Bad News
This is one of the last 3 chapters of this like...what I told myself I had to do to call it finished. I edited through the rest again today and like...I’ve worked up to the next week for like three years. And this is totally going to get buried by rtte but I’m not really operating on the idea that those two things have the same people paying attention to them so I’m keeping as close to on schedule as I can anyway. (This didn’t feel like a valentines chapter so I gave it an extra day)
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It’s too early to be awake after a long, mostly sleepless night when someone knocks at the door. Or at least I think it’s someone, because it sounds more like a hollow metal ball than it does a hand. I wait a moment for someone else to deal with it but Mom doesn’t appear and Aurelia doesn’t come bounding down the stairs so I wrap my blanket around my shoulders and trudge over there, not bothering to put away my glare as I open it.
It’s Ingrid with what looks like breakfast that she mercifully didn’t cook and I reach out and grab a roll, biting into it and miming shutting the door in her face.
She reaches out and stops the door with her bad hand, that metallic sound ringing out again, and my eyes widen when I actually look at her fingers.
There are three metal fingers where yesterday there was blank space, a leather holster covering half her hand and attaching to a latch around her wrist. Another leather strap is around the base of her thumb and when she moves her hand away from the door, I can see that each finger has two carefully wrought, ratcheting joints.
“Let me see that—”
“Good morning to you too,” she pushes past me, stepping on my dragging blanket with a muddy boot and setting food on the table like she owns the place, even though I don’t think she’s ever been here. “Did you sleep out here?” She pats Bang’s head with her good hand—I mean her flesh and bone hand, and wrinkles her nose at the rumpled blankets on the floor.
“Bang won’t fit in the upstairs bedrooms.” I shut the door, “and can you please show me that?”
“What?” She holds her hand in front of her, reaching up and bending the fingers with her other hand. They hold whatever angle she puts them at and she grins, a shadow of her old confidence in it. “You have to be more specific.”
“Your hand, obviously.” I shove the rest of the roll in my mouth when she holds it out in my direction, dropping the blanket to hold it in both my hands.
“I brought you breakfast to be nice, you could at least chew it.”
“Where’d you get this?” I turn her hand over in mine, looking at the way the leather strap crosses her palm, holding the three metal fingers carefully in place over what’s left of her own. The clasp around her wrist is freshly oiled, the gronckle iron pounded thin and pulled smooth to make it lay flat against the strap. It’s stitched into place with what looks like sealskin thread, so that it won’t go slack when it gets wet and the fingers move smoothly with tactile little clicks.
“Smitelout made it,” she scoffs, “charged me about half my savings for it but hey, I’m not going anywhere else to spend those now so…”
“Smitelout made this?”
“Yeah, she said my axe was wrong for lefty wielding and it’d be a pain in the ass to change it so—”
“So she made you a hand?” I let go of it and she takes it back slowly, staring at it the whole time with a weird, almost content look on her face. “That’s a lot harder than switching a balance on an axe.”
“She did say that the next time she kicked my ass, she wanted me to be at my best so I couldn’t use this as an excuse,” Ingrid plops down into my normal chair, kicking her feet up on the chief’s table and picking up a piece of bread. “As if. But whatever her motives, I mean…I can swing an axe again. It’s a little slippery on the down stroke but maybe if I wore a leather glove or something…”
“That’s…that’s great.” I don’t know what else to say so I sit down across from her and pick up more food. “Does Arvid know you’re here?”
“Nah, he’s still asleep.”
“Well he’s off watch duty for the foreseeable future,” I take a bite and she rolls her eyes.
“Aren’t you the one who left me alone at the Ingermans’ last night so you could go make out with your girlfriend?” She wiggles her eyebrows at me and I blush. “And I don’t need someone to watch me, squirt, I’m fine—”
“You’re not fine.”
“I’m close enough,” she nods, like she’s telling herself more than me. “Closer now.”
“Did you and Spitleaf work things out last night?” I ask, because she really does seem better. Not good, not even normal, but better, and I know Spit was always good for her.
