Berk could throw a party.
For what was possibly the first time since Hiccup's infancy, he was celebrated by the entire village. He seemed a little bewildered by all the attention, and had been conscripted to attend the fete by Gobber dragging him along with no ear for argument. He wore a new helmet. Stoick said it had belonged to Hiccup's mother, and looked at Hiccup with a sort of tender pride Astrid had never seen from him before. Hiccup adjusted it uncomfortably.
Snotlout, Fishlegs and the Thorston twins cheered Berk's new hero as enthusiastically as all the other Vikings. Considering how they'd acted toward him before, it was odd. Astrid thought maybe they felt a little bad for mocking him all this time. As for herself, she'd never mocked or taunted him and so owed him nothing.
What if they'd wanted to root for him all along? Anyone would have thought his place as the chief's son was the only thing preventing his total slide into the laughing stocks. Did anyone actually like him?
Astrid frowned at her axe. Tomorrow she and Hiccup would square off against the Gronckle. At this point the other teens had been mostly weeded out of the competition, and the next morning's outcome would determine who placed first in Dragon Training and got the glory of taking down a Monstrous Nightmare in front of Berk. Six or seven years before, the boy who'd placed first in Training had died in his champion bout with the dragon. Astrid remembered all the elation and praise in the village, cut short like it'd been hamstrung.
Somehow, even after his recent successes, Astrid was not sure how Hiccup would face a Monstrous Nightmare in its blazing fury. It made her angry, like he'd been duped into thinking this wasn't totally over his head and he was going to end up just like that other boy.
Hiccup was physically gravitated into her line of sight by the violent congratulations of his fellow Vikings. He stumbled forward at a hearty back slap.
"It's between you and Astrid, now," said a Viking called Roppke, casting what Astrid was positive was a belligerent grin her way.
She barely acknowledged him. Instead, she fixed Hiccup with a look that said plainly: I know you're up to something, and I want you to know that I know.
But he could only spare her a sheepish smile before someone thrust a mug into his hands.
"Your talent with the beasts is unreal," said a man who was normally so dour it was surprising to hear him praise anyone. "I've never seen such progress."
Especially considering that seemed to be Hiccup's only progress. During a weapons session that he hadn't managed to wriggle out of, he'd hefted axes and thrown them with his usual inability. No one had really cared. Gobber said that he had the right stuff in the ring, where it really counted, and Tuffnut had wondered aloud whether Hiccup was purposely holding out on them so he could show off against the dragons. Astrid knew better.
"What's your secret?" prompted Snagrod.
Hiccup smiled dryly. "Nothing. Gobber's just a great teacher."
Liar. Astrid scowled at him. Gobber was indeed a good teacher, but by his words Hiccup was evidently getting something out of the lessons that no one else was. She knew those two weren't training extra together, as any time Gobber didn't spend in the forge was spent with the teenagers.
The fact was, if Hiccup had a secret tactic, he had no right to hide it. Dragons were the entire village's problem, not just his—what was he thinking, holding back like that? Not only was it scummy, it could be dangerous.
There was no secret to her axe. No mystery to how she fought. Astrid hid nothing.
A wisp of paper fluttered down from the inside of Hiccup's heavy fur vest. He didn't notice. Stooping, Snagrod plucked the paper from the floor and brandished it against the torchlight. "What's this?" he asked, squinting.
Hiccup glanced at what he held and Astrid saw the blood drain from his face. "I ah, I don't—"
Several Vikings crowded over Snagrod's shoulder to see it. Hiccup looked as though he might snatch it from their hands. Astrid surreptitiously leaned to get a look, but saw only the back of the paper.
"What sort o' contraption is that?" asked one of the others slowly, grabbing the paper from Snagrod and angling it this way and that.
"I have a lot of drawings," Hiccup said with a tense set to his brow, "which..."
Then the Viking flipped the sheet to show him, and Astrid watched Hiccup's expression relax instantly. "Oh that," he said, "that's a harpoon launcher. It's only half built."
He seemed bemused as the Vikings admired it. Now that he'd displayed promise in the ring, they finally showed an interest in whatever he did outside of it as well. Success with dragons opened up just about any kind of door here, even if you were a total clod in every other respect.
After a minute they handed it back over and Astrid caught sight of a wicked-looking design she never would have attributed to Hiccup. She'd never wondered what he scribbled all the time. He took the paper with a wry kind of relief, and she wanted to know just what it was he was afraid they'd seen.
The party carried on as parties in Berk do. Dragon Training had effectively initiated the teenagers into adulthood and so they were allowed to cavort at these things now instead of getting ushered off to bed like the children. Snotlout and the twins were making the most of this, but Fishlegs looked like he was still uncertain whether they were really supposed to be there.
Finally she'd had enough. Enough of Hiccup, enough of Berk's sudden fawning, enough of the party. Having stayed just long enough to ward off any accusations of being a sour sport, Astrid picked up her axe and bulled through the crowd to the exit. It was a relief when she burst into the night.
It was not a relief when Hiccup tumbled out almost right after. He looked flushed, and pleased, and strangely exasperated, like he didn't want to be pleased. When he saw her he stopped short.
"I think the party will go on without me," he said with an uncertain grin. Behind them, a boom of raucous laughter supported this hypothesis.
Seeing him in that helmet just rankled her further. How was it that this boy was now setting the standard by which she was judged? She had always set the bar. Right now, she could lay him flat. No contest. So how did it get to be such a contest?
Faced with her flinty glare, Hiccup faked an unconvincing yawn. "Well, guess I'll get some sleep and, uh. Rest up for tomorrow." He didn't sound happy about it.
That made two of them. However ridiculous it was, it was down to her and Hiccup.
"So what happens after?" Astrid suddenly barked at his retreating back. He wheeled, in surprise as though he'd come to expect nothing other than stony silence from her.
"What you you mean?"
Astrid parked the butt of her longaxe's shaft on the ground. "After training's done. Once it's the real deal. Is...this what you're going to be? Or are you going to turn right back into Hiccup?"
In the dark she could not make out his features well, but he sounded faintly sardonic. "Believe me, I'm as Hiccup as ever."
There it was again, that stupid enigmatic sarcasm. Like there was some cosmic joke only he ever got.
"Well, when you've had your laugh, remember you might actually have to, you know, injure a dragon."
He froze. She could tell. "I don't know what that means," he said. What was that tone? Wary.
"You're taking them down, but you're not wounding them. At all."
There it was. No one else had noticed, or commented if they did, but Hiccup's accomplishments in the ring were all the more miraculous for being absolutely bloodless. Dragon Training had always been a dirty business, and blood from dragons and humans alike had been scrubbed from the stone foundation of the ring every year. Until this year.
Everybody probably chalked up this anomaly to Hiccup's ease in dealing with the dragons. Astrid was not so sure.
For some indiscernible reason, this plucked a nerve. Hiccup's voice had a definite edge when he responded. "Yeah, what a pity." He paused, and resumed in a strained way, "But I figured I'd leave them for training, you know? So no one has to lasso new ones."
Astrid answered this with a deeper frown. Yeah, right. But what else was she going to say?
Nothing, as it happened. Both teens turned around at the same time, and navigated the dark back to their homes.
Of one thing Astrid was sure. Sooner or later, Berk would realize that you can't really get rid of a hiccup that easily.
stretchin' some inactive fanfic muscles.