Chapter Text
Helmet on, grip steady, stance strong.
Stick to the basics, Astrid.
Breathe in.
Heart thumping. Ears roaring. How in Hel’s name is sweat starting to form on her upper lip? It’s freezing cold.
Breathe out.
It came out shakier than she’d wanted. She could say it was just the snow that was stopping her. From breathing properly, that is.
Her eyes iced over as the feet followed the flickering torches down the echoing hallway, halting as the body felt the heaviness of the wooden gate in front of her. Frost has dusted upon the square holes, her head had added unhelpfully, pin holes focusing on the spot. Like it was an added splattering of blood from Ullr himself, or how one’s soup would splash on a mother’s nicest rugs reserved for her fanciest guests.
The lazy cogs groaned in protest against the harsh movement as the gate was raised. It created an off-key singing competition between the cries of the machinery and her stomach which held a snarling Deadly Nadder – like one attempting to pull its final defensive measurements once you’ve finally cornered the damned thing.
You know you’re quick. Use that.
Astrid’s only point of order is on the opposite side, whose mirrored opening reveals a stocky boy. Both gloved hands squeezed his long hammer as though he was trying to send a quick appeal to the gods in a last act of desperation.
Shorter reach than my axe but a little less manoeuvrable if I play my cards right, Astrid analysed, past experience steadying her every read of the boy. Relies on brute strength, means more openings for me to lodge into his armour.
The boy was strapped with more armour than her, as if the amount of metal protecting a human’s fragile body would equal his percentage in winning. It didn’t stop the tufts of wool pouring out of the too-much, too-big armour in hopes of blocking out the bitter temperature. Easiest weak points are joints under his armpits. I need to get him to lift his arms up.
Astrid’s boots crunched under the sensitive, white layer as something akin to (falling into the frigid river or getting a move wrong for the final time or a dragon roaring and mauling-) panic gripped her, planting its seeds in her chest.
Her body seemed to shrug at its disconnection from her alarmed sensors as she rolled shoulders back with a satisfying crack, exuding confidence. Feet walked her into a steady form towards the marked spot, knees refusing the buckle under the burden of her upper body. There was a loud tick in her neck that was swiftly relieved.
The other boy, Snotlout, copied her, the stench of arrogance squelching off his every footstep as he took to his place. Even from where she was, Astrid could see how his long eyebrows reached the edges of his obnoxious helmet with its ram horns, all the while shielding his neck-long, greasy black hair from the world. Gross.
Both Astrid and Snotlout clocked the small gathering of curious nobles suffocating them. The young boy smirked at a handful of young female nobles that had gathered in the sheltered seating area. His pompous face (which Astrid would be able to punch very shortly) turned into satisfaction as the nobles turned to each other in girlish giggles.
This was it? The final round of the Kingsguard Academy tournament. A tournament of the Best of the Best… And her only obstacle was Snotlout?
There is no greater danger than underestimating your enemy, Astrid . Her father’s words ring, over the blood booming in her ears, over the decrescendoing noise of the crowd. But it was harder to recall when she was staring at the guy in front of her. This is General Jorgensons’ son? Cousin to the current heir to the throne?
The hush of the people was commanded by a corpulent man standing up in the deep red and maroon box on Astrid’s right. At a glance, she could see the polished bald head of a man draped in the most perfect shade of navy blue silk coat Astrid had ever seen. It covered the upper body, his lower half being sheltered by the barrier of a wall from the box, but still the young warrior could make out intricate gold and silver jewelry neatly decorating his red tunic underneath. His fashion sense on facial hair, however, was rather odd with two bright, blonde, braids billowing from his upper lip.
As he raised his left arm to call for complete silence, she could now see that his left arm wasn’t of human flesh and in fact a golden stub. Pure gold? Astrid couldn’t tell. All that was missing from the man was a golden crown – which Astrid knew he would never have.
Gobber of the Belch Clan, current Hand of the King, had a deep voice that bellowed out through the arena with raw practice. “Lords and ladies of Berk, warriors from far and home-land Apprentices, and any goats that have snuck in again this year!” A unanimous chuckle reverberated around the crowd. “Welcome to the final round of the Kingsguard Apprentice tournament!” Astrid saw people open their mouths, a cheer? A cry? She couldn’t hear it.
