#hiccup made my entire personality even though I always wanted to be Astrid | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shipmistress9 · 3 years

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8 -hiccstrid 😊💜

HICCSTRID

8. Interrupting with a kiss

This is actually a story idea I was pondering over for a good while now. But it fits this prompt, so I had a great excuse to finally write it down. ^^

Fateful Heights

Speak of the devil and he shall appear…

Hiccup couldn’t help but marvel about this saying as he threw a cautious glance down into the gaping abyss below his dangling feet. Or, well, the rest of the funfair, but it certainly felt like a gaping abyss…

Earlier, when they'd waited in line to get onto the Drop Tower, they’d all joked about how scary it would be to get stuck at the top. Then, when Snot, Legs, and the twins were getting onto the first ride while he and Astrid had to wait for the next round, he’d joked about how it would actually be funny to watch them get stuck and get sick now. It had been mainly to interrupt the awkward silence between him and Astrid, the girl he’d had a crush on since forever. But she’d laughed and agreed that it would be hilarious to watch.

Now, however? Now, it was him and Astrid being stuck on this stupid tower. For ten minutes now, the thing hadn’t moved even one inch. Every now and then, the operator called up instructions or reassurances over a megaphone, but in all honestly, that didn’t help the feeling of dread in his guts one bit.

It wasn’t even the height per se that bothered him. He absolutely loved heights. Snot had even jokingly commented before that Hiccup got high on heights, and, well… he wasn’t so far off. Of all the rides they’d planned to go on today, this one was the one he’d been looking forward to the most.

No, it wasn’t the height that made him feel queasy. It was the sense of helplessness. To be out of control and at the mercy of someone else, something else.

The wind, usually a highly welcome sensation when blowing around his face, now made him clutch so tightly at the handle that his knuckles stood out white. One person a few seats to his right had dropped their shoe, and it had taken a disturbingly long time to reach the ground.

And it was no exaggeration when he thought that the only thing keeping him sane was Astrid sitting next to him.

“Hey, look over there,” she now said, her hand awkwardly pointing to a spot on the horizon. “There’s a ship coming in. I bet the people on the ground can’t see it yet, not even those right at the harbour.”

His eyes followed her finger and his quick mind did the calculation without him even having to think about it. “That’s a bet you would win,” he said, trying to sound as casual as possible, to not show how scared he truly was. “My guess would be, that it’ll still be up to three hours before that ship is visible from the pier.”

Next to him, Astrid shifted in her seat and somehow managed to peer past the safety harness to throw him a bemused look. “You’re such a nerd,” she eventually chuckled.

Hiccup blushed, but wasn’t too bothered by her comment. He was a nerd; no point in pretending otherwise. And as long as she said it like this—with the undertone of teasing affection instead of as an insult—she could call him whatever she wanted, anyway.

A few minutes passed in relative silence. Around them, people were chatting, crying, one even screaming, but Hiccup did his best to blend them all out. Instead, he focused on Astrid who was humming to herself. It was a little off-tune but somehow still the most relaxing noise he’d ever heard.

“Hey, look!” she suddenly exclaimed. “I found the other’s.”

Hiccup glanced down in the direction she indicated.

“Over there, between that building with the red roof and the yellow-and-blue-striped tent.”

“Ah, yes, I see them.” Hiccup thought for a moment, the map of the funfair before his mental eye. “They probably got themselves an early dinner. The building is the pizzeria, I think.”

“Huh...” Astrid grunted, and even though he couldn’t see her face, he could imagine how she would narrow her eyes right now. “Yeah, you’re right. We’re locked up here, possibly about to fall to our death, and these idiots are eating!”

“At least, they didn’t get popcorn,” Hiccup muttered. He liked his friends, but at least Tuff wasn’t beyond finding their situation entertaining. Snot probably too.

Astrid snorted. “They know better than to risk that. I’d haunt them for the rest of eternity. Hey, do you think I can spit onto their pizza if I aim well enough?”

Again, Hiccup’s mind did some quick calculation out of reflex before he shook his head. “I’d say you can’t,” he said regretfully. “Not to insult your aim, but from this height and with the wind, it would be all but impossible to predict where your spit lands, if it reaches the ground at all. And as much as I’d pay to see Snot’s face when you ruin his pizza like that, I wouldn’t wish the same fate on anyone else.”

Astrid sighed. “Fair enough. But if he gives me the slightest reason, I will hit him.

“I won’t stop you,” Hiccup chuckled. He was unable to fully put his feelings into words, not even inside his head. But he knew that without Astrid, he would have gone insane. How she managed to be so lighthearted in their current situation was beyond him, but her jokes and generally good mood were all that kept his own despair at bay.

Their rescue didn’t take too long after that. Maybe it had just been an error in the software, but from one moment to the other, they were moving again. Initially, there was even more screaming, some surely fearing they were all going to crash to their death now. But their decent was slow, gentle, and only a few minutes later, they were all back on solid ground.

On shaky legs, he and Astrid were ushered to the side, to a hastily erected tent where medics were waiting for them to make sure everyone was physically unharmed. Mentally might be another question, though.

Once he and Astrid were allowed to leave, Hiccup let out a deep breath. “Oh, what a trip. I always loved these Drop Towers, but now, I’m not sure I’ll ever want to—”

He broke off when Astrid suddenly grabbed the collar of his shirt and pulled him into a kiss. It wasn’t a gentle one, teeth digging into his lips from how hard she pressed herself against him.

Hiccup was stunned, unable to react other than let his hands land on her waist. Of all the things he’d expected from this day, Astrid kissing him had been even further down the list than getting stuck on a ride. But here she was, clinging to him, and he even thought he could feel her heart pounding against his chest.

The kiss ended as abruptly as it had started. Hiccup was still trying to comprehend when she released his mouth and instead buried her face against his shoulder, arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

“Oh, Gods,” she gasped, voice nearly breaking. “I thought we would surely die here.” She was shaking he now noticed, and so he wrapped his arms more firmly around her, holding her in a comforting embrace. Did this still count as comforting, though? It was meant to be comforting, at least.

“Hey, it’s okay,” he tried to soothe her. “We made it. Nothing happened, we got off with no more than a fright.”

Astrid’s grasp grew even tighter. “How did you do it?” she gasped. “How did you manage to keep so calm up there? I was so scared that my brain stopped working completely. I think I was babbling the entire time but can’t remember a thing I said. But you? You even did math up there. I…” She trailed off, took a deep breath, and calmed down at least a little again. “Without you staying so calm, I would have gone insane.

Hiccup, still caught in how surreal this situation was, awkwardly patted her back. “Honestly, I was just as scared. Only coped because of all the jokes you made.”

Laughing a little shakily, she eventually pulled back. “Looks like we both helped each other then.”

She turned and made a step toward the exit, but Hiccup couldn’t let her go now. Not with like this, with this one moment hanging between them. “Astri?” he called her back, picking up all his courage as she glanced back at him. “Why did you kiss me?”

She blushed and, ducking her head, swiped a strand of loose hair out of her face before she answered. “You… didn’t miss that, huh? Of course, you didn’t.” She let out a weak chuckle. “It’s… I—I wanted to ask you for a long time and promised myself that, should we get off that tower alive, I’d do it. But I guess my mind skipped a few steps there. I-I’m sorry, we can pretend it never happened if you—”

She didn’t get the chance to say any more. Hiccup bridged the distance between them with one step, cupped her face with both hands, and pressed his lips to her mouth. This kiss wasn’t as harsh as the other had been, soft and gentle. Astrid didn’t need long to catch up, her lips twitching into a grin before she kissed him back. It was a chaste kiss, sweet with only lips. But as her arms slid around his waist, Hiccup felt as if this had to be the best kiss of his life so far.

When they parted, Hiccup let his forehead rest against hers, unwilling to part just yet. “I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen,” he murmured. “I’m glad it did.”

Astrid nodded, then pulled away and threw him a warm smile. “Okay. So… should we go back to the others now? But I warn you, I stand by what I said. Or at least I think I said something like this. If your cousin makes even one stupid comment, I’ll hit him.”

Chuckling, Hiccup reached for her hand, inwardly rejoicing when her fingers closed around his without hesitation. “Again, I won’t stop you.”

#Hiccstrid #fanfiction #httyd #Modern AU #Intimacy Prompts #drakaina amore64 #prompt #ask #Heights tw #stuck on a funfair ride #fluff

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ephyla · 3 years

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Midsummer Relaxation

Midsummer was approaching and the people of New Berk have been scrambling all over, preparing for the celebration. The sun barely sets anymore, and everyone was absolutely exhausted. Hiccup was supposed to overview the entire preparation of the feast but all he desired was a break. Thank the Gods for marrying such a wonderful woman.

oOo

Midsummer was approaching and the people of New Berk have been scrambling all over the village for days, preparing for the celebration. The sun barely set anymore, and everyone was absolutely exhausted, prone to often make mistakes that drove the Chief of New Berk wild. Hiccup was supposed to overview the entire preparation of the feast, but also had to settle petty quarrels between sleep-deprived Vikings; avoiding sharp flying objects on the occasion. It was the perfect recipe for chaos and he was worried that they will not be ready on time. If one thing went according to plan, three more things would set them back again. Food went missing, tables were broken, celebrative outfits were set on fire. All he wanted to do relax, he felt like he’s been awake for seven days straight and his mind isn’t cooperating anymore, just begging to shut down for a whole month. By now, he was just acting like a wandering draugr. He really wondered how his father managed to handle this without breaking a sweat and dearly wished he was by his side, guiding him.

His wife was by his side the entire time, shouldering half of the responsibilities. Even she, despite being quite tired as well (he swore he saw her take a power nap on top of a ladder last time), handled it better than himself. She seemed to be fuelled by a spark of positive energy. He remembered a few years back when the twins explained the change in their friends’ attitude towards the Midnight Sun, since then, Astrid found a dark place to sleep so she doesn’t get any more of those embarrassing memories again. What kind of Hofferson would ever call a Jorgenson handsome? Of course, the sun still had its effects on her, but her overzealous demeanour toned down to a bearable extent. While it did seem a bit overwhelming sometimes, it kept Hiccup’s spirits up. It was their first Midsummer as a wedded couple and he really didn’t want to mess this up.

Today, however, she had suddenly requested to immediately go home after being done with only half of her duties done. For someone who prides herself on being so effective and getting the work done, it was very unusual of her to abandon her responsibilities. This worried Hiccup, so he didn’t object and watched her dash towards their house. He didn’t know how much time passed, the sun remained in its usual elevated position, but he felt like tonight will be a four blocks of ice kind of night. He felt like there was absolutely no progress made today despite getting up in the early hours. He couldn’t even track the time since the sun was barely moving. Some muttonhead decided it was a smart idea to open Sven’s sheeps’ pen and let the uncoordinated Vikings chase them like toddlers who could barely walk yet. If he could get his hands on that person, he swore he was going to get an earful that even his late father, Stoick, would be impressed by. He hoped that Astrid got enough rest so she can go back to being her feisty, short-tempered self. He would greatly benefit from that. The Berkians, despite being completely out of control, would never cross with a hot-blooded, axe-wielding Valkyrie and would sober up at the speed of light.

Speaking of his beloved blonde wife, he saw her approach him with a smile on her face. Even though he was absolutely exhausted, he smiled back, her presence bringing him a sense of comfort. He extended his hand to her and she took it, bringing her closer to him, enlacing her waist, and pressing small kisses on her neck. She giggled in a very un-Astridlike way.

“Well, I’m not one to object to this kind of greeting, but we’re in the middle of town and people are looking.” Astrid said as she observed around her. Gobber was covering a kid’s eyes. Some villagers had a dumbfounded expression on their faces, rarely seeing Hiccup initiating such an intimate gesture; apart from the occasional lip or forehead kiss. Others just cheered or ignored them. Hiccup let out a small whine and rested his head on her shoulder, keeping his arms wrapped around her form.

“I missed you.” He whimpered.

“I wasn’t gone for that long, babe.” She replied as she stroked his hair. Her poor husband has the bad habit of overworking himself, and the fact that no one can distinguish between day and night definitely didn’t help. “Come home with me, I have something to show you.”

“I’m sorry Milady, I still have work to do, we’re behind schedule and Midsummer is in a week.” His reply a bit muffled in her shoulder.

“Go and have yer fun, lad. You’ve worked more than anyone here and deserve some respite. And besides, how can ye refuse yer wife’s invitation?” The young couple turned their heads to look at Gobber approaching them. “Ah, I remember when Stoick was acting just like ye, never knowing when to stop. It took Valka threatening not to share their marital bed anymore, snapped ‘im right out of it, and practically dragged ‘im home. The next morning they kept yawning all over the place, creating a chain of never-ending yawns. Now that I think about it, that’s probably how ye were concei-“

“-OKAY! That’s enough Gobber. I got your point.” Hiccup exclaimed in horror. While he was used to hanging around people that did not have a filter, Gobber was probably the one he feared the most. Since his best friend’s demise, the blacksmith has been recounting stories of him. Some were great to listen to, remembering the bravery and leadership of Stoick the Vast; but some were just better to keep to oneself. With the approach of the Midnight Sun’s peak, Gobber has gotten worse and Hiccup would’ve much preferred wearing the earbuds he made once during his encounter with the Death Song, just to save himself of the embarrassing images his mentor so crassly described to him.

Astrid looked at Gobber with a mixture of disgust and amusement, before deciding to grab her stunned husband’s arm and pulling him towards their house, away from the growing crowd of curious Vikings. She hoped her parents didn’t witness this whole ordeal.

“Astrid, I don’t think I have the energy to do what Gobber obnoxiously suggested, maybe-“ Hiccup said as he was being pulled by his wife.

“-Hush you. That’s not what I had in mind when I came to get you.” She cut him off, continuing to pull him towards their house. She let go of his arm once they crossed their threshold’s doorframe and closed the door, locked it just in case those nosy Vikings decided to rudely barge in.

After being exposed to the sunlight for so long, Hiccup’s eyes had to adjust to the darkness of the room, illuminated by a couple of candles. He could smell a pleasant fragrant scent in the room and spotted their bathtub in front of the lit fireplace; the rugs been removed. Astrid led him to the bathtub and sat him down on the chair that was deliberately placed right next to it. She saw his questioning gaze.

“Gobber was right about you working harder than anyone here in this village. You deserve to relax a bit, take some time off.”

“You know I can’t afford to relax, now. Not when Midsommer is so close. Those sleep-deprived Vikings aren’t going to lead themselves, they can barely listen to me when I’m there. I’ll rest once we’re done.” He said, preparing to stand up again. Astrid pushed him down.

“I’ve asked your mom to take your place for a bit. She’s surprisingly unaffected by the sun’s constant presence. And she agreed that you needed a day off. Everyone could see how tired you are.” Astrid started unbuttoning his (GUARD STUFF). “And I want to take care of my husband. Will you let me?” Hiccup gulped, his words not coming out. He simply nodded. It’s been a while since she saw him being bashful around her. She gratefully smiled at him and pecked him on the lips.

She proceeded to fully undress him, and took off his prosthetic, placing it within reach of the chair. Gone were the days Hiccup felt ashamed of showing his scar. Astrid made sure to show him how much he meant to her, leg or no leg. When he was coming home after a rough day of chiefing, she would give him his ice blocks and tell him to take care of his migraines while she took care of his leg, massaging it. She would sometimes bring it to her lips and kiss it, showing her appreciation to him. He would always beam at her every time she did this. She frowned when she saw the current redness of his stump, also spotting a blister forming.

“Let me help you get in the tub. Just relax. I’ll massage your leg when I come back, I’m going to get some food from the Great Hall.” She said as she rose from her kneeling position. Her cooking did improve over time thanks to Hiccup and Gobber, but she wanted his day off to be perfect, which wasn’t the case for her cooking yet. She tried to make a nice intricate meal for the two of them, which is why she left so early. However, her attempts were all in vain as the food always ended up burning. In the end, she had to admit defeat.

Hiccup grabbed her wrist. “Join me?”

Astrid contemplated his words for a few seconds before nodding. She can grab dinner later. She wrapped her husband’s arm around her shoulder and helped him get into the tub. The water wasn’t too warm since they were in the hottest month of Berk, but it wasn’t cold to the point he would start shivering after being submerged for a couple of minutes.

Hiccup looked over at his wife undress. He had seen her in this state countless times, even before they were married; but it always felt like the first time. He was the only Viking that she allowed to see her like this, with her guard down. Her body wasn’t unscathed. It was filled with scars and burns, proving that this woman was a warrior that has been through so many battles and came out victorious every time. She wouldn’t hesitate to swing an axe to a skull if someone ever looked at her funny. So, this woman allowing him to witness her in her most vulnerable state was an absolute honour to him, that he would never take for granted. Her scars were a part of her and accentuated her beauty and he made sure to always remind her of it.

“Allow me.” He said as he extended a hand towards her. She knew what he wanted and turned her back to him. He rose, sat on the edge of the tub and pulled the leather band that kept her braid in place off. He slowly undid his wife’s braid, letting her gold strands cascade down to her lower back. He then gathered her hair in his hand and swept it over her shoulder, exposing her freckled neck and scarred back. He wrapped his arms around her waist and placed a loving kiss on the largest scar she had. A scar trailed from her right shoulder to the left side of her hip. She was proud of that scar as it was a reminder of her saving his life from an assassination attempt. During the yearly Thing meeting between multiple tribes, when the dragons and some Viking tribes were still cohabiting together, a spy has been placed within them, trying to poison the Dragon-loving Chiefs. Astrid and Heather caught on pretty quickly and managed to expose the spy in front of all the Chiefs. Being surrounded, no one expected the spy to suddenly lunge himself at Hiccup with his sword. Astrid, being the closest to him and desperate to keep him unharmed, had used her back as a shield. The wound hurt like Hel but it was worth it. She was so scared to have failed him as his then-General, she didn’t care that she put her life on the line to save his. A Chief protects his own, but it’s also the General’s job to protect the people AND the Chief. Hiccup wouldn’t let her leave his sight for weeks after that, eternally grateful and forever scared he was going to lose her that day.

“You’re absolutely beautiful.” He told her. His eyes were filled with wonder to this Valkyrie in front of him. She smiled gratefully at him and climbed in the bathtub, sitting opposite of him.

She took his stump in her hands and started to delicately massage it, coaxing a few moans of relief out of him. Her nimble fingers were definitely a gift from the Gods. She managed to soothe the knots in his leg with great accuracy. All day, he had to focus on the utter chaos happening in the village that he didn’t have the time to focus on himself and his discomfort, ignoring the pains coming from his leg begging him to take the weight off of it. She carefully avoided the small blister forming near the bottom of the stump.

“Mmmh, this feels so good.” Hiccup sighed with pleasure as he closed his eye, focussing on the sensation.

“You’ve been standing for too long, babe. I know the Midsummer celebration is stressing you out, but you’ve got to start listening to your body when it tells you to rest.” He opened his eyes, looking at her hands doing their wonders underwater.

“I know, I know. But it’s a bit hard to do that when we keep progressing backward each day. I swear to Odin, every time I look away, someone messes up something, I just can’t do it.” Astrid’s hand rose to swipe Hiccup’s bangs back, revealing his beautiful green eyes. Since the start of the preparations a few weeks ago, he didn’t have the time to let her cut his hair.

“You can’t do it on your own. Remember, you have me. You have your mom, Gobber, Eret and the gang. We’re all here to help you. You just have to accept the help instead of shouldering most of the responsibilities. We’re willing to take some of the load off you.” She said as she grazed her thumb over his dark eye bags. “I can assure you that not only the work will get done much faster, but you’ll be more productive with a rested body and a peaceful mind.” She kissed his forehead. Hiccup wrapped his arms around her, making her sit in his lap. He savoured the rare peaceful moment he had with his beloved wife. She had the gift of shutting all the voices tormenting his mind and the gentle touch to relax his body in the blink of an eye. She was everything to him. He could be the best version of himself when she’s with him and never took her for granted; not since the betrothal gift incident.

“Just don’t forget you’re still human, there’s so much your body can handle before it shuts down.” She added.

“Yeah, you’re right. I might have been pushing myself pretty hard.” Hiccup replied, raising his head to look at her. There was a warmness to her that he never thought she would ever have; especially directed towards him. He remembered her words of encouragement back on the clifftops, as he was losing hope. I am the person I am today because of you. Over the years, he saw how she started to warm up to him and the rest of the people. She had been trained for years to be this fearless, unemotional warrior. Back then, the fear of losing the people you love was at its peak, so she was quick to learn how to shut her feelings down and just train from dawn till dusk. Today, she was a softer and warmer person; which didn’t mean she was weaker by any means. But with the end of the Dragon War, she has found herself a partner that saw her as an equal. They both found themselves a new purpose in life and didn’t have to fear the threat of a dragon raid any longer, which allowed them to find happiness along the way. They were happy here.

Astrid got off his lap and reached for the soap that was earlier placed at a reachable distance. She looked back at him. “Soak.” And so, he plunged his head underwater before coming back up with his bangs fully covering his eyes. She stifled a laugh as did he. “I haven’t planned to cut your hair today, so I’ll do that next laugardagr, you think you can survive until then?” She started washing his hair with the soap in her hands.

“You made a whole schedule just to help me relax? A schedule? Did I mistakenly marry Fishlegs?” This earned him a pinch on his nipple. “OW! You know they’re sensitive. I did not deserve that!” She laughed as she brought her hands back to massage his scalp. The nipple pinching forgotten, his eyes rolled back into his skull, fully appreciating the head massage. “Ooh yeah, that feels nice.” Astrid brought his bangs back down to cover his eyes and gathered the excess foam and piled it upon his head in the form two horns. She exploded in laughter at the ridiculous sight. “Wha- Astriiid!“

“You look like Snotlout’s pet yak! Oh Gods- I can’t!” She wheezed.

Hiccup was not impressed and got rid of the foam and swiped his bangs back, exposing his frown. His small smile betrayed him though. It was rare to see Astrid lose composure and in a burst of full-blown laughter. It made him break his frown and laugh with her.

“You, young lady, are in reeeally big trouble. Do you have any idea who I am?”

“Yakkity’s long lost brother?” She joked.

“Okay, that’s it, come here you!” He grabbed her by the waist and started poking her sides, knowing very well she was ticklish there. “I shall not tolerate this type of disrespect on my island.”

She tried to grab his arm, but this time he was prepared and pinned her arms by wrapping an arm around her and continuing tormenting her with the other. How she wished they were fifteen years old again. “N-No- St-Stop!”

“Then say, ‘My husband is the strongest and most handsome Viking in all of Midgard’. Say it.”

“Hahaha, N-not on yo-your life!” Having minimal movement of her arms, Astrid tried to reach downwards instead of fighting the death grip he had around her. She pinched the inside of his thigh, so very close to his precious jewels, making him jump. “Astrid! No!” He stopped tickling her but kept his arm around her.

“I will pinch higher if you don’t let me go, babe.” She tried to catch her breath from all the tickling.

“You’re awful, absolutely awful.” He whined as he let her go.

“You’re lucky this is your relaxation time.” She said, a small glint in her eyes.

“Oh yeah, what kind of torment would you inflict on your poor one-legged husband?” He challenged.

“Something that would require you to use your cane for the next day or so.” She fired back; a small, dangerous smile etched on her face. Hiccup’s eyes widened and he gulped. “But we’re both tired and I did promise to take care of my sweet husband, haven’t I? So, behave.” She flicked his exposed forehead.

“Ow. How did I get myself into this mess?” He rubbed the sore spot.

“You kidnapped me and threw me on top of a tree.” She replied with a straight face.

“Fair enough.”

“Okay, you’ve had soap in your hair for long enough, rinse.” She ordered. He dived in again, washing off the soap.

“Can I wash your hair?” He asked.

“But it’s your time off.”

“Yeah, but it’s yours too. You worked just as hard. You deserve to be taken care of too.” He replied.

“You worked harder.” He rolled his eyes.

“Astrid, this isn’t a competition. I want to take care of my wife. Will you let me?” He grabbed her hand and slowly spun her around in the narrow tub and made her sit between his legs.

“You’re always looking for an excuse to touch my hair.” She jokingly said. There was an element of truth though. He loved touching her hair, combing his fingers through her long strands. Since they have gotten married, he insisted on combing and braiding her hair in the morning. There was just something intimate and therapeutic about touching her hair. She was protective over it, never letting anyone but him touch it. The first time she let down her hair for him was during the incident that left her temporarily blind. She was not able to see how much soot covered her precious hair, so she entrusted it in his care. He remembers his heart beating so fast that he thought it was going to burst from his chest. He felt honoured, and has been craving to touch her beautiful golden locks ever since.

Astrid on the other hand, hated when people touched her hair. It was her pride and joy (after Stormfly and her axe). As a child, every time her mom would braid her hair, she would always pull too hard, leaving her sore. The twins were more chaotic when they were kids. They would get away with anything because kids will be kids. As a prank, they decided it would be funny to set her hair on fire, forcing her to cut it above her shoulders. That day, she saw red and very nearly beat them to death. They were all severely punished for it, but no one has ever attempted to touch her hair ever again. He remembered that day very well, it was probably the first time he saw her cry. That’s when he learned how attached she was to her hair. The way she preened on it every night since they became a couple on the Edge reminded him so much of Stormfly. Her dragon always made sure there was not a single hair out of place after a flight. It amused him how she trusted a dragon more than Vikings to manage her hair. Stormfly had the gentle touch that Astrid craved someone to have. She always wanted her rider to look the best.

“Well?” Astrid asked as she looked back. Hiccup’s thoughts were cut off.

“Oh...Uh yeah, my bad.” He started to massage her scalp as she did him.

“Okay, I’m done. You can rinse.” He said after working on her hair for the past couple of minutes.

She dipped her head underwater and got rid of the soap before emerging again.

“Thanks.” She turned her head and smiled at him.

“I should be thanking you; this whole ‘bath’ idea was yours. It felt nice.” He kissed her exposed shoulder as he embraced her.

“Well, don’t thank me yet. We’re not done.” She patted his hand.

“Not done?”

“What, did you really think that was it? Come on, let’s get out before our skin shrivels up like a prune.” She got out of his arms, turned around, and grabbed him. She helped him up and guided him to the chair, passed him a towel, and proceeded to dry themselves before taking his prosthetic and putting it back on his stump. She started to put her clothes on, so Hiccup followed suit until she stopped him.

“Nuh-uh, just wear a towel, I highly doubt you want your clothes to be stained with oil.”

“What?”

“A massage, Hiccup. I’m going to give you a massage. Gods, even a blind man would know how tense you are just by standing near you.” She answered.

“Why are you getting dressed then? Don’t I get to give you one?”

“Next laugardagr, after I trim that overgrown mop of hair of yours. Gods have mercy on my shears.”

“S-Shears?! And by the way, my hair isn’t that bad!” Hiccup dramatically exclaimed. Astrid rolled her eyes. “I’ve never seen a man with that much hair on their head, I swear if we shave everything off, we’ll have enough to make a scarf. No need for sheep anymore.”

“First, I’m a yak, now I’m a sheep? Is that how you see me, Astrid? Nothing more than livestock? How you wound me.” He brought a hand up to his heart. Astrid let out a cackle.

“You are such a drama queen. Come on, get up your highness, there’s fresh meat to be tenderized before I chop it off and feed it to the village.” She helped him up and headed towards their bedroom.

“Please Astrid, can you be any more creepy?” It was his turn to roll his eyes.

They finally reached their room. The shutters were sealed shut, preventing most of the light to penetrate the room. Candles were illuminated, giving off the same soothing atmosphere as downstairs, cutting them off from the agitated outside world. The bed was covered by a large towel, probably to avoid the oil soak into their sheets. Astrid made her husband lie down on his stomach, removed his prosthetic again, and sat on his butt. She started tracing his back muscles with feathery fingers which made him shivers. While Hiccup was still a lean man, he definitely wasn’t the same fifteen-year-old, shy boy that she found herself falling in love with. He quickly gained muscle mass thanks to dragon-riding and her extensive sword fighting lessons. Just like all the other riders, he started to lose some after the dragons’ departure a year ago. He remained, in her eyes, the most beautiful man ever.

