Of the Northmost Winds and Skies

Chapter 11: Berkians know nothing of table manners

"I wonder what Jack is doing," Jamie mumbled.

Gobber stopped his hammering, looking up. "Did you say something?" he asked. His face was covered in soot, making him look even wilder than he did normally. It would've been scary, hadn't Jamie gotten so used to him already.

Jamie gazed in the direction Jack had disappeared to earlier, towards the forest. There was a tight feeling in his chest, but he didn't know why exactly. Maybe just because remembering what had happened last night made Jamie's heart speed up. What if there were more boars in the forest?

Jack had told Jamie there was something he had to do, but Jamie couldn't figure out what that "something" was. And now that he'd been gone for so long, Jamie was starting to feel uneasy.

But Jack knew what he was doing, right? There was nothing to worry about.

So he just shook his head. "No," he said, looking down at his hands.

He was sitting atop a table with iron and leather scraps scattered across it. His hands, arms and legs were aching from working in the forge all day, but it was a good kind of aching. Gobber had asked him to take a break, which was fine; Jamie had already finished forging his first sword, and it was just as interesting to watch Gobber work anyway.

"He'll be back soon enough," Gobber said.

Jamie looked up at him, and Gobber sent him a knowing smile.

"Can't imagine he'd leave you unsupervised for more than three hours at best. A bit untrusty, that brother of yours." Gobber held up the axe he was working on, examining it. "...Not that anyone blames him," he mumbled, "but relaxing a little would be good for him. Maybe he went out to the forest to scream. It works, you know?"

Jamie frowned, exchanging a look with Baby Tooth. She shrugged.

"You do that?" he asked Gobber.

"When the situation calls for it," Gobber replied with a shudder, before he started hammering again.

Jamie exchanged another look with Baby Tooth. "What kind of situation could that be?" he asked her quietly.

Baby Tooth chirped in reply with an amused smile, and of course, Jamie didn't understand no matter how hard he tried. How Jack did it, he had no idea.

"If you can make us understand Norse," he asked her. "Can't you just make us understand, uh... tooth fairy-speak too?"

Baby Tooth tilted her head to the side. She replied, but it was incomprehensible. All Jamie got out of it was the way she shrugged a little. Maybe she didn't know, or maybe there was some kind of... tooth fairy law or something that stopped her. He could get Jack to translate later.

Just then, the faint sound of a familiar laugh made both Jamie and Baby Tooth perk up. Jack had appeared around the corner, and he wasn't alone. Hiccup and Toothless walked beside him, and they all seemed to be in a pretty good mood. Earlier, Jamie had noticed Jack's gloomy mood, no matter how hard Jack tried to hide it, but now his whole demeanor seemed to have changed.

Maybe screaming in the woods really was therapeutic.

Jamie grinned and jumped down from the table. He grabbed his new sword – it wasn't perfect, but Jamie was happy with it anyway – and ran out of the forge.

"Jack!" he yelled. "Look!"

All three of them looked up at Jamie's voice, and Jack's face broke into a wide smile.

"Woah!" he laughed as Jamie stopped in front of him. "You made that?"

Jamie smiled smugly, and showed it to Hiccup as well. "What do you think?" he asked.