The seeds of panic that gnawed at her chest shot up. It bypassed her throat, snatched her tongue and pulled. How could her mouth suddenly feel ten times too small to accommodate her own tongue? She tried to lick her lips in an act to ground her – but she couldn’t tell if she had done it or if her numb lips were even still attached to her face.
“Today, these two brave souls step onto the frostbitten sands not just to clash steel, but to prove themselves before the crown, the gods, and the ghosts of every warrior who came before.” Gobber continued, not even sparing a glance or a slither of acknowledgement at Astrid’s inner anxiety, clawing and scratching and tearing apart her organs and throwing them out one by one. “Now, let’s keep it clean – no eye-gouging, no biting, and if you do lose a limb, try to make it an arm. Easier for the healers to fix later.” He motioned towards his own missing limb.
Oh Thor, she’s going to lose her arm, Panic whispered to her, slimy tendrils gripping every bit of her brain (including the parts for common sense).
“Remember, this is more than a match. This is about loyalty, courage, and showing your Kingdom what you stand for when your back’s to the wall and your blade’s the only friend you’ve got.” Her sweaty leather gloves creaked against her fingers wrapped around the handle. Despite having held an axe her entire life, she retightened her grip for fear of dropping it.
“Hold nothing back. Fight smart. Fight proud. And may the best fighter earn their place among the King’s finest!”
Her body forces a hand onto her beating heart and drops into a bow towards the Hand for a handful of seconds. Terror pushed her chest up, and the nausea pulled it back down faster and faster until her own mind could barely keep up with the speed. The weight of her arm across her chest didn’t help calm her, but the feeling certainly didn’t lessen when she got up from her bow either.
Gobber motioned for invisible people to sound the tournament’s horns. The fight was on.
Astrid dropped into an instinctive fighting form, muscle memory puppeteering her limbs. She could tell from Snotlout’s stance that he was ready to pounce, waiting for her to make a mistake against his brute strength. Instead, all she needed to do was tire him out with that bulky hammer of his. Then, change from defensive to offensive.
“Don’t worry babe, I’ll go easy on you,” he winked, voice only loud enough for her disturbed ears.
Outwardly, she didn’t even twitch nor flinch at the comment. Inside, the fury began to coil under her skin, ridding the former nausea out of the housing with a slammed door in its face.
The boy let out a yell and charged at her, his hammer raised. She only brought her axe up just in time to stop his hammer slamming into her face, surprised at how effectively swift he was in the deep layer of white.
Sloppy. Get it together, Hofferson, she thought, the vibration of the clashing weapons rattling her thin ice-rods for bones.
He was pushing his hammer against hers and she knew she wouldn’t beat him in a game of strength. She needed him to be flailing and heaving to use his own chosen weapon. She needed to use her opponent’s strength against them.
In one smooth motion akin to melting into mercury, she pivoted away, her axe swivelling to her side.
The young girl held back a satisfied snicker as Snotty’s momentum made him stumble down to the white blanket of snow.
Immediately he lurched upwards, and she felt the hammer fan past her nose. Again, and again, and again Snotlout attacked. With every strike he aggravatedly made towards her, she ducked as though she was allergic to his sharpness he was trying to maim with, her weapon firmly pressed against her torso. The shift in his every slobbish stance, his bulky footfalls, the sweaty incentive of the hammer gave away each time where he was planning to whirl it.
Just like how you’ve been trained. Dodge and weave, smooth like the water in a river avoiding stones.
She slinked around the large arena, using her footprints etched in the snow to side step over the thickness. It was a simple trick that most true vikings knew from the harshest winter. High-borns like her opponent wouldn’t know since they prefer to spend their training time frolicking in a perfectly groomed courtyard.
She wanted to jeer at him, to taunt him. Gods, did she want to anger him.
“How do you tell if Jorgenson is intelligent? Tell him to stand in the corner of the round arena” she thought, words almost slipping out with an easy sneer and a slam of the blunt side of her axe to his head.
But she bit it back. The Hand was watching. Whatever she did now would make its way back to the King. Unhonourable fighting wouldn’t win their respect, even if it was common as a last-ditch effort for a warrior.
It didn’t take long to tire him out. His foolish wielding slowed and his breathing was audibly more laboured. He took his final, sloppy swing in a spot she was in three seconds ago.