She caressed his back and leaned forward, pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades, making him sigh lovingly. He was clearly enjoying her pampering and she wasn’t about to stop any time soon. She reached for the small vial that was ready to be used from their bedside table and poured the contents in her hands and rubbed them together to heat it up a bit. Astrid proceeded to rub his shoulders first, trying to undo that visible tension. She added her bodyweight as she tried to loosen those knots that caused his painful backaches.

“Mmh, yeah that’s the spot.” Hiccup moaned as she rubbed a specific sore area. She continued her ministrations for a bit and slowly moved onto his lower once she was satisfied with how loose and relaxed his shoulders became.

“How are you feeling?” She asked while kneading his legs.

“Like a newborn yak.” He replied, his voice muffled by the pillows. She sniggered, happy that he’s enjoying this so much.

Hiccup can’t remember the last time he felt this relaxed. He truly thought he was going to melt into a puddle under her magic hands. He knew he didn’t know when to stop working. His muscles could be aching and his bones could be breaking, but he never stops until someone does or until he collapses. He had big shoes to fill and couldn’t bear to let his village down. Not when his father did a tremendous job at leading. Once Stoick finally admitted to his blindness, he saw so much growth and potential in his son, and Hiccup did his best to uphold what his father saw in him. While Stoick had to lead alone for years, Hiccup couldn’t be any more grateful to have an amazing partner by his side, supporting him. He knew he wouldn’t remain sane had he lost her like his father lost his wife. He was no idiot. He saw how he struggled when his soulmate was believed to be dead and couldn’t possibly see a future without Astrid. She was everything to him and more. The entire village knew that. They weren’t being led by the Chief and the Chief’s wife. They were Chief and Chieftess. Equals. One couldn’t function without the other. Some would say that they’re too dependent on each other and would lead the tribe to their downfall. But the Berkians knew better. Together, they were stronger than anyone.

“Turn around.” She ordered. And he complied. She sat back on his lap and leaned down to kiss him. He quickly wrapped his arm around her and savoured their kiss. They should do this more often. He missed having some quality time with just her.

Just as his hands started traveling a bit lower, a large grumbling sound resonated across the room. They separated and looked at each other. The couple started laughing.

“Well, someone is hungry. When was the last time you ate?” Astrid asked.

“Honestly, I can’t remember.” He sheepishly replied. She sighed. “Go sit in front of the hearth and let your hair dry. I’ll go grab some food from the Great Hall, I’ll be back soon.” She passed him his prosthetic and headed downstairs, leaving their household on the quest for food.

He doesn’t know how long he had been staring at the flames when she came back, a basket in hand. She approached him and sat on the floor beside him, handing him the food.

“Thank you, Milady.” He smiled at her.

“Sorry about not having any meals prepared at home.” She timidly said, looking down at her bowl of stew. “I tried to cook something from my mom’s recipes but my cooking skills are still pretty subpar. No matter how hard I tried, it just wasn’t perfect.”

He recognized those words. It just wasn’t perfect. That’s why it took them so long to become a couple, to begin with. He knew he was romantic when it comes to being in a relationship. Even before he set his eyes on anyone, he already thought of perfect scenarios with his soulmate. All the gestures and gifts; anything to quench this loneliness he felt as a young boy. He wanted his partner to feel loved. That’s why the medallion incident hit him hard. Since when did he start neglecting Astrid, causing her to feel that exact same loneliness he once felt? He never thought she was a romantic, being a hardcore shieldmaiden most of her life. But he learned that she also longed for love, she was just better at hiding it. At that time, he was still self-conscious. He has never heard her telling him that she loved him, but hearing her share her insecurities, he realized that she has. So many times, through a variation of loving gestures that she reserved for him and only him. He felt guilty for being so blind, which is why he made up for it. She deserved the best. She deserved perfect.

“Hey.” He scooted closer to her, their shoulders bumping. “This seems pretty perfect to me.” She looked at him with wide eyes. “You have no idea how eternally grateful I am to have you. This whole thing you’ve prepared for me is just perfect. I love it. I love you. So much. Whether you managed to cook an intricate meal or just brought food back from the Great Hall wouldn’t have changed anything. You did this for me, and it made me so happy. And I get to spend some time with you. I couldn’t ask for more, Astrid. Thank you.” He tenderly kissed her lips.

“I’m glad.” She paused. “And relieved.” She confessed, a smile on her lips.

They happily ate in silence, occasionally striking a conversation or just randomly stole a kiss from each other; just enjoying each other’s presence.

Their empty bowls were cast aside as they cuddled in front of the fire; savouring this rare moment of peace and quiet. Hiccup ran his fingers through her now dry hair.

“Will you let me braid your hair?” She looked at him for a few seconds before nodding and turning her back to him. He delicately combed through her silky golden tresses with his fingers, undoing the small knots and separated her hair into three parts. He expertly twisted the locks in a loose braid. Usually, Astrid wouldn’t braid her hair when going to bed as it provided a thin layer of heat for her neck. Winter in New Berk was just as merciless as Old Berk, but right now, they were approaching the hottest days of the year. While the air was still cool when evening came, she didn’t need that much coverage as the fire heated the room to a perfect temperature.

Astrid passed the leather band that was hanging on her wrist to her husband as he finished tending her hair. He attached it and swept her hair over her shoulder. Placing a light peck on the nape. She shivered at the contact and fell back, trusting Hiccup to catch her, which he did. He pressed his lips on her now accessible forehead. She laid in his arms for a while, just relishing the feeling of having his arms around her and the small, tickling kisses all across her face.

“Is this what you’ve been up to the whole time when you said you wanted to go home?” He asked.

“The failed cooking took most of my time.” She lamented.

“Did you have time to rest?” Astrid looked away. She knew she needed extra time to do the cooking, but she didn’t expect to fail that hard. In the end, it took much more time than she expected. Not that she felt like she needed a break, her husband needed it more than she did. But she was hoping to have more quality time with him. Unfortunately, after the fourth try, she decided to throw the towel.

“I’ll rest when you do.” Just as she said that the blonde Viking let out a yawn.

“Well, someone is getting tired.” Hiccup teased.

“I’ve been tired since our beloved Goddess Sol decided to show off all her glory even more so than usual.” Hiccup fought back a yawn that didn’t go unnoticed by his wife. “Seems like I’m not the only one that’s tired. Come on babe, let’s get you to bed.” She freed herself from his embrace and got up, lending a hand to help her husband up too. They headed upstairs, leaving the dirty dishes for tomorrow.

Once in their bedroom again, they undressed and put on their thin nightwear, hoping to finally get a comfortable night of sleep. They got in bed and Hiccup spooned her, letting her get comfortable in his arms. They sighed in content.

“Astrid?” He hesitantly called out, hoping she didn’t already fall asleep.

“Hmm?”

“Thank you.”

“You know you don’t need to thank me”

“I know, but you always seem to know what I need before I even do. So, I want to thank you. I really appreciate it. I love you, Milady.” He kissed the back of her head.

She squeezed his hand that was resting around her waist. “I love you too.” She sleepily answered.

He tightened his arms around her as he let sleep consume him.

Gods, how he loved that woman.

oOo

So this one-shot was written while I was writing another Hiccstrid story. I just needed a break since I was having a writer's block and I desperately needed some heartwarming fluff because the other one is heavy, at least for me it is. This one-shot could possibly have a potential smut scene one day, I just have no idea how to write those yet.

The other story will be posted soon, depending on how inspired I am. It's either going to be a long one-shot or a short chaptered fiction. To this day, I have written around 11K words, and it could possibly reach 20K. All I'm going to reveal for now is that Astrid is going to have a bad time. Hopefully you guys will be interested.

Also, would anyone be interested in a separate one-shot on how Astrid got that scar? I don't know why, I love Astrid so much that I need to read/write Astrid!Whump fics.

#hiccstrid fanfiction #fanfic #hiccstrid #married life #Astrid Hofferson #Hiccup Haddock #httyd #httyd 3

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rainydaysofspring · 3 years

Text

Why are you lying to me?

Hello everyone and welcome back to another round of angsty Open Heart Fanfiction! I got a little carried away with this...

My requests are OPEN, so if you want me to write anything, hit the ask-button!

Prompt: "Why are you lying to me?"

Words: 1.826

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x MC (Liliana Summers)

Warnings: General Angst, Death, a little Hyperventilating, Crying. If I forgot any, feel free to reach out!

Tag-List: @ethandaddyramseyx @catchinglikekerosene @maurine07

If you want to be added or removed from my Tag-List, please let me know!

Liliana sat on the round table in the diagnostics office, her mind wandering around possible diagnoses for their patient. The team had already ruled out numerous possibilities, but they weren't out of Options. They decided on their next steps when Liliana's phone rang. She saw it was her mother trying to reach her. She excused herself from the table and stepped outside the office.

"Mum, what is it? I'm in a meeting, I'm a bit short of time..." Her sentence got cut off by a sound at the other end of the line. It sounded like a sob for all she knew. "Mum? Is everything okay?" Her mother took a second to collect herself, then spoke up. "Bug, it's your brother." The tone of her mother's voice confused Liliana. It was shaking and thin. "He's dead. He got killed in a car crash." In shock, it took Liliana a second to process what her mother just said. "Are you serious?" Her voice grew thinner, proclaiming the fact that she was about to cry too. "Lili, I'm sorry. It happened last night. I have to go now. I love you." Still shocked, Liliana just said, "Love you too."

Trying to conceal what Liliana's mother just told her. Her brother died. She straightened her posture. Baz and Harper were about to leave when she stepped back into the meeting.

Ethan looked at Liliana, observing her. His fellow doctor held herself up differently. Her eyes searched the room, avoiding eye contact with him, "All my patients are stable. Do you want me to run some tests on Mr. Clarke?" Her voice was tiny. Something was wrong with her. "No, Harper and Baz are on it. Liliana, are you alright?"

Liliana just nodded, turning around, opening the door, where she almost stumbled into Leland Bloom. "Dr. Summers, nice to see you. I was hoping to talk to Dr. Ramsey for a bit, though." Liliana stepped outside, going her way. Ethan wanted to go after her. He knew something was not right. "Mr. Bloom, I'm afraid we'll have to postpone this conversation to another time." He hurried to the door, but Bloom stopped him. "It's urgent. Have a seat." Leland was not going to let him go. He reluctantly took a seat in his office chair, hoping to catch a glance of Liliana through the glass walls, but she was gone.

Liliana walked through the halls of Edenbrook, her head full of questions. She needed a quiet place to think, so she headed to the only quiet place she knew in the entire hospital: The serenity gardens. At this time, they usually were empty. Liliana opened the heavy doors, stepping inside the peaceful environment, leaving the hectic hospital behind her.

She wandered through the planted halls for a bit before taking a seat. Thinking about the call with her mother earlier, she remembered the missed call from her brother. She took out her private phone, listening to the voicemail he left.

"Hey Smarty, I'm sure you're in a super important meeting. Also, I think this thing will cut me off any second, so I just wanted to say how much I look forward to seeing you when I'll visit Boston! Love you, bye."

When listening to his voice, the gravity of what her mother told her, sunk in and the tears started flowing freely. Meanwhile, in the Diagnostics Office, Bloom tried to talk Ethan into a new trial, finding a cure for his wife. Seemingly, he wanted Ethan to send fitting patients of the diagnostics team to the study. Even before deliberating other options with them.With a quick "I'll think about it." he dismissed Bloom and hurried out of his Office. He was determined to find Liliana. Something seemed wrong.

After checking nearly every supply closet and On-Call Room the hospital had to offer, he thought about where to go next. She wanted Silence if she's sad. He checked his old office first, finding nothing. Then, it hit him. He knew where she was.Almost running through the hospital, he finally reached the Doors of the Serenity Gardens.

Walking in, he heard quiet sobs coming from further into the halls. Walking in, he quickly found who he was looking for. Liliana sat with her back facing him, her shoulders moving up and down as she cried. Ethan made his way towards her.

"Hey, how are you holding up?" Ethan asked Liliana after he found her in the Serenity Gardens. Startled, Liliana tried to conceal her puffy red eyes but failed to. He lightly touched her shoulder, sitting astride opposite to his girlfriend. "What happened in there? What was this call about?" Liliana just shook her head.

"Lili, I can't help you if you don't tell me what is going on. Please let me help?" he gently asked.Ethan looked at her, the worry in his eyes more than evident. Liliana was sobbing. Ethan had no idea why she was in that state or how he could get her to calm down. His hands went to her hips, gently touching her, wandering up to rub her arms up and down.

"Can you talk?" He gently asked. Liliana just shook her head and continued to cry. Her brother was dead, for god's sake. The guy she grew up with was no longer alive. Who was always so protective of her, who always eyed her boyfriends with a critical glance. Her brother, who always messed with her, who brought her joy during High School, picked her up when she fell. The one person who always had her back. Her best friend, her role model, her superhero when she was little.

Liliana did not know how she should keep going. She couldn't imagine her life without her brother's texts, sending her the weirdest GIFs to cheer her up, without hearing his voice or without him standing at the door greeting her when she came home to her parent's house. "It's nothing." She blurted out between two sobs. Liliana thought she needed to be strong. She didn't want Ethan seeing her like this. Weak. Possibly at her worst.

"Rookie, why are you lying to me?" Ethan gently cupped her face, wiping tears away from her face, just for new tears to fall again. "I can see that it's not nothing. You're upset by whatever happened. I want to help you. Let me help, okay?" The mixture of concern and worry in Ethans eyes made Liliana weaker than She already was. When she was looking at his blue orbits, her facade broke. She spilled everything.

" My brother has been in a car accident." While Liliana began to explain, she was cut off by her sobs, her body forcing her to take breaks in between talking. "He's been driving a friend home from the airport. Another driver didn't watch out..." Her head fell into her hands, sobbing harder, while Ethan caressed her back. "The other driver... He hit their car on the side my brother was sitting. That guy. He..." Liliana couldn't bring herself to say it out loud, but Ethan knew anyways.

Gently, he took her head in his hands, kissed her on the forehead, and laid it on his chest. While he was rubbing his girlfriend's back, he noticed how her breathing became faster. Liliana felt how her fingertips began tingling, how her hands got increasingly cold, and how dizzy she suddenly got. "Lili, you have to breathe with me." Ethan took a deep breath in, moving her head up and down, trying to encourage her to do the same. After a bit of repeating those actions and calmly talking to her, only her hiccups echoed through the empty Serenity Gardens.

" He came back from Africa." her tiny voice said. Ethan waited for her to continue, her head still placed at his chest. "Since he spent a semester in a village for orphans while studying, he went every year to see what progress they made. My brother had such big dreams for that place. When we talked last, he said they were building an actual school building with the donations he got here. And that they were going to finish it when he is going to visit next." A new wave of sobs shook Liliana's body when she thought about the fact he would never get to see all of this. He would never get to see his dream for the village coming true.

" Do you want me to take you home?" Ethan asked, after a while."Yours or mine?" For the first time since Ethan learned what happened, she looked directly at him. Her usually bright and happy green eyes filled with sadness and grief, red and puffy from all the crying. The sight broke his heart. "As you would like," he answered. Liliana seemed to think for a few moments before she asked him: "Can I stay with you tonight, please?" "Sure. Let's go."

Ethan kissed her head. Then picked her up and carried her to the Office of the Diagnostics Team, where Ethan sat her down on the sofa. Luckily, no one was on here at the moment. No one would ask questions. "Do you want to get your stuff from your locker?" he asked her after he changed out of his white coat into a light jacket. Liliana shook her head. She needed her purse, but she did not want to enter the locker room. All her friends would be there, happily chatting after their shifts. She didn't want to face them just yet. "Okay, I'll get your stuff. Stay here. I'll be back before you know it."

Even though she didn't want him to leave, she let him walk out of the office. Sitting on the sofa, she thought about her brother again. Tears welled in her eyes as she thought of childhood memories. She remembered the time they all went to the beach together. Both of them had a contest on who could build the highest sandcastle. Of course, he'd win. Little Liliana didn't understand the concept of sandcastles yet. After the competition, he'd assemble an enormous sandcastle with her. Or the times when they would play basketball in their driveway. He always lifted her to reach the basket and throw in the ball.

Dwelling in memories, she almost didn't notice Ethan entering the office again, with her jacket and purse in hand. "Are you ready to go?" he asked, as Liliana just nodded and walked next to him. Together they got to Ethans Sedan. He was constantly keeping an eye on his girl during the entire ride. When they arrived at Ethan's apartment, he led Liliana to his bed, where she plopped down and held herself, like she would be cold. Ethan sat down next to her, putting his arms around her, constantly mumbling sweet nothings into her ears. He would make sure she got the comfort she desired. He would be there through it all.

#open heart #open heart fanfiction #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #Ethan jonah ramsey #gandygirls #choices #open heart imagines #pixelberry

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howtowhumpyourhiccup · 3 years

Text

Winter Whumperland Day 10: Ruin

Summary: Written for Winter Whumperland Day 10. Set in a Modern AU, follows up on Day 9 'Planned'. Darkness was all Hiccup knew during those first three months. Darkness and daily defeat. Ruin was his way back into the light.

Warning: Rape/non-con

Rating: Mature

Characters: Hiccup, Viggo

Pairing: Vigcup, past-Hiccstrid

Words: 4 356

Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon

Prompt: “Poisoned”, “Food deprivation”

Whumpee: Hiccup

Author’s Notes: After posting Day 'Planned', I decided to hold off on posting Days 10 and 11 until I finished Day 12, which still had such a long way to go. It still does, but I have since split Day 12 into two parts and part 1 is finished. So it felt right to post Day 10.

I think that this thing is the darkest fic I've written to date, the final chapter in Hiccup's story left unexplored. There is still plenty left, but those won't be from his perspective. ;D

Constructive criticism is appreciated.

Enjoy!

Ao3

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"Are we not as lively today as we usually are, Hiccup?" One afternoon in late August, this is the question Viggo asks. His gaze is indifferent, if slightly pleased, as it lingers on the young man sitting opposite to him at a table.

Hiccup looks a little lost as he sits there with him, a barely played chessboard between the two. He's hunched, appearing small, and tired. He's lost weight, but he's not as thin as he was a week ago, when he first left the downstairs area of the Grimborn home, the basement.

When a question is asked of him, he looks back at Viggo and realizes it's been a few minutes since he's made his move on the board. And yet, the older man isn't wondering why Hiccup is taking so long, knowing well enough what the cause for his downtrodden mood is.

He's feeling a little down, a little fatigued. It's not too crazy after what he's been through, after what he's survived and gotten out of. if anything, Viggo is pleased to see him this way. He's never liked Hiccup's 'loudness' from before, though others would argue that Hiccup isn't loud at all. Not in the way Viggo thinks.

"Um, I'm sorry, I'm..." Hiccup apologizes, but he's unsure what he wants to say. He hasn't just been spacing out during their game, he's been doing so throughout the day and during previous days, too.

Does it have something to do with the things done to him? He's certainly still recovering from it and not just mentally, his body is trying to catch up, too. Though his ribs and knee have healed and Viggo is putting enough food in him, he's still worryingly thing and that doesn't help his mental health. It all contributes to the tiredness that he feels.

"It's okay, my Dear, I know that you're having a hard time." Viggo understands, but he's only pretending to be nice, pretending to be concerned.

Hiccup looks down at himself, picking at the loose skin on his fingers. He's hurting, he feels like crying, he feels such shame and he can't see a single part of himself without remembering.

Without a doubt, Viggo can see the emotion growing in his eyes, can see a non-physical weight physically weighing him down. His response to that? Taking his glass of wine to sip from it. In his eyes, this is progress.

But as painful as those venomous memories are, they make Hiccup think of an important question.

"Can I- can I ask you a question?" Hiccup asks cautiously. There is something he needs to know, though he is afraid of the answer. He is very afraid.

"Make your move first, Hiccup, I don't appreciate to be kept waiting. After that, you can ask." Viggo responds, gesturing to the board, and so Hiccup turns his attention quietly back down to their game.

It's only because of Viggo that he knows how to play chess. He might've been a little curious at some point, he knows Fishlegs certainly has been, but it wasn't until Viggo came into his life that he learned how to play.

Maybe he could be good with a little bit more practice, Viggo is quite an experienced players, but his fatigue doesn't allow him to think of any good moves. When Hiccup makes his next one, it's the first one he can find. It might not be the best move, but he's not in the right mindset to even try to go for a win either. He's afraid of what'll happen if he does win.

Besides, he doesn't have the energy for it, he just wants to ask his question and have his answer.

Viggo hum disapprovingly and Hiccup holds his breath for one tense moment.

"Go on, ask your question." But fair is fair, so Viggo awaits his question.

"Do I... Um.. Do I have to ever, you know?" Hiccup can feel his heartbeat growing louder, can feel it pounding against his sternum. He acts subdued, but on the inside, he's full of turmoil and fright.

"Do I ever have to go back? Down-downstairs?" But Viggo is a patient man when Hiccup doesn't make him angry and he manages to ask. Hiccup fears the answer he may receive.

Viggo crosses his arms and hums as if in thought. It is nothing but an act as he already has his answer. He likes to keep Hiccup on his toes, likes to make him worry and stress. It's good, it's how Hiccup knows to behave.

"Well, no, not as long as you're a good boy. I won't have a reason to send you back if you listen and are good, do I?" That answer is barely comforting and Viggo's almost endearing smile doesn't help.

So long as Hiccup doesn't step out of line, he has nothing to worry about. So long as he listens, is a good boy, does everything that's asked and expected of him, he'll be okay. But then, what exactly is 'stepping out of line' to Viggo? Is it when he falls back into his old behavior? When he tries to escape? Or is it something as small as speaking out of turn?

Hiccup could ask, but maybe asking is considered stepping out of line and he doesn't want to risk that.

Thinking back to that place hurts so much and it makes him sick to his stomach. It's awful, so very awful. And the only reason he's sitting in the dining room with the afternoon sunlight filtering in through the window now is because he's given in to him.

He hopes he never has to go through something like that ever again.

"Oh my Dear," Viggo offers a hand and his support as he notices the tears growing in Hiccup's eyes. "My wonderful Dear."

He knows that he's hurting, that was the entire point of keeping Hiccup down there for the first three months of his time here. How can Viggo trust him to be a good boy upstairs if he hasn't learned to obey first? And learning to obey always hurts, learning to be his perfect partner hurts. His tears are a sign that it's working. This is a good thing!

Hesitantly, Hiccup accepts it and places his hand in Viggo's, the man squeezing his in return. Unless it's erotic in nature, Hiccup doesn't get affectionate gestures like this, so it's nice to just have his hand held for once.

Viggo's hand is warm, too. As much as he fears and hates the man, it's just nice to be held.

He knows Astrid liked to walk hand in hand with him, knows his friends liked hugs, he misses those simple things.

Hiccup's lower lip trembles, a lump in his throat, and the tears are impossible to hold back. The affection and thinking of his friends and girlfriends don't help. A thumb rubs the back of his hand comfortingly.

"It'll be okay, Hiccup. Just be a good boy and you don't have to go back. All you need to do is to remember that and listen." Viggo tells him, as if that is a reassuring thing to hear.

As long as he listens, he doesn't have to fear the basement. As long as he's a good boy, he doesn't have to worry.

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Ryker running Hiccup over with his car injured him gravely, but broken ribs, a dislocated knee, and a hurt hip only kept Hiccup from fighting back for so much. If Viggo has ever hoped that they would, he was wrong.

Once Hiccup got his bearings, once he comprehended the position that he's in, he has only one goal in mind and that is to escape.

The cuffs that were there when he first woke up were only used to keep him from flying into a panic and injuring himself further. The near panic attack Hiccup had was already enough to endanger him.

The next time and the next and every time he wakes up afterward, they aren't there. If he were healthy, maybe they would be used to tie him down, but he isn't and Viggo must believe his ribs enough to hold him down.

He was wrong, of course.

Hiccup is free to leave the bed. And though he can't breathe properly without the painkillers provided by his abductors, Hiccup has enough experience walking around with his bad leg that the dislocation of a joint meant little to him. He can jump and land wrong and it will pop out, this is nothing new to him.

So carefully and slowly, making use of the hours he's alone, he inspects every nook and cranny of the room they keep him in. When Viggo is at work, Ryker doesn't care enough to visit, so that leaves him with plenty of opportunities to explore.

The bathroom, while objectively nice, only has the bare essentials. A toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, body wash, a hairbrush, that sort of thing. None of them are the brands he uses, rather they are the ones his abductor personally prefers.

In his little living space, there is only the bed and that's that. The mattress is decent, the frame sturdy, and the covers and pillowcase soft. Though an asshole, Viggo has a standard he does not lower unless it comes to his murder cabin, which Hiccup won't know about for months.

Besides the bed, there is no nightstand, no shelves, and nothing to entertain him with. Either Viggo hasn't thought of it, didn't care, or purposely didn't want Hiccup to keep himself busy.

There is only the chessboard, the one thing he would sometimes bring down to the basement with him. It takes only a week for Hiccup to hate it with a passion.

But though they don't keep him confined to the bed, his injuries do keep him from doing much to escape. Exploring is one thing, but attempting to fashion some sort of weapon or lockpick or something to undo the hinges of the door is beyond him. What little he already does leaves him breathless.

Besides, it is in his best interest to reserve his strength.

Because when the hours pass and Viggo eventually comes home, he needs it.

In the beginning, they started out as touches. Hiccup could tell that this was purely because of his injuries. If he could breathe right, if his hip and knee could be used at all, his first days in the basement would've already been the closest thing to hell he's known in his short life thus far.

They were small things. Viggo would help him sit up, would give him his painkillers, seemingly normal stuff, but the hand would linger. It would be on his upper arm, his back, his side, eventually on his thigh. And even there, there's a journey closer and closer to his center.

They are discomforting and Hiccup moves out of his reach every time, letting out a discomforting chuckle each time. He just doesn't know how to deal with such intrusive attention.

And then, one day, Viggo dares a kiss and Hiccup punches him for it. His lips aren't wanted on his and Hiccup makes sure he felt it.

He has only been kissed without his consent once before and that was by Dagur. He'd been in complete shock back then, utterly frozen and defenseless. He'd promised himself since that kiss that he would never let anyone kiss him like that again. But Viggo has and so Hiccup acts accordingly.

But then he regrets it shortly afterward, of course. The sudden upwelling of violence makes his wounded ribs scream. He holds it, collapsing to his knees while Viggo stands over him and holds his lower jaw, flexing it angrily.

"I suppose it was foolish of me to think you wouldn't fight back, though you've certainly surprised me with the violence you appear to be capable of." There is venom in his tone and eyes, his anger barely restrained. His pride has been hurt.

Hiccup groaning and struggling to draw in any oxygen on the floor does nothing to him.

"But don't worry, it's been duly noted and will be dealt with appropriately." With those final words, Viggo takes his leave. Turning and walking away, locking the door behind him as he goes.

But as time passes, there is no retaliation, no punishment. Though Viggo has been angered, there seems to be no reaction of any kind. Hiccup thinks it strange, but he's never been kidnapped by an obsessed man before.

Dagur certainly tried once with his convincing a 15-year-old boy to run away with him, but he's nothing like Viggo. So Hiccup still doesn't know what to expect. If he had, that meant he would've seen the red flags, and that meant he might not even be in this situation.

And then, Hiccup is plunged straight into hell.

Because the next day, his breakfast is brought, as per usual. Though always cautious, Hiccup takes it and eats it because he wants to heal, wants to regain his strength, and that's when the trouble begins. He doesn't know what could've been used, but that innocent bowl of plain cereal was poisoned.

He remembers Viggo bringing it to him personally, his fond smile turning into a malicious smirk when Hiccup reaches the end of his meal. He takes the bowl back and then leaves, wishing him a "pleasant time" in the basement.

And now here he is, clutched to the toilet like his life depends on it.

Ever tried vomiting with two broken ribs? This is Hiccup's first time and he can attest to how excruciating it is.

Every lurch isn't just accompanied with the usual burning throat and foul taste, but also with the agony of his injured side forcible contracting together to get the contents of his stomach out of him.

His stomach, plagued by horrible cramps, wants to be relieved and at the same time, his lungs would love some air. They battle to have their needs met and that just makes the entire experience about a hundred times worse than it already is. A hundred times more traumatizing, too.

Sitting on his bad knee and hip helps little. With the urge to throw up, there is the urge to do anything but kneel in front of the toilet on the hard, tiled floor. About every part of this is pure, unadulterated torture.

