Berk

I awoke from my crappy sleep early in the morning. After everything clicked in last night, I hadn't got a wink of sleep where I wasn't sweating, twisting and turning, or having nightmares. Hiccup was gone and from the sounds of the letter he had wrote me, he wasn't planning on coming back. I climbed out of bed and got dressed, putting on my armor and getting my axe from where I left it beside my bedside. The sun must have just been appearing over the horizon because my room was still dark. Looking out the window, I could see long shadows appearing over the village.

I made my way downstairs and out the door as quick as possible. It would seem like my parents were still asleep because the house was still dark and nobody was up and about. After searching for Hiccup for three days and coming up with nothing but the fallen trees near Raven's Point, the Chief had called off the searches and requested everyone to go back to their everyday lives.

The first thing I had to get done was to get my axe fixed. I knew Gobber wouldn't be awake yet so that would have to wait until later in the day. I made my way through the village, seeing very few people, and up towards the Great Hall. Regardless of the time of day, the Great Hall was always open and someone was either there to serve you food, or food had been left out for anybody returning to the island.

Just as I was pushing the door open to the Great Hall and stepping inside, I noticed the Chief sitting at his table on the council platform at the end of the hall. Stoick looked like he had been through Hel and back. He had his head down on the table and his hand clutched his tankard, full of what I would suspect would be mead, close to him. He must have heard the door open because he lifted his head and looked directly at me. Once he noticed it was just me, he motioned me over to talk.

I slowly made my way over towards the council platform and stood directly in front of it. I have never in my life been called up to stand front and center like this. Even with no one in the Great Hall, I felt intimidated, like I had done something terribly wrong and I was about to be punished. When I finally looked up towards the Chief, I noticed that he looked even worse up close. He was looking right at me, almost as if he was peering right into my soul. Finally, he took his off of me and took a swing of his mead, slamming it down before speaking.

"Hofferson, what brings you to the Great Hall this morning? Can't sleep?" Stoick started to say as he looked back over to me. Before I could answer either of the questions, he continued on without waiting for my response. "I haven't slept since I finally realized that Hiccup is gone. Searching the island over and over again has resulted in nothing about his whereabouts. Only Thor knows if he has been carried off by a dragon!" I didn't know what to say, if anything could be said to bring his spirits back up.

"First it was Valka that was carried off by those damned beasts! Now my son could have possibly faced the same fate! What kind of man am I if I can't even protect those closest to me?" By now, the Chief had tears in his eyes.

Once he had finally finished speaking, he took another swing from his tankard and put his head down on the table. Realizing that he had forgotten that I was even there, I did what I thought was the best solution to this problem. I knew the people of Berk couldn't see the Chief completely destroyed by the loss of his son or else they would lose hope as well. I made my decision then and there, I turned on my heel as quick as I could and rushed out the Great Hall doors.

Even with minimal training the past few days, there was barely anybody on the island that could match my agility and speed. I ran as fast as I could towards the Jorgenson's household. Gobber would have been the preferred person to run to but considering how early it was and how slow the old man walked with his wooden leg, it would take a reasonable amount of time for him to make his way to the Great Hall. Spitelout was Stoick's brother and second in command, he would know exactly what to do in this situation.

The Jorgenson's household wasn't far from the Great Hall or from the Haddock's household either. While the Haddock household was built on the hillside at the very top of the village, away from everyone else and closest to the Great Hall, the Jorgenson's house was at the very edge of the village and the closest household to the Haddock's residence.

I reached the Jorgenson's house in record time and stood on their doorstep. I took a moment to catch my breath before I knocked loudly on the front door. BANG BANG BANG! On the inside of the household, I heard some shuffling around and some grumbling coming from someone before the door swung open and Spitelout appeared. He looked almost as bad as the Chief. Being second in command, he had to take care of everything that the Chief assigned him, and with the search that happened, Spitelout looked like he was worked day and night barely getting any sleep.

Spitelout rubbed his eyes a few times before casting his gaze down on me. "Astrid? What are you doing here? Has the sun even broken the horizon yet?" Spitelout had said tiredly before yawning.

