This dare was requested by an anonymous guest. I originally had this very same dare planned for Hiccup later on, but I decided to use it for Arachne instead.
I hate driving lessons, they're tedious and they cut into writing time.
-.-.-.-.-.
Surprisingly, Batwings didn't rip Ruffnut to shreds upon recovering from his earlier harrowing ordeal – swallowing a live eel and forcing to endure its thrashing until it suffocated.
Anyone else would have done it – even Hiccup would have tried if he had been forced to go through that internal agony. But to everyone's shock, the one person with the ability to do just that took it uncharacteristically well.
"It was her dare, and I accepted it," Batwings confessed. "I feel obligated to live with the consequences and just let them slide. It's partially my fault, and I doubt Ruff had such an outcome in mind. If I'm getting payback, it's going to be when I next dare someone."
Ruff let out the breath she never knew she was holding. "And for a second there, I thought you were going to kill me," she said, relieved. "So did I," Tuffnut agreed, looking disappointed.
"Anyway, I'm willing to put this behind me," Batwings continued, retching a little as his stomach gave a leftover lurch. He flexed his wings to steady himself and went on, "Now, as for who I'm going to dare, I'm going with the one who hasn't had a chance to do something yet. I'm daring Arachne."
The girl sighed. "I should have seen this coming," she said to herself.
"Just don't pick anything too… drastic," Astrid cautioned, coming to the defense of her sister. "She's only ten years old."
Batwings held up his hands in protest. "Yes, I'm well aware of that," he replied. "I have a reasonably good dare for Arachne, something that shouldn't be too much trouble for her…"
Snotlout was impatient, and disappointed that he didn't get to see Ruff get mauled, which added up to a bad mood. "Well?" he demanded. "Let's hear it already!"
The Siren stifled a burp as his stomach lurched again, and when he was certain he wasn't going to throw up, he gave Arachne her dare. "Your dare," he told her, "is to steal and hide Stoick the Vast's helmet."
Several people gasped at this. Hiccup was one of the loudest. They all knew the consequences of what could happen if things went wrong. Arachne could get banished, for one thing, if she was caught, and if the helmet wasn't found… then things on Berk could get pretty nasty.
"Do you have any idea what you just told Arachne to do?" Fishlegs asked worriedly. Batwings shrugged and responded, "Not really. I'm not all that familiar with you Vikings or your nonsense ideology."
Fishlegs gulped, then recited, "If the helmet of a Chief is lost and then found by someone other than said Chief, then the discoverer of the helmet can potentially gain power over the Chief by holding onto it as a sort of hostage. Stoick's helmet is one of the symbols that pretty much mark him as the Chief. If he loses it, then the villagers might either lose faith in Stoick or pick a new Chief entirely."
Batwings turned pale. "Oh," he said simply, not having known that particular bit of information. "Should I change the dare then? I really don't want things getting out of hand."
"No, it's fine," came the reply, and everyone looked over at Arachne, who was surprisingly calm. "I accept the dare and am prepared to live with the consequences. I'm certain I can pull it off without anything too bad happening."
"Are you absolutely certain about this, Arachne?" Astrid asked concernedly. "There are too many things that could go wrong."
Her sister waved it off. "I'll be fine," she assured her older sister cheerfully. "I know just when to take it, and just where to hide it. Everything will be okay, I swear."
She then turned to Hiccup and pleaded, "Don't tell your dad that I'm the one that did it, all right?" The scrawny boy looked extremely reluctant, but at last gave a begrudging nod.
While initially stunned at the magnitude of the dare's consequences, Batwings and Heather now looked rather unconcerned. When they thought about it, they decided that Berk's political matters didn't really affect them – they could just fly back to Siren Island and start a new life there. That wasn't to say that they'd be worried about their friends in the process, but at least they'd be alright.
As it turned out, no one even had to worry. Arachne, true to her word, knew just what to do in order to ensure Stoick could keep his job.
