I had decided to loiter around the docks for another hour or so, helping out the fishermen haul their catch in for the day. Life here in Berk was not what I had expected, to be honest I had envisioned my life being solitary and only coming out to do what I had promised to do. The majority of the people here are welcoming, although some of their characters can be questionable they mean good. They were all glued to this place with their value of home and ancestry, nothing can really move them here. They made this place feel like home, which is why I'm determined to do anything in my power to make sure this place is defended from anything that tries to ruin that.
As I walked home I noticed that there was light illuminating from the windows of the house. I chuckled, and opened the doors. I hanged my armour for the night and walked directly into the kitchen, hearing the clanking and the cackling of fire. I wasn't too wary. This was a rather normal thing for the past month now.
"You're back," Valkyr hearn my footsteps and greeted me. "You sure took your time. I've made dinner."
"Well, how kind of you," I looked at the filled dining table. My nose was filled with scents that triggered my stomach to act up. "You made a lot of dishes tonight." I noticed.
"Yeah, I was planning on bringing some for my parents," She pointed at some packed food on the side. "They've been asking for some after I brought that bunch a few weeks ago."
"I can't blame them, this stuff is good." I sat down to go to town on the food before I was met with a knife to the face.
"I noticed that you haven't even washed up yet." She raised her eyebrows at me before pinching her nose. "I think I can still smell Spitelout on you."
"What, how can you smell something like that?" I begrudgingly stood to wash myself outside. "This is my own home for god's sake." Even though I said that I still followed her words. After trying to learn how to cook from her, we found out that I had some sort of curse that kept me away from being able to cook good food. Anything that I tried to do always ended up in some sort of disaster. I almost burned the house down at some point, so there was no way I'm going to get on her bad side.
—
"Oh right," I remembered after we had eaten, "I forgot to tell you, I'll be helping out with setting up defences when the time comes."
"Setting up defences?" She asked, "Is something happening?"
"Apparently Berk's enemies have begun collecting weapons and material for building them from Johann's company." I chewed up the last piece of my food. "Stoick just wants to prepare for the worst. And I think I might be able to make some improvements to the defences of the place."
"That's good, I'm sure Spitelout would love your company," She grinned, "It's like the two of you are lovers, usually he'd be talking about how great Stoick is but now you're in the mix too."
"Please stop, he's been trying to one up me ever since he lost that fight. He's been on and on about how he's my lifelong rival or something." I covered my face, "He's a good man, but sometimes he's too focused on one thing. He never stops to think about the fact that just because he can, he should."
"Let the poor guy compete, he's never treated anyone as an equal before. Even if they were better than him." She explained, "It's a good change of pace."
"Let's talk about this in the morning," I decided to hold the subject for another time, "I'll deal with the mess, you can go home and bring the stuff to your parents."
"If you say so," She prepared her things to leave. "I'll see you tomorrow."
—
Feeling the fresh morning air through my windows I roused myself awake. Straightening my bed and heading outside to wash up. One of the things that I had Gobber commissioned to make was a personal bath house, this was designed based on the one we had back at my old home. It was suggested by an otherworlder that was summoned through the gate, he grew sick of bathing in cold water so he gathered all our engineers to help build this design. It was pretty simple, just having a furnace to create heat that would bring the bath to the perfect temperature to bathe in.
I soaked my body in the hot water, feeling my muscles relax from the chilling cold outside. Although winter had yet to arrive, I'm already starting to feel the chill become too much for my body to handle, the coldest temperature I had to ever endure was being frozen. Which was instantaneous and had barely any effect on me. Looking at the scars on my arms, I began to recall the old days again. They weren't ideal to say the least, but I had people that I was able to rely on completely. Now I'm essentially on my own, although I wouldn't say the people are unreliable, it's just different. I closed my thoughts off and focused on today. I can remember the past, but I can't let it hold me back.
Standing up to dry my body, I suited up to begin the day. It wasn't anything too fancy, just a leather shirt and a small breastplate. I never really wore a helmet since they tend to get in the way of my movement, I also put on a tool belt that I made to make work at the forge a lot easier. After grabbing some fish jerky I ate it as I made my way to Gobber's forge. The sun was still trying to climb over the horizon, but knowing him he was probably already setting up for the day. As if to prove my words right, I could hear a distant hammering from the forge. The closed door and windows failed to hide the bright light of the burning flames, seeing that he's hard at work I assumed that he got the news from Stoick too.
"Morning," I opened the door, "Look like you're working hard." I looked at the sweating viking.
"Aye, with the potential attack at hand, I got to make sure everyone's ready for a fight." He wiped his sweat with a handkerchief attachment. "I heard that Stoick put you on the defence building team?"
"Yeah, I've got a few ideas on how to improve our defences here. I've looked around the village a couple times and noticed a few things that could be improved," I told him.
"Well, it's good to hear that our village defence has been secretly scrutinised by its own sworn protector," Gobber laughed, "Let's hear it."
"For one we can isolate the most defensive part of the village, being where the Mead hall is, by building fortifications on it." I explained, "In most of the south they built large forts on top of hills, this made it harder to raid the area. With Berk being a settlement situated in a cliff surrounded by water, it'll increase its defence by a lot."
"But I heard that those walls are made of stone, the best we could do in a short time would be wood. The dragons would get to that before we could even start defending anything," Gobber pointed out.
"That's true," I said, "but the walls don't have to be that big, it's more of a way to stop them from easily entering once they break our front line of defence. We just need it big enough to give us a defensive advantage."
"Even so, I don't think it would be approved by most of the people. They quite like the open view the cliff provides. They won't be too happy with a giant wall blocking the sight of the ocean." Gobber rolled his eyes, "We're a stubborn bunch, you won't be able to easily get us to change anything."
"Well, how about increasing our ballistics? I noticed that we don't have any of those, I have some blueprints with me, and we can build those instead. That way we can attack ships more easily as they close in on us." I offered.
"Now, that's an idea." Gobber agreed, "How about you give that a go. The berserkers have always been the ones to wield weapons like those on their ships. If you can give us access to those then we would be able to scare them off before they could get close enough."
"Alright, I guess that'll be one of the things that I could point out. Also, that issue with the iron mines. Do you think that Stoick would let me try and rebuild it?" I asked.
"Probably, it's not like it'll do any harm to anyone by trying. It'll give the village access to better equipment easily too. We can forge stronger metals if we include iron to the mix," Gobber pointed at the scrap metals, "we'll be able to make these junks last longer for sure. Especially with those new weapons I've been hearing about from Johann. The one that Hoark has?"
"Yep, they're much stronger and durable than what we have at the moment." I agreed with him, "If the enemy has access to those kinds of weapons we won't stand a chance in a head on fight."
"Aye, may the gods be on our side if that's the case." Gobber worriedly said.