renegades, httyd

xxix. Away Again

renegades
chapter twenty-nine

In the snowy weather of Berk, on Snoggletog, a young girl was terrified of going back home. Just six, she paced through the heavy snow, leaving great big holes. Covered in her furs from head to toe, she sniffled through her frozen tears, clutching her arm to her chest. Her pretty blonde hair was a mess of twigs and melting snow, her nose with dirt at the tip.

A boy of seven saw her through auburn tuffs of hair outside his window. He was confused, wondering why she was pacing back and forth just outside, crying to herself. He recognised her━of course, he did. Everyone knew who she was, which was ironic considering the girl knew nothing of herself.

He moved away from his bed and poked his head out into the cold Snoggletog air. He watched her for a few more seconds with his green eyes, wondering whether to just leave her (he did find her quite annoying ...).

But he called out anyways, "Hello. Are you okay?"

The little girl looked up, face red and swollen with her cries. "I'm Estrid," she answered, sniffling. Grey eyes stared up at him, rimmed with tears.

      I know, the boy stopped himself from saying. "I'm Hiccup," he replied instead.

"I know," she said in a croaky, tearful voice. "My sister and her friends don't like you. They say you're weird. You're dad is also really scary." Before Hiccup could say something, very confused with all those sentences at once━and how he should feel about them━she let out a wail and said very fast: "ButIcan'tevergobackhomebecauseI'minsomuchtrouble!" Six-year-old Estrid held up her bruised arm. "Look!" she cried. "Mum told me I can't climb the trees but I did anyway and then I fell and now I can't go back! Ever! I'll die!"

Hiccup thought that was very dramatic. But Estrid's nose was beginning to run through her tears in the cold, and so he did what his father told him he should: help people. So he sat back and called down, "I'm going to get my Dad!"

This only caused her to cry even more. "But he's so scary and he's the chief!"

He went to get him anyway.

In the small wait it took for Hiccup to find his father in the house, Estrid looked around, trying to find a place to hide before the scary chief could come out. She had hiccups from her weeping, still holding her bruised arm. But there were no rocks like back home━or Astrid to hide behind. When she heard the door of the chief's house open, she screamed in her terror and ran to the back of the home, hiding herself behind the wood.

She held her breath with her free hand clamped over her mouth. She heard the sound of thuds in the snow.

"Yeh say she was out here, son?"