We Go Where No One Goes

[Hiccup]

(ooc: September 3rd. Closed to Hiccup and Astrid.)

He was letting his mind wander again.

It probably wasn't the safest thing to do, granted, but Hiccup didn't care. Classes were over for the day and studying didn't need to happen for a while longer. He'd positioned himself under the shade of a large tree and was staring up at the sky as it started to change colors. There was a sort of longing in Hiccup's eyes, though, as his mind wandered back to Toothless. How was the Night Fury doing without him? Had it even been a good idea to leave him behind? Probably not, and he could imagine that the Night Fury wasn't all that pleased with him for leaving, but... At least Toothless was safe. That really was all Hiccup could ask for in the end. Still... It didn't stop him from continuing to look skyward and long to take flight again.

Maybe it was silly. A boy his age wanting to fly... Anyone else might have laughed at the prospect. Ever since he and Toothless had gained each other's trust and learned to touch the sky together, though, Hiccup couldn't deny that he loved it. The freedom, the open air, and the prospect of being able to go where no one else could... It was all amazing. Too bad he was ground bound for the moment, though. It sure would have been great to fly... Just for a little bit.

After a bit, though, Hiccup's thoughts drifted back to the present. Maybe it was for the best that he couldn't fly with Toothless at the moment. If Toothless was there, and if the dragon ended up in a different circle from him, then the possibility of the two fighting would be a reality. Hiccup just couldn't fight Toothless... He couldn't.

"I just hope he's okay," Hiccup finally murmured. From worrying about Toothless to longing to be in the sky and back to Toothless again. His mind seemed to be in a bit of a circular patten of thought for the moment. Something was bound to come along and break that chain before too much longer, though, right?

[Astrid]

"You're thinking about Toothless, aren't you?"

Dropping to a squat beside her boyfriend, a rare look of sympathy could be seen passing over Astrid's features. After detouring to check out the available training facilities, the blonde Viking girl had been heading back towards the fire circle dorms when she'd caught sight of the familiar brown-haired boy sitting beneath a tree in the Four Circle Quad. Just by the way he sat, Astrid could tell the male's mind was adrift; and Astrid knew her boyfriend well enough to guess that he was missing his four-legged best friend. Not that she could blame him at all; in unguarded moments, Astrid found herself similarly missing Stormfly.

Leaning over, she gave Hiccup's shoulder a gentle squeeze. Though she would once have never imagined caring for the former village screw-up in such a way, Astrid had lately come to decide it was a development she wouldn't trade for anything. Even if, at times, she enjoyed a laugh at Hiccup's expense, it was only good-naturedly, and they both knew it.

"They're going to be fine. Gobber promised to look after both of them while we're here."

Privately, however, Astrid had to wonder if the dragons were really the only thing bothering Hiccup. That she was in a different circle to him had to be a pretty big concern for the male as well, didn't it? Though she chose not to bring that up for the immediate moment.

[Hiccup]

Astrid's voice had been more than enough to get him to focus. In answer to her question, Hiccup nodded a little and glanced her way when he felt her hand go to his shoulder. The reassuring squeeze did its job, and a faint smile traced its way across Hiccup's face. Still, in spite of knowing that Gobber was looking after their dragons, he couldn't help worrying. What was Toothless doing without him? He was probably managing all right, but he was Hiccup's best friend. Of course he was worried about him.

"You're probably right," he finally said. Hiccup was probably worrying over nothing in the grand scheme of things. Besides... Toothless was a fairly good sized dragon. He'd be able to take care of himself. That wasn't all he was worried about, though. The fact that Astrid was wearing an entirely different color ensemble than he was spoke for that worry quite loudly. He didn't want to go up against her in a fight. For one thing, Astrid was probably the most capable out of all the teens from Berk. For another, she was his girlfriend. He didn't want to hurt her or anything.

"But that's not all I was thinking about. What's going to happen if we have to fight each other?" he asked.

[Astrid]

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you too badly."