“We talked. Kind of.” She shrugs, “I don’t think it’s something that can be worked out and I told her that and she seemed to understand even if she wasn’t happy about it. I just—I’m busy, right now, with getting back into fighting shape and keeping you and Arvid from making fools of yourselves. Oh, and keeping Dad company. I’ve got a lot on my plate, I need to focus on that.”
“So, you’re not together anymore?”
“There really is no keeping you from making a fool of yourself, is there?” She says a little more sharply than I think she intends to.
“I’d say that’s largely true.”
“Does that mean you embarrassed yourself in front of Fuse?” She grins, “tell me everything.”
“What? No,” I huff, “I’m not telling you—did you do this with Arvid? Ask him all the sordid details—”
“No,” she snorts, “he’d just lie and give way too much information, frankly.”
“So then why ask me?”
“Because that’s not the face of a little brother with gross things to tell me,” she points at me with one neatly extended metal finger.
“Oh, shut up.”
“Stoick incoming!” Aurelia calls down the stairs seconds before Stoick sprints down them, tiny bare feet smacking the floor as he runs around the table to shout ‘good morning’ at Bang and nearly crashes into my chair, catching himself on my shoulder. He frowns at Ingrid.
“You must be Mom’s other kid.”
“Ingrid Hofferson,” she holds out her hand, her right hand, all the fingers extended, “nice to meet you.”
“Whoa!” He doesn’t shake her hand, grabbing her fingers instead and pulling hard enough that I reach out to stop him.
“Gentle, bud.”
“Sorry,” he grins, like he knows he’s cute enough to get away with it and honestly, he is, “cool hand!”
“Thanks, it’s new.”
“Mine aren’t,” he holds up his hands for her to see and Aurelia finally makes her way downstairs, braiding her hair over her shoulder.
“She’s not even my real sister and she brings me food,” Aurelia looks at me pointedly as she grabs breakfast and sits down. I huff, combing through my hair with my fingers and trying to reclaim the tie tangled in it.
“You didn’t ask me for food.”
“I didn’t have to ask Ingrid for food.”
“You got off of the wrong side of the dragon this morning,” I roll my eyes and Stoick finally drops Ingrid’s hand, satisfied that he knows how it works enough to leave it alone.
“She doesn’t have a dragon,” he reminds me, rolling his eyes with far too much intention for someone that young.
“Just a saying, bud.”
“Did you know that Eret looked exactly like you at your age?” Ingrid leans down a little bit to talk to Stoick and I wish again that she’d been here to help me when I was first getting used to him, “he burned down the forge though, you haven’t done anything like that, right?”
“No,” he shakes his head, “Mom would be so mad.”
“She was,” Ingrid nods. “You didn’t get to ride Bang for what? A week.”
“She said I wasn’t supposed to.” I wonder if I’m being a horrible role model when I look and Stoick and continue, “I did it anyway.”
“I always knew I was the good kid,” Stoick sighs and shakes his head at me and Ingrid laughs. Even Aurelia snorts at that one, even though I know it’s not quite a joke to her. “Can I play with Bang?”
“Of course, dude.” I almost regret saying it because as soon as he runs away and starts whispering secrets to a dragon on the other side of the room, both my sisters look at me like it’s a little disappointing how little I’ve embarrassed myself today.
I’d like to think that last night is enough for this lifetime but mostly I’d like to not think of last night in front of anyone, including myself, honestly.
Well, the bad parts of last night. And even the bad parts weren’t bad, per say, they were just uncomfortable because I was out of control and Fuse noticed and made me think about things I haven’t in a long time. And even then it was different, it was…incestuous, yes, but otherwise innocent. I didn’t want to be like Arvid, not really, I wanted it to be some romance from the stuffy section of Fishlegs’ library. And it’s not that I’d be opposed to a little more romance with Fuse, that’s not what I was so enthusiastic about last night.
I try not to think about her saying she was flattered or her shoving me back onto her bed like she really wanted me there. Last night, I had enough trouble holding back the idea of what might have happened if I’d stayed. I’m not sure how I feel about it and I don’t want to have that revelation with both my sisters staring at me like they’d love someone to advise.
Surprisingly, Aurelia cracks first, and just in time too because I can feel Ingrid reading my mind.
