It wasn't easy carrying two buckets of water at once, especially for an eight year old.
Brigid frowned and concentrated forward, lifting her arms at the same time. The force jilted the bucket and the handle wobbled, causing some of the water to spill.
Carrying two buckets of water at once was a trying task indeed for anyone her age but she was determined to deliver that spring water back to her grandfather's lodge.
She would have made her brother, Curran help but knew he wasn't strong enough yet to haul a bucket from the spring back into the village without spilling all of it.
And having Finola carry anything was out of the question. Brig's little sister could walk but seemed to be growing up on the more delicate side.
Brig was told to take them both with her despite their uselessness.
Grandfather Spitelout told them that the air was good for them.
For the thousandth time since the early summer before she wished her father would return. It had almost been a year and Brig was worried.
Snotlout the Steadfast was her father and the high commander and cousin to the chief, but he was sent on an important diplomatic errand to her mother's land of Eire. She promised to look after her siblings and he promised he would return and she would be furious if he didn't keep that promise. He could have helped. Her Grandfather was busy with other matters or else would have helped too.
Maybe her insistence that she could do it was her downfall.
She set the one bucket to the ground and tried to work out how she would complete the chore.
"Cur!"
He stopped dawdling and paid attention, seeming to have been deep into listening to something far off, some nose or sound; he was always doing that.
"Get Fireworm."
"I donno where she is," he responded in a mumble.
It was a long shot but she could at least try to get her father's dragon to help, the Nightmare was ten times the size of a person and there was no question she couldn't lift a simple bucket of water. However Fireworm was a difficult beast to command if one wasn't Snotlout.
"Use your music pipe, dragons are always coming around when you play it."
It was true.
Cur didn't like to play it outside because he would get surrounded by what seemed every dragon on the isle.
"But you only want Fireworm, not every dragon ever!" he exclaimed.
"Just do it, Cur!"
"Alright, alright," he acquiesced and pulled his pipe from the belt at his waist where he kept it always. He blew a sharp note and began to run forward before any dragon could block his way.
Brigid also had to keep an eye on her little sister, who was so quiet sometimes people forgot she was there.
"Fin! Don't wander," Brig commanded. Fin gave her a look before pointing to her mouth. She was thirsty. Brig had become fluent in picking up Fin's non-verbal gestures. She knew her sister could say words but for some reason or another Fin just rarely ever spoke anything.
Brig saw she was thirsty, and they were still close to the springs; they said it was safe to drink from the mouth of the spring, so Brig let down her buckets and took a hold of Fin's hand to lead her to where she could get a drink. Anything further down the spring might have had mud or grass or bugs.
Brig splashed her hands into the cold water and cupped up some of it and held it to her sister, "Drink," the spring water was freezing, "Faster!"
It was rather wet and messy, what Fin didn't drink spilled onto the front of her dress and only more so when she indicated she wanted a second drink. After the second one Brig was done with it. Even if Fin did want more.
A shadow fell over them and they looked up to see their father's enormous dragon above. Cur was hanging by his vest from her mouth, curled up and afraid of the height. It looked like Fireworm was in the ornery sort of mood.
"Fireworm put him down!" Brig commanded.
Fireworm seemed at odds with Brig most days, it was just the way the dragon was—only loyal to the father. To everyone else she was rude or went halfway with commands because just like Brig, Fireworm did not like being bossed around.
The Nightmare opened her mouth and let him fall. It was only a few feet but he screamed and Brig shouted mostly in disdain at the haughty beast. She made her best attempt to catch him but instead broke his fall when he landed on her. Both Jorgenson children were sprawled on the ground.
They heard Fireworm's amused growly chortles.
Brig glowered and rolled Cur off of her, stood, and dusted her skirts, "If you're done being a troll, help carry the water," She pointed to her buckets.
The Nightmare's slitted eyes followed and she seemed to understand what Brig was asking. Her long neck slid over and she nosed the handle until it was upright and bit it.
Brig felt some relief at finally getting Fireworm to follow directions, that was until the selfish creature tilted her head back and drank the bucket's contents.
