This chapter contains swearing,
The teens are all gathered around in the training arena, separated into pairs. They got to separate into pairs themselves and Tuffnut was a little hurt when both Hicca and Ruffnut ran off to pair with Fishlegs and Astrid respectively. That left him with only Snotlout…
Gobber could be found near the large double doors that Hicca knew contained the Hideous Zippleback.
"Today is about teamwork. Work together and you might survive." He announces.
Gas seeps through the cracks of the door before it just blasts open. A cloud of smoke engulfs the ring, swirling around the paired-up teens. Astrid with Ruffnut. Snotlout with Tuffnut. Fishlegs with Hicca. All carry buckets of water, poised to throw them.
"Now, a wet dragon head can't light its fire. The Hideous Zippleback is extra tricky. One head breathes gas, the other head lights it. Your job is to know which is which." Gobber chuckles ominously from somewhere in the fog, or maybe he is already out of the ring.
The smoke encircles them, cutting them off from each other. The teens try their hardest to listen and watch for any sign of the dragon.
"Razor sharp, serrated teeth that inject venom for pre-digestion. Prefers ambush attack, crushing its victims in its…" Fishlegs is quietly muttering to himself and Hicca.
"Will you please stop that?" Hicca pleads with her voice just as tense as her body.
Tuffnut and Snotlout are moving nervously through the fog, back to back. Snotlout is singing quietly to himself to calm his nerves.
"If that dragon shows either of his faces, I'm gonna-" Snotlout stops speaking to point at an approaching shape, terrified. "-There!"
Tuffnut has no choice but to trust Snotlout and they both hurl their water into the fog.
"Hey!" Astrid calls in indignation.
"It's us, idiots." Ruffnut yells, pissed off.
Astrid and Ruffnut are soaked.
"Your butts are getting bigger. We thought you were a dragon." Snotlout stops himself again, turning to Astrid.
"Not that there's anything wrong with a dragon-esque figure."
Astrid elbows Snotlout in the face. Ruffnut drops Tuffnut with a punch to the throat.
Tuffnut wheezes on his knees and holds his throat, trying to get words out to question his sister before being suddenly yanked back by his vest.
"Wait." Astrid all but whispers.
The three remaining teens freeze. A tail sweeps out of the fog, taking the girls down, resulting in them spilling their buckets.
Fishlegs and Hicca stumble into the mess the teens made and come across them. They see the puddles of spilled water.
Tuffnut comes stumbling out of the fog, breathing quickly in a panic,grabbing Hicca's shoulders while spinning behind her to stabilize himself. Surprisingly he doesn't spill her bucket.
"Chances of survival are dwindling into single digits now…" Fishlegs jokes morbidly.
"Look out!" Hicca calls suddenly.
One of the Zippleback's heads emerges out of the smoke. Fishlegs hurls his water at it, completely dousing the head. It leers and opens its mouth, spewing more gas into the area.
"Oh. Wrong head." Fishlegs nervously laughs.
Gas starts to pool around their legs. Fishlegs tosses his bucket in the air as he flees in a panic.
"Fishlegs!" Gobber shouts, mad that he left his partner alone with the beast.
A clicking sound comes from behind them. Sparks flash in the smoke.
"Now, Hicca!" Gobber screams at his apprentice.
The other head sweeps out of the smoke, slowly snaking it's way towards the young female. Hicca hurls her water up at the mighty beast's head. It arcs and drops short of the dragon's sparking mouth. The dragon gives a devilish grin, savoring the kill it's about to make.
"Oh, come on!" Hicca grumbles.
"RUN, HICCA!" Gobber yells with all his might before he covers his eyes. He has a feeling his apprentice hasn't moved yet and yells out again, "Hicca!"
There's silence for a moment. The Zippleback hesitates, sniffs the air around the female, then retreats. The teens get to their feet, watching transfixed. Gobber peeks through his fingers to see... The Zippleback backing away from Hicca.
