Hiccup's Bride Chapter 11

The Meatheads spent a peaceful, but not uneventful, three days in Berk, awaiting the beginning of the wedding celebration.

Of course, the hardest thing to adjust to was the dragons. They hadn't raided the Meatheads' islands in months, but that meant nothing – they always came back. All of those cattle and pigs were too tempting a target for the thieving lizards. Every Meathead grew up with the saying, "The only good dragon is a dead dragon."

Now they were surrounded by dragons, and they were forbidden to lay a finger on them. It was unnatural!

The dragons ignored them, for the most part. Their main concerns seemed to be eating and sleeping, and flying when they felt like it. As Stoick had mentioned, some of them had become friends with the Berk Vikings, and those friendly Vikings rode the great beasts into the sky, sometimes for just a few minutes, sometimes for hours. Megadeth asked around, and learned that the island's teen-agers were the authorities on just about everything to do with dragons.

"A Dragon Training Academy?" Mogadon burst out. "They've made a school for handling those evil reptiles? How much schooling does it take to learn how to throw a net and thrust with a spear?"

"That's not how they do things here, Mogadon," his brother answered. "I've seen this Academy. It used to be their dragon-training ring; now they actually teach people how to get along with dragons! That young man who rode the Monstrous Nightmare was there, and – chief, I swear, I am not making this up – he was giving that thing a belly-rub with a rake! It just rolled over and let him do it!"

Mogadon was thoughtful, which was unusual for him. "Do you think we can steal a few of their dragon secrets while we're here?"

"Probably," Megadeth replied, "but I don't think we'll have to steal them. Everyone I talked to was quite open about the dragons and how they get along with them. Everyone except a strange old man named Mildew, who still hates dragons. He seems to be the exception to the rule. For the rest of them... all we have to do is ask questions, and I think they'll tell us what we want to know."

"If we ask too many questions, they'll get suspicious," Mogadon decided.

"Then we won't ask the questions," his brother suggested with a sudden grin. "We'll let Berk's newest citizen find out everything she can about the dragons of her new town – what could be more natural than that? She can send back written reports on the trading ships."

"Thora?" The chief matched his brother's grin. "That's perfect! We'll have her ask that simple-minded little husband of hers. He'll never suspect a thing!"

They couldn't inform Thora of her new mission right away; they couldn't find her. She wasn't that interested in the dragons. For her, the most interesting feature of Berk was the forest. Her home islands hadn't had any forest in generations; on Berk, the woods were big enough and deep enough to get lost in. She stayed on the paths – she had no outdoorsman's skills – but even that much was amazing to her. She wandered into the forest as soon as breakfast was done, came out in time for lunch, and then went right back in again.

She'd never seen trees like these. There was enough wood here to build several fleets of longships! Why did Berk preserve all this standing timber when the land could be put to better use? These people weren't idiots; there must be a good reason for doing things this way.

She was beginning to lose her confidence in her situation. She wasn't just moving from one Viking town to another; she was moving to a town full of a different kind of Viking. Clearly, she had a lot to learn about this place. She didn't want to ask a bunch of questions that would seem stupid to the hearer, but she wasn't sure how else to get the answers she needed.

As she walked, she heard a "whack" sound. She froze; she didn't know what kinds of noises were normal in a forest, and which noises she should be concerned about. After about half a minute, she heard it again. She walked toward the sound slowly, as quietly as she could. Perhaps someone was chopping down a tree? If they were, she wanted to watch.

As she got closer, she heard that each "whack" was preceded by a scream. It sounded like a woman's yell. Did the women tend the trees around here?

She looked around a rock, and watched a girl her age pull a double-bladed axe out of a tree trunk. She stepped off twenty steps, then suddenly turned, screamed a battle cry, and threw the axe. It flew straight through the air and embedded itself into the tree. The girl's target was not the fattest tree in the forest; she was a pretty good shot with that axe. With her spiked skirt and shoulder armor, she looked the part of a warrior. She was also quite pretty.