Now.
Lunging and slamming her armoured shoulder into his ribs. She grabbed his hand and twisted. The boy toppled down to the floor before he could defend himself as his hammer fell next to him, abandoned.
The handle of her axe was against his throat and she had him pinned down, one foot on his chest and her knee pressing into his armpit. “Do you yield,” was all she stated, barely even a question.
“You know, you should shut up,” he sassed back.
The realisation she'd underestimated his strength and came crashing into her like a dragon’s tail as he managed to push her knee to the side, and felt a big push against armour plates on her stomach. Stumbling back to her feet, readying herself again for a quick attack only to find that Snot-mouth had only grabbed his hammer, planting himself into a new defensive position.
Now, they were back to their dance. Him swinging and her dancing. Snotlout’s chest heaved through his constricting armour.
“Fight me like a real man!” He roared, thundering around the colosseum. However, Astrid’s expression remained neutral, refusing to betray anger’s acid boiling throughout her at the accusation.
Well if you insist.
She crouched low as they continued circling each other, waiting for him to advance. But it seemed he had figured out her plan and he was joining this silly ritual with her.
In an instant, Astrid lunged and Snotlout prepared to raise his hammer upwards in defense, exposing the inner of his armpits but his tiredness weighted his arms. Desperate. Perfect.
He curved his hammer down, the target being her back, but her armour on her shoulder rammed into him before he could. The clang! rang out as her metal shoulder pads and his weaker armour spot just below his ribs slammed together, curved non-lethal side of her axe digging into his exposed armpits.
Now he was effectively winded, she wrapped a single arm around his knees, bucking him down to the ground. His back was pressed to the frigid floor. Her right boots scathed against his hands and her left knee grounded his chest down to his doom, imprisoning him in her pinned strength.
Then, she started hammering her axe into him, adrenaline pulled her arms up after every hit forcing her to strike non-stop. The colosseum that was filled with the quiet of the snowfall, cracked with Astrid’s fury and her equally outraged axe.
Wrath, her axe called to her, unsatisfied with the little amount of blood beginning to leak out of Snotlout’s nose.
Snotlout cowered, body writhing unnaturally like a hopeless fish out of water frantic to find any form of relief. Grunts and almost-cries enveloped in prayers that wouldn’t reach Ullr – perhaps couldn’t even understand. The boy squirmed to cover his face with (his hands? no, they were still pinned under her boots) the powder, which was the only thing beneath him now. But the gelid distraction wasn’t enough to quell the trembles and quakes and tremors that tore through his body with the agonization of her merciless axe.
Stop-mercy-please his defeated body was begging.
“Yield,” she said – or more appropriately: breathed after Astrid’s muscles finally pulled away from her axe’s calls and pointed the thirsty thing at Snotlout.
Snotlout gaped at Astrid, blood dripping down his nose to his cheek to the pooled floor. It was as if she were Hel herself and came up to the earth to personally deal with him. “I yield,” whispered a terrified child staring into the black night.
Then came the barrage of sound, but not from her pulsating ears or drumming heartbeat. No, this one came from the crowd with clapping and stomping and cheering and Astrid wished they would all just stop, or pause, or halt at her command so she could catch a forbidden breath. The horns blew, popping her sensitive, pounding ear buds. Vikings could never be a quiet bunch, each having to out-do the other in noise is an unspoken rule.
Her body – very eloquently if you asked her – teetered off the pile of metal beneath her. Quivering legs plucked the doll up into a standing position and the crowd moved to imitate their new champion. She did it.
Adrenaline thrummed her body behind a thin veil of exhaustion and reminded her to move – to be alive. It forced the young warrior to triumphantly present her axe to the masses, earning her a new round of exhilarated eruption.
Was it quiet now? She couldn’t tell but Gobber was standing again with a golden arm in the air just as he did to cull the audience before. A smile (she thinks) hides behind his long facial hair.
In the corner of her eye, she sees Snotlout drop down into a bow, hand over heart like they both did in the very beginning. She moved to do the same, her right hand that’s buzzing in too-small gloves makes its mark above her chestplate. As she gazes down at the floor in her bow, she realises the bile in her throat about to involuntarily jump out of her mouth. The taste of spew seemed to need an exit to crawl away from the depths of her twisted, wretched insides wailing out-out-out! Biting down the salty taste of cod, she shouted not-yet-please as she dispelled it back into the pits.