It must be the eel… I wonder if all dragons hate eels…?
She stands and holds her hands out, as if controlling the dragon.
"Back! Back! Back! Now don't you make me tell you again!" Hicca says in a chiding tone.
The Zippleback retreats through its door and into its cave, hissing.
"Yes, that's right. Back into your cage."
Hicca slyly opens her vest, revealing the spotted smoked eel from earlier. She tosses the remains of it inside the door, then slams it shut.
"Now think about what you've done." Hicca brushes her hands off on her vest as she turns to the teens and Gobber. All but Tuffnut stare, slack-jawed
"Okay! So are we done? Because I've got some things I need to…" Hicca jogs out of the ring, past the speechless group. "Yep...see you tomorrow."
Astrid sneers, pissed that her friend is hiding something. Pissed at the fact that someone so unviking-like could be so good at something she trained her whole life for.
"Something's going on." She grounds out, irritated.
The next while is spent with Hicca and Tuffnut cutting and stitching leather, drawing and shaping steel. They work by candlelight. They lay their work together to form a harness-like saddle, complete with handles and foot pedals.
The next day Hicca appears before Toothless, alone today, holding the new prosthetic. Toothless runs off as Hicca chases him down.
"Hey! Toothless! Come on!" Hicca laughs.
"Play first female! Catch me if you can!"
Hicca comes to terms with the fact that apparently dragons can talk. She'll have to address that later, she wants to get him back in the air, safe and where he belongs.
It takes a bit to wrestle the dragon into letting her attach everything but before long, Toothless and Hicca are zooming over the ocean. The man made tail fin breaks free, sending Hicca flying.
She cheers anyway. "Yeah! Whoa!"
Later that night she decides to attach a metal clamp that will allow her to be secured to Toothless' saddle. She heads back to the cove before dawn and sets everything up.
Toothless let's her climb on and gets ready for another test. In no time the small female has helped him out of the cove again and they're trying to fly over some fields.
The harness and tail seem to be holding, but only just. Hicca decides she will have to make them stronger while trying to keep them light.
While she is checking behind her she looses control and gets pitched back and forth as they both crash in one of the many fields they were soaring over. Hicca springs up and winces. She quickly tests her weight on her right ankle. The pain isn't so bad that she can't walk. She quickly turns to face her dragon to find him still rolling around in the tall grass, seemingly enjoying it.
She decides to call it dragon nip and slowly tests the words out loud.
"No, no, no. It's calm grass silly viking female."Toothless rumbles while rolling on his back in the grass, tounge flopped out.
"Toothless? Can you talk?" Hicca inquires as she takes a few cautious steps forward.
His eyes snap open and lock on hers.
"Yes."
That one simple word changed everything. Dragons, well, Night Furies, could talk!
"Wait." She says while flopping down to sit on the ground. "How is it I can understand you? How can you speak Norse?"
Toothless rolls over to rest on his belly.
I suppose I should explain this to her...
"I can not speak Norse. I speak the Tounge of Dragons. Everything we say to one another is translated through the bond we have formed."
"Bond? What bond? How was it created?"
"Ever curious as a hatchling I see."Toothless chuckles lightly.
"The bond we created was when we gave eachother the raw trust. You trusted in me to not snap off your front paw, a valuable part for humans. I trusted you to not take advantage of me while I closed my eyes and pressed my snout against your small paw."
"This is… fascinating. Can all dragons talk? Form bonds?" Hicca leans forward in her excitement.
"Yes. All dragons speak. We all can form bonds as we did in the ancient times. Humans turned on us and we waited for them to die for the bond to sever. Dragons and humans became natural enemies."
The two continued their discussion for a bit before deciding to head back, one more reluctant than the other. Once back on the island she runs off to get ready for training.
When the teens were in the ring later that morning, Astrid kept sending glares at Hicca the whole time they made eye contact while hiding and running from the Gronkle again. She mouths over at the smaller girl that the Gronkle was hers.
