Sup y'all? Artful Chicken here :D
I've gotten quite a few suggestions to follow Hiccup and Astrid through trying to figure out how they ended up...well...THERE. Then I figured that with so much weird shiz going on in Berk lately, the teens would HAVE to at least wonder why.
So, just a heads up, there are no dares in this chapter! Just a bunch of kids playing detective. So all dares suggested for this chapter will be transferred to the next! Oh, and that means that y'all have more time to send in the suggestions!
Happy reading!
"And Hiccup, if you forget everything that I said, just remember one thing—"
"Lock all the doors next time?" Hiccup said hopefully.
"No, son," Stoick said gravely. "It is that above all things, no matter how tough a woman is, no matter how many Outcast heads she's chopped, no matter how well she wields an axe," Stoick said carefull, "you must never, ever, take advantage of her. She must be treated with as much as respect as you would Freya or Sigyn. After all, son, we are Vikings. And a Viking is always honourable, especially a Hairy Hooligan. Forget that, and we are no better than a Saxon or a Roman or, Thor forbid, an Outcast. Got that, son?" Stoick smiled, sensing that the snarky comments had slowed to a trickle over the course of the Talk.
"YES, dad, I totally get it now!" Hiccup hoped to run while he had the chance. "It really makes sense, and I shall NEVER do something like that again!"
"That...that's good, son."
"Well, we...uh...best be going for breakfast!"
"YES, er, breakfast!" Stoick brightened up visible. "Good...good talk, son."
"Yeah, good talk, dad," Hiccup replied with a slight beam. Because once things started working out between him and his dad, the phrase "good talk" didn't need to be a lie anymore.
Stoick left his son's bedroom and went downstairs. After his talk with Hiccup, it was as if an ancient scar was being stabbed at again.
Stoick sighed as he dumped two a mutton leg into a pot to broil. Oh, Val. Oh beautiful, strong Val.
Stoick vaguely remembered all the times when they were still courting, bickering over who would cook breakfast, lunch and dinner, or who would take care of their weapons...
He even remembered that she'd volunteered to give their future child The Talk.
"I'm going to have to do it, because you're rubbish with children!" She'd laugh, to which Stoick would pretend to look indignant.
Oh, Val.
"HI DAD SORRY DAD BE BACK IN A MINUTE DAD DON'T GO OUT OF THE HOUSE DAD!" Stoick looked up to see none but Hiccup the Handful dart out of the house in his pyjamas.
"It's okay Stoick, just breathe," Stoick sighed to himself. You'd think that after all these years, a man would have gotten used to this. "Just breathe."
Hiccup rushed out of the house. His heart was pounding, and excitement bubbled up in his chest, the kind of excitement specially reserved for figuring the last gear that needed to go into a new machine.
True enough, the snow had stopped, it seemed, for a long time already. Not long enough for the snow to have entirely melted, but long enough so that whatever footprints were made last night would not have been covered.
He looked around, then tentatively put his right foot in the shallow blanket of snow. Good then. Now he would know what his own footprints (or bootprints) would look like.
Hiccup paced a full circle around the house, trying as hard as possible to make it a continuous ring. All around the Haddock house, there was absolutely nothing, save for his and a series of sort of freshly-made prints from a girl running away in embarrassment.
"Weird," Hiccup commented. He went another full circle. Nothing. The snow was absolutely untouched, pristine and white and glittering in the Berk morning sun. The only two tracks were his and Astrid's from this morning.
His heart stopped inside him as he began to make his way back inside the house.
Whoever moved Astrid left no tracks on the ground, which meant that it travelled by...air...and that could only mean...
"Dragons!" he breathed as he slammed the door shut.
"ASTRID! ASTRIIIID!"
Astrid buried her head in her hands, trying to pretend she was...a...mug! Or a...tree! Definitely not Astrid the Absolutely Mortified.
"Ooh..." Ruffnut snickered.
"Astrid, I've figured it out! You have to come with me!" Hiccup burst into the Great Hall.
"Today's you lucky day! Ooh, say yes!" Ruffnut winked at Astrid.
"Figured out WHAT," Astrid snapped.
"How you...y'know...got there," Hiccup waved his arms in the general direction of the Haddock house. "You have to come with me! I can explain EVERYTHING!"
"Oh, alright," Astrid sighed. "But you better not do anything psycho or something."
"Someone's finally got his feelings in check!" Ruffnut sang.
"What exactly am I looking at?" Astrid stared quizzically at Hiccup's house.
"The snow," he restrained himself from smacking his forehead. "Okay look, you see the bootprints in the snow?"