"NO! Fireworm you ugly lizard!" she let her rage fly and jumped upwards trying to gain the bucket back to her custody. "You're such a mean thing!"
Fireworm dropped the bucket; it hit Brig in the head. The Nightmare then opened her wings and began to take flight, not helping at all. Why had she even come? To have a good laugh at Brig no doubt.
"I hope you fall into the sea! If father was here you would help! You miserable beast!" Brig lifted her skirts and chased after the Dragon ten times her size, but it was like a bug chasing a hawk. She threw every word she knew she wasn't supposed to say at that wretched dragon and by the time Fireworm was in the air and high above, Brig had stopped running and was so angry her face was flushed and she had a horrible sinking in her chest.
All she tried to do was be responsible.
She had to. Who else would make sure Curran washed up for meals and that Fin would would be understood?
"Guard that bucket!" a new plan formulated in her head and she indicated toward the bucket that was still full of water. Cur nodded obediently. "And make sure Fin doesn't wander."
She grabbed up the empty bucket and went to the spring for yet the third time to refill it.
She had told Grandfather Spitelout she could get the water, and she would.
One bucket was easier to haul, and she managed fine to fill it and lug I back to where her siblings were.
"Where's Fin?" she asked, seeing her brother was alone.
"She wandered off! I can't guard a bucket and chase her. I told her to stop!"
"Well now you have to guard both buckets 'cause I have to go find her!"
He gave a little huff, but she knew he wouldn't argue; he was afraid she'd punch him the arm and she could slug a good one.
She began to run in the direction Cur had pointed, inwardly amazed her small sister could get so far in such a short time. She didn't bother calling Fin's name because she knew Fin wouldn't answer.
But there the little pixie was, on the pasture they sometimes used for playing bashyball. Though it was currently home to a flock of sheep.
She wasn't alone though, a few of the village boys were playing with the sheep.
"Hiya Brig!" a freckled child greeted at seeing her approach.
Icky and Fin were sitting in the grass and petting a lamb.
Svenan the younger and his friend Hailstrom were chasing the sheep making roaring sounds. They were probably pretending they were dragons.
"Shouldn't you be down at the docks?" she asked, knowing they were apprenticed to the ship-builder. She didn't like seeing them hassling the sheep like that.
"Nah, not today. They need more wood to build ships so they are out in the forests this week," Svenan the Younger halted his terrorizing of the sheep to answer.
She only pressed her lips together and then turned an angry eye on Fin.
"Finola! I told you not to wander!" she chided using her sister's full name then swept her up to a stand.
She saw Fin was not guilty or sorry at all for wasting her time. Her sister only sunk her fingers into the lambs woolly hide.
"We were petting the baby sheep!" Icky said, perhaps a statement of protest.
"Well I have to get her and my buckets of water back to our Grandfather's, so no more petting!" she yanked Fin up by her hand and began to leave them.
"Whoa you're lifting TWO buckets of water at once?" Icky's eyes widened and he hopped up from his sitting place in the grass.
"Yeah so what?"
The other boys must have heard because they stopped chasing the sheep and turned their attention towards her.
"No way! You can't carry two buckets of water at once!"
"I can too!"
"Nuh uh, you're a girl," Svenan dared remark. If his mother heard him talk like that his ear would have been twisted.
She narrowed her eyes, completely infuriated at their teases. They only thought so because they couldn't do it.
"I can too. Go back to chasing your sheep!"
"You should prove it, you should show us," Svenan suggested.
"Okay! I will!" Brig accepted their challenge. She made sure to keep a hold of Finola's hand as she led them back to where she left the buckets and her brother.
Cur was laying on the ground in an exasperated manner when she found him. He was in the middle of humming a song—one he probably made up because she didn't recognize it.
"Cur, what are you doing?" She asked standing over him.
"Guarding the buckets."
"Fat lot of guarding this is, anyone could walk up and take them."
He only frowned and lifted up on his elbows, "Who would take our water anyway?"
"Water bandits!" Icky answered, and with real fear in his voice; he too had followed to see if Brig really could lift and carry two buckets of water at once.
She and the older boys rolled their eyes at him.
"Okay so show us!" Hailstrom demanded.