In spite of her tone, Astrid looked grim. It was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn't it? Astrid wasn't pessimistic, but she was a realist; and it just seemed to her as if whoever was running this show wouldn't be able to resist the chance to mess with them both sooner or later. And while Astrid was confident that she could easily beat Hiccup in a straight-out fight, she didn't particularly want to. Shifting her legs beneath her so she was sitting beside Hiccup rather than squatting on her feet, Astrid looked across at him.

The fact of the matter was that, in spite of the willingness with which she'd done so in the past, she didn't want to hurt Hiccup at all. Sure, she might give him the occasional punch in the arm, but that was the full extent of how far she was willing to go anymore. Beating him senseless wasn't on her agenda, now or ever. The viking girl shook her head.

"I don't like it either," she confessed after a moment, shuffling closer until she was pressed more or less right up against Hiccup. "They must get some sort of pleasure out of doing this, but it seems stupid to me." The two of them would do better as a team rather than pit against others - and each other - on their own. Whatever sort of game they were playing here, pitting people against those they cared the most for, Astrid didn't feel particularly inclined to play along if she could help it.

"We'll need to plan for that in advance." Idly, she reached over with one hand and began to work Hiccup's tie - green in contrast to her own red - slightly looser. To be fair, she still thought the uniform was weird and impractical in every possible way; but seeing as how they was stuck with the odd clothes, Astrid had quickly decided she may as well get used to them. "If we're prepared, that will at least be something."

[Hiccup]

"Thank you for the reassurance," Hiccup deadpanned. He knew that Astrid wouldn't purposefully try to hurt him beyond the usual punches to the arm that she threw in every once in a while, but he also knew her strength. She could easily take him down if she really wanted to. The fact was that she wouldn't, and Hiccup was relieved for that much. A problem, though, was that he didn't know if he had any real plans for how to make sure neither of them had to actually go fight to the death. If they had Toothless and Stormfly, they'd at least have the option to try and fly away. Since that wasn't the case, though, they'd have to make it up as they went along.

"Unfortunately, I have to admit that I'm at a loss. We could try to run away, yeah, but... I don't have to be a genius to guess that that's not going to fly," he said. Astrid wasn't the kind who would run away from their problems. Hiccup, on the other hand, might have considered it at one point or another. Now, though? He didn't even think he'd want to attempt running away. It wouldn't have gotten them anywhere, anyway. Someone could have tried to stop them from getting away and then they'd be in an even deeper pile of shit.

He looked back to her, uncertainty evident in his eyes, and allowed a sigh to pass his lips.

"If we do end up fighting each other... Maybe we could just fake it. I mean, we can't get in trouble if we make it look like we're fighting, right?"                                                          

[Astrid]

"Running's not my style anyway." Returning her hands to herself in order to brush her overhanging fringe away from her eye, Astrid pursed her lips thoughtfully. She was a viking - they both were - and vikings were stubborn and never gave up; she refused to believe that there wasn't some way out of this. The problem was that nowadays, it was Hiccup - at least more often than not - who was the brains of the operation, and he seemed as stumped as she was.

This didn't particularly bode well.

His following suggestion gave Astrid hope - for all of two moments.

"That'll work for the fights where everyone's meant to survive; but what about the ones where it's to the death? How do we fake killing each other?" Astrid blew out a frustrated breath and leant back against Hiccup's shoulder, staring out at nothing in particular. If it came down to that, she would flat-out refuse, no matter how much trouble it would land them both in; but a better solution had to be out there somewhere, she was certain. It just seemed to be escaping either of them for now.

[Hiccup]

"Ah... Right. I forgot about that," Hiccup admitted rather dumbly. How were they meant to avoid killing each other in the fights that only one was meant to walk away from? It would have been so much easier if they were up against dragons. If they were up against dragons, Hiccup could use what he had learned from Toothless to his advantage. Unfortunately for all involved, that wasn't likely to be the case. They had the possibility of going up against each other and that meant he would have to deal with Astrid's expertise in fighting. Now, if Hiccup were stronger or had an actual weapon at his disposal...

