I am back again. So in case you don't know an Accolade is the ceremony for when someone is dubbed a knight. That's about all I have to say... But like always if you have any ideas or advice so I can improve please tell me.
Today was the final day of the tournament, about a month after they arrived, and the two finalists were going to participate in the final duel. Astrid had made it through to the end, just as she and Linken had hopped. She wore her disguise, cut her hair so it was barely touching her shoulders and put it up in a ponytail, and she picked a new name, one that she wasn't sure would work at the beginning but it did he trick, Astro. The only person that had found out about her secret identity was Stoic, he had seen her taking off her handkerchief two weeks into the tournament. Though she thought he'd be angry he was actually quite excited about just how well she was doing and offered to help.
She was now standing in front of one of the large gate leading to the arena. The guards had armed her with a wooden sword and shield. Now she was just waiting for them to open up the gate.
The arena was quite big, much bigger than it looked from the benches around the top where she had sat years before. It was big enough that they had had chariot races before. The king and the princess, whose name is apparently Heather, were sitting at the north end of the arena.
Astrid had heard very little about her opponent, but since Stoic had seen him fight before in the tournament he told her everything he could about him. She now knew that he was a bit shorter than her, he was quite muscular, and his name was Scott. Apparently he was quite a dirty player too, and he talked a lot during the duels, which earned him the nickname Snot.
Suddenly the gate shifted, then began to open.
Astrid stepped into the arena, along with Scott on the other side. The crowd began cheering as they got into position and waited for the king to start the duel. Scott look just like how Stoic said he would.
After a few minutes of waiting the king stood up and officially started duel.
It started out just like any other duel she had participated in. They both watched each others moves closely and blocked any attack that the other attempted.
He tried a few different things, but it she quickly learned his favorite move was jumping over his opponent and bashing his sword against their skull. Thankfully she had managed to predict these strikes and quickly rolled away.
She could see that Scott was beginning to become frustrated, his attacks became sloppy and Astrid was able to easily find his weakness. She rolled quickly so she was behind him and when she was in the correct position she jumped and slammed the dull wooden sword against his back. Scott fell forwards on impacted.
"And we have our winner!" Shouted the king.
"This is so unfair!" Scott shouted and stomped off.
The king then announced something Astrid had not heard about before now.
"The official Accolade of Astro will take place three weeks from now in the castle."
Astrid's eyes widened, no one had said anything about an Accolade. This was bad, this was very very bad. They would probably make her take off her handkerchief and they'd know who she really was. She had already gotten into a lot of trouble here and she still doesn't think the princess had forgiven her for what she did when she fist got here, now she'd be in even more trouble.
o0o0o0o
She told Linken everything while she worked in the stables.
"It's not like I can just skip the whole thing." she said while she brushed one of the many horses. "They'd just hunt me down and find out anyways."
Linken opened his mouth, but before he could speak Astrid's boss stepped into the stall.
"Astrid we have a project for you."
"What is it sir."
"A few months ago my men caught a wild horse, but no matter how hard we try we can't seem to tame it, so we are putting you in charge of it." He said "It's in the third building, third stall on the right."
He burst out laughing as he left the building. Astrid just rolled her eyes and began to clean up the tools she had been using so she could head towards this new horse.
The other trainers constantly made fun of her training methods, they preferred the traditional cruel methods. And Gods she hated it when they referred to horses as 'it'.
She walked towards the third barn and noticed an apple tree, so while she passed by she grabbed one for this new horse.
Astrid arrived at the barn and pushed the heavy doors open. She had never been inside it before, but she was told that this is where they kept 'problem' horses. There was suddenly a loud thump against one of the stall walls. It was coming from the third stall on the right.
Astrid approached the horse slowly, the trainers had tied the horse up so tightly that she could barely move, but she had found way to swing her whole body and bash it against the walls. They had tied her mouth shut, they had ropes wrapped around her neck attached to the walls so she couldn't swing her head. Her legs were tied together, and Astrid noticed her hooves were overgrown and she was so dirty Astrid couldn't tell what colour her fur was.
She stepped towards the horse and held out her had. The horse bent forwards and smelt her outreached hand.
"Linken."
"What is it Astrid." he said after coming into view again.
"I need you to find me something sharp. Her mouth's tied shut."
"Sure thing." He said and began snooping through the barn.
"She looks like a horse I use to train, she escaped a few years ago."
A few moments later Linken came back with a small rusty knife in his mouth. He placed it in Astrid's hands.
She raised the knife and started to cut through the thick rope that they had tied so tightly around her mouth.
"Please don't bite me." Astrid whispered as the rope finally snapped. Much to her delight the horse didn't even try to bit her.
"Are you going to cut the rest of the ropes?"
"Not today, maybe when she calms down and trusts me a bit more I will. I don't want to get kicked." She whispered and gave the horse the apple.
"Why did you get that for her?"
