Life with the Night Furies Chapter 27
A/N
Here's a quick two-chapter expansion to the ongoing story, as a sort of Christmas gift to my faithful readers.
o
The chief of the island of Berk was enjoying life. He was enjoying the fact that he had wings, and a tail with broad tail fins, and black scaly skin. He was enjoying these things because he had recently lost them all, and had thought they were gone forever. Most men would have been horrified if they had been turned into a dragon, and thrilled if they became human again, but those men were not Hiccup. Now he had his Night Fury body back, and if he'd ever had even the tiniest of doubts that he was better off as a dragon, those doubts were completely erased now.
He was circling the island at medium altitude, watching the rest of his family catching their breakfasts. He'd dive down and join them in a few minutes, but for now, it was a simple pleasure to just fly, and watch his mate and his children and their mates flying as well. Their numbers would be slightly diminished soon. It was time for him to keep his promise to start a new dragon's nest among the Vikings of the Bog-Burglar tribe. That new nest would need a Night Fury or two to lead them, and his firstborn daughter, Night-fury-six-shooter, was ready to take on that challenge. This would mean that he wouldn't see her so frequently anymore. That would be an unpleasant change – he loved his family – but it wasn't a permanent goodbye. Besides, his friendship with Toothless hadn't been harmed by them living on different islands, so he knew he could adjust to this separation as well.
He wasn't sure if Berk would be losing two Night Furies or three. Six would be accompanied by her mate, Night-fury-faithful-brother, of course, but she also wanted to take her little sister, Thing Two, with her. It would be a win-win for both females. The younger Night Fury could begin learning the ins and outs of leadership without being thrown into the top spot all at once, and Six would have some extra Night Fury reinforcements close by if she needed help in a hurry. Thing Two was torn; like most youngsters, she wanted to be older than she really was, and the chance to be the number-two dragon in a brand-new nest was an opportunity that would not come again. But she didn't want to be separated from her twin sister, Thing One. They'd never been more than two minutes apart since the day they were hatched. That separation was already taking place, though, a little at a time. Thing One had paired off with Anya, wife of Rangi, the chief's translator, and the two of them were becoming quite close. The twins couldn't do everything together anymore, now that one of them had a human in her life, so they had been slowly separating for months. A physical separation wouldn't be as traumatic as it might have been a year ago. Thing Two had a week or so to make up her mind. Hiccup had no idea which way she would go.
With mild curiosity, he watched the top of a ship's mast appear above the horizon. Coming from that direction, it could be from any of half a dozen Viking tribes, or it could be a free trader like Johann. He'd just have to wait and see who the visitors were, then find Rangi so they could wait and see what the visitors wanted. Of course, he could fly out and examine it for himself, but he just felt too lazy for that today, and it wouldn't hasten the ship's arrival, so he might as well wait for it. Either way, a lone ship couldn't be much of a threat, so he'd make sure that the visitors got a proper welcome at the docks. It was all part and parcel of being a Viking chief; indeed, keeping good relations with the other tribes was one of his most important jobs. He was probably unique among the chiefs in that he needed an interpreter to speak to those others. No, that wasn't quite true; Madguts the Murderous never spoke, but only grunted, and his assistant Gumboil translated those grunts for him. That was all that Hiccup and Madguts had in common, and Hiccup fervently hoped that Rangi would grow up to have nothing in common with Gumboil at all.
A sudden splashing from below caught his attention. The other Night Furies had been working over a school of whiting, and now a pod of dolphins had joined in, drawn by the prospect of an easy meal. Between the flying predators and the swimming predators, that school of fish would soon be decimated and scattered. It was time for him to catch his breakfast while there was still something to catch. He went into an easy glide, spotted a small group of fish that was breaking away from the main school, and charged up a firebolt. It was chow time!
It took four hours for the unknown ship to reach Berk's outer harbor. By that time, it was clear that the visitor was not a messenger from another tribe, and it wasn't a trader, either. The ship's side shields bore the swords-and-hammer logo of the Archipelago's senior Law-Speaker, Warhamster the Wise. Now, why would he be coming here? He visited each tribe before the annual Thing, to prepare them for their big legal get-together, but the Thing was months away. This was probably a courtesy call, just to see if the tribe needed a legal expert to help solve any knotty problems that had come up. Some of the big tribes had their own designated Law-Speakers; the rest relied on traveling experts like Warhamster, whose crew was tying up his ship to the docks as Chief-night-fury and Rangi arrived. The Vikings of Berk seldom needed such help; Hiccup had become something of an expert in Viking law, and Rangi was surprisingly knowledgeable as well.
