Hiccup & Toothless' Fate

Chapter 16 - Unexpected Company

(Hiccup)

The heat of Gobber's forge licked up the back of my neck, a bead of sweat running down my face to drip from my chin and plop, sizzling, onto the metal buckle I was fashioning. Rolls of leather made from yak hide lay in a pile behind me, discarded scraps poking stiffly upwards like a Nadder's spikes. Along with these buckles, they would fit together to create a large saddle and straps – perfect for a teenage Viking and his Gronkle.

Fishlegs and Meatlug had very quickly taken to each other. Unless Fishlegs was needed in the village, he was down in the cove with Meatlug, the two of them playing around the clearing like they were making up for lost time. I had breached the subject of flying on her back earlier today, and after a slight hesitation, Fishlegs had agreed. So here I was, back in the forge after three years, making him a saddle so he wouldn't slip off. Gobber had only allowed me entry and use of his precious forge under the guise of me using it to make myself a saddle – he'd seen my previous handywork in Toothless' tail and figured I knew what I was doing.

Barely anything had changed in the forge in the time I had been away. The anvil stood, unmoved, and even the bucket of oil for quenching the many metal weapons made over the years had not budged. When Gobber finally left, satisfied that I wouldn't mess with his prized workplace too much, I had snuck a look in the old back room I had used as my personal workspace. All my old stuff had been cleared out and it now only served as storage for tools, raw materials, and other odd and ends, but there was a collection of axes in Astrid's distinct double-bladed style piled in the corner. All were dinted and, in some cases, cracked completely through. To my practiced eye, I could clearly see that most, if not all of them, had been forged with cracks, delamination's, or been heat-treated incorrectly, causing the metal to warp and bend. It was the work of a beginner – a very frustrated one, at that. Connecting the dots, I realised it could only be Astrid, learning the blacksmith craft under Gobber, part of the traditional training for an heir. Her training would have been set aside months ago, however, so she could start looking for food on other islands.

I myself had begun blacksmith training earlier than was usual – probably to keep the village hiccup out of the way of the warriors. Before I was ten, I had learnt how to make a multitude of weapons. In fact, I had gotten so good that my work had started to have been mistaken for Gobber's – who, to his credit, had been quick to correct the Vikings who made that mistake.

I set down the heavy hammer I'd been using to bludgeon the metal into shape. Picking up the tongs, I carefully lifted the hot metal and placed it gently into the oil. With a sizzling hiss that sent another wave of acrid smoke into the air, the metal rapidly cooled into the shape of a perfect buckle. I set it down –

– only to startle at the hands that grabbed my shoulders.

"Ormr!" Tuffnut cried. "We've been looking everywhere for you!"

I winced as I rubbed my shoulder. "Thanks, Tuff. Way to scare a guy to death. Not sure whether I'm wanted or targeted right now."

"We want to know what's going on, and we think you can help us with that," Ruffnut said, entering the dim room alongside her brother.

"Targeted it is," I sighed. "What can I help you with?" The twins shared a grin that could only have been described as evil.

"We know something, and we think you would do almost anything to keep it secret," Tuffnut smirked.

"Don't try to deny it." Ruffnut had an identical smirk on her face. It was worrying.

I mentally steeled myself for what was coming. I had an inkling of what this was about, and I cast my eyes around for the nearest escape point if this got ugly. Toothless was only a few hundred metres away, resting in the forest – he would hear me if I yelled. "Oh? And what's that?"