To make things even worse, there is the constant fear of a broken rib moving and collapsing his lung. Ryker certainly wouldn't care enough to take him to a hospital in time and Viggo might rather want to clean his hands free of him than risk being caught as a kidnapper. They wouldn't come to his aid, they will let him suffocate to death instead.

Every time the urge to retch comes, he tries to suppress it. For the sake of his ribs, to have control over his own body again, sobbing, coughing his airways free. Every time he tries, it gets so much worse, but that makes him want to try harder, and so the cycle continues.

Time passes, the cycle is endless, the pain is torment and all Hiccup can do is beg.

"Please, don't make me throw up any more." He whimpers, everything hurting, throat burning, voice hoarse.

All day this cycle goes on and on. Every half an hour the urge strikes, until it continues long after there is nothing left in his system to give up, until all he does is dry heave in desperation, until the wee hours of the night.

Sweating, trembling, beyond exhausted, and grossly sobbing and hiccuping, Hiccup still clutches to the toilet bowl hours after his tainted breakfast.

He wants it to end, he wants to sleep, but his stomach is still upset and he doesn't want to leave the safety of the bathroom.

It's been at least an hour since the last time he threw up and that means he's carefully allowing himself to hope that this is it, that this is the end of his suffering for the day. If he could, he would fall asleep right here on the cold floor.

His right side is on fire and his abdominal muscles are sore after the workout they've gotten. He can barely swallow, throated burned from all the stomach acids.

Conveniently, after not showing his face the entire day, Viggo decides now is the time to make his entrance. Hiccup could've used a little support during the day instead of being forced to go through those long hours of torture completely alone. He has pleaded for his mom and dad at some point.

Watching him shiver with a look of sadistic satisfaction, their gazes meeting, Viggo can see the pain and the tiredness in them. Hiccup's arm is on the seat, his head resting on the limb while he sits there limply.

"Learned your lesson?" Viggo asks with an air of arrogance to him. It's as if he expects him to fall to his feet and beg for forgiveness right then and there.

"Water? Please?" He asks softly, tone barely above a whisper.

"Hm-hm, have you learned your lesson?" Viggo repeats. If Hiccup wants to have that glass of water, he needs to earn it first.

"Please, Viggo. Please," Viggo, believing this to be an admittance of defeat, takes his suit jacket to lay over Hiccup's shoulder, he must be cold after all of that.

"Let us get you washed up and hydrated." He tells him, playing nice now that Hiccup's down and beaten. The dirty towel, used to wipe his mouth during the day, can be taken care of later.

But what Viggo doesn't realize is that Hiccup isn't a fast learner when it comes to things like this.

He doesn't throw up again, but it takes him a week to get better, which is nearly a week of lying in bed and recovering from whatever's been fed to him. Just sleeping and drinking and eating the few light meals his stomach can handle at that time.

But once he's there, when Viggo deems him healthy enough to try and force his tongue down his throat again, Hiccup still doesn't stand for it and shows his dismay by fighting back in any way he can.

So he's sick for a second week after his disobedience. Once he's recovered from that, a third week follows. Viggo quickly realizes he has to switch to a new tactic.

Because eventually those injuries heal and that means he can be a little meaner to Hiccup.

There is something Viggo wants from him and he's adamant about getting it.

Besides, with those ribs better now all that food, when not poisoned, is only good for one thing and that is all that extra energy that Viggo deems unessential.

So he cuts Hiccup off. When Hiccup rejects Viggo's hugely inappropriate advances once again, he's denied food for the rest of the day. The first time, he only misses dinner, so that means he's quite hungry by the time breakfast arrives.

But Hiccup automatically denies that meal, too, having learned from the three times he's been made terribly ill through poisoned food to be wary of breakfast.

Lunch comes and Hiccup accepts that meal, but it comes at the price of more of the older man's forceful affection, which he'd strongly rejected once again. At dinner he stays away, breakfast Hiccup misses on purpose, lunch is spoiled by Viggo trying to kiss him and pin him to the bed. It becomes a cycle, with lunch becoming the sole source of his food.

The three weeks of illness has severely weakened him, but by the day he grows even weaker, only given enough to not get him in trouble. That makes it so much harder for him to fight back and Viggo doesn't care if he loses a couple of pounds in the process. And with no injuries getting in the way, Viggo can afford to be a little rough.

If anything, it's fun to see how long Hiccup can keep this up. Everybody has a breaking point and his doesn't seem so easily reached.

"No, please, don't! Stop! Viggo, you're such a piece of shit, stop!" He would shout, he would push, he would kick, but his attempts weaken as his body does.

So naturally, the night comes when Hiccup can no longer fight back and he's run out of energy to do much of anything. By the time he's just shy of being nothing by skin and bones, he's tried everything he can think of to keep Viggo from stealing from him. The younger Grimborn even sports a deeply blue bitemark at some point, to which Ryker's only amused response is; "So he's kinky."

But while his attempts work to deter him for another night, it's not enough in the long run and the lack of strength has put a full stop to his escape plan, too.

Reserves empty, all out of tricks, too run-down to even sass, black and bruised all over, Hiccup eventually can't stop Viggo from taking what he's been after since the first day they met.

He forced himself onto him, raped him, and it's a first time he could've done without.

"Now was that really so hard?" Viggo asks him afterward in a mocking tone as he dresses, leaving Hiccup to curl up and hug himself. There is no comfort afterward and it's on purpose. Viggo doesn't even stay, making Hiccup wallow in the shame all alone.

That night he cries for his parents, pleading with them to come get him. He hasn't cried for them since a dragon attacked him and he had to be flown to the nearest hospital. But being pinned down and raped will certainly do the trick.

During his stay, Hiccup will have a hard time admitting it even to himself that it happened. The mere thought, while the memories are always there, is always cut short.

The next morning is his first breakfast in much too long and Hiccup cannot reject it, despite his fear. It's like a reward for losing.

No matter how awful accepting it makes him feel, he can't refuse. Viggo sits down on the bed next to him as he eats, much too close, his hand on his thigh, and it makes Hiccup sicker to his stomach than being poisoned made him feel. But he couldn't reject the food, couldn't ask Viggo to leave, because his body despairs for that food.

And then afterward, there is a new cycle, a new game. It's one of choice, if you will. Either Hiccup gives in or he starves. Wanting to live and make it out above else, he chooses the former.

That is how his three months in the darkness of the basement went.

In a way, anything after that is child's play compared to what he suffered downstairs. Perhaps, the time spend in the Grimborn home afterward, is time he spends gathering up the pieces of his shattered spirit to put back together again one by one until the holiday trip that leads to his freedom.

It's a shoddy job in the end, but he survives.

Viggo comes to get him on the anniversary of the third month of his abduction with more presentable clothes for him to wear. Something other than the hoodie, shirt, and jeans he'd been taken in, which were dirty and smelly by now.

There's a broken and dull look to Hiccup when Viggo tells him to wash up and dress in them. He quite likes the sight of it. He's fond, even.

The clothes don't fit, appearing to be too large on him. But is that really surprising when the sizes are based on a time before all that weight loss?

When dressed, Hiccup stands before Viggo, staring down at the first decent clothes he's had in much too long, the first clean clothes. They're not his, they're not even the kind of clothes he would wear during formal events. They're so ill-fitting they look almost ridiculous on him, too. That is, he would look ridiculous if the sight of him didn't spark the more natural reaction of; "Oh my God, get this man a doctor."

Viggo is fruitlessly straightening out his clothes that don't fit, but he doesn't seem to mind. Once they're about as neat as he can get them, he cups a hollowed-out cheek and brings Hiccup's face up to have their eyes meet. The entire time, Hiccup has his gaze downcast.

"I want you to know how proud I am of you, my Dear. You've learned your place." Viggo tells him, staring into eyes that are rather empty with a satisfied glint in his own.

When he draws his hand back, Hiccup's gaze is soon downcast again.

Stepping away from him, Viggo motions towards the door, the same one that's been locked for three full months, even whenever Grimborn was down here.

"This is a special day." Hiccup is told.

"You've earned this." He's told.

And now, Viggo wants him to take the stairs up.

The door is opened to him and Hiccup lifts his eyes up. He can see the stairs, can see more of it as it opens wider. There is the soft throbbing of longing in his heart, of excitement.

Is this really it? Is he finally going up there and leaving the basement?

The stairs revealed, Viggo puts a hand on his lower back to gently push him towards it. The steps are wooden, they're filthy, but they're the best stairs he's ever seen.

But even better is that the door on the other side at the top isn't just unlocked, it's open and Hiccup can see light coming in. Natural light! His eyes aren't used to that much anymore and it is blinding, but he refuses to look away and squints.

But it's open, he really is leaving.

The tears he wants to cry then are of joy. There's a spark inside of him that Viggo will come to regret.

He's survived and, in the end, he fights back.

He's not broken.

#rtte #race to the edge #httyd movies #modern au #hiccup haddock #hiccup whump #viggo grimborn #vigcup #one-sided vigcup #httyd fics #one-sided relationship #tw: non-con relationship #tw: non-con #tw: starvation #tw: food deprivation #tw: non-con touching #tw: non-con kissing #my fanfics #ruin

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astridthevalkyrie · 4 years

Text

My Companion: Chapter 3

"Maybe, somewhere along the way, Astrid had fallen in love with her husband, and now she had to pay the price." Or, they have an arranged marriage and Astrid isn't sure how dedicated Hiccup is to her. Oneshot. {Now a series of oneshots!}

Read it on FF.net or A03

Time to come back to Arranged Hiccstrid! I was watching the show for which this fic was named and naturally, felt inspired. Have a little looky into Hiccup and Astrid’s early days!

The Night of the Wedding

Astrid felt like a stranger in her own dress.

She wanted to take it off. Technically, she could. Hiccup Haddock was her husband, as was made official in the past few hours, and it would be appropriate to undress and change in front of him.

In fact, it’d be expected. The night of their wedding...a night to conceive the heir.

Odin curse all of the expectations! If she wanted to make a fuss about propriety and wanted to keep herself clothed in front of him, then she reserved her damn right to do just that.

The chief was not a cruel man, that much she knew. Still, his new and tolerant approach to dragons hardly meant that he’d give the same respect to a woman.

She grit her teeth furiously. The idea that a dragon could be respected more than her on this island filled her entire being with anger. It wasn’t fair.

Hiccup walked into the bedroom behind her, closing the door. Astrid’s heart drummed painfully, and she thought longingly of the boat that Rosie had prepared for her. She could have taken it. She should have taken it. But the thought of bringing such shame on the Hofferson name was one she couldn’t bear.

“This is your room,” Hiccup said quietly.

“My room?” Astrid turned and looked him in the eye for the first time since they had abruptly kissed at the ceremony. “Not...ours?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, a light blush on his cheeks. Astrid found it rather awkward. “No, I can’t imagine you want to sleep with me. As in, in the same bed! Thor, I’m not even - not even talking about…”

He trailed off, coughing into his fist and averting his eyes.

Astrid bit her lip, unsure of what to say. She hadn’t considered that he would give her a choice.

“But this is your room, isn’t it? Your father’s before you?”

“Yeah. It’s okay, though. The bed is new and fresh. I made it myself - not that it matters. The point is, you can take it.”

“Kicking my chief out of his own room would be...dishonorable.” She took a deep breath and sat down. “You may stay.”

Her permission sounded more like a demand, and she thought she saw the briefest flash of a smile on his face, but it was gone so soon that she must have imagined it. He sat down next to her hesitantly, clearly nervous about crossing the line.

Frankly, Astrid found his hesitancy made her feel safe.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Every few seconds Astrid wanted to say something, anything, to get rid of the torturous silence, but every time she opened her mouth to speak, the words died on her tongue. She knew an injustice had been done upon her when she was forced to marry a man she didn’t know. But it was the first time she considered it unfair for him as well. What made her certain that he had wanted to marry a woman he didn’t know?

Astrid looked at him, really looked at him, and felt unsure. He was an attractive man, to put it simply. With a sharp - sharp - jawline, striking emerald eyes, and auburn hair that fell into his eyes, she could gaze at him for hours if it was appropriate. It wasn’t unlikely that he had been courting someone before this.

“I’m not your chief, right?”

“What?” She snapped out of her daydreaming in an instant, looking away to pretend like she hadn’t been looking at him.

“I’m not your chief. You’re not a Berkian.”

Astrid frowned, not having expected to hear such harsh words so soon. And not from him. She had figured the people would not accept her right away, but would her husband resent her because of her blood too? That was hardly fair.

Hiccup’s eyes widened at her dejected look. “That’s not what I meant. I mean - I just thought...I thought you’d want to remain loyal to your own tribe. You don’t have to think of me as your chief just because I’m your husband. I don’t want to be - ” here he winced - “forceful.”

Astrid breathed a sigh of relief.

“You’re really not like most vikings, are you?”

Hiccup laughed, an open laugh that didn’t sound too horrible. “No, but I’ve learned to be okay with it.” He gazed at her hopefully. “Will you be? Okay with it, with me.”

“That’s…” She bit her lip, thinking carefully. “Don’t ask me tonight. Ask me...later.”

He gave her a long, hard look, but nodded. “That’s reasonable.”

With that, they both stood up, and Hiccup stepped out to change into his clothes, leaving her to do the same.

Astrid stared at the door. She didn’t feel...wooed. Or even understood. Nothing in her indicated that she could ever love the chief of Berk.

But marrying wouldn’t be the worst decision of her life.

------------------------------------------------

The Day After They Slept Together

“You know, I’ve been wondering for ages what that noodle has been hiding.”

“Ruffnut,” Astrid said sternly. “I hardly think that’s appropriate.”

“Which is precisely why we’re in your house, and not the Great Hall. So?”

Astrid sighed, exasperated. “I never should have told you we were planning to do it yesterday.”

“Yeah,” Ruff snorted, “You really shouldn’t have.”

She sighed, blowing on her bangs childishly and leaning against the wall. “He was...nice about it.”

Ruff whistled. “That bad, huh?”

“I didn’t say it was bad...”

“There is no good meaning to what you said.”

“I don’t know, Ruffnut!” Astrid slid down the wall dramatically until she was on her knees. “You’re the only person I can talk to about this, but even then I can’t find the words for it. It was good.” At Ruffnut’s dubious look, she doubled down. “It was really good. I don’t have anything to compare to, but it felt good. And that was more than I needed. The point is to conceive an heir.”

All of a sudden, Ruff’s eyes narrowed. It was an unusual look for her - in the few months Astrid had known her, the other woman had rarely ever been angry or upset. “He didn’t pester you about this, did he? He didn’t force you?”

“No! Gods, no.” She took her hand and tugged so she’d sit down. “I brought it up, and asked him if he wanted to, and so we did. It was fine. It was good.”

“No one who actually had a good experience says that, Astrid,” said Ruffnut, giving her a deadpan look.

“What do you want me to say? How magnificent and thrilling the experience was? Of course I can’t, there were no feelings behind it.”

Well, Astrid thought privately, that wasn’t entirely true. There had definitely been a slight bit of sadness. She had imagined that her first time would be, at the very least, with someone she loved. She hadn’t needed it to be amazing, as long as it had been special. But her and Hiccup...what they had done last night had been duty, not love. It struck her as tragic, as much as she tried to get the thought out of her head.

Still, there was no reason to tell Ruffnut that, so she put on a smile and changed the subject.

------------------------------------------------

The First Fight

Hiccup had always struck Astrid as...calm. He didn’t act on his first emotion (which was a stark difference from his childhood, as Snotlout and Fishlegs had told her). He tried to find the good side to every situation, and he rarely got upset. Anger never clouded his judgement.

She must have caught him on an off day, then.

Astrid knew there was something wrong when he came in and didn’t bother to spare her a glance before going up to their room to change. Usually, they would exchange meaningless niceties, while, while grating, had become a part of her routine. Still, she brushed the uneasy feeling off and told herself that he was probably just tired.

When Hiccup came back down, she chanced a glance at his eyes, and was stricken by the intensity in them.

He sat down on the chair opposite from her and without missing a beat, asked, “What did you tell my people today?”

The possessive way he spoke was the final warning, and Astrid got ready to defend herself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Hoark said you told them we were going to war.”

Astrid frowned, leaning back. “I did not say that. I said it was likely, but I certainly did not give a declaration in that way.”

“You,” he spoke with barely contained venom, “are the chieftess. Everything you say is a declaration. I’ve had to tell everyone that you were exaggerating.”

“I - so what if they did take it as a declaration? It is the truth. I believe in telling the truth. We probably will be going to war with the Lava Louts, so people should be prepared -”

“That wasn’t your choice to make,” Hiccup snapped, and for the first time since she had met him, Astrid felt some passion from him towards her. Too bad it was negative.

Digging her nails into her skin under the table, Astrid answered in her most monotone voice. “I apologize. I did not realize that talking to your people would be against the rules.”

Hiccup had looked like he was going to fire back, but instead, he opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, oddly reminding her of a blubbering fish.

“Is that what you think I’m doing right now?” he finally muttered. “That I’m setting down the law? That I’m restricting you?”

Even before she spoke, she knew it was a dirty blow, but she couldn’t help it.

“Well, that is what people do with their prizes, isn’t it?”

She knew it wasn’t fair. She knew that Hiccup had never treated her like a prize, or anything less than her own person. But the conversation she had had with the people today had been the closest she had ever felt to them, with a similar sense of pride. She had felt like a Berkian. And Hiccup was once again telling her that she wasn’t.

Hiccup stood up so quickly that the chair fell back behind him. “Hel of a prize, Hofferson. I thought they were supposed to be rewarding.”

Astrid scoffed, standing up as well. “You don’t even deny it. You don’t like me talking to the people, you just want me sitting in here everyday, smiling and knitting a-and cooking you a nice dinner, isn’t that it?”

“That is exactly it!” Hiccup said, his words laced with cutting sarcasm. “Didn’t you read the prisoner’s pamphlet the night of our wedding? Or did you miss it under the guide on how to act like a victim?”

“Oh, right, because I should be happy! I should be thanking you, Chief.” She spat out his title like it was a curse. “For giving me the honor of marrying me and taking me away from my home!”

“You think I wanted this!?”

“No, Hiccup, clearly you didn’t!”

“Oh, for the love of - I don’t want you telling people unconfirmed things so that they don’t go around calling my wife a liar and a gossip!”

“I’d rather be a gossip than an enemy!” she cried.

“Dammit, Astrid, I’m looking out for your reputation!”

“Well I think you’re just looking out for yours!”

They both glared at each other. Astrid realized her fists were clenched, while Hiccup’s hair was unruly and there was a fresh cut on his neck.

She swallowed, not liking the feeling of her anger thawing out. She wanted to be angry. This was the most passionate she had felt in ages. Anger had always been her strong suit. Still, she couldn’t in good conscience ignore the cut either.

So in the most uncaring tone she could muster, Astrid said, “You should probably go get that checked by Gothi.“

“What are you - oh.” Hiccup put a hand over the cut as though she hadn’t already seen it. “I...I meant to go anyway.”

“Then go.”

Hiccup stared at her for a few seconds with an unreadable expression. “Yeah. I think I should.”

He brushed past her, their shoulders knocking into each other. Her heart felt...heavy, and when she heard the door shut, she desperately wanted to go open it and run after him, just to yell some more.

That couldn’t be what love felt like. No, this was just her anger issues. They had always been pretty bad.

Astrid sunk back into her chair, and buried her face in her hands, wondering why arguing with him had been more pleasant than any nicety they had ever exchanged.

------------------------------------------------

That Time They Got Drunk

Hiccup hiccupped, and the sight and irony of it sent Astrid over the edge. She giggled, her head falling on Ruffnut’s shoulder. Ruff shrugged her off, but only so she could stand up and pull Astrid to her feet to dance.

“Here’s to...er…” Snotlout looked around for help but when no one offered any, he shrugged and went on. “Here’s to Berk’s nine hundredth anniversary!”

“It’s Berk’s four hundredth anniversary, you knucklehead,” said Fishlegs, who definitely held his alcohol better than the rest of them.

“Come o-o-o-n, Astrid, you can dance better than that!”

“Here’s to the greatest chief Berk has ever seen!” Tuffnut shouted. Him and Snotlout hollered and congratulated Hiccup with affectionate punches. While usually more serious than this, Hiccup laughed, taking another swig of his mead.

The music that they were playing in the Great Hall seemed to grow louder. Astrid, who had grumbled about the dress she had to wear only a few hours before, now twirled magnificently in it, her steps becoming lighter and her rather mesmerizing dance getting the attention of several people across the room, including Hiccup, who was all of a sudden looking at her rather appreciatively.

“Here’s to...here’s to Gobber!” Snotlout shouted, looking around wildly. The man in question was fast asleep, slumped over Grump in the middle of the hall.

Astrid’s eyes locked with Hiccup’s, and her heart pounded. His gaze was intense, and something inside her thrummed with anticipation. There was something intoxicating about having the most powerful man in the room watching you with such a hungry gaze. And there was nothing anyone could say about it either, he was her husband.

“Here’s to Astrid’s dancing skills!” Snotlout cheered, sloshing a bit of mead over himself.

She finished grandly and got similar cheers of approval. Only Hiccup remained quiet, and their eyes stayed glued on each other, drinking up all the mead allowed them to see.

“That was amazing, Astrid.” Fishlegs smiled. “Very fluid.”

“Yeah, I bet Hiccup thinks so too,” Snotlout muttered not-so-quietly with a snicker.

The two of them broke out of their trance and shot similar dry looks to Snotlout, who shrugged. “What? I’m just saying, Hiccup thinks you’re beautiful, Astrid.” Then he laughed as though he had just said the funniest thing ever. “Isn’t that right, Hiccup?”

Everyone looked at the chief, who looked up at his wife.

“Of course I think she’s beautiful,” Hiccup said easily, and Astrid’s cheeks flushed.

Hiccup and Astrid left much later, still heavily drunk. Tuff and Ruff had kept them drinking, with their constant dares and challenges. Stumbling and giggling at nothing in particular, they finally reached their hut.

Hiccup placed his hand on the handle, but before he had a chance to open it, Astrid grabbed his arm and tugged him back.

He looked at her, completely bewildered. “What?”

Feeling ridiculously bold and giddy, Astrid leaned in as close as she could and whispered, “I did that dance for you.”

Immediately, Hiccup’s eyes darkened, and he trapped her against the walls of the hut, a hand on each side, just as she had planned. His gaze went from her eyes, slowly, teasingly down to her lips. Astrid saw his throat bob, but without another moment of hesitation, he leaned down and kissed her.

It wasn’t their first kiss. But, Astrid knew as she tugged him closer, this was what she had wanted to feel the first time she kissed her husband. He wasn’t suffocating, but he was there, overwhelming her senses. The quiet possessive growl he let out drove her crazy, but Astrid remembered to pull back for air. She let herself have a second before kissing him again. One of his hands snaked around her waist and pulled her even closer, before he pulled back only to pepper hot kisses down her neck.

Astrid let her head fall back against the wall, panting excitedly.

They went inside, only pulling away from each other to take off articles of clothing…

Astrid climbed into the bed, with Hiccup only a few steps behind her…

She gripped the sheets in excited frustration...

Her head hit the pillow….

And the two of them were asleep in minutes.

Turned out, they really were very bad at holding their mead.

------------------------------------------------

The First Time They Were In Sync

Spitelout’s voice grated on Astrid so much that she was ready to jump across the table and smack the man. Gods, he ran his mouth as though he actually had anything meaningful to say. And Sven! Odin help her, the man only saw fit to screech at the most unimportant of issues.

“I say we cut them off entirely!”

Hiccup sighed, and she saw his lips twitch in annoyance. “As I’ve said about six times” - not that anyone was counting - “that seems more like a punishment than a compromise.”

Astrid could predict what Spitelout was going to say next the second he opened his mouth.

“Vikings do not compromise! That isn’t our way!”

Astrid stared sadly at Stormfly, the Nadder she had bonded with recently. Flying, surprisingly, was an extremely fun pastime, it was no wonder Hiccup did it so often. She longed to get on Stormfly’s back and fly away from this council meeting. It wasn’t like anyone but her husband cared what she had to say anyway.

“Just because something has been done a certain way for ages, does not mean that it’s how it has to be done. Just take -”

“The dragons, Spitelout,” she drawled. “You do have one, do you not? Or is it a sheep you so joyously fly? If we stuck to what Vikings did, then we’d have that dragon’s head on a stick.”

“Exactly the point, if a little crude.” Hiccup snapped his fingers and pointed dorkily. “We’re friends with the dragons, and better off because of it.”

“The dragons,” Spitelout began nastily, “are the reason why other tribes mistrust us.”

“And they are also the reason that none of them would actually be mad enough to attack us. Which means there is no need to punish them for something they haven’t and won’t do.”

Hiccup looked like he was desperately trying to hide a smile. “I don’t think I have anything to add to that. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I believe I have to attend to the forge, and Astrid - have you done the perimeter check today? You should get on that.”

Astrid, who had certainly done the perimeter check that day, stood up eagerly. “Yes, I should definitely get to that. Very important business.”

Hiccup disguised his laugh with a cough.

“The council is adjourned.”

------------------------------------------------

When Hiccup Got Injured

“Get in, get in, get in! What happened!?”

“It’s not that big of a deal, honestly,” Hiccup said, waving a dismissing hand as though his armor and tunic weren’t torn and there wasn’t a cut on his torso. “Just a wild dragon acting...well, wild.”

“I’m not a medic, Hiccup. Why didn’t you go straight to Gothi?” She directed him to sit on one of the chairs before using one of the fire prevention stations that Hiccup kept around to fill a bucket with water.

“Because it’s a small cut?”

Astrid sat in front of him, hesitantly wetting a rag before pressing it to his torso. Hiccup hissed in pain and she winced. It hardly seemed like a “small cut.”

They sat in silence as Astrid dabbed the wound gently, hoping Hiccup wouldn’t realize how thoroughly inexperienced she was at this sort of thing. She bit her lip and continued awkwardly pressing the wound until their eyes met.

Hiccup smiled, genuinely. “Thank you, Astrid.”

She found herself smiling a little too. For some reason, the typical uncomfortable tension wasn’t in the air tonight, and Astrid felt a little...relaxed. There was a comforting aura in the room that she faintly realized had not been there before he came in. It was strange, almost as if him being there put her at ease. But that sounded ridiculous, they weren’t even friends.

Astrid stood up, brushing the distracting thoughts out of her head. She started to head for the stairs, until Hiccup quietly murmured, “Astrid?”

She turned around. “Yes?”

Hiccup looked like he was struggling to ask her something, but so quickly that she nearly missed it, he asked, “Is it later?”

Astrid could have pretended she didn’t know what he was talking about, but the second he said it, she knew. She knew he was referring to the night of their wedding, when she told him to ask her later whether or not she’d be okay with him. With all of it.

She had a fleeting fantasy, one where she said that she was more than okay with him. She was happy! She was in love with him! She would embrace him and they would go up to their room together, lay by each other, and bask in each other’s love.

“Not yet,” she responded truthfully.

Hiccup did not look disappointed. He did not look happy. But he looked like he understood, and nodded. They exchanged a meaningful look, before Hiccup stood up, yawning. “I actually have to go back to the forge, I have a few things to work on.”

Astrid hesitated only a second before blurting out, “Do you need help?”

His head snapped up to her gazing hopefully, fiddling with the wet rag still in her hands.

“I’d appreciate it.”

Astrid smiled again.

I hope you liked it! Remember, in these moments, they don’t love each other, they barely know each other. For the cute romance, I’d read the previous two chapters.

Until next time!

#httyd #hiccstrid #hiccup #astrid #valkyrie stories

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siodymph · 3 years

Text

“A Hogsmeade Holiday”

Hey @ohlooksheswriting I was your secret santa for the RotBTD Gift Exchange! I can’t begin to tell you how fun your prompt was to work with! I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did writing this! Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

All around them powdery white snowflakes fell from the sky. For now it was a light snow, not even enough to coat the already-dead grass in ice. But in a few weeks, Hiccup imagined the entire school grounds would be blanketed in several feet of snow.

Soon it would look just like home. Berk was so far North, the island was almost always icy. Even during the summer there’d still be a bitter chill in the air. And Hiccup did not miss it at all. After a few years Hiccup had come to enjoy the climate at Hogwarts, even began to prefer it, the school was south enough to actually have seasons and change. Actually getting to experience the melting of spring and the warmth of summer. But when things became cold, it would remind him of home. Whether that was a good or bad thing depended on his mood really.