“Well, I would like to start off by saying congratulations to one of Berk’s newest champions–!” Gobber boomed, the crowd already back to its default cheering state. “And Our King’s new First Apprentice…” From behind Gobber, a servant came up to whisper in his ear, and Gobber jumped to finish his dragged sentence. “...Astrid, of the Hofferson Clan!”
The audience crescendoed, and Astrid couldn’t help but wonder how the noble’s voices weren’t gone a week before the Ullr Yule Festival. “But I also want to say that by Thor’s mighty missing socks, what a fight!”
Gobber laughs, the kind of deep laugh that rumbles the earth and makes pebbles jitter in fear. “Remember this one, folks. She’s one to watch. And gods help the poor fool who faces her in our future battles.”
Astrid’s ears start to tune out the deep voice and its accompanying overwhelming horde. Her eyes gloss over the blur of bright colours, detaching from her brain in the way where she’s not really looking at anything while facing it.
When it locks back into her senses, her blue eyes settle on an unassuming mop of shaggy auburn hair sitting in the box next to Gobber. Daintily perched on top was a startling shiny crown, as if refusing to acknowledge the lack of sunlight on the blizzardy winter day and continuing to glow anyways. It had a thick, round band at the bottom and forged golden antlers wove between each other with a singular amber jewel raised in the middle.
Astrid’s eyes trickled down, tempted to see who could own such artistic beauty and then all she sees is Green.
Green, like those rare warmer (not summer, no, Hooligan only has almost-summers) days where the white melts enough to see that yes, grass is green like in the stories, Astrid. It was like the smell of a crisp forest on those sunnier days too. Or when you get attacked by the dews escaping from the confines of the leaves above, and you can't stop yourself from getting wet from it all so you can only giggle.
It was the colour of when you’re able to walk bare-foot willingly through that grass, or when you can strip your clothes because the heat on the rocks makes you so, so sleepy.
Green was like the colour of Prince Hiccup Horrendous’s surprised eyes. And if Astrid’s ego allowed herself, maybe even a little awe-struck.
Her still-red and pulsating face was numb to her. And while her immediate reaction to the Prince Hiccup meant to be a cross between a confused frown and a raised brow… She didn’t think her Thor-forsaken marionette of a brain had working attachments to all of its strings, because she’s sure her expression just contorted into something like a grimace. At the Crown Prince.
The Prince, startled, shook his head (in fear? Disgust?), breaking their precious eye contact and instead taking purchase on the last stretch of Gobber’s endless speech.
Oh for Hel’s sake. Has she just ruined her chances of being part of the Kingsguard, before she’s officially joined it?
Gobber’s nonsensical rambles ended with a final form of enthused rowdiness and behind the glassy box her ears she was trapped in, followed by an outburst from the audience in delight. At this cue, did Gobber and Prince Hiccup file out of the box, with the Prince's frost-bitten blushing face particularly engaged with his feet. Nipping at their heels were trailing servants, cupbearers and proper Kingsguard’s members with their intimate silver and gold armour and perfect silky red cloaks hanging from their backs.
Astrid turned her back on Snotlout, and mindlessly walked away to the gate.
The white noise of the audience followed her footsteps down the corridor, metallic taste now tugging at her tongue.
She trudged the long way over to the Apprentice barracks just outside the castle’s protection. The entrance to the barracks could pass as a normal watchtower, but the barracks had a long spiral staircase leading down – down to the underworld where they all belonged for their unconfessed sins.
As the distance to the door to the staircase and herself closed, a startling revelation struck her: no one had come up to salute her for her hard work.
So, she circled the empty castle, yet everyone she passed speechlessly milled about. She wandered in one slow loop of the outer corridors, searching for something, or someone, to acknowledge her. But there was nothing. No fan fare from friends, no sentimental congratulations from family. Just the weight of the Fraudulent title beginning to take place on her weak shoulders. It's sister Unworthiness clutching onto her ankles, persistent yanks from below the crumbling floor begging her to rejoin with Hel in the darkness.
The rackety, ancient wood bones moaned like young ghosts forced to bear witness to another wasting celebration as she had eventually steeled herself down towards the Apprentice Barracks.
