Chapter 5: Axe to Grind
For those of you who may not know, this is based on one of a few deleted scenes from the first movie. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd recommend checking it out.
Hiccup and his new Snivy had returned to the village just in time to see Stoick, Brumous, Gobber, and Norward exiting the Great Hall. The chief's Beartic had been the first to notice that the heir of Berk wasn't alone.
It was excusable that no one had noticed the small green Pokémon sooner, with the dragon raid going on and everything. But it was hard for anyone to not notice the Snivy while he was hitching a ride on Hiccup's shoulder.
Of course, Brumous had to point out the development to his master. The chief always wanted to know about something right away.
Stoick had stared down his nose at the two, frown lines etched into his features like a stone carving. "What. Is. THAT?"
The Snivy had looked calmly up at the chief, his twitching tail the only hint that he was upset.
Hiccup had gulped and said, "He was hurt, so I helped him."
He was quite fortunate that Gobber had been there to testify the fact that the Snivy had been with them as he and Norward escorted Hiccup home, and even before that when they were working on weapon repairs during the raid. Because if Stoick thought he'd found the Pokémon out in the woods after the mess he'd made that morning...he'd be in a boatload of trouble.
The chief had then given his son an exasperated shake of the head and muttered something about discussing it later before he and Brumous marched off to see to the building repairs. No sooner after they'd left, the blacksmith and his Probopass had waved Hiccup over so they could get to work in the forge.
Right at the current moment, Hiccup was pumping the bellows with all his might. He had to keep the fire going if the metal that was sitting in the coals had a chance of being forged in prime condition. The Snivy watched the blacksmith's apprentice work from his place on the service window, which was about as far away as he could be from the weapons and hot coals without outright leaving the building.
It wasn't too strange that a Grass-type Pokémon would want to distance themselves from fire, seeing as it was one of their elemental weaknesses. What was unusual, however, was how much mumbling the Snivy was doing.
Hiccup grabbed the tongs and hurried the container of liquid metal over to Gobber. He poured it into the mold, careful not to spill a drop, and let Gobber heave the gigantic, spherical rock over to the anvil.
It felt good to be back in the forge; it was like his natural habitat. Hiccup could work the bellows or sharpen blades or whatever else needed to be done without ever stopping to think about things he wasn't supposed to.
...Until Gobber pretty much ruined it.
"Chin up, lad. You've been looking down ever since your father told you off this morning," the blacksmith said with a highly inappropriate amount of cheer.
What with the whole near-death experience in the woods, plus the encounter with the strange new dragons and the Snivy following him home, fresh in Hiccup's mind, he'd actually managed to forget that morning's scolding. But of course Gobber just had to remind him of the incident with the usual tactlessness of a true Viking.
It was moments like this were Hiccup wished he could disappear.
"Don't take it to heart, kid," Gobber said, in what he probably thought was a reassuring voice. "It's his job to be tough on everyone!" He cracked the rock down the middle, revealing a now solid, but still burning hot, sword.
"I'm not everyone!" Hiccup protested, then caught himself. Where had that even come from? It wasn't like him to lose his temper. He sucked in a breath and let it out after a silent count to ten. "But...it doesn't matter. The man's impossible to please." He grabbed a set of tongs and tossed it into the blacksmith's waiting hand.
"He just doesn't want to appear like he's playing favorites," Gobber told him. He took the red-hot sword in the tongs and carried it over to the anvil.
"He's covered in that department, believe me," Hiccup drawled. Moving quickly, he brushed off any tiny remnants of debris that rested on the anvil with a sweep of his hand. "If I didn't live in the same house as him, I wouldn't even know he was my father."
The red-hot sword was placed onto the anvil with a loud *clang!*, making him jump back.
"Have you told him that?" the blacksmith asked with an amused glint in his eyes.
"Wha- of course not," he shot back. At a gesture from Gobber, he removed the hook from Gobber's prosthetic and switched it with a strong metal hammer. Then he donned a pair of thick, heatproof gloves and grabbed the hilt of the still-hot sword, turning it like a roast on a spit as the blacksmith hammered away. "We barely even make eye contact. And when we do, he always has this disappointed scowl, like someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich."
Almost the instant the hammering had ceased, Hiccup took off the gloves, tossed them aside, and then whirled around with an exaggerated swagger, doing his best imitation of an indignant Stoick the Vast.
