A DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl
A/N: PLEASE DON'T READ THIS FIC ON FFN. READ IT ON AO3 OR DEVART INSTEAD. I'm tired of dealing with complainers, though, so I'm no longer going to respond to those kinds of messages.
Some parts of this fic are easier to understand if you've read my one-shot Each Day Of Life first.
Warnings for abuse.
Chapter 1 (rough draft)
The Hooligan tribe was gathered on the shore at dusk, keeping vigil as two funeral ships burned. Gone was their mighty chief, who had fearlessly led them through many years of war and famine and bitter cold; gone was his brother, the only other man in the village who could even have come close to filling the emptiness left in the wake of Stoick the Vast's passing. The brothers had died well, warriors to the end, defending their beloved people. For them, the sorrows of this life were past.
It was only the living who still had things to regret and to fear.
Even in the respectful hush, many apprehensive or outright despairing glances were cast toward the two young men at the head of the crowd. Seventeen-year-old Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and Snotlout Jorgenson were rival heirs to the chieftainship, and though they both now stood sober and grieving as they watched their fathers' souls depart, it was only a very short matter of time before they would have to take ugly notice of each other again.
Only one of them could become the new chief. The right belonged first to Hiccup, Stoick's son; but every single person on the island, including himself, knew how completely unsuitable he was for the role. It was almost a given that his cousin would challenge him and defeat him and win the crown instead.
'And then it will be the beginning of the end,' Astrid Hofferson thought bitterly as she watched the two young men. Hiccup was a pathetic scrap of a human being who bore no resemblance to a true Viking; he was a walking disaster who had damaged his own village badly enough while his father lived, and would probably destroy it completely now that there was no one left to keep him in check.
Yet it wasn't as if Snotlout was much better. The brawny young man was boastful without the wits to back it up, he was impulsive and reckless, he was stupid, and maybe it would take him longer but Astrid knew that Snotlout would eventually lead the Hooligans to destruction just as thoroughly as Hiccup could.
Astrid's hands clenched. She knew that she was by far the best candidate for chief. She was certainly strong enough, intelligent enough, brave enough, and determined enough. She could lead these people, she could continue to wage this ancestral war, and she could do it just as well, in her own way, as Stoick had. Yet because she was female, she was automatically barred from the role she felt like she was born for. It was unbearable. Her people were going to die, she had the means to save them, yet she was going to be forced by tradition to stand aside and just watch as Snotlout or Hiccup obliterated her home.
Astrid was not going to let that happen. No matter what price she had to pay, she would pay it, because she knew her duty and it was not within her to flinch away from it. 'Tomorrow. I'll tell him first thing tomorrow.'
o.o.o.o.o
Hiccup felt completely numb. He knew in a distant, intellectual way that his father was dead, struck down at last in this never-ending war. Yet he couldn't seem to make himself believe it, even after seeing Stoick's body laid out on the pyre and then set aflame.
That whole evening, as Hiccup shuffled home to his empty house and made a supper he couldn't bring himself to eat and then just lay there on his bed in the dark, staring up at the ceiling, he kept expecting his father to come striding in at any moment. Those giant footsteps, that gruff voice, the very breathing and movements and smell of the man, Hiccup could not make himself believe that they were gone forever.
"What am I supposed to do now, Dad?" he whispered.
He would not be chief, he knew that. He knew that he was supposed to be, that that's what his father would have wanted (albeit apprehensively), but he knew that it was never going to happen. Snotlout was his cousin, Snotlout had a claim to the throne, and though that claim was slightly weaker, Snotlout himself was a lot stronger and a lot more highly favored by the tribe. Hiccup could step aside gracefully and bow to the inevitable, or he could fight for his birthright and get pounded to a pulp and lose it anyway. 'At least it's an easy choice,' he thought bitterly.
It wasn't as if he'd even be able to lead these people, anyway. They wouldn't listen to him, they probably wouldn't even be able to hear him with his thin, reedy voice. He couldn't pick up a real weapon, he wouldn't be able to lead them into battle. He'd probably get fried by a dragon in the very next raid and then Snotlout would be chief anyway...
'It should have been me,' Hiccup thought. 'It should have been me that died, not you. It was always supposed to be me, right from the very start. ...Maybe this is your punishment, Dad, for letting your little runt live when you should have sent me drifting out to sea instead.'
That was when Hiccup finally cried, the tears and sobs muffled by his pillow, unseen and unheard by a single soul.
o.o.o.o.o
Astrid had promised herself to do it first thing in the morning, but of course eating breakfast and getting dressed and such came first. Then she noticed that her axe needed maintenance, and then her mother needed her to run an errand, and of course when she came across a couple of kids doing something stupid, she had to knock their heads together before someone got hurt because of their foolishness.
It was nearly noon before Astrid realized that she was procrastinating. Furious with herself, she marched straight to the forge. "HICCUP."
He promptly dropped whatever he was working on, yelping as it fell into the fire and scattered coals everywhere. He rushed around flustered and stammering as he tried to fix what had happened.
Astrid watched, not saying a word, half-consciously curling and uncurling her fingers as she tried to get used to the idea of living in the same house as this creature. She couldn't quite bring herself to imagine him touching her.
"A-Astrid, what a, um, what brings you, uh, do you need-?"
"I need to speak with you alone," she said brusquely. Both of them glanced at Gobber, who was watching with open curiosity.
"You...need to...?"
"Ugh!" Losing her patience, she seized the front of Hiccup's tunic, dragged him into the back room, slammed the curtain closed (wishing it was a door), then shoved him against the wall so hard that he squeezed his eyes shut and mouthed silently in pain for several seconds, even after she started talking. Or, rather, hissing in his face. "Today's your lucky day, Hiccup."