Once she entered, she was greeted with an endless crowd of crammed people, wafting in the air was something smelling a lot like putrid moonshine - as per tradition of True Warriors. Hand-made (scraped together) by Hooligan Castle’s finest (alcoholic Apprentices) with only the best ingredients (whatever the chefs were about to throw away)!
It was the same with the approaching Ullr Yule Festival, that signalled the middle of winter. For children, this meant twelve days (more like nights, what with how short the days are now) of pure glee with mystical dancing and the Ullr Bonfire and antler-masks. For those older than the age of twelve to fifteen solstices, it meant guzzling down just enough alcohol in your body to throw up in the deepest crater… And then racing to see who could fill it to the brim in sick first by the end of the Festival.
Astrid herself wasn't much of a drinker. She had no reason to celebrate, nor the time to. She had only a chance to become better, stronger, sharper, while those around her fancied themselves to be a more vulnerable version of themselves.
“Oi, First Apprentice Astrid!” A rather fetid fourth-year clambered over the swarm of fellow foul-scented Apprentices squished shoulder-to-shoulder. In her slimy hands were two wooden cups as she powered through to meet Astrid on the sidelines. “I got you a little something,” Heather winked, unceremoniously fumbling a cup into Astrid’s hands and then sculling down her own.
Astrid didn’t need to look in both cups to know that Heather had handed her the one with significantly more missing moonshine in it.
“So how does it - does it feel?” Heather slobbered out, unknown to the condensation partnering with her upper lip as she slammed her empty cup on some poor, crooked slab of wood calling itself a table. “Going on any power trips lately? ‘Cause I’m kinda keen to join you right now.”
Of course Astrid couldn’t come right out and say the truth; it’s weird that so many people are coming up to talk now. So instead she landed on a more socially accepted one of: “You look like you’re about to go on an outhouse trip rather than a power one.”
Heather’s laughter gushed out of her like a Monstrous Nightmare’s roar before its fire – a declaration of noise and chaos. But the sound barely cracked through the common room compared to the others. But to Astrid, she didn’t think it was much of a contest when your opponent is the type of drunk that laughs at everything.
“We all knew you would get it, Astrid.” The younger squad leader's words slurred with all the elegance of a lamb’s hooves scratching to cross the ocean’s ice. She clapped her on Astrid’s back as though it was their thing they always did, like they had known each other for years. At the same time, Heather’s other hand smoothly picked on Astrid’s wooden cup, and lifted it from her apathetic fingers. Heather may be a laughing drunk, but she still had the makings of a pocket thief.
Astrid’s hands now unburdened, fiddled with the fine linings of her leather Apprentice uniform. In the back of her head, she idly wondered who had made her garments and tried to picture the person. “Yeah, thanks.”
An awkward silence fell between the two. Well, maybe not for Heather who was too busy guzzling down her second drink to care.
“I mean,” Heather hiccuped, the finished cup banging against the table, jostling her first cup then being discarded to join it. “Between you and Snotlout as our only sixth years left, not much of a choice is there!” Another obnoxious laugh ripped out of her still-wet lips.
Ouch.
Astrid’s face morphed into an attempt of a copycat, but quickly dropped into her usual dead-pan. Her eyes sought out for anyone who could save her from this encounter as Heather continued to open her mouth, listing meaningless babble that went through one ear and out the other.
The basement for a common-room withheld the heat of lively Apprentices like trapped spirits – the thick stench of slimy sweat, dried liquor, and decaying meat had nowhere to escape. The forgotten, dusty weapons rack by the entrance stairwell (weapons were unpolished and unsharpened, Astrid mentally filed away) remained untouched for tonight. Helmets littered the edges, kicked to the sides like discarded skulls of past souls who'd attempted to quit. The taller, rowdier Apprentices’ foreheads were forming prominent bruises from the low beamed ceiling, drink count tipping out of their heads the more they rammed into it like goats.
Finally, her freedom from tyrant Heather was granted when a group of similar fourth-year Apprentices clutched Heather’s arms like a lifeline. Aflame with enthusiasm they ripped her from Astrid’s presence.
