𝐁𝐋𝐀𝐙𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘 ( 𝐬𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐣𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐨𝐧 )

Chapter Five

        "You need to widen your stance more,"

Sage yelped, dropping the axe and barely avoided hitting her foot in the process. "Odin's ghost!" She cursed before spinning around. "Finna, what the Hel are you doing sneaking up on me like that?"

Finna Larson smirked, her shoulder casually leaned against the tree beside her, as if she hadn't been watching Sage for an unknown amount of time. "I wasn't. I wasn't even being quiet, but you're too in your own head to notice."

Her cheeks flushed. "I wasn't doing anything I shouldn't."

"So your father knows you're out here?" She smirked.

"My father isn't on Berk." She glared at her.

Finna chuckled. "What are you even doing then, Sage? Looks like you're taking your anger out on that poor tree."

"I'm only practising axe throwing."

"You're practising wrong. But it's a good start, considering you didn't train with the rest of us when we were kids."

"Astrid showed me how to throw an axe. I think she knows more about it than you do." Sage picked up the borrowed axe with a slight struggle, even if she felt more comfortable with it in her hold than she once did. Astrid had picked it out for her from the armoury, with the insistence that every viking needed to know how to handle an axe. "She's better than half the adults."

"Astrid Hofferson is also cocky and competitive," Finna pushed herself away from the tree and made her way over to Sage, using her boot to kick the other girl's feet apart until there was some distance, reaching for the arm holding the axe and lifting it a certain way. "She's good. But I've been teaching my brother and I know what works. Astrid uses the axe as her choice of weapon because it comes naturally to her. You have to work for it." She straightened Sage's back. "Try it again."

She hesitated, throwing a glance at the older girl before doing what she said and throwing it exactly as Astrid had shown her, but using Finna's suggestions as well. She watched as the axe soared through the air before meeting the tree trunk, mere inches from the mark she'd made and had been aiming for. "Ha!" She laughed, delighted. "Thank you!"

Finna picked up the dropped rabbits she'd obviously come into the woods to hunt for, throwing them over her shoulder as she did, not even caring about the blood that smeared over the armour over her shoulders. There was a bag in her other hand as well, which was likely the trap she'd used to catch the animals; Sage knew she'd always been a good hunter, something she'd learned from her father no doubt. "I won't tell anyone I saw you, Sage. Good luck with dragon training."

"Wait." She called without thinking, swallowing as the brunette turned to look at her, raising an expected eyebrow. "A-Any advice you have to give? Since we haven't really spoken properly, I mean."

Finna seemed to think for a moment before she shrugged. "I would just stay out of the way if I were you. That's what I did, and I didn't have half the brutes in the ring with me as you do. That's not even including the weird success your friend has had."

Sage was a tad disappointed, having been hoping for genuine conversation, but nodded. She wasn't wrong of course; if she even tried getting in the way, she knew Astrid and Snotlout in particular would probably find some way of pushing her out of the way. "Thank you again, for your help. I just need...I want to be like everyone else, I suppose."

"Everyone else is boring, but I agree about the weaponry. You're weak if you don't know how to handle them properly."

That was what Finna left her with, making her wonder why she really stopped her to begin with, even if it wasn't exactly out of character for her. Finna was not her friend, but she had always been kind to her, which is better than most people. Sage had never particularly been fond of the girl's parents, mostly her mother, while her dad had died several months ago when he went with the Chief looking for the dragon nest. He never came, leaving behind three children and his pregnant wife. Finna was two years older than she was, and had completed dragon training already, having taken more than a single life during the raids over the years and mainly just stayed with those in her own age group, leaving Sage with Hiccup most of the time. The almost funny thing about Finna Larson was that she was, technically, a hiccup━━━she was a runt compared to a lot of other babies. Her brother Gustav was the same, but while Finna had proven herself just as capable of handling dragons, like Hiccup was doing now apparently, the twelve year old boy was currently just annoying, reminding her a lot of Snotlout actually. When she had been younger, and her dad and uncle had both left with Stoick to look for the nest, Finna had occasionally watched her. Maybe that was why Sage liked her as much as she did, but she had never tried to really befriend her, mostly because Finna reminded her too much of the adults in the village for her to consider her as a peer. It was one of the things that separated her and Hiccup she supposed, as she mostly stayed out of the way and so people didn't usually mind her being around, while Hiccup was clumsy and a nuisance to most of them. Sage just wished he knew she hadn't ever seen him like that.