"Excuse me, barmaid!" he complained in a thick accent. "I'm afraid you've brought me the wrong offspring! I ordered an extra-large boy with beefy arms, extra guts and glory on the side. This here, this is a talking fishbone!"
From his place in the service window, the Snivy doubled over laughing at his trainer's theatrics.
Gobber chuckled before moving the freshly-made sword to the bucket of water he used for dousing the fire. "You're thinking about this all wrong," he said conversationally. "It's not so much what'cha look like, it's what's inside that he can't stand!"
That didn't help at all.
"Thank you for summing that up," Hiccup snarked.
The blacksmith gave him a sympathetic look. "Look, the point is, stop trying so hard to be something you're not," he advised.
"I just want to be a Viking," Hiccup sighed. "Is that too much to ask?"
Norward had taken up his usual place in a quiet corner surrounded by scrap metal. The Probopass made an indecipherable noise in response to Hiccup's question.
"Now, I mean, there's the Viking way, and then there's your way," Gobber continued, as tactful and sensitive as ever. "And your way makes grown men uncomfortable."
Rolling his eyes, Hiccup sent Gobber a deadpan look. "Speaking of uncomfortable, I'd like a new conversation, please."
"Alright," Gobber conceded. He flashed his apprentice a smug look, and said way too suggestively, "How's it going with the ladies?"
"Oh yeah, way to get the mood back on track," Hiccup snarked.
"Aw, come on," the blacksmith grinned. "I've seen the way you look at Astrid..."
Even just hearing her name was enough to make Hiccup's heart flutter. But he wasn't going to let anyone know about that, especially not Gobber. He'd never hear the end of it if they found out.
"Please," Hiccup half-sighed half-scoffed, "Astrid wouldn't come near me if she was on fire and I had the only bucket of water in town."
"Hey, can I get this sharpened?"
Hiccup froze. There was no mistaking that voice.
Standing right there in the entryway, with the aura of a Valkyrie, was the girl he'd just been talking about. Cool, confident, and flawless as always, with her trusty axe resting on her shoulder and Blaze standing loyally at her side. Her sky-blue eyes were looking right at him, and for a moment he felt like he'd been hypnotized.
"Astrid! H-Hi, Astrid!" Hiccup blurted. Oh, sure, real smooth. Way to go, genius. He tried again, and this time he somehow managed to actually form a more coherent sentence. "Hello there, welcome, wh-what can I do for -"
Her axe sank into a crate right in front of him, splitting the wood with a crunch loud and sharp enough to shut him up.
"Hey," he gasped, thoroughly impressed.
Astrid was giving Gobber an expectant look. Hiccup expected the blacksmith to just take the weapon and complete her request...but instead, Gobber paused, glancing between him and Astrid. With every awkward second that ticked by, the more Hiccup felt the panic spread. Don't do it Gobber just sharpen the axe oh gods above don't leave us alone don't leave us alone don't you dare -
An exaggerated cough split the humiliating silence as Gobber, to Hiccup's utter horror, began to edge toward the exit. "Uh, my, erm...manly apprentice will, um, service all of your needs. I have to...go...get...some...I'm just gonna go outside."
His palm met Hiccup's back and shoved, sending him flying forward with a shout. He ended up flat against the crate with Astrid staring in befuddlement. Gobber sent him a glare that screamed Just woo her you absolute dunce before marching out of the shop.
"Pass..." Norward grumbled, rolling his eyes.
That actually helped to break the tension in the room.
Hiccup stood up and, putting on what he hoped was a brave face, held out his hands. With great reluctance, Astrid handed over her prized weapon. But, try as he might, he couldn't support the weight of the double-bladed axe. After a single second of straining, his arms gave out and the head of the axe was dropped to the floor with a crash.
She makes it look so easy...
"Okay," he chuckled nervously. "One razor-sharp battle axe, coming right up."
He dragged the weapon toward the grindstone; he could feel Astrid's gaze on him as he moved. "Careful, that's my mother's," she warned.
Hiccup knew that sharpening the axe should be an easy task. He'd sharpened so many blades over his apprenticeship that he could do it in his sleep by now. He set the axe down for a moment and grabbed the hand crank on the grindstone. Turning the crank was an easy task for Gobber, but Hiccup needed to put a lot more effort in to get it rolling.