Hicca just nodded, having absolutely no motivation to harm what she now thinks is just a misunderstood gentle giant. Astrid hops over her barrier and charges off towards the Gronkle which seems to be heading towards Hicca, perhaps to finish her from the first training session.
Hicca acts on instinct and pulls out the small handful of calm grass that she brought with her from the field she crashed in earlier. She holds it out as the Gronkle gets closer and rubs it on her snout. The dragon goes weak and falls to the ground as Hicca tosses the grass down.
From Gobber and the recruits' point of view, Hicca is controlling the Gronkle with no more than a limp arm.
After the training session that day its mid afternoon. The recruits walk home together, surrounding Hicca and bombarding her with questions.
"Hey Hicca, I've never seen a Gronkle to that before." Fishlegs raises his eyebrow in silent question to his best friend.
"How'd you do that?" Tuffnut asked, genuinely curious if she figured out something else for training dragons.
"It was really cool." Ruffnut adds off-handedly.
She squirms under the pressure and attention and invents an excuse to get away from them all.
"I left my axe back in the ring." She turns and hurries back.
"You guys go on ahead and I'll catch up with you." Hicca assures the group.
Astrid watches, suspicious.
She's definitely up to something… Why won't she talk to me anymore…?
The group of teens continue to head back to the village, each lost in their own thoughts over today's events. Tuffnut takes the time, once he is sure they're all distracted, to slip away and head to the cove as he is sure Hicca already went there.
He walks into the cove, about to call out for her when he notices that she is scratching at Toothless behind one of his mighty ears. She moves her hands lightly and quickly to under his chin, just off to the side, when suddenly, he collapses. Hicca looks at her hands amazed.
"Neat trick there Hics." Tuffnut says.
Hicca jumps, startled, which causes the Night Fury to jump up protectively in front of her.
"Toothless, I'm fine. It was just Tuffnut."
"That is a guaranteed way to get my life-organ beating in the extreme, young one."
"Hey, you were the one who said we were around the same age! You can't keep calling me young one."
"I can, therefore I shall."Toothless huffs as he trots off and scorches the ground before lying down.
"Please tell me that my head isn't really that fucked. You can hear the dragon too, right?" Tuffnut asks quietly as he moves closer and sits down next to Hicca.
Hicca, in turn, sits as well.
"Yes. He explained that we had formed a bond when we gave each other our complete trust. I'm assuming it worked for you too."
"Woah… Hicca this is amazing! We can actually speak to a Night Fury!"
"Yes." She chuckles quietly. "It really is something."
"So, what. You've been trying to get him airborne again, right? How's that been going?"
"Oh boy. It's uh… it's a work in progress. We've crashed several times, I've made improvements to the saddle, the rigging has gotten messed up a few times, had to fix that, and I've just overall learned a few things."
"Like the scratching?"
"Yeah, that one's new. I think most dragons like and dislike the same stuff. For instance, Toothless hated that eel, right? Well, I was going to bring the remains down to the docks after training to maybe be used as bait. But I guess the Zippleback smelt it and started backing away from me. Once I got it back in the cage, I threw the eel in and it freaked out."
"I see, that's how you did it. I was a little worried for a minute."
At Hicca's questioning look he pushes forward.
"And the Gronkle today?"
"Oh. That was discovered by accident. Toothless and I crashed again in a field this morning. But when I turned around, he was happily playing in the grass. I was going to call it Dragon Nip, but Toothless said it was called "Calm Grass"."
Hicca sighs quietly to herself.
"What's wrong, Hicca?" Tuffnut nudges her shoulder with his lightly.
"Its just, they're so different from everything we know. How could I possibly go on trying to make my father proud, trying to become the pride of Berk like he wants, when that means killing these intelligent creatures? I may as well just be considered an Outcast now."
They're both silent for a moment.
