Chapter 3 - See No Evil, but Hear it Well Enough
"So why didn't you?" Hiccup thought out loud, thinking back to Gobber's words earlier in the day.
He said, with absolute confidence that dragons always went for the kill, but then Hiccup, and Helga of course, could only think back to the Night Fury that didn't go for the kill. It could easily have ended Hiccup's life then and there, most likely Helga's as well when she tried to do something. However, all it did was roar in his face and leave. So Hiccup found himself, sans his twin, back where he had freed the Night Fury to investigate.
Helga wanted to come, but he figured it would be a lot easier to investigate without having to lead her around. She bristled when he said that exact thing to her, though in the end conceded when she had no counterargument.
He was currently holding the remains of the bola he had cut the dragon free from, only thinking that it had to be some kind of mercy from the gods that he was still alive because that dragon decided it was not in the mood to kill one scrawny viking. Putting the metal ball back on the ground, Hiccup headed further into the forest to explore, hoping he might find something, anything that could help him understand what had happened. Before long, he found the Cove. He took a moment to appreciate the beauty of the place, he had very few opportunities to come this far having had no real reason to do so.
After a few moments, he came to the conclusion that the dragon was gone, "Well this was stupid," he said to himself, starting to turn away.
Then he spotted them, little black disks on the ground. He squatted while picking one up and brushed his fingers against it. It was hard, smooth and completely midnight black. He barely had any time to take it in when a black shadow passed him quickly, barely two feet from him, making him fall to the ground. Recovering quickly, he stood and watched as the very same Night Fury from the previous day tried to climb its way out of the Cove with very little success, gliding back to the other side of the pond.
Hiccup could not believe it, it was still here and after taking a few deep breathes, he started to climb down the rocks to get a closer look. He watched as it continued to take off, but never get very far in its attempts to fly away. Not missing the opportunity, Hiccup pulled out his book and began to sketch the dragon. After finishing it, he looked again and wondered, "Why don't you just fly away?"
It fired a shot on the ground in frustration when Hiccup noticed that he drew a tail fin where the dragon appeared not to have one, using his fist to rub it away. The dragon itself was trying again when it crashed just beside the pond. That was when a fish flopped around in the water, catching the dragon's attention and it tried to catch it with about as much success as it had with flying. Hiccup contemplated the dragon's situation before the unthinkable happened, he dropped his charcoal and it fell all the way to the bottom of the Cove with a soft clack. He was frozen in place as the dragon looked up at him, growling lowly, but as Hiccup looked curiously at it, the dragon appeared to look just as curious about him.
Helga, after having been ditched by her brother, was sitting on a bench outside their house, close to the stairs to the Great Hall. She had no way of telling how long she had been there, but could at least tell it was getting dark and nearing dinner time by the amount of vikings, the ones still on Berk, heading into the Hall, greeting her on their way. While her brother was looked on as a nuisance to the village for all the messes he created, though not intentionally, Helga was looked on in pity. Never again would she see and so, when Hiccup received scowls of disapproval, Helga knew she was getting looks of sympathy. It meant that she got treated better than her brother, and she hated it. She had always been treated like Berk's little princess since she and her brother were born, but it only got worse after the fire that took her sight. However, her brother, the actual heir to the Chiefdom, was not looked at well for his incredible intelligence, rather they looked at his inability to be a 'proper' viking.
So deep in her hateful thoughts, she almost missed the sound of feet walking gently in the grass heading towards her. The person was small, not one of the adults, but it was not her brother either, "Who's there?"
"It's Astrid," came the reply as, who she now knew to be Astrid, stopped a few feet in front of her.
"Oh," was all she could get out at first, "can I help you with something?"
"Not really, I'm just curious to know where your brother is, you've been here alone for a few hours," she answered, trying to sound nonchalant, but Helga could hear the strong curiosity nonetheless.
"Despite popular belief," Helga started dryly, "Hiccup and I are not always together at all hours of the day, we're not Ruff and Tuff."
"That's for damn sure, two sets of twins like that would have brought down the whole village by now," Astrid said with a snort.
Was Astrid trying to…joke with her? They were not friends and they were barely even acquaintances, they just happened to be part of the same generation of vikings on Berk. "Yes, that would be a travesty, but the point is, he's off doing his own thing and I am quite content to sit here and listen," she said in response, still not knowing how to really take Astrid's attempt at a joke.
