Taming Hearts

Chapter Thirteen: The Games Begin

Morgan Sigmund thought the award ceremony for the older Thawfest competitors was a waste of time and she wasn't afraid to sigh loudly and poke her mother in the hopes that she would allow the family to leave early. Morgan's mother, however, was a proper Viking and proper Vikings believe that their community is their extended family. For that reason, she wasn't too keen on being interrupted while cheering on members of her community.

"Pipe down." she snapped at the girl after a few seconds. "The other girls are sitting still, why aren't you?"

"I'm bored." Morgan whined. "I don't even know Rosabella." she added as she watched Hiccup present the older girl with the medal. "Please let me go home."

"None of the other girls are wiggling around like you." Morgan's mother chided. "Adrianna's a calm as can be. Now sit still."

"Perfect Adrianna." Morgan muttered darkly.

It was a funny thing about grown-ups, the fact that they really liked comparing their children to each other. Morgan hated being told to act like another child and she especially hated it when she overheard her parents talk proudly about a well behaved child. It was like she didn't even exist at all. At least until someone needed a good lecture. Then there was nowhere she could go to escape. Taryn was good company when she felt neglected but the girl had no backbone at all. It was better than being perfect all the time. Every other day, it seemed that some grown-up was telling her to be more mature, more quiet, more polite like the chief's daughter. And that is why Morgan Sigmund detested Adrianna Haddock with every fiber of her being.

Of course Adrianna didn't know this. It was fun to watch her struggle to fit in all the while knowing that she wouldn't succeed. It was even more fun to intentionally snub her and watch that brain, the one everyone praised for its intelligence, whir away inside her head and come up with nothing. Taryn, on the other hand, only went along with this because Morgan was quite popular with the other girls and no one wanted to be outside the popular group. Least of all someone who should have some amount of respect as part of the chief's clan. But Adrianna was so weird that it wasn't hard at all to exclude her. And Taryn was average in just about every way so she didn't bring the group down at all.

Morgan stared down a few rows at the girl in question, watching as she sighed deeply when Jacobi was awarded the Thawfest medal. Honestly, sometimes it seemed like she was a hundred miles away but now, she appeared to be quite focused. She had a silly looking blue flower in her hair today, different from her usual purple ones, and it was so exposed that Morgan considered snatching it and seeing how long it would take for the Haddock girl to notice. Probably not long. She was sitting next to the leather shop boy Erick. Morgan didn't know Erick very well but his association with the enemy in addition to the fact that he was almost as spacey as her made him almost as bad. And he wasn't the type of boy to snitch but he was the type to get all self righteous about right and wrong and demand the flower back. And then Morgan's mother would get involved and it meant another lecture. So stealing the flower was out of the question.

Now that she was eyeing Erick, she noticed something very strange. The boy wasn't at all focused on the ceremony. His eyes seemed to be constantly shifting to Adrianna, drinking in her appearance and even marveling at the way those blonde locks glistened in the sun. Erick, Morgan realized, was smitten with the girl. It wasn't unexpected, she had heard adults joke about planning their wedding quite often, but it was a bit out of the blue. How long had this lasted? And, more importantly, was there something she could do about it?

The ceremony suddenly ended. Morgan had been focused on Erick for so long, she hadn't noticed the time passing and it was her exasperated mother poking her in the back and telling her to get up that reminded her of her earlier impatience.