Disclaimer: I don't own How To Train Your Dragon, and knowing my luck, I probably never will. All rights go to the author of the books, Cressida Cowell, and the company that made the much-loved films and series, Dreamworks. However, I do own Brenna Bloodsword and Starlight the Night Fury, as they are my OCs. This disclaimer will change over time, as I may add more OCs to this story.
A/N: Here's a code I made up for you so this is easier to read.
Bold: Dragons are talking
Italics: Humans are thinking
Bold italics: Dragons are thinking
Underlined: Any language being spoken that isn't either Norse or Dragonese by bilingual/multilingual characters. It will be written like this for humans:
*Language goes here "Insert speech here."
And like this for dragons:
*Language goes here "Insert speech here."
If there isn't a language in front of the speech, assume that they are speaking Norse if they're human and Dragonese if they're dragons. Sorry about giving such a long A/N, but I felt I had to explain this for you.
The next day, Brenna was woken by a dragon. Not by Terrible Terrors like yesterday morning, but by a very hungry Starlight. "Hey, where's my breakfast?" Starlight whined. "I'm hungry, Brenna! Get your red-headed butt out of bed and get me some fish!"
"Oh, shut up!" Brenna groaned, taking the pillow out from under her head and hitting the Night Fury round the head with it. "Let me sleep, for Thor's sake! Get your own breakfast for once!"
"Why can't you do it for me?" Starlight whined. "Please, Brenna? I'm absolutely starving!" Starlight, in an attempt to sway Brenna's conscience her way, broke out the infamous puppy-dog eyes, a tool used by every dragon to get what they wanted. Brenna cracked.
"Fine, I'll get it for you!" Brenna agreed, as Starlight flashed a smug grin in her direction. "Lazy, greedy dragon."
"Aww, I love you too, Brenna," Starlight teased. Brenna growled as she got out of bed, sighing as she heard Starlight snicker at her bedhead. She'd have to fix that later. But now she had to get Starlight her breakfast. Brenna dragged a basket, filled almost to overflowing with cod, out of the shed and left it in the kitchen.
"Starlight, your breakfast is in the kitchen," Brenna called, as she prepared her own breakfast: a big hunk of bread, some yak milk and an apple. She also cooked some fish (that she'd swiped from Starlight's basket) to properly tide her over. She finished the bread and apple and was about to put the fish onto a plate when she saw Starlight staring at it hungrily, licking her lips as she fed herself with raw cod. "What's so interesting about my breakfast?"
"I just realized fish smells really nice when it's cooked," Starlight daydreamed aloud. Brenna let out a sigh of pure frustration and then decided to slowly eat the cooked fish right in front of the thoroughly jealous Night Fury.
"Mmm, this tastes amazing," Brenna groaned happily, taking in big bites of the fish. "And fish tastes so much better when it's cooked."
"You've made your point, now shut up!" Starlight pleaded. "You're making me hungry!"
"You're halfway through eating an entire fishing basket full of fish! How are you still hungry?" Brenna exclaimed.
"I don't know!" Starlight exclaimed back. "It smells soooo good! Please let me have some, Brenna!"
"No."
"Please?"
"Starlight, let me eat my breakfast in peace. Emphasis on my breakfast." Brenna glared at the petulant Night Fury as she ate her fish. "Why can you eat bits of my breakfast and I can't eat bits of yours?"
"Because my breakfast is raw, cold fish and you don't have the stomach to eat it the way I like it," Starlight sassed. Brenna glared at her as she ate the last of the fish and drank the milk. She sighed as she got up and went to her room to get changed.
"Greedy dragon," the redheaded girl muttered, as she changed into a green dress with grey trimming with loose grey pants. She tied her hair up into a bun and got her boots. "Hey, Starlight? Wanna hang out with the others?"
"What sort of question is that, you idiot? Of course I wanna hang out with the others!" Starlight agreed. "Come on, Brenna!" Brenna found herself being dragged out of the house by Starlight, and had just enough time to close the door behind her before she got thrown onto Starlight's back and was thrown into the air.
"WHOA! STARLIGHT, SLOW DOWN!" Brenna screamed.
"Why would I want to do something as silly as that? WOOHOOHOOHOO!" Starlight whooped, pulling off tricks just to make Brenna's stomach flip. When they arrived, Brenna looked green at the gills and Starlight was panting for breath with a big grin on her face. "Wasn't that fun?"
