SUMMARY: Tuffnut learns new information about his mother's disappearance, and Astrid finds trouble on Dragon's Edge's outskirts.


CHAPTER 20

Ruffnut used a plow from Hiccup's toolshed to rake a pile of rainsoaked branches to the edges of the forest in their path. Her forearm smudged sweat from her forehead, and then she shuffled more debris out of the pathway before her.

Ruffnut scanned the low-shrubs and wispy grasses that marked the area of the boarpit, a location that was all hers and Tuffnut's idea when the Dragonriders had discovered Dragon's Edge Island nearly two years ago.

Hiccup couldn't see the reason for their pit then, although he readily approved Fishleg's kooky rock garden, Astrid's lookout and defense tower that waa even too complicated for her standards, and Snotlout's 'S'-the secretly agreed-upon eyesore of the main camp.

In a turn of events that had surprised the Twins, however, everyone loved the boar pit once they tried it. All it took was one time covered from head to toe in a deep trough of cold, fresh mud for Astrid, Hiccup, and Fishlegs to see what they had been missing out on for years. No one except the Twins enjoyed sharing the pit with the island's stray boars, though.

The pit currently looked pitiful compared to how it was back then. The storms the island had endured while they were all away filled the sizeable mudhole with snapped twigs and layered it with dead leaves. In pockets of brighter looking mud, the debris floated on sluggish waves, and in black, still sections of the mud, flanks of lightning-splintered wood stuck upward in place as if they were baked in clay.

Ruffnut heard Tuffnut venture to her side as she gazed over the destroyed pit. She continued clearing the forest.

"Even I wouldn't swim in that," Tuffnut mentioned. He threw the collection of sticks in his arms to the forest's periphery and dusted his hands. Dirt remained in wet crumbs on his palms. "We just have to wait 'till the next rain floods the pit so it'll be clear again. Are you done yet?"

"No, but I'm tired. It's not like Hiccup's gonna check. If it's too clean around here, the boars will never come back."

"Point taken. Let's get outta here."

They both walked towards the main camp. Along the way, they found Night Terrors flying in formations of random shapes. The Night Terrors followed them to the main camp, relieved to see the faces belonging to the humans who spared them from long-ago predators on the hunt for them on the island.

"I can't get him out of my head," Ruffnut said when the camp was in sight. The sun had started to leave the sky and the evening had started to show in a silver-blue color. As the Night Terror flock trailed them overhead, a faraway bonfire let the Twins know that dinner was almost ready.

Tuffnut looked her way. "Who?" he whispered, knowing exactly who.

"Dad." Ruffnut said. She shook her head slowly as she remembered her father's last words to her on Berk. "Why would he say that to me?"

Tuffnut thought for a right answer, but he couldn't find one. He kept busy and continued to collect new debris. "I don't know."

Ruffnut made a shrill growl. "He's such an asshole!"

"I've got a better word." Tuffnut replied. They both weren't surprised that she didn't smirk at his comment.

"Something doesn't seem right though." Tuffnut went on. "Dad said Mom 'left' us, but she died. It doesn't make sense. She didn't choose to die."

Ruffnut became quiet and looked back to Tuffnut. "No. She did leave."

Tuff double-blinked, looking lost beyond reason. "I don't get it." His voice raised in pitch as his throat started to close in panicked realization. "You told me she died fighting in the invasion!"

Ruff turned from him and explained in a slow, troubled voice. "Ma ran away in the middle of the invasion, in all of the confusion. She told me to take care of you, and left me her necklaces." Ruffnut braved Tuffnut's silence. She reached out to place her palm over Tuffnut's pendant.

Tuffnut welcomed her warm hand on his chest, but felt an anger burning in his stomach. "Why did you lie?"

"I don't know," Ruffnut said helplessly. Obviously from Tuffnut's sigh it wasn't what he wanted to hear. She explained, "I felt I had to, because I felt like she wanted me to." She continued walking to camp with Tuffnut.

"Well, s'over now." Tuffnut said with disdain. "We don't need Mom, and we don't need Dad. It's clear they don't care about us anymore, and probably never did."

Ruffnut walked ahead at a slightly faster pace, putting some distance between them so she could think to herself. She touched her pendant sadly, and suddenly she felt Tuffnut's hand squeeze her shoulder and stop her.

"All that matters sis," he said, "is that we've got each other now. We can do whatever we want and be whatever we want: even underwater basketweavers."

With glassy eyes and a small, breathless chuckle, Ruffnut hugged Tuffnut tightly, and then he squeezed her back warmly.