"Well, they can add one more to that list. I don't think I could ever kill a dragon now. Not after everything you've shown me. Maybe you could even change the minds of those in the village?"
Hicca barks out a laugh interrupting him. He continues anyway.
"I'm serious. I think you could. I'll be right there to back you up the entire way."
"I wish that to be true more than anything one day, Tuff. But you know how stubborn vikings are. How stubborn this whole tribe is."
"Yeah. I do."
They both look over to Toothless sunning on the other side of the cove.
The next day in training, Astrid seems even angrier than the previous day. She goes from obstacle to obstacle, hurdle to hurdle, all in an effort to reach the Deadly Nadder first. The dragon, however, seems to have it's sights on the smaller female.
It charges towards Hicca and when it gets closer she holds up her empty hands. This confuses the dragon. Hicca spies Astrid running up from behind the bird-like dragon with a battle cry. Not really waiting for the Nadder, Hicca starts scratching around.
"What the- That… that actually feels nice."
A sweet voice invades Hicca's head moments before the dragon falls in pure bliss. Astrid stomps around and yells in frustration, even slamming her axe on the ground a few times. The other teens look on in amazement, except Tuffnut, he looks on with a knowing look.
It's only later, in the Great Hall, that Hicca understands just how popular she is becoming. And the positive attention is welcome from the hateful glares that used to always follow her in the past. She sits down at the table next to the recruits, who are all happily talking to one another, to eat her own dinner.
The others notice her and quickly abandon their table to sit with her. Tuffnut and Fishlegs manage to squeeze in on both her sides while Ruffnut and Snotlout sit across from her with Snotlout eagerly leaning over the table. They leave Astrid at the original table where she slams down her mug in anger and frustration.
They excitedly start talking to Hicca.
"Hey Hicca!" Fishlegs tries to grab her attention.
"What was that? Some kind of trick? What did you do?" Snotlout asks, wanting to know his cousin's secret. He's trying to impress Astrid after all.
"Hicca, you're totally going to come in first, there's no question." Tuffnut says while patting her shoulder lightly.
She manages to sit through her dinner without spilling her secret. She later heads back to the cove, Tuffnut in tow. After a while of them being there she grows bored. She pulls out her dagger, which she retrieved after the first night here where she had Toothless' full trust. She just admires it in the sunlight, not noticing that she has created a small patch of light on the ground that constantly moves as she twirls her blade.
Toothless claws at and starts chasing the light. She notices after a bit and starts to have fun with it. Tuffnut notices and adds another light spot via his mace, which he also retrieved the same day, and starts to confuse Toothless.
A few days later, with the next training lesson, the teens gather in the ring. Gobber lifts a beam from a small door and introduces the dragon behind it.
"Meet the Terrible Terror."
Tuufnut chuckles looking at the tiny dragon.
"Ha. It's like the size of my-" he gets cut off and taken down in a blur when the tiny dragon pounces.
"Get it off! Get it off! Oh! I'm hurt, I am very much hurt!" He throws in some dramatics, yes it hurts, but it's nothing he can't live with.
Hicca stops the Terrible Terror with the same light-patch trick she used earlier with Toothless. The tiny dragon retreats back to it's cage and Hicca closes the small door with her foot. The teens approach her yet again as Astrid looks on with suspicion.
Tuffnut decides to rub salt into the wound on Astrid's pride. "Wow, she's better than you ever were."
It wasn't long after that when Hicca was heading to the cove to meet up with Tuffnut and Toothless. From a distance she can see Astrid de-stressing by throwing her double bladed axe at any nearby tree. While looking, she catches her eye.
Shit… No no no… Can't let her find me…!
Hicca starts walking again, going different ways and hiding when she hears Astrid get close. Fortunately, she loses Astrid in the thick woods.
Down at the cove, Tuffnut helps Hicca strap a newly designed harness onto Toothless. With Toothless tied to a nearby post with a rope. Hicca rides him in the air - while stationary. Toothless looks like a giant kite tied to a tree stump. This harness seems to work.