"I can think of a lot of words for that, and none of those words happen to be 'fun'," Brenna groaned, as she slowly walked into the arena. She nearly collapsed when trying to sit down, but made it to her designated spot closer to the dragons than the humans, specifically Starlight. Starlight chose her seat to be close to Toothless. It turned out that today was not a training exercise; today was a rare self-defence day taught not by Hiccup, but by Gobber.
"All right, kids, today you will learning about hand-to-hand combat in battle," Gobber droned. "In a fair fight, either both of you get a weapon or neither of you do. But that's a fair fight, and not everything in life is fair. So, you have to learn to fight with your bare hands. I'll have to pair you up at random and whoever's left out will fight me. Understood?"
"Understood," the teenagers mumbled, as they started sorting themselves into pairs. The twins chose to fight each other, Snotlout decided to fight (read: pick on) Fishlegs. In a surprising move, Hiccup fought Gobber, and Brenna was to fight Astrid. Astrid didn't like the look of the tall redhead who seemed to be trying to take her beloved Hiccup away from her. Now Astrid could punch her and let her know who was in charge, and Brenna couldn't complain about it, since it was a training exercise and everyone was doing this. It was perfect.
As everyone struggled and fought, Astrid took some proper swings at Brenna, who blocked them one by one. Kicks weren't working either, as those were all expertly dodged, one after the other. Astrid gritted her teeth; she was actually kind of decent at fighting. But it was OK for the blonde Valkyrie. Just a little more effort on her end and she wouldn't have to deal with Brenna being so close to Hiccup any longer. Astrid sent harder and faster kicks and punches at Brenna, who began to fight back. Both were getting punches to the stomach and faces, but nobody could have predicted what was going to happen next.
Astrid planned to kick Brenna's leg, intending to make her knees buckle and Brenna fall to the floor. From there, she could get on top of Brenna and put herself at an advantage. And it worked . . . but a little too well.
The kick landed on Brenna's right leg, which made her collapse onto the floor, as expected. The right leg clicked and was then thrown off Brenna's body, landing around two feet away from her. Astrid didn't know what was going on. Had she kicked so hard that she had ripped Brenna's leg off below the knee? But it couldn't be; it wasn't bleeding. Then it hit her. It was a prosthetic.
Brenna Bloodsword used a prosthetic leg and she had just unintentionally exposed it to them all.
"Brenna, are you OK?" Gobber asked, genuinely worried for the girl.
"Fine. I'm fine," Brenna muttered, as she felt everyone staring at her. "I need to go. Bye." She grabbed her prosthetic leg and reattached it as quickly as possible, not looking at anyone. "Come on, Starlight." Starlight obeyed, allowing Brenna to clamber onto her back. The gang watched a black blur leave the arena, utterly speechless at the most recent turn of events. Then Ruffnut turned to Astrid.
"You're finding her," the long-haired blonde stated, as if Astrid was going to do it immediately.
"What?" Astrid stammered.
"I said, you're finding her," Ruffnut repeated. "You scared her off, you bring her back."
"Scared her off? That's crazy," Astrid stammered.
"Crazy, but true." Tuffnut's voice backed up that of his sister. "Knocking off her prosthetic leg must have freaked her out and she ran away with Starlight. What if she never comes back?"
"There's no way Astrid could have known that Brenna used a prosthetic," Fishlegs meekly pointed out. "This is an accident."
"Thank you!" Astrid yelled. She didn't mean to yell, but she was just so frustrated it showed in her voice. Fishlegs squeaked and backed away, and the twins seized it as proof.
"With a temper like yours, no wonder she ran!" Ruffnut scoffed. Astrid snarled and stomped over to Stormfly, getting onto her back.
"That's it! I'm going to find her and sort all of this out just so you all shut up!" Astrid snapped, taking off for Brenna's house. Stormfly allowed Astrid onto her back, and they flew off in the search for Brenna. Luckily for her, she knew the way after landing in front of the house she lived in two days ago. Before she knocked on the door, her emotions kicked in. She felt unbelievably guilty about it all, and her humiliated, terrified face was burned into her mind. Summoning up all her courage, she knocked on the door. Starlight answered, growling when she saw Astrid standing there.
*Norse "What are you doing here?" Starlight asked. "If you're going to make her hide away again, then you can forget it."
"What? No, I just need to talk to her. Where is she?" Astrid asked.
*Norse "Gardening," Starlight replied. Astrid was taken aback.
"Gardening?" Astrid spluttered. "Are you serious?"
*Norse "Yes, she does that. Trying to embarrass her even more?" Starlight snarled. As far as she was concerned, what had happened in the arena was proof that her suspicions were right about Astrid. "What do you want me to tell her?" Astrid was close to tears at this point.