"Uh, what, uh-"
"You win. Okay? You win."
"Uh..."
Odin's beard, was he even capable of speaking coherently? Or was he really that besotted, that he couldn't put two intelligent words together whenever he was in her presence? "You get to marry me," she snarled.
He gaped at her.
"Today." 'Before I lose my resolve.' "Ask my mother for my hand in marriage." There was no one else to ask, since all her male relatives were dead. "She'll say yes." After staring at his dying fish face for a while, Astrid gave up, rolled her eyes, gave him another shove, then stormed away in disgust, trying not to think about what she had just done.
She couldn't bear the suspense, so she went out to woods to train for a few hours. When she came back to the village, her steps slowed to a trudge, and it took her twice as long as it needed to for her to get to her house. She found her mother repairing the wall that had gotten damaged in the last raid. "Mom?"
"Can you deal with supper tonight?" Mrs. Hofferson asked wearily. Astrid didn't usually cook, since making edible meals was...not her forte, but sometimes her mother was too tired to care.
"Mom, I... Is it all settled, then?"
The woman squinted at her in confusion. "Is what settled?"
Astrid's mouth went dry. "H...Hiccup. Did he...come see you...?"
"Hiccup?" She sounded incredulous. "What business would he have with me?"
A surge of anger swept through Astrid. She spun around and charged over to the forge. The two occupants were taking a break, chatting quietly as they drank mugs of ale. As Astrid stormed in, Hiccup's eyes went wide, and he immediately set his mug aside and jumped to his feet. "A-Astrid-"
"WHY DIDN'T YOU TALK TO MY MOTHER."
He gaped at her.
She seized the front of his tunic and jerked him closer so violently that he flinched and flung up his hands as if he expected her to punch him. "Y-You, you did, I-"
"HICCUP." She was too angry to even think what to say. Hadn't he been slavering over her for the past seven years?! Why hadn't he jumped at the biggest opportunity of his pathetic life?!
"You... Were you - serious?!"
She really had to stop herself from hitting him. "DO I LOOK LIKE I'M JOKING."
"No," he gasped, "no no no no, you do not look like you are joking."
She turned and thrust him before her, vaguely intending to propel him all the way to her house.
"Astrid, w-wait! Wait, Astrid, wait, I-I have to, I have to-"
She swung him around until his face was an inch away from hers. "WHAT."
He gulped. "I...have to...th-think about this, Astrid."
"...You have to think. About. This?" It strangely shook her. All this time, she thought that any human male would kill for the chance to marry her, Hiccup included. So why the sudden hesitation?! What could possibly be wrong with her that would make him hesitate?! 'No, no, it's not me, it's him, of course it's him, everything's wrong with him, of course he'd do something like this just when I most need him to be predictable...'
"Astrid," he whispered, and it was almost a sob. "Why do you want to marry me all of a sudden?!"
"You can be sure I didn't suddenly fall in love with you," she hissed. "I need you, Hiccup- No, Berk needs you. No! Berk needs ME! And if I have to marry you in order to do what's best for Berk, Freyja help me, I will make that sacrifice! Now go find some witnesses and make an offer to my mother!"
An odd change came over his face as she spoke. There was a long pause when she finished, and then he said quietly, "You're making a bid for the chieftainship, aren't you."
Her hand, still fisted in his tunic, trembled a little, but her voice was even. "It's either me or Snotlout, and I'd kill Snotlout before I let him lead us to our deaths."
Hiccup didn't ask whether she'd kill him for the same reason, too. "...I'll speak to her tomorrow." Then, before Astrid could forbid the delay, "My father just died yesterday, I haven't had a chance to even look at the accounts yet, I have no idea how much I can afford for a bride-price and a morning-gift-"
"Fine! Fine." She shoved him away. "Tomorrow, Hiccup. Don't you dare weasel out of this." After a hard look to make sure he knew that she would hold him to his word, she left.
o.o.o.o.o
Hiccup felt so physically weak after Astrid was gone that he had to sit down so that he wouldn't collapse to the floor. "D-Did you...see that?!"
"Aye, lad," Gobber said carefully.
"That really happened, didn't it?! I'm not just dreaming it...?!"
"What are you gonna do, Hiccup?" his mentor asked, sounding more curious than anything else.
Hiccup buried his hands in his hair as he bowed over. A part of him was super-excited, but most of him was unexpectedly horrified. He felt a little sick. Much as he had always longed for Astrid, he had never expected to actually get her - and even in his wildest dreams, he had never even thought of the possibility that she might...might claim him like a piece of property, marry him solely so that she could use him.
She would never love him. He could perhaps live like that, it wasn't as if love was a requirement for marriage. What sickened and terrified him was the thought that he would have to marry someone who so utterly despised him.
He couldn't do it. Sex would be impossible, having to bare his subpar body before her scornful eyes, and even if she completely rejected him and refused to let him touch her (which seemed like a pretty likely possibility...), he would still have to live with her. There would be no peace, no refuge; always her disgust and disappointment and criticism, always the whispers that would follow him wherever he went, the shame of being married to a woman who was his superior in every respect, who could break him in half if she wanted, who would dominate him and steal his birthright for herself and never see him as worthy of respect...
"I have to go home," Hiccup gasped out, and hurried out of the forge without waiting for Gobber's response.
He couldn't do this. Astrid Hofferson was meant for him only in daydreams, he couldn't marry her in real life. Yet he didn't dare reject her, so there was only one choice left: he'd have to take the coward's way out and just run away. He'd pack his things, wait until the village was settled for the night, sneak out, find a boat that could take him away from the Barbaric Archipelago forever...