As she retrieved her axe, Thora coughed quietly. The girl looked up, startled. For a moment, she drew up her axe to throw it, but saw Thora and relaxed. "Hello," she called. "I didn't hear you coming."

"I didn't mean to sneak up on you," Thora said quietly, and stepped out from behind the rock.

"You're new here," the girl commented. "Are you here for the wedding?"

"Yes, I am," Thora replied (that was no lie!). "I love this place. We don't have forests on my home islands."

"I couldn't live that way," the girl answered. "Where do you go when you need to get away from everything?"

"I just walk in the pastures," she replied. "I'm not hidden or anything, but the island is big enough, I don't bump into anybody except the ones who say 'moo'." She looked up into the trees, amazed that they partially blocked the sunlight. "If you don't mind my asking, what are you getting away from?"

The girl shook her head. "Life. The universe. Everything."

"That sounds serious," Thora nodded. She couldn't say why, but she liked this girl.

"You have no idea," the girl said sadly. "I used to think there weren't any problems I couldn't solve with a well-aimed axe throw, but now..." She picked up her axe. "I should be getting home; I have some chores to do."

"See you at the wedding, if not before?" Thora asked hopefully.

The girl had started to walk away, but she jerked to a stop. "No," she said quietly. "I'm not going."

"Not going?" Thora was amazed. "They told me this was Berk's biggest party in three generations! Why wouldn't you go?"

The girl looked away and sighed. "I have my reasons."

"They must be heavy reasons."

"Can I tell you something..." The girl paused. "What's your name?"

"Thora."

The girl went pale and nearly dropped her axe. "You're Thora?!"

"Yes, the last time I looked. Does that mean something to –" Before she could finish, the girl had spun and run away at full speed.

I just got here, Thora thought, and she's already afraid of my name. Why? She looks like a good person to have as a friend, and a bad one to have as an enemy. I'll need to make this right before much else happens; I don't want to start my new life on the wrong foot.

She wandered in the woods for another hour, then headed out. Maybe wandering around the town might be beneficial, too. After all, she didn't know anyone. There had to be some other people her own age around here somewhere! She wandered and she looked, without success. She finally resorted to asking someone where she could find the young man who rode the big dragon.

"He's probably down at the Dragon Training Academy," the man said. "That's where all the young dragon riders spend their time when they aren't in the air or doing their chores." He gave her simple directions; she found the place after a few minutes.

As she approached, she heard raucous laughter. It might be good to get some idea of what was going on around here before she barged in. She stopped outside the entrance and listened.

"That trick is so old!" she heard a girl's rough voice say. "We ought to try something new. I say we put castor oil in the ceremonial mead goblet! They won't dare spit it out in front of everybody – they'll have to swallow it!" A few male voices laughed. Thora recognized the reference to part of the traditional wedding reception. They were planning pranks on her! Why would they do that? They didn't even know her!

"I think we ought to nail a board across the doorway to the Hall!" a young man exclaimed. "That way, when he tries to help her across the threshold, she'll trip and fall! Their whole married life will be cursed!" A few others laughed at that.

"Guys, I really think this is a bad idea," a high male voice answered. "He's going to be nervous enough, and you know he's not happy about this whole thing anyway. Why do you want to make it worse for him?"

"Because it's fun!" the second voice replied.

Now she understood. These pranks weren't aimed at her, but at her husband (although they would affect her just as much as him). Apparently, these were his friends. Okay, she wouldn't take their idea of "fun" personally, although she'd have to be on her guard through the entire ceremony. But what did the last voice mean about "he's not happy about this whole thing anyway"?

She knew she wasn't the prettiest girl in the Northland, but she certainly wasn't ugly, either. She'd been told that she had a nice personality. Her sense of humor was unconventional, but at least she could laugh at other people's jokes. She could cook a good meal. Her dowry would be adequate for a chief's son. What could that boy possibly find in her that made him unhappy?

She made her way back toward the guest home. Her opinion of her future husband had gone down another notch.