Guardian Dragon

Chapter 3

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Hiccup P.O.V

Blood, tears and scars. The memories of last night came back to me in a flash... just like the pain. My back felt like it was burning, and my face felt as if it would melt off any second.

I picked myself up off the floor and sat the edge of my bed. I was about to fall asleep again, but I was interrupted by loud footsteps coming from downstairs. It was my father, who else would it be? I was about to completely ignore him but then I heard him shout my name in rage for the 116th time this week.

"HICCUP!"

'Ugh, not again', I thought, and then forced myself to go down the stairs to receive what I suspected would be another telling off, or possibly even a beating.

I walked down the creaking stairs, and entered the living room. There, I saw my father readying the gear for what would probably be another unsuccessful hunt for the nest. Seriously, did he not learn from the previous experiences? So far, we had gained nothing out of the hunts for the dragons nest. The only things that the nest hunts changed, was Berkian population, which unsurprisingly was on a steady decline. I wondered many times whether my father understood the value of life. And the answer every time was the same. Yes.

"Hiccup, I am leaving for two weeks to search for the nest again. During that time, you will be helping Gobber train the new recruits since... well... you are clearly not ready yet. If I come back to hear that you have screwed up again in anything, you will live in fear at the thought of what I will do to you. Understood?" He spoke all of that in a calm but threatening voice, which in my opinion was much scarier than his shouting. The calm before a storm, as you might say. At least during his speech he did not refer to me as 'Useless'.

I simply nodded my head at him and said nothing else. And so he left, and slammed the door shut behind him to once again show that he meant business.

I turned away from the door and headed to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich to go. That sandwich would probably be the only thing I would eat until evening, so I saved it for later.

Once I packed the sandwich and all the other necessary things to survive for the day, I headed out to Gothi's house. Gothi was the village elder and healer, and after what happened yesterday I really needed to get some kind of cream for the pain. As far as I was aware, everybody in the village knew that my father abused me. After incidents like last night they would always look down at me as if I was some kind object that could be shoved around. Their stares seemed to speak out, 'You deserve it'.

It was the same today, they all glared at me like I was the worst thing that ever happened. The teens also gave me boorish looks. Snotlout and the twins were snickering loudly about how even my own father thought of me as useless. Fishlegs wasn't even looking in my direction, he purposefully didn't make any eye contact with me. However, Astrid observed me as I walked on through with a look of concern. Concern?! Astrid?! Something was not right. She never paid attention to me, and now all of a sudden she was concerned. Yes, I was bruised all over and it was very noticeable, but why would she ever care?

I dismissed the thought though. I was probably just imagining things. Nobody actually cared about me. Especially not Astrid.

When I made it up to Gothi's hut, I knocked on the door carefully, as not to disturb the elder in case he was sleeping. Gothi opened the creaking door for me and gestured for me to walk in. Her hut was unlike an other on Berk. Outside of her house, there was a garden full of exotic herbs that she used to cure diseases. On the inside there were a few plants here or there, but the thing that stood out was the shrine. The shrine was a blanket on the ground with glowing candles surrounding it. In the middle of the blanket, there was a single book with an eerie colour to it. Sometimes when it was dark, the book would give off a violet gleam. Most Vikings would treat that as sorcery and banish anybody who displays such demoniac items, but the elder was the elder. She alone was allowed to have these items, and no one other than her.