CHAPTER 25: Meeting

One day following the election result, Grugg Hawkon was in one of his first ever weekly checkup meetings since becoming Chieftan, with the Founding Father. The Father, being the check on Hawkon's command, was keen to make sure Hawkon hadn't orchestrated any of the violence now known to him after reports of it from his fellow trusted vikings. Particularly during the election.

In contrast to the last few days where initially the palace hall was used as a queue for Pacifists to hand in their names to the council, followed subsequently by the election where the results were declared outside of here, it was now quiet and free of congregating voices, so much so that the winds could be heard whistling outside, and a few creeks of the building could be heard from the newly replaced wood.

It was tense. Hawkon was sat on one end of the table and the Founding Father was sat on the other end. There was quite a distance between the two men.

"Sir, always a pleasure to meet you in one of our first gatherings of many to come," Hawkon said, "I hope your health is doing well considering the circumstances."

"I don't need lecturing on my health, I might struggle to move around much more so now than ever before, but I don't need to be condescended. I've got a score to settle with you, Chieftan."

Grugg gulped. That's all he could do at this point.

The thing he always made sure to do whenever he was in the presence of the Founding Father was to be respectful and positive, to avoid any possibility of being removed as Chieftan. Even if it meant contradicting himself, whatever it took to convince the Founding Father he was suitable for the job, Hawkon would always do.

"Sorry sir. I just want you to be with us for as long as possible to witness our new future."

The Founding Father chuckled.

"Is this new future one where we have our own vikings attacking one another?" he asked Hawkon.

"I...I wouldn't imagine so sir, how would that be the case?"

"You think I haven't been paying attention? I've had my men over the case and we've seen it firsthand. We've had terrified vikings come up to the palace begging to see me to talk about what they'd witnessed, we also had vikings complain that they weren't allowed to vote without being forced to vote a way they never wanted."

Grugg Hawkon was quick to defuse the Founding Father's fuse. The most important thing for him at this moment was to look like he knew nothing about the cases the Father just mentioned.

"Sir, the last thing I'd ever do is rip apart our tribe's institution like that. Ever. And if there were any tampering of the votes then it was totally out of my ears. I never intended on it happening or anything like that taking place. I'm really sorry that I hadn't picked up on a few overly panicky guys doing things that violated our historic institutions."

"I'm not so sure, you know. They were cheering your name, they were shouting all sorts of things. I appointed you to fix our mess but it feels like there's a domestic situation here. You're not fixing the mess, you're creating the mess internally at this point, aren't you?" the Father asked.

"I genuinely am not, sir. I was taken to this island when I was abandoned by the Hooligans those years ago on Berk. I'd never ever do anything like that entirely on the fact I was given such a generous welcome here. I'm giving back to the tribe what it gave to me, and being the Chieftan allows me to do that. I promise, anybody doing whatever you've described will be dealt with by me and my council. We'll clamp down on the protesters and stop them ripping apart our institution. They do not speak in my name."

The Father still wasn't convinced.

"Deal with them next time in your speeches then. Do anything to call them out, make sure they get the message. Because you're not, and it's starting to concern me. Again, I understand we have a crisis amongst us with the wild dragons but I didn't appoint you Chieftan to create dividing lines within our tribe or whatever else it is you're planning. Don't use us as a playground for some sort of backroom tactics, is that clear?"

"Very much sir, you personify our whole tribe and I promise that your word is my command," Hawkon declared.

"I hope so."

That fear of Hawkon's supporters still got to the Founding Father, and Hawkon's fear of being sacked by the Father was still there. The feeling was mutual between the two of them.

"Your decree, what else are you proposing with it? given it's only temporary for three years I can't imagine you have anything too long term with it," the Father asked.

This was where Grugg Hawkon planned to coat the 'emergency decree' in a whole new set of paint for the sake of the Father. He was never going to explicitly tell him that it was to springboard the tribe closer to a dictatorship, but instead he was going to talk about the planned aspects in a positive light.

"I want us to start having our younger vikings train up and experience the thrill of being outside ready to fight. I'll be announcing the creation of a camping group where the young men of our tribe and young boys will be taken on camping excursions across our island and taught to use weapons and such. To pick up stamina, to be ready to become the true vikings I want us to be like the whole world was in the past. That's one I'm working on with the council as we speak sir. It'll ultimately mean when we're all older and the tribe is within the next generation's hands, they'll have acquired the fighting that I made compulsory for them to learn to defend themselves from the enemy."

"Anything else?" the Father asked.

"I'm also going to be declaring any dragon related gear, whether that be weapons or anything, banned from our tribe. For example sir, I want us to completely rid ourselves of armour made by dragon scales, I want it burnt and the ashes tossed into the ocean. We can somehow dispose of them even if the scales don't burn in fire. But that is our first step to declaring ourselves dragon-free. I then want to propose that under no circumstances do we let a dragon roam our island for more than a second. If we see one on the ground, small, medium or big, we just axe it and make it suffer, and then the remains we use as a trophy. That will be compulsory for all of our vikings across the board so we can once again protect ourselves and make it clear we are a dragon-free tribe who will no longer tolerate being the victims of the repulsive things," Hawkon declared.

The Founding Father, in contrast to his anger earlier on at the start of the meeting, was somewhat reassured by Hawkon's ability to actually produce solutions, even if deep inside he didn't really agree with any of them being compulsory. But he had to swallow it because he gave permission for Hawkon's emergency decree and so for the time being he was going to be pragmatic.

"Right. Again, I'll be keeping an eye on the happenings from here. The next time we meet up I'll expect zero violence from your supporters as they clearly were. Your ideas are workable even if I think there's flaws to them, and you actually have ideas to be fair. So don't let me down, sort out the problem, and I'll expect you to have lived up to my order for next week, and keep in mind that I can still limit anything I consider to be extreme, so these ideas you've come up with, if they go out of hand, I can shorten them and such. Understood?"

"Understood sir," Grugg Hawkon proudly declared, as the meeting began wrapping up.