It was right about then that Hiccup's sensitive ears heard the voices of two Vikings, one male and one female, calling for him. They sounded angry and impatient. Dealing with angry, impatient Vikings was hardly a new thing for Hiccup – if the chief had a written job description, "Deal with angry, impatient Vikings" would be one of his top responsibilities – but he couldn't ignore the Law-Speaker to deal with them. That kind of rudeness would come back to haunt him at the next Thing, even if it wasn't intentional rudeness. Law-Speakers were important, powerful people, and slighting them was always a bad idea.
"Rangi, go to Nest, see what Vikings want," he said in Forge. "If they need me, stall them until I come. If minor problem, see if other Night Furies can solve."
"If I'm at the Nest, who's going to translate for you and the Law-Speaker?" Rangi asked.
"You go past forge to get to Nest. Send your brother here. Tell Gobber, chief needs his apprentice for morning."
"Shouldn't I send Varinn to deal with the Vikings, and then stay here and help you?" the young man wondered.
"When Vikings want help, they come to chief, not smith. You are chief's helper. Varinn is smith's apprentice. Vikings let you stall for time, no problem. If Varinn stall, they ask why, then they get mad."
"Okay, I guess," Rangi shrugged as he turned to go.
"Wait! First, tell Law-Speaker that I get different interpreter; then go."
"Okay." They waited until the elderly Law-Speaker stepped off his ship, then marched down the docks to meet him.
"Greetings, honored Law-Speaker!" Rangi called. "Berk welcomes you. I am Rangi son of Gunnarr, and I speak in the name of Chief-night-fury." He gestured to the black dragon who stood next to him. Hiccup bowed his head slightly for a moment.
"I greet you, Chief-night-fury," Warhamster nodded, which made the feathers on his helmet bob up and down. "I greet you as well, Rangi son of Gunnarr. I must confess, I'm still uneasy at the idea of a dragon ruling a Viking tribe, but your tribe has made that decision and I'll find a way to deal with it." He adjusted his cape, which was hanging unevenly on him. "I'm making courtesy visits to each of the tribes, and today, it's your turn. I'm here to help sort out any legal issues that your tribe might be facing. But before we get down to business, would it be all right if my men and I made this a liberty call? We've been at sea for a week, eating dried fish and drinking water from barrels. The last tribe we visited was being hit by some kind of sickness, so we didn't dare go ashore for long. We all could use a bath and a decent meal, and a chance to stretch our legs a little."
Gurgle, croon, rumble. "The chief says we'd be honored to host you and your crew. They'll have to pay for their food and drink, but you will be our guest. I have to go deal with another issue that has come up, but my brother Varinn will take my place as translator in a few minutes. He'll guide you to our bath house and our Mead Hall."
"Thank you most kindly," the Law-Speaker said, "but I have to insist on paying for my own food and drink. I avoid being in any tribe's debt, so I can be totally impartial, no matter which tribe I'm dealing with. Thank you for the kind offer, though. This other issue – is it a legal issue?"
"We don't know yet," Rangi answered. "I have to go and find out, and I probably need to hurry before someone gets impatient and starts attacking people with a raspberry or a pointed stick. Please excuse me." He turned and ran up the docks, leaving the Law-Speaker and the Night Fury staring at each other.
"If I remember correctly, you can't speak Norse, but you can understand me?" the older man said at last. Hiccup nodded.
"Are there any urgent matters here that need a Law-Speaker's attention?" he asked. The black dragon shook his head "no."
"That's a relief," Warhamster said, and relaxed slightly. "I love what I do, but sometimes it's nice to visit a tribe that can solve its own problems without outside help. Some of those other tribes... the problems they come up with! And then, as if that wasn't enough, they come up with hypothetical questions to test me! 'If you please, Warhamster...' 'Pardon me, Warhamster...' – posing problems that would cross my late master's eyes! Well, anyway, thank you for the offer of hospitality." They stood waiting in silence until Varinn strode down the docks to join them.
"You sent for me, Chief-night-fury?"
"I need you to be Rangi for now, translate my words."
"I'm probably not as good at it as he is, but okay. What shall I translate?"
"Tell him he and his crew have freedom of island. Show them where is bath house and Mead Hall. Tell him we meet for business after lunch." Varinn relayed this to the Law-Speaker, who turned to face his private longship and its crew.
"Follow this young man to the bath house and the Mead Hall," he called. A moment later, all sixteen Vikings leaped off the ship with a shout and rushed down the docks in a fair copy of a berserk charge; nothing was missing except the weapons. Varinn was hard-put to stay ahead of them as he led them up the ramps toward the bath house. Warhamster remained behind.