“I think Arvid is mad at me, has he said anything to you?” She asks me but Ingrid by extension, hesitant for a second like she’s not sure she can.
“He doesn’t have conversations with me that don’t start with asking if I’m ok,” Ingrid shrugs, “but he hasn’t seemed mad.”
“He doesn’t talk to me unless he wants a brawl,” I laugh before remembering yesterday, like that important embarrassment just got buried under the chronological next until this moment.
The good news is, I’m not blurting this one out because the only thing worse than my brother marrying my sister is being the one to ask her for him.
“He hasn’t said anything to you?” She asks again, nose twitching like she smells something suspicious and I shrug.
“He asked me if Ingrid is ok.”
“If no one asks me that ever again it’ll be too soon,” she huffs, kicking her feet back up on the table and freezing when Mom walks out of the bedroom and sees her.
“Feet.”
“Sorry.”
“What brings you up here?” Mom walks up to her and hugs her even as Ingrid makes a show of rolling her eyes. She notices Ingrid’s hand and looks at me but I just shrug, because I don’t know how to silently communicate that Smitelout has been hiding both her talent and smidgen of compassion remarkably well for someone who’s so loud and annoying all the time.
“I brought breakfast,” she gestures at the basket on the table, “and I wanted to see how last night went because Eret left the Ingermans’ to hang out with his girlfriend.”
“Fuse Thorston?” Mom turns that disappointed in dating look I’ve only ever seen her give Arvid on me for the first time in my life and it practically stings. “She’s your girlfriend now?”
“She’s not my girlfriend.” I shrug, and it’s true, because we haven’t said anything like that and she doesn’t want to get married. I just occasionally kiss her in her room on her bed and feel really…happy about it. That’s all.
And, you know, I’m currently trying really hard not to remember how her hip felt under my hand or how good she smells.
Not that I’m going to tell my mother that.
This is the first thing I’ve ever had that I really can’t tell Mom, isn’t it?
“Maybe not in so many words, but he does realize that she is in fact a girl.” Aurelia isn’t upset enough about Arvid not to join in.
“I’d wager that he might even think she’s pretty.” Ingrid pokes me irrationally hard in the arm with one of her metal fingers and that’s probably why Smitelout did it, to torture me from yet another angle.
“Well, maybe he should think about making decisions based on pretty,” Mom gives me that look again.
“Who’s pretty?” The chief walks out of the bedroom and Ingrid blinks at him for a second, alarmed like she never is. I realize it’s the first time she’s seen it, Mom and the chief so casually together like it’s not completely absurd after a lifetime of Mom and Dad. The chief puts his hand on Mom’s back and reaches for some bread. “Good morning, Ingrid.”
“Uh, hey Chief.”
“So, who’s pretty?” He kisses Mom on the cheek like that much is obvious, and I look and Ingrid and shrug. She’s a little pale and I don’t blame her, honestly.
“Fuse Thorston is, in Eret’s humble opinion,” Aurelia looks at me, daring me to argue with her and I know that’s a trap.
“I told him to think twice about decisions made on pretty.” Mom looks at the chief like she wants his support in whatever her problem is with talking about Fuse and the chief gives her a look that makes me feel surprisingly vindicated.
“I’m not sure that’s great advice, Astrid.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I get what you’re saying, Mom.” I leave it at that, because I do, because I’ve made decisions based on pretty and that led to following Aurelia around like a lost fireworm.
“You’re being respectful, right?” The chief narrows his eyes at me and it’s almost authentically stern. I laugh. “No, really, Fuse is a great girl—”
“You’re being serious?” I laugh again, waiting for him to stop and say he’s just joking with me or something. Because that’s another face that Arvid got, the ‘am I going to have to clean up your romantic mess’ face. I always got the go-get-‘em face with the bald implication that I would fail. This is a better new face. “You think I’ve got enough of a chance to be disrespectful?”
“She’s a good kid.” He reiterates.
“I know, chief. I’m not—I’m being respectful. Or whatever.” Or at least most of me is.
I did leave last night. I stopped as soon as it went further than I expected it to. She was the one following me out and talking about stuff and things and making me blush. And putting things in my head that probably should have already been there, but now that they’re new, they’re a lot harder to avoid.
