Only Fun If You Get a Scar Out of It

[Astrid]

[September third, continuing from We Go Where No One Goes; training thread, closed to me and Hiccup. I assume, given the nature of the school, that there would be multiple gym rooms, so I'm imagining these two are in a different one to Vitani and co. in the other thread.]


Wiping sweat from her eyes as she finished shoving the last lot of training equipment - that apparently the last user of this particular gym room had left out - back against the wall, Astrid took a moment to survey the product her work. She'd told Hiccup to wait while she managed this herself, not trusting that he had enough strength to move any of the heavy blocks of equipment on his own; now, she had succeeded in clearing a decent space in the middle of the room where the two of them could train. The exhertion had left the girl feeling rather sweaty, which she was sure her white shirt made very noticable by the damp patches at her armpits, but satisfied that neither of them were going to have to worry about tripping over anything but their own feet while they sparred.

Speaking of the shirt; as Astrid gave into the temptation to run a finger around her collar, which her exhertion had her starting to feel rather hot beneath, she had to wonder if heading straight here had been such a good idea after all. Maybe they'd just been too eager to get started; but she and Hiccup had, not half an hour ago, been talking between themselves about how impractical the school's uniform would be to fight in, and yet here they were, about to do exactly that. Admittedly, sparring wasn't true fighting, especially not when it was between a girl and her boyfriend; and now that they were here, it made sense to just get on with the practice as they were.

Still, Astrid took a moment to tuck the end of her red tie safely between the buttons of her shirt, out of easy grabbing range. She didn't really expect Hiccup to try and choke her with the thing, despite their conversation about exactly that, but there was still far too much chance of it getting caught if she let it remain flapping about loose; and though she could have taken it off altogether, Astrid supposed she might as well get used to trying to fight in the uniform. Just in case they were expected to do that in the arena.

"How much do you know about this sort of fighting?" she asked as she stepped into the centre of the space she'd cleared, waving Hiccup over to join her. If not, she'd just have to start right from the beginning; but she couldn't imagine that even he didn't have at least a little grounding in unarmed combat. It was the most basic thing there was.

[Hiccup]

He idly wondered if he should feel insulted or not that he'd essentially been told to stay out of the way while Astrid handled the moving. He'd grown used to that much back home, at least before Toothless had come into their lives, but still... There was a slight sting to it that Hiccup couldn't ignore. Rather than saying something about it, though, Hiccup chose to stand back and watch as Astrid went about moving everything. This did give him an opportunity to remove his tie, which he set aside to collect later, and unbuttoned a few extra buttons. He also proceeded to roll up his sleeves... Mostly for the sake of comfort. Hiccup realized there was next to no comfort present in wearing a uniform, but he thought the rolled sleeves might be better in the long run.

Of course, it appeared that Astrid had been thinking along similar lines. She had tucked her tie into her shirt, the exact opposite of what he had elected to do, and... That appeared to be about it. Hiccup couldn't argue with her decision, though. Astrid had just exerted herself quite a bit and he imagined she would be all right as she was. He also imagined that he looked a bit strange compared to her. Not that he minded, though. Hiccup was going to roll with this training session no matter what happened.

What followed was a question of how much Hiccup knew. He blinked once before following the silent prompt to come forward. The relative silence made it easy to hear his steps, which he didn't mind all that much, and it gave him enough time to think about his answer. What all did Hiccup know about fighting? He knew enough to know that he was a twig compared to just about everybody else in the village and the school. Hiccup also knew that he had to have learned something from Gobber's lessons... But that was more related to armed combat, wasn't it? Probably. Inwardly, Hiccup groaned. He really didn't know a lot about the topic at hand. This was going to make things a bit more difficult for him and Astrid on the whole. No matter, though. He'd have to roll with it. Before he answered, though, one thought did come to mind.

"I know not to stand still for too long. ...And that's about it. Dad didn't exactly focus a lot on making sure I knew a lot of this stuff."