"I'll let my crew bathe first," he decided. "Then maybe someone can change the water in the baths for me?" Hiccup nodded. "Good. In the meantime, I recall that your father, Stoick the Vast, served a very fine ale in his Mead Hall. Is there any chance...?" The dragon nodded again.
Warhamster smiled. "Then this was definitely not a wasted trip, no matter what else happens! I think I remember the way. Thank you again for your hospitality. I'll see you and your translator after lunch." He made his way up the ramps. After a moment, Hiccup went airborne. It was time to find out what that angry couple wanted, and to see how well Rangi was stalling for time.
When he approached the Nest, he found his assistant deep in heated conversation with the Viking couple who had been calling for him. He recognized them as Barashell and Seekowl, a pair who hadn't given him much trouble in the past. The man didn't seem to agree with what Rangi was telling him. The woman was nodding from time to time and looking somewhat smug. Hiccup landed in front of them and walked over to join the discussion.
Barashell looked glad to see him. "Chief, help us out here," the man said urgently.
Rangi nodded. "Chief-night-fury, these two are having a marital disagreement and they want you to get involved. They –"
"He took my keys away!" Seekowl interrupted.
"You used those keys to steal the money out of my locked box!" Barashell protested.
"I needed that money to pay the cobbler for your new boots!" she shot back.
Chief-night-fury silenced them both with a quick snarl. During his quick misadventure as a human, he'd missed his wings most of all, but the ability to snarl at quarrelsome Vikings and shut them up was something else he'd missed terribly. It was a useful skill, and one that he used quite often. He sometimes wondered how his father had gotten things done without a good Night Fury snarl.
"I told you," Rangi said in a long-suffering tone, "that you can't take your wife's keys away!"
"That's what you say," Barashell snapped, "but I want to hear the chief's decision, not the opinions of a beardless boy!"
Hiccup was about to answer when Rangi said, "You realize, of course, that I have to translate whatever he says, so you're going to hear it from me no matter what you do?"
Barashell didn't have an answer to that, so Hiccup began growling and crooning. "According to Viking law," Rangi translated, "the keys are a wife's symbol of her authority over her home. Taking her keys is a degrading insult and should never be done."
Barashell looked from Rangi to Hiccup. "Did you really say that, or is the boy making it up?" Hiccup answered with runes in the dirt:
I REALLY SAID THAT
"Oh." The man looked crestfallen as he began to realize that he was wrong.
"It's exactly like I told you," Rangi continued. "Taking your wife's keys is a huge no-no. Some women have divorced their husbands for taking their keys, and the Law-Speakers have almost always ruled in favor of the woman, no matter what she did to provoke him into taking them."
"Divorce?!" Barashell blurted out. "You don't want that, do you, Seekowl?"
"No," she said flatly. "I just want my keys back."
Wordlessly, Barashell opened his belt pouch, pulled out an iron ring with three keys on it, and handed it to his wife. She snatched it out of his hands and quickly looped it onto the sash around her waist.
"I'm... sorry," the man admitted. "I didn't know how important they were to you."
"Well, now you're going to find out!" she gloated as she folded her arms and grinned maliciously. "I hope you like cold, dry food, because that's all you're getting for the rest of the week! And there's something else you aren't getting for the rest of the week, and that's –"
"Hold it," Rangi cut in. "He admitted he was wrong and he made it right. Why would you still want to punish him?"
"Uhh, because he deserves it?" she said.
Hiccup began to say something, but Rangi rushed ahead. "That's no way to make your marriage work! If he does the right thing, and you make him suffer for it, then why will he want to do the right thing the next time you disagree? He'll figure he's going to suffer no matter what he does, so he might as well do things his way instead of working out an agreement. You need to forgive and forget."
"That doesn't sound very Viking-like," Seekowl objected. "Is that the law?"
"No, that's common sense," Rangi answered. "It's the only way to make a marriage work."
"Who made you a marriage expert?" Barashell wanted to know.
"All I know is what I've seen in the couples around me," Rangi said. "In particular, I watch how my older brother and my sister-in-law, Varinn and Fluffernut, get along. They don't agree on everything, but they work everything out and they have a great marriage. I try to copy that approach with my own wife, Anya, and it's working pretty well. One of the biggest things I've learned is that holding grudges is normal for Vikings dealing with other tribes, but it's terrible for a relationship."
Seekowl wasn't convinced. "Are you saying that, after all the humiliation he put me through when he took away my keys, he shouldn't have to pay any price for it?"
Rangi looked her in the eye. "Do you want him to punish you every time you're wrong?"
