What Are You Up To? (Troutface // Ulrika)

[Troutface Gleamn the Sneeze]

Troutface woke up early, before most of the village would be up; no one at his house was. He moved quietly as not to wake his baby sister. He dressed quickly and grabbed his axe before walking out. He was hungry, but he knew Gladiola, his stepmom, would have something to eat for him when he came back.

He slipped on his boots as he stepped out the door. Troutface gripped his axe a little tighter as he walked, the grip familiar in his hand. The sun was just peeking up, and only a few scattered vikings roamed the streets. He headed down to the arena, hoping to get some extra practice in without the bullies breathing down his back. As he had hoped, the arena was empty. He smiled and walked down into the ring.

Troutface set up a target on one wall of the ring. He backed up about 25 feet. Taking the axe into position, he breathed in, focusing. He stared at the red dot in the center, hoping to make it there. He readied and swung. Hearing it hit the wood, he looked up. It had hit the target, but only on the edge. Unsatisfied, he retrieved his weapon and tried again. Lift, ready, swing. On the edge again. He tried a few times with the same result. He wasn't going to be satisfied until he hit that bulls-eye.

[Ulrika&Timber]

Ulrika returned from the hunt. After depositing her game at the butches to be prepared and such things, she headed home. As if trekking through the wilderness wasn't bad enough exercise, Ulrika felt she needed to brush up on her melee skills, there would be a lesson soon, and she didn't want Grima teasing her again.
    
Timber awoke upon hearing Ulrika's arrival. She burst out the house as soon as she had gone in, but this time armed with her axe instead of her arrows. The dragon tilted her head to the side as Ulrika looked at her. "Really? Now?" She thought, but allowed to take the girl to the arena. Anything to get her to blow out her unlimited steam, might make the day a bit better for everyone else.

The journey was short thanks to the flight, the gate was open so Timber deftly flew through it with ease. Ulrika leaned closer to the beast's body to not get decapitated or something like that. They landed in the center of the area. The young viking in training quickly dismounted.

Ulrika finally noticed someone was here. She recognised him to be Troutface, a classmate of hers. He was practising throwing axes. Timber, with a grumble of contentment, padded over to the side and settled herself to continue her nap, not before 'heating' her 'bed'.

Ulrika approached Troutface. "Ohey, you're training too?" The blonde girl unfastened the axe that was strapped to her back. It wasn't perhaps as big as an axe the adult vikings would use, but she was small and more attuned with a bow. But she was insistent on having a proper, Viking-y axe instead of something lighter. Also with her track record with knives, Kenna giving her daggers too was out of the question.

She swung the axe around and held it comfortably in her both hands. She could hold the weapon, but she was still awfully slow at swinging it, and that was the main focus of her practice. Getting 'technique' as the teachers would say wasn't really a priority.

"Soo... Is there anything I can like smash to pieces around here?" She asked.

[Troutface Gleamn the Sneeze]

Troutface continued to throw his ax at the wooden target, completely concentrated. He was in the zone. After his arm was warm, his aim became better and better, hitting close to the center. The repetitive throwing movement was surprisingly therapeutic. He imagined hitting a bulls eye every time he aimed. The initial frustration of missing the very center melted away into quiet determination. Taking a deep breath, he readied to hurl his weapon again. Widening his stance, he focused on the red dot in the center. Putting extra power behind his grip, he wound and threw. The ax hit the wood with a satisfying thwack. He grinned as he looked up to observe the results, a perfect bulls eye. "Now that's how it's done!"

He was startled when he heard a voice behind him, he hadn't realized anyone else had entered the ring. "Soo... Is there anything I can like smash to pieces around here?" He whirled around where he stood to see who it was. Trout had to suppress a silly grin when he saw who it was. Ulrika. "Hey there!" he said, trying to avoid looking flustered. Luckily, she'd just seen him make that awesome shot. He shifted his stance a little, standing taller. He'd never admitted it to anyone, be he fancied her.

"Well," he said, acting cool as he moved to retrieve his weapon "If it's that ax you're looking to use, I might be able to help." He paused, using one hand to wrench his own ax out of the target- making it look easy. "You any good? Let me see how you can use that thing." Trout said, motioning toward the target with his weapon. He was curious to see what she could do.

