A/N: I have no idea where this came from. It was this story, I think, where this girl said she and her friend spent their childhoods jumping in leaf piles. It made me think of Hiccup and Astrid. I mean, there had to be some reason she warmed to him so quickly during the flight, after treating him like a nuisance for the rest of the movie. She might have been looking for reasons to hate him, so she wouldn't be tempted to try to befriend him again.
We met in September. Before we met, I didn't even know the chief had a son.
He was nine. I was ten. He was crying. I was sympathetic.
He had a bloody, scraped palm. I used the blue ribbon from my braid to clean it.
He stopped crying. I asked him what was wrong.
He lied. I knew he was lying. He knew he was lying. But I let it go.
He was kind. I was kind.
He was different. I wasn't.
His name was Hiccup. I told him mine was Astrid. We shared our deepest secrets that September.
We got bored sometimes. We raked leaves together. We talked and laughed like two friends.
He told me I was his first friend. I pitied him and I liked him.
He had a goofy smile and a sarcastic sense of humor and even at nine, no one really saw the first and everyone saw the second.
We spent every spare moment of winter together. We were inseparable.
I casually called Hiccup my best friend; he glowed at the word.
February came and went and for his birthday, I got him a plain leather journal. I knew he loved to write and draw.
We went into spring. He made me an axe. I spent the days getting a feel of it and jokingly threatening him with it.
Snotlout bullied him, so I yelled at Snotlout and gave him a black eye.
Hiccup knew how to make rose circlets and, one day, driven by boredom, he made me one. I wore it for the rest of the day, just for my best friend.
Hiccup told stupid jokes throughout the summer. These golden summers are what I remember most. At night, we'd sit in the forest and stargaze. During the day, we played in the forest. We played Vikings and Dragons. We played tree house. We played spies.
Snotlout invited us to play hide-and-seek. I helped Hiccup with the cut. We never talked about the scar on his chin.
Our golden summer ended.
Autumn came again, a year to the day we'd met.
Leaves and the wind gave us new games, but we had less time to play them.
Winter invaded, bringing with it an unshakable freeze.
We had snowball fights. Snotlout teased Hiccup, so I clocked Snotlout with a snowball, too.
Hiccup turned twelve. I turned thirteen.
We had less time for each other, but we set aside three months to have a golden summer.
The golden summer was spent stargazing, swimming in the lakes only we knew about.
We had water fights. I made him wrestle with me. I grew stronger and left accidental bruises on him.
Autumn came. There was no time for leaf piles and long conversations in the forest nowadays.
Then, soon, it was winter. Hiccup wouldn't talk to me. He hid away from everyone – even me and Gobber.
Spring came. He turned thirteen. I turned fourteen. Life got brighter. We both began to hope again.
The summer arrived, but it could not melt the wall of ice separating us, formed from a winter apart.
He withdrew into himself. He frustrated me. We yelled.
We went toe-to-toe, red in the face, screaming, our yells lost to the silence of the forest.
Our not-so-golden summer was almost at an end, so I told him goodbye.
Maybe you think I'm heartless. It was not without sorrow that I did it. It came with tears. It came with sleepless nights.
There were nights when I stargazed alone.
There were nights where I forgot our leaf piles, our inside jokes, the way he'd so carefully made my axe. I forgot our stargazing, I forgot our games, and I forgot his sarcasm.
Our winters faded away. Our springs got scattered in the winds.
But no matter what, I will never forget these golden summers.