Moments later, the rope breaks and the pair crash into yet another tree. Hicca's face is beet red while Tuffnut watches.
"Oh, great." Hicca notices the small cable attaching her to the harness is jammed.
Tuffnut has a good laugh but quickly sobers at her playful glare, suggesting they go to the blacksmith stall late at night.
The streets are empty save for a lone Viking who crosses Hicca and Tuffnut's path.
"Hicca. Tuffnut." The viking nods in acknowledgement to the two teens.
Hicca nods, trying to look casual while Tuffnut gives one of his crazy smirks. Once the coast is clear, she and Tuffnut covertly steer Toothless into the Blacksmith's stall. Toothless squeezes and presses himself inside, rooting through stuff and making a racket.
Astrid, walking nearby, is alerted.
"Hicca?" Tuffnut and Hicca freeze. Tuffnut then frantically passes her tools to try and pry the ring off the saddle hook. It won't budge.
"Are you in there?" Too late Astrid is right outside now.
As she starts walking around the side of the stall, Hicca jumps through the window and quickly snaps the shutters closed behind her. She makes sure her harness line is around her to the back where, through the shutters, it is still attached to Toothless' saddle.
"Astrid. Hey! Hi Astrid. Hi Astrid. Hi Astrid." Hicca stutters and stumbles trying to buy time to make up a believable excuse.
"I normally don't care what people do, but you're acting weird. Well, weirder." Astrid pokes at her friend, her pride still hurt.
Toothless spots a nearby sheep and makes a move toward it. As a result, Hicca is suddenly pulled back tightly against the window shutters. She makes a weird pose to compensate trying to stutter through an excuse before she gets pulled through the shutters. They snap back in Astrid's face.
Astrid moves to quickly reopen them but she was just a touch too slow as she finds nothing but an empty stall. In the distance, Toothless, with Tuffnut and Hicca on his back, slips off unseen.
It was dawn the next day when a lone, battered ship is pulled into a slip, overloaded with equally battered-looking men. They disembark to a crowd of onlookers, looking like they thoroughly had their asses kicked. Gobber hobbles through the mumbling crowd to find Stoick who was the last to disembark and glowering with battered pride.
One of the vikings helping the tired men and women asks one of the many questions that is on everyone's minds.
"Where are the other ships?"
Spitelout was the one to answer.
"You don't want to know."
Stoick lumbers past Gobber, leaving him staring at the trashed ship.
"Well, I trust you found the nest at least?"
"Not even close." The chief growls out, almost animalistic.
"Ah. Excellent." Gobber replies sarcastically as he follows Stoick up the ramp and snags his duffle bag with his hook appendage, sharing the burden.
"I hope you had a little more success than me." Stoick asks his most trusted friend tiredly.
"Well, if by success, you mean that your parenting troubles are over with, then... yes."
Stoick stops abruptly staring at Gobber aghast.
What does that mean? Was his daughter…?
No… You can't think like that…
A group of merry villagers rush past. A few even calling out to their chief.
"Congratulations Stoick! Everyone is so relieved."
"Out with the old and in with the new, right?!"
"No one will miss that old nuisance!"
"The village is throwing a party to celebrate!"
Stoick is stunned, overwhelmed by the insensitivity. He turns to Gobber disbelief hitting him worse than some of the tidle waves at sea.
"She's... gone?" He manages to croak out.
"Yeah...most afternoons. But who can blame her? I mean the life of a celebrity is very rough. She can barely walk through the village without being swarmed by her new fans." Gobber lets out a little chuckle.
Stoick is doubly confused.
She's not… dead…?
"Hicca?"
Gobber beams at his best friend, his brother.
"Who would've thought, eh? She has this...way with the beasts."
