My dad certainly knew how to act. Only half an hour ago, he was distressed about something, and now, he was standing with Trader Johann like there was nothing wrong. Johann was running his mouth like usual, and my dad was standing with him, listening. Johann was making some grandiose movements with his arms and hands. Probably another exaggerated tale about something mundane, but I didn't really want to listen to him.
As Toothless and I approached, Johann turned his attention to us. "Ah, Master Hiccup! Good to see you again. I was just telling your father about my recent visit to Berserker Island. Such a beautiful place…although Berk definitely is prettier."
Typical Johann. Laying it on thick. I nodded in mock understanding and realized I was acting. Just like my dad a few seconds ago.
"I'm sure Dagur was happy to see you," I said. I was trying to not be normal Hiccup and turn this into an awkward conversation. If Johann had just one talent, it was his ability to make conversation about nothing.
"Oh, yes. He gave me a small cask of his favorite mead as a keepsake. It's very good, if you would like to try some."
"Uh, no. But thanks," I said to him. I had seen what happened when we tried to combine alcohol and dragons, and it was one of the worst nights of my life. That stupid Arvendole's Festival (or whatever you call it) had no doubt permanently soured my taste for ale or mead.
Toothless nudged his way past me and approached Johann. I watched as my dragon looked him up and down before whuffing in approval.
"Yes, you know who this is," I said to Toothless. He was being awfully cautious around Johann, which I thought was odd. Toothless was familiar with Johann and generally tolerated him, so it must have been some foreign smell that caught his attention. Probably from Berserker Island.
"Oh, my. Master Hiccup, your dragon is a sight to behold," Johann said, oozing compliments.
"Thank you," I said back. And left it at that.
I watched as Johann slowly moved his right hand and scratched Toothless under his chin. Toothless closed his eyes and murmured softly, telling Johann he liked what he was doing.
After a few seconds, Johann stopped and slowly turned toward my dad. Toothless sighed happily and shuffled back over to my side. Within seconds, he began rubbing his head against my shoulder, asking for more attention.
"All right, fine," I said sarcastically. I gave in and turned my attention to Toothless, knuckling into the top of his head.
"Right, Stoick. Like I said, Dagur asked me to deliver this to you." Johann produced a sheet of parchment and handed it to my dad. I watched as he took it from Johann and began reading. After about a minute, his shoulders slumped just a little. "Dagur would like to remind you that the peace treaty between your two tribes is due to be renewed. Or renegotiated."
A weight dropped in my stomach. My hand fell away from Toothless, out of my control. The sudden movement surprised him slightly. He nudged into my shoulder again, asking me to keep petting him. But I couldn't drag my attention back.
The peace treaty. I shuddered, thinking back to all of the bizarre and horrendous experiences I had with Dagur when he visited Berk. I never had to travel to Berserker Island, thankfully, because the limited contacts I had with him here were more than enough.
And what made it all worse was that I had to be a "good sport" about all of his antics when he visited Berk. Sure, just let him throw knives at my forehead for target practice. Just let him force feed Fishlegs overcooked eels. It seemed the Berserkers always caught us between a rock and a hard place. If we don't keep them happy, they attack and destroy the village. As volatile as they were, it only took one misstep for them to destroy a village. And they decided when you misstepped.
I heard my dad sigh in defeat and mutter, "Thank you, Johann."
"You are most welcome, Stoick," Johann replied. "I assume you will be offering the usual room and board for the night?" he asked almost too directly.
"Yes," my dad said quietly. "You can stay with us." He turned around and made eye contact with me. Held up the parchment, although I couldn't read it. But I knew it was a signal that I had something to do with it. "We need to talk about this tonight, Hiccup."
"Uh, okay…?" I said awkwardly.
Toothless had apparently given up on asking me for attention because I caught a glimpse of him bugging another villager for his affection as my dad walked past. "You can be so weird, Toothless," I whispered under my breath.
I walked toward Toothless and gently placed a hand under his left wing. He grunted slightly and turned to see who it was. "Come on, bud," I said to him.
"Tell him he can visit anytime!" the Viking called after me. He was referring to Toothless. I rolled my eyes and smirked as we began walking, grateful we were turned away from him.
Toothless and I plodded up the docks and walked the entire way home. I knew what that letter had in store for me probably wasn't good, so Toothless and I took our time reaching the door. But I couldn't walk slow enough to take forever, so I pushed open the door and quietly walked in with Toothless.
I sat down at the table across from my dad. Toothless padded past me and curled up near the hearth with a quiet murmur, his way of saying he was content.