Astrid caught him when he made a run for it in the dead of night. She was waiting at the docks as if she'd expected him to flee. She caught him and started to hurt him before he surrendered, then she dragged him back and made him speak to her mother that very night. They'd have to wait until morning to find some witnesses and make the official negotiations, but Astrid insisted on forcing him to at least give his word to her mother.
"I-I-I-"
"Astrid, what is this?" the woman snapped, yawning. She did not at all appreciate getting dragged out of bed at one o'clock in the morning.
"Hiccup has something to ask you," Astrid said forcefully.
Hiccup tried to make himself just say it without thinking about it. "I'm asking Astrid to marry me," he blurted.
Mrs. Hofferson stared at him.
"Say yes, Mom," Astrid said, pained by simply having to say the words.
"What?"
Hiccup was miserably silent.
"Hiccup is asking for my hand in marriage," Astrid ground out. "I consent. We're going to call witnesses tomorrow to negotiate the marriage contract."
"...Hiccup, I need to speak with my daughter alone for a minute."
"Sure, sure," Hiccup said instantly. "I'll just step out-"
"Don't you dare try to run off again," Astrid snarled, "or I will track you down."
"Y...Yes," Hiccup gulped.
Once he was out of earshot, Mrs. Hofferson burst out, "Are you out of your mind?!"
"I need to do this, Mom." Grimly, Astrid explained her reasoning. Her mother listened, made some half-hearted arguments, then just held her for a long time. Finally she said, "If anyone can make this work, it's you. I know we can depend on you. Go with grace, Astrid."
"Thanks, Mom," she whispered.
The negotiations went by in a blur for Hiccup. He spent most of his time working so hard in the forge that he didn't have to think about his impending nuptials at all. The rare times when he couldn't avoid it, he tried to convince himself of the advantages of this. He'd be married to Astrid Hofferson - it surely wouldn't be anything like his daydreams, but at least he'd have a chance at...well, at more physical interaction with her than he'd have a hope of getting otherwise. Snotlout would not be chief. Maybe they'd actually have a shot at winning the war, with Astrid at their head.
Hiccup started to drink more than he should, until the resulting clumsiness and physical misery nearly got him killed in the forge. Unhappy as he was, he hadn't sunk so low as to seriously consider suicide, so he sobered up pretty quickly. The next release he found was drawing, which seemed to work better... Patterns, likenesses, whimsical inventions that even he recognized were too crazy to ever actually work. He filled pages and pages until the waste of paper started becoming problematic, then he drew with chalk on the walls and floor of his house and the backroom of the forge instead.
"Can you just," he ventured to ask Astrid once, "can you maybe...pretend not to hate me so much, at least?" Her response was to turn away, and she seemed to solve the problem by absenting herself from his presence so that at least he didn't have to see her disgusted, almost haunted expressions anymore.
Snotlout was absolutely outraged when he heard about the betrothal. He cornered Hiccup and demanded that he give up Astrid to him.
"I have no objection," Hiccup said readily. "Why don't you go propose to her and see what she says?"
The next time he saw Snotlout, his cousin had a sprained wrist and a black eye.
To be continued...
Author's Notes: I got the idea for this story when I imagined Hiccup, like Valka, being a young parent kidnapped by a dragon who would later become his other half, and taken to the Sanctuary so that he missed most of his kids' childhood.
When I thought about circumstances that would allow Hiccup to even become a husband and father without Tooth's help in the first place, things...got interesting. Before he became a hero, no one would have wanted to marry him. The only person I could imagine marrying him anyway was Astrid, and only if she was doing it in order to achieve a personal goal. Basically, she would only want Hiccup in order to use him to help her become chief, but that would only happen if Stoick was dead, so I had to kill off him and Spitelout right at the beginning. Then, since I now had Hiccup & Astrid trapped together in a loveless marriage, I had to deal with all those issues before I could get to the heart of the story.
Basically, a lot of the pre-premise introduction would require me to write a lot of darker and even more sexual HiccStrid relationship than I'm used to. I didn't plan for this story to be one of my HiccStrid experiments, but it still works pretty well as one. ...I discovered while working on Carried Off that I'm actually a lot more comfortable writing toxic HiccStrid than I am when I attempt to write positive HiccStrid. *sweatdrop*
At first, I tried to just summarize the state of Hiccup's marriage before the real story starts, but it ended up becoming a lot longer than I expected, and was also a ridiculous and horrible example of telling rather than showing, so I ended up going back and re-writing it all in real time.
This fic ended up being A LOT longer than I'd planned. The story was originally just supposed to be Hiccup's abduction and eventual reunion with his kids, but I had to write all this other stuff to get the tone of Hiccup's marriage right, give him some time with his babies before the dragon drama starts, what it was like for his kids to grow up without him, deal with the Red Death, etc.
The HiccStrid chapters DEMANDED to get written. So often, I'd get attacked by ideas, scenes and dialogue and stuff, and often it would be at inconvenient times. One time, I had to sing aloud during an entire car trip to prevent getting flooded with ideas when I wouldn't be able to write them down. X'''D I feverishly drafted this fic in the hope that getting it written would shut up my muse and hopefully leave me some time to get actual important stuff done.
A DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 2 (rough draft)
Hiccup and Astrid both managed to survive the wedding ceremony, speaking their vows woodenly and avoiding eye contact. Astrid won the bride-running, not that that surprised anyone, and she did not stumble on the threshold. (What was more of a surprise was that Hiccup managed to not embarrass himself when it came to 'proving his virility.' The scar he struck into the wooden pillar wasn't exactly impressive, but it wasn't the worst anyone had ever seen, either.) Snotlout complained about having to serve drinks to the women as a result of the groom's party losing the race, but not for long, since he was shortly too drunk to care.
Indeed, most of the laughter and celebration that day seemed to revolve around the village's opportunity to drink and feast and forget about their troubles for a little while. No one paid much heed to the actual bridal couple, who were both honestly glad of the lack of attention. They picked at their food until someone finally remembered the whole point of the gathering, at which point Astrid was borne away to be made ready in the bedchamber she would inhabit as a wife.
"Please kill me now," Astrid muttered as her new husband entered the room, surrounded by ribald jokes and crude laughter. Hiccup didn't say a word, though his face flamed at the lewd suggestions the attendants were making. He couldn't bring himself to look at Astrid directly as he removed her bridal crown, and she kept her hands clenched into fists at her sides.
At last, the door closed, and the couple was left alone to consummate their marriage.
There was a very long pause. "We don't...actually have to go through with it," Hiccup finally muttered. "You can...you know...break it with - your fingers. Or something." He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Or even...you don't even have to, I bet you could just cut your arm or something, all you need is a blood smear, right?"
Astrid clenched her teeth. She had actually considered that possibility, and was a little surprised that Hiccup was suggesting it independently. Unfortunately, she had concluded that it was probably best to keep this as legitimate as possible. If her ultimate goal was to be the chief of Berk, at least in truth if not actually in name, she would need all the legitimacy she could get.
"Let's just get this over with."
"Let's just- What?"
Astrid started literally ripping her dress off, too angry to care about the damaged seams and laces.
"Astrid?!"
"Help me with this," she snapped. "Or take your own clothes off, or something. Don't just stand there like an idiot."
"I- I- I-"
She rolled her eyes and gave up on him, managing to shed the dress on her own. She was more hesitant about her underclothes, and after a moment, she whirled to face him again. She found him gaping at her, without having made a single motion to remove any of his own clothes. Embarrassment surged through her, instantly turning to anger. "Get naked!" she ordered. "I want to see what I have to work with here."
His face turned bright red again. "I...I'm not-"
"I'm not expecting much, so don't worry about disappointing me."
He ducked his head so that she wouldn't see the anger in his expression, and awkwardly pulled off his tunic. After a long pause, he stole a glance at her, and found her staring at him with no expression. "You already knew I'm skinny," he muttered.
She did not say that she was surprised at his muscles. They were small, but very well defined, which she supposed made sense considering his trade. It wasn't quite attractive because his bones were too visible as well, but she did approve of the physical proof that he wasn't soft and lazy. "Keep going," she said shortly.
"Isn't it...your turn...?" he ventured, and immediately regretted it, as he'd known he would.
"My turn?" she snarled.
"..." She had to know what he meant, but apparently she was going to make him say it aloud anyway. "To...you know. Take something off."
"I never agreed to 'taking turns,'" she said coldly. "If you want any sex at all tonight, then finish getting naked, and I'll decide how much more of my skin you're going to see."
"I'm fine with not having sex tonight."
She was shocked, and did not know how to respond for a minute. It hadn't occurred to her that he would willingly refrain even if she consented. It was difficult to hold her tongue until she was able to figure out what to say without stammering. "We have to. The marriage needs to be consummated."
"I was never the one who was so keen on this marriage."
Her outrage felt suffocating. Then it occurred to her just in time to force the issue her way with something other than violence. She marched forward, ignoring the way he nervously backed away from her[. . .].
She had never touched someone in such a way before. It felt a little strange, but also gave her a steadying sense of power to see Hiccup responding to her touch. [. . .]
"A-Astrid-"
He was resisting her. She fought to get his pants off, struggling against the fastenings, the tightness, and his attempts to stop her. Of course she won in the end, but she didn't think it should have been so difficult.
He cringed, completely exposed, his face colored with shame, and the helpless look he gave her filled her with a gleeful, almost malicious sense of power. "You still fine with not having sex tonight?" she challenged.
He panted and whimpered.
She finished stripping him and pushed him to the bed. The fight seemed to have gone out of him until she climbed over him and was distracted trying to figure out the best way to position herself. That was when he snatched at her underclothes, trying to haul them off her body.
She shrieked, there was a struggle, a horrible moment when he was holding her down, but eventually she managed to get on top again and pin him again. The problem was that he had succeeded in pulling off most of her clothes. She knelt over him, breathing hard and gripping his wrists tightly. She felt alarmingly exposed because he was staring at her [*censored because FFN is stupid*], and she couldn't stop him because if she let go of him long enough to cover herself, he would be able to fight his way free.
His eyes dragged slowly from her [*censored because FFN is stupid*] to her face, and he gave the smallest, most horribly smug little smile. "Fine. You can rape me, it's not like I can stop you. But I am going to get something out of it, too."
"Men can't get raped," she snarled, furious at her own helplessness. "Not by women, anyway." She couldn't plunge into him and hurt him the way he could potentially do to her. She could hurt his vulnerable man-parts, except that it would have to be after she used the thing to end her virginity and make her a chieftain's wife. It was infuriating the way he held so much power over her, no matter how physically helpless he was in her hands. "I hate you," she said acidly.
She hadn't expected that to hurt him, but it did. She could see it in his face.
"...Do what you need to do," he said quietly.
"Don't move."
"I won't," he sighed, and she was a little surprised when he continued to lie still after she cautiously released his arms. He even wiggled his hands a little where they still lay beside his head, as if to show off his obedience.
