Wow. i haven't been on here in an onscenely long time, i make no promises to return. but this popped into my head because I'm oddly twisted and can't watch kid's movies without becoming creepily obsessed and/or falling in love with the main character. Or both. i wish my dog was a dragon.
He was a blacksmith. Blacksmiths fixed weapons. Perhaps he was an unusual blacksmith, perhaps he was an incompetent Viking, but he could handle fixing weapons. So whenever a Viking reluctantly handed him their prized weapons, he rolled his eyes, but got the job done. This happened most often with the kids his age. Snotlout, Fishlegs, the Twins. Astrid. They left him jobs to do in the form of dented shields, dulled swords, and broken handles, and paid with a coin and a jibe. He would nod, take the coin, and tuck the insult away. Normal.
Astrid hated normal. She was a Viking, a soon-to-be legend. Normal is a nuisance at best, an affront to her town at worst. As she entered the dark, fire lit smithy, cradling a wounded sword, she would set her face in a mask to hide the disgust at the mundane-ness of the shop. She would hand whatever weapon needed mending to the assistant, avoiding eye contact, trying to shield him from the embarrassment of his existence. Her strong, calloused hands would push a weapon into his sooty, scarred ones, and she would leave, thinking how lucky she was not to be clumsy enough to collect so many injuries in training. She would return the next day, collect her item, flick a coin to the boy, and leave with a sarcastic remark, or nothing at all, and return to her quest of glory. He was normal. She refused to be.
Watching her leave, Hiccup sighed, knowing that with her most recent jibe, he was succumbing to weakness again. He checked to see if Gobbler was around. Of course not. Why would his teacher want to be near his failure of an apprentice? Why would any Viking want to be near the "wrong" one, the mistake, the Hiccup? He paced, hands shaking in his frustration and embarrassment, in his anger and wounded pride. Hiccup, checked again, knowing that her one sarcastic remark had been just too much. He grit his teeth, and picked up the lustrous tongs from the fire. His hands stopped quivering, his heart slowed, and his anger left him, burning on the outside instead.
"Hey, um, Hiccup, I forgot to ask you-this shield needs to be…" The cocky girl drew up short entering the workshop. "Why does it smell like-bacon?" She glared at the boy, wondering if he had any extra rations in the dead of winter. Before thoughts of spoiled chiefs' sons carried her away, she saw the angry burn on his arm. "Oh. Ouch. Pack some snow on that. Listen, The strap to this shield is broken. Can you mend it by tomorrow?" She waited for his answer, but he just looked at her, guilt and an almost laugh on his face. Finally, he nodded, and she returned it, rolling her eyes as she left. Not only was he a total gimp, he couldn't even be in a workshop without causing himself an injury!
Hiccup didn't bother to watch her leave. He remembered that awkward silence, his certainty that she would know what he had done, that manic laugh that had itched up his throat in the silence. Then, like any other Viking, she had barreled on in her thoughts and left, sparing time only to roll her eyes at his weirdness. What did he expect? She was an ordinary girl. One of the pack. And "the pack" did not have trouble with burns.
He continued to administer to her needs, fixing the weapons she requested and returning them, but now he noticed that her hands and wrists were beautiful. Calloused hands, rough from weapons, merged onto smooth, perfect wrists. She wasn't damaged by mistakes. In addition, she didn't damage herself. Hiccup began to feel, merged with all her other merits, envy for this girl, with her beautiful wrists.