Hiccup shook his head; he couldn't think about that. What they had to do was figure out some kind of way to get out of fighting to the death if it ever came down to that. The only thing he could think of, at least for the moment, was flat out refusing to fight if that came about. That was the best he could offer Astrid for the moment. Frankly, it was better than nothing at all. With as good a smile as he could manage, Hiccup put his arm around Astrid and decided to speak up again.

"I guess the best we can do is refuse to fight if we get forced to fight to the death. I wouldn't ever want to hurt you... Let alone kill you. But, hey, it's like you said. You stand a better chance of hurting me than I do you," Hiccup said. It was time to try and change the subject, though. He didn't want to just keep worrying on and on while Astrid was with him. He must have looked so pathetic to do so. Some son of the chief... Some future chief.

"But anyway... How've you been holding up? I can imagine the fire circle is pretty lively," Hiccup said.

[Astrid]

"I'll do the same. If we really have to, I'll take you down, but I'm not going to kill you." Her tone was serious, possibly enough so to give Hiccup a few reservations about what 'taking him down' would look like when it came to that. It wasn't as though Astrid wanted to hurt her boyfriend at all, but she was aware enough that both of them would land in a world of trouble as soon as they refused to fight. Better to avoid that if it was a non-lethal fight, Astrid reasoned.

There was always the chance that they'd be lucky and their numbers wouldn't be drawn together; but Astrid had never relied heavily on luck. Vikings went out and got things done themselves, they didn't wait for fortune's foll of the die to determine things for them.

She actually looked relieved as Hiccup chose to change the subject. Crossing one leg over her other, Astrid turned her head back in his direction.

"I'm managing. But it's not a lot like I was expecting." She'd been anticipating, well, something more like Gobber's dragon training, but maybe more generalised; instead, she got classes like English and others that Astrid simply couldn't see the relevance of. It didn't make a great deal of sense to her; if the school was all about teaching them to fight, then why would the classes be so completely unrelated to that?

And as for her fellow circle members... Astrid's mouth pulled into a minor scowl. "Most of them are full of hot air and don't look like they can back it up," she observed bluntly. At least, that was what she had made of them, and Astrid had never had much patience for that kind of attitude. And then there were the ones who just seemed quite lost amongst all that bluster. There were one or two who seemed to know what they were doing, but for the most part, none of her circle had impressed Astrid much.

"And the earth circle? What's that like?" It couldn't have members any worse than some of those she was stuck with, Astrid figured.


(ooc: I feel as though this post is somewhat lacking, but I can't think what else to do with it; sorry ^^")

[Hiccup]

"So basically, a lot of Snotlout wannabes," Hiccup laughed. That had to be a sight to behold. Hiccup didn't know very many of the fire circle members apart from Luna, and she was one he knew seemed like she knew what she was doing. At least, he thought that was the case. He'd only met Luna that day, so it was hard to really say if she was like Snotlout or not. In any case, the image of a bunch of guys who were nothing but big talk amused Hiccup to no end. If his cousin actually knew about that mental image, though, he was certain he'd get his face clobbered. Not that Snotlout needed to know that much, though. He really didn't.

As for how the earth circle was...

"Can't complain about who I've ended up with. They seem pretty... Nice, I guess. Not like they're going to punch you in the face for looking at them funny. Some of them seem kind of young, though. I mean like... Kids," Hiccup answered. He had seen Wizzer as enough proof of that much. Puppies being in this place seemed a little odd, at least to him, but that wasn't something he could help. Some of the earth circle members were kind of quiet, though.

"Seems like some people in my group like to be by themselves. Or, you know, just don't talk that much. You know what I mean, right? The kind of person that doesn't talk much," he said. That would be Arietta to a T. She had opened up to him and the others they'd sat with at lunch, but that was about it. Arietta didn't really seem like the kind of person that wanted to go looking for a fight, anyway.

"This whole place is just so different from Berk. But... We're both here together, at least. That's something. I mean, it'd be better if we were together and in the same circle, but I guess they saw that our qualities were more fitting of different places. Or something," he said.

