It was one of those rare days on Berk when the horizon stretched endlessly and at the same time there seemed to be no difference between it and the earth. Sky and sea merged into an inseparable unity.
A stimulating, invigorating feeling of infinity filled the icy clear air, whose whistling, like a melodic folk song, gently reached one's ears and familiarized its listener with its unknown, mysterious lyrics.
Unhindered, the glaring winter sun beamed down from an azure sky, its barely perceptible rays nevertheless sufficient to make the swirling crystals of fine powder snow disappear even before they could brush Astrid's flushed cheeks.
By now, the third month of winter had arrived, of which Berk could have up to nine in total if the gods were not kind to them. It was Astrid's fifth winter, and she was only able to judge this thanks to the three months where hail fell instead of snow, although she preferred winter with its lush snow masses.
She hurriedly made her way through the almost waist-high snow. In some places it threatened to sink her with every stomping step, and demanded quite a bit of strength from her. But the little Viking was not discouraged by this. This was only the beginning of the winter.
She was on her way to the edge of the forest. It was not far behind the village grounds, where she encountered other children. For these, unlike the adults, had not yet lost their enjoyment of the white splendor and were romping about to their hearts' content, having boisterous snowball fights or building rather pitiful snowmen.
A terrible snow storm had been raging for the last few days, making them prisoners of their own drafty huts. However, its immense power could hardly be imagined, rather than believed, at the sight of the fine, largely untouched blanket of snow that literally enveloped Berk tenderly like a fine linen blanket.
Astrid's rosy cheeks were positively glowing, but this circumstance was more due to her barely visible joy than to the cold outside temperatures.
Finally!
After all the drearily frozen time she had for the first time the opportunity to test the wooden sword, which Odin had given her on Snoggletog, on children and not only dilapidated wooden beams, whose surprising resistance was not able to hide the fact that they could never start a fight anyway.
Her very first weapon. And it was all hers!
Soon she would be a real Viking and no longer a small child who was dependent on the help of adults.
Only with difficulty could she hold back a small cry of joy, while she pressed the sword to herself in delight and continued to head for the forest. The first treetops became visible, jutting up into the clear sky like dreary, charred trunks of a long-burned campfire.
Completely absorbed in her excitement, she hardly had eyes for the breathtaking natural spectacle that revealed itself around her. Neither for the filigree ice flowers. The wondrously ornate splinters seemed almost to have sprung from the hand of an artist and whose individual beauty nature had interwoven with its finely curved net; nor for the magical iridescence of her surroundings. Its brilliance could not compete with that of Astrid's blue eyes at the moment anyway.
Already she recognized the first, to her well known silhouettes of her clique, whereupon she again accelerated her step and called out a greeting to them. Apparently it remained unheard, since she received no reaction. Astonished, Astrid examined the four figures more closely. For no apparent reason, they had all bent their heads far back and were staring up at the sky.
Astrid followed their gazes before she actually realized what had taken up all of her friends' attention so much that they themselves were oblivious to her arrival; not until she raised her voice questioningly, "What's Hiccup doing?"
Suddenly she was aware of all their looks. Some were startled, in view of her unexpected presence, and others a little annoyed, since she had momentarily interrupted them in following the spectacle.
"He's climbing a tree!" was Snotlout's arrogant reply, but it elicited only a disgruntled snort from Astrid, while her anxious gaze was fixed firmly on the little boy, who seemed to have made it his goal to conquer the top of the tallest tree in the area.
Not particularly nimble, he first shimmied from one crooked branch to the next. Often he seemed to enjoy a free fall, as his legs usually slipped off and he wildly stretched out his arms, only to regain his balance at the last moment and tackle the next branch.
"I know that too, but why didn't any of you stop him?" She looked into impassive faces, only the irritated expressions of the twins made it clear to her that they couldn't make sense of it any more than she could.
"We've got to get him down before he hurts himself!" she finally decided decisively for them all, but before she could add anything else, Snotlout stopped her, "Why? Let the idiot do what he wants. I'm sure he still believes in trolls and goblins," he said, smugly wrinkling his reddened nose as if he hadn't believed in them himself until a month ago.
"Aren't we here to test our weapons?"
Fishlegs' face, revealed all too clearly to Astrid that he, too, had probably not yet been enlightened by his parents regarding mythical creatures. He even opened his mouth to inquire in shock whether this was true, but finally decided against it; he probably feared Snotlout's ensuing scorn.
Astrid sent him an angry, reproving look from under the thick fur trim of her hood.
"And you still believe Odin will bring you the gifts to Snoggletog?" the self-assured Viking boldly retorted. Immediately, Snotlout's cheeks turned a telltale red and the twins' gleeful giggles rang out in the background.
Their defense also seemed to have stirred Fishlegs' courage, as, despite obvious fear, he hesitantly took sides: "We should be nice to him. After all, his mom left for Valhalla not long ago."
"How come his mom gets to go on a trip and I don't?" Tuffnut complained angrily, looking at his sister in offense. "I want to go somewhere warmer, too, and I don't have to be with you all the time."
To Astrid's surprise, as she wouldn't have thought either of them capable of pronounced compassion, Ruffnut gave her brother a hearty head-butt that nearly knocked him off his feet to punish him for his stupidity.
"Fool," she said in her slow, dull way of speaking that both twins shared. "You don't even know how to sail yet."
While an argument now broke out between the siblings as to which of them deserved a trip to Valhalla in the first place, Astrid turned again to the other two. "I'll get him now."
Again she looked up at Hiccup and was amazed to see that, despite his sheer innate clumsiness, he had covered a good distance skyward.
"Hiccup!" she called to him, forming a shell around her mouth so that her call would reach up to his lofty heights. At first he faltered in his movement. It took a few moments before he was sure he hadn't misheard and stared down at them in wonder.
Relieved that she had not thrown him off balance by her interrupting call, Astrid waved at him to continue drawing attention to herself. While she couldn't make it out well from her vantage point, she thought she saw an honest smile on his face when he spotted her standing with the others at the base of the trunk. He, too, raised his hand to return her greeting.
"Wait, I-" But she abruptly interrupted herself the next moment as a large snowball hit Hiccup unprepared right in the face. As if in slow motion, they watched him slide off the thin branch he had been standing a moment ago. Blinded by the snow, he desperately tried to grab something, but the branches he panically tried to hold on all slipped away from under his fingers like windy lizards hunting over the warmed rocks in summer.
His fall was inevitable.
There was an unsightly bang, though slightly muffled by the snow, as Hiccup hit the ground with his back.
Astrid whirled around to the others, too horrified to even bring a word past her lips. They all stared at Snotlout, unblinking and motionless; even the twins paused, who by now had begun to roll in the snow, although it was to be feared that they had long since forgotten the real reason for their confrontation.
"What is it?" The latter replied with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders after dropping another snowball he had probably prepared for himself as a reserve in case his first one failed to hit its target. "You wanted him to come down, didn't you?"
Astrid's punch hit him completely unawares, as did Astrid herself. She didn't even remember when exactly she had attacked Snotlout. Plumply, the Viking boy landed on his ass and pressed a hand in front of his nose, blood slowly beginning to ooze from between his fingers.
Without giving him another second's thought, Astrid rushed to the hollow that Hiccup's thudding body had left in the dense blanket of snow.