It was horribly, horribly awkward trying to figure out how exactly to crouch over him, realizing too late that she'd forgotten to prepare herself[. . .].
"Not...helping," he said through gritted teeth as she finally got over her revulsion to touch him. She was stubborn, at least until they fought and she won and tried to keep going and then he cried out in actual pain and she saw tears in his eyes. "I can't DO this, Astrid!"
"You're a man, I'm a beautiful woman, of course we can do this," she shouted back, almost but not quite hysterically.
"You are hurting me," he said furiously.
She glared at him but couldn't think what to say, because it was true and also because she was bewildered about why she was not the one hurting tonight like she was supposed to.
"Please," he begged, "please, let's just...try to get some sleep, we're just making it worse right now, we'll do better later..."
She let him, because there was nothing else to do.
Perhaps an hour or two later, she woke out of a doze and lay there in the dark for a long time, then carefully shifted to her other side and reached out. Gently, she stroked her fingertips down his spine and laid slow kisses against his back. She felt like her mind was detached from her body, watching numbly and calmly. It had occurred to her that honey attracts more flies than vinegar does, and touching his back was far less traumatizing than having to touch the other thing.
After a long time, his voice spoke, startling her because she thought he'd still been asleep. "Please stop."
"We need to have sex, Hiccup."
"I can't."
She slid closer to him until she was nearly spooning him, curling her arm over his shoulder and whispering in his ear. "Yes, you can." She laid a light kiss on the side of his face.
Slowly, he turned over to face her. Holding her gaze, he reached under the covers and slid his hands up her bare torso, gradually enough that she would have time to push him away if she chose. She didn't. [. . .] She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to moan. He kept [*censored because FFN is stupid*].
"Do you want to lose your virginity tonight, or not?" he asked quietly.
She tried and failed to speak, panting, hoping that the noises she was making sounded affirmative enough.
"Then don't fight me."
At last, in the darkness, naked under the covers, she was able to take him into her. She froze.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry-"
"Stop that," she snapped. It was uncomfortable and weird and invasive and undignified, but it didn't really hurt. Wasn't it supposed to hurt? Maybe if she moved-
Now he was the one moaning and grunting incoherently, and she soon joined him.
'Isn't it supposed to hurt?' her distracted mind kept thinking. As she grew used to the sensations, she found that they felt surprisingly good; she kind of liked having him fill her like this. But wasn't it supposed to hurt?! Everyone said it hurt the first time!
He [*censored because FFN is stupid*], and his whole body went limp. Since she caught herself trying to figure out if she had had an [*censored because FFN is stupid*] or not, she figured that she hadn't - she was under the impression that the experience was unmistakable.
But that wasn't important right now. She pushed him away and struggled to relight the lamp and then snapped at Hiccup, "Move!" as she pulled away the covers.
"It's cold," he complained.
"Shut up." She frowned and looked more closely, lowering the lamp in an effort to see better.
"What are you doing?" he sighed.
Her breath was starting to come in little gasps of panic. She couldn't find it. "I can't find it!"
He frowned, looked at where she was now practically clawing at the sheets, then reached out and took her hands to stop her. "It's probably just hard to see in the darkness. Let's go to sleep. We can look for it in the morning.
Morning came. Astrid literally shoved Hiccup out of the bed and tore the outer covers away. She searched frantically, but only found a single, very tiny spot of blood, negligible, not nearly enough for proof. "Where is it?!" she cried. There was no response, and then she jerked her head up to look at him. He was watching her, his expression unreadable. She straightened and snarled, "I am a virgin, Hiccup." Well, obviously not anymore. "I came to you a virgin! I can take any oath that I came to you a virgin!"
He was reaching cautiously toward her now as if trying to calm a skittish horse. "Okay, okay, okay, I believe you," he said in a calming-a-skittish-horse voice.
"I'M A VIRGIN!" she insisted, panicking, and angry because she was panicking. Why hadn't she bled?!
"Yes, yes, Astrid, all right."
Belatedly, she finally heard what he was saying. "You believe me?!"
"For one thing, I know that you think every potential sexual partner on this island is disgusting, including myself, so I would be really surprised if you'd slept with any of those muttonheads by choice. I also know that you can take care of yourself, and that no man who tried to take advantage of you would have stood a chance."
"Darn right," she muttered.
"For another thing, I don't actually care whether I married a virgin or not, Astrid."
She practically hissed at him.
"I don't," he said firmly. "If I ever got to marry anyone, at the very least, I'd have wanted it to be to someone who respects me. But the wife I ended up with hates my guts, and that really sucks, so honestly, the state of your hymen is pretty low on my list of concerns right now."
"If you ever dare breathe a word about my unsuitability as a chieftain's wife-"
"I won't stand in your way, Astrid," he said shortly. "If you want Berk, just take it. It's not like I have any chance of stopping you."
Turning away from him, she found her knife and shed what she hoped was the right amount of blood onto the sheet she'd been lying on, about where her pelvis would have been when they had sex.
"Can I please go back to bed now?" Hiccup said wearily.
When the witnesses returned later that morning, Astrid was fully dressed and Hiccup was just pulling his tunic over his head. Neither of them said anything as they were congratulated and teased, and Astrid stayed tense until the bridal sheet bearing the proof of her purity was put away without anyone seeming to notice that there was anything wrong with it.