"Sorry to awake you Sir, but it seems like we might have an issue on our hands." I quickly said looking back up to him. This got his attention quickly because his eyes shot wide open and he started looking towards the sky.

"What is it lass? Are we getting raided? Is it an another dragon attack?" When he finally finished looking around, realizing that the skies were clear and there wasn't any commotion going on, he looked back down at me. As if waiting for an answer and not receiving one, he pushed on, "Well?"

"Sorry Sir. It's not a raid or a dragon attack. The issue is with the Chief. It seems like he has passed out on the council table. I don't think the people of Berk should see our Chief down and defeated like he is, or else it might show the other tribes that we are at our weakest point." I mentioned to him and waited for his answer. He seemed to take a minute to think about it and finally signed very loudly to himself.

"Thank you Astrid. I will take care of it right away." Spitelout said to me before stepping back into his household and shutting the door and dismissing me. I had started to leave the doorstep and heard some rummaging coming from inside the Jorgenson's household before I got out of earshot.

I started to make my way down towards the village center when right before I broke into the center of the village, I turned off onto the path that lead into the forest. The sun was just breaking over the horizon and was finally waking up Berk with it's orangey-yellow glow. I still wasn't sure what I was doing. My axe was broken so I couldn't train, the day was still early and most people wouldn't be up for a while, dragon training had been cancelled until we have recovered more dragons, and the search of Hiccup had been called off.

Once I reached the edge of the forest, I stopped and turned around to look over Berk. For some reason the village felt empty even though I knew deep down that only one person was missing from the island. I had this weird feeling in my gut and wasn't sure what it was but I pushed it down and turned back around and headed straight into the forest. I still wasn't sure where I was going but I needed to clear my head.

With no destination in mind, I just walked, sometimes ran, and before I knew it, I was jumping, sliding and flipping over, under, and around trees without even realizing I was doing so. It felt weird doing some training exercises without my axe. I had brought the axe head with me as far as the edge of the forest where I dropped it beside a tree and covered it up with leaves so nobody would find it if they were walking by.

Once I started to feel the burn in almost all my limbs, I decided to take a break. I wasn't sure how long I had been training and I also had no clue as to where I was. Even though I knew every nook and cranny of the island, everything became a blur when I was training at such an intensity. Sitting down against a tree and catching my breath, I started to survey my surroundings to try and figure out where exactly I had come. Seeing the way the trees and rocks were on this side of the island, I knew that I didn't commonly come to this side.

As I was looking around, I started to notice some familiar landmarks within the forest and knew instantly that I wasn't very far from Raven's Point. Actually, as more landmarks became familiar, I knew that I had passed Raven's Point and I wasn't too far away from where my search party had found the broken branches, broken trees, and a rut in the ground where it looked like something impacted at high speeds.

Once I actually figured out where I was, I stood up from where I was sitting and looked around again, trying to figure out exactly where the damage occured. I looked out over the ocean, the opposite direction of the sun, and knew that directly East of where I was I should be able to find the damage. I turned around on my heel and starting walking East. I didn't know why I was going towards the broken branches and trees, because almost everyone in Berk had seen it and all determined the same thing, a dragon had crash landed and escaped, but I knew otherwise.

I continued walking East until I came across the damage. It was strange coming at it from this angle because I found myself directly where the dragon impacted the ground. Looking back towards the village, I could see all the broken trees and branches lying all over the place. I turned myself the opposite direction and followed where the rut got deeper and deeper before coming to a stop just before a rock. I stood exactly where the dragon had stopped and surveyed the area, searching for something but not exactly knowing what.

I had moved some leaves with my foot where I was standing and something caught my eye. I bent down and and brushed away more leaves, revealing some rope that seemed to be cut. Even with everyone searching the area once we had found it, we all had missed this rope because it was buried under some leaves and dirt.

Hiccup had said in his letter that he had released the Night Fury and that he had tried to fly away. I looked up into the trees again in the same direction that I had walked, and I started to notice little branches higher up that were broken off. Some tree trunks had claw marks on them as if the dragon had to jump of tree to tree or was trying to stop himself from slamming into the trees. All of this went directly over everyones head who surveyed the area because they were looking at the ground and not where a dragon could fly.

