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HUMUNGOUSLY HOTSHOT

THE BARDIGUARD

"A long, long time ago, it seems like a lifetime away now, "

said Humungously Hotshot, "I was happy. I was a young Hero who fell in Love with a beautiful young woman. "

"Uh-huh," said Hiccup cautiously. He wasn't very interested in stories about Love.

"Oh, but she was beautiful!" sighed the Bardiguard. "Her lovely fat, white, muscly legs! Her thunderous thighs! Her soft little beard! Her excellent sword-arm!"

"Yes, yes," said Hiccup hurriedly. "Do get on with it."

"She loved me back (or so I thought), but her father had some ridiculous idea that she should marry somebody CLEVER, I have no idea why THAT was important, so he set me an Impossible Task, which, if I completed, the reward would be her hand in marriage.

"The Impossible Task he set me, " said Humungously Hotshot, "was to steal the Fire-Stone from Lava-Lout Island,

and the reason that this is 116

impossible is that the Lava-Louts have been looking for the Fire-Stone for many many years.

"Before I set off on the Impossible Task, my Love and I met in secret. My little double-chinned Sweetheart had a singularly beautiful ruby, shaped like a heart, that she always wore around her neck. She had cut this ruby in half, and she gave one half to me, and kept the other.

"'Go on this Quest if you must, ' whispered my Darling. 'But I have an awfully bad feeling about this, and if by any chance you happen to be captured by those pigs-in-pajamas, the Lava-Louts, just send this ruby to me in the mouth of Xellence, your hunting dragon, and I will come to rescue you. '

"My Love, you see, was not half bad at Questing herself. "I promised her, and rode off on my white dragon to carry out the Impossible Task, but by terrible bad Fortune I got caught by the Lava-Louts, just as my Love had feared, and my white dragon and I were thrown into chains, and into a jail on Lava-Lout Island.

"Even worse luck, my faithful hunting dragon, Xellence, was killed during the Quest, and so I could not send the half-a-heart ruby to tell her I needed rescuing.

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"For a couple of months I worked in those Lava Jail Mines, utterly in despair. And then I made friends with this prison guard. His name was Terrific Al. He was such a nice guy, Hiccup. So smiley and sympathetic. I told him my story, and I asked him to take the ruby heart to my ladylove and

explain that I needed her to come and spring me from jail as quick as her dear, fat little legs could carry her. "

Humungously Hotshot's voice deepened and saddened. His face looked green and ill in the moonlight.

"Terrific Al said that he would do this for me, if I promised to do him a favor at some point in the future. He took the ruby heart and I waited in hope, Hiccup, in the heat of the mines, peering out of my barred window in the nighttime, y earning for her to come. Days turned to Months. Months turned to Years. Hope turned to Despair. She never came. Fifteen years I waited, Hiccup. Fifteen years. And then, a couple of months ago, imagine my surprise when Terrific Al turned up on Lava-Lout Island as a prison guard again. One night he sought me out, and he told me what had happened to my ruby heart. "

[Image: A heart.]

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[Image: A man and a woman.]

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Humungous's voice was so quiet now that Hiccup could hardly hear it.

"Terrific Al told me that he had taken the ruby to my Love, and told her that I was captured and needed rescuing And to his surprise, my dearest Darling who had sworn the

solemnest oath of True Love For Ever, took that ruby heart andTHREW IT OUT OF THE WINDOW AND INTO THE SEA. And as she did this, she said these heartless words:

I heard Humungously Hotshot hadFAILED in his Impossible Task. I have found another Lover, who has already brought me the Fire-Stone, and I am going to marry HIM.'"

"No!" cried Hiccup. "How terrible of her!"

Humungous nodded sadly. "Yes, I have never forgotten the words which Terrific Al repeated that day. They will remain with me as long as I live. And from that moment on, Hiccup, I vowed that I was through with Love."

"I don't blame you!" said Hiccup.

And then a truly awful thought struck Hiccup, a thought that had Hiccup's heart sinking within his chest like half a ruby heart's stone sinking to the bottom of a seabed.

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Suddenly he had a horrible feeling that he knew a way that this story might be going, a dreadful, snaking, corner coming up, a Twist in the Bardiguard's Tale.

"Um," asked Hiccup nervously, really, really not sure that he wanted to know the answer to this question, "what was the NAME of your ladylove, exactly?"

"My Ex-Ladylove," corrected Humungous. "The name of my Treacherous Ladylove was ...

... Valhallarama."

Valhallarama was Hiccup's mother. [Image: A boy.]

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8. THE TWIST IN THE