Pathetic, really. The future chief of Berk knew next to nothing about hand to hand combat. Who could really have blamed Stoick for not teaching him, though? Hiccup had assumed for so long that Stoick had been ashamed of him, and there was also whatever grief there had been related to his mother's death. That much Hiccup really didn't know about. He'd hardly known her, after all...

...Well, if that wasn't off topic then Hiccup didn't know what was. He was only glad he didn't say that last part out loud. He didn't want to bring down the mood that much.

[Astrid]

Perhaps she should do the sensible thing and take her tie off, after all. She had kept it on so as not to be outdone by Hiccup in the matter of enduring discomfort; seeing that he had stripped his own off while she'd been working, however, rendered that unneccessary. Still, that would be added delay, no matter how small, and she'd already made a move to get their lesson started. If it became too much of a problem, Astrid decided, she could always follow Hiccup's lead later; right now, she was too set on making sure the male learnt a thing or two to give much thought to how much of the uniform she had kept on or not.

A slight frown of frustration found its way onto Astrid's face as Hiccup confirmed that he pretty much knew nothing about the matter at all, and the girl thoughtfully worried her lip between her teeth for a moment. While she shouldn't have been all that surprised, she had hoped that Hiccup might at least have had a basic grounding; apparently, that wasn't the case. She was just going to have to start from scratch.

She brushed her overhanging strands of hair away from her eye as she started talking. "The thing about unarmed combat is, you have to use everything you've got at your disposal. Fighting with weapons is more controlled because there's only so many ways you can use an axe or a hammer. With hand-to-hand, you've got a lot more options. It's not just punching-" she emphasised with a firm punch to his shoulder "-and kicking; your whole body is the weapon, and you need to use it in whatever way you can. Especially in ways your opponent won't be expecting; catching them off-guard could win you the fight."

She fell back a couple of paces and adopted a fighting crouch, fists raised as though in perparation.

"I'll get to the details in a minute. But if we were fighting now, what would you do to take me by surprise?" Though her posture invited Hiccup to demonstrate, her words suggested she only wanted a spoken answer; Astrid was open to either. Even if Hiccup knew almost pitifully little about combat, he'd always been pretty inventive, so coming up with a way to catch her off-guard should have been right up his alley, the girl figured.

[Hiccup]

"You're asking me that knowing full well that I probably can't, right?" Hiccup asked. He got the basic idea that fighting without weapons meant using one's whole body as a weapon, but how in the name of Thor was he supposed to catch Astrid off guard? She was about as easy to catch off guard as... Well, Toothless. He brought his hand to his shoulder to rub the spot where Astrid had punched him and offered a slight smirk. Of course she'd had to do that at least one more time before beginning officially. But back to the matter at hand, he really didn't have a clue about how to try and catch Astrid by surprise. He wasn't even really expecting an answer on Astrid's part. It was more rhetorical than anything else, but he suspected he might get some kind of response one way or another.

He stepped back a couple paces, mostly to try and get a better look at what was around them, and he soon found himself frowning. Circling Astrid might be best, but there was a problem. His blasted metal prosthetic would give him away in an instant. Hiccup would have to think of something else. Something clever... Something... Anything, really. This wasn't a time for playing around, but Hiccup really couldn't think of anything that might be beneficial in terms of surprise attacks. The best he could do was actually just trying to knock her off her feet.

"Well, we're not exactly in the best place to be sneaking around. Even if I did try to sneak around and get you from behind, you'd hear me coming. You can see why," he said. His left leg was raised briefly and a hand went to motion to the foot in question.

"So... I guess I'm going to have to try... This!"

And with that, Hiccup made his attempt at throwing himself at Astrid. An improvised tackle... Or just an attempt to knock Astrid down. He really didn't know what to call this technique, but it was something. That much was certain.

[Astrid]

"I'm not asking about fighting technique or good strategy. Just something that I'd never expect you to do." He should be good at that; Hiccup had done the most unexpected thing ever by befriending a dragon, so unexpected was right up his alley. Astrid wasn't even asking for something that would be good tactics. More than anything else, she was testing how well her boyfriend could think on his feet, when placed on the spot.

