A/N(1): For those of you who are not familiar with my HTTYD universe, I am a major fan of Astrid. This is 50% because she's hot and 50% because there is so much unexplained back story to her that I can pretty much make up anything I want about her. Anyways, I HIGHLY recommend you go to my profile page and read Cave In and Tavern Disaster to better aquatint yourself with the version of Astrid that I write. She is not OOC per say, but there is a LOT of back story I made up for her, so it might help you to read into all of that real quick.
A/N(2): I took the liberty of answering all of your current reviews (I missed doing it and I felt like bringing it back). If you want to read what I wrote to you, its ALL the way at the bottom after the story is finished. Consider it a bonus to reading a REALLY LONG chapter for once. If you don't care, no worries, just hit the review button and I will be fine.
Episode IV: Exiled
It was like any other night for Astrid Hofferson as she felt one of her razor sharp axes shoot out of her hands. The axe tumbled end over end before it buried itself in one of the tree trunks at the other end of her training field.
Scowling softly at the depth of the hit—the axe had only gone half way through the tree's sturdy oak trunk—Astrid picked up another axe from her neatly arranged arsenal on the floor.
Taking care to cock the axe backwards for maximum penetration power, Astrid let the sharp weapon fly out of her hand and twirl across the field before it also sank into a tree trunk. This time, however, it sank all the way up to the hilt.
Smiling in victory, the huntress switched from her beloved battle axes and instead selected a massive longsword that was half her height and easily three quarters of her body weight.
Adjusting to the weight and feel of the odd weapon—one that her father stressed constantly that she learn—Astrid charged a nearby tree and began to deliver razor sharp blows to its trunk with a ferocity and speed that only could be matched by a monstrous nightmare.
Her attack lasted only a few minutes—such a cumbersome weapon would not permit any lengthy assault—before Astrid halted smoothly, the tree trunk now resembling a child's whittling pole instead of a mighty oak of the forest. With a self satisfied smirk, the blonde turned around and headed back over to her arsenal of weapons.
Astrid had fist started her collection when her father had given her a twin set of dual sided battle axes for her eighth birthday. Every year after that she had added more and more specialty weapons to the cache while augmenting it with a handful of standard weapons that she purchased with her own hard earned money.
The vast majority of her weapons—the antiques and extremely memorable ones—were kept in the armory in the basement of her family's home. However, the weapons she trained with were all contained within a large roll of fabric with deep pockets sowed into its insides.
After she had cleaned the longsword, and the two battle axes she had used earlier, Astrid returned the used weapons to their well worn pockets within the roll of cloth. Once she had, rather lovingly, returned her previous weapons, Astrid quickly began to select her new ones.
Though the sun was still sleeping within the depths of the great Northern Sea, Astrid had already worked through an impressive display of weaponry.
Throwing knives—a prized gift from her father—bladed sticks, several swords of varying length and width, dart guns—another gift her father had picked up on his travels—axes of varying sizes, spears, throwing stars—yet another specialty item from her father—and finally her prized battle axes and another longsword.
The only weapon at her disposal left to be used was the bow.
Though her father teased her to know end about how awkward she had been when she had first started to learn how to shoot a bow, Astrid had become rather spectacular at it. One of the very first occasions in which Snoutlout had attempted to court her had been an archery tournament hosted by the village.
She had beat everyone there, with the shocking exception of Fishlegs, without even trying. How that overweight weirdo had even come close to her perfect score was still lost on Astrid—and most of the village for that matter.
Pulling herself from her inner musings, Astrid brought the bow up and sighted in a target—a small squirrel perched up on a precariously high tree limb—before taking in a deep, but smooth, breath.
The squirrel twitched slightly as it heard some strange sound in the forest. Astrid let go of the arrow and watched intently as it sliced through the air like a knife through warm butter. The projectile soared like a wretched dragon until it connected with its target dead on.
One...
The squirrel didn't even register its own death, it simply flipped twice in the air before falling down rapidly towards the hard surface of the earth below.
Five...
Astrid tracked the small corpse as it began spiraling even faster towards the ground as gravity began to take an effect on its miniscule form.
Eight...