Astrid swallowed firmly, feeling her dry throat constrict and open. She stalked towards the bush which had just rattled in front of her during her surveillance of the Edge. She had quickly realized her hope of finding the island abandoned of intruders was only wishful thinking. The bush made a second frenzied shake and Astrid positioned herself behind a thick tree with her hands stacked firmly on her axehandle to swing a lethal blow.

Right as Astrid reeled to strike her axe at the threat, a small rabbit leaped from the bush, gnawing a cluster of dark berries. It made another leap forward and its feet romped gently on the dirt.

"Oh." Astrid cheeped, releasing a sigh of relief.

Her heart writhed heavily in her chest, feeling nearly painful with every rapid beat. She rested her palm on her chest, telling her body to calm, and she let her axe levy her hand to her side. She closed her eyes in a grateful prayer that she had been protected. She watched the rabbit move its petite jaw and whiskers speedily, the black juices on its dotted muzzle making it look all the more cute, mocking her apprehension.

Astrid flinched when an arrow flew into the rabbit's middle with an audible 'plick'! The rabbit fled out of her sight for only a few feet before it staggered and fell still.

"Aha! I've got you! I've got 'im, boys!" A stranger's tenor voice bellowed. His footsteps, heavy-sounding, tromped and crackled over the foliage while chains jingled with his movements.

Astrid pressed herself into the tree until her muscles ached, not daring to see if the jingle was from a harmless acessory or a weapon.

"I wonder how a nice, hot fire will make you taste tonight." The man seethed. Astrid heard the hunter lift the rabbit from the grass and nestle it in a pack. She imagined he was smiling at the corpse, and from her imagination, he had the creepiest smile of all legends.

Astrid felt a tickle in her nose and her throat buzzed. She constricted her stomach with her last strength, and then she finally sneezed.

To her horror, the hunter's footsteps slowly diverted her direction, as if each approaching step in the grass was a question. Astrid didn't wait to charge towards the hunter with her sharp axeblade raised in front of her.

The hunter shuffled backwards in a fast and agile motion, jingling the chains on his boots. His face was completely cloaked in a dark, leather helmet that only revealed his brown eyes. Two pauldrons of fat spikes were on his shoulders, and his bodyarmour was made of a thick and dark dragon hide, which was paired with studded straps on his biceps and across his lean chest. A navy tattoo of an anchor was on his arm that reached for his quiver of arrows tied against his back.

"You!" Astrid cried knowingly.

"Dragon rider," the hunter growled lowly, drawing a short blade.

Astrid brandished her axe and kept her attention on his weapon.

The hunter hesitated for only a moment, and then he looked to his men who were running to him. From the sound of them, Astrid knew, there were several, and they sounded mean.

Bring it on, she thought with a smirk to herself.

Astrid lunged her axe in front of her when the original hunter speeded forward with his blade poised as a dagger. She struck air and stayed on balance by using her axe's momentum to spin her once to his opposite side. She quickly blocked his strike to her knee. She plunged her boot into his middle, launching him in the grass.

She twirled around in time to strike away a sword aimed at her head from his comrade. Metal clanged in the forest before the butt of Astrid's axehandle jutted into two of her assilants' armour. One of the hunters took Astrid's elbow to their nose.

At last, the group of them were writhing in the grass. Yet, there was one she had long evaded who remained standing.

The skilled fighter was considerably taller than his men and he wore a black, studded hood with long, leather lapels over his thighs and sides that stretched to the toes of his boots. The whole armor on his body moved like a cloak as he stalked opposite Astrid's direction. His chuckle, sounding impressed and humored behind his face-covering helmet, sickened her, and she glared at him.

"What are you waiting for? I have all night." The hunter taunted. Astrid heard his accent was very foreign, with lazy constants and purring 'r's. It enraged her that even more Dragon Hunters like him existed from lands she never knew.

Astrid's eyes flared as she hefted her blade in a deadly arc towards the hunter's middle. The hunter's laugh enraged her further as she made many exhausting and futile attempts to subdue him and his crossbow, which he used as deftly as a sword to counter Astrid's every swing of blade or limb.

Finally, the hunter gripped her arm in a quick maneuver and wrestled it into an uncomfortable angle. Astrid released her axe with a yelp.

"Enough!" The hunter pressed in annoyance. Astrid striked a fist at his eye.

The hunter pinned her against him and locked her opposite arm at her hip. "Stop fighting like a drunken beast, and you will find I am not trying to kill you."

Astrid leaned away from the hunter's hot breath in her ear. "Who are you?!" she gritted.

"I am called Grimmel. And who precisely could you be?"


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