[Astrid]

"Basically," Astrid nodded, a smirk tugging her mouth. She wouldn't deny she had been thinking along much the same lines; she just hadn't come right out and said it. It wasn't much of a surprise that Hiccup would pick up on that anyway, though; there had never been much love lost between him and Snotlout.

She listened as Hiccup described his fellow circle members. They sounded like a more pleasant bunch than her own, in all fairness; though Astrid supposed since she hardly classified as nice a lot of the time, she wouldn't really have fit in amongst them. They sounded right down Hiccup's alley, though, so even if she didn't much care for their separation, she had to admit that the placement made sense. Hiccup had never been the face-punching type, and he had often seemed to like his own company better than anyone else's - not that they'd given him much chance to get in on their company before Hiccup had become a dragon ace - so he matched the rest of his group. Better than she did hers, Astrid felt.

"Sounds like they put you in the right place, at least." And she wouldn't deny she could be hot-headed, so maybe they'd known what they were doing when they chose fire for her, too. Even if she didn't appreciate her circle-mates' company.

As he finished speaking, Astrid shifted her position, so that she was no longer resting her back against Hiccup's shoulder but instead sat alongside him, and inclined her head in agreement with his words. Different from Berk? It certainly was. "You're telling me. The food, the accomodation... they seem to have life really easy here. And then there's all this..." she reached over to give Hiccup's shirt collar a tweak. She didn't usually make a big issue of clothing back on Berk - no-one did - but even after three days, she still found the uniforms particularly odd. If they had been more practical, alright; but with all the loose fabric flapping around everywhere...

"I hope they don't make us wear these outfits to fight. Can you imagine what a disaster it would be? These ties are just asking to get caught on something," she scoffed, frowning down at her own red tie. Maybe someone thought it was a good idea, but Astrid seriously wasn't seeing it.

[Hiccup]

"Oh, gods, I can just imagine. These things are choking hazards, I'm telling you. There's occupational hazards, and then there's... This," Hiccup said. He couldn't help but laugh at Astrid's own remark that he'd essentially echoed. The tweaked shirt collar was another nice nod to that much. If they were forced to wear these strange clothes on the battlefield, there would be nothing but chaos to follow. And choking, as he had said. People could choke other people with the stupid ties. Whoever had decided that this was a good design was someone who clearly needed to get their face punched in.

"You know something's wrong if even I'm pointing out the impractical nature of the clothing here," Hiccup remarked. At the very least, they had the fact that they were able to switch out of their uniforms at the end of the day. It was still a way's off, granted, but he'd be glad to be back in his more practical, comfortable clothing. Well... As comfortable as he could manage, he supposed. His prosthetic was always going to be at least a little uncomfortable to deal with. Astrid didn't mind it, at least as far as he knew, so he couldn't really complain about that much.

"The whole clothing choice here is just strange. I don't see why anyone would want to wear this kind of stuff."

[Astrid]

"Yeah. Not fun." Astrid ran a hand under her own collar, fingers brushing the part of the tie beneath as she tried to envisage what being choked by it must feel like. Besides distinctly unpleasant, of course. It was why she kept the lower half of hers tucked into her shirt a lot of the time here; she didn't want to give anyone any ideas about it. That wasn't to say that if she came upon an oponent foolish enough to wear the uniform into the ring, Astrid would hesitate take immediate advantage of it, however. In a fight, you used whatever means were at your disposal; if they did have to dress like this in the fights, it would be a matter of choking her opponent with theirs before they got the same idea about hers.

"Unless you're the twins, of course. You know what they're like; Tuffnutt would probably find getting throttled by this a barrel of laughs." Astrid shook her head, gave her tie a quick check to make sure it still looked... the way she supposed it was meant to ...and turned back to Hiccup as he had continued to speak.

"Vikings aren't exactly style experts," she pointed out. "I'm sure it looks good by someone's standards. But it's a dumb choice for fighting in. You have the really tight collar - and then just loose fabric everywhere." She plucked at one of the loose folds of her shirt to emphasise her point.