“Glad to hear it.” He nods, still fatherly but a little less annoying than usual. “Also, get dressed, there’s a report of a Thunderdrum attacking some boats up north, we should go before it moves on.”
“Now?” I frown, “I’m not done eating yet.”
“Bring it with you.”
What the chief didn’t tell me at home is that the Thunderdrum was described as covered in flaky, white scales and that it’s nearly half a day’s flight north. The chief and I spend the better part of three days cruising around at low altitude looking for it. I have to physically bite my tongue a few times to keep from telling him we should go East, towards the sick dragon island, but having him on my side won’t help us now anyway so I don’t bother. That and it feels like laying out breadcrumbs for him to come find the plan we’ve managed to keep underground for this long.
“It might be about time to give up,” he shouts over the cold wind on our way back to Berk mid-afternoon on our third full day of searching. “It must have moved on from here, if it attacks any more ships, we’ll hear about it.”
“Thunderdrums don’t attack for no reason, it must have felt threatened.”
“Or it was old and sick,” the chief lets that hang for a minute and I look at him. He’s staring pointedly ahead. “Sea’s looking pretty empty these days.”
“I know that,” I pat Bang’s head urging him faster to keep up with Toothless’s easy gliding, “so are the forests.”
“I wonder if it’s some sort of disease,” the chief slows down and he’s still not looking at me, more thinking out loud and hoping I’d rather have answers than fight with him. Maybe I’d feel different if I didn’t think I already had the answers, but I’d rather get home than fight. “If it is, there has to be a cure.”
“What if they’re just dying?”
“Or going somewhere else,” he looks East like he’s been thinking about it this whole time, “maybe someone needs to bring them back.”
“If they want to leave, I don’t see how bringing them back could help anything.” It’s true but it feels like diversion too, because we’re so close and the problem should solve itself. I’ve got to believe it will, because otherwise, I don’t know what I’m going to do. All I know is that it feels wrong out here without dragons, too quiet, too still. Like I’m existing after the end of something.
“I don’t know,” the chief shakes his head and looks at me, a nostalgic smile pulling at the corner of his mouth and making him look older than he usually does, “maybe it’s because it’s a Thunderdrum. I always kind of look for my dad’s, I guess.”
“Could they really live that long?” I pat Bang’s head again and he warbles like he’s offended at the suggestion.
“I’ve seen them so big that there’s no way they could fly anymore. We know they become mostly aquatic after fifty years or so but…I don’t know. I hope so.” He sighs, “maybe I just like thinking parts of him are still out there.”
I get the feeling he’s talking about me. The comparison gets heavier every time I hear it and I clear my throat.
“How—how did he die?” The question falls out, clumsy, too loud over the dragon-less waves, “I know it was—you know, Toothless, and you told me when, I just—”
“Toothless was under the control of an alpha. My dad jumped between us,” he looks down at his hands, “we glamorize it for the plaque but…it was what it was.”
“He saved you,” I nod, thinking that through. It’s an instinct I understand better after Ingrid. Not that I didn’t understand it before, but there was always an element of heroism to it. I understood being the hero, taking the brunt, but always with something on the other side.
Spitleaf didn’t stay and Ingrid’s forever damaged for it. I would have stepped in front of that axe in an instant, but she wouldn’t have wanted me to.
Maybe sometimes, leading is making the hard choices for everyone else, but most of the time, it’s making the hardest one for yourself.
“He didn’t think twice.” The chief looks at me strangely for another second before clicking at Toothless. “Come on, let’s get home, I’m about numb from being in the saddle two days straight. I’m finally getting old, I guess.”
“I think that started a long time ago,” I joke because I don’t know what else to say and he laughs because I get the feeling he needed a joke.
In a way, the last couple days have been a slice of what was normal for so many months. Sure, I didn’t drop all chiefly duties while helping get Ingrid re-settled, but I can’t say they were an all day, every day activity anymore either. And even though it’s not as much work as when I was doing it alone, I’m itching for a break. Not that I even know what I break is these days. I don’t know what I even used to do when I had all that free time.
