A/N – Thank you for the overwhelmingly positive response! I'm so glad you all like this story. This story, like my others, won't have a regular update schedule – I apologize. I will update it when I update it. Motivation is a tricky mistress.
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Chapter 2
Astrid sat in the shaded royal stands that overlooked the walled-in fencing court. During the summer, traveling shows stopped by and performed their daring stunts of athleticism, acrobatics, and fire-breathing; today the squires used it to test their abilities with a blade. Blunt blades, of course. Wouldn't want a squire losing an arm so quickly into the tournament.
The duel would provide the order in which the squires would follow during their training. They would duel one on one, until the ranks had been decided.
"Fine day for this," Queen Lenora said. "Not a cloud in the sky. Gentle eastward breeze. Autumn on the air."
Tegard, slumped in his chair beside his father, sighed.
"Sit up straight," King Arvid said at once. "You're a prince. Act like it."
"If I'm a prince, I should get to do whatever I please," Tegard said without looking at his father.
"Being a prince means you wear the crown with pride. Each child of the kingdom is a child of yours, rich or poor," King Arvid said. "Kings that do as they please are often beheaded by their own followers, righteous upstarts, and revolutionaries."
"Not if I have then jailed first."
"Who would put them in jail?"
"My knights."
"And if those knights mutinied against you?"
Tegard paused, then rolled his eyes. "I'd throw them in jail."
"But if those who enforce the law break it, who enforces the law to them?" King Arvid said. When Tegard didn't answer immediately, he continued, "Kings rules justly over all. Tyrants rules with fear and destruction. If your people turn again you, you are a ruler no longer."
Tegard huffed. He pushed his back against the chair, but when his father turned his attention elsewhere, slumped again.
Astrid held her shoulders firm; her father would not catch her slumping.
The first two squires took to the court; Snotlout Jorgenson and the large blond boy. They began to fight.
"Snotlout has strength, but he's just flailing the sword," King Arvid said.
"That other boy is Fishlegs Ingerman," Queen Lenora said to Astrid. "His parents own the Ingerman Orchard and Bakery. Best apple pies in the kingdom."
"He's large, but he's not very intimidating," Astrid said to her mother.
Fishlegs countered Snotlout's fierce blows, but never made the move to counterattack. Snotlout's blade smacked Fighlegs's calf.
"Hit!" Stoick shouted from the court's side. "Snotlout wins the duel."
Two knights kept score on a smooth wooden plank. Snotlout moved up a rank. He held his sword above his head and let out a roar.
"What a braggart," Astrid said. "He's won a single round."
Queen Lenora let out a short groan. "Just like his father."
The rounds continued. Snotlout moved up the ranks, winning duel after duel; the only two combatants that gave him trouble were Tuffnut Thorston, who screamed like a manic and in Snotlout's daze, poked him in the chest with his sword, and Hiccup Haddock; which to Astrid's surprise moved about the court like his feet had minds of their own, with a clumsy grace that bewildered her. Hiccup and Snotlout danced about the court, dodging and clanking metal against metal. Hiccup had speed. Snotlout had strength.
Astrid wanted Hiccup, the runt, to best the bully in the match. However, he didn't. Snotlout won the match, although Hiccup had lasted longer than any of the others.
"I see why Stoick let him into the tournament," King Arvid said. "Boy's quick on his feet. Light in battle. With training, he could be useful."
"He looks like his mother," Queen Lenora said. "She had that flighty sense about her. Brilliant woman, but a little strange."
Brilliant but strange. Those words fit Hiccup Haddock.
Hiccup hadn't finished last, but he hadn't finished first, either. He'd landed near the middle, along with Fishlegs who'd found his courage after the defeat with Snotlout. Snotlout, however, had finished first.
"Oi! Oi! Oi!" Snotlout shouted.
"Gods," Queen Lenora said. "Just like his father."
"Since the ceremony is over," King Arvid said, "I have business I must attend to."
"I'd like to stay and watch," Astrid said.
"Very well, dear," King Arvid said, patting the back of her hand. "Keep that sharp eye of yours on them."
King Arvid stood, waved down to Stoick, and departed through the wooden door behind the platform.
"Can I go, too?" Tegard pleaded. "I'm bored."
"Fine, but I better not hear of you sneaking into the kitchen. I'll let Hildegard whip you this time."
Tegard said nothing, but bolted through the same door as his father.
Stoick took the center of the courtyard, sword in hand.
"You must know your opponent's movements," Stoick said to the squires. "You must know your sword as well as your hand. It must become a part of you. An extension of yourself. You must know the fight well enough to know where your opponent will go, left, right, forward; you must predict this in the heat of battle, or perish. When I say 'perish,' I mean you will be left on the battlefield to bleed to death."
The squires paired up around the courtyard and practiced parrying and predicting for an hour, while Stoick walked the pairs and pointed out mistakes and problems. He said nothing as he walked by Hiccup and Fishlegs. The pairs switched.
"I must be going," Queen Lenora said. "This chair is about to kill me. I can't feel anything below my hips or above my knees anymore."
Just like that, Astrid sat alone in the royal box. She could move over and sit in her father's throne, but it felt punishable. She'd rather not have her father's wrath. She'd seen it enough cast at Tegard to be wary.