His best friend Jack however, absolutely adored the cold. Far more than any Wizard possibly could. It was like the cold gave him a new-found energy source. Just seeing the snow flurries seemed to put an extra spring in the Jack’s step. Practically bouncing as the two made their way off the school grounds and towards Hogsmeade Village.

Jack had told him one of the Gryffindor girls in their year was hosting a holiday party at the Three Broomsticks. For Fifth-years only. Apparently it was an effort to bring their year closer together and ease some of the tension between Hogwarts Houses.

So of course, Jack was dragging his Ravenclaw friend to this holiday party.

“But I don’t even celebrate Christmas, I grew up with Sn-”

“Snoggletog, yeah, yeah I know.” Jack was quick to interrupt. “And technically Snoggletog and Yule came first before any Christians came on the wizarding scene. You told me before… I still hate the name though. Makes it sound like a holiday exclusively for swapping spit.”

“Gross.” Hiccup said wrinkling his nose. “So why are you bringing me?”

“Well they aren’t the same but they do celebrate a lot of the same stuff.” Jack explained. “Plus if you stayed cooped up in the library any longer, you’d probably start going looney.”

Hiccup huffed at that, quickly pulling a necklace out of his satchel. “Well unlike some people, I actually want to figure out this challenge Professor Flitwick gave us in Charms!”

Jack just shrugged. “I honestly thought he was just making Dreamworks up. I mean really, a secret necklace that you manipulate in your dreams? And when you wake up it just, happens?”

Hiccup looked down to gaze at his charm. It was a simple chain with a moon-shaped pendent that sparkled oddly. “I’m so close to cracking this thing. I can feel it!”

“You know Hic, you don’t have to be perfect at everything.” Jack said with a laugh. “Maybe you’re just meant to be a Magical Creatures kinda guy. Like that one guy you’re always going on about. Commander Newt, right?”

“Oh you mean, Newt Scamander? Only the greatest Magizoologist of our time?” Hiccup asked dryly.

“Yeah, that guy!” Jack teased.

Hiccup chuckled and shook his head. “You’re lucky we’re friends. Otherwise you’d probably fail all your classes.”

“Not my fault you explain things better than any of our professors do.” Jack replied, his eyes sparked as an idea came to him. “Maybe that’s what you should do! You should become a professor!”

“Now there’s an idea.” Hiccup replied. “But I have no idea what I’d even want to teach. There so much to learn about magic. It’s overwhelming sometimes.”

Jack didn’t seem nearly as concerned as Hiccup. “I just focus on the subjects I feel a connection with. I’m just gonna follow that pull and see where it takes me!”

“Well good luck with that.” Hiccup said sarcastically. “So while you and all the other Gryffindor go flying by the seat of your pants, the Ravenclaws like myself will be trying to actually learn and master our subjects.”

“You’re always so quick to divide people into houses.” Jack pointed out.

“Well, everyone from my island normally lands in Gryffindor. So when I didn’t that kinda caused a schism.” Hiccup said. Though if he was honest, that schism between himself and everyone else from Berk had existed long before he met the Sorting Hat in first year…

“Well who knows? Maybe this party is just the thing to close that gap!” Jack continued enthusiastically.

“I still can’t believe a Gryffindor set this whole thing up.”

“What’s so hard to believe about that?” Jack asked.

“This whole thing sounds like something a Hufflepuff would do.” Hiccup explained. “Trying to get everyone to be friends? Being all… friendly?”

“Well, if you knew Anna they way I do, you’d know that girl is an absolute party animal.” Jack replied. “If that girl can find a reason to throw a party then she’ll throw it!”

“Maybe she should have been a Hufflepuff. They’re all sweet and kind like that.”

“Maybe.” Jack countered. “And maybe you should have been one too! Then maybe you’d chill out more.”

While Jack laughed Hiccup just shrugged.

Soon enough they arrived at the Three Broomsticks. The whole building was decked out in Christmas decoration. And when they stepped inside, the boys saw that the Tavern was packed to the gills with pretty much everyone from their year. Music drifted through the air, competing for volume with everyone hooting and hollering.

Instinctively, Hiccup felt himself move closer towards the door. But Jack moved forwards, taking Hiccup with him as they made their way towards the bar.

“Hey Bun! Get me a butterbeer!” Jack called out to the guy running the bar, a Pooka actually by the name of Bunnymund. The man gave Jack a very pointed glare. But Jack hardly seemed worried. “And make it frozen, extra icy!”

Bunnymund for his part just rolled his eyes, muttering something about Jack being a “sub-zero gumby”. Hiccup almost missed it when the Pooka asked him what he wanted.

“Oh, uh.” Hiccup looked around the bar before realizing Bunnymund had been talking to him. “I’ll just have a Pumpkin Juice cider, please.”

“Sure thing kid.” Bunnymund replied. Before disappearing to go grab their drinks.

Hiccup was about to ask Jack what he’d done to annoy Bunnymund so much when a girl’s voice suddenly boomed across the Tavern.

“Jack! Ye gommy eijit! Where’ve you been?”

Both boys, and almost everyone else in the tavern, turned to see Merida DunBroch standing up at a table. She was a Slytherin girl. Her dark green house scarf was wrapped loosely around her neck and completely countered her massive plume of curly red hair.

“Sorry, Mer!” Jack replied, slinging an arm around Hiccup. “Someone here needed a little extra persuading.”

“Well come on then, get over here!” Merida practically demanded, bouncing her hands off the table as she did so. “I’ve spent the last half hour staking out this table for us! Some nyaffs almost stole it from me!”

As they moved to go sit down, Hiccup noticed how Merida gave a few boys from their grade a very smug look. He remembered when they were all first-years Merida use to hang out with them a lot because they were all from Scotland. That had been before she got to know Jack and Hiccup. The boys for their part scoffed at Merida and walked away with a pout.

As they all sat down, Jack leaned over and kissed Merida on the cheek. And within seconds the two began to bicker. While they went at it Hiccup let his mind wander. Despite the goal of the party, it seemed like a big chunk of the students were sticking to their own houses instead of mingling. Oh well, at least Anna had tried to bridge that gap in their year.

This whole thing was meant to bring the houses closer together but personally, Hiccup already had friends outside of his house. So he didn’t understand why he needed to be here. He was good on the whole friend-quota. Not to mention, big gatherings between houses like these made him nervous. Because if Ravelnclaws, Slytherins and Hufflepuffs were all here, that meant Gryffindors would be as well.

And while Hiccup got along perfectly well with Jack, that same sentiment was not there for any other Gryffindor kids. Especially not the ones from his hometown of Berk.

As if sensing his dread, the universe decided it was time to mess with him again. Just as Bunnymund gave them their drinks Hiccup saw the front doors open out of the corner of his eye. And stepping into the Tavern was none-other than Berk’s finest. Most of the kids didn’t notice him, but one of the girls, Astrid, did. The expression on her face was unreadable.

Stumbling out of his chair, Hiccup quickly got up. “I- uh- I’m gonna go get some fresh air.”

“But it’s freezing out there.” Merida said.

“Yeah, nothing like a lungful of ice to get your blood pumping. Right Jack?”

Jack turned to see the group of Gryffindor kids and turned back to Hiccup, “You seriously gonna leave cause of them?”

“I’ll be right back.” Hiccup said, not even grabbing his pumpkin juice as he left. “I promise. I just need to go clear my head.”

And with that, Hiccup hurried out one of the back doors. Once outside, he leaned up against a wall and watched his own breath fog up. It always reminded him of a dragon when it did that. The thought helped him calm down a little.

He hated running into those kids. It was bad enough he had to live with them every summer. But Hogwarts was supposed to be his element. An escape from all that. A place where he didn’t have to hear how much of a scrawny weakling he was. He didn’t have to be reminded of how lowly everyone on Berk thought of him.

Hiccup decided he’d just have to wait until they all left and then he’d go back to Merida and Jack.

In the meantime, he walked around the outside of the Three Broomsticks and sat out front to people-watch. Hogsmead was an interesting town. If it hadn’t been for the school it would have just been a humble village somewhere out on the Countryside. But because there was a massive wizarding school next door there was a hodgepodge of different stores that either sold simple-yet-practical necessities, specifically school-supplies, or superfluous toys and candy. There was no in-between. And the same could be said for the people as well. They were either rugged elders who lived in the same town for generations, or were bright-eyed youngsters playing in the snow without a care in the world.

It was a unique bunch for a unique town, Hiccup guessed. At least everyone’s Christmas decorations, plus the freshly fallen snow made it all gentle and beautiful. As if blending the two polar opposites together somehow.

As he watched the snow fall, one figure walking through the streets caught his eye.

It was a girl around his age. But he had never seen them before in school. She was wearing a homemade bright purple cloak that stood out among the grey walls and grey ice. Her arms were full with bags and packages. And her hair was a beautiful golden blonde, so long that it had to be both braided and pulled up into a bun. Hiccup found himself immediately curious as to who the girl was. She didn’t look like a villager or a student, so why would she possibly be here?

As she passed her foot must have caught on a patch of ice. All at once the poor girl slipped and fell, and all of the items in her hands went scattering across the ground.

Before he could even think twice, Hiccup was on his feet and rushing over to the girl.

“Are you ok?” Hiccup asked.

The girl looked up at Hiccup with a gasp. Green eyes wide with fear. But when she realized Hiccup meant her no harm she laughed nervously.

“I’m fine!” She replied. “I’m just really clumsy. Mother always said I need to watch where I walk.”

Taking her hand, Hiccup helped the girl up and began picking up all her things.

“Oh! Thank you!” She said, somewhat surprised.

“It’s no problem.” Hiccup replied.

As he collected the girl’s things, he noticed it was all books, uniforms, vials and cauldrons. The kind of stuff you’d buy at Diagon Ally before getting to school, not half-way through the year.

“What? Did someone steal your stuff?” Hiccup couldn’t help but ask. “Or did you just get here or something?”

“Last week.” The girl explained. “My mother has been teaching me privately. And normally the school doesn’t accept transfers, but they made an exception for me. I got a letter insisting I attend their school actually.”

“Oh,” Hiccup replied. He didn’t even know their school accepted transfers. “So you’ll be at Hogwarts from now on?”

“Yes, I’m so excited to attend. I’ve heard so much about the curriculum, and the library!” The girl replied. Before suddenly jumping as if she just remembered something. “Oh no, wait! I’m so sorry, I never even asked what your name is!”

“Hiccup” Hiccup quickly replied. “Hiccup Horrendous Haddock. And you are?”

“I’m Rapunzel. Uh, Rapunzel Gothel.” The girl, Rapunzel, replied with a little curtsey. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Feeling’s mutual.”

Rapunzel smiled as she scanned over all the buildings, clearly looking for something. “One of the girls from my class. Invited me to a Christmas party, at some place called the Three-”

“The Three Broomsticks?”

Rapunzel’s eyes lit up at the name. “You know it?”

Hiccup nodded, gesturing to the building behind him. “It’s right here actually. Every fifth-year at the school is in there.”

“Perfect!” Rapunzel said. “This way is much more efficient! I can meet everyone at once!”

“That’s one way to look at it.” Hiccup replied. He was still incredibly curious about the girl so he offered. “My friends and I have a table inside, you can sit with us and get situated if you like.”

“I’d love that.” Rapunzel replied. “Lead the way!”

As they stepped back into the Three Broomsticks, Hiccup made sure to avoid the table currently taken by Astrid. Instead sticking to the back wall until they got to Merida and Jack’s table.

When Merida saw them come over, she grinned.

“It’s about time you got here, ya Blether!”

Hiccup was about to respond but much to his surprise Rapunzel replied instead.

“Sorry! I had to stop on my way to buy some school supplies.” She explained as she set all her bags on the table. “I had a little trouble finding this place, but Hiccup here helped me out!”

Hiccup looked between the girls in confusion. “Wait, you two already know each other?”

“Nothing gets past you, Sherlock.” Jack teased.

“That’s m’boyfriend Jack, by the way.” Merida told Rapunzel. “Complete idiot but he’s cute. And Jakc, since you’re the last one out of the loop, this here’s Rapuznel.”

“How do you do?” Jack said with a nod.

Merida scrunched up her nose at her boyfriend before answering Hiccup. “Ey, Punzie here showed up in my D.A.D.A. class this week. I swear this girl’s a mad genius! She’s got a better grip than most the folks at this entire school!”

“So you immediately became her class partner?” Jack asked.

“You know it!” Merida replied. “If it weren’t for her, I’d be failing this new assignment for sure!”

Rapunzel blushed under all the sudden praise. “It’s not a big deal you guys. We’re just learning about some cognitive curses, and the defensive spells you use counter them with.”

“That’s a mouthful.” Jack teased.

“That sounds really interesting, actually.” Hiccup quickly said in defense. “What kind of curses are you working with?”

“Well,” Rapunzel began. “There’s this one that seems really tricky. It’s called the Disini Curse. Once activated, an evil wizard could steal ideas or dreams their victim has. If the victim doesn’t realize what happened to them, the curse can be active for years and they’d be none the wiser.”

“That sounds horrible.” Hiccup said with a slight shiver.

Rapunzel nodded in agreement. “That’s why knowing the counterspells and remedies is so important. The quickest way to counter the curse is with a mind-clearing potion to re-encourage an independent mind. Though if you’re not careful you can easily be put back under the curse.”

For a moment, Rapunzel looked around the table before looking down sheepishly. “I sorta just hijacked the conversation there. I’m sorry for being rude.”

“You weren’t being rude at all.” Hiccup replied. “I find cognitive spells like that very interesting. My D.A.D.A. class is kinda behind so we’re still going over magical-creature defensive measures.”

“Oh that sounds fun!” Rapunzel said. “I wish I had been here for that.”

“Yeah, it was fun at first. The C.M.C. professor brought in some actual animals.”

For a moment, Hiccup glanced towards Jack and Merida who were grinning to each other like they were sharing some secret.

“You two got something you’d like to share?” Hiccup asked dryly.

“Nope!” Jack replied.

Merida snorted but didn’t say anything else.

Deciding to leave it be, Hiccup turned back to Rapunzel. “Anyways, I don’t know when you’ll do the hat sorting ceremony, but when you do I hope they place you in Ravenclaw. We could use someone brilliant like you.”

After hearing that, Merida laughed out loud, cackling and smacking the table with her hand. “You- You gommy! She already got her house!”

“What?”

Rapunzel looked sheepish as she explained. “It was the first thing they had me do when I arrived.”

Reaching up, Rapunzel undid her cloak to reveal her school uniform. And there loosely wrapped around her collar was a tie.

A yellow tie.

She’d been placed in Hufflepuff?

While Hiccup looked shocked, Merida continued to laugh, clearly enjoying this.

“I’m sure you guys will have some classes together.” Jack said lightly, trying to console him Hiccup realized. “And it’s not like we don’t see each other all the time, despite us all being in different houses.”

“That’s true.” Hiccup had to admit.

Still he couldn’t shake his surprise. Rapunzel seemed so smart and creative. She was everything admirable in a Ravenclaw. How did she not end up in the same house as him?

Maybe he didn’t know the other Hogwarts Houses as well as he thought…

He was pulled from his musing when Merida reached over and put Jack in a headlock. “You’re lucky Jack! I don’t think that dis-curse would work on you. Cause your head’s already empty!”

“Hey I resent that!” Jack said, laughing as her began to wrestle with his girlfriend.

Rapunzel watched them with a curious smile. “Are they usually like this?”

“All the time.” Hiccup replied. “If they aren’t acting like wildlings, that’s when you really gotta worry.”

That made Rapunzel laugh. Hiccup couldn’t help but notice how melodious her laugh was. It made him want to laugh to.

Hiccup couldn’t wait for Rapunzel to join their little gang of Hogwarts misfits.

#rotbtd #hiccunzel #jarida #rotbtd gift exchange 2020 #big four gift exchange 2020 #the big four

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rideonwings · 4 years

Text

The Enevitable Cliche Quarantine Story

Pairing: Hiccup/Astrid

Summary: Stranger-Neighbors lean on each other during the quarantine.

A/N: It’s cliche and silly, but dammit, I think a lot of us need something cute and fluffy these days. There’s more written, I’m just struggling to focus on continuing, so maybe posting this will make me work on it more. Generally I don’t post things until they’re further along, but if you like it maybe I’ll get my ass in gear.

Day 1:

Astrid

After yesterday’s official announcement, once the panic had settled to a mild simmer, and once she’d stocked her fridge and pantry to the fullest possibly capacity with anything she could find left in the vacant grocery store, Astrid was left sitting on her couch coming to the realization that she had an unknown expanse of open time to fill and not a whole lot of ideas on how to fill it.

Sure, she had her thesis to finish, and the gym she worked at part time had asked her to film a few workout classes a week for their clientele to follow along with, but, in the normal state of things, she was the type of person to fill her days with errands, exercise, and activity. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been in her apartment past 10:00am. A shelter-in-place was the opposite of all of those things.

Even if she wasn’t particularly social, Astrid thrived on routine. Her days were scheduled, regimented, and tidy, bouncing from teaching classes at the gym to study sessions with her colleagues in her DPT program to her waitressing job at night. She wasn’t really sure what to make of this crazy concept of ‘flex time’. She strolled around her apartment a few times, looking for things to pick up or organize, leaning down to scratch her cat between the ears every time she walked passed. Finally, she sighed, flopping her arms against her side heavily and collapsed onto the couch. She flipped through her Netflix account and selected an old favorite, grabbed a blanket, and tried to embrace her new normal.

Hiccup:

Honestly, he should have paid more attention. He’d known the world was reeling with the impacts of this virus, but he hadn’t really thought about its application to his life until his boss had sent out an email yesterday and then basically forced everyone to leave the premises until further notice. As Hiccup was packing up all of the equipment he would need to work from home for the next… while, he’d joked with Fishlegs that he should have stopped at the store earlier.

It had been a joke, and yet, now, as he roamed the grocery store looking for anything remotely appetizing, he felt woefully unprepared. As someone who didn’t spend a lot of time at home, mostly rolling out of bed, walking the dog and shuffling off to work where he’d stay way longer than he should have, he wasn’t entirely sure what ‘staples’ consisted of. He could cook, was a good cook in fact, he just never made the time for it. Now he was trying to figure out how to make a meal out of kidney beans and frozen brussel sprouts. At least he had toilet paper.

Finally, he stumbled out of the store into the deceptively beautiful day, rolling a cart of completely random supplies to his car and wondering if he should get gas before the world ended. When he pulled up to his apartment a few minutes later, he looked up to his balcony window as he always did to see Toothless’ smiling face in the window, tail wagging hurriedly, as he waited for his owner to come inside. At least he wouldn’t be alone during this.

Day 2:

Astrid

Astrid never would have believed that you could get sore from sitting on the couch all day, and yet, as she rose from bed that morning, she felt the unmistakable pull of pained muscles in her lower back.

“Gods,” she moaned, “This is going to be the month ever.”

She’d stayed up way later than normal, watching old episodes of her favorite tv shows to bring her comfort, though in reality, she’d mostly just stared through the screen and let her mind wander. Now, bending over to touch her hands to the floor, she knew that if she was going to survive this pandemic, she’d need to figure out a way to schedule her days, even when there was nothing to fill them with. Maybe she could learn to cook? For someone as health obsessed as she was, she lived predominantly on protein shakes, microwaved lunches and cheese and crackers. Half of the groceries she’d bought over the last week she had no idea what to do with.

Astrid turned on her coffee maker and fed Stormfly, continuing to stretch out cramped muscles as the scent of coffee filled the apartment. The sun was shining brightly from her balcony window, so once she’d filled a mug just the way she liked it, she opened the sliding door and curled herself into one of the padded wicker chairs her mom had dropped off one day after cleaning out her garage in preparation for her move across the country.

As she sat there and sipped at her drink, she tried to remember the last time she’d actually been out here. It wasn’t exactly secluded: the balcony itself was only about 12 feet long and 5 feet wide, with a few feet of gap between it and the one next to it, though it looked out onto a fairly nice part of town with a park.

She didn’t really know her neighbors, either. The man in the unit to her right seemed to work opposite schedules as her, waking up later than her and coming back when she was getting ready for bed. She’d only really seen him from afar, walking his dog or getting in and out of his car on the weekends, but she thought he was about her same age. Her other neighbor was a cranky old man that never spoke to her and made it clear that he preferred it that way. The few times they’d bumped into each other at the mail slot he’d been gruff and rude, and honestly, she hadn’t tried to be nice after that. It hadn’t seemed worth the effort.

It wasn’t exactly warm out, being late March and all, but she pulled her bare legs into her hoodie and enjoyed the quiet. Astrid tried to remember the last time she’d felt like she didn’t have to be somewhere, turning to face the sun more directly. After a while Stormfly edged out onto the balcony and curled up next to her, adding to her feeling of contentment.

An explosion of noise erupted from her right, jerking her out of her trance and spilling her remaining coffee all over the cement as she jumped. She whipped around to find the source, noticing her neighbor’s black dog with his nose pressed against the window, staring intently at Stormfly, who had poked her head up to return the glare, apparently unimpressed with the dog’s theatrics. Astrid swore under her breath as she wiped coffee from her hoodie sleeve, cursing the dog for ruining a nice moment.

“Toothless, Gods, what is wrong with you?!” She heard from inside the unit. She looked over to see the dog’s owner glaring at the excited animal before he opened the door slowly, letting the dog onto the balcony. The dog - a black lab - slinked onto the balcony like spilled ink and came directly to the railing, still looking at Stormfly and sniffing interestedly but refraining from barking. “I’m sorry if he scared you,” the man said, running his hands through his longish hair and looking decidedly sleepy. “He’s not actually trying to attack you or your cat, he just wants a friend.”

Astrid nodded, still feeling a little annoyed at the disruption, but accepting the apology. She shifted, picking Stormfly off of her lap and putting her down. “It’s okay, he just surprised me.”

“Sorry, he’s always crazy in the morning.” The neighbor-guy said, his tousled hair falling over his eyes as he scratched the dog, who wiggled ridiculously in response, looking up at his owner adoringly. “Once he’s had his walk he’ll calm down.”

Astrid smiled despite herself at the dog’s happy reaction. “You still get to take him on walks?”

Neighbor-guy shrugged. “I’d assume so, as long as I stay away from crowds and other people. Otherwise I’m going to have to send the government a bill for carpet cleaning.”

Astrid snickered. “I’m not sure they’ll have that in their budget after all this is over.”

Neighbor-guy smiled, and Astrid was struck by how cute it was. “I’m going to go take him out. Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.” Astrid replied, standing from her chair as they went back through their sliding door. She then made her way back inside to refill her mug before opening her computer to work on her thesis. Maybe she’d lucked out and found someone to keep her company during all this.

Hiccup

As eerie as it had been to walk Toothless in the nearly deserted streets and parks of their town, Hiccup had taken advantage of the extra time in his day to really tire his buddy out, walking for nearly two hours while simultaneously calling into conference calls for work and enjoying the sunshine.

Now, settled back in his apartment, his stump was throbbing as a result of the extra activity. He wrapped a cold, wet washcloth around the base of his left leg and settled onto his balcony with his computer and a beer, because why not? It was after noon!

Popping in his headphones, he opened his CAD program and began refining some specs on his latest project. While the extra screens on his workstation would have been helpful for this, he was perfectly content out here. Toothless nestled against him at the seat of his chair.

Hiccup lost track of time, alternating between chatting with Fishlegs and uploading revisions to their project board. He hardly noticed when his make-shift ice pack dried and fell off his leg. He was finally jostled out of his focused state when Toothless jumped up from beneath him, trotting over to the railing bordering the neighboring unit. Hiccup turned to see what the dog was getting up to, only to see the woman next door coming out onto the balcony again, her cat curled around her heels. She smiled at him, waving hesitantly. He pulled the headphones from his ears and returned her wave. “Hey.”

“I see you survived.” She said with mild amusement. Her bright blue eyes - so bright that he could distinguish their color even from this distance - trailed down to Toothless, before catching on his half-leg. “Oh!” She exclaimed softly, her hand flying to her mouth.

Hiccup instinctively folded his knee, tucking his stump underneath him. “Don’t worry, that wasn’t a casualty of this morning’s trip, it’s old.” He said, trying to lighten her reaction. “As far as I know, this virus isn’t known for removing limbs.”

“No… I…” The blonde blushed, her hand clenching reflexively at her side. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have reacted that way. It just surprised me.”

Hiccup smiled kindly. “It’s fine, really. People don’t expect it. I guess Toothless and I both are full of surprises.” He said, gesturing to the dog’s own stump, which fell just short of his hock. Astrid’s eyes widened again and she came to crouch at the bars of her railing.

“I never noticed when I saw you walking him, he moves so well!” She said, reaching towards the lab instinctively, though her hand fell a few feet short. “You two match.”

“Yeah, we took that dog / owner costume thing one step too far.” Hiccup joked and she laughed. “He has a little mini-prosthetic to match mine, he just doesn’t need to wear it in the house.”

The girl pulled her chair up closer to the bars and sat down. “I’m Astrid.” She said, reaching down to scratch her cat between the shoulder blades. “And this is Stormfly.”

Hiccup reached towards her and mimed shaking her hand. “I’m Hiccup, and this is Toothless.”

“Two very unusual names.” Astrid commented.

“Yeah, we’re aware.” He responded with a smile. “I was a runt, his baby teeth were late coming in… it’s amazing we’ve survived this long.”

Astrid smiled - Gods, she had a nice smile - and stood. “I’ll be right back.” She ducked back into her house and came back a few minutes later with a glass of wine. “I liked your idea.” She said, gesturing to his beer, which was nearly empty, it’s dregs warm. “Though it seems a bit early.”

Hiccup shrugged. “Maybe. It honestly feels like there are no rules right now.”

“Are you working? I don’t mean to disturb you if you are, I was just getting a little stir-crazy in my place.”

“Yeah, but nothing too time consuming. I could use a break.” Hiccup replied, reaching to drink the last sip of his beer. “Let me grab another one.” He stood from his seat, hopping on his good leg through the door. He’d intentionally set up his apartment furniture at perfect distances so he could hop without his prosthetic or a crutch when he needed to, using chairs, tables and desks as handholds along the way.

In a few minutes he was seated back outside, facing his new neighbor-friend.

“Is this six feet, do you think?” He said jokingly, gesturing to the distance between them. “I am just over 6’2”, I could lay down across the bars to measure it more accurately.”

Astrid smiled into her wine glass. “I think we’re probably good, as long as we agree to sneeze in the other direction.” She took a sip before gesturing to his computer. “What were you working on?”

“It’s a diagram for an artificial knee,” he said, “trying to improve the rotational capacity of an older model of knee replacements.”

Astrid’s eyebrows rose. “Wow, that’s…. Cool. What do you do exactly?”

“I’m a biomechanical engineer for a company that basically improves medical equipment. You?”

Astrid tucked her hair behind her ears. “I work as a physical trainer at a gym, and I’m getting my Doctorate of Physical Therapy and a masters in history. I work as a waitress too, but obviously that’s probably not going to last with all this happening.”

“Cool about the Doctorate, sorry about the waitressing gig.” Hiccup replied, noting the concern on her face.

“It’s fine, it’s not like that was what I wanted to do, it just helped pay the bills. I’m still getting paid for the time being, and the gym pays me as long as I keep doing a few online videos, but it’s just generally going to be a little scary for a while.”

Hiccup felt instantly guilty and lucky for his own situation, knowing that he was in stable employment that wouldn’t be severely impacted. He instinctively wanted to offer to help her in any way she needed, but bit his tongue. He hardly knew her, after all.

“I’m sorry.” He said, not knowing what else to say. “Hopefully everyone gets with the program and we can shorten the lifespan of this thing so we can get back to normal soon.”

Astrid nodded, frowning slightly. “Yeah, hopefully.”

They sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes. Then, Astrid laughed weakly. “There’s no reason to play the pity game, though, right? We’re only on day two. Honestly, I’m more worried about how I’m going to feed myself for the next few weeks.”

Hiccup smiled weakly, noting her attempt to deflect from her real anxieties. “Were you not able to grab groceries?”