[Ulrika&Timber]

Ulrika watched him finally hit his mark. From her point of view, as an archer, it was a lucky hunch. To her, it was the range that mattered, if he could get his targets more or less in the same place each time, Ulrika would have probably regarded his shots better. She approached him, lugging her own axe and swinging it up to rest on her shoulder. Thankfully her furred jacket stopped the weight of the shaft cutting into her, but it was still rather heavy for her liking. Villagers told her if she practiced hard with it, it would be easier and quicker to use. She'd seen some of the warriors take her axe and swing it easily in their hands as if it was made of wood, but as soon as they gave it back to her, she was weighed down. She was determined to reach a strength like that one day.

Troutface also noticed the axe and offered to show her how to use his weapon. She tweaked a frown. She would have enjoyed trying to actually hit something with this axe she hadn't grown into yet... But his axe was smaller and more their size. Perhaps she could earn some muscle from that instead... "Okay, I'll try throwing it... But I'm more of an archer so..." She was worried she was going to mess up in front of a classmate, and her reputation for targets would be ruined. She quickly glanced around, hoping there were no Grimas or Sundras ready to throw jibes and nasty comments her way. "Alright, But don't laugh at me! Or you'll regret it!" She warned, and stepped up to the marker to throw the axe.

She felt a lot diffrent than she would if she had a bow on hand. The axe, though lighter than her own one, was still heavy in her hand as she felt it's weight in her hand. She was more accustomed to wheeling axes around and hoping to hit a target with sheer force, but this seemed different. She held herself sideways and used her free arm to vaguely aim in the right direction, before lobbing the axe at the target.

She let go too late and it didn't even get halfway between her and the target. It it the ground with a sickening crack and clattered as if skidded several feet across the stone floor of the arena. Ulrika winced. That didn't look good at all. She couldn't dare look at Troutface. Slightly red faced and embarrased, she hurried to pick it from it's place where it stopped. Guiltily, she turned the axe in her hand, nervously inspecting it. It hadn't broken, thankfully. A brief moment of ponder. She *had* to prove herself! She didn't want to be weak!

Composing herself from that utter failure, she turned to face Troutface. "I'm not used to the weapon. Gimme a few tries." She said, hoping Troutface will see it that way. She returned to her spot, slowly trying to inch herself closer to the target. It was just like re-adjiusting to a new bow - but different. Her second throw hit the barrel that the target was sat on, a vast improvement. She grinned, and rushed to retrieve it, maybe next time she would acutally hit the target!

"Heh, check this." She said, over confident. She concentrated, taking all the enegery she could muster into the throw, to a point she almost felt her muscles shred. The force of the weight leaving her hand sent Ulrika spiralling and she clumsily tumbled to the floor. A sharp clang brought her back to her senses, and she quickly got to her feet, head spinning. She had over shot it! But then the spinning of her head from the throw and getting up too fast got the better of her, and she lost her balance and toppled to the floor in a daze, once and for all.

[Grima the Brash]

Grima yawned as we walked back into the village. He’d not gotten much sleep that morning and had eventually decided to return to see if anything was going on this early before he had to go to the family house and do whatever he was supposed to do. He decided to look in on the arena and as it turned out there were people in there. Troutface and Ulrika.

He knew it probably wasn’t a good idea to get into a fight with Ulrika while he was tired but he thought he’d watch for a bit. They were throwing axes. He noticed in the corner of his eye a sleeping night fury, which was probably what Stahl and Flint were doing right then. It was then that Ulrika threw her horrendous shot and felt to the ground…twice.

He smiled and started doing a slow clap. “Great form girl,” Grima called out to Ulrika as he slowly walked into the arena, he was going to have some fun, “I’m sure you’ll be hitting a barn door in no time.” He looked over at where the axe had landed, “You nearly did that time.” He pointed, it had ended up very near one of the gates to the dragon pens.

“So, what are you two early birds doing out here?” Grima asked as he reached them. He looked down and saw the larger axe, “Oh, is this yours Ulrika? Do you mind if I thank you.” He knelt down as he talked so as to pick it up, Ulrika was only just getting her bearings again. He examined it for a moment. It was a decent axe, heavier than it looked but nothing too bad. He smiled condescendingly at Ulrika, “I think axes you’re on right now are probably as hard as you should be at, don’t want you to be losing something as good as this.” He gave it a gentle swing, if axes were his still he’d probably be envious of the weapon.

