Captain Fury: Pirate of Berk

2: An Argument With Outcasts

A/N: To clarify: I will try to refer to Hiccup/Fury as 'Fury' when he's in his pirate 'persona' and as 'Hiccup' when he's in private/with Fishlegs.

Chapter Two: An argument with the Outcasts.

Lady Astrid Hofferson turned as her new husband spoke and offered a distracted smile. It had been her father's idea to match with a military man and he had arranged everything. All Astrid had to do was to travel to the Mainland to meet the man she would marry the next day.

Of course, there was no option. No matter how she felt about General Eretson, they were to be wed and she had worn the cream silk gown and veil her father had ordered made. She had said the words with control but no passion and she had accepted the chaste kiss on the cheek her new husband had offered her but nothing more. They had separate cabins in the ship on the voyage back but she had no doubt that at some point, back in Berk, she would have to do her wifely duty to him.

She turned her luminous blue eyes back to the misty horizon. Their Captain had been ordered to take them an unusual route, via Loki's needles and the ship was carefully steering through the restricted channel through the ominous columns of black volcanic rock that clustered round the jagged isle in the distance. Eret wasn't worried, poring over charts with the Captain and offering his own observations-whatever use they were from a man who had no experience of naval warfare. The man seemed to think he knew everything about everything and that annoyed Astrid. Her father always said a man should know his limitations.

Unconsciously, she raised a hand to the tiny silver chain that hung around her neck, threaded through a fine silver ring delicately worked by its creator, her childhood friend. She closed her eyes and not for the first time, she regretted her actions. She should have been stronger. She should have been braver. She shouldn't have been afraid.

The ship shuddered and she frowned. The Captain had been steering very cautiously through the narrow and unfamiliar channel and she doubted he would have run aground. She turned and walked purposefully to the General's side-she couldn't think of him with any affection or even by his given name-and sighed.

"Husband," she said to get his attention and was relieved it was a neutral term, a statement of fact rather than a judgement on her relationship. His dark eyes flicked up. His jet hair was pulled back into a small ponytail and his fawn and blue uniform was pressed. His small goatee was very different to the huge full beards the viking-descendants of Berk favoured and she felt it looked a little...odd. "What was that?" He offered a cocky smile: he had supreme confidence in himself.

"A little brush with an underwater rock, I guess," he said airily as the ship shuddered again. Astrid hitched up her eyebrow.

"And that was another?" she challenged him. His eyes glanced nervously in the direction of the Captain, who was frantically tugging on the wheel. The whole ship shuddered again and the look-out screamed form up on the mast.

"Vessel ahoy! We are under attack!" Astrid's eyes widened in shock.

"Pirates?" she asked Eret. He nodded dumbly.

"Um...Captain?" he asked.

"Outcast colours!" he shouted, waving to his crew.

"Second vessel sighted, off the port bow!" the look-out shouted. The unmistakeable sound of cannon fire echoed between the huge stone seastacks and everyone ducked as the cannon ball roared overhead and water exploded to to the stern of the ship, sending the whole vessel rocking. Eret looked at his new wife and pushed her back.

"Into the cabin, wife!" he commanded. "I will fight to protect you while you..."

"No!" she protested angrily. "I can fight. I was taught to fight. I will not cower like some worthless simpering female and..."