Realising what she had unknowingly done, she could hear Astrid shift where she was standing, but without her eyes, she could not know what face Astrid was pulling. Then Astrid asked something completely out of the blue, "Why do you always have your eyes shut?" and when she realised that seemed a bit of a strange question, she tried to amend it, "I mean, I know you wouldn't be able to see with them open, but you don't need to have them closed do you? I haven't seen you open your eyes since before…"
Astrid had trailed off, the accident left unsaid. Helga though, was still trying to grasp what exactly it was that Astrid had asked and really, what? That question literally came from no where, but in the end, Helga decided to humour her, "You're right, I don't need to close them, I guess. Though I don't really need to open them do I? It's not like it would make a difference."
"I know that's true," Astrid starts slowly, before picking up wind, "but most blind people don't keep their eyes closed, and like I said, I haven't seen your eyes opened once in five years."
She had her there, and guessed it would not really hurt to answer her, "That would be because most blind people were either born blind or got injured in the eyes with a knife or just plain lost an eye," and before Astrid could question why that was important, she continued, "Astrid, I lost my sight in that fire not because the light seared away my vision like it does to some, I lost my sight because the fire actually touched my eyes."
As if to prove her point, she opened her eyes, for the first time, outside her house or Gothi's hut, in five years. She heard Astrid's gasp in horror, but the girl asked for it so Helga found no sympathy, "Your eyes, it looks like the front of your eyeballs have been completely burned off."
"Because they have," she said, closing her lids again, "the burn around my eyes and on my face was nothing compared to what happened to my eyes, so the scarring isn't that bad on my skin. However, my sensitive eyes weren't so lucky."
Astrid was silent after that, and Helga knew it was because Astrid probably did not know what to say to that. Helga decided she did not really need to hear anything about it, it would either be pity or more horror, so she took any chance out of her hands. "Come on, since you're standing here, you might as well help me into the Hall."
So she stood, and without giving Astrid a chance to protest, she walked over to where she had heard her voice and reached for her arm. In the end, Astrid led her just as she had the morning before, up the stairs and into the Hall. They did not speak once as she led her to the table with, who she could gather, were the other teens and Gobber. They were talking about the training from that day, the training that almost had a Gronckle kill her brother. She let Astrid lead her there anyway, and simply thanked her when she heard the plate and mug placed in front of her on the table. She drowned out most of what the others were saying, dragon training did not interest her in the least. Then Gobber started asking where they all went wrong.
Gobber had to answer for both Snotlout and Fishlegs, who had no idea where they went wrong, or in Snotlout's case, that he had even done anything wrong at all. When he reached the twins, she could not stop herself from muttering under her breath, "They fought over a shield."
When the table went silent, she raised her head from where she had been leaning forward and quickly realised, they had heard her. Gobber recovered first, "While yes, fighting over a shield is something they did wrong, they also were not paying attention to their surroundings…at all!"
With the attention back off of her, she relaxed her shoulders, they had tensed up when she realised they were looking at her. She felt her eyebrow twitch when she heard the twins' exchange.
"How did she know what happened? She wasn't there." Tuffnut.
"Maybe she can hear everything from across the whole village." Ruffnut.
"I heard a rumour that there is nothing on this island that happens that she can't hear happen."
There was a pause, before they simultaneously let out a "Cooooool."
Idiots.
She turned her focus back to the others when Gobber then asked about Astrid. She heard the doors to the Great Hall open softly, most likely her brother, as Astrid answered, "I mistimed my somersault dive. It was sloppy. It threw off my reverse tumble."
"Yeah, we noticed," Ruffnut sarcastically threw in.
"No, no, you were great," Snotlout starts sucking up to her, making Helga try very hard not to gag. "That was so 'Astrid.'"
"She's right," Gobber cuts in as she heard Hiccup head towards the table, grabbing a plate, "You have to be tough on yourselves. Where did Hiccup go wrong?"
"Uh, he showed up," Ruffnut is quick to say, Hiccup making his way around the table.
"He didn't get eaten," Tuffnut adds, Hiccup now moving to another table.
"He's never where he should be," Astrid finally says, and although she was not wrong, it did not make Helga any happier with her than she was with the muttonhead twins.
"Thank you, Astrid," Gobber says, hitting the twins as he walked away, "You need to live and breathe this stuff. The dragon manual."
He then proceeded to shove stuff off the table and then drop a heavy sounding book onto it, "Everything we know about every dragon we know of."
That's when she heard the thunder sounding outside, and no doubt Gobber did too based on his next words, "No attacks tonight. Study up."
"Wait, you mean read?" Tuffnut asks incredulously.
"While we're still alive?" Ruffnut adds, asking a question way more stupid than her twin.
"Why read words when you can just kill the stuff the words tell you stuff about?" Snotlout asks, somehow saying something even more ridiculous.
