Well, here we are again people, another fortnight gone, and I think you all know what that means!
In the last chapter we saw Hiccup exiting the arena after his taming of the Monstrous Nightmare in front of the entire village, only to be confronted by the rest of the gang. Snotlout and the others almost manage to apologise to Hiccup for the way they had treated him, but are called away at the last moment. The chief's son is left alone with Astrid, and some heated words are exchanged, with Hiccup livid that the Hofferson's daughter could have ratted him out to Stoick and messed everything up. However, when a rare show of remorse and regret from an unusually empathic Astrid manage to completely disarm the enraged dragon-rider, the two of them are left in quite an intimate situation, until...
Chapter Nine: Decision
A great commotion was suddenly heard, and Astrid jerked her head away in the direction of this interruption.
Confused and agitated, she watched as a great crowd of Vikings began to storm out from the Berk mead-hall, all talking amongst one-another.
At their head was Stoick, a grave, foreboding look on his bearded face.
As the mob began to cross over the bridge towards the training ring, Astrid turned back to Hiccup, noticing the blank look on his freckly face; he had been completely disarmed by the blond Viking's sudden show of remorse...and something else.
To be frank, Astrid herself had been completely overtaken by a sudden surge of some strange and previously unfelt emotion.
As the young girl slowly returned to her senses, she suddenly realised how close to Hiccup she was standing; they had practically been touching.
Taking a shaky step back, Astrid opened her mouth...but closed it again, unsure of what to say.
Hiccup seemed to deflate, blinking several times, as though also coming out of some kind of trance; the moment had captured both of them entirely.
And Astrid was still not sure why.
"What...what do you think they've decided on?" whispered the Viking girl to Hiccup, but the boy just shook his head.
"I'm not sure," he replied.
"But if I know my dad, I think I'm really about to cop it; he rarely looks this serious."
The tone in Hiccup's voice was one of utmost disappointment.
As the chief's son turned towards the crowd of villagers, prepared to accept their verdict, Astrid grabbed his hand once again, still feeling the urgent need to give her actions some justification...or at the very least to be properly apologetic for them.
But Hiccup shook her hand away, turning back to give her one last angry look.
"You've messed it all up, Astrid," he snarled, giving the girl quite a shock.
She had at the very least been expecting some level of forgiveness...but now it seemed that Hiccup would never leave her a single moments solace.
Rooted to where she was standing, Astrid just watched tearfully as Stoick and the other villagers reached the arena, and Hiccup walked determinedly out to meet them.
Only when he was mere yards away from his son did Stoick halt and begin to speak.
"Hiccup," he boomed down at his son, voice harsh and grating.
"We had a deal."
Hiccup sighed.
"I know, I know we did. But that was before I met –" But the chief allowed his son no room to speak.
"So everything in the ring...a trick? A lie?" His voice was rising ominously, and Hiccup began to get desperate.
"I – I should have told you before now, but – but –" he stuttered, but Stoick cut him off once again.
"How could you? How could you betray us like this?" Astrid now saw that Hiccup's rage was visibly growing once again, just as it had done back in his room.
"You're missing the point, Stoick," Hiccup shot back, and all of the onlookers gasped as they saw the chief flinch at this harsh attack.
"The dragons are not dangerous –" But the Vast Viking was making a real point of not letting his son finish a sentence.
"They've killed hundreds of us!"
"And we've killed THOUSANDS OF THEM!" Hiccup shouted back.
"They defend themselves, that's all! They raid us BECAUSE THEY HAVE TO!" Having finally captured his father's focus Hiccup ploughed ahead.
"If they don't bring enough food back, they'll be eaten themselves. There's something else on their island, it...it's a dragon-like –" Stoick's eyes suddenly gleamed with a mix of anger and excitement, and Hiccup stopped abruptly, realising he had said too much.
As if reading Astrid's mind, Stoick was a vision of expectant eagerness.
"Their island? So you've been to their nest?" he demanded.
"I...I –" Hiccup's familiar stutter didn't last long.
"How did you find it? HOW?" Stoick very rarely spoke this forcefully, and Astrid cringed at the sting in his words.
There was a moment's silence, during which the entire village was so silent that Astrid could hear the furthest of the breakers crashing against the great ocean stacks out in the bay.
This simple sound somehow brought some extra sense of seriousness to the situation.
The old Hiccup would have been frightened into answering under such interrogation tactics; the old Hiccup would have easily buckled under the verbal pressure which Stoick now put on him.
But the boy who now stood obstinately before his father was no longer the old Hiccup, the Hiccup they had all known.
Or thought they had known.
"Why should I tell you?" the freckly boy replied, full of defiance and conviction. "What possible reasoning could you use to convince me in this matter?" Stoick was beside himself with fury.
But, without any warning whatsoever, Astrid suddenly stepped in, her voice mean and insignificant next to that of the chief, but still somehow full of potent meaning.
"Hiccup, do you mean to say that you've discovered the dragon's nest?
The thing we've been after since Viking's first sailed here?" Hiccup was completely taken aback at Astrid's sudden intrusion into the heated discourse, but nevertheless he turned his gaze to her, tilted his head to one side, and nodded slowly.