While he worked on that, he watched Astrid wander around the shop with bored curiosity. As he tried to keep his eyes from doing their own "wandering", Astrid suddenly caught sight of the Snivy sitting in the window, who greeted her with a casual wave of the hand. The blonde girl stared at him for a long time, her expression unreadable.
Hiccup gulped as he observed their lengthy staredown. Neither moved an inch nor said a word. Knowing Astrid, she was probably sizing the Snivy up, trying to determine how much potential he had as a Pokémon. A small, doubtful part of him worried that maybe she thought the Snivy was too skinny and weak, but Hiccup squashed it down before it could bother him too much.
Finally, Astrid responded to the Snivy's gesture with a curt nod and strolled right up. "Is this your partner?" she asked, without turning to look at him.
"Uh, yeah," Hiccup replied. His arms had started to get tired, so he released the hand crank to give his (possibly nonexistent) muscles a break. "Long story short, I saved him from a dragon trap, took him to Kyrie, turns out he can heal himself; I tried to set him free but he kinda followed me home."
The blonde crossed her arms and asked, "What's his name?"
Hiccup shrugged. "I don't know. I mean, I'm trying to think of the right one."
Arceus must have been waiting for him to say that, because that was the moment where everything Hiccup thought he knew about Pokémon was turned upside-down.
Snivels had known from the start that leaving Red and the others in the forest had its risks. They could very well stumble into another trap, or be discovered by a hunting party, and he wouldn't be able to save them. But he also knew that, as a Snivy, he could never raise them properly. They needed to be cared for by other dragons who could teach them how to survive.
He just hoped there was at least one dragon nearby who'd be willing to take in four orphaned dragonets.
Relatedly, Snivels had noticed that Hiccup had neglected to mention seeing the Dramillions. Which made sense, seeing as he wasn't supposed to have gone out into the woods after all the chaos that had happened early that morning. He'd already gotten himself in trouble once that day, but twice? Nobody would want that.
Snivels had only been half-listening to his new trainer conversing with the village blacksmith. Now that he had a trainer, it was more important than ever that he establish a means of effective communication.
Maybe if he tried focusing on just one word at a time...
Snivels.
That is my name.
My name is Snivels.
"Sni...Sniv...Sneye...Snih...Sniv...Snivee...Sniveh..."
He took just one break from his self-lesson on pronunciation, and was rewarded with the sight of Hiccup doing a near-perfect imitation of the chief. Now that was entertaining.
Then the girl showed up.
The memory was still fresh - the explosion of light and heat, five human figures and five Pokémon silhouetted against the inferno. How could anyone forget a spectacle like that?
And now here was Astrid, the girl Hiccup was in love with, asking to have her axe sharpened. And there was Hiccup, stumbling over his own words like the lovestruck teenager he was.
It was actually quite fun to watch.
FOCUS SNIVELS.
"Sniveh...veh...el...vel...els..."
All of a sudden, there was Astrid hovering over him like a Mandibuzz circling its prey. Panicking internally, Snivels instantly went quiet. After a long, tense moment of contemplating what he should do, he settled on a friendly hand wave.
It felt like an eternity before she responded with the curtest of nods. Snivels didn't like the way she was looking at him, with such a judgmental gaze. He could tell just from that alone that she was the kind of person who expected nothing less than perfection.
Then Astrid started asking Hiccup some questions without even turning around to look at him. That was probably the biggest indignity Snivels had ever witnessed, especially when it involved the offspring of a respected leader (even if the leader in question was a Viking).
But one question stuck out to him - "Hvað heitir hann?"
What's his name?
He had to answer.
"Sniv...els!"
What the -?! Had Hiccup heard right? There was no way...he couldn't have...could he?
This had to be a dream. He was probably still passed out in the woods. It was the only explanation for why Astrid was here in the forge with him, and how the Snivy had said a word that wasn't its species name.
If this was a dream, it was the most realistic-looking dream Hiccup had ever had.
He pinched himself. Hard.
OW!
This wasn't a dream.
"Snivels," the Snivy said again, pointing to himself. "Snivels!"
