She is five and her uncle is her idol.
"Fearless Finn Hofferson," the vikings call him, and she imagines growing up to be just like him.
"Amazing Astrid," he calls her, sweeping her up into his broad arms and throwing her into the air. "Astounding Astrid. Awesome Astrid."
"Aggressive Astrid," she growls, swiping playfully at him. "The bestest viking there ever was."
He holds her out of reach and laughs. "Adorable Astrid, I think. That's what they'll call you. The bestest and most adorable viking there ever was."
She scrunches her button nose up in distaste and is about to reply when the raid begins, just as they'd predicted. It's the night when Aurvandil's Fire lights up the sky, and the Flightmare is here.
Her uncle puts her down, kisses the crown of her head and tells her to stay safe, he'll be right back. She wants to help, though, wants to fight the dragons. She tries to follow him out into the chaos, but he stops her, telling her that this isn't her battle... not yet, anyway.
He charges at the Flightmare. "Here I am, ungodly beast! Fearless Finn Hofferson! I've been waiting ten years for this moment. Come and get me, if you dare!"
Her uncle doesn't come back.
Gobber tells her it's going to take more than her wee axe to fight the Flightmare. She doesn't believe him, but it is then that she decides to dedicate everything she has to this battle.
She is ten and her best friend is an idiot.
"We need to focus, Ruffnut," she says, weighing her axe in her small hands.
The other girl stares at her blankly, blonde hair swinging as she hangs upside down from the rail outside the blacksmith's. "Focus on what?" she drawls.
"Training!" she exclaims, not understanding how her friend can be so unconcerned after there'd been yet another raid the night before.
"Na-uh," Ruffnut says, "Mum says we don't start training til we're old. Like, teenagers or something."
She is about to argue when a shout from the other side of the square interrupts. It's Tuffnut, running towards them with something shiny and slimy on the end of a stick. Ruffnut falls from the rail when he waves the eel in her face, shrieking and shouting. He points it in Astrid's general direction and she levels her axe at him pointedly.
The skinny boy flails and backs away from the threat. "Geez, Astrid, it's just a joke."
"It's not funny," she says.
The twins look at each other and then back at her. "It's hilarious!" Ruffnut says, and the two of them begin wrestling with the eel.
She rolls her eyes and leaves them to it, because she recognises a lost cause when she sees one. She heads into the forest and starts throwing her axe at trees, wondering why no one else is taking the dragon threat seriously. All the other kids her age are such... kids.
She is fifteen and she is not going to let anyone get in her way.
Hiccup squirms beneath her in the arena as the Deadly Nadder approaches, blathering on uselessly, and she barely manages to get his shield off him to whack the beast in the face. She's just saved both their lives, and all he can do is lie there like a coward. Her uncle's face flashes before her eyes and her anger boils over.
"Our parent's war is about to become ours," she spits, furious at how he got in her way. "Figure out whose side you're on."
She is fifteen and she is thorough and she is tough and she is top of the Dragon Training class - until she's not.
Hiccup is suddenly and miraculously the most amazing student, scaring the dragons even when he has no weapons. It makes no sense. The other students applaud him. She silently seethes and takes to throwing her axe at trees more often. One night when she's throwing she spots Hiccup sneaking around in the forest and tries to follow, but loses him in the foliage - she wonders why she's suddenly so off her game.
She catches him again the next night, loitering around the blacksmith's. She is entirely too suspicious. "You're acting weird... Well, weirder," she says, staring at the scrawny boy and wondering what it is about him that's changed.
He doesn't give a satisfying answer, vanishing into the night. She can't stop thinking about him.
He defeats the Gronkle, and when Gothi chooses Hiccup as the one to kill the Monstrous Nightmare, she says a string of swears she didn't even realise she knew. She feels like she is letting her uncle, her family, herself down.
She is fifteen and she is going to die.
This stupid Nightfury and this stupid boy and this stupid flight are going to kill her. No glorious death in battle for her, just a terrifying and embarrassing plunge to her death from the back of a dragon. She has never been this scared before, but she is the opposite of frozen, flailing about and grabbing at any part of Hiccup that she can find, curling her leg around him and clutching at his hair, his shoulder, anything to anchor her down.
"Okay, I'm sorry!" she chokes out, clinging on to Hiccup with her eyes shut tight. "I'm sorry! Just get me off this thing!"
The dragon immediately calms. What was a death-defying thrill ride is suddenly a tranquil glide through the clouds. Hiccup breathes a sigh of relief and she feels his ribcage expand beneath her hands.
The world is small from up here. The cold air bites at her exposed skin and steals the breath from her lungs, but it's more beautiful than anything she'd imagined. They soar for so long and so far that she swears she sees the Bifrost itself, shining up there amongst the clouds that she can catch in her own two hands. The dragon beneath her is steady and sure, and she feels surprisingly safe.
She never would have thought that Hiccup was capable of something like this. She stops thinking of what he did during Dragon Training as cheating and starts to think of it as amazing instead. His bravery is an entirely different kind to what she's used to, but it's bravery none the less, and there is nothing Astrid values more than that.
