The Ghost and His Shadow

In the ring again, Gobber had forbidden Ghost from disappearing this time, and provided little cover besides, but that didn't keep him from sulking about it. He blatantly ditched his provided shield once again and dodged along the outer edges. His weapons remained sheathed so the Gronckle targeted the others. Sometimes she used a shot, but mostly she crashed into them with her full body weight. Ghost almost winced in sympathy – Shadow had pounced on him similarly a few times, and it always left him breathless and aching.

He did keep sending annoyed scowls at his teacher though. He had remained mostly out of sight for years now, and here was the smith, ruining all his hard work at disappearing. Gobber and Gothi were no longer the only spectators either. At this point, quite a few villagers had heard of his prowess and of Astrid's as well, and apparently wanted to pass over and ignore more than a decade of abandonment, ostracizing, and abuse like it was nothing. Not on his watch.

Cragg, the Gronckle, slammed bodily into Snotlout, causing his cousin to lose his shield and smack into the wall, dazed. She charged at him and Ghost held a fist full of Dragon Nip in front of her nose.

He was fascinated by her reaction. She paused and laid down, breathing the scent in deeply, and her pupils widened. He rubbed it against the warm brown scales of her muzzle and led her to roll onto her side, wagging her stubby tail in delight. He pocketed the herb and left as quickly as possible.

The annoyance of Gobber not allowing him to disappear became a confrontation as the Pack tried to follow him across the wooden bridge, babbling questions, and kissing up to him as though they hadn't tormented him and cemented him as a clumsy lying outcast for years. He briefly considered jumping off the side of the bridge into the waves below but dismissed that thought quickly. It was much more tempting to throw the Pack over the side, but he doubted he could reach them all before one of them yelled for help or ran away.

The twins tripped and shoved over one another to keep pace with him, and Tuffnut demanded, "What was that?"

"I've never seen a Gronckle do that," Snotlout marveled, praising him like he'd only seen him praise the chief. It was much too late for that.

Astrid was there, obviously she wanted to know what he was doing to win, but at the same time resented him for surpassing her. She just made underhanded comments occasionally about his methods and implying that he was cheating. Which he was, but she had no proof, and was only claiming such a thing because she was a bitter little shrew. And was it really cheating? No one told him that he couldn't utilize what he'd learned about dragons from Shadow in the Ring, and really, it was the principle of the thing in his opinion.

Fishlegs was toddling after them all and babbling statistics and questions that they all chose to ignore. He was still desperately trying to earn his place back into the Pack, and at the same time sent Ghost these pleading eyes every time he made an appearance for dragon training. It wasn't his job to accept the scholarly coward and allow him to ruin his perfectly good schedule with his whining and rambling uselessly. Maybe he'd complain to the chief, but Ghost didn't care about anything that man said.

And what, did they think he was going to break his two-year moratorium on speaking with Vikings just because they were acknowledging him for something other than an outcast or a punching bag now? Did they think he was so desperate for acceptance and companionship that he would forgive them and bend over backwards to please them, as Fishlegs had?

He displayed multiple warning hints, first in his body language, then in his expression, about how much their continued presence displeased him. Perhaps he was becoming too used to nonverbal ques because he spent the majority of his time with a Night Fury. Eventually he gave up on subtlety completely, glared at them and hissed like Shadow did whenever Ghost mentioned eels and they backed off. Astrid glared at him and he bared his teeth in response.

He stormed away and disappeared into the woods as easy as breathing, though he doubled back often and made a couple of false trails to throw off any pursuers. They hadn't tried to follow him.

Yet.