Hiccup also said that he had come back to where he shot down the Night Fury and heard the painful cries of the dragon not too far away, which meant that wherever the dragon was, it wasn't very far away from where I currently stood. I decided to investigate a little more on my own. Nobody would miss me in the village, they would all figure that I was out training or something as it wasn't uncommon for me to train in the mornings.

I started to follow the smaller broken branches and claw marks on the trunks down a small hill. Further and further I went, I started noticing that they were getting fewer and farer in between. Without noticing, I walked almost directly into a fifty foot drop into the cove, just barely catching myself. I looked over the cove just like so many people did before me. We had brushed off the cove because there was really nowhere to hide, you could see the entire cove from where I was standing, but again, those people did not know what to look for.

As I was looking over the cove, I started to notice that on the rocks that circled the cove, there seemed to be marks all over them, most of the time there was four or five lines in a group and one group right beside the next. I knew for a fact that those marks were not natural and that a dragon had caused them. This must have been the cove that Hiccup had found the Night Fury trapped in, it even had the pond of which Hiccup described that he had dropped his dagger in.

I started to make my way around the top edges of the cove before I found a little passageway leading into it. I found many footprints in the mud, mostly caused by the same boot impression, one that was smaller than the normal viking and much lighter from the looks of it. Looking at the passageway, I knew that a normal size viking would struggle to get through the passageway, just by looking at it, I knew that even Fishlegs would struggle with the task. I jumped down the passageway and into the cove.

Once inside the cove, the first thing I ran into was a shield from Berk lodged in between two rocks. I tried to move it myself but noticed that it was completely stuck where it was. I quickly ducked under the shield and found myself in the middle of the cove. I noticed that Hiccup's footprints were not the only things in the cove. Many of the deeper impressions in the mud looked like a dragon footprint with claws, one that I had never seen before in my lifetime or in any of the books that I had read.

As I explored the cove, I found a drawing that could be done by none other than Hiccup himself. It seemed to have been smudged a bit but it was no doubt recognizable as someone's head. It was such a weird shape that it had to be the Night Fury's head in the dirt. I also noticed many more deeper impressions in the dirt as well as a discarded tree off to one side. Not only did Hiccup draw in the dirt, but it looked like the dragon tried to as well.

I continued walking around the cove until I came across a spot near the edge of the cove on one of the higher spots that looked to be completely burned black. The area was concentrated in one area and seemed to have some dragon footprints around it, which indicated that this spot was burned by the dragon himself. I bent down and picked up some rocks that were laying on the ground in the area, most of them completely black.

With a few rocks in my hand, I walked over to where the pond in the cove was and washed some of the rocks within the water. If Hiccup was telling the truth, than some of these "rocks" should actually be Night Fury scales. As I was washing the last rock in the water and placing it aside, the sun seemed to glitter off something in the water not to far from the edge.

I reached over and tried to grab a hold of whatever was flickering in the water and yanked my hand back quickly as I grasped something very sharp. I looked at my hand once I pulled it out of the water and noticed a small cut in it that was just barely starting to bleed. Whatever it was, I wanted to grab a hold of it to see exactly what it was. Again, I reached down and carefully felt around in the mud and felt the sharp item once more, I patted the ground a few more times until I came across a handle of some sort. I grasped the handle in my hand and brought out whatever was attached and I honestly could not believe my eyes. In my hands was a dagger that looked very familiar.

"I guess he was telling the truth…" I said to nobody in particular. The dagger that I had found was Hiccup's personal dagger, one that he had crafted himself as his very first weapon. The workmanship of the dagger was unbelievable. You could tell by looking at the way the blade was, how sharp it was, and the way the handle was, that many hours were spent crafting this fine piece of workmanship. I twirled the dagger around in my hands a few times and found that it was perfectly balanced, and as I was twirling it, my eye caught something on the end of the handle. Taking a closer look at the end of the handle, I found Hiccup's signature mark, a H3 with the 3 being carved directly overtop the H. This just confirmed that this was indeed Hiccup's personal dagger.