[Troutface Gleamn the Sneeze]

Troutface watched as Ulrika made her swing. It was truly a terrible shot. He smirked, but hid the smile before she could have seen it. Seeing her try so hard was cute, he couldn't make her feel discouraged. He waited for eye contact before giving her an encouraging smile, she didn't seem to happy with her work.

"Ah well, that wasn't as bad as you think it was. You've got a pretty hefty weapon there. I mean, your form needs some help but-" he stopped quickly, he didnt want to offend her, Trout chose his next words carefully "I can help you with that. You can try my ax if you want, its a bit lighter." he internally cringed a little as he said so, he didn't want her thinking that she couldn't do any heavy lifting. He most certainly could- and he was going to prove it right now. He'd pick up her ax and swing it around a little.

"Don't worry babe, I got this for ya" he said marching out to get the ax, but as he did, a rider showed up. Grima. He didn't like that kid. He was kinda a jerk. Trout didn't like the way he treated Ulrika, and the guy had no sense of humor- so little appreciation for his own comic genius. Grima picked swiped up Ulrika's ax before he could get to it. He brandished the ax and shot a gibe at Ulrika. Trout tried to keep it cool, saying, "Hey man, just give it back" this kid was the last thing he wanted to deal with this morning.

[Ulrika&Timber]

She heard Troutface's comment, and tried to think nothing of it, mostly trying not to go red in te face from embarassment. It caught her off guard slightly when he called her 'babe', as she tried to retrieve the axe by herself. But then Ulrika froze as she heard the slow clap. She slowly turned, daring to look. She recognised his voice, and visual only confirmed it further to be Grima. A look of dread spread on her face. He saw her fail. He saw her fail so bad, several times. She gulped before frowning. He noticed her larger axe on the floor behind them and he picked it up - with relative ease, making Ulrika upset. How could he lift it like that and she couldn't? He started saying nasty things, as he did.

She didn't want him here. He ruined everything! Why did he have to be here when she messed up! "Leave me alone Grima!" She marched up to him, still blushing, and tried to prise his fingers off her axe. "Thats - ah - my weapon! Give it back!" Troutface tried to back her up, but she didn't really concentrate on him so much. She tried, but Grima was stronger than her. Frustated and awfully worked up, frowning with furrowed eyebrows, she shoved the axe at him forcefully and quickly moved away. She was suddenly feeling angry, clenching her fist. Timber was awake now, her head had risen and was watching the event unfold.

She turned around lashing with a hateful glare. Ulrika finally lost it, through the upset, the embarassment of the failure, Grima quickly riling her up and a little extra something that happens to kids around that age. "You ruin EVERYTHING! You know that!? Why do you always have to bother ME!? I DIDNT DO ANYTHING TO YOU!! You always make things worse! Are you happy?! Does it give you some sort of KICK to annoy me?! Huh!?" Her eyes were beginning to water now. "We were friends Grima! Why did you turn into a jerk to me?! You're not like that to anyone else!" Her voice was angry and slightly broken, but there was almost a tone of pleading behind it. She could feel herself flustered, and turned away. At this point Timber finally got up and padded to her human, hoping to try and comfort her? She had obviously just let out a lot of pent up energy just now, and though she was worried, it sounded like she was feeling slightly lonely.

Timber nudged her with her nose, Ulrika's tears were streaming now and she sniffed, rubbing her face in her furred bracer. She felt Timber touch her gently, and looked at her, briefly. There was a look of kind concern on her face. The look tore Ulrika apart, and she accidentally let loose a sob, even though there were two people nearby, namely Grima. Grima could see her like this, and he was between her and the exit, so she was kind of stuck. She briefly patted Timber on the nose, but turned away from her too, refusing her comfort. "Go away..." She sobbed quietly.

Timber tilted her head to the side in confusion, before looking at Grima. "What happened between you two?" She dared to ask. "You're always fighting. I haven't seen Ulrika like this before. What did she mean by 'you used to be friends?'" She asked, with slight accusation. She then looked back to Ulrika, with real pity. Her ears fell back slightly, sadly. "I try to be a friend to her, but she doesn't seem to want it... I know that I'm trying to be nice..." She muttered.