"I'll let you read this," my dad said quietly. He passed the parchment to me, so I read it over. I squinted for a few seconds, trying to decipher the almost-illegible handwriting scrawled haphazardly on the parchment.
Piece Treaty between the Berserker Tribe and the Berk Tribe
The anual renewal of our piece treaty arives, and as custemary, its your turn to vsit our welcom hom. The curent cheif of the Berk Tribe to be in attendence, and a second representitive. We will discus the terms of are treaty over the coarse of to days, which will also used to show all our hospitible iland. It is encuraged or rekwire to join for festivites wich are very spechal this year.
We perffer the two representitives of Berk are Stoik the Fast and Hicup Horendus Hadok II. If they is curently avalable.
We eagerly wait your arivel.
Dagur the Deranged
"Wow," I announced, rolling my eyes and not knowing what to think. I made an exaggerated show of blinking several times, hoping the writing would magically change to something halfway intelligible. "Was that their best scribe?" I asked rhetorically. My dad shrugged. "They speak perfectly fine. The writer had to be drunk."
"If you don't go, they'll probably go to war with us," my dad said quietly. He completely ignored my conclusion about the writer being drunk.
"What?" I read through the letter again, wincing nearly as bad the second time about all the errors. My stomach dropped as I read their request for both me and my dad. And my name was still misspelled. "Oh. No." I paused for a moment. "Oh. No."
My dad nodded slowly. "I can't go to Berserker Island without you anymore," he said, although I didn't need his translation.
"Why do we even have to do this…this," I paused, searching for the right words. "This peace treaty!?" I shouted, slurring the word "peace."
"We don't have a choice," my dad said. "It's our job to protect Berk. If we don't honor their treaty, they'll go to war with us."
"This is so stupid!" I continued. I shot up to a standing position and threw my arms up. Toothless watched me with worried interest. "They're nothing but sadists! They write the treaty so they can use us!"
"Would you rather have them kill us?" my dad asked.
I stopped my rant. I knew from the beginning of my tirade that it would be useless, but anger got the better of me. I sighed in defeat. "No," I conceded.
"Exactly."
"But why can't we write the treaty? Why can't we just say, 'Sign this and stay out of each others' way'?"
"Hiccup, you know the Berserkers don't care about what anyone else says. They define the terms because it's the only way to keep them away from us. They have a better chance of honoring what they write."
"And they can just as easily ignore it later and go to war with us," I mused flatly.
My dad glared at me, which was just as intimidating when he was seated as when he was standing. "We're leaving tomorrow morning," he said. End of conversation.
I sighed again, my shoulders drooping. "Fine."
After a few seconds of silence, I walked toward the door and left the house. Sat down in the grass about twenty feet away from our stoop, just enough off the beaten path to be out of everyone's way. I pulled my knees close to my chest and took a deep breath. My breath came out as a faint cloud of steam, reminding me yet again we weren't quite finished with winter yet.
The sky was beautiful this evening. Some of it was hidden by clouds that took on a red-to-orange hue from the sunset. I wanted to simply enjoy it, but our date with the Berserkers was set and had a stranglehold on my mind.
A hollow ka-thump behind me and to my right caught my attention. After a second, Toothless came trotting out from the side of the house and sat down next to me.
"Hey, bud," I said quietly. He lay down, facing the same direction as I was, so I stroked along his neck, listening to him murmur quietly.
After a few moments, Toothless sighed and closed his eyes. His actions added to the serenity of the view, and it actually felt peaceful for a fleeting moment. He was working his magic, just like he always did.
I relaxed, watching the clouds and surrounding sky slowly change colors, becoming darker as the evening wore on. I lost most of my track of time, thanks to the Night Fury next to me.
Toothless was breathing rhythmically, and it almost seemed to be in time with the skylights that were beginning to fade into view. Like he had control over their swirling patterns. I watched as they grew stronger, feeling like I could both see and hear them as they moved in their nightly dance. Toothless took a deep breath and sighed, but it didn't have any effect on the skylights. They continued moving lazily, drifting aimlessly across the sky. So much for the illusion he had built up for the last few minutes.
"Master Hiccup!" a voice called from about thirty feet away. Even if he hadn't called me that name, I still would have been able to recognize his voice. I rolled my eyes in slight irritation, thankful it was dark enough to hide that movement. And turned toward the source of the voice.
Trader Johann was walking up the hill toward our house. Apparently, everyone on Berk had finished with the knickknacks for now.
Please don't sit down here, I thought at Johann. I didn't want to have anything to do with him for the time being. Not only because he loved to exaggerate his stories about his mundane travels, but also because he had condemned me to Berserker Island.