The good news is that the blasts of cold, salty air keep me from thinking too hard about Fuse, at least while we’re actively flying. The rest of the time, at home, Aurelia talks my ear off about how Arvid is acting strange and I help her hack through a few of the more difficult treaties she’s working on. It all has the feeling of filling time when I should be doing something else, something important. The next day, I take the first chunk of freedom I can get when the chief asks me to check in on the second round of dam repairs while he has a secret meeting that I largely suspect is with Arvid himself.
The dam looks like it’ll hold this time and it better because the next thing the chief wants to try is bracing it with a metal substructure, and that might lead someone to discover just how low the store of scrap iron is at the moment. Smitelout’s doing a decent job of hiding the lack of pile but if anyone really went looking for it they’d notice. Most of it is finally shaped into shells that Fuse should be filling and…
Fuse. There she is.
Thinking about her makes my hands itch. And my chest feels tight. And I think about her hair and her room and the way she kissed me with so much intent, like she’d been thinking about it even more than I had. How she didn’t get mad at me when she had every right to and how it felt like the edge of something new but in a good way this time. A way that makes all the nervous energy swirling around my head at the thought of her feel more like a promise. Like something resembling intent.
I almost wonder what I could get away with, but it’s different, it’s more wondering what would happen if I didn’t stop her. If she got to kiss me in private all that she wanted to.
Now, I might be a bit dense and damaged in this department, but I also grew up with Arvid as my older brother. And somehow, I can’t stop thinking about the brushed red patch on Fuse’s neck from my stubble and the way she kept running her fingers through my hair and it would almost be easier if she’d been offended. Hel, if she’d been anything but flattered. Because I’m a bit flattered that she let me that close to her. I’d kind of like to flatter her more.
Bang and I get to the edge of the village and I should go back to the chief’s house to hear the news about Arvid and Aurelia and figure out what he wants me to do next. That would be the right thing to do, but it’s hard with all these half thoughts about Fuse in my head, and I think about heading to her house to see if she’s there. Maybe no one else would be.
And like all of the other women in my life, Fuse must read my mind, because as soon as I land she appears out of seemingly nowhere, running up to me and grabbing my arm. She yanks hard enough to pull me off of Bang and I stumble a couple of steps to catch my balance.
“Nice to see you too.”
“I have to talk to you.”
“Yeah?” I can’t stop the dopey grin spreading across my face even though I know it can’t possibly do anything good for me in this situation.
“It’s serious,” she starts dragging me towards her workshop. “Come on.”
“Ok,” I catch up to walk beside her and she drops my arm, chewing on her bottom lip. “What’s wrong? Are you ok?”
“Why wouldn’t I be ok?”
“Because you look upset—”
“Keep your voice down,” she looks around like she’s checking if anyone heard, remaining mostly silent until we get to her workshop. She lights the lone candle on the counter inside and shuts the door behind us, ignoring Bang’s pathetic croon at being out of my sight for even a minute. “I talked to Spitleaf last night—”
“Is she ok? I know Ingrid broke up with her—”
“Why would I talk to her about that?” She shakes her head, “I was asking her about the dragons because she’s been way further out than either of us and apparently there aren’t any left on the mainland. Like, at all. And that’s why she and Ingrid got attacked, dragon leather’s selling for its weight in gold.”
“Dragon leather? That’s barbaric.”
“It’s disgusting,” she shakes her head, “and it’s worse, they flew past the island on the way back and what she described? There must be twice as many dragons there now, and she said she didn’t see any babies but some of them weren’t old.”
“So, it’s spreading.”
“It’s spreading and—and I don’t…” She looks at me, hands limp at her sides and I lean back against the counter. She rarely looks helpless and her eyes feel like a physical weight adding to the looming one on my shoulders.
“And people are going after dragons now. So that means…” I wave my hand at where Bang is surely crouched outside the door, “places with dragons are in danger too. And people with dragons.”
“That’s what it sounds like.”
And I can’t help but think about her encountering people like the ones who hurt Ingrid. I should have protected Ingrid in the first place, that’s what chiefs are supposed to do. I’m not going to let the same thing happen to Fuse just because she’s out on some dangerous adventure I prompted her into. Maybe she doesn’t even need to be there, maybe I can help the dragons and know that she’s safe.