“Oh, no I’m fully stocked, unfortunately, I have no idea how to cook half of the things in my pantry.”

Hiccup laughed, glad for the break in the tension. “Well, I could probably help you with that. I myself have the most random selection of food known to man in my fridge, so I’ll need to get really creative with my meals.”

Astrid laughed. “Maybe we can potluck this situation. I have a startling amount of ramen in my pantry for someone that doesn’t like ramen.”

“How do you not like ramen? Even when you put an egg in it?”

It was Astrid’s turn to look at him skeptically. “Why would I put an egg in it?”

Hiccup’s jaw dropped. “What? You don’t know?” Astrid shook her head. “It changes everything, it makes it totally amazing. How did you possibly make it through college without adding egg to your ramen??” He said jokingly.

Astrid shrugged, giggling. “By not eating much ramen, I guess. It’s not exactly health food.”

Hiccup smiled, tweaking his eyebrow at her. “Feeling adventurous?”

10 Minutes Later -

“Okay, the water is boiling.” Astrid called from her kitchen. Hiccup sat on the railing of his balcony, legs hanging over the side as he gripped the bars.

“Okay, add the noodles and seasoning, then crack your egg into a separate bowl and whisk it.” He called, only able to see her part of her back as she worked at her stove. “Once the noodles start to soften, add the egg mixture and start stirring it in.”

Astrid complied, turning around to look at him. “It looks gross, it’s all clumpy.”

“You gotta stir it more, really mix it in there.”

“Okaaay…”

After a few minutes, she looked over her shoulder at him, her expression changed. “Oh, it looks creamy now.”

“There you go, that’s what should be happening.” Hiccup said, heart warming at her smile.

“That’s so cool!”

“Right? Once you get the hang of it, you can add all kinds of veggies and stuff to it to make it even more delicious, you just have to get the timing right on it.” He maneuvered himself down from the railing back onto his porch.

“One step at a time, Gordon Ramsay.” She said sarcastically. There was the sound of dishes clinking, and after a few more minutes, she came out onto the balcony holding two bowls with paper towels under them. “Err.. I am not really sure if we’re supposed to be sharing dishes and food, but… it’s too much for me to eat alone.”

Hiccup shrugged, reaching across the bars to take a bowl from her. “I’ll accept the risk in this situation.”

They sat in their respective chairs, enjoying their late afternoon snack and chatting. Hiccup couldn't remember the last time he’d enjoyed a conversation with someone this much, especially someone he’d never spoken to before that day.

They sat out in their separate spaces until the sun began to dip, only going inside to grab drinks or use the facilities, or once, for Hiccup to let Toothless out on another short walk. Finally it got to be a little too chilly to be enjoyable, and they began to clean up their areas.

Before she went inside, Astrid turned to him with a small smile. “See you tomorrow?” She asked, a teasing sort of hope in her eyes.

Hiccup smiled brightly. “Definitely.”

#hiccstrid #hiccstrid fanfic #hiccstrid fanfiction #hiccup/astrid #fanfiction #fanfic #httyd #how to train your dragon #mywriting

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tysonrunningfox · 4 years

Text

Toothless: Return to the Black Pony of Second Chances: Part 5

This is long and he is a brat, ok?

Ao3

“Ok,” I heave the last shovel of horse poop from the black horse’s area and lean on my pitchfork, barely resisting the urge to plug my nose with my hand, as my hand has recently been in contact with said horse poop.

The black horse isn’t nice, exactly, but not quite skittish either, and largely my only two problems with it—him—are the leash he allows Astrid to have around my time and maybe also neck if she asked for it and the amount he poops. Like, maybe he should cut back on the fiber. A little more cheese, possibly.

“Ok what?” Astrid closes the stall door at the other end of the barn with her foot, chucking a pitchfork of horse shit into a wheelbarrow.

It’s been less than 24 hours in Wyoming, and I recognize horse shit.

This is great. This is all going so great.

“Ok, his room is clean.”

“Room?” She raises an eyebrow, the same unimpressed expression I got last night when I had no idea what a ‘flake’ of hay was. The only flakes I’ve ever seen are corn flakes, and as they’re usually non-GMO and therefore pad Monsanto’s bottomless pockets with bovine diabetes, I haven’t seen them in years.

“Stable.” I shrug, “stall, whatever fancy horse word it is. I don’t know why it matters.”

“There are four more stalls on your side,” she gestures with her shoulder, picking up the full wheelbarrow handles and moving before I can protest.

So, I jog up next to her to protest, work-loosened shoes slipping over my heels.

“My side?” I shiver when we’re outside, the early morning sun doing about as little to cut the chill as my hoodie is, “last time I checked, my horse is on the end—”

“I told you that you would help me muck stalls,” she grunts as she heaves the wheelbarrow into a lovely pile of horse shit in a brown and putrid monotone rainbow of stages.

“I did,” I point at my dirty pants with my dirty hand.

“I did five, you did one.” She reminds me, like I could have forgotten in the last minute, and I wonder if flinching in the wind is making me look like I’m having a stroke.

“Yeah.”

“So, you think I should go do nine of them?” She cocks her hip, and I don’t understand how she has the energy to be this hostile this early. When she knocked on my bedroom door this morning, I thought she must have been a very polite burglar warning me that they were taking one of my dad’s absolutely lovely recliners off of my hands so that I could thank them.

But no, when I opened my bedroom door it was just Astrid, arms crossed and looking down at my pajamas like I’d already disappointed her, asking why I wasn’t dressed yet.

And then she made me instant coffee, like she was doing me a favor, when I probably would have preferred horse shit tea.

The wind shifts and I catch a whiff of the pile.

Nope. That’s an exaggeration, but from the way the shitty, acrid coffee churns in my empty stomach, it’s not much of one.

“I didn’t say that,” I hold my hand out for one of the pills that I know is in her pocket, “I just need my horse’s medicine.”

“Yeah, and I said I’d give it to you after you helped muck out the stable.”

“Stable or stall, which is it?” I roll my eyes, “the lack of consistency really isn’t making me feel much trust in your management style.”

That gets her, a little flicker in those bright blue eyes, a tense in her jaw that makes me think twice about angering her into headbutting me, because I don’t think it’d be fun.

“You can have the medicine when you muck out the other four stalls, of the five in your half, which constitutes half the stable.” She talks about horse rooms like they’re engine compartments and I feel like a coolant leak, shoving steam out and making her pull over on the way to something important.

Not that there’s anything important out here. There hasn’t been anything important since someone brought a store-bought pie to church, or something. And that was probably a year ago.

“But I already did my horse’s stall.”

My horse already feels steadier than ‘my room’ or ‘my house’ or ‘my dad’, and I don’t know why. Maybe because the horse is the only one here to not actively reject me, like the twin bed that’s now too short or the crooked floorboard I tripped over.

“Yeah, and there are four more.”

“Why do I care about the other four?” As soon as I say it, I wish I hadn’t gotten so used to the progressive, ‘spare the rod to spoil the child and save the world’ schools that my mom has sent me to, because this is like being spanked with the feelings stick by a hormonally confusing drill sergeant in the lobby to military school.

“Because your horse,” she implies ‘and by extension you’ by jabbing me in the arm with a pointed finger, “costs money and time and space, and since no one else can get close to him, for some reason.” The jealousy is like a fresh americano from the fair trade café down the street from my old apartment, “so you have to pull the weight.”

“Can a horse really weigh four surplus stalls of horse shit?”

“Come tell me when you’re done, and I’ll teach you how to clean out the chicken coop.”

“You said I could have the medicine after the stalls were mucked,” I must say it right even though I was planning to make another joke, because she just crosses her arms and shrugs that tense shrug at me.

“He’ll need them again tonight, won’t he?”

She’s right, but not as a way to get me to listen to her, just as a fact, and I realize once and for all that she’s not someone to out-talk or out-logic. She won’t give me an inch because I make her laugh, and it’s so my luck that the only concrete proof I’ve had in a decade that my dad really, actually knows me, is that he somehow chose the right person to torture me into some brand of obedience so manually productive that it’s probably anti-union.

I get back to mucking.

The fact that I am not strong is really Mrs. Razorwhip’s fault for making gym so easy to skip. In fact, the only time I ever actually had to suffer through the weight room was sneaking through it to the emergency exit with the disabled alarm that let me out into the alley.

Back home, I would insist that I’m not useless. Not impressive, obviously, there’s not much to look at, but I’ve never struggled lugging groceries up the stairs.

Then again, four stalls of horse shit weighs more than enough tofu and kale to feed my mom and I for a month.

“Are you done yet?” Astrid comes back after some indeterminate, sweaty time and catches me taking a probably forbidden break, petting the black horse’s nose.

“Ma’am, yes Ma’am.” I salute.

She doesn’t appreciate it, and she doesn’t even try to hide the fact, and while I’m used to Heather jokingly calling me an asshole, the direct disappointment is different. A little bitter. Like the static emanating out of a missing rewind button in a dusty remote I lost years ago.

“Have you thought of a name yet?” She looks at the black horse then at me, taking a reluctant, peace-seeking step towards me, and I get the somewhat familiar feeling that she doesn’t want to be so mean to me, but I just make it easy.

She hands me his medicine and I guess her hand gets a little too close, because he makes an ear-splitting noise and attempts to bite her through the bars, nostrils flared and red-lined as Hiccup jumps back, fumbling with the oversized pill and barely catching it.

“Whoa there,” she attempts to comfort, voice low, hands held in front of her.

The horse gnashes square teeth at her, cry turning painful when he tries to pop onto his back legs.

“Whoa there.” I mimic Astrid entirely, stepping towards the stall, heart swelling with something important when he looks at me, breathing hard, gnashing his teeth but no longer crying.

“Devil maybe,” she suggests under her breath, jealous where she was just half-way decently ok with me, and my mouth has always been a few leaps and bounds ahead of my pre-cognition.

“Toothless.” I snort at my own joke and she stares at me like I’m stupid again. Still stupid. A fossilized kind of stupid that she or someone she knows probably wants to mine for crude oil. “Because he never shows them to me.”

She sighs then points at the wheelbarrow, which is already full again, because I actually did move more horse shit than her and I’ve got the exhausted back and shoulders to prove it, “dump this, then meet me at the chicken coop.”

The chicken coop is worse than the stalls.

I’ll never complain about horse shit again, as long as I live. Or at least until the next time I have to deal with it, more likely.

Which is the next day.

And the next.

The fourth morning in my own private Wyoming, she wakes me up earlier than normal, and I find myself completely unsecured in the back of the old ranch truck alongside giant flakes of hay, staring at Fishlegs as Astrid starts driving through the field.

For all my dad talks about loving his life and his cows, it really does feel like I’m just pelting them in the face with itchy dried grass that makes me wish I’d borrowed some of the thick gloves from the barn.

“You can throw them farther than that!” Astrid calls out the window and I grunt, tossing one as far as I can and turning back to Fishlegs.

“What is her problem?”

“What?”

“I said,” I clear my throat and try and take out the welling anger on another flake of hay, which falls apart in the breeze and ends up mostly in my face. And mouth. And hair. “What is Astrid’s problem?”

“Well,” he pauses, and he doesn’t get yelled at immediately, of course, “I did hear she failed math.”

“So, the ghost of unsatisfied Algebra II homework possessed her and turned her soul to pure evil?” I huff.

She can probably hear me.

I don’t care if she hears me, I don’t think. She can hide a body, probably, and she could skewer me with a pitchfork, but the only thing she resents more than me is Toothless and then she’d be stuck with him, so…

“I would have tutored her, if I wasn’t off at school—”

My glare cuts him off and he starts shoving hay off of the back of the truck again.

“No, I don’t care about her grades, I—she has it out for me.” It’s the only explanation. She’s probably operating under some misconception that my being here will have some impact on her being my dad’s favorite, or something. Which given how little he’s spoken to me for the last few days, is absolutely not true, and it makes me want to pound on the back window and tell her that she can have him.

Except my arms hurt. I don’t think I can ‘pound’ on anything, not in so many words.

And I bet I’ll have to muck stalls when I get back to the ranch. Maybe I can have a break if my arm literally falls off. I wonder if that would make me more or less symmetrical.

“She doesn’t,” Fishlegs assures me, sweeping the rest of the hay out of the rusted bed with his foot and thumping on the top of the cab before sitting down. Before I have time to ask why, Astrid speeds up and turns around, almost flinging me out of the bed, and I end up sprawled with a handful of stupid, itchy hay up the back of my shirt, ass throbbing from smacking the bed too hard.

“What was that then?” I spit out a piece of hay, finding some in my hair and knowing that this isn’t the time to shower. Not until she’s done with me. Or my arm falls off.

Or maybe she’d just show me how to scoop one handed.

And it’s barely past dawn.

“She drives fast.”

“I can see that.”

“I’ve heard she’s been driving ranch trucks since she was nine,” he leans forward, barely speaking above the roar of the engine. “Ever since she could reach the pedals.”

“I’ve been hot wiring cars ever since I forged a key to the teacher’s lounge,” I mutter under my breath, not competing in a race I can’t win so much as I wish I could shock and awe without my dad calling the cops. I’m still expecting a scared straight romp for stealing a stupid pack of gum from Gobber, but maybe he figures Astrid will kill me first.

I do have to muck when I get back.

Then I get cryptic instructions to ‘hand walk’ Toothless, to which I respond that I probably couldn’t get a very good grip on him with my toes. Astrid doesn’t laugh, just shoves an old horse-leash into my hand before telling me cryptically that she’ll find me later.

And that’s my life now. Living in fear of Astrid finding me, never able to avoid her. Like I’m running and screaming and looking for a quiet corner to nurse my wounds, but she always finds me, always calm, always stern. Usually holding something sharp.

It’s like if Michael Meyers was a really hot teenage girl.

The twins teach me how to milk their goats one morning, and at first I don’t think it’ll be that bad because at least I get to sit, but somehow, walking a horse around and lifting horse shit also makes my butt hurt. Who knew.

Also, the twins don’t shut up.

“Heard you were asking what’s up with Astrid,” Ruffnut sing-songs during a rare, nearly pleasant pause in the conversation, and I accidentally squirt goat milk at my shoe. It soaks through. Which is great. I understand boots now that I have goat milk between my toes. Couldn’t have aimed left, that would have been too pleasant.

“Mostly in a ‘what do I tell the priest?’ way.”

“She’s single,” Ruffnut raises her eyebrows, “but hasn’t finished high school yet, so the priest talk is probably pretty pre-mature.”

“What does high school or her relationship status have to do with the exorcism?” I snort.

“I’ve heard she can lift like five-hundred pounds,” Tuffnut adds, “and I’ve heard that dirt doesn’t stick to her. Like she could roll in a pile of dirt, and her very aura would just reject it.”

“I…don’t think that’s true.” I almost want to ask Tuffnut what geometric shape he thinks the earth is, but it’ll bug me too much if he’s wrong.

“She can talk to goats,” Tuffnut continues, “she’s said some very unkind things to Chicken, and Duchess here translated.” He pats the goat he’s milking on the butt and accidentally squirts more milk at my right foot. Great.

Awesome.

“She likes tall guys. Not historically, but I can just kind of guess that she would now,” Ruffnut grins, “she doesn’t need as much sleep as anyone else—”

“Because she got bitten by a radioactive spider and became a vigilante but it’s not very useful in a town with no crime,” Tuffnut cuts her off and Ruffnut squirts him with goat’s milk on purpose. He catches it in his mouth and proceeds to cough.

“She’s not Spiderman”

“Then why’d she get that spider out of my room that one time?” He wheezes, and I’d rather roll in the horse poop mound than be here right now.

“Because you were screaming.” Ruffnut grins at me again, and I get the feeling that she thinks I’m here for her entertainment. I’ve never liked that feeling, honestly. I don’t like expectation. I’d rather just force my antics on people and be rejected than never live up to the assumption in someone else’s head.

And I know for a fact that I could never compete with whatever Ruffnut is coming up with. More than that, I wouldn’t want to.

“Plus, I know Peter Parker. He’s holding the high rise down while I…do this.” I try and pet the goat I’m milking. It tries to bite me.

Toothless is about the only farm animal that is toothless towards me.

“So you’re asking for rumors about Astrid?” Ruffnut tries again, and I sigh.

“No, I’m just…wondering why she’s so…” there are a lot of words I could use. Bitchy, if I wanted Heather to slap me mentally from thousands of miles away. Demanding, if I wanted to complain, which I don’t, because it would all obviously get back to her and then my dad. “Against me, in particular.”

“She’s not,” Tuffnut sighs, “she’s like this with everyone, always trying to make us work harder, as if some of us haven’t already reached peak potential.” He squirts at Ruffnut and gets it in her hair before laughing.

She stands up and splashes the whole bucket she’d managed to collect on his face and my right shoe gets even soggier. Great. Fantastic.

“He’s right, for once,” Ruffnut assures between laughs, tossing the bucket itself at Tuffnut’s head and knocking him off of his stool. “She just genuinely wakes up every day excited to go do things and chores and she thinks everyone else should too. It’s bizarre.”

“You’ve disrespected the Duchess,” Tuffnut stands up, prepared to tackle his sister and I leave before it can get any worse, for once sure that I won’t get the blame for things not going perfectly.

There are an old pair of boots in the hall closet that fit me with a thick pair of socks and when I start wearing them, my dad looks almost proud. That makes it worse, but I can’t tell him that I’m not trying to fit in, because Toothless needs another round of antibiotics, and when he asks Astrid how I’ve been doing, she shrugs in some kind of silent acceptance that seems like it’s in my dad’s language more than mine.

I’ve lost count of my days in hostile solitude when I get stuck on my back under a tractor with Snotlout, trying to diagnose an engine that appears to be held together with duct tape and a water bottle full of amber liquid I don’t recognize.

“Well, I think I see the problem,” I point at the bottle and he snorts.

“That connects the thingamajig to the thing,” he points at what I believe to be the oil pan, “I fixed it last year, it’s fine.”

“It’s a water bottle.”

“So, I heard you’ve been asking about Astrid,” he gloats, and I hate that I’ve been mucking Hookfang’s stall and more than that, I hate that Hookfang is kind of nice, in a begging dog way.

“Does she know that the tractor is held together with floss and paperclips?” I scoot away from him, feeling bare dirt through my too thin jeans, back and side sore from the morning in the barn. “Because that seems like the kind of lack of perfection which would make her make me do fifty pushups while chanting some mantra about getting up before the sun.”

“I’m kind of the Astrid expert, ask me anything.” He reaches up and wraps a new length of duct tape around a leaking pipe and I wince.

“Alright, why does Tuffnut think she’s Spiderman?”

“He’s an idiot.”

“That does not take an Astrid expert to answer,” I roll out from under the tractor, sure that it’s above my paygrade, which is zero.

Actually, it’s less than zero, given that I’m working for horse medicine that isn’t even possible for me to have fun with. I’m an indentured servant working on behalf of a horse, next to an idiot who tapes tractors together like he’ll be opening an exhibit of redneck macaroni art called “John Deere, an American Journey” at the tri-county community center soon.

“Ok, ok, I’ll tell you a secret.” Snotlout is easy to read. He’s a ransom note of a man, put together from the Cheyenne Gazette, Laramie Chronicle, and Bum-Fuck Nowhere Times, then laminated with some deep-seated fear that I don’t believe his swagger. Which I don’t.

“Please, don’t enlighten me.”

“Astrid looks like she’s what? A B-cup?” He says with a straight face and I let myself imagine telling Astrid this, because while I don’t want her to headbutt me, Snotlout might be satisfying, “but you’d be wrong. C-cup. All the way.”

“No shit.” I deadpan, “I’m sure this tractor is in your capable hands so I’m just going to go…not here.”

“I know from when we dated.”

“Right.” I stand up, “I’m…bye. Maybe I’ll go clean the chicken coop, because it’s disgusting, and you won’t follow me.”

I don’t though. I go talk to Toothless. I smooth a brush over his fur the way I’ve seen Astrid do to Stormfly, carefully avoiding the nearly healed slash in his back leg. I tell him about fire escapes and self-destination and if it weren’t for Astrid finding me before dinner, I’d probably miss it.

I almost tell her what Snotlout said, just to watch the carnage, but I really don’t want to be stuck dealing with that tractor.

00000

It takes an hour and some not so dignified groveling to Fishlegs to convince my father that Skype isn’t going to give his barely half a tier above dial-up internet a virus. It takes two additional days to actually set a time with Heather because her social life has apparently boomed without me and because Astrid hid my phone yesterday until I finished cleaning out the chicken coop.

Because beneath her irritatingly beautiful exterior, she’s the reincarnation of a knuckle slapping nun who hates left-handedness and the suggestion of fun.

But almost two weeks since I left New York, I’m oh-so-generously given an hour off stall mucking duty before dinner by Commander in Chief Hofferson, and Heather’s brother took her fake ID, apparently, so I sit down at the tiny desk sized for my eight year old self and turn on my laptop for the first time since I’ve been here. It’s a little strange, how much has changed in the last two weeks, the dirt from Toothless’s fur caked under my fingernails, the sunburned skin tight across the bridge of my nose. Back home I used to never be outside enough to really get a tan. It was always muggy and Mom had it so ingrained that the smell wasn’t the river, it was slaughterhouse runoff up-river, that hanging around outside never really seemed appetizing. Here though, it’s cold until almost lunch and by then I’m pink almost to peeling even while I’m still shivering.

The internet takes three limping tries to connect. My dad’s password is Haddock. No numerals, just his last name. If that’s a Wyoming benchmark, I wonder how hard it would be to break into that tiny, old-fashioned-shootout looking bank in town to steal the price of a plane ticket home. I’ll ask Heather today if I could sleep under her bed.

I call her on Skype once the internet seems somewhat, tenuously solid, and she picks up almost immediately, the eyeliner smudged under her eyes exacerbating the graininess of the image somehow. She doesn’t look like she’s been sleeping much and she adjusts her screen, the window blurring as my connection flickers.

“Oh my god, this is so 2009,” she laughs, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Is that the lighting? Or…oh my god, are you tan? That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s the lighting, I’m definitely sunburned,” I laugh, glancing at myself in the small front facing window. If it’s possible, I’ve lost weight since I’ve been here, all the stupid, draining manual labor, and my cheeks look as hollow as my plan to hitchhike back to New York without being caught or murdered. Or caught and murdered.

My dad would probably let Astrid do the honors.

“I didn’t realize there was sun in Wyoming.”

“As it’s on the planet Earth, it does occasionally experience direct sunlight, especially because I can currently see the only two trees in about a fifty-mile radius from my window right now.”

She laughs and I almost wish we hadn’t done this, because the pang in my chest is so distinctly homesickness. I hadn’t felt homesick before now, not really. Grumpy, sure, belligerent, always. Stubborn? All the time. But now I’m stuck on the way it used to sound when Heather’s laugh wasn’t filtered through two shitty speakers and she was sneaking in my window at 2 in the morning because her brother let some new crazy come in.

“Well, I solved global warming then, we just need to stop the sun from hitting places that don’t have trees or people.” She taps her temple with a dark polished finger, “why doesn’t anyone listen to me?”

“I really don’t know, all your ideas are so practical.”

“And I thought I missed you,” she scoffs, something treacherously close to a genuine expression tugging at the corners of her mouth, and even while webcams make me look yellow and scrawnier than normal, Heather looks great in all her smudged makeup, forcefully edgy glory. “I’m going to hang up, let you die in my mind as a happy memory.”

“Like that would convince anyone.” I laugh. She laughs. The bad connection whispers static and she bites her lip.

I don’t know how to tell her about Toothless.

I hadn’t thought about it. I hadn’t thought that I’d want to tell her about anything here because she’s separate, a relic reminding me of all the reasons I have to get back but now there’s a reason I almost want to stay and I’m not sure if it’s stronger than the brunt of Heather’s sheer, practiced cynicism.

“Things are boring here without you,” she rolls her eyes, holding long bangs in front of her eyes and checking for split ends, “Dagur’s on some new parenting kick because your mom had some scary conversation with him. I should get her a cat or something so she has someone to boss around that isn’t me.”

“What’d you do to make her talk to your brother?”

“It’s funny, because your mom used to be the one talking about how play based kindergartens in Scandanavia are so much better than the homework geared education system here, but if anyone tries to stay in your old room to protest the frankly ridiculous workload in an American high school, suddenly it’s cause for alarm.”

“Have you thought any more about law school? Because that’s quite the argument.”

“Right, because any individuality can be crammed into the stuffiest of stuffed shirt professions.”

“I mean, not the stuffiest, there’s a scarecrow in the pumpkin patch that has more stuffing in his shirt than any lawyer I’ve ever met.”

“You just haven’t been around enough lawyers. Because you’ve been spending too much time at the pumpkin patch, apparently.”

“It’s on the way to the…” I pause before saying ‘barn’ because barn feels like it means something more than it does. Like yes, a structure that houses animals, commonly cows or horses but also…somewhere I’ve been spending a lot of time. Somewhere I don’t hate quite as much as Heather hates everywhere. “The house, back from the chicken coop, where I get to spend my early mornings scraping chicken shit off of the dirt.”

“Ah, the charming calm of pastoral life,” she rests her cheek on her hand and flutters her eyelashes. I see the corner of some new tattoo creeping onto her wrist but if she hasn’t told me yet I probably shouldn’t ask, and it’s like she’s got her own Toothless.

I don’t think we’ve ever had secrets. Not since she dropped into my bedroom eerily silently when I was thirteen and I didn’t have the chance to get my pants back up before she noticed what I was doing.

There’s a knock on my doorframe and of course I forgot to close the door and of course when I turn around it’s Astrid, because she has an unfortunate sixth sense for when I have an uncomfortable thought in my head.

“What?”

She rolls her eyes, “I was just coming to tell you that we got back early so dinner might be early.”

“Ok.” I stare at her and she doesn’t leave, “I’m kind of having a conversation here, so could you shut the door on the way out?”

“You aren’t coming to dinner?”

“I’ll be down in a bit.”

She looks me up and down, pausing at my shoulder like she’s trying to see the laptop behind it and I glare at her.

“Fine,” she reaches for the doorknob, “it’s not my fault if there’s nothing left when you grace us with your presence.”

“Nothing ever is, Your Great Bossiness,” I mumble as I turn back to the screen, and Astrid might have heard me from the pause before she yanks the door fully shut.

For a second I think the internet glitched out, because Heather is staring at me with a near constipated expression, but her eyebrow quirks with natural fluidity and I shrug.

“Are you going to make me ask who that was?”

“If you ask are you going to make me answer?” I rub my forehead, “it was just Astrid, my dad’s most favoritest ranch-hand and the bossiest perfectionist I’ve ever met. As you saw, she cannot stay out of anyone’s business for a second.”

“So, not a new best friend, then?”

“God no,” I snort, “I might actually permit your careless use of the word ‘fascist’ in this case.”

Heather rolls her eyes, the big sort of eye roll she reserves for teachers and her brother when he claims not to know all about the permission slip he obviously signed weeks ago, “did you get an impenetrable coating of country dust in your eye or something?”

“What?”

“Are you blind?” She scoffs, crossing her arms so that I see a few straight delicate lines of the tattoo I don’t know about.

“Once again, what?”

“I didn’t realize you’d lost your ability to identify a hot girl, Hiccup, we’ve got to get you home asap, put you through some remedial training.”

I snort, “Astrid? Yeah, I mean, I’m not blind, but if she’s hot it’s in the ‘fire and brimstone’, satanic way.”

Heather’s staring at me like she can get my pulse from the flicker of her screen or something and I sigh.

“I have a horse.”

“What?” She laughs, “what does that have to do with Astrid being hot? That’s—oh god, Hiccup, I’ll get a psychiatrist note to get you back to civilization asap—”

“No!” I run my hand through my constantly grubby hair, “I—there was a horse when I got here. He was hurt and cranky and didn’t like any of them so they were going to put him down but he liked me and I gave him his antibiotics a few times and now I guess he’s mine and Astrid’s sure she knows everything—Like she thinks she invented horses, I swear—and…” I almost do jazz hands and say ‘ta-da’, but I hold that back. “What’s the new tattoo?”

I’m not as successful at holding back. Apparently.

“Oh,” she holds up her arm, upside down, “it’s that thing we talked about, the constellations?” She twists her arm and reveals thin black line stylizations of Lyra the harp and a slightly larger Aquila the eagle. The stars are careful dots of black on blank white skin and she traces her finger up the inside of her elbow, “and after it heals some, because this hurt more than my leg for some reason, I’m going to get the milky way up around here.”