As soon as she could get her mother alone (which took a few hours, since people were paying more attention to the bridal couple now that they'd consummated their marriage and were even more fun to tease), she said frantically, "Mom! Mom, I don't know what happened, I'm a virgin, I swear I was a virgin before the wedding, but we had sex and I couldn't find any blood, and it didn't hurt and...and, Mom, wasn't my hymen supposed to break?!"
"I thought there was blood," Mrs. Hofferson said in bewilderment. Then her eyes widened in understanding when she saw her daughter's pained look and the new bandage she wore. "Ah... How much does Hiccup know?"
"He knows it all," Astrid said shortly. "He doesn't care. But, Mom, what happened? It felt weird but it didn't really hurt, and I looked all over that sheet but there wasn't even enough blood to-"
"Astrid, you're absolutely positive that- Well, yes I suppose so."
"What, Mom?!"
"What I mean to say is, I forgot to tell you this before, I didn't realize it would be important compared to the other things, but... Astrid, it does happen every so often. Sometimes a woman's maidenhead is lost in all innocence. Tell me, do you ever remember a time, perhaps when you were training or during a raid, that you might have felt pain, and found a bit of blood in your leggings afterward?"
"N-o-o-o," Astrid started to say uncertainly, but then paused. She thought for a while. "Well...I don't remember it hurting, but I do remember one time, I thought... Oh." She could suddenly imagine it, the thin flesh jarred a bit too harshly during that fall, tearing inside her without needing a man's help at all. "Oh... Really?"
"It's not all that uncommon, especially here on the front lines of the war. I'm sorry, Astrid, I wish I'd thought to tell you. I'm glad that Hiccup hasn't made a fuss about it."
"I can handle him. Thanks, Mom," Astrid said, hugging her.
"Are you all right, Astrid?" her mother asked softly. "How was he with you?"
"He was..." 'Pathetic, awkward. ...Big.' "I'm fine, Mom."
"Really?"
"Really, Mom. Come on, it's Hiccup." What she did not say was that the experience had not been completely unpleasant, and that far from her original plan of claiming legitimacy and perhaps an heir or two and then refusing to let her husband touch her otherwise, she might actually even try it again, just for fun.
To be continued...
Author's Notes: I had been about to write a "Astrid feels a sharp pain during her first time" scene like everyone else does, when it suddenly occurred to me that she is a very active girl and has probably broken her hymen already. I also figured that this probably happens fairly often to Berk women, most of whom seem to be warriors and would also be physically active.
But then after I posted this chapter, I found a Web page ( 201172815/7-things-you-didnt-know-about-hymen ) that made me realize that I apparently wrote about hymens totally wrong...except that I can't find any other sources to support the information they claim. Sooo...yeah, I don't entirely know what I'm talking about, but I do know that first-time pain is common but not universal.
A DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon fanfic by Raberba girl
Chapter 3 (rough draft)
They did try it again, that very same night. They went silently to the bedroom, closed themselves in, and eyed each other for a minute. Then he made an apprehensive sort of sigh and slowly got undressed. She watched him, not even sure how to describe what she was feeling.
After he'd stood there silent and naked for a minute, he raised his head, blushing resentfully. He held out his arms as if scornfully offering himself for inspection. "You still in the mood, or should I just put my clothes back on?"
She snorted to cover the fact that she wasn't actually sure how to answer that, and started getting undressed herself. She paused when she saw him staring at her. "...Turn around," she ordered.
"What?"
"Turn around. I'm not going to get naked in front of you."
"What- Astrid, I'm your husband!"
"It doesn't matter," she said forcefully. "If I don't want you to see me, then you're not going to see me. Turn around, or we'll just call it off and go straight to sleep."
"Fine."
To her shock, he started putting his clothes back on again, very quickly and purposefully as if he actually meant it. "Hiccup!"
"Why should I put myself on the line for you if you'll do nothing for me in return?" he demanded. "I can live without sex. I'd rather just sleep than be humiliated by my own wife."
"Wh...What is wrong with you?! I thought men were supposed to be pigs!"
"In case you hadn't noticed, Astrid," he said bitterly, "I am not like most men, and everything is wrong with me."
She watched, seething and incredulous, as he climbed into bed, wrapped the covers over himself, and turned his back to her, looking for all the world as if he intended to go straight to sleep. Meanwhile, her insides felt empty empty empty, throbbing and frustrated.
She gritted her teeth and climbed onto her side of the bed, but crawled over to him and started trying to unfasten his pants under the covers.
"Astrid!"
"I want sex," she said shortly.
"And I want to see you naked, but neither of us are going to get what we want," he shot back.
"You wanna see me naked?!" She suddenly hauled off her dress[. . .].
She jerked the covers tightly over herself, covering every bit of her nakedness. They lay there for a while, panting and glaring fiercely at each other.
"...Come on," she finally said, moving closer. [. . .] She pulled down his pants, more gently this time, and after a moment of hesitation, she tugged his hands [*censored because FFN is stupid*].
They made love without speaking and without any particular joy, then lay there for a while watching each other. Hiccup, who hadn't been given a chance to remove most of his clothes during sex, now struggled out of them and shoved them to the floor, because the drying sweat and other stains made them uncomfortable. He looked like there were many things he wanted to say or ask, but he said nothing. Finally he sighed, turned away from her, and eventually fell asleep. She touched her fingertips to the freckles on his back, one after another after another, until the lamp finally ran out of fuel and went out.
o.o.o.o.o
Each time they had sex during the wedding feast, it got easier and easier, and Astrid eventually grew comfortable with disrobing in front of Hiccup. She rather liked the awed look on his face and the reverent way he laid his hands on her, and she refused to acknowledge the guilt in the back of her heart that she had so fiercely denied him this until now. It didn't feel embarrassing to be naked with him anymore, and though he'd never have the sort of body she could admire, she came to feel comfortable with the familiarity of his narrow shoulders and lean, defined muscles, and even with the less appealing defined bones. He wasn't beautiful, but he no longer repulsed her, either.
