While walking over to them, none of them noticed me until I sat down.
"Hey Freya the Forgetful actually remembered where our table is." announced Astrid and the entire table gave a small cheer.
"My lady" Snotlout said giving a small bow in his seat.
"Hey Snotlout, hows your nose?" I said in jest but he took it as genuine concern.
"So grateful for your concern sweet Freya" he said with a smile on his face.
I decided to play along until I got a good opportunity.
"I just feel so bad for how I acted this morning. Is their anything I can do to make your nose feel better?" I played, hoping he would fall for it.
"I could never be hurt by a girl, but if you want to make it up to me ..." he said leaning across the table with his eyes closed and lips puckered.
"Oh of course I want to make it up to you Snotlout" I cooed, unable to believe how he fell for it. With Snotlout unaware I emptied my tray on to Astrid's, who was beside me, and slammed the tray into Snotlout's puckering lips. He fell backwards off the tables bench and everyone, even people at other tables, started laughing at him. I set down my tray and retrieved what I had dumped on Astrid's tray and sat down beside her. Surprisingly Tuff wasn't laughing and had a confused look on his face.
"I don't get it. How are you two going to kiss if Snotlout's all the way down there?" he said genuinely confused.
I turned to Astrid and asked "Should I even bother explaining?".
"Nah. He would probably forget what happened before you finished." Astrid answered.
"Forget what? Hey why is Snotlout all the way down there? Tuff said absentmindedly.
When everyone had calmed down and Snotlout was back on his seat Hiccup asked "So did Gobber find out what tribe that seal belongs to?" asked Hiccup.
I shook my head and simultaneously said "No. But Gothi thinks I still have my skills from whatever life I had before, so Gobber's creating all these tests to see what skills I have.".
"And?" asked Astrid.
"What?" I asked in response to her question.
"What can you do?" asked Hiccup for the whole table. I looked up and saw everyone paying attention to me. I didn't think the extent of my skills would be that interesting to them.
"Um ... well ... So far it looks like I can sail, shoot a bow, throw a bola, and Gobber said I was good with a sword." I stated. All the teens choked on there food or drink and then Astrid slammed her mug down on the table.
"What did you say?!" Astrid yelled.
"Astrid i'm sure Gobber was more ... accommodating ... with his words ... because she is ..." Hiccup was desperately trying to defuse the situation.
"Quite Hiccup!" Astrid snapped at him. I looked around the table and all the other teens were looking in different directions away from Astrid and me. "Now what were his words exactly!" she asked with fire burning in her eyes.
"He said I had good posture and a strait sword arm but then he said my grip was so bad I couldn't hurt anyone with a sword" I said defensively, neglecting to tell the part where I improved my grip.
"Ok ... thats fine then." Astrid said calming down to my relief.
After a minute Ruffnut, who was on the other side of me to Astrid, leaned over. She whispered "In case you didn't notice Astrid really sucks with the sword.".
She obviously didn't whisper quite enough because Astrid screamed "I DON'T ..." she then quieted down to a normal volume "... suck with a sword I just ... got so good with the axe, the sword became irrelevant."
All the teens nodded realizing it was far less frightening to stroke her ego than to comment on the merits of swords over axes.
Hiccup then asked "By the way where is Gobber or Fishlegs for that matter? Neither one of them is likely to miss a meal.".
"Fishlegs is chasing down Meatlug and Gobber is tied up ... with doing something in town." I answered. Before they had a chance to ask me how I knew where Fishlegs was I pointed to both Astrid and Hiccup and said "It would have been nice of you two to warn me when I met Gobber the other day. All it would have taken would be 'By the way that Gobber guy you just met, ya he's INSANE' ".
The teens started chuckling amongst themselves and started asking one by one:
"What did he throw you into the arena with a wild dragon?" said the Twins.
"Make you train on top of an Iceberg at night?" asked Astrid
"Make you hold a shield, as a target, to test if a crossbows sights were aligned." said Hiccup.
"Make you carry a thousand rocks back to town because he thought they were all troll droppings." said Snotlout.
Everyone looked at Snotlout and the laughter started anew.
After it died down I explained "He cut the rudder line of our ship while it was sailing strait for shoals and tied my leg to Meatlug before he scared him away.".
The twins then perked up and started asking "Did the ship get destroyed?"
"Did anyone get hurt?"
"No the ship and the sailors are fine." I said something weighing on my mind.
After enough time had passed I timidly asked "Did any of you ever think about ... you know ... not doing what Gobber asked you or ... hypothetically ... trap him with a bola and leave him laying in a field?".
"No ones ever been crazy or stupid enough to cross Gobber. Not even the twins" stated Snotlout.
"Ya. Wait ..." stated Tuffnut.
He and both the twins started bickering while Astrid and Hiccup picked up on the specific nature of the question.
"Freya did you ..." Astrid asked but was cut off by a loud yell from the entrance to the Great Hall.
"FREYAAAA!" boomed Gobber from the Great Hall's entrance.