Snow for the Dragon

Letters Cometh !

"Hey... How come Heather gets a cool new weapon and I don't?". Astrid whined as she sat down next to Hiccup. They were both in the training halls, watching Heather fencing with the new weapon Hiccup had made for her on her birthday two days ago. It was a similar weapon to Hiccup's new sword that he took to call 'torchblade' , but it was also slightly different. As Heather preferred twin blades, he had made her just that. It was made of a five foot long staff with dragon engravings on it when it was docile. But when active, the staff used the same mechanics as his new sword. It had two brightly glowing orange blades that, whrn she clacked a shaft on the staff, would protrude out from either ends of the staff . One blade was a sharp as Hiccup's blade was , to cut through enemy weapons and the other blade was more cylindrical and could be use to strike down opponents with armor or to intimidate them. "Well. For one... I know how she handles herself. Heather has a similar fighting method. We don't use our own force , like most of you do. We just deflect the opponent's force and use it against them. Unless it involves dragons, of course. And she has years of experience carrying a twin sided axe, this is no different. We all only have experience with one sided weapons. Heck , I couldn't even lift. A normal axe when I was fifteen. Plus.... she kinda looks cool welding her 'torchsaber' . He chuckled. Torchsaber was what Heather had taken to call the qeapon, in relation with Hiccup's torchblade. Astrid punched him on the shoulder , smirking. Hiccup chuckled. "Don't worry, my brave viking, One day you shall learn the ways of the Hiccup. " Hiccup said with a mocking tone. Heather disarmed her two opponents, Snotlout and Eret and smiled widely at Hiccup and Astrid.

Just then, Gustav came running in, with an important look on his face. He seemd to be holding onto a small pile of parchments . "Hiccup! I-I mean , Chief! We received letters from our invitations for Fishlegs's wedding. " . He handed Hiccup the small pile of letters. "Thanks Gustav. " Hiccup smiled and turned to the letters in his hand. His eyes went over each name ."Hm. The Freya tribe have accepted. The Doorian clan have accepted. The Dunbroch Clan have accepted and..." he trailed off as his eyes widened , reading the name of one of the last two letters. "What is it?" Astrid whispered , leaning in to read the name. "...the kingdom of Corona have accepted.... and..." His heart began to race faster and faster as his hand slowly turned over to the last letter. His brain went numb as he saw the last invitee's name. Astrid let put a tiny gasp and looked at Hiccup, reflecting his confused look, as he looked at Astrid with a mixture of shock, confusion , anger and uncertainty.

"Mom!" Hiccup's angry voice rang through the forge, where Valka and Gobber were talking about a new way to design prosthetic claws for dragons who had lost theirs, both looking at each other with smug expressions and raised eyebrows as Hiccup's furious voice rang through the place. They had anticipated this to happen and weren't at all surprised that he would come looking for them.
"Sounds like the lad has finally gotten the news." Gobber chuckled, Valka smiling at him when Hiccup appeared before them with an extremely angry expression on his face that was very rare.Heather and Astrid followed him in silently. "What is this?!" He bellowed furiously, pushing the parchment in his hands into Valka's hands. She read it slowly while Gobber leaned over and read it over her shoulder, the latter unable to hide the smug smile on his face. Heather glanced at Astrid, wanting to ask why Hiccup was suddenly so furious. Astrid put a finger to her lips to shush her up. "It looks like a positive answer to an invitation to your Friend's wedding." Valka answered calmly, allowing Gobber to take the paper as he held it in front of his face while pretending to inspect it closely. "And it's in the most perfect handwriting I've ever seen, too, I must say I'm a little impressed." Gobber added, not sounding at all surprised by the turn of events. " Wait, you were in on this as well?" Hiccup asked with disbelief, looking even angrier when Gobber lay down the paper on the table and just gave him a smirk. "Ye know me, I can barely stay away from trouble. And I do stuff before I think it. That's the viking way! Not this .. technical. .. analytical stuff yeu people have started doing. ". Gobber said, trying to make bad argument for himself.Hiccup snorted at Gobber and turned to Valka. "What I want to know is what you did to make Fishlegs and Ruffnut invite her?! They would've never come up with the idea themselves!" Hiccup glared at his mother who just sent him an innocent look. "Who's her ?" Heather inquired curiously to Astrid in a whisper as Astrid, again, shushed her up . "I merely mentioned the possibility that Queen Elsa might attend if they sent her an invitation and that it's custom to invite someone who invited you. I didn't know if they would send the letter, though I'm very happy they did . " Valka replied calmly. "Very wise and thoughtful of ye mother, if ye ask me, Hiccup." Gobber added with a serious expression. "Oh got the love of...! Not only do I have to deal with the fact that my mother suddenly thinks she can dictate my life, now I have deal with the fact that you think you can do it as well!" Hiccup exclaimed angrily. "I hardly dictate your life Hiccup." Valka answered, knowing he was only this angry because they had managed to do exactly what he had been to stubborn to do himself.
"No?! Then why did you go behind my back when I told you I'd take care of it?!" Hiccup shouted."Because sending that letter would've been extremely rude, the Queen had a right to decide for herself if she wanted to come or if she wanted to send someone else. Besides, you said yourself that Fishlegs and Ruffnut were allowed to invite whoever they wished and they wished to Queen Elsa." Valka replied, Hiccup opening his mouth to contradict her when Gobber jumped in.
"But if this upsets ye so Hiccup, ye can just send a new letter to the Queen where ye explain your wish and talk to Fishlegs ... not Ruffnut, she's just probably hit ye or something. ... Ye're their Chief, they'd be sad...or angry, dependin on Ruffnut... but they'd listen to their Cheif and I think the Queen would accept your letter." Gobber said causally, doing his best to hold back a smile . Hiccup opened his mouth to retrot back but no words escaped his mouth. It was as if his vocal chords had allied with his fantasising part of the brain and was rebelling against his rational side. He closed his mouth slowly, glaring at them. Gobber chuckled at Hiccup's sudden silence. He was still glaring at them, but most of the anger had gone away. For a moment, none of them said anything, but both Valka and Gobber could see that while Hiccup wasn't happy, he had no intention to draw back the invitation either. There was more light in his eyes than it had been for the past five months and even though it was from anger, it still told them that the mere knowledge that the Queen was coming to Berk had awoken something in him. "I can't draw back the invitation now and I'm not going to make myself appear rude to anyone.", He finally muttered through gritted teeth. Valka and Gobber grinned widely at him, knowing that they had won. "But if any of you try to plot behind my back again, when I've strictly told you I'll handle something, I'll send both of you to live on some abandoned island up north!" He told them with force before he stalked out of the forge , cursing under his breath. As soon as he was out of earshot, Heather couldn't hold herself back. "Okay. I'm totally lost here. Can someone please just tell me what in the name of Thor's beard is going on?". Gobber chuckled . "Yer mother tells me that your brother seems to have a girlfriend in a different land.And bye what Snotlout's been sayin everywhere, she's a real beauty too.". Valka smiled. Astrid rolled her eyes and groaned ."Come on! We don't even know if they were actually like that... We --" she was cut off by Heather who gasped playfully. "Hiccup has actualky girlfriend?! I gotta ask him!". She turned and was about to run out when Valka called out. "Heather. Please. He's already quite a stubborn young man. D'you want to make him even more harder to persuade by teasing him?" . Heather chuckled. "Fine. I won't ask him... just yet." She smirked and ran out as Astrid groaned and followed her out .