Hiccup's ENTIRE BRAIN stopped working. It just rolled over and lay there, suddenly full of nothing after all the excitement that had occurred in the past twenty-four hours. His mouth was all, hello? any thoughts? and the response was apparently, no, just flop around like a fish out of water for a little while.
Maybe he was losing his sanity. All the stress with the raid, the Night Fury, everything must have broken his poor brain for good.
Something moved in his peripheral vision, and he remembered that he wasn't alone. He couldn't see Astrid's reaction, but Blaze and Norward's eyes were practically bugging out of their heads.
By some miracle, Hiccup managed to regain enough of himself to ask, "You heard that, too, right? It wasn't just me?"
Astrid didn't acknowledge him in the slightest; her focus was entirely on the Snivy. "What...did you say?"
For half a moment, Hiccup thought she was talking to him. That is, until the Snivy made a big show of rolling his eyes and stated emphatically, "Sniv-els!"
"Snivels?" Hiccup repeated.
"Snivels!" the Snivy said again, puffing out his chest and looking rather proud of himself. Then he pointed and stuttered out, "Ih...ick...huh...Hic!"
Oh! Snivels was his name.
Hiccup's mind raced, trying to make sense of what he'd just witnessed. A talking Pokémon? It didn't seem possible. He'd heard tales of Pokémon that could use telepathy, but that most definitely wasn't the case here. This Snivy could talk-talk, using his actual mouth and vocal cords.
This changes...everything, he thought, his heart pounding with excitement and a hint of fear.
The sound of Astrid clearing her throat snapped him back to reality. If she'd been surprised by Snivels's declaration, she didn't look like it; her expression was completely neutral. But she'd been trained as a warrior, and warriors needed to be level-headed in even the most chaotic situations.
"Well?" she asked, eyebrow raised. "Are you gonna sharpen it or what?"
Oh, right! The axe.
"Of course," Hiccup answered quickly. The grindstone had slowed down quite a bit since they'd started talking about Snivels.
Speaking of which...
"Just for the record," Hiccup said as he resumed turning the hand crank, "I didn't know he could do that." He glanced at Blaze and Norward and hesitantly asked, "Can either of you speak?"
Both Pokémon shook their heads.
"Busken."
"Probo."
"Just checking," he uttered, mostly to himself.
There was a lull in the conversation as Astrid took a sword off of the nearby wall and examined it, twisting her arm as she observed it from different angles. Hiccup finally got the grindstone going and placed the axe's blade against its surface, expertly honing it to a fine edge. The Snivy - Snivels, Hiccup reminded himself - was mumbling under his breath again. Other than that, pretty much everyone in the room was silent. He had to make it less awkward somehow.
"So, I saw you guys on fire patrol last night," he threw the comment out there, giving a small cough. "Looked like a good time."
"Yeah," Astrid replied, placing the sword back where she had found it. She didn't even glance at Hiccup, but he was too delighted that she was actually making small talk with him to care. "I didn't get burned, though."
A voice from the window interjected unexpectedly. Snivels was speaking a whole other language that was neither Pokéspeak nor Norse. Hiccup recognized it as English, the primary language of the Peaceables and other local humans. But how could a Pokémon know the language?
Clearly, there was more to this Snivy than he thought.
Hiccup didn't know enough English to get the whole of what Snivels was saying, but he could understand a few simple words. Namely, "good", "bad", and something about dragons and fire. Other than that, the only English phrases he knew were "hello", "goodbye", "yes", "no", "I don't know", "please", and "thank you" (and Snivels hadn't said any of those).
An awkward silence fell once again, this time with a feeling of tension that made Hiccup's skin prickle. He wracked his body with a forced cough and resumed sharpening the axe in his hand.
"Yeah, I would've been out there, too," he replied to Astrid's comment about the fire brigade, "but I was out downing a Night Fury. So, yeah, pretty busy." He put emphasis on his casual remark, like his words were muscles he wanted to flex.
"Really?" Astrid asked, sounding more curious than disbelieving. "Well, where is -"
"O-Oh, no, it...it got away..." Hiccup admitted, trailing off. That was true. No need to mention he'd lost his nerve and cut the dragon loose. He didn't mean to, but Astrid was straining to reach a weapon mounted just out of reach, giving Hiccup a rather interesting view.