The trouble started after the wedding feast was over. Now that it was back to normal life, and they had more to do than just party during the day and make love at night, the difficulties of being trapped in marriage to each other started to become worse.
Hiccup had been named the chief of Berk. There was some grumbling, but no one outright protested, and it was generally accepted that that was because of the beautiful, intelligent warrior at his side, just as Astrid had planned.
She went everywhere with Hiccup at first. She gave her opinion, sometimes rather forcefully, on almost every issue, until she was gratified one day to see people looking to her first rather than to Hiccup.
Hiccup gradually stopped bothering to hold up the pretense that he was in charge, and sometimes, when Astrid was caught up in settling a dispute or lending a hand, he'd slip away and wander about on his own.
Snotlout came across him one time and laughed. "Where's your wife, Chief? Too busy doing your job for you to pay you any attention?"
"Pretty much, yeah," Hiccup muttered.
"I always knew you'd never be the one wearing the pants, no matter who you married. If it were me, I'd never let a woman walk all over me like that, I'd show her who was boss!"
"I'm sure you would, Snotlout."
"Are you even capable of keeping her happy in bed? Hah! Whenever her eye starts wandering, I'll be right here, ready and waiting to satisfy all her needs!"
Hiccup said nothing and tried to move away.
Snotlout seized his shoulder and dragged him back. "Oh no, I'm not done talking to you, cuz."
"Don't you have a baby yak or a small child to terrorize?"
"I think you qualify as both," Snotlout snickered.
An axe handle came swinging out of nowhere to crash against Snotlout's helmet, and he staggered away and fell to his knees, dazed from the force of the blow.
"I don't like it when people mess with things that belong to me, Snotlout," Astrid said coldly, looming over him.
"A...Aaassstrid..."
"Get out of here. Sven needs help, I told him you'd be there."
"Sveeen...Aaassstrid..."
Astrid jerked the burly young man to his feet and gave him a hard shove in the right direction. Then she turned to her husband and raised an eyebrow. "You all right?"
"Yeah," he muttered. There was a long pause.
"You're welcome," she prompted irritably.
"For what?"
"He insulted you. You just stood there and did nothing about it, as usual, so I saved your honor. And mine, too, while I was at it. You're my husband now - if someone disrespects you, it reflects badly on me."
"All I heard was you talking about me like I'm a piece of property instead of a person," Hiccup said. His voice was calm, almost easygoing, and she didn't know him well enough yet to recognize the resentment in his eyes. "I'm a person, you know. Not a 'thing.' How come you couldn't have stood up for me back before we got married, Astrid?"
"Because we weren't married then," she said, as if it was obvious. "Come on, we're wasting time. You need to quit wandering off like this, it looks bad when I can't keep track of you."
"Yes, it would be terrible if you lost any of your possessions," he muttered as he followed her.
One morning, Astrid woke up to find that she was the only person in the house. Surprised and displeased with this unexpected development, she pulled on some clothes and hurried to the Great Hall and then to the forge, where she was relieved to find Hiccup. None of the relief showed; her voice was gruff as she demanded, "What are you doing here?"
"Gobber gave me my old job back," he said shortly, his eyes fixed on his work. "I'm useless everywhere else, so I might as well just keep smithing, since it's apparently the only thing I'm good for."
"Oh." Astrid relaxed, liking the idea of Hiccup being a blacksmith again. He'd be out of her hair, and might even be useful tucked away back here. "All right, sounds good."
He jerked his head up and stared at her, hurt and resentment clear on his face. She didn't notice it, because she'd already turned away and was marching back to the Hall to get some breakfast, already making plans in her head for all the chiefly duties she'd need to attend to that day.
o.o.o.o.o
It was so nice, getting to do things exactly the way she wanted. A few people gave her some trouble over the fact that she was making leadership decisions in Hiccup's absence, but it usually didn't take much to keep them in line.
By the end of the day, Astrid was exhausted but happy, and she got home late. The central fire was very low, but the loft was glowing with light, and she could hear the quiet sounds of Hiccup's presence. "Hiccup? I'm home."
"I know," he called back.
She rolled her eyes. "Have you eaten yet?"
"Yeah."
"Me too. Come down and let's get the accounts over with."
There was a long pause, then the scrape of chair legs across the floor and creaking as Hiccup crossed the room and descended the stairs. Astrid laid out all the books and documents across the table, record-keeping both for village matters and for their personal household. She was capable of doing it all herself, but the work went a lot faster and easier with two people, and a small part of her grudgingly admitted that the de jure chieftain ought to be in the loop along with the de facto chieftain. Besides, Hiccup seemed to be developing a healthier sense of resource-stockpiling now that he was actually seeing the numbers with his own eyes.
"The haul was good today," Astrid remarked, "we were able to start preserving quickly. We have to figure out how to hide them well enough during raids that the dragons can't find them."
"Even if every scrap of it makes it to winter intact, we'll only have enough to get us through January, and that's with stage 3 rations..."
"It's not like that's our only stash, Hiccup. I just said it was a good one."
"Tell that to future-us in February."
Once that nightly routine was done, it was time for the other nightly routine. They closed all the books, stacked the papers, put everything away, and then Astrid tugged her husband close and drew him into a rough kiss. Usually he would respond by sliding his hands inside her clothes, but tonight he just laid his hands on her waist, above her clothing, and squeezed gently.
