Hiccup and the Soup Bowl 3

The story continues:

Fishlegs passed Hiccup and then paused a few steps down so that their heights were equalized. Whether from the dying light or the thrill of excitement, Fishlegs's eyes were huge, and he eagerly waved the brown book in the air. "I've got it! I've finally got it!"

"Got what?" Hiccup asked, giving Fishlegs a quizzically upturned eyebrow.

Fishlegs continued, almost out of breath. "Gobber finally let me borrow The Dragon Manual, can you believe it?! This is the most authoritative book on dragons in the whole village----- maybe even all vikingdom------maybe even the whole world!"

Hiccup chuckled to himself, "And Gobber had it? Imagine that! All this time I've been working with him and never once did he tell me (imitating Gobber) 'Hiccup, me lad, why don't ya take the day off and go read this here book on dragons while I mind the shop.'"

Fishlegs turned his foot to keep walking down the stairs, "Maybe he didn't think you were ready to fight dragons."

Hiccup sighed, "You're probably right. I don't exactly have the most dragon-fighting viking physique out there, but I'm almost finished making my newest dragon-fighting weapon; and by Odin's ghost I bet that it'll bring down any dragon---even a night fury!"

"Oh no," Fishlegs eyed Hiccup seriously, "not another contraption. Remember what happened after you used the last one?"

"Yeah, yeah," Hiccup frowned. "but that house had already been damaged from a dragon attack; it needed to be rebuilt---"

Fishlegs held up his hand. "And the invention before that, remember what happened that time?"

Hiccup furrowed his eyebrows and deepened his frown. "Mild calibration errors; nobody even misses that watchtower. It was rarely used anyway."

Fishlegs was going to list a few more of Hiccup's failed invention attempts but chose instead to smile and continue descending down the stairs. "Well good luck, Hiccup! I'm going to go read this book until my eyes fall out! I'd let you read the book after me, but Gobber told me to pass the book on to Astrid when I'm finished."

"Astrid?" Just hearing the word conjured up her beautiful face in Hiccup's mind and made him feel a little wobbly in his knees.

Fishlegs looked back as he walked down the stairs, "She's up there you know, in the hall. I don't think there's any food left, but she's up there."

Hiccup waved to Fishlegs and turned to hurry up the long flight of stairs.

<--Part 2