He should be over there, Gobber decided of his current situation. Â Instead his hand reached for a freshly filled mug of ale and his bottom remained firmly in his seat.
He should be over there, standing next to his best friend.  Not using the last of his sobriety to fight down inappropriate urges to throttle Stoick, to resist challenging his battle-brother to Hólmgang.
He should be over there, supporting the new couple.  Gobber licked his lips, tasting the guilt, the shame and anger that tainted an otherwise fine drink.
He should be over there, telling the joke that has everyone laughing.  Instead it's Ack who caused the uproar—not through a joke but by stumbling headfirst over a mead barrel.  Stoick slapped a hand to his belly and laughs, bold and free.  His new wife bumped his shoulder with a chuckle of her own.
His remedy for feeling undeserved resentment towards Stoick was to take three, hulking gulps of mead and stare at Val a mite longer.
But not her hair—her hair would only upset him.
Her dress!  What a figure!  Nearly as tall as himself—solid, but with a softness to her hands and cheeks that no amount of training could eradicate.  Now this was a woman: sturdy as an oak-braced knörr and coy as Hel herself.  Freckle dusted skin, round bosom and an even rounder hips.
Ooooh, those hips...
She laughed again, but Gobber missed what caused it.  It didn't matter, anyhow.  When she laughed she tipped her head back, some hair fell from her shoulder, exposing more of her neck.  She brought her hand up and tucked a longer strand behind her ear.  She turned to her left, smiling blithely at a man who looked too perfect by her side.  She—
She couldn't be seen because a hand of fat fingers snapped repeatedly in his face.
"Oi! Over 'ere yeh bas!"
Gobber blinked, sluggish, and turned his focus down the metal-cuffed arm and up to a ruddy face framed with blonde hair.
A few blinks later and he could identify it as Hoark's.
"Oh..." he mumbled intelligently.
"Yeah, 'oh'," Hoark repeated, rolling his eyes. "Think yeh can pull yer head outta yeh arse fer two minutes 'n' show a little tact?"
"I should skelp yeh one fer lookin' at me brother's wife like that," someone grunted at Gobber's left.  It took the young blacksmith a moment longer to realize Spitelout had taken seat next to him sometime between now and when he first plopped down.
He feared he spent far too much of his night staring at a woman never to be his.
"Ay," Gobber agreed solemnly. "Yeh should."
He knocked back the rest of his drink and slammed it on the table.  A fist clipped his shoulder in the next moment, hard enough to send an irritating jolt through his arm.  Gobber curled his lip at Hoark, mentally vowing to make the blond the first of their generation to lose an arm if he suffered one more offense by that appendage.
"Och, knock it off," Hoark ordered with an unsympathetic laugh. "Yeh had plenty o' opportunity to court her.  But didja?  No. Yeh sat in yer wee ickle booth and hammered about.  Just starin' at her.  Could'a went to her father about it..."
"Not against his family," the smith griped, gesturing wildly over towards Stoick. "—ach, no offense 'Lout!"
Spitelout cast him a flat stare from over the rim of his mug.  He appeared as though he meant to say something, so Gobber waited.  Spitelout prolonged the wait by pausing to take a lengthy swill from his drink.
Finally, the elite settled with an uncaring shrug. "What's done is done."
Gobber scowled. "Easy fer you to say!  You're already set!  Yeh already have a wife—a pregnant wife at that!"
Spitelout cracked a smile, "Aye.  But she didn't come that way."
Hoark laughed raucously, garnering a few looks from their neighbors, and clanked his glass against Spitelout's.  Gobber rolled his eyes.  He knew he should be thankful they weren't taking the soon-to-be-chief's side, or tattling on him for his disobedient eyes.  They were all friends, ever since boyhood.  But empathy wasn't a well-practiced virtue in their community, and Gobber knew suffering their presence wouldn't help him feel better.
Action might, however.
Gobber stood up from the bench so quickly that Spitelout and Hoark were jostled.  Precious mead flew from their mugs to stain the table.
"Gobber?  Where yeh goin?"
"Tell me he's not...oh, of all the senseless..."
He ignored their inquiry as he marched across the Hall, a purposeful drive in his step.  Stoick saw him first.  The red-head's face lit up so much that Gobber felt shame bite at his throat like an aggrieved Terror.
"Oi! There he is!" Stoick bellowed. Â "Where're yeh been?"
Gobber opened his mouth to say something—the truth, perhaps, maybe a tweaked lie, or a twisted tale of a mad troll that nicked his ale—but something else stole his attention.  At this distance—or lack there of—Gobber realized one very, important fact.
Valka didn't have her breastplate on.  She always had her breastplate on.  But not today.
He swayed. Â The ale rushed to his head. Â He had stood too fast--moved too fast.
Gobber the Belch would forever maintain that his hands moved on their own, bearing no permission from his mind.  Maybe his heart, but certainly not his mind.  One moment he travelled to Stoick's side, intent on saying something, and the next thing he knew he had a handful of grade-A flesh gripped in each palm.
Freyja above, he couldn't even get half of one in his hand!  And he was not known for having small hands.  The feel of Valka's sizable bust was everything he'd dreamed it'd be: firm and soft, malleable and warm and beautiful.  It was, it was...
It was not Stoick's fist that broke Gobber's nose that evening.