Apparently, not so well.

After a moment of musing aloud, he simply threw himself at her; and while that might have been an unexpected move coming from him, Astrid had been studying viking tackles since before she'd been big enough to heft her battleaxe. It was a simple matter for her to twist aside to allow Hiccup to pass straight through where she had been standing and, acting more on instinct than anything else, to sweep his feet out from under him with her own leg. It wasn't so simple to keep herself from wincing as he hit the floor.

"That's good, but it's not what I was getting at." Astrid crouched at Hiccup's side and offered him a hand back up. "Firstly, it was only a theory question. Secondly, that's quite a common move. I was hoping for something a bit more unconventional. If you'd done something like trying to grab onto my arm, that would have been better; it's a less predictable choice, so I wouldn't have been ready for it. And if you'd succeeded, you could have pulled me completely off balance and given yourself the advantage." Her blue eyes fixed on Hiccup's own green for a moment, making sure he understood the point she was getting at.

[Hiccup]

A most unbecoming yelp followed as Astrid knocked him off his feet and onto the floor beneath him. Hiccup landed with a thud and grumbled incoherently about the first attempt when it was very obvious to everyone there (which was just Astrid and himself) just what he'd been going for. He lifted his head slightly from the floor and listened as Astrid spoke next. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to be too irritated about what had happened. An amused grin flickered across the freckled male's face and he let a brief laugh slip past his defenses.

"I meant to do that," Hiccup said as he accepted her offered hand. It didn't need repeating, but there it was anyway. Unconventional was just what everyone had come to expect from Hiccup since the whole dragon affair. He could be unconventional when it came to those sorts of things. Fighting, however, was something entirely different from what he was used to. Gobber's classes on dragon killing hadn't been beneficial in the slightest and he only really knew how to handle the lightest axe Berk had to offer. Hand to hand combat, and fighting in genera, was just something that may as well have been akin to a foreign language by that point. No matter, though. Astrid was going to teach him all there was to know, wasn't she? Surely she was.

"Okay, okay... So I'm a little out of my depth here. But that's the whole reason we're doing this," he said. He didn't expect himself to become a master overnight, after all. It would take much more than that. Maybe he could... Could he potentially employ some of what he knew about how Toothless moved and all into what he could do? He wouldn't be as graceful as the pitch black dragon, that was for sure, but maybe it was something worth experimenting with. He'd just have to find out how well it worked out.

"So what next? Should I try to catch you off guard again, or...?"

[Astrid]

Astrid gave a roll of her eyes as she pulled Hiccup back to his feet, but otherwise didn't acknowledge his statement that that was exactly what he'd meant to do; and though she did nod her understanding as the male kept talking, Astrid's train of thought was more on how their impromptu 'lesson' was going to go. She could just have Hiccup keep throwing himself at her until he learned some decent technique, of course, but that didn't seem like the most efficient use of their time. No, there were better ways to go about this, Astrid knew.

She took a moment to mimic Hiccup's earlier action of rolling her own sleeves up to her elbows. If she was going to be demonstrating fighting moves - which the blonde was fully anticipating she would - having the extra fabric out of the way would be to her advantage. She rubbed one bare forearm, feeling odd without her typical wrist-wraps, then returned her attention to Hiccup as he asked if she wanted him to try catching her off-guard again.

It hadn't been her intention to get him to; nonetheless, Astrid decided there was no point in stopping him if he wanted another go.

"Go right ahead." Once again, she raised her fists defensively. "And do something unexpected, remember?" Whether Hiccup had something specific in mind to try this time, he didn't know; but she'd let him have one more shot and see what he would come up with this time. After that, however, she had in mind a different track to approach the lesson from, one that focused more on her teaching Hiccup than letting him learn by simple trial and error; she wasn't going to give him a third opportunity if this attempt failed just as badly as the previous one.