Then he realized how creepy that must have looked, and he snapped back to his sharpening, quick as a whip. "B-But it won't be back any time soon, believe you me!" he claimed. He eased back into his work and continued, "Yeah, you know, this apprentice thing is just my, sort of, on the side...uh, I'm mostly just here to bulk up."
He couldn't believe his luck. He'd been in the same room with his crush for almost five minutes now, and she didn't even mind. In fact, she was positively chatty! The gods must have been smiling down on him for once. Maybe this was a sign that things would start to turn around for him. If so, then the gods certainly worked in mysterious ways, assuming they had anything to do with how or why the Snivy was talking.
"Lift some iron and...stuff," he continued, risking another look at her. "Become one with the steel -"
CRRRRRRKKK!
The horrific splitting noise drew Hiccup back to his handiwork, his eyes widening in panic. Exactly one-half of Astrid's valuable battle axe had just been granted an extra-special bonus feature - a gigantic chunk taken off its blade.
Oh, dragon droppings.
Glancing left and right, Hiccup put the damaged weapon down. Snivels, Blaze, and Norward had all flinched at the noise and were now staring wide-eyed at the broken blade. What in Arceus's name did you do?!
By some miracle, Astrid didn't seem to notice - she was still looking around. Hiccup half tiptoed, half speed-walked toward where Gobber kept the spare weapon parts. He knew Gobber had a replacement blade for Astrid's axe, if he could just...
He spotted something out of the corner of his eye. Looking up, Hiccup felt the horror of potential embarrassment course through his entire being when he saw Astrid heading to the back of the shop.
He tried to protest, but his objections were in vain, as Astrid was already pulling back the curtain to reveal a smaller side room. Hiccup was all too familiar with it - it was his private workshop, after all, something Gobber had granted him in order to keep him out of trouble. He watched with increasing despair as Astrid took it all in: the table covered with blueprints, the model catapults, the sketches plastered on the walls.
Hiccup felt a tiny part of himself die inside.
"What is all this?" Astrid asked.
"Oh, uh, th-those?" Hiccup replied. While she was distracted, he snatched the replacement blade and hurried to dismantle the original. Keeping up the babble so she wouldn't hear what he was up to, he blathered, "N-Nothing. Just some stuff I'm working on. It's j-just, uh, confidential upper-level development. I-I-I can't really talk about it, so..."
He heard the sounds of shuffling paper, but didn't pay them any heed while he worked frantically to get Astrid's weapon fixed before she noticed. Then her voice spoke out in a bemused tone.
"'The Mutilator'?" she questioned, a sheet of parchment in her hand.
Hiccup sighed, resigning himself to giving her an explanation. "Yes, it basically uses twin-weighted counter-levers to launch crisscrossing blades in four different directions."
He slid the replacement blade into a vise and tightened it, locking it in place. So far so good, all he needed now was to screw in the handle...
"How do you hold it?" Astrid went on, still examining the sketch.
"You don't, you shoot it," Hiccup corrected. He slotted the handle to the replacement blade and started to screw it in, slowly but surely restoring the weapon to its former glory.
"Oh," Astrid said, disappointed. "Well, I'm more of an old-fashioned 'take it down with an axe and then lop its head off' kind of girl. Kind of the Viking way, right?"
"Go Vikings," he drawled.
Hiccup paused to inspect his work, right on time to see Astrid enter the shop again. He quickly removed the newly-repaired axe from the vise and scrambled back to the still-spinning grindstone to sharpen the blade, sweat dripping off his forehead so profusely that he was sure it would have started forming a puddle on the floor.
Fortunately, Astrid was pacing around the shop with new impatience. "Ah, I can't wait to get started tomorrow," she exclaimed. "We finally get a chance to show them what we've got. I'm so excited."
"What?" Snivels inquired in perfect Norse - a huge help for Hiccup, trying not to draw attention to himself.
Astrid scanned each of them with a confused look. "What, you didn't hear?" she asked. "They're pulling men to crew the ships."
Genuinely confused, Hiccup asked her, "And you're happy because...you...like to wave goodbye?"
That earned him a snort of laughter from Blaze.
Astrid, on the other hand, rolled her eyes. "No, stupid. They need replacements to defend the town. We start training in the morning! We'll be fighting dragons!"