"Just tell her I'm sorry, OK?" Astrid blurted out, as she ran to Stormfly and flew home. As soon as she got inside and was in the safety of her room, she burst into sobs, embarrassingly loud sobs that she was so glad nobody but Stormfly could hear. She was already feeling so guilty about treating Brenna badly, but Starlight's blatant distrust just made it so much worse. Was she really that much of a horrible person? She just wanted to make sure Hiccup was hers and no new girl would take him from her, but she had, in Ruffnut's words, "scared her off". Astrid continued to sob into her pillow, covering herself up in a blanket so nobody saw her cry, even though she was home alone. I have to find Brenna and apologize to her, face to face, she thought, over and over.
Brenna was in the back yard, gardening as Starlight had said. She was planting the seeds of the plants she'd grown on the deserted island in a frantic, desperate attempt to forget about what had just happened in the arena with Astrid.
It wasn't working.
Brenna could still remember everyone's shocked faces, looking at each other with confusion. But she had a feeling about what they were doing now: laughing at the look on her face, making jokes about her, eventually ignoring her in the street and encouraging other people to do the same. It wouldn't be long until she was basically ran out of Berk by the other villagers, and she and Starlight would have to leave under the cover of darkness, so nobody saw them and had the chance to take any parting shots at them. It was such a shame, too; she was beginning to like it here and now she'd have to leave. She was interrupted by Starlight, who had taken the time to sneak into the garden and check on her. (Or rather, annoy her.)
"Hey, Brenna!" Starlight smiled, coming over to lick her face. Brenna giggled, while groaning at the feel of drool seeping into her clothes.
*Dragonese "Starlight, gross!" Brenna groaned. "And watch where you step; I don't want you trampling the seedlings."
"Fine," Starlight huffed, flying off so she could sit on the roof. "I suppose you won't want to know who asked for you." Brenna dropped her trowel in shock.
*Dragonese "Who was it? Tell me, tell me!" Brenna insisted.
"Astrid came. You know, the blonde one who knocked your leg off in front of everyone?" Starlight asked.
*Dragonese "Did she have a message?" Brenna asked, worried. She hadn't known the girl long, but she knew she had a fiery temper and wasn't one to anger.
"She told me to tell you that she was sorry," Starlight replied. "Personally, I don't believe that this was her idea. I'm not even sure if she meant it. If she tries to do anything like that again, you tell me, OK?" Brenna nodded, feeling numb with shock. Then Starlight left, leaving Brenna with a melting pot of emotions.
Why is Astrid coming to my house and saying that she's sorry? I thought she didn't like me, Brenna thought. What if Starlight's right and she doesn't mean it at all? Gods, this is confusing. Do I find her and ask? Would Astrid and her friends be OK with me being there? She was shocked out of her thought once again by a knock at the door. "I'll get it," Brenna called to Starlight, as she got up and walked to the door. She was shocked to see Hiccup, Astrid, Snotlout, Fishlegs, Ruffnut and Tuffnut at her door, all looking very worried.
"Brenna, it's you! Thank Thor! You weren't there the last time I showed up!" Astrid babbled, her eyes red and puffy. "I just really need to talk to you about the fight! I'm so, so sorry about kicking your leg so hard it fell off and embarrassing you and-"
"What's going on?" Brenna asked. "Astrid, are you crying?" Astrid shook her head, refusing to look Brenna in the eye.
"We just want to talk to you," Hiccup explained. "Clear up the whole arena incident so we can move on from it."
"And we want to know about the leg," Snotlout butted in. Astrid, through her tears, somehow managed to find it in herself to punch Snotlout for his thoughtless comment. "OW!" The twins glared at him.
"Don't be so forward about it!" Ruffnut hissed. "Hasn't she been through enough today?"
"But I want to know!" Snotlout whined.
"At least come to the Great Hall and talk with us," Fishlegs quietly pleaded. "There's some things you might want to know." With that, Brenna reluctantly agreed.
"Let me just freshen up before I go anywhere," Brenna insisted.
"Why would you need to freshen up?" Astrid asked.
"My fingernails have dirt under them from planting a bunch of seeds I've been saving and half of my face has Night Fury drool on it. I need to wash up," Brenna explained. Astrid blushed and looked down at the floor.
"Sorry," the Valkyrie muttered. Brenna left to splash water onto her face (to remove the Night Fury drool) and wash her hands (to remove the dirt under her nails). Then she changed back into the green dress she was wearing earlier and followed the gang to the Great Hall. They got themselves a table, sat down . . . and then the questions started.