“Right,” I laugh, “those were the two.”

“Gosh, back then you weren’t Mr. Cowboy yet and you thought your mom’s friend’s farm upstate was really roughing it.”

“So did you!” I shake my head, “you thought there were bears and you kept trying to climb into my sleeping bag.”

“I was cold!” She crosses her arms again, “no one told me we’d be sleeping in a tent. I thought it was a sleeping bag on the living room floor kind of deal.”

“And you hated it.”

“If I wanted to go camping, I’d follow the disillusioned youth to backpack across southeast Asia, where I know there are no bears.”

“Right, only occasionally man-eating tigers, much more manageable.”

“We’ll just have to bring your horse, they can outrun tigers, right?” She leans forward, like she’s interested, or trying to be, “they can hold two people, I know they can, my mom used to love ancient western romances.”

“Well, he can’t hold anyone yet, or maybe he can, I don’t know, he hasn’t yet. I don’t really know how to train him and he won’t let anyone else close to him so…it’s a learning curve. It’s not like I can take him apart and see how he works.” I look at the door, because if Astrid’s going to eavesdrop, this is probably going to be the time, “he’s black. There’s probably some fancy word for that like there is for everything having to do with horses but it just looks like black to me. And he’s smaller, I guess he’s like feral or something, and all the horses around here are super fancy quarter horses.”

“Does he have a name or are you waiting on something fancy for that too?”

“Toothless,” I snort, “because I’m the only one he doesn’t bite on sight. It drives Astrid crazy. She thought she was a bona fide horse whisperer before I came along.”

“Hmm,” Heather leans forward, like she’s tired, but not like I’m boring her. The strap of her tank top slips over her shoulder, flirting with where she wants that milky way and I clear my throat. She cocks her head. “What?”

“Your uh, your strap.”

“It’s two hours later here than it is there, excuse me for being in my grounded pajamas.” Her smile is too tight to be genuine as she continues and I can’t help but note it’s only 5 here, “and your mom locked your window after the whole skipping school incident.”

“You said skipping, not protesting.”

“Whatever,” she shrugs, “skipping is protesting.”

It’s too quiet. Heather and I are never this quiet. We’ve always struggled to whisper. Something feels wrong about it and I look at the time.

“I hate to do this but Astrid isn’t kidding, if I don’t get down there soon there’s not going to be any food left in this house.”

“No one could save you a plate?” She raises her eyebrow, head tilting to the side as the camera catches the shadow of her collar bone in particularly stark relief.

“I’d say it’s a fair feast for 20 people split six ways, including my dad. And then there’s me, scraping at the crumbs. Mom would kill me, I’m eating steak every night, my carbon footprint is huge without accounting for the gas guzzling farm trucks.”

“I’ll tell her, she’ll have you home and back on tofu in an instant.”

“If it were that easy, I’d be back already.” That feels like a lie, because I know already that I can’t leave Toothless, not now, not like this, but it also feels like something that I need to say. Like please and thank you and hello and goodbye. “Anyway though, I gotta go. But we have to chat again the next time you have a hole in your social schedule and Astrid isn’t flogging me to scrub dirt, or something.”

“Yeah, go fight for your steak dinner,” she snorts, “and I promise that’s hotter in my head than it sounds.”

“Yes, remember me like that, gallantly fighting for my dinner, not…sunburned and at an elementary school reject desk.”

“No promises,” she laughs before waving goodbye and hanging up.

My stomach grumbles and I shut my laptop, walking downstairs and out onto the porch where everyone’s staring at me just enough to re-energize old school middle school nightmares about going to school naked and legless.

“Saved you a steak,” Astrid points at the grill glaring at Snotlout like he’d made her argue for it.

“Thanks,” I put it on a plate along with one of the always hard freezer rolls dad keeps buying even though no one actually likes them and when I turn around, everyone is still staring at me. “What?”

“Nothing,” Snotlout shrugs, “just no one would save me food if I held up dinner while talking to my girlfriend.”

“Heather isn’t my girlfriend, who said she was my girlfriend?”

Everyone shifts slightly to look at Astrid. I’m overwhelmingly glad that my dad isn’t here.

“What?” She stands, setting her plate on the table, “you were being all cryptic and talking to a girl alone in your room. It’s not a wild assumption.”

“It’s sort of wild that you’d relay your assumption to everyone.”

“Not everyone,” she rolls her eyes, “I didn’t tell your dad.”

“Didn’t tell me what?” My dad walks out through the sliding glass door, “oh, and Hiccup, I went ahead and turned the internet back off.”

“Mr. Haddock, it’s perfectly safe to just leave it on,” Fishlegs starts, and for a second I think ‘thank god, someone partially on my side in all this’, but then he continues, “at U-dub the wireless only goes down a few times a year for maintenance and no one gets any information they shouldn’t—”

“That’s because no one wants it, Fish,” I cut him off, sitting down next to Ruffnut and stabbing the steak with my fork. I honestly don’t get the big deal. After a decade of halfway dedicated vegetarianism and occasional vegan adventures, I really don’t get the steak hysteria. I’d rather have a big mac right now, to be honest. Something unhealthy that actually tastes like it.

My phone buzzes and I pull it out to see a text from Heather.

Heather: Btw, sneaking out, if I don’t contact you in 48 hours, call the police, my brother probably killed me

“See? It’s totally his girlfriend,” Snotlout grumbles, “look at how focused he is on his phone.”

“Girlfriend?” My dad sits down next to Astrid who obediently scoots to make room, “Hiccup can’t possibly have a girlfriend.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad.”

“Well he does and her name is Heather, allegedly,” Tuffnut leans back against the porch railing, “all of this is alleged by others than Hiccup himself, so it’s allegedness remains allegedful.”

“Heather? Your kid friend?” My dad raises his eyebrows, “I didn’t realize she was still around.”

“Still lives upstairs, still my friend, not my girlfriend, can we be done with this?” I glare at Astrid, because it is all her fault, anyway. Her fault for not knowing the meaning of privacy and her fault for telling secrets she has no place in.

“Yeah, shut up about it everyone,” she waves her fork around like she’s issuing a public decree and I narrow my eyes.

“I think me asking them to shut up was probably adequate—”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?” Her jaw flexes, a silent irritation not quite bordering on challenge and my dad clears his throat.

“Ruffnut, it’s your turn to do the dishes tonight.” He announces, standing up and grabbing his plate.

Ruffnut groans, “of course I get stuck in the kitchen the one time something actually happens.”

“Nothing is happening,” Astrid takes a near vengeful bite of steak before pushing her half-eaten plate towards Tuffnut, who grabs it eagerly as she stands up, “I’ll see you guys tomorrow. 5am. Try to get up yourselves this time.”

She stalks off and I try to ignore the burning of the back of my neck from Ruffnut staring at me. I cave, glaring up at her.

“What?”

“Not your girlfriend, huh?”

“Don’t you have dishes to do?” I look back at my plate, trying to maintain some appetite after the long day I had but it’s all gone. I shove it to the middle of the table and stand up myself.

Toothless isn’t busy, at least that’s something I can count on.

#t:rttbposc #httyd fic #modern au #hiccstrid #horse girl hiccup #he's...so bratty #why is he so bratty #i love him #i do fear i'm going to have to explain wyoming to people though #just like the concept #it's a state with only 2 escalators #people refer to a place with two grocery stores as a city #always windy #coal and cows and yeah like yellowstone but at what cost?

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aleteia-ff · 4 years

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A Decade To Find You | Part 4

Also Read On: AO3 | FF.net

Thank you everyone for the support! One more chapter left to go after this one ^^

I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Astrid didn't think much of the guy she bumped into just after midnight on January 1, 2010. It was just a hasty apology, a quip and a lop-sided grin from his side. It wasn't supposed to be special.

Hiccup felt the same way. That was, until he locked eyes with her again one year later. And the year after that. And the next.

But somehow, their destinies only seemed to intertwine that one night a year... On New Year's Eve.

Hiccstrid, New Year’s Eve Fic. Spanning the entire past decade.

Chapter 4: New Year’s Eve 2017-2019, Part 1

December 31st, 2017

Tonight, Astrid was a woman on a mission. To fix the mistakes she’d made. To retaliate against fate, and return the middle finger it had given her last year. Shove it up its ass.

Because what were the fucking odds of finally getting time alone with the guy she’d been intrigued by for years, making her think her life is finally going somewhere, that there is a light at the end of the seemingly endlessly meandering tunnel? Only for her to break her phone by falling on her ass. And lose his number.

She’d found out too late. Too late to rush after him and give him her contact details instead. Too late to try and figure out where Hiccup’s cousin might be getting his nose fixed so that she might rush into the ER like the pathetic mess he’d turned her into. Because he had, in a way she couldn’t quite explain.

She’d adored every second she’d spent with him. She’d wanted to kiss him, to hold him, ask him to take her home and never let her leave again. Because he’d felt like safety, a sense of security, the direction she’d been looking for that year. And her heart, which had been beating too quickly all night, had completely dropped when she’d pulled her phone out of her back pocket, intending to ask him whether his drama-fuelled cousin had made it out alive, and had found it basically snapped in half.

She’d tried every method Internet-experts suggested to recover the data. She’d taken her phone to a specialised shop, where they’d informed her that there was nothing more they could do for her, and that perhaps she should turn on cloud sync on her next phone. As if she hadn’t reached that conclusion herself.

After that, she’d spent her free time in the first weeks of January digging through every social media website and search engine she could think of. But Hiccup hadn’t lied about his lack of social media. No matter how long she tried, she couldn’t find a guy with the same cute freckles, gap-toothed smile and messed up mop of auburn hair she just wanted to bury her hands in. No “Hiccup”. And it didn’t help that that nickname was the only thing she knew about him. She didn’t know his cousin’s name, she knew what he studied but not where. She hadn’t asked him if he lived in Berk or just celebrated New Year’s here. She hadn’t a clue how old he was, or what his last name might be.

If only she hadn’t tried to be funny by filling in his contact name as Fake Foot Guy. Then maybe he would’ve put in his full name. Then she could have Googled a lot better, or even asked around in Berk itself… After all, if only his friends knew him as ‘Hiccup’, she highly doubted simply that nickname and a physical description would get her anywhere. He couldn’t be the only tall, Berkian guy with auburn hair and green eyes. And she didn’t know how to explain what it was exactly that made him feel so, so special.

Towards the end of January, when she had been starting to seriously consider going to public media channels such as the radio and TV to ask if anyone knew a Berkian Hiccup, she finally sort-of regained her senses. He was just a guy, right? Sure, it had been a month since she’d last seen him, and she still couldn’t get him out of her head, he kept showing up in her dreams every other night. His bright green eyes peering into hers, his long arms wrapped around her as he kissed over and over…

But Hiccup hadn’t contacted her either. He had her full name, could basically look up and contact her anywhere. She’d kept her eye on all of her apps to see if she’d received messages from people she didn’t have added… But he hadn’t. Perhaps he wasn’t that special after all. Maybe it was just her most recent obsession, filling the void that would normally be filled by another Netflix series. Desperately trying to tag along on his journey, since her own life wasn’t heading anywhere else.

She had never been that person. And if she did find Hiccup again, she didn’t want him to get to know that Astrid. She wanted to make his life better, like she felt he could do to hers.

But as the months passed, and December came around, she couldn’t help but start thinking of again. Because she’d actually done it this year. She was getting her life back on track.

Remember that joke you made about me being an undercover cop last year? Well, I signed up for the police academy. I’m currently top of my class. And you helped me get there.

She didn’t know why she hadn’t considered it until Hiccup’s joke had stirred in her mind. But after the first few months of training, she was convinced it had been the right choice. It allowed her to help people, and to protect them. Which was exactly what she’d always wanted.

And, as much as she felt silly for it, she simply wanted to tell Hiccup. Apologise for losing his number, while also admitting that maybe, it wasn’t the right time for them to meet. But she felt better now. And she really wanted to try again.

She wasn’t superstitious. But she just needed fate to work in her favour one more New Year’s Eve, and allow her to find Hiccup once again.

She had never consciously looked for him before. All the previous years, it had simply happened for no apparent reason. But she didn’t want to rely on something so intangible, so unsure. Hoffersons made their own luck, after all.

Hence, she visited every part of the inner city of Berk she’d seen him in before. The stall at which they’d bumped into each other, the cafe she’d wanted to hug him in, the square where they had finally talked. But he wasn’t in any of those places, and she figured it was too early for anyone to be at a club.

So she pulled up her jacket, and made another round, trying to tell herself that she wasn’t crazy and desperate, just hopeful. That even Heather had told her to try, because Astrid would clearly regret it if she didn’t, and to bring Hiccup back with her to the house party she was throwing if she didn’t want to lose him again in the inner city crowd.

And then she saw him.

He was on the ice skating rink, rounding the corner significantly more skilled than seven years ago, a smile on his face that told her he was actually enjoying himself. Regardless of his decreased clumsiness, he still managed to bump into a small, blond woman instead of the banister he’d been aiming for, making Astrid chuckle to herself because it was simply adorable. But Hiccup kept laughing too, his slightly embarrassed but overall delighted smile not fading as the woman wrapped her arms around his neck.

And kissed him.

Time cruelly slowed down at that moment, making sure that Astrid saw exactly how Hiccup buried his hand in the woman’s hair, and returned the kiss.

It shouldn’t hit her as hard as it did. It shouldn’t make her feel like someone had punched her right in her stomach, her legs giving out as she was engulfed by an overwhelming sense of panic. The urge to run, to get as far away as possible. But her feet belonged to someone else, keeping her fixed in place and forcing her to look, for what felt like an eternity.

Until Hiccup broke the kiss and glanced up, the green eyes she doubted she could ever forget meeting hers. Widening in shock, a word that looked an awful lot like her name forming on his lips.

She fled. She turned around, her back towards him, and she walked away as calmly as she could. Swallowing away the tears she didn’t think she could shed over someone she barely knew.

She’d missed her chance.

--------

January 1st, 2019

No one at university had told Hiccup that graduating as an engineer did absolutely nothing for someone’s ability to turn themselves into a fool. Because he was definitely still incredibly good at that.

Always a fool for Astrid Hofferson.

Even though they’d only really talked to each other once. Despite her not calling him while she’d said she would.

He knew he hadn’t messed up his number, and he could come up with a thousand other reasons she hadn’t called him back, such as her phone breaking or her being snapped away by Thanos. But it was the reality that he’d forced himself to accept after he’d looked up too many of her social media accounts and had typed out many, many messages, only to delete them again. Whatever connection he had felt, she didn’t feel the same way. He was a tragic kindred spirit of La La Land, thinking he’d won the Oscar while the accountants of fate had simply messed up the cards. The idea, the notion that there was something between them, almost akin to soulmates, which had once seemed like a valuable Banksy painting, had been shredded and reduced to scraps.

Or perhaps it had been more like self-destruction on his end after all. A hope he’d clung to because she was just that damn beautiful.

But he had to move on with his actual life instead of believing in fairy tales. Only British princes got to marry girls who were way out of their league, after all.

Not that 2017 hadn’t been good to him. Part of moving on had been saying yes when Camicazi had told him she’d stop stealing his trash if he allowed her to steal him away to a restaurant instead. They’d connected and had quickly started dating. He had dated before, but she’d become his first long-term girlfriend, and he couldn’t say he regretted it. It was nice to have someone to talk to, someone to share the house with that still felt too big for him alone. Someone to hug, to kiss, to get support from and to return it to. He had fallen in love, Astrid Hofferson forgotten in the same way she’d forgotten about him. Or so he’d thought.

Until he’d seen her again on the New Year’s Eve of 2017.

She’d looked stunned to see him, her face struck by devastation until she’d turned away from him. Exactly the opposite of what he’d expected. Because of course he had anticipated seeing her, had mentally prepared himself for the awkward dance in which she’d pretend to have called him after all, or that they’d never exchanged numbers to begin with. He had planned to tell her that it didn’t matter anymore, because he’d found someone who made him happy.

It never came to that, since she fled the moment their eyes had met. He’d always thought she wasn’t the kind of person to run from any problem. But apparently he didn’t know her as well as he thought he did. Which was logical, they had only spoken once, after all, but he’d had this feeling, and he just… tried not to dwell too much on it.

But then Cami moved away from Berk for a job she absolutely adored. They’d agreed that Hiccup would follow her after his own graduation that summer, that they’d find an apartment together and that Hiccup would sell his house in Berk after all. He still hadn’t found what bound him to the city so much, after all, thought that it had perhaps been Cami.

Instead, they simply forgot about each other. Their calls and texts lessened every week, their conversations becoming more detached and less intimate as the weeks went by. And while neither of them knew why it happened, the only upside was that it was seemingly mutual. Or at least, that was the conclusion they drew when they broke up by the end of summer.

Their split had definitely hurt him, but when he had worked through his first grief and evaluated their relationship, he couldn’t draw another conclusion than that what had happened was incredibly weird. That he had forgotten about Cami that easily, while he’d never been able to truly forget Astrid. Especially when the winter months came around and he was properly exhausted off the back of his first months of full-time work, she invaded his thoughts again, with her beautiful smile and confident attitude. He started to hope, somewhere, that he might see her again on New Year’s Eve. Just one more year. Because he wondered how she was doing, and wanted to at the very least ask her why she hadn’t called. So that he could put a definitive end to the saga that, next to the Star Wars sequels, had been haunting him for the entire decade.

Which is why he felt like a fool, because for all of tonight, he hadn’t been able to stop scanning the crowds in every bar and club he, Snotlout and Fishlegs visited. Actively looking for Astrid was a step further than simply hoping to see her, after all. But if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t enjoy the loud music and the close-quarters dancing all that much. He never had.

It had been in vain of course. Every other year, he hadn’t been looking. They’d simply found each other. So by the end of the night, when he got to his bicycle, he logically hadn’t seen a sign of Astrid Hofferson.

Until he was done tipsily fiddling with his lock and intuitively checked behind him as he swung his leg over the saddle. And he saw her.

She looked like a vision, her blond hair bound into a ponytail, her face slightly pink from the cold. She was dressed more casually than the last time he’d seen her at a club, but stunning nevertheless. He couldn’t imagine there was a day on which she wasn’t gorgeous, inside or outside.

But she would never burst that particular fantasy bubble. Because she wasn’t interested in him. As she was currently proving by getting on the back of a motorcycle, her arms barely fitting around the waist of a tall, dark-haired man with four times the shoulders he had. Laughing, as if the bodybuilder had made her laugh in a way he’d never gotten the chance to.

Then she flung her ponytail over her shoulder. And her eyes met his eyes, her delight instantly deflating into an expression he was all too familiar with. Which he’d seen enough in the past decade.

Pity.

She started to get off the motorcycle, her eyes set on him. But instead of letting that phase him, he finally found the strength to decide that he didn’t need her apologies, let alone her pity. Not now.

She was free to call him if she had something to say. He wasn’t going to let her string him along. He’d had nearly an entire decade of that, of life, of fate having its twisted way with him. By taking his father away, and by hypnotising him with a prize he could never win.

So he pushed himself off and cycled away, heading straight home.

--------

December 31st, 2019 | Part 1

Hiccup’s New Year’s Eve resolution stayed with him for the entirety of 2019. He had focused on his work, on building a life for himself that would set him up for the next decade. The hopefully not-so-roaring twenties.

A life independent of his father’s memories, of the weird connection to Astrid he still reminisced about from time to time. But he didn’t act on it. He knew there was no use in it. She still hadn’t called, after all. And he hadn’t looked at any of her social media pages to see if she had ended up with her motorcycle hunk.

It wasn’t as if he needed her profile pictures to remember what she looked like, after all.

But it was fine like this. He didn’t need her in his life, and repeated that to himself every time he caught his mind wandering off to her again. Every time he started wondering what it might be like to see her again.

In those moments he simply reminded himself that he stood above that now. His dreams and creativity were meant for his designs, for his drawings, for stories that happened to people other than himself. If the past year, hell, the past decade, had taught him anything, it was that he should stay practical. By taking one step at a time, towards a clear, definable goal that didn’t depend on coincidences.

He had been happier for it. It had given him a sense of fulfilment, of independence to be standing on his own feet - foot - and call the shots instead of wondering about the what-ifs. What if Dad had still been alive? What if Astrid likes me after all and her not calling me is one big insecurity-fuelled misunderstanding?

So he had asked himself what would actually make him happy on New Year’s Eve, too. And he had made the boring, very adult decision to, for the first time in a decade, stay home. His feet propped up on the couch, a bag of Dutch doughnuts on his coffee table, the entire season of The Mandalorian ready on his TV to help him get through the post-The Rise of Skywalker void. Followed by The Witcher if he felt like staying up. It gave him every opportunity to cradle his new rescue dog, Toothless, to his chest whenever they both got spooked by the fireworks, and to simply be himself.

Comfortable and tucked in in his favourite sleeved blanket, he found himself wondering why he hadn’t done this before. Going clubbing with the New Year’s Eve crowds sucked, and the Berkian weather tonight was even worse than normal, the streets covered in snow and ice. He’d already seen Gobber and Uncle Spitelout that morning, and had agreed to meet with Fishlegs, Snotlout and the twins in the next days.

There was really no one else he needed to see on New Year’s Eve.

Not anymore.

And he’d made his peace with that.

He could be perfectly happy in the absence of the most beautiful and interesting woman he’d met in the twenty-six years he’d been alive.

#hiccstrid #hiccup #astrid #httyd #httyd fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #aleteia-writes #nye #new year's eve #a decade to find you

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alwaysahiccupandastrid · 5 years

Text

(Some of) My Favourite Quotes from the How To Train Your Dragon movies

“This is Berk.”

“There’s Fishlegs, Snotlout, the Twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut, and...*voice crack* Astrid. *cue heart eyes*”

"You sir, are playing a dangerous game. Keeping this much raw... Viking-ness... contained?! THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES!" // “I’ll take my chances.”

"Well, between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding, don't you think?"

“Excuse me, barmaid! I’m afraid you’ve brought me the wrong offspring - I ordered an extra large boy with beefy arms, extra guts and glory on the side! This here? This is a talking fish bone!”

"It's not so much what you look like, it's what's inside that he can't stand."

“You need to stop all...this.” // “You just pointed to all of me.” // “Yes, that’s it! Stop being all of you.”

"Oh, the gods hate me. Some people lose their knife, or their mug. No, not me. I manage to lose an ENTIRE DRAGON?!"

"Oh, man! I should've gone first! 'Cause I was thinking, you know, we have a surplus of dragon-fighting Vikings, but do we have enough... Bread-making Vikings? Or small-home-repair Vikings?"

"Yeah, it's only fun if you get a scar out of it."

“Yeah, no kidding, right? Pain, love it."

“What’s the first thing you’re going to need?” // “A doctor?!?”

“Get back to bed, ya overgrown sausage!”

"Toothless? I could've sworn you had... teeth."

“Ha! It’s like the size of my- AHHHH!”

“I AM HURT, VERY MUCH HURT!”

"Everything we know about you guys is wrong."

“SON OF A HALF TROLL, RAT EATING MUNGE BUCKET!”

"Uh, you're right, you're right, you're right. I'm through with the lies. I've been making... outfits. So, you got me. It's time everyone knew. Drag me back. Go ahead. Here we go."

"OW! Why would you DO that?!"

"That's for the lies! And that's... [Drops the butt of her axe on Hiccup's groin]... for everything else!"

“Da-da-da, we’re dead!”

“And now the spinning. Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile.”

[Punches Hiccup] "That's for kidnapping me... [Kisses him on the cheek] That's for everything else."

“They’ve killed hundreds of us-!” // “And we’ve killed thousands of them!”

“You’re not a Viking. You’re not my son.”

“Three hundred years and I’m the first Viking who wouldn’t kill a dragon.” // “...First to ride one though.”

“I wouldn’t kill him because he looked as frightened as I was...I looked at him, and I saw myself.”

“So? What are you gonna do?”

“I knew it. I’m dead.”

“That’s for scaring me!” // “What, is it always going to be this way, this-?!” // *kisses him* // “I...could get used to it.”

“THAT’S MY FUTURE DAUGHTER IN LAW!!!”

"Oh, what? You want an apology? Is that why you're pouting, big baby-poo?"

"Well try this on! [hugs him, tries to wrestle with him] Oh, you feeling it yet? Huh? Picking up on all of my heartfelt remorse?"

“He's down! Oh, and it's ugly! Dragons and Vikings, enemies again! Locked in combat to the bitter--[Toothless pins Hiccup] --AAHHHhhhh..."

[After Toothless licks him] "You KNOW that doesn't wash out!"

"So, what should we name it?" [Toothless scratches his armpit] "Itchy Armpit it is."

“Son, we need to talk!-“ // “Not now, dad, I’ve got a whole day of goofing off to get started.”

“What you’re searching for isn’t out there, Hiccup - it’s in here. Maybe you just don’t see it yet.”

(Slow motion) “Oh my 😏 me likey... take me...!”

"I don't know. It's kind of hard to wrap my head around, to be frank. It's not everyday you find out your mother is some kind of... crazy, feral, vigilante dragon lady." // “Well...at least I’m not boring!”

“...he got me back. Right, bud? You couldn't save all of me, could you? You just had to make it even. So,..peg leg!”

"Never take a toy from a dragon. Don't you know anything?"

“This is why I never married - this, and one other reason.”

“You’re as beautiful as the day I lost you.”

"That's your mother?" // “Well, now you see where I get my dramatic flair!"

“May the Valkyries welcome you and lead you through Odin's great battlefield. May they sing your name with love and fury, so that we might hear it rise from the depths of Valhalla and know that you've taken your rightful place at the table of kings. For a great man has fallen: A warrior. A chieftain. A father. A friend.

“He always said you’d become the strongest of them all - and he was right.”

“You have the heart of a Chief and the soul of a dragon”

“A Chief protects his own.”

“It wasn’t your fault, bud...they made you do it...please, you’re my best friend...my best friend.”

"Yeah! Take 'em down, babe!"

“Now do you get it? This is what it is to earn a dragons loyalty!”

“He’s challenging the Alpha!” // “To protect you!”

“See..I told you it was in here.” (Punches his suit, making his wings sprout up)

“The Chief has come home!”

"This is Berk. A bit trampled and busted and covered in ice, but it's home. It's our home. Those who attacked us, are relentless, and crazy. But those who stopped them, oh, even more so! We may be small in numbers, but we stand for something bigger than anything the world can pin against us. We are the voice of peace, and bit by bit, we will change this world. You see, we have something they don't. Oh, sure, they have armies, and they have armadas. But we... we have... OUR DRAGONS!”

“Ohhh I know you’re a demon, no human legs are that skinny!”

“That’s really just a nitwit who forgot to fire proof his butt.”

“Astrid, I had him right where I wanted him.” // “And now he’s right where I wanted him.”

“I thought this was supposed to be a stealth mission?” // “Yeah, they always start that way.”

“Mmm, gorg-e-ousss...Watch the hair!”

“Hang up those saddles and get married.” // Tuffnut: “The M word.” // Ruffnut: “Gross. Unless it’s me.”

“Marry him, please. You’re the only one with any sense around here. With you wearing the pants, there’s still hope.” “Wow, Gobber! Not awkward at all!”

“Hiccup...this is Berk, son. It’s our home.”

“Even Night Furies?” // “Especially Night Furies.” // “Those are scary!”

“Well, we could just take Gobber’s advice and tie the knot. That should fix everything! But hey, if you’re having doubts about yours truly, I’m sure Snotlout is still available.” // “He only has eyes for your mom.” // “OH, playing dirty now, huh?” // “You asked for it...looks like there might be a wedding after all...”

“Okay okay; you win! You always win!” // “You knew what you were getting into.” // “Uh-huh, right.”

“It’s more like a Bright Fury-.” // “A Light Fury!” // “...Yeah, yours is better, probably...”

“Bud, what’s gotten into you? What is all this slobbering and panting?” // “Isn’t it obvious? He’s in love!” // “Trust me, relationships are nothing but pain and misery. (*Astrid lightly hits him*) Ow... What did I just say?!”

“Show these nay sayers, of which there are many, that you are more than just a malnourished runt with bad hair, strange teeth and a twig for a neck.” // “You're-you're really bad at pep talks.”