The afternoon once again found Hicca and Tuffnut with Toothless. Tuff was sitting at the edge of a cliff as he watched Hicca and Toothless soar through the open blue sky, this time not tethered to the ground.
"Okay there bud, we're gonna take this nice and slow." Hicca checks a leather cheat sheet, clipped onto her harness.
"Slow?"The black dragon asks before heaving a sigh."If it will help with learning to fly, I suppose we could go slow."
"I was not born with wings. I wasn't built to fly, Toothless. So, yes. Goingslowwill help me learn to fly." Hicca states with some sarcasm thrown in.
Toothless' only response is to grumble.
Inscribed upon the cheat sheet are several tail positions and their pedal position equivalents.
"Here we go. Here we go...position three, no four."
"Is it position three or four, young Valkyrie?"
"Valkyrie? Please. I wouldn't even pass as a Shield Maiden. And it's position four."
She presses the pedal, causing the tail to flare. They roll off into an arcing bank, gloriously lit by the late afternoon sun. Hicca tucks tight against his neck, thrilled that her new harness and vest are holding. The foot controls make the tail appendage quick and responsive. She watches Toothless' every fluctuation, trying to match it with the prosthetic. Hicca sizes up a target - a towering arch of stone, rising from the sea.
"Alright, it's go time. It's go time." She mutters to psych herself up.
Toothless gives a roar in agreement.
They dive toward it, lining up to pass through the arch.
"Come on. Come on buddy. Come on buddy!" Each sentence getting progressively louder in her excitement.
They zip through the arch. A perfect maneuver.
"Yeah! Yes, it worked!" The triumph is short-lived. They smack into one of several sea stacks as Hicca tries to keep up with the turns.
"Sorry."
"Try to avoid the unmovable obstacles, Hicca."
They hurtle into another rock pillar. Toothless grumbles."Seriously?"
"My fault."
Toothless swats her with his ear plate.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it." She grumbles in response to his glare.
Looking down she starts referring to the cheat sheet.
"Position four, no three."
"Are you certain this time?"Toothless growls.
"Yes. I'm certain."
They pierce the clouds. For the first time, Hicca can see the whole of the island below them. It shrinks with every passing second. She swallows hard and tightens her grip on the handles.
"Yeah! Go baby! Yes! Oh, this is amazing! The wind in my…" She spots the leather guide tearing free in the turbulence.
She continues in a panicked screech "... CHEAT SHEET! STOP!"
Hicca grabs frantically for the airborne sheet. Failing with each attempt.
"No!"
She manages to grab it just before it's carried out of reach. Toothless, however, obeys the command and suddenly stops beating his wings. As they slow to a stop, Hicca goes weightless. The rings of her vest float off of the harness hooks. Hicca suddenly finds herself detached, free-falling.
"Oh gods! Oh no!" Her anxious words get caught in her throat.
Without Hicca, the tail loses control. Hicca and Toothless spiral downward. Toothless fights to get back under Hicca.
"Alright, okay. You just gotta kinda angle yourself. No, no...come back down towards me. Come back down-" Hicca tries to calm Toothless down while she extends her arms and legs, giving herself as much surface area as she can.
She angles back towards Toothless as the tumbling dragon whacks Hicca with his wing. After a few more misses, Hicca finally grabs hold of the harness and manages to lock in just in time to pull Toothless out of his dive barely shy of the tree tops. They careen past the wooded cliff and directly into a treacherous slalom course of jutting sea stacks. Hicca pulls the cheat sheet from her teeth and attempts to check positions. It flaps violently in the turbulence, making it impossible. With no time to think, Hicca throws it away and steers Toothless' tail on instinct. Somehow managing with perfect intuition.
Together, they manage a tight, hair-rasing series of split-second turns, making it to the open water, unscathed. Hicca takes a breath and glances back at the death-defying obstacle course, now safely behind them. She beams, relieved before sitting back and throwing her arms up in victory.