"Why did you hide having a prosthetic?" Fishlegs asked.
"I was used to doing it all the time," Brenna explained. "The people round there weren't too accepting of it, so I learned to hide it. And it went well, until today, that is."
"Seriously? People got worked up over something like that?" Hiccup asked, incredulous. "Nobody cares round here. In fact, for some, it's a badge of honour."
"How did you lose it?" Ruffnut asked. Brenna flinched.
"Oh, and I was being too forward?" Snotlout snapped. "Hypocritical much?"
"Leave my sister alone!" Tuffnut snapped. A brawl was about to break out, if it wasn't for Ruffnut, of all people, holding both boys back.
"Look, this fight is completely unnecessary!" Ruffnut snapped. "This should be sorted out peacefully, you hear me?"
"She's actually being reasonable and responsible," Hiccup observed.
"Besides, if you're fighting, then how will we know how Brenna lost her leg?" Ruffnut pointed out.
"I take that back," Hiccup muttered.
"If you're that interested, I might as well tell you," Brenna sighed. "It happened when I was a child, seven years old. I was travelling with my father to see relatives that lived far away when we were ambushed by pirates. They wanted money, goods, anything of value. My father couldn't give them anything, for all we had were spare clothes and a little food for the journey. The pirates didn't believe him, and thought that my father was hiding goods from them. In a last-ditch effort to get everything we had of value, they separated me from my father and told him that if he wanted to get his daughter back unharmed, then he had to give them the goods they wanted. My father couldn't give them anything, and he thought that they were bluffing and wouldn't hurt a child. They weren't bluffing, as everyone who hears this now knows." Everyone was deeply sympathetic for Brenna.
"That is an extremely young age to lose a limb," Hiccup said softly. "People freaked out about my age when I lost my leg, and I was fifteen. Still young, but just over twice the age you were when you lost yours."
"How did the rest of your family react to it?" Astrid asked. "What about the other people in the village?"
"My family's reaction to it was . . . varied," Brenna admitted. "Some of them wanted to baby me and insist on doing everything for me, which was relaxing to a point. Others tried to use it as an excuse to toughen me up and teach me all about the worst things the world had to offer to a girl. The other villagers became a lot more hostile once they realized my leg wouldn't grow back. In my old village, anyone missing a limb was of a lower class and just about everyone I came into contact with treated me like I wasn't important and they could torment me all they wanted. Something I was mocked about a lot was people noticing my prosthetic and scratching it or kicking it every time they saw it. So I hid it with loose trousers and long dresses and a boot on the end of it so it looked real."
"Well, Berk isn't like that, and nobody cares if they can see your prosthetic leg," Hiccup asked. "About half of the people in the village have prosthetic arms or legs. Gobber has both of the above."
"This is such a relief," Brenna sighed. "I really hated hiding a prosthetic leg just because of what people said about having to see it and use it. That's one thing I won't have to worry about again, I guess. I'll have to adjust my prosthetic when I get home. It might be a little short or too fragile without a boot on the end."
"I'm sure Gobber could help you with that," Astrid suggested, trying to be helpful. "He made Hiccup's prosthetic leg and he'll know just how to adjust yours."
"Thank you for suggesting it, but I'd like to do that myself," Brenna politely refused. "I've always felt uncomfortable with people going out of their way to help me. Besides, I can do it myself just fine."
"OK," Astrid muttered. "I'm really sorry about what happened earlier today."
"I know, Astrid," Brenna replied, as she went home, Starlight in tow. Her face didn't show it, but she was elated. No more hiding! No more shame! She told everything to Starlight on the way home. The Night Fury was still a little sceptical of the blonde.
"You can throw a party in your room if you want, but I don't trust that girl," Starlight huffed. "If she was mean to you before, she's willing to do so again."
"Oh, can't you have a little faith in the people around me?" Brenna asked.
"No," Starlight replied. "I've tried that before, and you know how that ended."
"There's something different about these people, though," Brenna persuaded.
"I've heard that before," Starlight replied.
"This could work out well," Brenna mused.
"I've also heard that before," Starlight replied. "Just wake me up when you need me to light candles so you can read all night long, like you normally do."
"Oh, shut up!" Brenna yelped, as Starlight laughed at her. "Nothing changes with you, does it?"
"Of course not," Starlight grinned, licking her over and over and covering her in drool.
"Starlight, gross! You know that doesn't wash out!" Brenna groaned, as she walked home. Starlight grinned at her rider's disgusted face, and that grin didn't leave her face until she went to sleep that night.