XXII.
Having experienced more than her fair share of harrowing escapades over the years, Astrid did not feel nervous approaching Drago Bludvist. However, to claim she felt completely at ease would have been just as enormous a lie.
Iron bit hard into her cuffed wrists, linked tightly together at the small of her back. Soldiers roughly gripped her arms in their calloused palms, half-leading, half-dragging her toward a towering dais at the front of the ship. Instinctively she tried to shoulder either man to her side, yanked at her arms occasionally to loosen the men's grip on her, and snarled at her captors – yet she knew very well that all such actions were futile. Even if she could somehow pull herself entirely out of their grasp, no chance existed that she might also run completely to the other side of the massive ship, past towers of dragon traps, crates of supplies, and clusters of soldiers, and then after all that manage to hop onto Stormfly and race away.
Stormfly, she thought suddenly. I hope they haven't found her, too.
Unbidden, thoughts of what the dragon trappers might inflict upon her dragon entered Astrid's mind. Squeezing her fists behind her, Astrid hoped, Maybe Stormfly will understand something is wrong when I don't return and fly back to warn the other riders from Berk.
A Nadder's loyalty, though, might also mean Stormfly would head straight toward danger and trap herself alongside Astrid.
Gods forbid it.
But after tripping on a loose plank on the deck, stumbling, and then glancing upward toward the dais at the front, Astrid's thoughts immediately evaporated from all concentration on Stormfly. For there before her stood Drago Bludvist. Her first time meeting Drago, he already had been an impressive giant, just as one would expect for any Viking chieftain. Yet now, with his glare fixed upon her, she found him something more. An imposing figure, just as tall as Stoick the Vast, yet with blackened dreadlocks, dark eyes, and a face liberally torn apart by scars. And a scowl that ripped his face with more tenacity than any of his half-healed wounds.
"What have we here?" he asked in a quiet yet somehow still menacing voice. "I've seen you. The Hooligan girl."
"That's all you can say? That I'm a Hooligan and I'm a woman?" she scoffed.
"We found her spying on us," a voice behind Astrid apprised; she recognized it to be the voice of the woman soldier she had sneaked up on earlier. "She might have heard some important information."
Drago's face, though still hard as a rock, subtly shifted into a deeper frown. With a low bite he rebuked, "There should have been no need to discuss 'important information' in the first place."
Astrid felt the guard on her right side flinch. And she herself felt her own body steel when Drago dragged his gaze from the woman behind her and forcefully landed his heavy eye contact onto Astrid.
"But in the same way, there should have been no need to steal onto my ship either."
"And that justifies handcuffing and rough-handling me?" she challenged. "Stoick won't accept this. No one on Berk will. We'll tear you apart. You might have most of Berk thinking you're they're ally, but I know you are planning to turn against us. And once they find out that you've taken me, there will –"
Drago leaned forward. Spoke very, very softly. "None of them need to know."
For the first time in this entire interaction, she realized they very well might kill her. And with a potential battle imminent, there was no guarantee anyone would send out search and rescue parties to recover her. Everyone could just assume she was one of the casualties. Unless someone noticed quickly that Astrid had disappeared – hopefully Fishlegs or one of the others would take notice and act – then she very well could die, her body never found by anyone on Berk, or be captivated with no hope to escape except by her own wit.
She had never feared death, but her mouth still dried as Drago brooded, staring down at her, judging, weighing, mulling. He opened his lips. Scars stretched on his cheeks as he spoke. "Keep her alive for now."
She felt herself exhale in relief. In truth, Astrid had not even subconsciously known she had been holding her breath until now.
"After all," Drago said, the left half of his mouth twitching into a snarling grin while the other half remained icy cold, "she could be useful later on. Put her in the dragon traps. We'll deal with her after the battle."