Oh, double dragon droppings. Hiccup took his hands off the axe, staring at nothing. Had she said "we"? By "we", had she meant her and the other teens? Not him too, right? The sight of the Night Fury's jaws rushing at him replayed automatically in his head, and he knew he was turning pale. He felt himself die inside a second time.
"Hey Astrid!"
A voice from outside cut off Hiccup's thoughts. Glancing out the window, he saw that Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins were gathered outside the forge. They'd all brought their weapons along, and their respective Pokémon partners were practically at their heels.
"You coming to practice or what?" one of the teens called out - probably Snotlout, from the underlying arrogance in his tone.
Astrid didn't reply to her peers' urging, instead marching right up to the grindstone and holding out her hands in a wordless demand for her weapon back. Trying not to blush at the shieldmaiden's proximity, Hiccup obeyed, keeping his eyes fixed on the axe. Astrid took the weapon and weighed it in her hands, a speculative look in her eye.
"This feels different," she commented. It wasn't an accusation, but it still got Hiccup's nerves prickling.
"O-Oh," he stammered. He coughed and tried to steady his voice so it didn't sound too suspicious. "Yeah, I rebalanced it. Tightened it up. Uh, finessed it. We're a full-service outfit in here."
"Huh," Astrid said by way of answer. "Thanks." Unconsciously, she reached up and brushed her wayward bangs out of her eye.
As she rushed back out of the shop, Hiccup raised a quavering hand in farewell. "U-Um, s-sure."
"Combusken!" Blaze declared, flinging herself after Astrid.
The shieldmaiden and her Combusken disappeared out the doorway, and Hiccup could hear their gleeful voice fade away gradually as they and the others left for a practice session or whatever. He let out a sigh that was equal parts wistful and disappointed.
He wanted to join them; more than anything he wanted to belong. No one in the village, not even his own father, wanted much to do with him, if anything at all. Astrid, on the other hand, was everything a Viking should be - strong, fearless, coordinated, and pretty much the exact opposite of poor little Hiccup. He didn't deserve her, especially not after what had just happened with the Night Fury.
I love you, he would never say. You're everything I've ever wanted to be. I know I'm not like the other Vikings, but I can't really help it. Don't hate me because I'm different. Don't think I'm as useless as they say I am. Don't look at me like everyone else does, like I can never amount to anything, please.
Hiccup shook his head to clear the thoughts away. Gobber would probably be coming back now that Astrid was gone. He still had a full day of weapon repairs ahead of him.
From his place in the window, Snivels shook his head and chuckled. "Wouldn't come near you, my tail!"
Astrid had never really believed that Hiccup was useless.
Well, he wasn't particularly very useful, that much was certain. But no one was really, truly useless. At least, that was what she heard.
It had been refreshing to talk to him, Astrid decided. Definitely better than having to put up with Snotlout's arrogance, or Tuffnut and Ruffnut's stupidity. Not that she'd ever trust Hiccup to have her back in a fight; he clearly wasn't cut out for that.
She lifted her axe experimentally, enjoying how it felt as light and sharp as ever, even if there was a slight difference she couldn't put her finger on. Hiccup wasn't bad, she supposed. He was nice, if a little weird, and he seemed to be competent when it came to blacksmithing. She did find it hard to believe he was the chief's son at times. But, then again, so did everybody else.
There was something off about that Snivy - Snivels, she reminded herself - that he'd taken as his partner. It had talked! As in, an actual human language, not the usual recitation of its species name. How was that even possible?
"Did you get a load of Useless back there?" Snotlout's guffawing pierced her musings. "What a loser!"
By now, it had become a natural reflex for Astrid to ignore anything the oafish Jorgenson said. He was a boastful, shallow, mutton-headed, and all-around egotistical bully who thought picking on people weaker than he was made him look big and strong. But really, he was just pathetic.
When she'd told him that, he'd just waved it off like it was a bad joke or something. In fact, if it were a snake and it bit him right in the face, he still wouldn't notice. Snotlout was so convinced that he was a perfect example of a Viking, it was practically a delusion.
What I wouldn't give to hit him where it hurts most...
"So, babe," he sneered, waggling his eyebrows at her, "what do you say to some good old combat practice?"
Scratch that. I'd slice that ugly face of his clean off.
But she couldn't actually do that, lest she bring grave consequences unto herself and, more importantly, her family. So, she had to settle for the next best thing: "I'd rather swallow a live eel."
