Dragons: The New Chief

Chapter 28: Sword Making, Axe Swinging, and Babysitting

The next few days went by with speed for the nearly-wed couple. It was now exactly a week before the wedding, the day where the two families would converge for dinner, in which the groom would present the brides father, or in this case uncle, with the dowry. The dowry was sort of a payment to the father for the bride. Now, Hiccup never thought, or rather hated, thinking of buying Astrid, but it was custom. Finn felt this way as well, he did not like the though of selling his niece to some man, although that man was Hiccup. So, instead of presenting Finn with a sum of gold and gems like most dowries, he was going to gift him a new sword and shield as more of a thank you, rather than a payment. Finn, however, did not know of this. He thought that the tradition of the dowry was thrown out the window for this wedding, but Hiccup did favor tradition, as did his father. Hiccup knew that Stoick would have wanted to keep with tradition no matter what, so that is what Hiccup was doing.

Hiccup was now at the forge, between shifts of chief work, smithing the sword and shield out of the finest metal he had ever seen.

"Where did ya get this boy?" Gobber asked as Hiccup passed him the sword to be dunked in the water bucket.

"It was in that package that dad bought for me." He said as the sword sizzled in the cool liquid. "There was quite a bit."

Gobber placed the shiny blade in front of the chief, tapping the blade with his actual hand. "How well is this metal? Do you know what it is called?"

Hiccup brushed a cloth along the flat of the blade as he pulled out a paper from his pocket. With a grunt he dropped the cloth and opened the paper.

"Apparently it's pretty darn good. It's a rare metal found far east, supposedly across a land that is 100 times larger than any island we have ever seen...but it's called Japanese Carbon Steel...whatever Japanese or Carbon is..." Hiccup muttered, shoving the paper back in his flight suit.

Gobber tapped his chin with his tong-hand. "I've heard of steel, that's what I use besides iron...but I haven't heard of Japanese or Carbon either. If it is better than steel, then Finn has got himself a mighty fine sword and shield there."

Hiccup nodded as he lifted the significantly light blade in his hand. He walked over to one of the wooden posts and placed the tip of the metal to the wood. After gripping the hilt with his right hand as well, he pulled back the weapon and then swung it at the post. He imagined that it would nick the wood just like every other iron sword he made, no matter how thin and sharp it was, but the carbon steel tore right through every fiber in the wood.

Hiccup cursed, falling inward to the pole, not expecting ease of the weapon. The chief held up the shuttering roof and chuckled.
"I think it's pretty darn good."

Gobber shook his head and grabbed his hammer hand, some nails and a couple planks of wood that were lying on the table towards the back.

Meanwhile Gobber was fixing the forge, Astrid, Stormfly and her babies wandered into the woods for the day. The blonde was extremely nervous about the upcoming dinner, so she came to do something that usual calms her nerves, axe throwing. She threw the axe at a young tree for the millionth time, seeing that the tree looked to be teetering on it's last fiber.

Astrid grunted as she pulled the axe out of the trunk. "I have to cook tonight! I'm not a good cook! I tell everyone I am and they seem to agree, but I know i'm horrible and I don't want to muck this up!" She yelled, throwing the axe at the tree once again.

Stormfly squawked a response.

"I know, i know...that's not the only thing i'm worried about." Astrid pulled the axe from the tree.

She turned and slumped onto the snowy ground, against the rough bark of the tree. "It's that prayer to Freya I made 15 years ago."

Stormfly squawked, running over to her rider and huddling down with her. The two babies scurried over into her lap. Astrid pet all three of them and sighed.