"Yeah!" Svenan prompted.
"Take Fin's hand so she doesn't wander off," Brig demanded of Cur.
Okay I can do this, Brig told herself, I can show them.
She lifted up the handles and in turn lifted up the buckets and every muscle in her arms were burning in strain trying to lift those suckers. They came off the ground a little bit and she stepped forward, her arms were threatening to drop outright, and began shaking.
Why did she even need to carry two at once? It would make for less walking but the fact was she could carry one and be successful. Maybe she should have just made Cur guard the bucket while she took one back to their grandfather's.
After two more steps she had to drop one bucket involuntarily and it spilled into the ground.
"See, we told you," Svenan only made her angrier by saying it, especially in a way that made him sound superior, "Come on Icky."
She was mostly angry at herself for embarrassing herself like that. She ended up kicking the bucket; it turned and rolled down the incline. Her face was heated, it always did that when she got mad. She remembered her mother's face to do that when she got angry too—it got really red. Her mother had carried two buckets of water at the same time, was it something that could only be done once you were grown up?
"Don't be mad Brig," she heard Cur try to say but he wasn't nearly as good as her at commanding things and she just stormed past him to retrieve her bucket.
Before she could grab it though, another pair of hands did.
"You obviously need help," she found Hailstrom saying and it only added insult to injury. She glowered; she thought he had left with Svenan to go back to terrorizing sheep because that was just so productive.
"I do not," She denied vehemently.
He seemed to ignore her all together as he walked back toward the spring.
"I can do it myself!" she charged after him, "What do you think you are doing?"
"Refilling this bucket. You can carry the other one."
She gnashed her teeth together at the whole insinuation that she was too weak to carry the buckets by herself. She thought she was strong.
She grabbed up the opposite bucket as they walked back, "Come on Cur, keep ahold of Fin's hand."
Her blood was boiling the whole time. When Hailstrom set down the bucket at the front door and asked her 'Aren't you gonna thank me?', that was the point her boil overheated.
"No, because you think just 'cause I'm a girl I can't carry my own buckets of water."
"No, I think no one your age can carry two buckets of water at once. Just 'cause you're a girl has nothing to do with it."
Hailstrom was only Svenan's age, maybe a few months older.
"Why did you help me then?"
"Father always says to help others in he clan, that way Odin looks favorably upon you."
Her father never told her that. She wondered if it were true or if Hailstrom was just makin' stuff up. He was a son of the Skørnes—a family with a reputation for swindling. She didn't know what 'swindling' entailed but she'd heard more than one person claim so and all times with a tone of disapproval.
"Okay well thanks then, I guess."
"Sure," he shrugged and took leave back in the direction of the pasture.
She had to wonder if he had just 'swindled' her but she didn't feel any different if not a little angry and exasperated.
"Grandfather we're home!" she called just in case he had returned before them. The Terrible Terror that kept board with them fluttered down from the lodge's rafter and sniffed around Fin, which meant he was home but probably carving some wood or resting or sharpening spearheads.
"Open the water barrel." she demanded of her brother. He scampered ahead, climbing on top of a crate to reach the lid of the barrel that held the lodge's water. It was a quarter empty, and Brig tried planning ahead and refilling it before it got half-way empty which only led to more buckets of water to refill it. Her mother had always done it that way.
She poured in one bucket and the other.
Cur had begun to entertain Fin with a toy—one of the ragga-dolls Brig had made a few years ago that her mother had helped her with.
She hated doing that—thinking about her mother.
And how she wasn't coming back.
Her heart seemed to always crash into her tummy when that happened.
With her siblings distracted she emerged from her grandfather's lodge and walked through the village until she stood in front of her own home. She hadn't stepped inside for many months and it was probably dusty. They were too young to live by themselves while Snotlout was away, but Grandfather Spitelout could look after them in his own lodge. He was a stern type of man, serious and laughed at grown-up humors she didn't understand. Cur would tell a joke she found pretty clever for a six-year-old and he would just nod; his friend Ack would tell a joke and their grandfather would laugh loudly. Grown ups seemed to be a part of a whole another world—at least in their world two buckets of water could be carried at once.