After inspecting the dagger a little while longer, I remember that I had some rocks that I had cleaned up sitting not to far away. I sheathed the dagger in a spare pouched on my waist and picked up the rocks. I held up some of the rocks to the sun and with no luck, they just seemed to be ordinary rocks. I threw the ordinary rocks into the cove and watched them sink to the bottom. I was on the last rock that I had cleaned and held it up to the sun. I knew right away that this wasn't any ordinary rock because the sun actually shined through it. I held the "rock" up towards the sun, squinted one eye and looked into the rock with the other one, and noticed that the sun seemed to turn blue as I did so. I couldn't believe it, what Hiccup had said in his letter was true, in my hands was a Night Fury scale.

I couldn't handle it. Everything that Hiccup had said in his letter was true. The shield from Berk, the dagger found in the pond, the Night Fury scale, the drawing, the footprints. Everything was true, Hiccup had run off with a Night Fury. Everything seemed to hit me at once. Hiccup was gone and he didn't plan on coming back. I fell to my knees holding the Night Fury scale in front of me and held back tears.

I didn't know how long I had stayed there a looked over the cove after I had finally calmed down, but I finally knew what I had to do. I tucked the Night Fury scale into my back pocket and slowly got to my feet. I look around the cove again, taking in exactly what it looked like before making my way over to the entrance that I had climbed down. I decided to leave the shield where it was because it was so lodged into the rocks that I don't think that I could release it myself. Glancing over the cove one last time, I turned around and climbed out the entrance.

After exiting the cove, I slowly walked back towards the village. My mind was still swirling with all that I had found and from everything hitting me at once. I thought back to the time when Hiccup and I were actually friends, we would do everything together which included playing Viking and Dragon, where one would be the dragon and the other would be a viking which had to take down the dragon before he could take you down. Those times were the simplest of times, where neither of us had to worry about what was going on around us and only what we were going to play next.

I thought back to when we snuck out of the village to go hunt for trolls. Gods, Hiccup would believe anything that someone said, especially Gobber. We walked into the forest without a care in the world, holding our wooden swords that Gobber had made us. We walked around the forest aimlessly before realizing that it was getting dark and that we had no idea where we were. When the Chief and my parents finally figured out that we were gone, they sent out a search party which eventually found us in the forest. We both got a scolding from the Chief, telling us to never leave the village again. You'd think that would have stop Hiccup? Nope, he was trying to sneak out of the village to hunt for trolls the very next day.

I let out a loud sigh as I thought about all the good times I had with Hiccup. I even thought to the point where we both competed against each other in sword to sword combat training, both of us with wooden swords. I was already at a point where I was training with an axe but Hiccup could barely lift a dagger, let alone a real sword. We would battle each other for hours on end and I would always win. When I had tried to let him win once, he had called me out on it and had finished for the day, not even an hour into playing. He eventually apologized for his reaction but mentioned to me never to let him win on purpose.

Times were definitely simpler before we had both turned ten winters. Hiccup was forced into training for his Chief duties and to practice weapon smithing with Gobber in the forge. Once our time was cut down to almost nothing, I threw myself into training everyday to become the best female warrior that Berk has ever seen. Hiccup and I tried to make some time for ourselves but it never seemed to work out. Eventually Hiccup had stop talking to me completely and I had finally joined the group of kids our age so that I could actually train with real weapons. The only downside to the group is that they would bully him nonstop. I always tried to stop them but when they turned on me and made fun of me for protecting the weakling, I stopped telling them to leave Hiccup alone but I never joined in myself.

I didn't even realize where I was until the trees broke and I found myself looking over the village from the top of the hill. There was a group of people gathered around the Haddock household with Spitelout on his doorsteps trying to calm people down. It would seem as if Spitelout had gotten the Chief home and was now trying to act as "Stand-In Chief" while Stoick was left to mourn by himself. With Stoick not around, it seemed as if a gloom had settled over the village. Even the people who were celebrating Hiccup leaving were walking around the village as if they were lost.

I had gathered my axe head from where I had placed it against the tree and finally started to make my way into the village. The second stop on my journey today would be the forge where hopefully Gobber was awake and working. I walked into the forge like I have done so many times before to find the furnace on full blast and a handful of weapons lined up to be repaired and/or smelted down and made into new ones. The old blacksmith had his back turned to me as I walked in, deep into his work.