She broke away from his lips, whispered "Come on," and nipped at his neck.
"Ow."
She frowned in displeasure at the slight break in the mood. Usually he'd play along. "Come on," she said, this time more businesslike.
"I have an idea," he said as she pushed him down onto their marriage bed. "Why don't we flip a coin to see who gets to be on top tonight."
"I want to be on top," she said matter-of-factly as she worked to peel off his clothing.
"I know you do," he said with strained patience as he let himself be peeled, "but I kind of want to be, too."
"You know I'd end up on top no matter how we start out."
"...True."
"So it makes sense that I should just get my way at the beginning, right?"
She said it almost teasingly, the promise of sex putting her in a better-than-usual mood, and she didn't notice the closed look to his face as he said dryly, "Of course. Makes perfect sense."
She made love to him, and was impatient because he kept just lying there, and wouldn't pleasure her unless she spoon-fed him instructions that he should have already learned. "Harder, Hiccup! Freyja help me, it's like you've never done this before- GAH! Not that hard! What is wrong with you?!"
"Sorry." He did not sound repentant. Astrid narrowed her eyes, and he sucked gently until she was appeased. Then he fumbled again, so awkwardly that she couldn't help feeling like he'd done it on purpose. "You are COMPLETELY OFF YOUR GAME TONIGHT, Hiccup!"
"Yeah, it's me, the problem is always with me," he said amiably. If she was capable of thinking of anything other than sex at the moment, she would have wondered why he sounded sarcastic.
All in all, she got her pleasure in the end, but it had been an atypically irritating workout to get that far. Astrid wanted to complain, but before she could get in the mood to nag at Hiccup again, he had already gotten out of bed, gathered up his clothes, and walked out.
He did that every single night. No matter how good or bad the sex was, he never slept in his supposed marriage bed. The master bedroom might belong to both the husband and wife in theory, but in practice, it was Astrid's room. Hiccup performed his marital duties and then would retreat back to the loft, which he still, even in his married life, used as a bedroom and workroom.
That started to annoy Astrid more and more, until she figured out that it was because it seemed so immature of him. The loft was his childhood room, but he wasn't a child anymore. He was a full-grown adult, a married man. He shouldn't be hiding up there when he had a wife and new responsibilities to tend to.
That's why she decided to give him that last push into growing up. She was the lady of the house now, she had the keys and the authority that went with them, this was her domain. So she set aside one afternoon to clean up the loft: she went through Hiccup's personal possessions, sorting them into useless things to be thrown away, things to be packed up and put in storage, and things to be brought downstairs and integrated into the household at large. She was just finishing up when Hiccup came home from work.
"What are you DOING?!"
"Some housecleaning," she said shortly, snapping shut the lock on a full chest.
"This is MY STUFF! You have no right to-!"
"I'M YOUR WIFE!" she bellowed at him. "I have every right!"
He was ignoring her, trying to scoop up items from the 'garbage' pile and hold them protectively close.
"I guess I can pack those up until you're ready to throw them away, but-"
"GET OUT OF MY ROOM." He didn't quite yell it, but the intensity of his voice and the fury of his expression were enough to shock her. She realized that she didn't remember having ever seen Hiccup truly angry before.
It scared her, just a tiny bit, so she took a deep breath and summoned up her own anger and pushed back. "THIS IS NOT YOUR ROOM ANYMORE."
They faced each other down, seething and trembling with rage.
Then Hiccup abruptly turned away. "I'm sleeping at Gobber's tonight," he announced, and started down the stairs.
"You can't leave yet!" she yelled, only dimly aware that she was gripping her weapon in her fist as if she'd intended to attack her own husband with it. "We still have the accounts, we've still got-"
"You're the chief!" he yelled back. "You deal with it! You don't need me!" The front door slammed shut.
The open acknowledgement of her long-coveted role pleased Astrid so much that her feet wouldn't move to go after him until it was too late - she didn't want to look pathetic by having to chase after her husband, instead of catching him at the threshold as she should have.
She shook her head, made a simple meal (pretty much anything more complicated than warming up leftovers was beyond her culinary skills), and sat down with the account books. She wouldn't admit to herself that it was a much longer and more tedious task without Hiccup's help.
When she was finally finished, she sighed, put everything away, and went to look for her husband. She found Gobber and Hiccup sitting around the fire in Gobber's house, chatting. Hiccup's face instantly hardened when he saw her at the door.
"You coming home, Hiccup?" she asked, meaning, "Come back long enough for sex, then you can do whatever you want."
"No," he said coolly, knowing exactly what her unspoken question was. "I was just about to go to sleep." He gestured at a pallet on the floor. Gobber watched the couple, frowning.
Astrid didn't know how to react at first. Her husband was openly defying her, he was going to refuse, she'd have to go to sleep tonight empty. Even if she pleasured herself, it wasn't the same thing. '...He's sulking, like a bratty little boy,' she thought, then remembered him calling her 'chief.' 'Fine. I can be magnanimous. Let him sulk; he'll sleep on it and feel better in the morning.' "I guess I'll see you tomorrow then," she snapped, and went home.
"...Everything all right, lad?" Gobber asked after a moment.
"Everything's fine, Gobber!" Hiccup said brightly. "I mean, sure, my dad died, and my wife hates me, and she just destroyed everything I own, but, hey, other than that, it's all great!" He leveled a warning look at his mentor. "GREAT, Gobber. It's all wonderful."
"I see," Gobber said sadly. "Better get some sleep, I suppose."
"Yup. G'night, Gobber!"
"Good night, lad..."
To be continued...