A throb of anger suddenly permeated the Viking girl's entire body, once again eclipsed almost instantly by a feeling of pure jealousy.
"And you want to keep it a secret? To protect your pet dragon? ARE YOU SERIOUS?" "I told you before, he's NOT my pet!" Hiccup snarled in reply, while Stoick stood there, watching the two Viking teenagers glower at each other, their fists clenched aggressively.
"ENOUGH!" he bellowed suddenly, making everyone jump.
"Hiccup, not only have you consorted with the enemy and withheld from your own tribe vital information which could end the suffering of Berk once and for all, but you have gone so far as to befriend a dragon and keep it as your own?" "HE'S NOT MY PET!" Hiccup practically screamed, and Stoick's eyes widened.
"He's my friend and equal!" Hiccup continued to let his anger build, and the entire village was now visibly shocked; none of them had ever seen Hiccup this angry before.
Well, almost none of them.
"And one other thing!" he scathed, holding up a hand to silence his father, who had been just about to speak.
"If any of you think that I still consider myself to be part of your tribe after everything that I've suffered at your hands, then Odin help you, for you are most sorely mistaken!" Once again, silence reigned supreme, as every man and woman, boy and girl of the Viking tribe of Berk felt the full force of Hiccup's message.
But the stillness lasted nowhere near as long this time.
"If you're not a part of this tribe..."
Stoick began slowly, letting his words build up momentum.
"Then you're not a Viking."
"You're not my son."
And that was it.
That was the last straw for Hiccup.
The boy visibly snapped, his teeth clenching and fists curling tighter with anger.
"Fine," he breathed heavily in acceptance.
"Just...fine."
He was doing a very good job of not exploding, thought Astrid.
"Now leave! GET OUT!" Stoick shouted down at his son.
Hiccup held his father's gaze for only a few seconds more, before turning slowly and walking purposefully off in the direction of the forest.
As all eyes followed the boy's small figure off towards the woods, Astrid could hardly believe what she was seeing as true.
A little boy...not fifteen years of age was being exiled...by his own father.
As Hiccup disappeared amongst the trees, Stoick let out a great sigh of weariness; the argument had left him visibly exhausted.
After a moment's silence, during which no Viking of any age dared to make a sound, the chief turned slowly to face his tribe, worn out yet determined.
"Gobber," he commanded with some lingering authority, addressing the Belch of a man who had been standing at the edge of the crowd, fidgeting with his prostheses, "I would like you to select the two best recruits for a match against a dragon of your choosing...please."
This last word seemed to catch in Stoick's throat, and Gobber nodded quietly.
"The winner takes...the winner will be awarded the honour of killing their first dragon in front of the entire village, as is per our custom."
He finished with on a forceful note, giving clear indication to everyone that it was over.
As the Viking villagers began once again to disperse, all heading back to Berk, Astrid turned to walk with them, trying to seem small and insignificant; not an easy feat for a girl of her character.
But Stoick called her over quietly, and the blond Viking knew better than to ignore her chief now.
"I never want to hear of this ever again" he muttered to her quietly, before dismissing her with a wave of the hand.
Feeling as though the wind had been knocked out of her, Astrid turned to see that she was being approached by the rest of the gang; each and every one of them looked particularly solemn and sober.
Giving her a weak smile, Fishlegs said "He...kind of had it coming."
Astrid frowned.
"Yeah," chimed in the "Nuts" simultaneously.
Snotlout was just as quick to agree.
"Siding with the dragons..." he chortled. "That little fool –"
"Oh shut up Snotlout," Astrid suddenly snapped, surprising even herself.
"Why do you even bother opening your mouth if all that's going to come out of it is muck?" The bullish Viking was clearly affronted, but more shocked than anything.
"What – Astrid, you aren't seriously supporting what Hiccup did, are you?" he demanded, somewhat put-off.
"I don't know..." she replied, turning away, trying to deal with what had just happened.
The other Viking teens were all giving her queer looks, but Astrid didn't care.
In fact...she had never cared less about her image; and this, more than anything confused her.
But one person and one person only was responsible for this.
Only one boy had had the gall to challenge what every Viking had for so long taken for granted...and this one boy was the one responsible for trying to show Astrid what really mattered.
Hiccup.
Hiccup.
Suddenly, Astrid knew what was to be done.
Even if it made no difference to the village, even if it didn't stop him from leaving, she had to see Hiccup once more, if only to ask...no, to beg for his forgiveness.
She had to have it.
And once again, the blond Viking found herself running away from the gang, from her friends, chasing a fantastical idea...and a fantastical boy.
"Astrid, where are you going?" Fishlegs called after her.
But the girl was already gone, dashing off into the forest, determined to catch Hiccup before he...before he left...for good.
And she knew exactly where to go.
Only one more chapter to go in this first part of the story now, people! I'm sure you can all guess by now where we are going to end up, but it's going to be an interesting ride to where all the characters go from there!
Two weeks people,
Lumpyness.