SUMMARY: Tuffnut begins to worry about his future while being stuck at home with his sister and dad on Berk.
CHAPTER 6
Several months later...
The mornings were getting longer to Tuffnut, and his every day seemed to be the same.
Tuffnut woke up on a nameless day, awakening to the ordinary layout of his childhood room in his home on Berk. Sunlight beamed from his open window and gave the room a golden glow.
His eyes felt dusty. Tuffnut swiped them free of debris that had accumulated in his eyelids as he had slept.
Ruffnut's bed at the right side of the room was empty. The covers, a collection of brown, threadbare quilts made from flannel, were made. That meant Ruffnut hadn't left in a hurry like normal. To do what, Tuffnut only sometimes knew.
The woodboards of their floor had also been swept. That was odd.
Tuffnut felt a sharp and ticklish sensation on his thigh, and he saw that his chicken, Chicken, was using his body as a bridge to hop onto his window's ledge.
He heard her talons tack against the house when she flapped a short distance to the ground and scampered across the grass to her coop alongside his family's geese.
The geese began to honk from surprise at Chicken's arrival, and then his two mules shrieked and hawed, and next his sheep began to bay in alarm. Altogether, his livestock further acquainted his ears with the noises of his home which Tuffnut had longed to escape. He buried his pillow against his ears while the animals from outside made an ungodly cacophony.
Ruffnut walked into their room in search of an item. Tuffnut listened to her rummage and pretended he was asleep.
"How can you sleep with all that racket?" Ruffnut said to herself. She gave up looking under her bed for the item. She shifted to Tuffnut's belongings. Tuffnut grew more suspicious of her investigation when she yanked off his woolen sock and inspected the inside of it.
"I'm sure you have plenty of lint in your bellybutton," Tuffnut said. The sock was thrown from her hands, and then it planted on his nose.
"D'you have a hairtie? I lost mine."
Tuffnut had been asked for stranger items for Ruffnut to borrow. He didn't want to hand over his only hair-tie without reason, though. "For what?"
"For my apprenticeship," Ruffnut muttered. "D'ya have one or not?!"
Tuffnut lifted his eyes slightly from his pillow. "You're an apprentice?" Of what?, Tuffnut thought. Burping the alphabet?
Ruffnut decided to sit on Tuffnut's mattress in case he demanded an explanation. "Yeah. It's underwater basket-weaving. There's some plants that are great for baskets that only grow underwater, so it's easier to just weave them underwater. But it's way harder than it sounds!" Ruffnut said excitedly. She hadn't shared with Tuffnut about her class yet, and she was happy to let him know how much fun she was having.
Ruffnut reminisced to her beginning class that had commenced a week before. "You have to hold your breath for like a full minute, 'cause, y'know, if ya pass out, your basket just sinks to the bottom of the water. And then there's like no basket, and that sucks, 'cause then you're the only one who comes up without a basket, and then everyone just stares at you like this-!"
Ruffnut made a severely disappointed glare to Tuffnut by slanting her brows, stretching the whites of her eyes, and shriveling her nose like a weaselcat.
Tuffnut thought she looked like their Dad when they had returned to the house past their curfew.
"It's only for girls." Ruffnut elaborated. "And all'a the weavers have to keep their hair outta their eyes to see in the lake. And 'cause it's proper etiquette or somethin'. Gimmie that hairtie!" She pulled off Tuffnut's remaining sock and fished through it.
"If it's girls only, then how did they let you in?" Tuffnut attempted to say. He ended up cackling before he could finish.
Ruffnut slapped Tuffnut's other sock onto his face and released an exasperated sigh. She was too excited for her new lesson to dignify him with a reply.
Tuffnut peeled the socks from his face. His laughter died down as an uneasy feeling creeped into his veins. "You're leaving me here alone?" He mumbled.
"I know Dad isn't the greatest person to be stuck with all day, but, yeah, I'm gonna have to." Ruffnut huffed weakly through her nose and looked down compassionately at her brother. "Bein' away from the Edge has got me thinkin'," Ruffnut carried on. "I never really knew who I want to be when I grow up. I just...grew boobs and didn't think about it."
Ruffnut felt a pang of regret at all the formative years she had forgone by being a nuisance to her village instead of a formative part of it. When Hiccup had agreed with her angst in leaving Dragon's Edge, she felt like he recognized her efforts to do a good job in his eyes in all of their missions and assignments. She wanted to return to Berk with a new purpose, and she had discovered it in underwater basket weaving. "I can't figure out who I am if I don't go out and try things."
"Underwater basket weaving is a thing?"
"It's a respected trade!" Ruffnut defended. "Maybe, for once, you should find one too."
Ruffnut was being genuine about her thoughts with Tuffnut, and Tuffnut wasn't truly listening. Ruffnut simmered her anger and refrained from nagging Tuffnut any more when she saw Tuffnut look away from her in guilt. She continued in a softer tone, "it's almost been a year, Tuff, and all I've seen you do is sleep until noon and leave me to do all of your chores until Dad gets home. Something's gotta change. You can't mope around fer'ever just 'cause you don't have any friends. Make some new ones. I did."
Is that what she was trying to say to him? That he should "grow up" and get a life, too? That wasn't easy to do when he failed at every apprenticeship he had attempted. Even the village's paint-watcher had gave him a failing testament.
The truth was, to Tuffnut, he wasn't good at anything without Ruffnut, and, just like he had predicted, no one had needed him. Tuffnut hid himself under his bedcovers.
Ruffnut tapped the warm figure underneath the russet blankets. "You wanna talk?" Ruffnut inquired. He didn't reply, but she persisted. "I can come home early, if y'want." If Tuffnut was not in the mood to feed the livestock, tend the garden, brew the mead, and shine their Dad's weapons spotless, there could be consequences Tuffnut never wanted to face.
Ruffnut finally gave up on consoling Tuffnut when he asked her to leave.
Tuffnut waited until Ruffnut's bootsteps were silent to release the quiet sniffle he had been holding. He wiped his eyes uselessly as warm tears leaked down his face.
Words: 1144