"YEEAHHH!" Toothless concurs with a happy thrum and a fireball. Hicca's glee quickly turns to dread as they fly directly into it.
"Ah, come on…"
"Sorry. Perhaps we should return?"
"Let's take a moment to rest."
Hicca gently nudges Toothless to guide him to a black, sandy beach. She dismounts from her dragon friend and watches as he quickly dashes to the water in pursuit of the fish swimming in the shallows. After a while, when Toothless has caught a sizeable sum of fish and Hicca has started a fire, Tuffnut catches up with them.
The two young vikings start cooking a couple for themselves. While they wait for their small meal to cook, Toothless decides its a good idea to offer each of them a share of his by regurgitating a head at Hicca and a tail at Tuffnut. Hicca smiles and answers for the both of them.
"Uh... No thanks." Hicca gestures to their fish on sticks that they are currently roasting.
"We're good." Tuffnut quietly adds.
"Suit yourselves."Toothless snorts.
Several Terrible Terrors land like seagulls, hissing and nipping at each other as they approach Toothless' pile of fish. One grabs the regurgitated fish head and drags it away. Another attempts to steal it from him. They face off and blast fire balls at each other to settle the fight. Another, smaller Terror grabs at the regurgitated tail of the other fish offering and manages to sneak away. Hicca, Tuffnut and Toothless watch, amused. That is until Toothless spots one of his fish leaving the pile.
A stealthy Terrible Terror is exposed as the thief efore the large black dragon grabs hold of the other end of the fish. They tug on the fish, and it snaps back into Toothless' mouth. He swallows it back tauntingly. Irate, the little dragon paws at the ground getting ready to blast Toothless. He opens his mouth, the gas hiss comes, and Toothless fires a tiny flame straight into its mouth, causing the gas to backfire into the little dragon. It coughs up smoke and staggers away, looking ill.
Hicca chuckles softly while Tuff lets out a surprised laugh.
"Not so fireproof on the inside, are you?" Hicca throws the hapless Terror her freshly cooked fish. "Here you go."
The appreciative little dragon gulps down the meal and approaches Hicca cautiously. He curls up next to her, but in-between the two vikings. Hicca is amazed, and even more so when two more of the tiny dragons climb up and curl up in Tuff's lap.
"Everything we know about you guys is wrong." Tuffnut mutters in awe, gently laying his hand on the head of one of his little dragons. Hicca nods along, carefully petting the small creature next to her, sending the Terror into an immediate, blissful sleep.
Hicca looks up at Tuffnut.
"How can I be expected to even participate in training?" She sighs dejectedly.
"I mean, how am I really supposed to make my father proud?"
It hits Tuff how much this is actually affecting his friend. Just by trying to be herself she's become the village screw up. She only has three friends, gets constantly bullied, tries to live up to the chief's expectations but never really meeting them, either as his daughter or his village kin.
"That's all you want, huh?" He settles on asking her.
"Yes. Its all I've ever wanted. Not to be, all… this." She gestures at all of herself before continuing. "Be more viking, fit in, make my father proud, not be a screw up or outcast. I could dissappear off the edge of the world and I'm sure no one would care."
A bitter edge creeps into her tone near the end, enunciating just how much she believes that statement.
"Hey, there are plenty of people who would notice. I'm sure they'd more than give a fuck too. Gobber, Fishlegs, Astrid, your dad. I'm sure even if you're on rough standing with any of them they'd still drop everything to search for you. And, even if you can't bring yourself to believe that, believe that I would. I would miss you, think that something had gone horribly wrong. I would care if you just up and left or disappeared."
"Besides. I happen to like that you don't fit in. The last thing this island needs is another Astrid running around. I prefer your brains, and you are strong, your strength is just something most people can't see. I wouldn't change allthat." He says the last part a little quieter and sends a quick gesture at her.
She chuckles softly a small smile poking through her self pity.
"You just gestured to all of me."
"Exactly." He smiles back at her.