"Yeah...?"
"Well you see that one there," he motioned to a series of straight prints coming from the door. "That series of tracks are yours. From this morning. "
"Uh huh?"
"And you see the one going around the house in a circle?" Hiccup brought her all around the house. "Those were mine, this morning. "
"So?" Astrid wrinkled her brow.
"So if the only footprints are yours and mine from this morning, then whoever moved you didn't leave any footprints!"
"But this could just mean the culprit's prints got snowed on!" Astrid pointed out.
"Ohh, no. Do you remember what time you felt...a change?" Hiccup said without faltering.
"Definitely not right after I went to bed," Astrid guessed.
"That's right! Same for me! Which means that their tracks would not be covered up so fast. Which means that they DIDN'T move on the ground at all," Hiccup guided her thought process slowly as they made their way back to the Great Hall.
Astrid took a while to process this, facial expressions moving from complete befuddlement, to doubt, to a tinge of realisation, to whole new level of...
"Oh, no...are you sure? Why would a dragon just put me next to you out of nowhere?" Hiccup mentally congratulated her as she finally got it.
"I don't know...that's the thing, you see."
"Hey, what you loveb—guys talking bout?" Snotlout called out from his table with Fishlegs, Tuffnut and Ruffnut.
Hiccup and Astrid made their way over and sat down. Astrid looked noticeably shaken.
"Have you guys noticed your dragons acting...weird?" Hiccup took a peanut from a bowl they were sharing.
"YES! Yeah, I was just gonna ask you. Last week, Barf and Belch trashed our room!" Tuffnut said.
"But the weird thing was, it was only my side of the room..." Ruffnut sounded like she was telling a ghost story to a bunch of children.
"Oh! And there was the Hookfang-on-fire thing!" Snotlout put in.
"Now that you mention it, there was that time when Meatlug became all huggy," Fishlegs shuddered. "It was...really weird."
"Yeah, guys! And then there was that time Hiccup's prosthetic somehow ended up with Hookfang," Astrid said, "and I'm starting to think it WASN'T Snotlout."
"Aw, you trust me?" Snotlout gave her puppy eyes, earning a chicken bone to the face.
"And then Stormfly destroyed Hookfang's stable for no reason," Hiccup concluded, choosing not to point out what happened last night. "It's like, there's suddenly a whole series of strange behaviour from the dragons!"
"Maybe it's mating season?" Snotlout said helpfully.
"No...that's not for another month..." Fishlegs pointed out.
"It's like they're all in a contes, to see who can drive us crazy first," Tuffnut remarked, tearing a chunk of meat off his chicken leg.
"Hah, I wish it was as simple as that," Hiccup said sourly. They hadn't really gotten anywhere. All they knew was that the dragons were acting weird all of a sudden, and they couldn't explain why.
"Well, let's just hope this doesn't get to Mildew's ears," Ruffnut said, grabbing a handful of peanuts.
As the teens sat in baffled silence, none of them noticed a tiny yellow Terrible Terror skittle out of its hiding spot behind a pillar, and buzz out of the Great Hall.
"They said WHAT?!" Stormfly's reptilian eyes widened.
"It's true! The Human younglings are catching onto your scent, and if they figure your little Dare Match out, the jig is up!" The Terror spoke at lightning speed.
"Thing is, Squirt, they HAVEN'T," Hookfang looked bored.
"But that doesn't mean they won't," Meatlug pointed out.
"But what's the worst that could happen? All they'll do is find out that we are now locked in a grilling Dare Match, and stop wondering why we're doing all...THAT! They may even leave us be, since they know what we're up to!" Toothless argued. "Besides, we're DRAGONS, for Thor's sake, not crocodiles or something sissy like that. We can handle it. Odin's beard, guys, stop worrying!"
"Yeah, and nothing can stand in the way of the Dragon Dare Deathmatch!" Barf chirped.
"Not even Barf's face!" Belch added.
"Hey!"
The Terror sighed. And he thought that the older you got, the wiser you became. Well, this bunch of teenagers just proved him dead wrong. He desperately hoped that he wouldn't become all THAT when he grew up.
"Alright then. If you wanna get caught, that's your problem! Torch, out!" He announced, before flying off.
"Little kids," Hookfang puffed a ring-shaped cloud into the air.
"So, who's turn is it to dare a dare?" Barf broke in.
Stormfly perked up. "Mine! And I dare—"
Chapter 10, guys! Suggestions for Stormfly's dare are still open, so do keep them coming! I've had so much fun :D