Then Fishlegs finally speaks up, "Oh, I've read it like seven times. There's this water dragon that sprays boiling water at your face and there's this other one that buries itself for like…"
"Yeah, that sounds great," Tuffnut interrupts, "There was a chance I was going to read that…"
"But now…" Ruffnut finished for him.
"You guys read," Snotlout says as he stands, "I'll go kill stuff."
The twins and Fishlegs go to follow him, the latter continuing to talk about the dragons he had read about. She heard her brother take this opportunity to stand and walk towards where Gobber had left the book, conveniently near where she knew Astrid to be sitting. "So I'll guess we'll share?"
"Read it," she cuts in before getting up and leaving.
"All mine then, wow, so okay, I'll see you…" the door slams behind her, "tomorrow."
That's when he noticed that Helga was facing in his direction, "What are you looking at?"
"Absolutely nothing."
"You know what I mean, I know you know you're facing in my direction, if you had your eyes open and could see, you'd be looking right at me."
"Maybe I would be, but maybe I wouldn't, you don't know."
"I do, in fact, know. I've know you my whole life, so what? Why are you 'looking' at me?"
"Astrid," she says simply.
"No," he quickly says, "We are not having this conversation."
"Fine, but like, all I'm saying is that I don't know what you see in her," she says with a shrug.
"You don't have to see it," he says dryly, "you're also a girl, I think it'd be weird if you saw it too."
"You know that's not what I mean Hiccup," she says, raising one of her brows.
"Yeah whatever, like I said, we're not having this conversation."
"Whatever, let's just go home," she says, moving to stand.
"What about the book, I want to read it," he says, trying to get her to sit back down.
"You can come back later or whatever, there's no point me being here while you read a book I can't even look at," she counters, moving towards the doors, knowing he'll have no other choice once she gets through the doors.
She hears his muttered 'fine' as he walks over and grabs her hand, leading her out, "Where's your cane anyway?"
"I dropped it in the forest yesterday."
"WHAT?"
After dropping Helga off at the house, and waiting for her to fall asleep, she did NOT like storms when alone, he went back to the Hall. Using a lantern, he made his way to the table and sure enough, the Book of Dragons was right where he'd left it. He dragged it to where he sat and opened to the front, "Dragon classifications. Strike class, Fear class, Mystery Class."
He then turned to the first page, finding a dragon with a long spiky tail and the biggest mouth he'd ever seen, "Thunderdrum. This reclusive dragon inhabits sea caves and dark tide pools. When startled, the Thunderdrum produces a concussive sound that can kill a man at close range. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight."
He turned to the next page, this time it was a dragon with no legs and the biggest wings he'd ever seen, "Timberjack. This gigantic creature has razor-sharp wings that can slice through full-grown trees. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight."
Next it was a dragon with a serpentine body and a funny shaped head, "Scauldron. Sprays scalding water at its victims. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight."
It was at this point, a large clap of thunder from outside startled Hiccup, and he turned to face the door. No one was there of course, so he turned back to the book. The next dragon was just as strange looking as the others with a weird arrow shaped head and tendrils that looked like leafy vines, "Changewing. Even newly hatched dragons can spray acid. Kill on sight."
He then flipped through the pages one after the other, "Gronckle. Zippleback. The Skrill. Boneknapper. Whispering Death."
He paused on the horrifying sight of the Whispering Death's teeth riddled mouth before continuing, this time with what they were dangerous for, "Burns its victims. Buries its victims. Chokes its victims. Turns its victims inside out. Extremely dangerous. Extremely dangerous. Kill on sight. Kill on sight. Kill on sight."
That's when he reached it, the page with the heading "Nigh fury," he looked at the almost blank page, reading the limited information on the Night Fury, "Speed unknown. Size unknown. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Never engage this dragon. Your only chance; hide and pray it does not find you."
He pulled his book out from his tunic, opening straight to the page where he had drawn the picture of the Night Fury, placing it on the blank area where an image of the dragon was no doubt supposed to go.
His thoughts heavy, Hiccup made his way back home, barely watching where he was going or what he was doing. In the end, the book was not in the least bit helpful in regards to the Night Fury, all it managed to do was traumatise him in regards to the other dragons. As he looked to make sure Helga was sleeping soundly, he laid in his own bed while realising he would need to find out information from a different source.
That source would have to be Gobber.
A/N: and here we have another chapter, just a few days later
So anyway, a quick look into what happened to Helga when she lost her vision and some more playful ribbing between her and Hiccup.
Honestly, the release of chapters is going to be all over the place, so yeah, don't know when the next one will be. Could be tomorrow, could be in a few days. Who knows.
Anyway, Seza, over and out.