After what felt like an eternity to Astrid, though it was really only a couple of seconds, the squirrel hit the ground with a microscopic thud and a small cloud of scattered leaves. Eight seconds. Eight houses. Eighty feet.
Not even a record...
Disappointed, Astrid reloaded her bow and sighted more squirrels before taking their short—no pun intended—lives as well. The archery practice lasted less than fifteen minutes in total and Astrid had spent a total of thirty arrows.
Not a single arrow was wasted.
Once she had finished shooting, Astrid carefully returned the bow to its pocket in the roll of cloth before she began the long trek across the training field in search of all of her arrows. "A good hunter leaves nothing behind," her father had once told her.
Astrid firmly believed that saying and followed it loyally as she collected her arrows and the squirrels. The former would be cleaned and returned to the same pocket that housed her bow. The latter would be taken home and dealt with by her mother.
"Hello Astrid."
The fair haired huntress spun around faster than someone wearing armor should have been able to. She had automatically dropped her arrows and game and now held a short dagger—there were several hidden on her person—in both of her hands while she scanned the area for the voice's owner.
"Who's there?" She called out, feeling oddly intimidated by the voice. She hadn't heard anyone nearby and she had excellent hearing. It made no sense how someone could have gotten that close to her.
There was no answer.
Feeling both foolish and childish at having apparently imagined the entire thing, Astrid let her guard down and turned around to pick up the arrows and squirrels that she had dropped in her fright.
WHAM!
Astrid flew backwards like a ragdoll in the wind before she finally stopped several feet from where she had previously been standing. To her horror, whatever had hit her had apparently blinded her, because all she could see was blackness.
And then the blackness moved.
Thor help me!
Astrid, now thoroughly terrified, stared in naked terror at the dragon perched on top of her. It wasn't as big as a monstrous nightmare, but it was still considerably larger than the average dragon. It was also completely covered in jet black scales and had razor sharp claws that were delicately holding her down to the ground. That was odd, she would have thought it would ha-
The dragon let out a roar that defied all the other roars Astrid had ever heard from any other dragon combined. The scream was so ear-shatteringly loud that she was actually concerned about possibly losing her hearing.
"She's fine boy," someone said softly and the dragon stopped its roaring. Instead, it stared down at Astrid like she was some new form of human that it had never seen—or eaten—before.
"Who's there!?" Astrid repeated for the second time in ten minutes, though now it was in a far higher pitch than before. She was one of the deadliest vikings on Berk, but even she was left all but petrified by a demon pinning her down.
"Let her up boy, she'll never listen like that."
Almost as if it were a tame dog, the dragon—a night fury, she realized—released Astrid without a second glance and retreated off towards where the voice's owner was. Tentatively moving all of her limbs, Astrid was amazed to find that everything was still where it had been thirty minutes ago—though her ribs did ache from the dragon's brutal tackle.
"Will you behave or do I have to make him sit on you again?" The voice questioned and Astrid craned her head to look at the speaker at long last. The man standing above her wasn't exactly the definition of tall, dark, and handsome.
However, for whatever reason, Astrid found the slightest hint of a blush try to fight its way to the surface of her cheeks. Finding the mere thought of her being attracted to the hermit before her made Astrid demolish any attempts at blushing immediately before she shoved whatever she was feeling into the back of her mind.
The man was short, maybe an inch or two taller than her. His brown locks were wild and unruly and his face was covered in the facial hair of a young man—which both confused and intrigued Astrid. His body was covered in furs and leather that was the same shade of brown as his hair, only they were lightly battered and slightly faded. His eyes though, his eyes were an unfair majestic emerald green.
They took Astrid's breath away.
AGH! GO AWAY!
Astrid violently shook her head to rid herself of any more traitorous thoughts before she stood up, though shakily, to face the man before her.
"Who are you?"
"I figured you wouldn't recognize me," the man murmured softly—Astrid was almost certain he sounded bitter.
"Should I have?" Astrid asked, confused now.
"No, it doesn't matter," the man said before he gestured at himself and the dragon, which sat behind him in a manner akin to a dog sitting at its master's heels. "I'm sure you're wondering what's going on."