“Is there a way to do this with less people?” I try and wrap my head around the whole of what Fuse just told me, of the fact that even leaving Berk with a dragon right now could be seen as an invitation for trouble. The fact that what happened to Ingrid isn’t an isolated incident and that it could happen again, so easily.
“Like less people in the air? Because I think I need everyone helping me build if it’s—if we need to rush it this much. Because if hunters are hurting the dragons, we have to get them out of there.” She looks at me more rigidly than she has in a while and I realize she’s pushing the timeline herself without asking me. That’s a relief, honestly, because I don’t want to ask for more from her when she’s already doing so much.
“Agreed. But what do you thing? Could we do it with less people flying out there.” I look at her face, slanted with shadows from the flickering candle. It makes her looks softer and that makes me feel more determined. “Like, could it be staged in phases from a single dragon?”
“It’s too heavy for a single dragon, let alone a dragon with two riders.”
“What about a Thunderdrum with one rider?” I regret getting there so quickly as soon as I do, because her brow crumples and her nostrils flare and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that brutally irritated face directed at me. She looks me up and down like she doesn’t quite recognize me and maybe it’s closer to fury than annoyance.
“You can’t do this alone.” It’s an insult, not a plea to come along, and I realize I made a mistake with a significant potential to be fatal to people she doesn’t like as much as me. I inadvertently stepped between her and her bombs. “You don’t know how to prep the charges, you don’t know—”
And if me standing my ground here keeps her safe from some crazy dragon hunting barbarians off island, well, this is my soon to be vaporized rock to die on. Fuse is quite the blast to jump in front of but I’m not letting anyone else get hurt.
“You could teach me. I could learn, it could be fun—”
“No.”
“Fuse—”
“No, I’m going, and if you won’t help, I’ll find someone who will.” She crosses her arms and looks past me, eyes flicking briefly to my face like she’s assessing the impact of her words.
It’s not small. It stings like a burn, a burn I don’t want to ice because I want to use the pain to remember not to touch that again. She’s the one person I’ve managed to keep on or near my side through all of this and to think that I’m messing that up now, so close to the end when everything’s only getting more dangerous and difficult. I bite back a bitter surge of exhaustion and sadness and pride that makes me want to tell her to go ahead and try. But it’s Fuse, and she’d take me at face value, and that means I have to make my face value higher. It has to say what I’ll always want to say and not what I want to say now, when I’m scared of how different it’s going to be out there when we leave.
It might be loud with barbarians instead of quiet without dragons and again, I don’t know how I’m handling all this change.
“You just said it yourself,” I look at my feet, boots muddy from examining the dam and then being dragged to her shed. Maybe I can only have one person with me at a time and now that Arvid’s finding some resolution to his slow swing back to my side, I have to scare Fuse off. “Just having a dragon is looking for trouble—”
“And if it finds us,” she picks up a clay jar from a shelf above her workbench and shakes it at me, not quite threatening but enough to make me worry if she’ll still even like me after all of this.
“What if it’s not enough?”
“I have dozens of those.”
“What if those aren’t enough?” I snap, “we don’t know what we’re going into and I can’t—I can’t stand the thought of something happening to you, alright?” I throw my hands up and sigh, “ever since I thought of it, I can’t stop. Just—me not being able to do anything about it and…”
“You’re trying to protect me?” She cocks her head, hair shining in the sunset light leaking around the door. The candle makes it bright enough not to trip over her but not much more than that and it makes it feel later, like we’re existing in the twilight of this big plan more than we are in today. “I don’t need you to.”
“Neither did Ingrid, until she did. Neither did anyone until…until every decision I made started to impact all of them.”
“You can’t decide anything for me,” she’s quiet like she’s trying to comfort me and I try to feel that. I try to feel the strength that’s always made her someone I could lean on when no one else was standing up straight. She’s the one tree in the forest still standing after a microburst or a timberjack tantrum and I try to let myself believe it.
