Fearless Fables

The Iron Pants

"Mom's gonna love this," Finn announced proudly as he looked over his creation. He had spent the last several hours painstakingly sanding down the rough edges of the small wooden weapons rack before he had given it to his sister to paint. Their father had come to them only about a week before to remind them of their mother's upcoming birthday. "But why'd you have to go and make it all girly?"

"It's not girly, and in any case mom's a girl!" Adrianna retorted. The weapons rack was a beautiful, bright baby blue, and decorated with small rose colored polka dots. "Where should we put it so she sees it when she comes back?"

Finn furrowed his brow in deep thought. His bright blue eyes scanned the room for a perfect location. Somewhere it would be seen the moment his mother returned from her outing to the Academy.

"Over there." he said at last, pointing to a window close to the front door. The only things currently occupying the space were a pair of ugly, oddly shaped metal flowerpots containing wilting herbs. "Then she can grab her weapons before she goes out."

Adrianna brightened at this prospect and immediately ran to the location. She was too short to reach the place her brother had pointed out but she wasn't about to let that stop her. Standing on tiptoe, she strained her body as far as it would reach. She was still several inches short of her goal.

"Get me something to stand on!" she grunted, trying to raise the rack just a little bit higher.

Finn immediately grabbed the first object he saw: a rickety old bucket that was missing a small piece of its brim. This, he reasoned, was the perfect stair for his sister. He flipped it upside down and pushed it to her feet. She immediately stood on it and strained even more to hang the weapons rack on a nail in the wood. A little higher... a little more...

"Mom's coming!" Finn shouted, his eyes focused on his mother's flying form coming into view outside the window. Toothless, who was watching them from the far corner of the room, stood in response to the rising excitement in Finn's voice. "Hurry up!"

"Don't rush me!" Adrianna snapped irritably.

Just as she finally managed to hang the rack, she took a small step back and the bucket toppled over. Her arms flailed about, desperately trying to grab onto something to support her weight, but they only managed to find one of the metal flowerpots, which she knocked in front of the door. Toothless lunged forward just in time to catch her on his nose before she hit the floor.

This was the sight which met Astrid as she opened the door: her daughter resting, one foot on a broken bucket, body leaning backwards across a dragon's head; the sound of her son's raucous laughter; and the contents of a flowerpot strewn across the floor.

"Well, I see that you all have had a quiet morning." Astrid commented as she stepped over the mess into her house. A sudden glint of silver caught her attention, and she stooped to remove something from the mess. "Why is there an axe head in my flower pot?" Had she been looking his way, she may have noticed Finn cock his head in what could only be described as baffled recognition. Adrianna straightened herself and ran to hug her mother. Right before she reached her, the girl's foot caught on the flowerpot and she tripped into her mother's arms.

"Yep, you are definitely your father's child." Astrid deadpanned as she caught her daughter.

"That hurt! Why is it so heavy?" Adrianna asked, rubbing her sore foot.

Finn walked over and picked up the indestructible home garden. It featured an oddly squished oval opening at the top, and expanded into a wider base. A thick leather piece at the bottom of the container had flipped over in the fall, revealing two rather sizable holes and a metal covered water drain.