"Good Morning Gobber" I had said, trying to speak over the roar of the flame.

CLANG! "Oh Frigga!" Gobber exclaimed very loudly as he jumped, dropped the tool he was holding in his good hand, and turned around to look at me. "You scared the undies right off of me Lass, don't do that."

"Sorry Gobber, didn't mean to scare you like that"

"It's alright Lass, what can I help you with today?" Gobber said to me as he bent down to pick up the tool he had dropped.

"Well, I was kind of hoping you could fix my axe for me. You see, I was training with it last night and the axe head seemed to have slipped right off the handle" I said to the old blacksmith as I held out the axe head to him.

"Well Lass, I will see what I can do but it might take me awhile," Gobber said as he took the axe head and inspected it himself. "You see Astrid, this axe was made specifically for you by Hiccup," the old blacksmith mentioned as he twirled it around in his good hand. "He put hours upon hours into the axe trying to make it perfect for you. I don't know how he did it as he could barely hold it up himself but to this day he would always say that it was his greatest creation."

"You mean to tell me that Hiccup…" I slowly said as I realized.

"Yes Lass, Hiccup himself created that axe for you. He practically begged me to allow him to make it for you when your Father came in and requested it. If you look closely, you can find his signature on all the creations he had made, including yours" explained as he handed me the axe head back to me.

I twirled the axe head in my hands a few times before finally resting on one side. I never really looked at the axe head before but I finally started to inspect the engravings in the axe head itself. Directly in the center of the engraving was Hiccups signature, a small H with a 3 overlapping it. I inspected it more closely and started noticing more words inside the engravings. Let this axe guide you through the toughest battles, slice through your strongest foe, and give you strength when you most require it. This axe will be an extension of your arm, something you can rely on in the heat of battle, something that will never fail you.

I almost couldn't believe what I was reading. Hiccup had spent hours carving and engraving this axe for me and I never knew. I held it in my hands as tears again welled up and spilled onto the axe head. I quickly wiped them away, turning away from Gobber before he noticed.

"I never knew… All this time, my favorite axe was created by Hiccup" I said quietly to myself.

"What was that Lass? You are going to have to speak up if you want me to hear you. My hearing isn't what it used to be" Gobber said from behind me.

"Nothing Gobber," I said as I turned around again to face the old blacksmith. "Hiccup mentioned to me that he made a spare handle for my axe and that it was somewhere in his small workshop at the back of the forge."

"Did he now?" he said as he raised an eyebrow. "Well, you are welcome to take a look but don't damage anything, it's the only memory I have of Hiccup" Gobber said with a sad voice as he turned around and continued to work on whatever he was doing.

I walked towards the back of the forge, where Hiccup had his little workshop. Many nights I would see his light on indicating that he was working well into the night on whatever project he was currently working on. I slowly pushed the door open and gasped at what I had found on the other side.

All over the walls and his desk were drawings of his inventions as well as other drawings of things he loved. I entered the room and sat in his chair, one he sat in so many nights before, and just looked at all his designs. A few drawings looked very familiar to the axe head I was carrying, some more recent pictures showed the design for the second handle that was currently hid in my secret stash. There was inventions here that would completely help the village out as well, including a "fire prevention system" a "windmill" and even a "sawmill". All designs created to help out the village in one way or another. The fire prevention system was to be installed on every house and in case of a fire, a string would be pulled and douse the fire completely. I didn't understand what the windmill and sawmill was for but it looked like they would help out tremendously.

Finally, I let my eyes rest on his desk where a lot of his recent creations were scattered. There was one creation that stood out right away. A prosthetic tailfin attached to a saddle on the side of a dragon that I had never seen before. The picture of the dragon could be no other than the Night Fury that Hiccup had talked about in his letter to me.

I was absolutely astonished at what I had found. I had never known this side of Hiccup. I always knew he was smarter than the rest of the kids our age but never thought that he spent all his time trying to create things to help out the village the only way he knew how. With his invention of the fire prevention system, we could save time rebuilding houses and spend more time protecting the village, and only Thor knows how much time and resources we would save with his other inventions.