---

TEENAGE HORRMONNEE TIMEEEE + what happened

[Grima the Brash]

Ulrika marched towards him and tried to get her axe from him, but she wasn’t really going to have any chance on that front. In the background he heard Troutface trying to be a be the brave hero by telling him to stop it at a distance. Ulrika then pushed Grima back in frustration, she clenched her fists and glared at him. Grima was expecting a fight to happen and he was ready for it.

And then things went wrong faster than usual. Ulrika started yelling at him. The anger of it caught Grima off guard. She asked if what he was doing made him happy and why he’d turned into a jerk. He’d never seen her this angry or upset, at least not after him doing one thing. He froze as she ranted and watched as tured from him. Timber walked over to her and attempted to comfort her rider.

He heard Ulrika sob slightly before she pushed the dragon away. Grima looked over at Troutface. This wasn’t the time when he could let the part of him that did care for Ulrika through. Then he heard Timber ask him what happened between them and Grima snaped slightly too. “Why am I like this to you?” he said rhetorically to Ulrika. “you wonder why I’m like this to you? Because you are a worthless little idiot whose only saving grace is that you have more luck than the gods should ever permit. You have enough skill to think you can survive in the world but really you rely on people stupid enough to think they can help you.”

Grima was letting out some of his own pent up rage, “I gave up on you when I realised you won’t fucking learn! And I might as well mess with you while I can because you’re time’s running out. One day you’re nog going to have a guardian to slay a Timber, one day you’re going to fall.” With that he chucked Ulrika’s axe, it slid away from the three of them, though it was nearest to Ulrika if anyone.

Grima turned to Troutface, “This something you understand Trouty? Or do you want to be Ulrika’s next fool?”

[Troutface Gleamn the Sneeze]

Troutface's eyes widened as he watched the scene unfold between Ulrika and Grima.

His concern grew for the girl as Grima bullied her to tears. Scowling at Grima, he took a step toward her, considering saying something to comfort her, but he recoiled when Grima launched into his retaliation. Backing away slowly, his eyes widened in surprise. He hadn't known that the two had issues like this. They were always at competitive odds, but never so aggressive.

Grima's words stung, even if they weren't directed at him. He glanced at Ulrika to see how it was affecting her.

When Grima wheeled around to address him, Trout was completely taken off guard by what he asked. What he said made him pretty uncomfortable, and he didn't like that he was being thrown into the middle of this. He didn't necessarily have a quarrel with either of these people, but he certainly had a sour taste for Grima now.

"I, uh... I don't know. I mean- I do know but I don't think, uhm, you are, being um, well, very fair about this, like we're all vikings here, right...?"

He didn't want to openly profess his feelings for Ulrika, but he still wanted to defend her somewhat. He also realized that with his wishy-washy rambling, he was compromising his confident reputation.

"I don't really know where all this is coming from, and I dunno, I don't think I'm a fool either, so, I hope that answers your question."



____________________________________________________________

Meanwhile, in Troutface's internal dialogue:
"I just came out to have a good time and I'm honestly feeling so attacked right now"

[Ulrika&Timber]

Ulrika gritted her teeth as the flurry of rage was thrown right back at her. She wiped her face and nose into her sleeve before turning just her head to look at him, with utter hatred. She was breathing heavily from the outburst and anger swelling up in her. As the tension turned towards Trouty, Ulrika saw her axe not too far away. She took one extra look at Grima.

As Trouty tried to defend himself, it fell on deaf ears to Ulrika. She walked over to the weapon and lifted it from the ground from the end of the shaft, before picking it up with the other hand, since it was heavy. Her dragon watched in confusion. Ulrika stared for a moment once more, before charging at Grima, ready to swing that weapon at him. She was going to kill him and she didn't care anymore. She was sick of him. Timber reacted, she tried to come and stop her before it was too late - but then, sensing the dragon behind her she stopped and whirled the axe around - Timber had to jump back and roared at her human in fright of almost getting hit herself! She regained composure quicker than Ulrika could regain control of the weapon. She quickly knocked ulrika over to the floor with the help of the weight of the axe, and with her jaw strength, bit the shaft into three pieces. Easily pinning Ulrika onto the floor with her forefoot, the feral girl started thrasing and growling.

