"So, everyone be on board now?"
The meeting did not take long in retrospect. It took longer to explain the three new younglings and the new Night Fury to everyone than to explain the plan thought up while members of the nest were gone. This question posed by Stoick was the second time he gave it. The first resulted in Hiccup speaking and suggesting tweaks. Gyda was pleased to see Stoick listening to his son, actually listening, and both working out a plan that had everyone nodding their heads. Stoick had come along way. Gyda just wished the price for that had not been as high as it had been. Still, she did have something to add. Something that she needed to do but she also knew she would need both of their permissions for it. Hiccup was Alpha and Stoick as chief. Both held authority over her. Authority she had no fear in bowing to.
She stood, clearing her throat.
"Gyda?" Stoick asked. "What be on yer mind, lass?"
"I have nothing to change the plan you have all devised. I only seek permission to do something that will enhance it."
"What? Yer magic?" Phelgma asked. "We thought ye be usin' that anyways."
Gyda smiled. "If my liege lord wishes it, yes," she said softly. "The thing I wish to do is not magical. It is something I learned from my sensei."
When Hiccup first suggested the older Riders learn Gyda's karate, he had done so before the Council. Gyda knew he had done so because the Council would need to give permission for the teens missing lessons and chores during their training times. Hiccup also did not want to go behind his father's back anymore, not when both were actually becoming a family. Gyda respected that, even rejoiced in it. Since it was just the Council, the Elders, the older Riders, and a select few extra, trusted tribe members and dragons in the Great Hall, Gyda had no fear explaining this portion of her training with her sensei.
"What did he teach you that will aid us here beyond the martial arts you are already teaching us?" Hiccup asked.
"Traps," Gyda responded. "Specifically traps learned in his homeland for use in forested areas such as the main island. Since we are allowing Alvin to land so his ships will be undermanned and lessen the risks posed to the Scauldrons and Tide Gliders when they attack, I can set these traps and reduce the numbers he will have."
"Reduce?" Gobber questioned. "Ye mean-"
"The traps will kill those caught in them, yes."
[You know,] Shadowfire said before anyone could respond. He lifted his head as he and all the dragons lounged around the firepit in between and behind the benches the humans were using, [I would pity those Outcasts, but they did ask for this,] he finished staring at his mother.
Gyda snorted. "One asked for this, son," she said. "One wishes for something that will never be his. Both will crash painfully and fatally if I have my way."
"Ye aim ta kill Bearspit and Alvin?" Stoick asked.
In answer, Gyda reached for her core and let it spark throughout her. She heard the lighting crackle and felt it slip from her fingers and curl up her arms. Shadowfire and Frostfire began to cackle in rather dark tones.
[Mom's done playing nice,] Frostfire said.
[So, what do you think,] Shadowfire began, looking at his brother who sat with Sharpshot, Sneaky, Iggy, and Buttercup upon the lip of the firepit everyone was around. [Poison on the spikes? Or good old fashion flaying of skin after they're all trussed up?]
Frostfire's eyes narrowed. [Hm, neither. She's really mad. Madder than she was when that Tiny-icespitter almost got me exiled. They'll get a lighting bolt to the temple. Short. Simple. Effective. She can continue on, giving many others the same before their bodies hit the ground.]
"Excuse me?" Hiccup asked. "You are talking like she's done this before."
"I never flayed anyone's skin off," Gyda said, sending Shadowfire a pointed glance.
[Aw, come on, Mom. It's creative license.]
Gyda rolled her eyes. She looked back to Hiccup, but her gaze shifted to Astrid. "Do you remember in my dining hall you asked if I defended a village with my magic?"
"Yes. You said you were not an official defender." She saw the moment Astrid understood where she was going with that question. "Those times you stepped in when they could not."
Gyda recalled her magic, not wanting to weaken herself before the fight. "Once a young child had been taken from his parents' home. The kidnapper stupidly thought he could hide in my cave. I taught him the error of such thinking. The other, a young moron thought his wealth meant he could take what was not his from a girl who did not want to give him anything. He also ran onto my family's land. He did not run off it."
"Good on ye," Phelgma stated.
A statement echoed around the entire firepit. Gyda stared at Hiccup who, while frowning, did not appear distraught or disgusted by her tale. It always amused Gyda that some people would watch the second movie and immediately think Hiccup was a pacifist for wanting to reason with Drago.
They all seemed to forget he chose to kill that Red Death in the first movie. There was no thought of ever trying to train her or relocate her. Once Astrid fell off of Stormfly, he actively enticed the bigger dragon into a place of vulnerability and proceeded to have Toothless ruthlessly create holes in her wings before taunting her into a dive she could not recover from. All to get her to present him a chance to explode her gases when she tried to flame them.
They forgot in the war with Krogan and his Flyers, Hiccup actively shot men off the backs of Singetails and ordered his Riders to do so as well. The shows may have downplayed it, but simple physics and a basic understanding of gravity would tell anyone what happened to those men when they hit the water from that far up. None in Viking times knew how to correctly dive into water after all and even that knowledge would not have allowed those men a chance to survive from that high up. Or from what waited below if no one thought to fish them out of the waves.
Hiccup may not have been a murderer, but he would not hesitate to kill if he had to. That he sought peace before being forced to take a life did not mean pacifism. It just meant, Hiccup held more honor and wisdom than most would believe a Viking to hold.
"May I set up my traps for Alvin and his men?" Gyda asked when the murmuring ceased.
Both Stoick and Hiccup nodded their heads. Gyda bowed to both. She gave her sons one look they would understand, spun her heels, and walked out.
Prince: Yes. The first chapter showed her throwing her axe. She and Hiccup also still train under Eydis and all the teen Riders train under Gyda in karate. And yes, she will get to fight. No one is ever gonna tell Astrid she cannot fight and defend the nest.