learning to fly, how to train your dragon

005. the problem with toke

chapter five
005. the problem with toke!

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FREYA SOON began to realise that her victory on the first day in Dragon Training was very much soon forgotten in everyone's minds. Just the next morning, she was where she had been the previous, keeping to her promise as she helped her mother around the village to make sure they were all prepared for the upcoming winter. The overnight storm had saved them from cleaning up after a dragon raid, but it didn't help the effort in carrying entire barrels of fish up the docks and to the storehouse. Freya nearly slipped a few too many times as she trudged through mud and wet grass. But some where loving it. She stopped one moment to watch as a group of children were playing▬laughing and cackling as they threw mud at each other, lost within their little games.

She wasn't as excited to join the others later this morning for training than she was yesterday. Freya supposed there was a chance that today would be different. That she might win again▬however shockingly▬and they would stare at her in surprise and with lost breaths of amazement. Some might even wander down to watch and they would see her, too▬maybe Freya's own mother might decide to come. However, she quickly started to feel as if yesterday was her random stroke of luck. She didn't strike the Gronckle, she didn't even try and fight it like Astrid▬if the Hofferson hadn't been distracted and taken out, Freya knew that she wouldn't have achieved what she did. She wasn't going to win Dragon Training by running and stumbling, knocking her nose into people's shields and only just escaping burning fire. She▬a small, feeble thing▬had to raise her axe high and bring it down with a Viking's fury. Freya knew, despite her dreams, that she couldn't do that. She knew she was lying to herself.

But she believed she was still going to try▬because no matter what her rationality told her, her frustration in heaving this barrel of fish clouded it all with an angry stubbornness; as it usually did.

In the end, her mother had to take it for her and Freya slumped with a grumbling embarrassment, red-hot at the cheeks. She puffed her hair out of her eyes and crossed her arms. She had opted for a simple belted tunic over her leggings for this morning, tying her hair out of their two braids and off her face with some leather she had found lying around her room. It didn't help it from still falling out over her eyes, though.

She fiddled with her nose, the distant ache at its bridge still bothering her. Freya followed her mother up the slope, avoiding as many mud puddles as she could.

"I thought this Dragon Training was supposed to make you stronger?" Her mother said as they walked, and by the tone of her voice it told Freya that some part of her was still miffed by this arrangement they had made.

Freya rolled her eyes slightly to herself. "It's been one day," she replied. "I don't get strong overnight, Mum."

"Have you had an apple this morning?"

"Well, no▬"

"Then perhaps there is your problem, dear."

Freya huffed once again, a little exasperated at her mother's superstitions surrounding food▬to her parents, food was the way to fix any problem. And while Freya did love her apples and her stew, she didn't see it giving her muscles suddenly when she wakes up one morning. "But▬Mum▬" she had to skip in her steps to catch up with her mother's large strides, "▬I did win my first day of Dragon Training. I was the last one standing against the Gronckle!"

Her mother hummed, setting the barrel down with the small collection they were continuing to grow from this morning's catch. "That's good, honey."

Freya watched her for a moment, waiting for some other reaction▬or perhaps a question about today ... something that showed even just a slither of interest. Freya pursed her lips and decided to prompt it, "Do you ... do you want to come and see today's training? You know, watch?"