Astrid eyed the dragon and its apparent docile nature, "yeah...an explanation would be nice," she admitted as she slowly inched her hand towards her side. There was a dagger hidden inside the fabric, if only she could-
"Please don't do that," the man said softly as he stared directly at the hand Astrid had been reaching with. "It upsets him," he added with a gesture at the dragon sitting behind him.
"Oh...well then-" Astrid abruptly ended her own sentence before she tore off into the windows. She wasn't heading towards the village, it was on the other side.
Crap...
"Wait!" The man cried out, only to be swallowed up by the forest around her as Astrid plunged deeper into the woods. She had no idea who the man was, or how he had seen her reach for her dagger so quickly, but she knew she had to get out of there now.
Fate, however, had other plans.
Astrid hadn't even made it a good thirty feet before she felt something soft, yet wet and gummy, clasp tightly to her shoulder plates before she was suddenly no longer attached to the ground. Screaming in fright, Astrid watched as the ground suddenly became increasingly distant from her feet as the sounds of dragon wings flapping became dominant.
Realizing that the night fury now had her in its mouth, Astrid started to kick and squirm away, only to suddenly become aware that its mouth was the only thing keeping her from plummeting to her death. Of course, she learned this after she had already squirmed out of its mouth.
"Ahhhhhhhhhh!" Astrid cried as she suddenly fell back into gravity's grip. She was flailing madly as her fit form fell like a stone through water towards the suddenly pointing trees and rocks below.
Before she hit the ground, however, Astrid felt the dragon—night fury—swoop down at breakneck speed and instead of being impaled on a treetop, Astrid found herself hanging off the back of the dragon's harness.
Wait, a harness?
"Hold on!" The man cried out as the world began to shift around them.
Before Astrid could even begin to contemplate the fact that the dragon was actually a mount for the man, she found herself now facing the sky as the dragon shot out of the dive and instead soared straight up into the heavens. Left with the choice of falling again or clinging onto the man's waist for dear life, Astrid chose the latter. Barely.
She might have been surprised how soft the man was—though she was seriously beginning to doubt he was in fact a man—however, Astrid was more concerned with just how high the night fury planned to go. She received her answer a moment later when it preformed a spiral before leveling out so that it now was once again aligned horizontally with the horizon.
"Odin's beard..." Astrid breathed in pure wonder as she gazed out at the sight before her.
They were in the clouds.
Souring so high over the surface of the earth, Astrid could only make out a sea of clouds below them and an ocean of clouds above them. There was nothing but golden sky and heavenly matter surrounding them.
And then the sun started to rise.
And I thought it was beautiful at the tree...
If the heavenly scene a moment before had awed Astrid, than the new scene positively blew her away. The sun had just started to rise and it was currently painting all of the virgin white clouds a dazzling golden hue. As if that was not enough, the moisture in the air suddenly ignited and rainbows of all shades and sizes leapt out at them from every angle.
"Am...am I dead?" Astrid asked in awe as she continued to hold tight to the man before her. The man chuckled and glanced back at her, causing their eyes to lock. As emerald green met ice blue, the world suddenly dimmed and the scenery around them seemed to slow down.
Such beautiful eyes..
The man was the first to snap out of the daze they had both fallen into. "You're not dead, but you are as close to heaven as I've ever been," he told her truthfully.
Astrid stared at him a moment longer before snapping out of the daze as well. "Why?" She asked him after she took another tentative glance around the heaven they were soaring through. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because everything you knew about dragons was a lie," the man said before gesturing at the dragon they were riding on. "They are not your enemies," he informed her and for the first time in her life, Astrid didn't think such talk was crazy.
"Who are you?" Astrid asked as she continued to stare into his eyes. She knew those eyes. But where?
The man opened his mouth to speak and Astrid leaned in just a bit to hear him better over the roaring wind.
"My name is...Astrid wake up."
"What?" Astrid asked, completely baffled by his answer. "Is this some sort of joke to you!?"
The man seemed baffled, "I'm sorry?" He asked, just as confused as she was.
"Your name!" Astrid demanded, "what is your name?!"
"I told you," the man said, seeming to grow frustrated as he repeated his name for her for the second time. "Astrid, wake up Astrid."
"What?" Astrid said, confused even more.