[Hiccup]

"Good point. The height of fashion back home is wearing a helmet. ...Probably should have brought mine, now that I think about it," Hiccup said. He just hadn't thought about bringing it with him when he'd left. The fact that he'd essentially thrown it away in the kill ring before hadn't left a good impression, but now? He almost wished he had it. That was basically a keepsake of his mother; it would also be something to protect his head if he did somehow end up in a fight. Too bad he hadn't thought about bringing it before then.

"You'd think they would want to give us something more comfortable to wear here," Hiccup remarked when he'd noticed Astrid plucking at her uniform's folds. They were able to wear more casual wear when classes were over for the day, but at present he and Astrid weren't wearing anything comfortable at all. He gave his own tie a quick check before really thinking about that much. Who in their right mind thought that anybody would want to wear these sorts of clothes while being uncomfortable in classes in general? Hiccup sure didn't. The animals had to wear them, too. That thought succeeded in bringing an image into Hiccup's head, and he kind of had difficulties in preventing himself from laughing at the thought.

"Oh, gods... You've seen those animals wearing this stuff, right? Could you imagine Toothless and Stormfly having to wear it?"

[Astrid]

"Yeah. I'd have thought you'd think of that earlier," Astrid gave a slight shake of her head. Not, she supposed, that she was one to talk; rarely, if ever, did the viking girl wear a helmet of her own. Call it overconfidence, perhaps. Or, with all her rolls and tumbles she was prone to pulling off while fighting, perhaps Astrid just figured it wouldn't have stayed on her head anyway, even if she had worn one.

"It is pretty dumb." She nodded her head in agreement. If the outfit was all as tight as the collar, she might have got that; hardly comfortable, but it would at least have had some form of practicality. At least without the tie, which seemed to have no purpose at all beyond making it easy to be choked. But as they were... no, she didn't get it. It had to be an asthetic choice, but Astrid wasn't even seeing that. "All I can imagine is someone, somewhere, thought it looked good. Or they invented it just to confuse us," she half-joked at length. Honestly, she felt that thought was more Hiccup's style than hers; maybe something of his brand of humour was rubbing off on her, Astrid didn't know.

The viking girl had to cover her mouth with her hand at the image Hiccup abruptly threw out. Trying to cram their dragons into the tiny uniforms... quite aside from the fact that they'd never find shirts big enough for either of them, that would end in complete chaos that Astrid could only begin to imagine. Toothless, in particular, she doubted would ever stay still long enough for Hiccup to fit any clothes onto him at all. But even if they somehow did manage it... well, if the shirt would be ridiculous enough, then trying to picture the night fury in trousers...

Astrid had to stuff her other hand in her mouth too.

Once her silent guffaws had subsided, Astrid gave her head a shake. "The ties I could see, maybe. The rest of it..." well, there weren't even words to describe how ridiculous that image was. That was probably just one more reason why it was for the best they'd left the large reptiles back on Berk.

[Hiccup]

"Maybe it's a good thing they aren't here," Hiccup laughed. As much as he did miss Toothless, he knew that it would be pure chaos trying to get his Night Fury friend to sit still long enough to get a uniform on. It would be hell finding one that would even fit him. A tie would probably be the most that they could get on the dragons. ...Why had he even thought that up? Oh, right. He'd thought about the animals wearing the uniforms. He never would have thought such a thing was even possible before. Yet there they all were in the same environment as puppies and the like wearing strange clothes.

"I'm surprised they even found clothes small enough for those dogs and other animals to wear," he said. That was when he realized just how long they'd actually been talking about the clothes in the first place. He cleared his throat after a moment and glanced away as he rubbed the back of his neck. Wow... Such a strange topic of conversation.

"Anyway... Even if they are strange clothes, you look good no matter what."

Was he attempting to flatter her? It was hard to say. Hiccup thought it was the truth, though. Astrid really did look good in just about anything.