“I'll give him a piece of my mind. And by mind, I mean fist!”

“Did you miss the part where we almost died? Have you seen my house?”

“Look, I know this is our home - my father left me to protect it. But Berk is more than this place. WE are Berk! The people, the dragons! I say Berk is wherever we go!”

“We have to fight for their freedom.”

“Furies mate for life, you see.”

“Ah don’t mind him - it’s not your fault you have the body of a Norse God. I myself have that same problem.” (Tries to flex, back cracks painfully)

“Who died and made you Chief?” (*everyone groans/Gothi hits him*)

“Can we lose the whole honking goose thing? It’s hard to imagine wedded bliss with that going off every minute.”

“I’ll go with you, for protection-.” // “(quickly) NO...(pause)...you’re far too important here.”

“Oh, now you can draw!”

“Save it for your girlfriend! Go on, get out of here!”

“About that leg...lose the limp, no ones gonna marry that.” // “I have a prosthetic leg!” // “Yeah, and I have a parasitic twin but you don’t see me limping around about it!”

“I feel like how Ruffnut feels every day: dumb.”

“Odin be spanked!”

“I try to avoid looking at her because she gives me acid reflux.”

“If they’re stuck with Ruffnut, I’m more worried about them.”

“I know what you're thinking. You've never had a prisoner this hot.”

“Oops, you let the dragons out! They’re gonna get you, no this ones gonna get you...!”

“Now that’s a king.”

“Dad? Are you gonna get us a new mom?” // “I don’t want another. Your mum was the only woman for me. She was the love of my life. But with love comes loss, son. It’s part of the deal. Sometimes it hurts, but in the end, it’s all worth it. There’s no greater gift than love.”

“Well, you’re right. You’re back to where you started. But I was the first to believe in you, and I have watched you doubt whether you’re worthy ever since. I am the person I am today because of you. I never told you that but it’s true. You’re the bravest, most stubborn, determined knucklehead I know. Toothless didn’t give you that, Hiccup. He just made it...” // “Easier.”

“So what are you gonna do about it?” // “Probably something stupid.” // “That’s the Hiccup I know.”

“You’re right, bud. It’s time. I was so busy fighting for a world that I wanted, I didn’t think about what you needed. You’ve looked after us for long enough. Time to look after yourselves.”

“Oh, Stormfly...my good girl.”

“So long...you big ugly beast. I’ll miss you.”

“Go on, bud. Lead them to the Hidden World. You’ll be safe there. Safer than you could ever be with me. It’s okay. I love you too. And I want you to be free. Our world doesn’t deserve you. Yet.”

“Go, Toothless...Go.”

“There were dragons when I was a boy. Ah, there were great, grim sky dragons that nested on the clifftops like gigantic, scary birds. Little, brown, scuttly dragons that hunted down the mice and rats in well-organized packs. Preposterously huge sea dragons that were twenty times as big as the big blue whale. Some say they crawled back into the sea, leaving not a bone nor a fang for men to remember them by. Others say they were nothing but folktales to begin with. I’m okay with that.”

“He’s not going to eat your father!”

“Legend says that when the ground quakes, or lava spews from the earth, it’s the dragons, letting us know they’re still here, waiting for us to figure out how to get along. Yes, the world believes the dragons are gone, if they ever existed at all. But we Berkians, we know otherwise. And we’ll guard this secret until the time comes when dragons can return in peace.”

#i wish i could put the entire scripts of all three films tbh #httyd #how to train your dragon #httyd 3 #how to train your dragon 3 #httyd 2 #how to train your dragon 2 #hiccup horrendous haddock iii #hiccup haddock #astrid hofferson #hiccstrid #snotlout jorgenson #valka haddock #stoick the vast #stoick haddock #ruffnut thorston #tuffnut thorston #quotes #fishlegs ingerman

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fictionalnormalcy · 4 years

Text

Face Amidst the Smoke Ch. 1

Rating: Explicit Word Count: 1310 Characters: Astrid Hofferson, Hiccup Haddock Summary: Astrid is paired for a project with someone who she is definitely not eager to work with. Haddock has a reputation of being a bad student, just a bad role model in general. But in being forced to work with one of the worst seniors in the school, she comes to see what is under this bad boy's exterior... and she may be getting in over her head.

Forced

There wasn’t anyway to avoid the circumstance. What would happen would happen. I sat in my seat, listening to the teacher saying that by the end of the period we would be in our groups and endeavoring on our latest project. It would take extensive research, brainstorming topics, and then after the paper was complete we would do a presentation. I started glancing around the classroom, seeing the thoughts that were already running through my classmates’ heads. Who their possible options were.

Some would watch the teacher, but once her attention would shift they’d start making gestures with their heads towards acquaintances they made. My friends however, had already started taking out sticky notes from their pouches and starting to write with their lead pencils. Could I be screwed for this upcoming project? I had a mild guess that none of those notes would be coming my way. Even Heather had never spared a glance in my direction. I considered taking a sticky note out of my binder. Maybe try to enter the written conversation before I was thrown out entirely?

She was on the verge of finishing the presentation. Soon enough the overhead projector would flick on, a page would slip under, and she’d tell us to find our groups and then she’d discuss the presentation further. I racked my brain of who were my possible options if my friends would truly leave me alone. I had some in this class, and though we didn’t always hang out I would have liked to work on this project with them. Just work with someone I get along with. This project was a large part of our grade, one of the few that would dominate our finals grades besides the exams.

“All right class, I’d like you to find a partner to do this assignment. Once you’ve found someone, you’re free to grab one of the packets on my desk, and write both of your names on the sheet. Now keep in mind that it’s one per group.”

Some people swooped out of their chairs. Others merely started gathering their stuff and shifting their desks so they faced one another. I saw my friends pair up with one another before I could even approach and ask if they wanted to work together. I had effectively been left out. I stared around the room, wondering which final options were left. My binder hung at my side as I stood awkwardly next to my empty desk. I was able to guess who was left without a partner. I couldn’t help but let out an audible groan. Not him. You could not make me work with him. Not with a project of this capacity.

“Ms. Hofferson, do you have a partner yet?”

I slumped into my chair. No point in refusing. It could easily be seen. It was only me and one other person left. Hiccup Haddock. One of the worst boys in school. He never gave a crap about anything, he smoked on school grounds, and rumors were that he carried a Swiss Army knife with him at all times. There was a black leather jacket that seemed to be all he ever wore, and he had never completed a single assignment for this class. I did not want to work with him.

“Haddock, where is your partner?”

“He’s right here next to me, can’t you see him?” He gestured to an empty seat mockingly.

“I’m afraid you cannot work alone on this project.”

“And why not?” The both of us protested.

“The work is far too taxing. The project is constructed so that it requires the work of two people. So that means, Haddock and Hofferson, you’re working together.”

I snapped my head back to look at him. He smiled smugly, sinking farther back into his seat. There was nothing on his desk, not a pen or paper. Gods this wasn’t going to be pleasant, and I was the one who had to move. I begrudgingly clutched my notebook, and moved to sit next to him. He sat in the back of the classroom, and all I could see was a sagging backpack next to the desk. I slid into the desk, wishing I could turn my back on him, but that wouldn’t work. The desks weren’t constructed that way.

“I think you forgot to go get us a packet.” He said.

I immediately glared at him. “Why don’t you go do it?”

“I wasn’t the one who had to switch seats. You were already up anyway.”

I could’ve sat there debating with him another five minutes, I could have just let the both of us sit without a packet. We clearly were not eager to work with each other. Though I remembered how much this project was worth. If either of us slacked off our grades would take huge consequences. I slid out of the seat and swiped a packet off of the desk. As I walked by my friends I saw Heather give me a look of pity. Pointing to her cell phone when I passed. I dumped the packet on his desk, sitting back down while crossing my arms.

“See, everyone could use a little exercise now and then.”

I couldn’t help but take in a deep breath and let it end with a scowl. There was a possibility that I would be throttling Haddock by the end of the period. Forcing my gaze to the front of the room, I waited until the teacher had set up her own packet under the projector. She started discussing the project, a blue highlighter poised in her hand to outline important details. My hand was reaching for the packet on Haddock’s desk when he slapped it away. He was skimming the packet himself, flipping the pages with minute responses to the details read.

I waited with my hand extended until he finished investigating. I already had my highlighter out by then, and quickly copied the colorations on the teacher’s paper before she flipped the page. She gave us a short list of websites where we could look for possible topics. We would need to get her approval by the end of the week. The essay would be due first, then a week later we’d have to give presentations. Suggesting to split the work so the pair would get the same amount of work. I let out a whistled breath of annoyance.

It certainly wouldn’t be equal if I had to work with him. There was a lot riding on this. If the work wasn’t completed, my grade would surely take a consequence. His could only sink lower. This was the semester that would make it or break it for us to graduate. I couldn’t risk being derailed simply because my teammate was a lazy ignorant person. As soon as the teacher finished discussing the project, I turned to Hiccup. Putting on the sternest face I could.

“Look, I know you don’t give a crap about this, but I do. So help me gods, you better do your part or I’ll make sure you’re in more than one piece.”

“Heh.” He had the nerve to smirk. “I won’t put up a debate with you. This project actually seems worth doing.”

“It is worth 20% of our grade.”

“Yes I think I can read.” He gestured to the packet.

I flicked out my cell phone, opening a tab and typing in a link to one of the websites. I took out an index card, writing down a few additional links before passing it to Hiccup. He grasped it with no complaint, but as soon as I returned to my phone he leaned over and slid it into a pocket of his backpack.

“Those are the links you need to look up. Get to it.”

“Can’t. My phone don’t got access to the Internet.”

#httyd #fanfiction #face amidst the smoke #chapter 1 #astrid hofferson #hiccup haddock #modern day au

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shipmistress9 · 4 years

Text

HW2020 -- 5: Buying Flowers For Each Other

Part 5 of my Hiccstrid Week Project.

t-rated; RTTE-canon-verse

This one, I had a lot of fun with! 😁 Partially because of the scenes and conversations themselves, but also because of a certain headcanon that wormed its way into this prompt/one-shot which affects how I feel about many things.

I hope you’ll enjoy it! :)

(Also, linking back to the master post for all the wonderful additions 😊)

. o O o .

“So, any ideas what you’re getting for her this year?”

Hiccup grimaced at Snotlout's question. “What do you mean?” he asked, aiming for nonchalance. He knew exactly what Snot meant, but he didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of playing his game.

“Uh, Astrid’s birthday, I guess,” Fishlegs helpfully threw in. “It’s in two weeks.”

Hiccup sighed. “Is that so?” As if he would ever forget that.

“I wonder why I ever bothered thinking about you as competition,” Snot muttered under his breath, then said in a louder voice. “Well, I know what I’ll get her as a gift. All women love flowers. And jewellery. So that’s what I’ll get for her. The biggest bouquet of flowers you can imagine and the most special bracelet you’ve ever seen. She’ll fall in love with me right away, you’ll see.” And with a last sneer in Hiccup’s direction, he left the clubhouse.

“‘The most special bracelet we’ve ever seen’?” Hiccup repeated, his eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement. “And flowers?”

Fishlegs nodded, eager to share what he knew. "Oh, yes. Snot's been talking about little else lately. Apparently, he asked Johann to get him the most ostentatious bracelet he can find. I wonder what it'll be. Can you imagine the wonders foreign cultures may produce? I can't wait to see it!"

Bemused, Hiccup blinked at his friend but then decided not to say anything. Maybe Snot should give that bracelet to Fishlegs instead, he certainly would appreciate it more than Astrid.

Or so Hiccup hoped at least.

Because even though he'd been aware of her upcoming birthday for weeks already, he still had no idea what to give her for this occasion. He wanted it to be something special, something she'd truly appreciate, something unique. But no matter how much he thought about it, nothing would come to his mind that felt right.

The only thing he knew was that Snot's ideas sucked. Because Astrid wasn't like all women. She was special and unique in her own ways, so strong and independent, a warrior. The only worth flowers had to her were when they had any practical healing effects or the petals could be used as a dye. And jewellery? That wasn't her thing at all. Any elaborate adornments would only get in the way during fighting. Sure, she owned a few pieces, a pretty comb for her hair and a brooch to go with it. But those were family heirlooms, pieces she valued because of their meaning and not because they were 'pretty'.

No, there really was no need to worry about how Astrid would receive Snot's gifts, not about any meaningless jewellery and certainly not about some flowers either. But that didn't change that Hiccup still had no idea what to get for her…

. o O o .

Hiccup was still scouring his mind for a suitable gift for Astrid when they all flew back to Berk a few days later. He thought about looking through Trader Johann's goods himself but directly ruled that idea out again. True, sometimes he brought interesting things… but somehow, Hiccup felt like that wouldn't do. The friendship between him and Astrid had evolved and grown since they were living on Dragon's Edge, so she deserved something more personal.

As soon as they'd landed and greetings were dealt with, he headed over to Gobber's forge – or, more precisely, toward his old workshop.

"Okay, let's see what we have here," he muttered to himself as he pulled out a stack of papers and let them drop onto the desk. There were so many things he'd invented during the rather lonely years before he'd met Toothless, so many ideas he'd come up with but hadn't pursued further beyond making simple sketches. There just had to be something sensible, something he could refine during the next days, something more personal and useful than a big bouquet of flowers. The thought alone made Hiccup roll his eyes.

Humming to himself, he sifted through the papers, getting out a second and eventually a third stack. It was a fun walk down memory lane that often made him smile fondly or laugh at his younger self. Some of these ideas were absurd. However, once he’d looked through all three stacks and had hunted out every other loose sheet of paper he could find, he had to admit to himself… that he still had nothing.

Astrid had no need of a splintered twig that could hold a piece of coal. He'd designed that one for his dad once, to keep his hands from getting too messy when he took notes for his chiefing duties. But Stoick had never used it; the twig had broken between his meaty fingers almost instantly. And she also didn't need that utterly ridiculous sword-axe-mace-thing he'd designed when he was thirteen and thought all he would need to get her attention was a cool weapon.

No, none of these sometimes bizarre inventions would work as a gift for Astrid.

Sighing, he let his head drop down onto the table with a dull thump. “What am I supposed to do?”

The knock on the door made him jump up with a surprised cry. “Wha-what? Who’s there?” he asked as he hastily pushed his old notes aside.

To his relief, the door opened to reveal only Gobber, a strange grin on his face. “Is just me, laddy,” the blacksmith announced cheerfully. “I just wanted tae check if yer okay. Heard ye laughin' an' cursin' in here all day.”

Hiccup, who’d gotten up to join his old mentor in the main workshop, blinked at the light falling through the window in surprise. Gobber was right, the sun was already setting.

“I… well, I was just going through my old notes. I hoped to find something... Ah, never mind. I’ll just have to think of something else.”

Gobber frowned. “Yer sure? Is there a problem ye need help with?”

For a short moment, Hiccup actually considered asking Gobber for help. But he sincerely doubted that the older man would come up with an idea for a sensible gift either. Astrid also didn’t need a hand prosthetic that could be used as a cooking spoon, after all.

“No, I’ve got this. But thanks,” he said politely. Gobber didn’t seem convinced though, so he quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, how are you? Any news to share? How’s the forge going?”

Gobber gave him a confused look, but then shrugged. “Ah, just the same as ever. Lots of work an' too wee time. Just today, I got five old swords tae recycle intae somethin' useful.”

Out of reflex, Hiccup’s eyes shifted to the pile of metal in a corner. “Do you need my help with anything?” Maybe working with his hands would help unstick his mind.

“Nae, nothing urgent. But yer always welcome tae work here if ye want.”

Hiccup nodded. “Alright. I’ll stop by tomorrow as long as nothing else comes up.” Casually, he sifted through the mangled and broken weapons, feeling nostalgic when he recognised a blade or a handle he’d made himself. Then he paused, frowning as his hand lingered over one particular sword. “Is this…?” He threw Gobber a surprised look.

“Huh?” Gobber glanced over and then shrugged. “Aye, that’s Gronkle Iron. Grandpa Larson retired an' young Gustav doesnae want it. ‘Too short’, he said.” He rolled his eyes. “A shame. But aam sure I can fin' a new purpose for that metal.”

Hiccup eyed the sword again, an idea forming in his mind in rapid speed. Grinning broadly, he took the sword and turned toward Gobber again. “Would you mind if I used this metal? I already have an idea.”

. o O o .

“Here, these are for you. Happy birthday, beautiful.”

Astrid looked flabbergasted, and Hiccup really couldn’t blame her. After all, Snot had all but thrown an entire armful of flowers at her the very moment she’d appeared at the clubhouse.

“What the–” she cursed, dumping the flowers onto the nearest table. “Snotlout, are you out of your mind? What am I supposed to do with these?”

“Ah, don’t be like that,” Snot drawled. "Beautiful flowers for a beautiful lady, that's what these are for.”

Astrid’s hands balled into fists. “Are you serious?” she snarled.”Odin, when the Gods handed out intelligence, you really were hiding in a cave and screamed 'I don't want any!', didn't you?"

Hiccup chocked on his laughter, both at Astrid's comment and Snot's puzzled expression. The twins weren't as considered, bursting out laughing and wiping tears off their faces.

However, Snot wouldn't give up that quickly it seemed. “Well, no,” he hastily backpaddled. “I mean, of course, no stupid plant will ever outshine you, Astrid. They can only ever compliments your beauty and–"

"Okay, stop right there before I'm getting sick," she interrupted him, visibly shuddering in disgust.

"But it's your birthday, baby!" Snot apparently wasn't done yet.

Hiccup was beginning to enjoy the show, and certainly not least because of how little Astrid obviously cared for Snot's attention. It helped kindle the tentative hope that lately had started blooming in his heart. Maybe, just maybe she felt the same…

"Yes, it's my birthday," Astrid snapped back. "So what? Does that mean I'm obliged to suffer even more of your stupidity?"

Snot gaped at her for a second but then seemed to pull himself together again. "Ah, I know why you're upset. You thought those flowers were your only gift and were disappointed, right? But don't worry, the Snotman is your saviour in every situation.” He snatched the box with the bracelet off the table and held it out to her. “Here, this one’s your true present. Come on, look inside. You’ll love it.”

Astrid took a moment to take a deep calming breath. She rolled her eyes but otherwise stayed clam which, given that Hiccup could see the tension in her jaw, was impressive. “All right, what is it this time, Snot? Let’s get this over with so that I can tell you to shut up and leave me in peace.” She inspected the box and the intricate bow that was bound around it, certainly not by Snow himself but rather by Johann or maybe even the one he’d bought it from. She tugged it open and–

“What, in Loki’s name...” She lifted a note and a simple braided leather cord out of the box, staring at them in disbelief. From where Hiccup stood, he couldn’t make out what exactly was tied into it, only that it was about half a dozen charms, all white and of a rather… phallic form. There was a moment of silence, then...

“Are you kidding me?” Astrid screeched, turning furious eyes on Snotlout.

Snot had turned an interesting shade of white, backing away with his hands raised in defence and his eyes switching from Astrid to the bracelet she’d dropped onto the ground and back again. “I… I’m sorry! I didn’t know what– It was Johann’s fault! He–” He seemed to realise that no excuse would save him, stumbling back a step or three before he turned to make a run for it – Astrid hard on his heels.

“That really is the most special bracelet I’ve ever seen,” Ruff snickered. She’d picked it up and inspected it. “I think those are carved dragon teeth. I never would have thought of giving them this form though.” She held it up for everyone else to see which led to Tuff covering Chicken’s eyes while Fishlegs picked up the note that had fallen to the ground next to the bracelet.

“Uh, no wonder she was so mad,” he muttered after reading the note. “According to Johann, this is a special talisman from somewhere far in the south. Traditionally, it’s meant as a betrothal or wedding gift and is meant to bless the donor and the receiver with...” he paused, blushing a little, “with fertility and never-ending passion. Johan even added a personal note, wishing Snot good luck and happiness with his bride-to-be.”

Tuff looked up, bewildered. “Wait, what? Snot’s getting married? When? And to who?”

Ruff just burst out laughing. “Oh, Snot is so dead!”

Bemused, Hiccup watched in silence from his place in the back of the room. He wasn’t quite sure what Snot had been thinking, whether he’d been thinking at all, or whether it really had just been Johann’s exaggerated enthusiasm. How could he get her something like this and think she’d like it, how could he misread her signs so thoroughly?

Or, could it be that…?

No, he didn’t want to think about the other option; that, maybe, it was Hiccup who was misreading her. Surely, there was something between him and Astrid, something that had developed over the past years, right? He wasn’t as stupid sn Snot for getting his hopes up… right?

He was still brooding, a little worriedly, when Astrid came back. Her body was tense with repressed anger. “Get that thing out of my sight, Ruff, or I swear I’ll shove it somewhere nobody will ever find it again,” she growled.

Still giggling, Ruff pouched the bracelet. “So, did you kill Snot?” she asked, mirth clear on her face. Apparently, she was enjoying herself greatly.

Astrid shot her a glare, then let out a defeated sigh as she slumped down on a nearby chair. “No, I didn’t. He flew off before I could reach him, all the while yelling how sorry he was. I just wish… why can’t he leave me in peace, for Odin’s sake?”

“Same reason Legs would never leave Meatlug and my brother takes Chicken with him wherever he goes,” Ruff prompted, grinning. Both boys looked at her in clear confusion.

Astrid growled at her but then paused when her eyes fell on another box lying on the table in front of her. It was only adorned with a rather simple bow, but it was enough to identify it as another present. Hiccup wished he could rush forward and snatch it away, not wanting to annoy her further, but it was too late.

“And what’s this?” she asked, her voice saturated with annoyance. “If that moron got me even more, then...” She let the threat trail off and grabbed the box.

“No, that’s from–” Fishlegs began but got cut off by Hiccup frantically shaking his head. If she got this angry and annoyed by getting gifts, he rather didn’t want her to know he’d gotten her something, too.

However, Astrid didn’t pay them any mind, eyes fixed on the box’s content. Without a word, she reached inside and lifted one of the two objects out, inspecting it. It was a dagger, sleek and sharp, perfectly balanced, the handle wrapped in practical leather. It was elegant in its simplicity – if Hiccup was allowed to think so himself. What Astrid thought, however, he had no idea.

Mutely, she stood up and walked over to where he stood, her eyes not leaving the sharp blade until she stood right in front of him. “You made this.” It wasn’t a question. She knew his handiwork to well not to recognise it.

Gulping, Hiccup nodded. “Both of them,” he mumbled, hoping she wasn’t about to gut him. The old sword had been big enough to turn it into two daggers, and while he’d worked away in Gobber’s forge, making them had felt like a fantastic idea. Now, he wasn’t so sure anymore.

Astrid shook her head, gaze dropping back to the dagger in her hand and face twitching. “A Gronkle Iron dagger,” she murmured. “Two even.”

“You… you once said you’d want one…” he mumbled, feeling more stupid with every passing moment. That had been ages ago, he should have known better.

Again, she shook her head, but when she looked up again, there was surprise in her eyes, even something like a smile on her face. “You remembered?” she asked. “I… I didn’t think…” She trailed off, her face softening into a grateful smile. “Thank you!”

There was true gratitude in her voice, but Hiccup barely noticed anything anymore as she stretched to press a quick kiss to his cheek; Not Ruff’s snickering, not Fishlegs’ happy smile, and not even the blush on Astrid’s cheeks as she quickly turned away and left. All he knew was that he was grinning like an idiot, his hand rising to brush over where her lips had touched him.

So, he’d been right after all. Astrid wasn’t the romantic type and getting her flowers of all things would never do.

. o O o .

Aah, I really liked this one! 😊 I hope some of you did, too.

* - . - * - . o O o . - * - . - *

If you want to support me you can buy me a coffee. I love coffee 😊 (Ko-Fi)

#Hiccstrid Week 2020 #Hiccstrid #fanfiction #httyd #rtte #fluff #Hiccup Haddock #Astrid Hofferson #Snotlout #ruffnut #Tuffnut #Fishlegs #yes I admit the reblog of that edit wasn't by chance

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leiasfanaccount648 · 5 years

Text

Rewrite the Stars

(Hiccup x Fem!Reader)

This isn’t for anything or anyone in particular. I’ve just had this idea in my head for almost a full year and I’m proud to finally have made this. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have planning and writing it.

Word Count: 7726

Contains: Angst and fluff, sadness if you get emotional very easily like me lol

“Is it always gonna be this way? Cause-“

“I could get used to it.”

For the past 5 years, things have been this way, and needless to say, Hiccup wasn’t used to it by any means. He had been crushing on Astrid for years, so why didn’t this feel right? Of course he knew why, but did it just dawn upon him now? For quite some time, he started to notice how bored he had become with Astrid; as if he had been playing a role he thought he was meant for but honestly had no correlation to. Yes, he still enjoyed her company, but all of the feelings he had when he was just a teenager were all gone. Whenever Astrid would try and make a move on him in some way, he felt uncomfortable and made up some excuse about having work to do around the village. He was the chief after all, so she always believed him. Eventually, he accepted the fact that he no longer thought of Astrid that way; he still hasn’t told her either. In fact, he thought that way about someone else now.

For years, there had been one person in particular that had always been by his side. She had stuck by his side for as long as he could remember. Growing up, he was seen as nothing. The only reason nothing too drastic had happened to him was because he was the son of the chief, and was going to be chief himself one day. That didn’t stop people from messing with and/or thinking lowly of him. However, despite it all, (Y/N) was there for him.

(Y/N) was an orphan who had been found on the island as a baby. One day a small row boat washed up on shore, and some people on Berk checked it to see nothing but her and (sadly) the corpse of who appeared to be her mother. People say that there must have been a dragon or pirate attack of some kind, and (Y/N) survived because her ‘mother’ had hid her in a small basket of clothes. No one wanted to take her in, some afraid that she was a curse from the gods since her appearance made no sense and was so sudden, and was soon in the hands of the chief’s wife, Valka. She found (Y/N) to be a gift to have around the house despite what people said about her, and she raised her as if she was her own. About a year later, Valka had given birth to a child, happier than ever with the family she and Stoic had come to make. Sadly, when Valka was taken by dragons and presumed dead, Stoic tried his best to take care of his own son as well as (Y/N), as that was what Valka would have wanted; he couldn’t handle the trouble and time it was causing on him and asked Gobber if he could watch over her until she was old enough to live on her own at a reasonably age.

(Y/N) was passed from family to family until she was 7 years old. No one wanted her, some of them being on harder times than others or still believing she was a curse from the gods, but they knew if they turned down the offer, they would be hearing it from Stoic. He knew that Valka loved (Y/N) as if she was her own child, and always made sure that she was safe and secure; sadly, she was never truly loved by the people that watched over her. Having been moved around so much her entire life, she just wanted a place to call home for herself. About a year later, she got a small house built for herself. Even though she was on her own, Stoic always checked in every now and then to see how she was doing. Eventually, she properly got to meet Hiccup, and they became good friends. Neither of them really knew that they were seen as mistakes on Berk, so that’s why they got along so well. They didn’t need anyone else because they had each other to talk to and hang out with. During their teen years, things got pretty crazy. Hiccup was being trained by Gobber in the blacksmith, so that gave him and (Y/N) less time to spend time to spend time together. As for (Y/N), she knew she had to start growing up more as well. She was independent for sure, used to being alone, but she wanted to be more than just the orphan that no one wanted to care for and almost like an outcast on the island.

One major change as they grew up was them seeing the reality of the world they lived in. Yes, they knew there were dragons; yes, they knew they weren’t that well liked on Berk other than by Stoic and Gobber, but that didn’t stop them from growing up into the people they became as teens.

Hiccup focused on his work in the blacksmith, determined to make a difference on the island. He wanted to kill dragons and be one of the many others risking their lives for the cause/fight they were all involved in in some way. Eventually, he realized he wanted to do more than just repair weapons, and decided to make his own to help him in battle if he ever got the chance. He wasn’t that well built physically, but he was incredibly smart compared to everyone else on Berk. Hiccup wanted nothing more than to be apart of the ‘cool kids’ on Berk and make his father proud by being the viking he wanted him to be. He thought that’s what he had to be. (Y/N) thought the complete opposite, thinking that Hiccup was perfectly fine just the way he was.