-.-.-.-.-.
Hiccup's House
The sun had set, and night had fallen. Vikings all over Berk had long since retreated into their homes and were now soundly sleeping. No creature on Earth slept deeper than a tired Viking. Or snored louder.
Arachne quietly ran across the village after determining that there was no one lingering outside. She reached Hiccup's house within a minute, and it was then that she allowed utmost caution to take over. She could not allow anyone to wake up and witness what she was about to do.
As silently as the girl was able, she pried the door open and hesitantly peeked in. There was no one in sight. Toothless' rumbling snores could be heard coming from upstairs in Hiccup's room. But from behind a door on the far side of the room, an even louder noise could be heard.
Curious, Arachne crept across the room, leaving the door wide open in case she needed a speedy escape. She crossed the dark wooden space relatively quickly, making sure that the wooden floorboards wouldn't squeak loudly when she stepped on them. Opening the door, she allowed a moment to assess what lay inside.
Stoick the Vast lay on his massive brick of a bed, the blanket that covered him not doing a very good job of doing so. In fact, all that it covered was his impressive chest and stomach. He was still in the clothes he worked in every day – after all, he wouldn't be very Chief-ly if a crisis happened in the middle of the night and he was forced to answer the call in his pajamas. The room itself trembled from the sheer volume of his snores.
Arachne had never heard the roar of the Red Death, but she felt that this noise came close to it in terms of enormity.
Quickly, her eyes flashed across the room, noting the boots on the floor, the sword hanging on the wall, the Viking-sized closet, the horned helmet perched on the footboard… aha!
More silently than a Whispering Death's murmur, she tip-toed to Stoick's bed and snatched the helmet. Now, she thought, I just need to find a place to hide it.
Arachne crept back out of the room and searched for a good place to stash the helmet. It needed to be good enough so that Stoick wouldn't find it immediately, but bad enough so that he wouldn't spend hours searching, hours that would most likely cause him to tear out his beard in anxiety.
Finally, the girl hung the helmet on the coat-hanger, and then covered it with Stoick's fur cloak. She stepped back to admire her work, deemed it satisfactory, and quietly walked back out of the house.
When she had shut the door, Arachne bolted across the village and back to her house, silent as a spider. After all, her name wasn't "Arachne" for nothing.
-.-.-.-.-.
The next morning, Hiccup awoke to a crashing, clattering noise from downstairs. Toothless sat up, looking fully alert with his ears perked and his wide eyes directed at the staircase. "What in Odin's name…" Hiccup muttered, jumping out of bed and walking down the stairs.
When he was about halfway down, he noticed his dad rummaging around the room, crawling on his hands and knees. He turned over the table and chairs without a second thought, muttering to himself.
"Um, you alright, Dad?" Hiccup asked curiously with a hint of worry buried in his voice.
Stoick suddenly jerked upright, banging his head on his usual chair. "OW! Oh, morning, son," he said, rubbing his head. "Hiccup, I need your help. My helmet is missing! I just hope that someone didn't make off with it… Mildew or Madguts would undoubtedly do something awful if they got their hands on my helmet…"
He went back to searching, not seeing Hiccup roll his eyes nor hearing him sigh heavily.
"Come on, bud," he said to Toothless, who had followed him downstairs. "Let's help, and I hope Arachne was smart about where she hid it…"
-.-.-.-.-.
People in those days probably had a lot of folklore and superstitions, and I can certainly imagine the Chief's helmet being a pretty important symbolic item in terms of Chief-dom. Arachne probably would have been tied to a mast and shipped off if she had been caught in the act.
Well, now that everyone's been dared, Round 2 shall commence! New and ever more embarrassing dares await the teens as, unbeknownst to them, the adults slowly begin to notice their island-shaking exploits…
Review and give me some new suggestions, and I'll see you soon!
Next chapter: Arachne dares Astrid