I glanced towards the desk and directly in the center of it was my old handle. I recognized it instantly as it looked so similar to the one he had designed for the message. I picked up the handle and inspected it, tracing the leather and the carvings in the leather and metal. The handle was just as beautiful as the axe head and it took my breath away. I tried searching for hidden messages like I had found in the axe head but I had found nothing. The one thing that I did find was Hiccup's signature on the bottom of the handle, worn down from years of training but still shining through if you knew what to look for.

I got up from where I was sitting and walked out of Hiccup's workshop and back into the forge. "Gobber" I said as normally as I could, trying not to scare the old blacksmith more than twice today. BANG! He seemed to have missed the weapon he was working on, swearing under his breath before turning towards me. "I found the handle that Hiccup had left behind. I am going to leave them over here so you can repair them." He noticed where I was leaving them and turned back to his work. "I will be off now, and will visit again tomorrow" and with a wave of his hand, I was out of the forge and into the village again.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Without my axe to train with, and dragon training being put on hold until more dragons were caught, I was left to do my daily chores and sent on my way to practice whatever I felt like practicing. My parents knew I was a warrior and by pledging myself a shieldmaiden, they didn't force me to learn "womanly" activities. The only "womanly" activity that I wanted to learn was how to heal people. Protecting the tribe didn't always mean defending them from attacks, it also meant helping out where needed, healing people that needed to be healed, and making sure each and every person had what they needed to survive.

So for the foreseeable future, I would get my daily chores finished early and train with the healers as much as I could. I learned how to take care of people and how to handle most wounds inflicted in battle. The main focus I learned on was how to deal with the damages caused by a dragon attack, whether it be poison or a burn, I was taught the best way to heal the wounds. Eventually, I learned how to look for signs of certain illnesses and what I should do in case of certain illnesses, including healing potions. I got to the point where I was being taught how to make the more complex healing potions and using more complex healing ingredients, but I kept screwing up the order, or I would cook something to long and instead of healing it would be poisonous instead. The healers decided that I could accomplish basic healing when needed but would have to leave the more complex healing to the actual healers.

During my training with the healers, I continually went to the forge to check out the process on my axe. I knew Gobber was piled up with work and that my axe was on the list of least priority when other, older vikings needed their weapons repaired. During one of my early visits, I was surprised to not only find Gobber working the forge, but also Fishlegs.

"Fishlegs? What are you doing in the forge?" I had asked the husky guy. Fishlegs was one of the only people that Hiccup talked to regularly to before he left, but was still made fun of when all the other kids were around. I knew Fishlegs cared for his friend Hiccup, but I also knew that he was in the same boat as myself and didn't want to be made fun of either.

"Oh! H-hi Astrid..." Fishlegs stuttered as he turned around to face me. "Spitelout came to me yesterday and asked if I could help with the workload that Gobber had. He told me that he asked Snotlout to do so but he whined that he needed to put his full attention into practicing for "Chief", whatever that means."

That lazy, no good, rotten boot licker. "I see… It's nice to see that Gobber will have some help. When I saw his workload the other day, it looked as if he would never catch up." Fishlegs kind of just shrugged and turned around to look at the workload.

"I heard that Lass!" Gobber said as he came over to where Fishlegs and I were talking. Fishlegs looked like he jumped out of his skin, still nervous around anyone who raised their voice. "I'll have you know that I am the best blacksmith on this side of the archipelago! Nobody can compare to the work I have done!" Gobber proudly announced as he swung his hammer attachment around in the air a few times and pounded on his chest. "You should learn to respect your -" all of a sudden, he grabbed his his bad arm as if he was in pain, "Oh Thor, I should not have done that." He said through gritted teeth, clearly showing he was in pain.

"Gobber, are you alright?" I quickly walked over to the blacksmith once I had noticed his pain. "Where does it hurt?" I asked him before he could respond.

"Nothing… to worry about… Lass. Just another cramp. These old bones don't like the strain I've been putting them through recently." He had said as he was trying to and finally catching his breath.

