Astrid had the morning off. Her chores were done, there were no dragon-training exercises scheduled for this morning, and she had some time to herself. Usually, that meant axe practice in the woods, but today, she decided to indulge herself a little.
She was well on her way to winning in dragon-training. She didn't face any serious opposition; Snotlout was too cocky to learn from his mistakes, the twins kept getting lucky breaks and throwing them away with stupid arguments, and Fishlegs couldn't get out of his own way. She'd learned the habits of each of the common dragon types, and could take them down consistently. Thoughts of the Monstrous Nightmare made her a little nervous, but if she'd mastered the other types, she could handle that one, too.
She decided to wander down by the training ring. She stood on the stage, closed her eyes, and imagined Chief Stoick standing beside her, introducing her to the village as their newest champion. Her father and mother would be right up front, bursting with pride. Everyone else in town would be cheering and shouting her name. Snotlout would be off to the side, hanging his head in defeat, knowing that he'd never be considered good enough for her again. It would be the crowning moment of her life! She smiled and glanced down at where she thought he'd be standing...
...and saw that the stone platform below her was covered in runes, written large with some kind of white powdery substance.
She read them. Apparently, they formed half of a conversation. There was no way to know what the other person or people had said. But that wasn't necessary. The runes told their own story, and that story was unbelievable.
MAGIC IS AT WORK HERE
I AM HICCUP
NO HARD FEELINGS. OUR FRIENDS ARE
SNOTLOUT, RUFFNUT, TUFFNUT,
AND (SIGH) ASTRID
(He must have been talking to Fishlegs. What was that "sigh" about? She didn't want to know.)
IS MY DAD WORRIED ABOUT ME?
IF I CONTACT YOU AGAIN, I MAY
USE MY NEW NAME, DIMMADREKI
IF A NIGHT FURY RAIDS BERK,
IT WON'T BE ME
Either someone with a sick sense of humor was playing some kind of horrible prank, or she'd discovered something that was far more important than winning at dragon training.
Dragon training... what had happened to the training ring? The gate was a blackened ruin, and all the cell doors were wide open! As she watched, Gobber stepped out of one of the empty cells, rested his hands (okay, his hand) on his hips, sighed, and shook his head sadly. All the training dragons were gone; someone or something had set them free. Dragon training might be permanently over.
The other Vikings would all be fixated on the damage to the ring. She might be the only one who noticed the runes. What should she do with this information?
Her father would know. She left the ring at a run. Fifteen minutes later, Gunnarr Hofferson was knocking at Stoick's door. Fifteen minutes after that, Stoick was knocking at the door of the Ingerman house. Fifteen minutes after that, the chief excused himself from all town business and called a private meeting in his home.
Sitting around the fire were Stoick, Gobber, Spitelout with his son Snotlout, Astrid with her parents Gunnarr and Edda, Fishlegs with his father Finnthorn, and the Thorston twins with their mother Butternut.
The chief began by making sure that the runes were genuine. Had someone who knew Hiccup written them? Snotlout insisted that they weren't his, and showed them a sample of his almost unreadable handwriting to prove it. Ruffnut and Tuffnut both said they wished they'd thought of it, but denied responsibility, and their mother vouched for the fact that they'd been home all night. The three teens were excused from the rest of the meeting, along with Butternut. They all left eagerly; it looked like it was going to get intense and emotional, and they wanted no part of that. Astrid also denied writing the runes, and her character spoke for itself. No one questioned her. She was permitted to stay at the meeting because she was the one who had found the runes.