“I just…I don’t want you to do anything stupid for me that gets you hurt.” I gesture at her, at the way she’s standing, Hel, the way she’s just existing there. Calm and furious and controlled, beautiful and dirt smudged, uneven braids and tangled hair. “I’m not worth that.”
“That’s not your decision to make either.” The corner of her mouth twitches and I want to wipe the smudge of soot off of her chin. I want the dragons to come back, I want none of it to be real and more, I want it not to sit so squarely on me. “Plus, it’s for the dragons. It’s only for you in a secondary way.” That’s almost a joke and I get that she’s trying to cheer me up on my level, even if it’s hard for her. I almost ask to go blow something up but she continues. “Who protects you? If you’re so cut up protecting everyone else, who’s protecting you?”
I shrug, “I don’t know, some chiefly aura that’s kept the chief alive all these years?”
“He’s missing his leg.”
“Yeah, but he survived.” I sigh, “and given he’s still alive even with all this messing with my family of all people, I’m just hoping it’s strong enough to be genetic.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yeah, but it’s what I’ve got.” Part of me wants to ask her to protect me, but she’s right, I can’t decide anything for her. She can’t decide anything for me either though and that means she can’t stop me from doing everything in my power to keep her as safe as possible. To keep everyone as safe as possible.
“You still think it’s right for the dragons, right?”
“I think if it’s not, it won’t matter. I think they’re going there to die and whether they want to do it under or on the island, it’s happening.”
“And if doing this could make it better for them—”
“We do it. Obviously.” I look at my feet, “I think it’s time to tell the chief though. Not about the dragons or any of this,” I gesture around her workshop, “but…but if people are hunting dragons and they’re the people that hurt Ingrid…”
“We need to be ready for that too.” She nods, “especially because we have an alpha here, dragons should stick around longer than anywhere else.”
“Huh,” I nod, “I always forget about that.” I look back up at her and sigh, “start working on how to do this with three. Arvid might want to stay back if it’s this dangerous, or Aurelia might want him to. I don’t necessarily hate the idea of that anyway.”
“You, me, and Smitelout?” She doesn’t put any special emphasis on herself and she’s almost daring me to bring it up again.
“Yeah, and…and I should set up the interior charge, the one in the volcano on that lip?” I ask to make sure she understands and she looks like she’s going to fight for a second but seems to abandon that idea. She sighs and almost cautiously rests her hand on my cheek, like I’m the thing in this shed most likely to blow up if handled improperly.
“Ok, I’m not sure there’s room for two of us down there anyway and I can’t lift the baffle as well by myself.”
“You stay in the air, over the water, and hit the lava flows.”
“I don’t need you to protect me,” she says again, gentler this time, “you don’t have to.”
“Maybe that’s why I want to,” I lean my face against her hand, trying to find the right words, “because…because it feels like the only thing I can’t mess up.”
“There’s a lot you can’t mess up,” she leans onto tip toes and kisses me on the other cheek, “not that you haven’t tried.” She doesn’t object when I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her in to a hug, my chin fitting almost too neatly over her shoulder.
“I’ve got to go talk to the chief, don’t I?”
“Yeah,” her breath is warm even through the shoulder of my shirt and I must smell like salt and murky dam water but she doesn’t seem to care. I squeeze tighter before I have to let go and feel her heartbeat against my chest. “And I’ve got to start packing up everything.” She sighs and pulls out of the hug, slowly, like she doesn’t really want to. “That’s my least favorite part. I build all these bombs and it looks like so many until they fit into a few saddle bags.” She taps my chest with the back of her hand and takes a step back, “three people, right?”
“Three people.” I’m suddenly tired, just thinking about what I’m about to have to do, and I push away from the counter, finding a tired smile for her. “Next time when you come find me, it should be good news, ok? You’ve got to at least alternate or it really starts to wear a guy down.”
“Good news,” she nods, “I’ll try and remember that.”
“Ok, I’ll let you know how it goes.” I kiss her on the forehead again and it almost feels like habit, like the good kind of habit that I want to keep. “I’d say wish me luck but—”
“You don’t need it.” She nods at me and I get the impression that’s a nicer version of her saying I don’t have it but well, that’s the last thing I need to remember right now.