"Just take it easy for a bit, have some water and relax." I motioned for him to sit down in one of the small chairs he had sitting around the forge. He accepted my offer and sat down grabbing his tankard off the side of the forge. In all of the commotion, Fishlegs just stood beside us, clearing in shock at to what was happening.

"Fishlegs has come at the right time, even though I can't train him like I did Hiccup, he will have to do." Gobber had said while he took a swing of water or mead or whatever was in the tankard. "Fishlegs" he said snapping Fishlegs out of his current state. "Turn down the heat on the forge and take those weapons out before they become liquid metal."

"Y-yes Gobber" as the husky boy basically ran over to the forge, tripping on a few things inside the forge before getting to the forge. He quickly doused the fire with the water bucket located at the side of the forge in case of the fire getting out of control. He opened up an additional hatch located beside the forge with a pull of a chain. Fishlegs also took the weapons out from the forge and placed them aside just like Gobber had asked him to.

"Fishlegs…" Gobber had said with an annoyed look on his face. Fishlegs seemed to go pale as a ghost, recognizing the same thing I did. "When I asked you to turn down the heat on the forge, I didn't mean for you to put out the forge completely. Nothing to be done now, I guess we are done using it today."

"Sorry Gobber, I didn't know what you meant. I noticed the bucket and quickly doused the fire," Fishlegs explained. It was true, I knew that Fishlegs was part of the fire prevention team that doused fires that happened during the dragon raids and he was only following his instinct.

Turning back to me, "Lass, where did you put your axe again? Now that we don't have the forge, I figured I can get it fixed for you today."

"I believe I left it over here," I said as I got up and walked over to where Hiccup was always known to be working in the forge. On top of his work desk, I found my axe in the exact same place that I had left it. I picked up the axe head and handle and walked back over to Gobber, showing him again.

"Ah, I see what he has done. Very clever that boy." Gobber mumbled to himself and took a look over the axe head and handle that I had given him. "Give me a few hours and I will have this axe back in the condition you once had it," and with that, he turned around. "Fishlegs, grab me my hook attachment."

Once the two vikings were back to work and I was completely ignored, I took that as my leave and left the forge. Just like every other day, I went and trained with the healers again, and was dismissed before the sun had left the sky. The healers mentioned that there was nothing more that I was capable of learning, saying that I had perfected everything they had trained me. I walked down towards the forge again, hoping that what Gobber had said was true, and that my axe would be fixed before nightfall.

As I approached the village plaza, where the forge was located, I noticed that the village seemed awfully quiet tonight. I could only guess that a lot of people had finished their chores and task early and had headed up to the Great Hall to enjoy a meal. I noticed that the forge's light came sprawling into the plaza and as I walked closer, I noticed the two vikings from earlier working away.

"Hey guys" I said as I entered the forge. BANG!

"OWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" Gobber said from his side of the forge. He quickly stuck his thumb into his mouth as I realized that he must have hit it with the hammer when I announced my arrival. "You really need to stop doing that Astrid" was the only respond I heard from Gobber as he spoke around his thumb. Fishlegs looked like he had jumped out of his skin again, and turned completely pale. He took a moment extra to catch his breath before turning around.

"Sorry Gobber. I came to check on the progress of my axe." I said to him as I stood in the doorway. Gobber pointed his hammer attachment at Fishlegs and to the desk behind him. Fishlegs must have understood the gesture as he turned around, picked a weapon off the table and turned around again. I instantly recognized my axe in its full glory as he held it out for me to grab, handle first.

It felt like ages since I had seen my axe complete, and I grabbed it from Fishlegs hands, giving it a few swings in the air before sheathing it on my back. I finally felt like myself again, after being without my axe for so long. "Thank you Fishlegs." I turned towards the old blacksmith who was pulling on his whiskers, "Thank you as well Gobber. I don't know what I would have done without you and Fishlegs."

"Eh, don't worry about it Lass. Hiccup would have wanted us to fix it." Gobber said.

"ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR" CRASH

"And it was just in time." I turned on my heel and ran out of the forge, looking towards the sky. In the sky was hundreds of dragons all ready to attack Berk. I pulled my axe from my back and yelled "DRAGON RAID!" It wasn't long before Vikings of all ages flooded the streets, ready to protect their homes.