"I am going to KILL you, Grima! If its the LAST thing I do!" She shouted. "I want to see your head on my wall and see you rot in Hel for eternity!" She scrabbled at the floor with her fingernails, seeing as she couldn't reach him physically, she spat at him.

Timber ignored Ulrika. She was dead set on Grima. Timber had acted so quickly that he had drawn his sword too late, and the Night Fury was face to face with a boy pointing a sword at her. Her teeth were bared, her back arched with wings half open. She almost looked at feral as the youngling underneath her. Timber dug her claws slightly into Ulrika's back, making her groan in pain and start trying to grapple at her foot, but she couldn't from her position.

"I'm almost tempted to let Ulrika try and kill you." Both of them knew she wouldn't succeed, but Timber was aware that Grima shouldn't come out of this unscathed. She was learning about Viking society, and being around Ulrika, she was beginning to understand her... She wasn't always stupid... She was a good person at heart, it was just her street smarts which weren't up to par... among other things. She was only really being stupid when she was trying to one-up herself in front of the others, leading to catastophe. But the downtimes, away from social interaction, Ulrika wasn't striving to be the best... She was just... Ulrika. Yes, she wouldn't stop talking to her for hours whilst fletching some arrows, and she had some traits considered irritable, but she was a nice person at heart. And Timber was sad no one else really took the time to discover that side of her. And Ulrika was her human, who she was trying to change for the better. It obviously wasn't working, but her peers weren't exactly helping the situation.

With Grima pointing that sword at her, it made her even more uneasy. Grima had shouted at her in anger like this before, and she had been on the recieving end, which at the time didn't feel good. Now, his anger coupled with this weapon made the Night Fury consider him a threat - not only to Ulrika but to herself as well. She did not take it kindly. She arched her back further, almost ready to pounce at him if he made the wrong move. Ulrika lay forgotten underneath her, but her reverberating growls seemed to make Ulrika stop, feeling the vibrations of the dragon coursing through the leg through her body. Ulrika didn't think she had seen her dragon this angry before. Ulrika was stll angry, but she began to silently watch Grima.

[Grima the Brash]

He tilted his head when Trouty tried to speak for the first time, the patheticness of his comments were almost laughable. In the corner of his eye he saw movement from Ulrika and saw she had picked up and was starting to charge at him, he didn’t even have time to swear at himself for taking his attention away from her as his hand rushed to his sword and he drew it so as to deflect the blow. He was about to decide whether to actually try to block or jump out of the way for this first blow so he could give himself thinking time but Ulrika’s dragon got to her first.

Grima watched as Ulrika turned towards her dragon and swung at her, followed by terrifying the roar of the night fury and the destruction and subjugation of Ulrika’s axe and person respectively. All this sent shock through Grima, he really hadn’t expected any of this when he’d come in today. Everything had escalated much faster than he thought it ever could.

Ulrika was shouting her want of murder, while her dragon stood on her and growled at him. At this point he was much more afraid of Timber than Ulrika. She made a comment about how she was tempted to let Ulrika try to kill him. Thing was, right now was probably the best time she would ever have to do it. He actually quite tired and was actually currently running mostly on adrenaline at this point. If the two of them got into a conflict and he didn’t finish it fast, she actually could get the upper hand.

Grima raised his free hand and slowly moved his sword so that he could resheath it. He knew right now he was threatening the night fury, “I only drew this in self-defence. I didn’t mean to threaten you.” He tried to think what to say as his sword slid back into place, he knew he had to keep his composure in this conversation, the other humans couldn’t understand what he was saying but they could at least understand any visible signals he gave off.

“I shouldn’t have snapped at her like that, that made things much more worse than it should have been…Sorry.” He looked down at Ulrika for a moment, “I should probably leave, I’ve caused too much trouble for today and I’ve not even had breakfast yet.” He paused, “Oh, and just as a reminder,” Grima said in human tongue, “killing me is the most effective way of making me not go to Hel.” He turned away from them and started to walk out. He hoped that he could leave.

After a few steps he heard noise behind him and saw the night fury in his peripheral vision. He realised exactly what that meant and turned back in fear just too late to dodge.