"Astrid," the man said as his voice changed slightly, "WAKE! UPPPPPP!"
"YENNNAGHHGAHSH!" Astrid cried as she was hit by a second bucket of water and slapped roughly by her father for the tenth time.
Sigrum Hofferson was staring at her with a mixture of extreme confusion and concern, "Astrid, are you alright?" He demanded as his daughter finally came back from the land of dreams.
"F-father?" Astrid said, looking completely lost as she glanced around the room widely.
"Yes, Astrid?"
"What...where am I?" Astrid demanded.
What happened to the man!? And the dragon!? And the clouds!?
"We found you passed out in the woods near your training field," Sigrum said, obviously concerned about the safety of his daughter. "You apparently hit a tree with your head while running from something..."
Was it all a dream?
"I...I don't remember," Astrid lied as she faked a groan.
It couldn't have been, it was too real...
"I'll go get some more water," Sigrum assured her while he eyed her suspiciously. He knew she was lying to him and that bothered him deeply. But for now, he would tend to his daughter. Then he would figure out why she had suddenly decided to lie to the very man that had taught her how to lie in the first place. As her father left to get more water and more rags for her, Astrid could think of only one thing.
She had to get back to the training field.
GOOD FREAKING GRIEF! THAT TOOK FOREVER!
This plot idea came to me while I was rewatching How To Train Your Dragon (for the thousandth time) after I watched the trailer for the new HTTYD movie. I am not being paid to say this (type this?), but I highly recommend you find the trailer for the HTTYD 2 movie and watch it if you haven't already. If you HAVE watched it already, watch it again!
This was a lot of fun to write, it was originally just Hiccup and Astrid flying around, then it was just Astrid practicing, then it morphed into both of those things, and finally it became the product you have just finished reading. I thank you for the time you spent reading it.
I'm tired, hungry, and ready to take a LONG nap. Those are all symptoms of a long writing session if you were curious. I can barely type this whole author note as it is.
Anyways, this will be posted as a seperate fic on my page under the (obvious) title Exiled. I will continue to update the story (spoiler) there. I have at least one more chapter (maybe two) in mind for this AU fic and if you want to see them, go review and subscribe to that fic as well. I will of course continue to update Just A Few Little Hiccups as well, however I really liked where this whole plot was going.
I'm dead tired, good night/morning/evening (whatever)!
Lostsword
REVIEW REPLY
Ferdoos: Thanks for catching that typo! I hate to admit it, but that happens a lot with the Thorston twins. I'm glad you love this fic series so much and I do plan to do a date chapter next (hint hint).
Togekiss0: Thanks for all of the encouragement, I genuinely appreciate it! I think you'll get your fill of Hiccup and Astrid (and other couples) in the coming chapters...
Megadracosaurus: You, my friend, deserve an award. Not all of that material will be used, but I will do my best to write a fic that you helped inspire. Even though I won't use all of the stuff you suggested, the large quantity of ideas is GREATLY appreciated and it definitely helped me get my own ideas flowing. THANK YOU!
DRAGONGIRL: You...you are truly evil... (I kinda want to use Dora now just to see what would happen).
DoomedToBeACrazyFanGirlForever: I'm truly sorry about that. I hate writing OOC characters, I think it defeats the purpose of fanfiction. It happens though from time to time. Especially in a fic series like this. Thanks for the feedback though! And the praise!
Nazo no Shojo16: You have no idea how tempted I was to write that, but I just can't stomach the thought of Snoutlout even POSSIBLY having a child with Astrid. Sorry, not gonna happen...or is it?
Month4: Thank you, I'm glad your enjoying the fic! As to the Alvin bit though, I am sorry but I just haven't read enough of the books (or any really) to write that character correctly. I want to start reading the HTTYD books, but I am a lazy person by nature, so picking them up isn't likely to happen for some time. I have considered writing non-film characters into my stuff before though, if you were curoius.
98: I am indeed ;)
Guest (Ami): I want to do that story idea simply to make your day, but I have an idea in mind that I think you'll like even more than the one you asked for. If not, I can always write it later. Thanks for your review!
Madison: You honestly made my day. I thought everyone hated my truth and dare stuff, but you have renewed my interest in writing it! Thank you!