*emerges unexpectedly from the dark in a puff of 6-month old dust* Surprise. Bet you thought you saw the last of me.
That was the dumbest thing I've written this year, but who knows, this chapter might top it.
And no, I have no explanation for not writing. I'm just a lazy idiot.
"You guys know Merida."
Those weren't the words that he was hoping to find in their usual area, and the personification of fire wasn't the sight he hoped for either. It's not like it was a territorial thing, Hiccup just preferred to not spend break time with someone that despised him. Behind him, Snotlout approached and jumped right into action.
"Cool, did you hire her as a hitman or something?" He poked an elbow into Hiccup's side, like he would laugh for a joke about his own murder.
Astrid leaned over and mentioned to Merida, "Sorry, he really doesn't get much better than that."
He wished he could just up and ask why she had brought her here at all, but Astrid was no less decided and stubborn than he was, and it didn't look like Merida came her on her own will either.
"Well, nice job nailing that chick in the face this morning" Snotlout said.
"It was an accident!" Her voice commanded attention, but her mouth shut, and eyes stayed pointed down. Everyone else stopped in motion at her outburst, despite how fleeting their attention usually was.
"Just saying thanks," Snotlout eased back in, and faced the rest of the group to go on, "We were supposed to play volleyball, but she slammed it into the back of some chicks head, who fell flat on her face, and got such a bad nosebleed the teacher left and we got open gym the rest of class!" He glanced around to everyone with an excited face, meeting mostly blank ones.
Ruffnut finally nodded with impressed eyes and put her hand up in front of Merida, delivering a fully genuine, "Nice."
Merida seemed caught off guard, and gave something between a slap and the attention seeking nudge of a cat with her hand. Hiccup felt some relief, unenthusiastic as it was. He knew if he were asking for a high five from her, he would probably only be able to do high threes for the rest of his life.
"I still don't understand why you all took PE as first period." Fishlegs groaned. "As if it's not bad enough, first thing in the morning?"
Astrid explained, "We registered late. Everyone that period did. And I am not wasting senior year in there."
"You don't have to at all, lucky." Snotlout complained to Hiccup.
"Yeah, thank God for my disability. I keep needing the dumb thing adjusted whenever I get taller."
"You're not getting taller... Are you?"
"I've grown two inches since I first got the leg."
The others produced various noises of skepticism. Whatever. He had at least caught up to Astrid in height.
"Do you have a false leg?"Merida spoke up. He took a tense glance at her. That was probably the first time she expressed something with non-aggressive interest to him. Before he could say anything, Ruffnut cut in.
"Last year he killed a dragon and it, like, exploded, so his leg fell off."
"It didn't fall off. And I-"
Fishlegs sat up straight to offer a correction before he could. "He and Toothless killed it, then his leg was messed up from the fall and the fire, so they had to amputate it."
"Sure, that's... More like what happened." Nevermind the fact none of them even saw exactly what happened in the fire that day, Toothless being probably the best witness. Giving up on guiding the conversation, the words mostly just sat in the air around him.
With just a little enthusiasm, Merida shrugged and mentioned, "A bear ripped my dad's leg off."
All turned to her, the twins especially intrigued. "We were camping and it came for my mum and I, but then he fought it back."
"Scotland's a hell of a location." Hiccup mumbled to himself.
"Hell of a party!" Tuff called it instead, "I want to fight a bear for my leg!" Merida looked pretty pleased with herself having an interesting story. He found it a bit strange that a story including dragons fighting one another had become old news to everybody else. It didn't take much effort from her at all to grab their attention, which sent him wondering for a second if she had made this story up just to keep the conversation away from him. A second later, though, the suspicion seemed, even in his own mind, to be ridiculous and full of needless jealously. As she spoke on about some giant bear, the pinches faded from her face, the bite of her words softened up, and came easy as though they were already good friends of hers. Was she actually... Not angry?
Before today, he wouldn't have tried talking to her in class. Mostly, he just tried to see the front of the room past her hair. Now it was a matter of finding what to say to her, just to see if he could at least reduce her anger a bit more.
"Hey, Merida?"
She turned around, saying nothing, but looking like he was doing something stupid. He realized at this point that he probably was, but it was too late to back out now.
"So... You said your dad hunted bears after that... Thing that happened." He left space for a response, but all she did was blink. "Did he bowhunt too, or... I mean, it seems like it would be difficult to hunt bears with just arrows, but..."
"I thought we were leaving each other alone." Her words came back full of the same rough edges as days ago. The friendly tone everyone else had earned clearly hadn't opened up for him, and it seemed likely that wasn't going to change.
"We were all just hanging out together. I thought that meant-"
"We're not friends just because I heard you're missing a limb." She turned her face and attention to the ipod she pulled out.
"It's below the knee. So, more like a half limb..." Before he finished two words, tinny noise hummed out from her headphones, and he knew she wouldn't have heard a thing from him. It was at least satisfying to finish saying what he had intended to, for once. Astrid was definitely wrong about how personal her treatment was. In the end, though, it didn't really matter. So, somebody unnecessarily ignored his entire existence, nothing new. She wasn't worth talking to anyway. He had enough careless, irrational, and short tempered friends, he didn't need to make another that also owned and used projectile weapons.
Accepting her silence, he opened his binder and instantly realized something was missing. It was lighter, emptier... The notebook.
All of the dragon's drawings and notes. The notebook was gone.
update: hyahahaha I didn't even finish this before posting it so I had to edit it ahhahaha I hate myself