"The apple?" he nodded "Linken, horses like apples, apples means good food and to animals food usually means happiness. So if I give her the apple that means she will associate me with happiness, understand?"
"I think so."
o0o0o0o
And she was right. After a few days the horse began to open up to her.
"Hey girl." Astrid whispered as she entered the barn four days after she had first met the horse. "I brought you another apple."
The horse whinnied and gently took the apple from her outstretched hand. Astrid reached forwards and gently scratched the horses muzzle.
"Would you let me brush you today?" Astrid whispered "It would make you feel so much better, I promise. And if you stay calm I may be able to cut those ropes."
She stepped into the stall with her brushed and a knife. The horse began to panic when Astrid first started brushing her, but relaxed after only moments later. It took a couple of hours, but Astrid could finally see the horses brownish red coat and a white stripe down her muzzle.
"See that wasn't so bad." She whispered.
When the horse didn't even move her ear in response Astrid grew a bit conserned and looked up towards the horse. Astrid smiled when she realized what was going on, the horse had fallen asleep. She took that opportunity to quickly cut the ropes, to her suprise there were no bad wounds under the ropes, only a bit of rope burn. Afterwords she snicked out of the barn to let the poor horse sleep.
o0o0o0o
"I'm almost certain that I know this horse." Astrid said about two weeks after she first met the horse. They were leading her out into a small pasture to see if she would let Astrid ride her. She seemed to be fine when she was wearing all of her gear.
"Why is that?" Linken asked as they entered the pasture.
"She's been trained before, and why would she warm up to me so quickly?"
"People do say that you have a 'way' with animals."
"There is no such thing as a way with animals, you just have to treat them with respect and kindness, they can sense those things. But such a wild horse does not become so tame this quickly." she said "Actually, I want to try something."
Astrid let go of the horses reins, and it began to wander off to graze on the other side of the pasture.
"What are you doing?"
"I taught all of my horses to come when called or when whistled to. But there was one in particular, that one that escaped that wouldn't, no matter what I did. But there was one day that I didn't have much to do so I was playing music with some horse grass and she came right over, so eventually I taught her to come when I played a certain song." She pulled a small wooden ocarina out of her pocket. "This use to be Hiccup's. He wanted to be like the hero of legend so badly, but he couldn't play it no matter how hard he tried so I ended up learning to play it."
Astrid played the song on the instrument, and the horse raised her head and trotted over.
"I knew it." she whispered. "You remember that song after all these years, Epona?"
Epona whinnied and pressed her nose against her arm.
Astrid was able to successfully ride Epona, she was even able to get the horse to go over a few jumps.
o0o0o0o
The day of her Accolade came much sooner than she thought, Astrid had completely forgotten about it, she was too happy about the progress she had made with Epona to think about it. Not to mention being able to prove the other trainers wrong in the processes.
"Great job girl" she said and patted the horses neck, they had just gotten back from a very successful training session, Epona was learning incredibly fast.
"Astrid!"
Astrid swung her head around and saw Stoic running over to her.
"Your Accolade." he said when he got to the pastures fence. "It starts in fifteen minutes!"
"Great Hylia." Astrid cursed. "Open the gate."
Stoic did as she asked and Astrid and Epona quickly headed towards the castle.
o0o0o0o
Astrid arrived at the castle with only a few moments to spear. She loosely tied Epona to a post outside the castle. She had managed to stop at the inn and put on her disguise in time as well.
A guard pushed the large castle doors open and she stepped inside. A few other guards lead her though the many halls and staircases until they arrived in the throne room.
The room was huge, but it looked almost identical to the throne rooms in the story and fairy tales she and Hiccup had read to each other years ago. It had a long red carpet leading to the king and princess's thrones and large pillars on the side of the room.
The princess stood at the center of the room with a large iron sword in her hands.
Astrid walked over slowly and keeled in front of her.
"Astro, you need to remove your mask before we can start." Heather said and reached for it.
Astrid panicked and jumped to her feet. Her and Linken had been so distracted while taming Epona that they had forgotten to discuss what to do when the princess removes her handkerchief.
"Astro its fine just take it off."
Astrid looked around the room for anything that would help her escape. The iron sword the princess held caught her eye.
Before anyone in the room could react Astrid lunged at the princess, she kicked her hard in the stomach and ripped the sword from her hands. She then bolted towards the nearest window as five knights began chasing her. Astrid leaped through it, thankfully they were only on the second floor of the castle. She whistled Epona's song as she sprinted towards the front gate, hopping it wasn't closed.
Epona was by her side within seconds, and Astrid quickly mounted her and galloped towards the gate. The army had begun chasing her, so she kept the iron sword in her hand just in case, she really didn't wan to hurt anyone, but she would if she had to.
The guards had only just gotten word of her crime and started closing the gate when she was only a few hundred feet from it. The gate closed very slowly, and they managed to weave between the large groups of knights chasing her. The gate was about half closed, but they where able to ride up and jump across the moat into Hyrule field.