Astrid watched the squires' practice until Stoick called it a day. He sent them to their quarters. She stood, and exited the box.
X
Astrid ate dinner with her family, and returned to her room. She changed from her proper dress into something less tight and frilly; something she could move in without being poked, squeezed, or held in place. She sat at the window as the sun dipped below the western trees; a moving something caught her eye below her window.
Someone moved toward the forest. They wore a cloak, but as they moved, they turned back toward the castle, and Astrid saw the plain white clothes of a squire. He walked to the trees and vanished into the darkness of the forest.
"What are you up to?" Astrid asked. No one answered.
Feeling curious, she grabbed her cloak from its hook and wrapped it around her shoulders. Using her usual route, she crept through the corridors and used a servant's door through the kitchen to get outside unnoticed. It had taken years to perfect the route, and many pointed fingers, shaking heads, and angry parents.
According to her mother, witches, thieves, and dragons loved to steal young princesses from unguarded woods. Especially at night.
Astrid had spent many an hour in those woods and had never seen anything more than a Terrible Terror. The large dragons lived further into the woods, but she hadn't ventured far enough to find them.
Astrid walked across the dark grounds and to the forest. She glanced back to see if anyone had seen her, and realized the mysterious squire had done the same. She pressed on into the forest. Moonlight lit the way in pale black-blue. All manner of late summer night bugs sang, chirped, and whistled. She listened, but she heard no footsteps. The further in she went, the stranger the quiet sounds became.
A gentle thunking caught her ear. She approached with caution, in case a wild dragon had wondered closer, but the thunking didn't seem to heed her. She took each step carefully, over brambles, clumps of leaves, and exposed twigs. The thunking grew ever louder.
In a clearing, she spotted the cloaked figure. He no longer wore his cloak. He'd draped it on a tree trunk's knot. Hiccup Haddock had taken a dull sword from the training room and thwacked it against a dead tree. He'd left dents and dings all up and down the rotten bark. He held an intense stare at the tree, as if imagining other things. His feet worked in a graceful unison on the ground, never fumbling or tripping. His thin arms smacked the tree with more force that she thought him capable.
"Impressive," Astrid said after a long while of watching him.
Hiccup jumped, held the sword at the defensive, and as his eyes adjusted on her, his face widened into an expression of fear. He dropped the sword.
"I-I sorry, your majesty," he said, head bowed. "I-I was just practicing. I meant no harm."
"I can see that," Astrid said. "That tree won't be causing any more problems for this forest."
Hiccup glanced up. The moonlight paled his face and sparkled in his eyes. In the low light, his eyes looked black.
"I saw you today," Astrid said. She took several steps forward, and picked up the discarded sword. She held the metal in her hands. Strange weight. "You did well."
"Not as well as I should have," Hiccup said.
"Father says you have potential."
"He did?" Hiccup blinked. He swallowed. "I mean, thank you. Princess."
Astrid gripped the sword hilt. "My father allowed me to take fencing lessons when I was a girl. When it was clear that I was his successor, I had to stop."
"Why is that?" Hiccup asked.
"Because a Queen doesn't need to know how to sword fight," Astrid said, just as her father had repeated many times.
"That doesn't make sense," Hiccup said.
Astrid glanced up from the sword to Hiccup.
He swallowed. His entire throat bobbed. "A Queen should know how to defend herself instead of always relying on guards. Everyone should know how to defend themselves. To deny that to someone is to make them vulnerable."
"Do I look vulnerable to you, Squire Haddock?" Astrid asked. A redness warmed her cheeks.
"No, no, I didn't mean that," Hiccup said. His shoulders shrank inward and he waved his hands in front of him. "I only meant that you should be able to learn how to defend yourself if you want to. A queen should be able to sword fight, too. It would intimidate your enemies."
"Would I intimidate you?" Astrid asked, flicking the dulled edge of the blade with her finger.
"You don't need to know how to wield a sword for that, Princess," Hiccup said softly. "You're doing great as you are."
Astrid grinned. "Thank you."
A silence fell through the woods.
Hiccup rested a hand on the opposite elbow. "Are you going to punish me?"
"For what?"
"Breaking curfew, sneaking from the castle, hiding pillows under my blanket so my dad wouldn't know I left," Hiccup said, counting the things off on his fingers.
Astrid thought about it, but didn't think long. No, she wouldn't. "Tell you what, Squire Haddock, I won't tell on you if you do something for me."
Hiccup hesitated, fear in his eyes, "Yes, Princess?"
"Teach me what you know," she said, motioning to the sword. "I want to learn how to fight, too."
"Yes, Princess," Hiccup nodded. "Although I can't say I'm as good of a teacher as my father."
"Meet me here tomorrow night for the first lesson," Astrid said. She handed Hiccup his sword.
He nodded. "Yes, Princess."
Astrid retreated through the forest. A tingle of giddiness bubbled in his stomach, and when Hiccup could no longer see her, she let it out in a smile that she hid with her hands. The rebelliousness enchanted her; she would be breaking all manner of rules. Leaving the castle unattended, leaving after dark, sneaking into the woods to see a young man, and learning to sword fight.