Hofferson. That named sounded familiar. "Hofferson?"

"Astrid Hofferson," Halla replied. That's why the name sounded familiar. Hiccup had mentioned her once or twice. Or several dozen times. "Four years younger than you, but talented with an axe. Especially for someone her age."

"Aye, and proficient with other weapons as well," Stoick added. He glanced over at me and looked me up and down. "They do have similar builds. Good thinking, Halla. I'll go speak with the Hofferson's."

Just as Stoick was heading for the door, it burst open and Hiccup ran into the room, though thankfully stopped in time to keep from running into his father. His notebook was in his hands. "Dad."

"Hiccup," Stoick said. As soon as his name was out of his father's mouth, Hiccup was moving around his father and over to where I sat on the bed. Stoick watched his son for a moment before leaving Halla's, closing the door behind him. Halla watched the chief leave, then glanced over at Hiccup before heading upstairs.

"I had an idea. To help you walk until that heals," Hiccup said as he sat down on the bed beside me, opening up his notebook. He flipped past pages and pages of drawings until he stopped on one about halfway through and showed it to me. It was a blueprint, for something that looked like a crutch. Something to help me walk until my leg healed.

"So this is where you ran off to when we left the Hall," I said, looking at the details of the blueprint. It was slightly curved at the top where I would lean on it, and he had drawn another version, a padded version, just next to it. It had three support pieces that went about halfway down the crutch, where they joined back up with the main piece.

"Yeah. Still needs a little tweaking, but I think it'll work," he said.

I smiled over at him. "It's going to be great. Thank you."

He returned the smile before looking down at the blueprint. Just next to the drawing of the padded version, there was writing. It looked almost like a list, but I couldn't read it. I pointed to it on the page. "What does that say?"

"It's just a list of possible paddings," he replied before looking up at me with a slight frown. "You can't read?"

"I can read just fine. Just not that," I said, gesturing to the writing in his notebook. "I don't know that language."

He glanced down at the page before looking back at me. "You're speaking it right now."

"I…what?" I asked. I was speaking a language that I didn't even know, yet he and everyone on Berk sounded like they were speaking English to me.

"What language are you hearing?" he asked.

"English," I replied.

He looked slightly confused. "What?"

"English."

"What's that?"

He didn't know what I was saying. The word didn't exist. Like that one episode of Doctor Who where people in Pompeii didn't know the word volcano. It just didn't exist. "Guess the name of it doesn't translate. But how can I be speaking a language that I don't know and hearing the one that I do know?"

Hiccup shrugged. "Gothi did say the gods could be behind bringing you here. Maybe they are behind this too."

"Maybe," I said, looking down at the page, at the words that I couldn't understand. How long had I been here? A few weeks? A month? I wasn't entirely sure. How long would I be here? Would I be here for the events of the movie, or find myself back home before everything here in Berk happened? Would I ever go home at all? "Can you teach me?"

I looked over at Hiccup. He looked a bit surprised. "What, teach you how to read?"

"Yeah," I replied. "I have no idea who brought me here, or for how long. But no matter how long I am here, I think it would be helpful if I could read your language."

"You want me to teach you? Why not ask Halla, or my dad, or-"

"I'm not asking them, I'm asking you," I said, cutting him off.

He had the same look on his face that he had that one night in the Hall when Snotlout had asked why I was sitting with his 'useless' cousin. Years of being put down, of seeing his inventions fail and being ridiculed for it had taken their toll on his self-confidence.

"Will you?" I asked. "Please?"

He nodded after a moment. "Okay."

"Great. I've got plenty of downtime due to this," I said with a grin, gesturing to my leg. That got a smile out of him. "Though I'm supposed to start training once it's healed. With a certain young Viking lady you've mentioned."

He ducked his head slightly and reached up to scratch the back of his neck. "Oh, I've mentioned Astrid before?"

"Oh, just one or two dozen times," I said, fighting down a grin.