Speaking of (Y/N), she wanted to learn more and grow up as quickly as she possibly could. She went to Hiccup, asking how to make certain weapons for herself, getting her own bow and set of arrows as well as a small knife to keep on her. She soon learned how to hunt and fish as well from Stoic, who was very glad to teach somebody that was interested in this type of stuff since Hiccup didn’t seem that way. She soon began to make her own clothes from the animals she hunted and sold some to help get by (instead of stealing the occasional loaf of bread or anything else she might need). (Y/N) wouldn’t steal often, only in times where she was that desperate for food or any other supplies. Not every hunting season is a good one after all. (Y/N) sometimes stop by the blacksmith shop as well to see Hiccup and how we was coming along being Gobber’s apprentice as well as making his own weapons and inventions. It warmed her heart to see how he was doing even if they didn’t get to see each other as often.

On one fateful night, one dragon attack made (Y/N) realize how far apart they truly were drifting. She was 16, Hiccup being 15, and (Y/N) was starting to rarely ever be seen around the island for reasons unknown. She was heading to the forest right before she heard the dragons fly overhead the island and vikings from every direction getting ready to fight. Wanting to help in someway, she headed to the blacksmith to get a weapon for herself to use (her bow and arrows wouldn’t be that effective and she didn’t want to waste them). Surprisingly, only Gobber was there, heating up some swords over the burning coals. She began to help him since Hiccup wasn’t there yet, but it made her worry a little. Did Hiccup get injured or killed? There have been so many close calls before and she didn’t want this to be his last.

Eventually, Hiccup ran in as (Y/N) was in the middle of doing his job at the coals. Some small talk later, (Y/N) was working on a sword for herself to use hopefully later that night. As she called out to Hiccup to help her with something, she noticed he wasn’t even listening; paying too much attention to his crush, Astrid, that wasn’t even 10 feet from the service window. (Y/N) felt a twist in her heart, as if it hurt to watch. Thinking it was just the coal fumes she shook her head and went back to work on her sword.

Meanwhile, Hiccup watched Astrid walk by as Gobber grabbed him before he could run out there. (Y/N) half listened in on their conversation, having heard it many times before, and didn’t even chime in until Hiccup accidentally activated one of his latest inventions that was supposed to help him shoot down a dragon.

“Hiccup, you’ve almost killed more vikings than you have dragons. Gobber’s right. You need to be more realistic about these things. Wait until you feel like you’re truly ready to go out and fight.”

Of course, Hiccup, having had these conversations with her as well, had an immediate response. “I am ready! I just need to work around some things like the mild calibration issues and-” He was cut off by Gobber stepping back into the conversation. “Hiccup, if you ever want to get out there to fight dragons, you need to stop all..” He paused for a moment, trying to find the right word, “this.” He gestured to Hiccup, who was both annoyed and confused.

“But you just pointed to all of me.”

“Yes, that’s it! Stop being all of you.”

It made (Y/N)’s heart break at what was being said. Even if Gobber was like a second father to Hiccup and knew he only wanted to help him, hearing those words being said made her feel awful. Of course, having heard all of this before, Hiccup didn’t seem too offended by Gobber’s statement. (Y/N) was about to head out with her sword in hand before Gobber stopped her. “Hold on, lass.” He took her sword from her, examining it. “It’s too dull. Hiccup,” he caught the young boy’s attention as he was still grudging over what was said to him not 2 minutes ago. “Sharpen (Y/N)’s sword, now. Then get back to work on repairing the other weapons in the window.” Gobber dropped the sword in Hiccup’s arms, making him stumble for a moment from the weight before carrying it over somewhere in the workshop to sharpen it. (Y/N) followed him, feeling the need to say something.

“Hiccup, you don’t have to-” she was cut off by him abruptly. “It’s fine, (Y/N). I’m used to these things by now anyway. I know you are too, and you’re just trying to look out for me.” He turned the sword so that the other side got sharpened by the stone. “But one day, I will get out there. Because killing a dragon is everything around here.” Hiccup began to explain all the types of dragons that come and go the most on Berk, each one getting more and more serious as in what would happen if he managed to kill one of them. (Y/N) began to realize that he seemed very committed to this, as if it was the only thing that mattered. He wasn’t for any of the other viking-like things on Berk, so what made this one the most important thing in his life?

..get me at least noticed.

..would definitely get me a girlfriend.

..two heads, twice the status.

That was it: he only cared about this because it affected his image and what people would think of him. Especially his father. Thor knows how much Hiccup would appreciate more love and support for who he was from his father rather than hear a lecture every now and then about how much better he should/could be doing.

(Y/N) didn’t want Hiccup to try so hard to get people to like him. He constantly would try so hard to make his father proud or just do things right by being helpful in a way others wanted to be, but each attempt would end up with something going wrong whether it was a minor or major issue to take care of afterwards. She didn’t want to see him try so hard only to just get yelled at more, but that’s also what she loved about him. He was always so confident in what could happen and never gave up no matter how impossible everyone said it (or he) was. So that’s why she still continued to support him. When Gobber left to go help in the fight, Hiccup seized his opportunity and went out to go try his new invention. (Y/N) tried to stop him, saying how someone needed to work the shop, but he only replied saying that she could do it for him. However, just like Hiccup, she was too stubborn and ran after him to make sure he was okay and didn’t get killed. That was the last thing she wanted, especially from her hands.

From that moment on, she was by his side. She hadn’t been there for him the past few years, thinking that he didn’t really need her since he seemed to have the rest of his life planned out, and thought that she could help him with whatever he was trying to accomplish. And if he was wrong, she would help steer him in the right direction. She didn’t want him to pretend to be someone he truly wasn’t only to result in chaos; she wanted him to live his life the way he wanted. Not what someone or everyone else thought.

As the years went by, she remained by his side just like she promised. Shooting down Toothless and finding him, some of the training's with Toothless, the battle of Red Death, when he changed Berk for the better, fighting with Dagur and other people who were trouble, finding a dragon of her own with his help, finding Hiccup’s mother, losing his father, defeating Drago, and most important of all, becoming the chief of Berk.

(Y/N) was basically his second half, always helping out and being there for him, guiding him through tough/difficult times where he didn’t know what to do, everything. They were best friends again just like when they were kids. However, best friends don’t fall in love with one another. It wasn’t until Hiccup got with Astrid after the battle of Red Death that (Y/N) realized she had developed feelings for him. However, he had been dreaming of being with her for years on end, and she promised to always support and help with everything that he did. She wanted him to be happy, and if that meant that he was with Astrid, then so be it.

5 years had passed and she’s still in love with him and everything he does. And Hiccup didn’t even realize his feelings for her until it was almost too late. He didn’t feel anything with Astrid anymore, realizing how she had never really cared for him that much until the last year or so. He had been crushing on her for so long that he was blindsided from who he truly did love. The person that was always there for him, in good times and in bad. He truly was in love with (Y/N). He wanted to break off his betrothal and marriage with Astrid, and he technically had the power to do so, but he had no idea how to bring it up to her. Either way, he knew it would result in her crying and possibly punching Hiccup a few dozen times. He was ready for it, knowing it had to come eventually, but he first had to talk with (Y/N) about this. After all, she was just as much a part of this decision as he was.

Hiccup and (Y/N) were out discovering more land one day, Hiccup leaving Gobber in charge of Berk, and he decided now would be the perfect time to bring up how he felt towards (Y/N). She was currently putting out the mini fire they had made for the evening as well as cleaning/sharpening her arrows. They had made great progress mapping out more uncharted land stayed out longer than intended, but neither of them minded. Now it was sunset and were about to head back to Berk. A few minutes had passed before Hiccup finally gained the courage to start the conversation he had been planning through his head all day. He walked over, sitting down next to her. “Hey, have you been thinking about what you want for the future?”

This made (Y/N) glance at him, clearly a little confused about the sudden question brought upon her. She shrugged, continuing to clean her arrows as they were used earlier that day. “I mean, not really. I figured we would just keep doing our regular thing. You be chief, I continue to be an outcast that most on Berk haven’t really accepted,” she laughed softly at her own statement, but Hiccup definitely wasn’t amused. The sad thing was that she wasn’t wrong either. People still didn’t like her all that much. Lots had grown accustomed to her, but lots still didn’t trust her. She continued speaking.

“And we’d still continue to map out the world together as well as find more if not new dragons. But overall,” she looked to him, smiling contently, “I couldn’t ask for a better future.” And once again, she wasn’t wrong. Even if it wasn’t the future she had hoped for, she was still happy to spend time with the ones she loved, especially Hiccup. “As long as I have you, Toothless, and (D/N) by my side, I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

(D/N) was (Y/N)’s dragon she had gotten about 2 years prior, (almost) a new species that Hiccup and herself called a Light Fury. She couldn’t be happier with (D/N) in her life, and didn’t plan on losing her.

Hiccup couldn’t help but stare at her longingly, as if he was desperate to hold her and tell her the exact same thing and more in hopes that she would reciprocate his feelings. But of course, he had to take this slow and seriously. It was a major matter to deal with, and he didn’t want to scare her off by being too forward. Another statement from her brought him away from his thoughts. “Why do you ask?”

He took a deep breath, turning to face her as she continued to clean her arrows. He probably shouldn’t do this while she technically had a weapon on her but hey, he had to break the ice sometime. “I, uh,” Hiccup paused for a moment, deciding his words carefully. “It’s about Astrid.”

(Y/N) stopped what she was doing and looked to him carefully, making sure she heard him right. She placed her arrows on the ground before looking to him as well. “Okay. What about her? You nervous for the wedding or something?” Hiccup chuckled nervously, holding the back of his neck. “Something like that, you could say.” He looked at the now dying fire to avoid any eye contact that would cause (Y/N) to basically find out herself. She waited for him to continue, starting to worry about where he was going with this.

“I want to call off the wedding,” Hiccup looked back at (Y/N), proving to her that he was serious. “And break up with Astrid entirely.”

(Y/N) was in complete shock. Where did this come from? He always loved her and now he almost seemed to want nothing to do with her now. “What in the name of Thor are you talking about, Hiccup?”

“I already said. I want to end things with Astrid. I don’t love her anymore.”

She stared into his eyes to see if he was being serious, and he was. As if he was completely sure about this decision. She couldn’t think of anything else to say, truly speechless. (Y/N) began to think about why he would want this but came to no conclusion. “What made you want to do this?”

Hiccup didn’t hesitate. He was finally having this conversation so it was now or never. “You.” He paused a moment, choosing his next words carefully. “(Y/N), I’ve realized now that I never truly loved Astrid. Yes, she’s a great friend, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with her. I don’t feel as happy with her as I do with you. And trust me when I say that I have thought about this and this is what I want. You are the one that I want.” Hiccup took hold of (Y/N)’s hand as she began to process his words. Normally, she would have been ecstatic to hear this, and she was at first. But then she thought about what would happen if she said yes. First, there would be Astrid who would hate her for the rest of their lives. Second, there would be tons of people on Berk who would not only hate her more, but possibly Hiccup as well for doing something like this. Not to mention the fact that people already thought she was a curse among them and this would only make matter worse, threatening her’s as well as Hiccup’s life. She looked down, feeling the need to cry. She had to say no for the sake of both of them. The last thing she wanted was for him to get hurt.

“Hiccup, I..” She struggled to speak, this being hard on her. She looked away, not wanting to see his face as she said this. “I can’t be with you.” She let go of his hand, speaking softly, in fear that she might cry. She didn’t want to break his heart, but she had no choice. She could practically feel his eyes as he stared at her, wanting more to her answer. “You’re the chief, the one everyone looks to in times of need. Doing something like this would only ruin you and what people did on Berk.”

“Then, they’re small minded people.” Hiccup reached for her and again, only for her to pull away and look down at the fire as the last few flames burned. As usual, he didn’t give up and kept trying. “Why do you care what they think? For as long as I’ve known you, you only cared for yourself and those you care about. How is this any different?”

“It’s not just them.” (Y/N) glanced back at him, shaking her head. “You’ve never had someone look at you and wish you were dead, no matter how many good things you did for others.” She paused, eyes starting to tear up again as she stared into his eyes. “I could never do that to you, much less us.” (Y/N) stood up, walking over to (D/N) to get ready to leave.

Hiccup stood as well about to follow her. “Do you feel the same way?”

(Y/N) froze, unable to move as she messed with (D/N)’s saddle. She knew the answer, but she couldn’t let him know, knowing that if he knew, he would not stop to try and win her heart. But jokes on him, he already has. “We should get going. It’s getting dark out.” She spoke quietly but Hiccup was still able to hear her. And he had no intention of ending the conversation here.

“You say that it’s not right, that fate is pulling you away and out of reach from me. Who can stop me and decide that you’re not the one who I want?” (Y/N) didn’t stop her next words from coming out. She couldn’t help it, turning around to face him. “Hiccup, if we do this, chaos may happen throughout Berk. Thus leading to decisions that I know you won’t want to make. No one will ever let you live it down if we went through with this.”

“I don’t care. I love you.”

Hiccup was shocked by his words as well as (Y/N) was. They stared each other down, waiting for the other to do/say something. Eventually, (Y/N) turned back around to fix up (D/N)’s saddle for the flight back home, not saying a word. Hiccup, however, did. He walked over to her as he spoke.

“People say that the stars are stories written by the gods as time passes.”

Confused would be an understatement for a reaction to his words. “Hiccup, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying let’s rewrite the stars, (Y/N). Nothing can keep us apart. It’s up to you and it’s up to me to make this decision.”

He stood on the other side of (D/N), waiting for (Y/N) to look up at him. She eventually did, but not for long as she turned back around to walk over and get her bow and arrows. Hiccup still persisted with his goal fresh in mind.

“No one has say in what we do or who we get to be. So why are you leaving this up to them?” He reached out to her as she turned back around to walk over to her dragon. Getting caught by his arm grabbing hold of her by her waist, she finally stopped, looking him in the eye as he spoke.

“We can continue to live out our lives, and discover more of the world. Together.”

(Y/N) continues to stare at him, a mix of desire and sorrow in her eyes as she rethought her decision, but she knew what was the right choice in her mind. She shook her head, looking down. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m sorry, Hiccup.” She pulled away from him, going back to (D/N) and putting her things in place before getting on her back and taking off without another word.

Hiccup, being the stubborn and relentless viking that he is, quickly got on Toothless’ back and followed (Y/N) into the sky. He called out to her, over and over, begging her to rethink her choice and finally be happy with him, to not care what anyone else thought. He had lived always caring about what other people thought of him, and now that he was chief, he could see how blind he was as a teenager to think those things for years on end. He wanted (Y/N) to realize the same thing, but she didn’t want to hear it, no matter how convincing his words were.

“Everything keeps us apart, Hiccup. We’re lucky to see each other as much as we already do. Don’t make this worse for either of us.” (Y/N) looks to him as she speaks, holding back any tears from falling. She looks down to see the necklace he got her a few years ago hanging from her neck, symbolizing how much she meant to him. It was a small diamond shaped stone, rough on the edges but smooth on the front and back. The symbol on the front represented creativity, fire, and most importantly, love. But now, the necklace only reminded her of how she broke her best friend’s heart, and ruined any chance of being with him.

(Y/N) took it off, staring at it for a second. “You’re not the one I was meant to find, Hiccup.” She tossed it to the side of her, making it fall towards the ocean. She began to fly ahead of Hiccup and Toothless and passing the sun as it set, not wanting to face him anymore. Hiccup watched her actions, confused to see her throw something before flying off. He made Toothless dive down quickly, shocked when he saw the necklace free falling. He felt his heart break, almost wanting to cry at the fact that she wanted to get rid of it that badly after having this conversation. Of course, he was determined to change her mine and wouldn’t give up. Once he caught it, he stored it in his pocket before making Toothless fly back up to hopefully catch up with (Y/N).

Meanwhile, (Y/N) didn’t even notice that Hiccup had gone to retrieve her necklace. She noticed how silent it had became before realizing that he was gone. She thought she must have gone back to Berk, not wanting to be around her due to heart break. Hopefully their friendship wouldn’t be ruined. She stood up atop of (D/N)’s back, looking around to see if he truly was gone. Whether it was the wind or her heart breaking as well, she teared up but still refused to cry. She stayed standing, taking deep breaths to calm herself down. Eventually, Hiccup caught up to her, startling (Y/N) and making her almost fall off her dragon. She noticed him about to speak and cut him off before he could try.

“How can the world truly be ours?”

She stared at him for a minute feeling her heart break further from the way he looked at her. She sighed, not wanting to bear looking at him anymore and went to sit back down on (D/N). Unfortunately, she missed her footing and fell off her back, plummeting towards the sea below. Hiccup felt his heart drop and immediately dived down after her, calling her name. He already lost his father, and even though he knew that Toothless or (D/N) could catch her as well, he needed to assure himself that she was going to be okay. The last thing he wanted to lose was her. (Y/N) let out a short scream, first calling out to (D/N) (who was stopped by Toothless from going after her). She eventually stabilized herself as she fell, as if she was standing vertically and looked up, only shocked to see her best friend diving down towards her. “Hiccup what are you doing?!”

He didn’t respond, only reaching out to her as if asking for her hand. “All I want is to fly with you, (Y/N)!”

Out of instinct, she reached for him as well, as if doing so would save her life immediately even though she knew they would still continue to fall. He eventually reached her, tightly holding onto her hand as if she would disappear the second he let go. “Hiccup, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this isn’t flying! We’re falling at rapid speeds!” He reached out to grab her other hand and she took his almost immediately. He pulled her closer so that they were holding onto each other’s arms yet never breaking eye contact. They soon balanced out so that they were parallel to the ocean, but they continued to stare at each other. Hiccup continued with trying to convince (Y/N) once again.

“Then we’ll fall!” He paused, looking her in the eye almost desperately. “As long as I’m with you,” he pulled her closer to him, their foreheads touching. “I know everything will be okay.” He closed his eyes, wanting to just live in this moment forever. (Y/N) was touched by his words, unable to help herself by leaning forward as well and closing her eyes. Hiccup could have kissed her then and there, but he didn’t want to over step his boundaries. (Y/N) was the first to pull away.

“If that’s what you want, then give me all of you.” She looked into his eyes. “And I’ll do the same in return.” Hiccup couldn’t help but grin at her words, feeling as though he finally won her over. He noticed her frown slightly, causing him to do the same. (Y/N) glanced down for a moment. “But it still feels impossible..” She let go of his hands, the wind pulling her away from him. Hiccup felt his heart drop again, like he already lost her. He grabbed hold of her hand that was closest to him. “The say that it’s possible!”

They began to hear their dragons diving down to get them, knowing they would soon part completely. Hiccup waited anxiously for her to answer and she eventually did, smiling wide and eyes dilating as she looked at him. “Everything in this world is a part of our history. And it’s always changing. Everything except the stars. They’re always being added onto and losing many others every day.” She could feel Hiccup hold onto her hand tighter as he grinned wide, making her do the same. “Hiccup, how do we rewrite the stars?”

They heard both Toothless and (D/N) coming down and knew they had to part. But this moment, was as if it was in slow motion. Looking into one another’s eyes, smiling softly; hands still touching, slowly letting go; and both of them thinking the same thing.

‘Nothing can keep us apart.’

Toothless and (D/N) got their respective riders, immediately flying up and away from the ocean, causing water to fly up as well. They quickly went higher into the sky to continue their flight home.

Home..

How would they explain all of this, let alone go back to Berk like nothing happened? Hiccup would have to call off the betrothal between him and Astrid and explain why, betroth himself to (Y/N) before they could actually get married, and so much more. Not to mention having to deal with people in the village that believed in (Y/N) being a curse from the gods. Some may turn to/on him about being the chief of the tribe. Only Thor knows what would happen if the worst really did come.

As for (Y/N), she would have to deal with more hate towards her, especially from Astrid. She had no problem fighting enemies and almost killing people, so would could she possibly do to (Y/N)? Not to mention she would lose being friends with the rest of the dragon riders most likely. The twins constantly joked about her being the spouse of Loki himself sent to rule over and destroy them all, but after this, they might actually be serious about it.

(Y/N) looked over at the sunset, seeing how dark the sky was starting to get. She was thinking about all the possibilities about what would happen when they got back when Hiccup and Toothless got caught in her line of view. They flew closer to (Y/N) and (D/N). “Hey, you okay?” Hiccup said, noticing how uneasy she looked, to which she only nodded in reply, looking ahead of where they were flying. She didn’t want to worry him, but that was futile since he knew her so well.

He had Toothless pull back and away from (Y/N) and (D/N), soon turning so that they were somewhat flying upside down and above the other two. (Y/N) didn’t even notice that Hiccup and Toothless had ‘gone’, being too lost in her own thoughts, until Hiccup had appeared upside and almost right next to her. She gasped, startled, and looked away, laughing to softly to herself. She glanced back up at him, questioning his actions. He smiled as he replied.

“Nothing can keep us apart, (Y/N). I promise you that.” He was upside down, but he was still looking her in the eye and serious about what he said. He only flew upside down to prove his point.

Nothing can keep us apart. And I won’t let distance or people stop us from being together. You’re the one I was meant to be with.

She read the look in his eyes, seeing everything that he wanted to say and more. She felt the same, wanting to just forget everyone else and focus on having a life with him and seeing more and more of the world together.

(Y/N) smiled and made (D/N) fly forward, looking behind at Hiccup as he went back to flying regularly and following (Y/N) and (D/N) on Toothless. “You’re right, Hiccup. This is up to you and me.” She grinned, feeling every ounce of doubt lift off and leave her entirely. She felt.. Free.

(D/N) flew up, doing a back loop high above Toothless, feeling how her rider and beginning to feel the same way. Just free to whatever she wanted to in the sky as she flew around. Having no limits never felt great before. Maybe it was because she was with the ones she cared about, or just feeling the emotion around her, but (D/N) just couldn’t help herself. (Y/N) laughed softly, smiling to herself at her dragon’s actions. As the two came down, Hiccup smiled at (Y/N), knowing that he finally got through to her. Her next words definitely proved that fact.

“No one can say what we get to be!”

(Y/N) grinned, quickly flying ahead of Toothless and Hiccup, not realizing or caring how fast she was going. She laughed, extending her arms out and feeling the wind against her. For the first time ever, she was letting go of every bad thing that happened to her. Saying goodbye to all the times she felt lost. To all the times things were never in her favor instead of making both herself and others happy. To all the sorrow and regret, to all the heartache she experienced growing up. She was finally forgetting everything she learned/knew growing up with no one to guide her, and realizing what it was like to feel someone deeply care for her, and even love her. In this moment, she didn’t care about anything or anyone else other than herself and the one that stole her heart so many years ago.

Hiccup couldn’t help but stare at her in awe as he and Toothless caught up to them, flying side by side. He had never seen (Y/N) so happy before, and it made him happy to see her finally let herself be happy. For as long as he knew her, he never saw her be truly happy with the way she lived. She constantly moved from house to house, never truly wanted, and was still outcasted by lots of people on Berk. If it weren’t for Stoic and Valka, (Y/N) most likely would have been abandoned by everyone, or worse.. Of course Hiccup didn’t want to think about the past. He wanted to focus on the now rather than the past, and the now meant finally being with the one he truly loved.

The rest of the flight home mostly contained silence between the two of them, every now and then only speaking up about which way to go. The sun had set, leaving the moon and the stars to be their only light to guide them. Eventually they got back to Berk, and despite it being so late, some people were still doing things around the island. In particular, Astrid and the other dragon riders were waiting around for Hiccup to get back. Apparently there had been stuff happening that day that needed to be dealt with almost immediately.

(Y/N) watched the group talk as she got off of (D/N), grabbing her things and walking back to her house. Hiccup caught sight of her leaving and quickly made up some excuse about having to do more work at his house. Astrid stayed for a moment longer, talking with him. (Y/N) had heard Hiccup speak and turned around, thinking he was talking to her. She glanced over just in time to see the man she loved and that (supposedly) loved her back kiss the girl he was betrothed to. She couldn’t bear the sight and looked away.

However, she knew that Hiccup would want to talk to her one last time tonight so she stayed around anyway. She passed the time by staring up at the stars, picking out the constellations and trying to make up her own. However, that was hard when most of them were already made. She frowned. Most stars were used in the constellations already written up in the sky. How would she and Hiccup make their own?

Soon Hiccup finished his talk with Astrid, making sure she was gone before walking over to (Y/N). He called out to her, noticing how distracted she seemed to be. He called out to her again as he stood next to her, finally grabbing her attention. (Y/N) turned her head to look at Hiccup, moving some hair out of her face before looking at him again. “Yeah?” Hiccup quickly noticed the look in her eye: worry. It was back, not by much but it was still there.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she smiled shyly, shaking her head. “Just looking at the stars.”

(Y/N) looked back up at the sky, admiring all the hundreds of stars and tons of constellations (but mostly just wanting to avoid eye contact). Hiccup say through her words, noticing her actions. But then he thought about what she said again. Looking at the stars.. Where was she going with this? “What about the stars?”

“Just.. The constellations. Trying to find them. Almost all of them seem to be used for constellations actually.”

Hiccup looked up at the stars as well, noticing that she was right. “Have you tried making your own?”

(Y/N) tensed up, feeling as though he read her mind (granted he did always have a gift for figuring out what she was thinking one way or another), and nodded slowly. “I’ve tried. I don’t think I can..”

Hiccup realized where she was going with this. “Why do you say that?”

“Because so many stars have been made into constellations and stories are made behind them, and others have made constellations from those same stars as well, but I..” She turned her body completely to look at him. “We can’t use those stars to make our constellation. No one will care for it or want it to be a part of our history.” She sighed, looking down. “Please tell me how we’re supposed rewrite the stars for ourselves.” Hiccup honestly had no words for what to say at first. He knew where she was coming from, and he thought the same things at first. And now that they had finally talked about all of this, he didn’t know how to go around everything that he had to do now. He looked down, shrugging and shaking his head. “I..”

(Y/N) was patient, waiting for him to say something, anything that would help their situation. After a few minutes of silence, she sighed. “I’m sorry..” She began to walk away but Hiccup grabbed her hand and pulled her close. He looked her in the eye, deciding to just speak from the heart.

“(Y/N), ever since I met you, you were always there for me. Working in the blacksmith, finding and training Toothless, fighting any enemies standing in our way, finding my mom,” he took a deep breath, keeping himself from crying. “Losing my dad, becoming chief. Literally no matter what has happened you’ve been there by my side. However, I haven’t done the same for you, and I hate myself for it. I should have been a better friend to you growing up. It wasn’t until a year or so ago that I realized how blind I was about how I truly felt about you and how much I needed you in my life. I love you so much, (Y/N).” He reached into his pocket, taking out the necklace that (Y/N) could have sworn she had thrown into the ocean earlier that day. She was so relieved to see it again. Hiccup continued to speak. “And that’s why I want to betroth myself to you. I will end things with Astrid tomorrow, I promise you. Just.. Just please say you’ll be mine.”

(Y/N) stared down at the necklace in his hand, knowing what it symbolized now. It was the item that would represent that they were going to get married and be together for as long as they wished. Hiccup had the power to do this, and she knew it, but she was still worried about the what if’s that could happen. She took a deep breath she didn’t realize she needed before she spoke.

“Hiccup, you know I want you.” She grabbed his hand that held the necklace, holding it tightly. “I’ve wanted you for years and I don’t deny it. But.. If this happens, so much will change. Maybe I wouldn’t mind it if it didn’t affect you, but it sadly would. We’d be forced to make choices that we don’t want to make. I don’t want you to wake up a year from now or 10 or 50 and regret making this decision that will cause so many outcomes.” She paused, holding back the tears forming in her eyes. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t have you,” she whispered, afraid to meet his eye. “My hands are tied and I can’t help you end the way we want it to.” (Y/N) let got of his hand, stepping back and finally looking him in the eye. He was about to cry, causing a couple tears to fall from her. She couldn’t bear to look at him anymore and turned around, walking home with (D/N).

Hiccup stood there, frozen and unable to move. For once, he couldn’t convince someone he cared about to do what he thought was the right thing. He felt hopeless. But he had to stay positive about everything. He had to. If he didn’t (Y/N) by his side, he didn’t know what he would do with himself. He always had her in his life, and because of this, they might end up farther apart than ever..

He shook his head. “No, not like this.” He looked down at her necklace, clenching it in his hands. “I will rewrite the stars for us, (Y/N). I promise.”

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