"Good one!" Ruffnut grinned. "I should totally try that sometime."
"Especially the zappy one," Tuffnut said. "That'd be totally riveting."
"Um," gulped Fishlegs, "I don't think that word means what you think it means."
Maybe Astrid should have stayed at the forge. Sure, Hiccup was a very peculiar individual but at least he wasn't pushy. The whole time they'd been talking, he'd never once tried to ask her out or include himself in her activities. It was nice, knowing there was at least one person on Berk who respected her boundaries. ...Or maybe he was too afraid of her wrath to even think of stepping over that line.
Perhaps it was a bit of both?
Not that it mattered, because Astrid already had her whole life planned out - ace the training, kill her first dragon, win the war for the Vikings, bring honor to her family name, and never get married or even have a boyfriend ever. Because, to her, a shieldmaiden was supposed to be a strong, independent woman with no weaknesses whatsoever. Having a husband, or kids for that matter, would be too big a distraction. Not to mention, she hated even the simple thought of doing housework.
"Combusken?" Blaze sounded worried.
Astrid hadn't realized how tense she'd gotten. Her grip on the handle of her axe was so firm, her knuckles had turned white. The other four people, who weren't technically her friends for similar reasons as to why she was completely uninterested in any lasting relationships, were talking amongst each other.
Or, more accurately, Snotlout was shouting at Tuffnut and Ruffnut to stop laughing at his failed attempt to flirt, while Fishlegs was musing aloud about what would most likely occur if one tried to swallow a still-living electric eel. Their Pokémon said nothing, aside from the occasional declaration ("Magmar!"), sigh ("Lombre"), or snarl ("Nido!").
"Combusken?" Blaze said again.
"I'm fine," Astrid replied bluntly.
Her partner didn't look convinced. Astrid had to admit (several times, in fact) that Pokémon were smarter than "normal" animals. But were they really so smart that they could learn to speak?
Then it dawned on her - no one would believe a Pokémon had talked. There was a sort of unspoken rule that Pokémon couldn't talk, at least not the way people could. If she tried to tell anyone, they'd think she was crazy; her reputation would be ruined forever.
Of course, who's to say that Snivy wasn't yammering away at someone else right now.
Or maybe that little Hiccup was sneakier that she thought. He must have taught his Snivy to talk somehow, and was only playing dumb to trip her up, to make a fool of her. Well, she wasn't going to fall for it.
Once again, Snotlout's voice brought her back to reality.
"What do you think, Astrid?"
Her only answer was a scoff. She hadn't been listening to the conversation, not when there were more important things to be doing. Dragon training started in the morning, and those four muttonheads were chatting amongst each other when they should be practicing.
"I don't have time for this," she decided.
And so she stalked away, ignoring the protesting shouts of her peers as she left them in the dust. She glanced back only once, at the sound of rapid footfalls, and saw Blaze hurrying after.
If there was anyone Astrid could trust to have her back, it was her Combusken. She didn't need any friends, they would only slow her down.
This is it. No more fooling around. No more fire patrol; no more working on the sidelines while everyone else fights the real battle. Her whole life was going to change. She could see it now - her, a mighty Viking warrior, leading a charge of soldiers into battle, slicing off dragon heads and wings and tails with her trusty axe, winning the war once and for all.
She was going to be a hero, the tipping point of the war, after she completed dragon training and became a real Viking.
And it would all start tomorrow morning.
If you ask me, it's too bad they chose to exclude that scene from the final cut. Not only would it have been a refreshing breather after the tense encounter in the woods, but it also gives the impression that Astrid might have actually kind of liked Hiccup, if only a little tiny bit, before all the chaos that is dragon training.
Now, some of you may have noticed that the Pokémon have been relegated to the background, especially in Astrid's POV. This isn't a mistake on my part - if you've played Legends: Arceus, you might remember that, in the ancient past, most people were afraid of Pokémon mostly due to not knowing as much about them back then.
Similar problem here: the Vikings don't know enough about Pokémon to understand the true extent of their sentience (and it doesn't help that these Vikings are pretty stubborn and ignorant about most things). To them, Pokémon are basically like superpowered pets.
But that's more inclined to change now that Snivels can communicate with Hiccup. You ought to know, they're gonna change everything.
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