She was still bitter about that.
She thought she heard some commotion, carried on the winds upward from the bay but did not investigate because she wasn't that curious and the docks smelled fishy. She had done her chores and the Widow Thorston didn't require her presence on Tiwesdæg to help with sewing garments so she didn't know what to do with this sudden spot of free time.
She wanted to play, she needed to play more but her time was always seeming filled. Frostbite would always be up for a game of the jump rope though Frostbite threw a fit if she didn't play her way. Brig had her own rope she got leftover from the docks when her Grandfather had taken her and her siblings along to see the longboats and buy fish. Her father was a good fisher, but he hadn't done it in awhile...she couldn't remember the last time he had gone fishing. She didn't like fish very much.
She ended up front of her doorway, sitting there with her knees tucked up and couldn't help but to fall into remembering how things used to be not so long ago. She saw a piece of a stick in reaching distance and scratched some lines in the dirt. It had rained two days before so the ground was kind of a hard mud; those who were heavier would sink faster into the non-grassy areas.
Her family's home was right near an edge of the high rock, it had a good view of the ocean. It was a good home. One of the best in her opinion—she wanted to live in it again.
A few more lines and she threw down the stick and looked at her ground scribbles, but had to wipe away her messy curls that had blown into her face to see it.
The scribbles looked like stick people. Three little ones, two big ones and reminded her of the weird art thing she had seen one time in the chief's lodge, on the main room's wall of all places.
She missed her home.
She missed her mother.
She missed her father.
"Don't tell me you have been waiting here for me this whole time."
It was said accompanied by a loud thud that upturned the mud in front of her. Distinctive of the very beast she had spatted with not an hour before.
She jerked her gaze up immediately at hearing that, the owner dismounted and she searched over the figure with wide-eyes.
He looked tired, weary of travel with a slight gauntness in his cheeks but through it she could tell a smile was rising.
"Dad!" she shouted and instinctively propelled forward so fast that she didn't think she had ever touched the ground. She was being lifted and squeezed with all the might that the high commander possessed. She buried her face into his shoulder and felt her eyes become weepy.
It was one of the three times Brigid Jorgenson would ever recall crying—that day her father returned.
The other time before had been when her mother had died. The third time would be when she was a young woman and furiously cursing the very man embracing her to Helheim.
She clasped her arms around his neck even tighter, almost unbelieving that he was finally home. Fireworm must have found him first through her superior senses upon his return to explain him riding up on her, and now she acted like an conveniently obedient fire beast now that he was returned.
"I missed you!"
She could hear the deep vibration of his voice and understand even with one of her ears crushed against him, "I missed you, more than you can know."
He let her down and studied her and she could have sworn he looked devastated.
"Aren't you happy to see me?"
The look lifted immediately as if he didn't realize he'd even had it.
"Of course I am! Where is your brother and sister?"
"At Grandfather's, playing, come on!" she felt a smile tear across her cheeks as she grabbed his hand—it fully engulfed hers.
She could just picture Cur's smile upon seeing their father and maybe even Fin would talk! She could feel a giddiness rising at anticipating her siblings' reactions at seeing him again.
He didn't follow though; he stayed firm in his spot, "You fetch them and bring them home. I have to go speak with the chief."
She felt her smile dissipate back to a frown; he always seemed to choose his duties over them, "But you haven't seen them for a long time!"
It wasn't fair that she got to be the only one to see him—she knew they missed him just as much as she did.
"I will see them soon enough," he assured and kneeled to her level while holding her face, trying to ease her frown away as if he couldn't bear it, "I have to report to Hiccup the Useful right now but I'm proud of you Brig. You handled yourself and kept watch on the others while I was away—you kept your promise."
Then he hugged her again, squashing her so close that her frustration melted back into the happiness that she couldn't deny because he had kept his promise too.
He had returned.
They could all be together again.
A/N: Well, there's s'more Jorgenson-kid-action for you :3 And yay! Snotlout returned home okay :D He has no idea about Alvin...I just realized. Well I'm sure Hiccup can fill him in...and Snotlout probably has news for Hiccup too...