By the time they land her entire world has changed. The very ground feels strange beneath her feet.
She is unsure, so she does what she always does when unsure - she punches Hiccup in the arm, hard. And then, before she can think too hard about it, she presses her lips to his cheek, expressing her gratitude in the most appropriate way she can manage.
That night she dreams of soaring amongst the stars, and the feel of Hiccup's heartbeat against hers.
She is fifteen and she is fighting the biggest, baddest dragon any of them have ever seen - from the back of another dragon.
It is exhilarating in a way she never thought possible, and terrifying in a way she hopes she never has to deal with again. She almost falls to her death, but Toothless catches her and she wonders how she could have ever mistrusted a creature as magnificent as him.
She watches the battle unfold in the sky, flashes of fire from behind the clouds, like a fight between gods. She sees the monster plummeting to its death, and she sees fire, a huge ball of it, an explosion worse than any witnessed on Berk. She doesn't see Hiccup.
When the smoke clears she feels like she might cry, because Toothless is there but Hiccup is not, and Stoick is crying and if the Chief is crying then surely she can too. She is sadder and angrier than she's ever been, because how could the gods give her something as amazing as Hiccup and then take him away like that, before anything had even had a chance to begin? How is that fair?
When Toothless unfurls his wings, she shouts louder than any of the other vikings.
And when Hiccup finally emerges from his bedrest, finally stumbles into the glory that is a peaceful Berk, she doesn't even care that half the island is watching when she kisses him. A glorious heat floods her veins at the touch of his lips and when they break apart her smile is a wide as his.
She could get used to it, too.
She is fifteen and she feeds and grooms her dragon every night before going to bed.
"You did so good today, Stormfly," she croons, scratching the beautiful blue scales on the dragon's neck.
Stormfly preens and chirps in reply, praising her rider in her own way.
They make quite the team, she thinks, majestic dragon and majestic girl. They're both fierce and proud and competitive, and Stormfly is clever, always eager to learn and just as eager to show off her skills. Apart from Hiccup, she doesn't know anyone else in the world who she could trust as much as she trusts Stormfly.
She gently cups the dragon's face, calloused fingers gentle as they trace her cheek, right where her shield hit that awful day in the arena. Her voice is quiet and trembling when she says, "I'm sorry, girl."
Stormfly nuzzles her shoulder, and she thinks that the dragon knows.
She is fifteen and she is going to avenge her uncle.
Fishlegs won't stop prattling on with facts, ever the walking encyclopedia. "...Legend has it that the Flightmare is so terrifying it actually freezes its prey in their tracks."
Snotlout just won't stop being a dick about it, and she doesn't even need an excuse to teach him a lesson, but he gives her the perfect one when he says, "Yeah. Just ask Frozen Finn Hofferson. Right, Astrid?"
She barrels into him, knocking him clean off his feet. She digs her boot into his stupid face, holds her axe just a bit closer to his skin than she normally does. "You think it's funny, Snotlout?! You think it's a joke that my family name was ruined by that dragon?"
She feels Hiccup's eyes on her, feels concern radiating from him, but she does not soften. When the twins arrive, bringing the village gossip with them, she feels like she might actually kill Snotlout if she doesn't get out right now. So she takes Stormfly and she goes.
Hiccup catches her, later, when she's about to leave to track the Flightmare down. He tries to convince her not to go, but, as usual, he had the same plan anyway and she ends up getting what she wants.
He doesn't want her to fight it. If it were anyone else she'd be insulted, thinking they weren't confident in her combat skills. But it's Hiccup, and she knows he's just concerned. And maybe he should be, because even as she tells him that she understands that they'll fall back to town if they can't redirect it, she is planning her battle strategy.
When they spot the great, glowing dragon she drops from Toothless and charges at it. Hiccup screams after her. But she has to do this. She is no coward, and the Flightmare is not like other dragons. The Flightmare took her uncle.
"Leave Berk now, and never come back! Here I am, ungodly beast! Fearless Astrid Hofferson! Come and get me, if you dare!"
She sees the dragon swooping towards her, hears Hiccup screaming her name, and then there is nothing.
She comes to with Hiccup by her side, and as soon as he explains that she was paralysed by the dragon's mist relief floods through her. She knew that her uncle hadn't been scared, she knew that there must have been more to it than that. And now she has proof, now she has validation.
Turns out the Flightmare is like other dragons. It was just following its food, algae glowing in reaction to Aurvandil's Fire, flowing down river and right towards Berk. Astrid gets her showdown with the mighty beast, but not in the way she'd expected. She works with Hiccup and Fishlegs to cut a new channel, feed the water and the algae out to sea, and the Flightmare goes with it.
Hiccup makes the announcement when they get home, capturing the attention of the gathered crowd as only he can. "...the important thing we learned was that Fearless Finn Hofferson was indeed fearless, just like all the Hoffersons."
Gobber is there, just as he was ten years ago. This time, he tells her she's done her uncle proud. This time, she believes him.