She started to answer, thought it over, and slowly relaxed her belligerent posture. "You're really sorry?" she asked her husband. "You're not just saying it to get out of trouble?"
"Believe me, nothing like this is ever going to happen again!" he promised.
She thought that over, too. "Well... maybe we'll just pretend that this whole thing never happened."
"Deal!" he exclaimed. "Rangi, thank you. Thank you, too, Chief." They walked away toward their home. Before they rounded the first corner, they were walking hand-in-hand.
"Nicely done," Astrid said as she flew down to join them. "I was in Nest above you listening, ready to get involved, but you two solved problem."
"That's just as well," Rangi said with a hint of a twinkle in his eye. "You're a great warrior, Mother-of-twins, but you're not famous for being tactful when it comes to dealing with stubborn Vikings."
Astrid turned to Hiccup. "Can I hit him for that?"
"Go for it," he nodded. Astrid swung her tail, knocked Rangi's feet out from under him, and dumped him on his backside in the dirt. "Ow!" he exclaimed.
"That is for not respecting wife of chief!" she growled.
Rangi scrambled to his feet and pulled away from Astrid. "Chief, I thought she was only allowed to hit her own partner!"
Hiccup wanted to be sure he got his message across, and some of the words in that message had no equivalents in Forge, so he resorted to writing runes in the dirt:
SHE HAS A ROVING COMMISSION
TO WHACK ANYONE WHO NEEDS IT.
SHE'S RIGHT ABOUT YOU NOT
SHOWING PROPER RESPECT
NEXT QUESTION: WHY DID YOU
ACT LIKE YOU WERE CHIEF AND TRY
TO SOLVE THOSE VIKINGS' PROBLEM,
INSTEAD OF STALLING FOR TIME
UNTIL I GOT THERE, LIKE I TOLD YOU?
Rangi brushed the dirt off the seat of his trousers. "Well, it didn't sound like a hard problem to solve, and they were impatient, and I didn't know how long it would take before you got here, so I just did what I could."
I GAVE INSTRUCTIONS, YOU DISOBEYED.
THEY THANKED YOU FIRST, ME SECOND.
ARE YOU TRYING TO TAKE MY PLACE?
"No!" Rangi exclaimed hurriedly. "I could never do that. But you can deal with only one issue at a time, and there's always too many demands on you, and if I can do some of your easier jobs and reduce your work load, isn't that a good thing?"
YOU DID WELL WITH THIS PROBLEM,
BUT DON'T THINK YOU CAN BECOME
A SUBSTITUTE CHIEF JUST BECAUSE
YOU KNOW A LOT ABOUT VIKING LAW.
YOU SHOULD OBEY MY ORDERS
"I don't see the problem," the young man said. "Is it a bad thing if I try to stay one step ahead of you, as long as I'm not stealing your authority?"
IF YOU TAKE THE CHIEF'S JOB, THEN
YOU'RE NOT A STEP AHEAD OF ME,
YOU'RE STEPPING OUT OF LINE.
YOU ARE A TRANSLATOR,
NOT A JUNIOR CHIEF
Rangi shrugged. "I'll try to keep that straight in my head. I thought you liked it when I showed initiative."
I DO LIKE IT, AS LONG AS I'M THERE
TO SUPERVISE. THIS GOING OFF ON
YOUR OWN HAS GOT TO STOP
"Fine, boss," he sulked. "What are your orders for me today?"
STAY OUT OF TROUBLE, AND MEET
ME AND WARHAMSTER AT THE
MEAD HALL AFTER LUNCH
"Got it, sir," he said, and marched stiffly away.
"He's getting ideas," Astrid said sourly. "He's done so much chief-work with you, it's going to his head and he thinks he knows it all."
"He does know a lot about the law," Hiccup noted, "but you're right about it going to his head. This tribe can have only one chief calling the shots. I've got to do something about that young man."
"Young man?" Astrid was amused. "Less than a week ago, you were human for a while, and you and he were about the same age. Are you that much older than him now?"
"When I was human, I felt like a clumsy, useless boy again," Hiccup answered. "As a Night Fury, I feel like I'm more of an adult. I can handle problems without needing to ask for help all the time."
"So how are you going to handle this problem?" she asked.
He thought for a few seconds, then slowly grinned. "I think I have an idea. In fact, I really like this idea, and the timing couldn't be better. Now it's just a question of whether I can make it happen."
o
A/N
Barashell's name sounds like Baruchel, as in Jay Baruchel, the voice of Hiccup. Seekowl's name sounds like C Cowell, as in Cressida Cowell, who wrote the HTTYD books. There is no significance to this; I just wrote it that way for fun.