Astrid watched as the friend group made their way to the wall lined with boar skulls and broken, cobwebbed shields, which propped up the hollowing barrels of depleting alcohol. The girls wolfed up a barely-fermented barrel that bleed moonshine like an unhealable wound. They downed it all as though it was the blood of their pack’s fresh kill, racing to see who could snap it all up and then have enough time to get more.
Part of Astrid wonders if she drank with them, then they would start talking to her outside of these parties. Part of Astrid thinks that maybe in another life, they could’ve been closer.
Maybe if she wasn’t so off-putting, or just a bit quieter. If her patience wasn’t always as thin as a thread, waiting to be fractured. Maybe if she could always make the right joke at the right time, and not feel that unwanted, acrimonious curdling need to question if others were laughing at her rather than with her.
She could practice with her wrathful axe until her hands shrieked for relief from blood and blisters. But there was no way to practice how to be liked.
Especially tonight when the serrated switch from chats out of necessity, to the illusioned camaraderie was like Astrid being shoved off a precipice blindfolded. It gave her whiplash and she was diagnosing Apprentices left and right with madness every time they came up to her to prattle at her.
She registers someone jumping on the ale-soaked, roughly-hewn, tables to make a toast in her name (would they even remember it tomorrow?) and creates an inspired chorus of “skål!”. It invited a few faces caging in on her that she can’t attach a name to offer her chugs of almost-empty cups. Mead sploshed against her chest, the foul odour sticky and warm, soaking her formerly proud leather uniform.
The press of bodies made it impossible for her to move. Her cheek was pressed against someone’s rooted back and she felt another’s irritated body behind her shoving her to move-hurry-go but she couldn’t and now there was a frenzied red strangling her throat, but it didn’t stop Impatience behind her. It was all boxing her in like she was cattle being walked to her slaughter.
Now, this felt it was a lot less of a celebration and a lot more their true Viking roots of looting, rifling, and pillaging her for something they wanted to claim.
Astrid perilously swerved through the noisy, pure chaos. Her body managed to heave itself under the lonely arch of the entrance staircase, spine positioned in case her breakfast figured it was repulsed by her organs again. To seek some form of comfort and cool relief on her throat from the bruising imprints of the invisible hands within the mob, her forehead pressed against the pebbled wall. The little stones stones painfully sank into her skin, attempting to painfully ground her from Valhalla stealing her too early.
No, she argued with herself, attempting to enable tunnel vision on any cohesive thought of hers. If I’m going out, it’s as a hero with a dragon. Any dragon, actually would do. Anything but a Gronckle.
Her brain successfully registered that she had carved out her own quiet paradise in the sleazy underground. Astrid opened her eyes, her subconscious having scrunched her face.
If I die to a Gronckle I give permission to Hel to steal me from Valhalla, she finalised.
Her beady eyes analysed how the moonshine barrels were drained of its every life within minutes by the wild wolf packs. There was another cheer in her name that didn’t reach her, the warmth of faux celebration slipping away like the liquid they imbibed.
Normally, Astrid would’ve been seen lingering to the edges at this point in the night. Silent, sharp-eyed, and out of reach. Gentle laughs wheezing out of her as she witnesses a foolish first-year downing the booze and its collapsing aftermath.
But now the walls enclosed her like a snare – like she was the dragon, piercing fangs bared and claws keen to draw their first blood. Her trappers’ blades were their cloying praise and hollow grins, slashing at her feeble armour. Saccharine words curling and contorting into a noose shaped as a garland, then wrenching for her inexperienced neck. Their too-bright and too-wide smiles she’s never been the subject of before take bites of her, ripping her apart until soon only the title on her gravestone will remain.
How was she supposed to lead a group like this this solstice? A mess of people that’s acting like she owes them a piece of herself when they have not given her anything in return?
How could she bear it when her own isolation barred her from a two-way street named Trust with them? Instead, a chasm laid between herself and everyone else, and Astrid was about to falter off the edge.
She needed... (to tactically retreat-!)
She needed an out.
…Of the barracks, of the crowd.
Her mind seized up, but her instincts continued to shrill (escape the slaughterhouse-!).
She just needed a moment out from whatever this is.
Fresh air. For her lungs. For her troubled breathing too.
She had (to run aw-) to do something.
Astrid's clammy hands slipped onto the shaky stairs, fighting to climb out of the spiral.