He must have pieced together most of my thought because he sat down to my left. I guessed the word "don't" wasn't thought quite strong enough.
"Master Hiccup," Johann began with a deep breath. I braced myself for a long story. "I want to thank you for what you did this winter."
I was looking away from Johann as he said this, ready for another bizarre tale, but what he said caught me completely off-guard. So naturally, I turned toward him and asked, "Excuse me?"
"This," he clarified, pulling up his right pants leg. Before I could say or do anything, he showed me the three scarred gashes on his right calf. "You saved my life that day. And I can't thank you enough for it."
Silence filled my mouth as I was forced to remember that ordeal with the Speed Stingers. But I also knew I had to choose my words carefully. It would have been pretty easy to sound like an idiot, but I was already doing a great job at it. I was quiet for just long enough to feel awkward. Typical Hiccup.
Eventually, I forced a single word out of my mouth. "Anytime," I said.
"You were very brave to take on those dragons like you did. I want to do something to repay you. And you mustn't decline it."
I paused for a second. "All right," I said with a smirk. "I'll play your little game. How about I ask you a few questions?"
"Ask away, Master Hiccup. Ask away."
"What do the Berserkers think about dragons?" I asked.
"Excellent question, Master Hiccup. I do know for a fact that the Berserkers love to kill dragons. Dagur the Deranged hunts them for sport. He was kind enough to tell me that he wanted to hunt down a Night Fury."
"Oh. That's…nice," I said, not trying to hide the sarcasm in my voice.
"Oh, Master Hiccup. That's not everything. Dagur let slip on my second night at Berserker Island that there is a Night Fury there. It lives underground, and no man who has ventured down to its lair has returned to tell the tale."
I was a split-second from asking Johann how clichéd he sounded with that yarn. But I held my tongue and changed course. "He's found a Night Fury…underground…" I repeated.
"Yes, Master Hiccup. Underground. He told me the dragon doesn't have any wings and cannot fly."
I looked at Toothless and then Back at Johann. Looked at Toothless again. "You do realize you're next to a Night Fury, right?"
"Yes, Master Hiccup. I believe…"
"You didn't tell him about Toothless, did you?" I asked quickly, interrupting him.
"No, not at all. You are too protective of Toothless for me to divulge that information. Dagur does know that there is a Night Fury on Berk, though."
"He's known that for a year," I said, brushing that fact aside.
"I snuck out late that second night to see if I could find the dragon," he started. I rolled my eyes, half expecting some hyperbolic I-just-barely-escaped-with-my-life tale. "When I went underground, there was nothing but several tunnels leading in different directions. They were much smaller than what Toothless could make if he could dig." Johann paused for a very brief second and then continued. "Some of the surfaces in those tunnels were coated with a thick, sticky material."
I looked at Johann in the soft green light for a second, then looked at Toothless, who was resting with his head on his paws. He sighed. I looked at Johann again. "Okay," I finally said, prompting him to continue.
"Well, as I was returning to the village, Dagur stopped me and asked if I wanted to hunt down that Night Fury. I told him no, because of the state of my leg." Johann motioned toward his gashed leg.
"Did you show him your leg?" I asked.
"Oh, yes. He knew I'd be too slow to get out of those caves if we needed to escape." He paused for a second. Leaned in and dropped his voice to a near-whisper. "Even though I'm mostly healed," he said with a wry grin, like he was trying to keep a secret from someone who was eavesdropping.
"That was…considerate," I observed, slightly surprised that Dagur was thinking favorably about someone who wasn't a Berserker. I also noticed Johann wasn't exaggerating. If he was, this time was actually believable.
"We never saw that dragon. But Master Hiccup, I think Dagur will try to take you and Stoick underground to hunt whatever is lurking down there. As I was leaving Berserker Island, that was all he talked about."
"Wonderful," I said, rolling my eyes.
I turned toward Toothless and stroked along his cheek. He sighed in contentment. I'm glad Dagur doesn't know the truth about Toothless, I thought.
I heard Johann open his mouth for a yawn. He stood and said, "Thank you for the conversation, Master Hiccup. I do believe it is time for me to turn in for the night."
"You're welcome," I said.
I grinned slightly. I had a conversation with Johann that was only semi-awkward. For a moment, I was proud of myself, at least until I realized my dad and I would be setting sail toward Berserker Island tomorrow morning.
"C'mon, bud," I said to Toothless, knuckling into the top of his head. He groaned softly and stood, arching his back in a stretch. I stood as well and began walking toward home, Toothless in tow.