Yellow Friendship


"Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses." ― Alphonse Karr, A Tour Round My Garden


It was a great day on the island of Berk. The sun was shining brightly at the people of the island with no snow, hail, or storm in sight - at least not for today. Hiccup and the rest of the teenage dragon riders met up in the morning for the usual academy training and unlike most days, today it had actually gone smoothly. The team had grouped up to help gather herbs for Gothi before the weather changed again and the first rains of snow came. They had actually manage to complete the mission, for once, without the twins or Snotlout setting anything on fire; at least anything, but themselves. The group was able to finish their only assignment quickly before noon, so everyone went to back to Meade Hall for lunch before splitting up to go do their own thing.

The twins had gone in the direction of the grazing fields so they were probably going to go yak tipping again. Fishlegs said he was going to go back home to clean the dirt between Meatlug's toes as its been giving her the itches. Snotlout hurried back home and said he was going to spend the rest of the day training for Thawfest, which he pointed out was only two whole seasons away. Hiccup didn't really have any plans but remembered that he was running low on colored ink for his sketches and decided to head back out to a flower field they had spotted earlier on to gather some pigments. Astrid offered to tag along and grabbed her axe so she could do some training while she kept him company.

The two went out of the hall, climbed onto their dragons, and flew to the other side of the island to look for the field. When they all landed and the two humans dismounted, Toothless and Stormfly went over to a large tree to lay under the shade for an afternoon nap. Hiccup started to walk through the fields, inspecting the bushes for interesting shades he could work on; while Astrid took her axe and simply walked to another nearby tree, not far from the dragons, and started going through the motions of her drills.

Some time later, Hiccup was completely satisfied that the colors he gathered would be good enough to last him for a few months, at least until Trader Johann came back again with higher quality materials. He walked back to Toothless to put away his things in the saddle before sitting down to scratch the head of the still pleasantly napping dragon. When he switched positions to stroke the scales of Stormfly before she got jealous of the unequal attention, Hiccup looked up and began to watch Astrid who was still going at trunk of the tree with complete focus, taking notice of her still beautiful even if it was slightly frazzled appearance. Hiccup thought that no matter how long they've known each other, Astrid would never stop being an amazing wonder. The way her movements flowed smoothly from one form to the next, and the way she could still keep up the tenacity of her hits even after hours of practicing was something Hiccup would forever admire. (As long as it wasn't directed towards him.)

Hiccup continued to watch her and stared at her long and beautiful blonde hair, shining under the sun like strands of gold. His attention towards Astrid was only broken because out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a small bush filled with roses of similar golden color. He absentmindedly stood up and walked over to pick one out for closer inspection, but not before clumsily pricking himself on its thorns. "Ow." Hiccup exclaimed, transferring the flower to his other hand as he lifted the finger he pricked to his mouth. He lightly sucked the wound and silently admired the shade of color of the flower, not noticing that Astrid had finished with her practice and had made her way back to their tree.

Astrid placed her axe down on the ground and reached into her saddle to grab her water flask. She then walked over to Hiccup who was still standing still, lost in thought with his back facing her. "What are you doing?" Astrid asked him, after taking a swig of drink and wiping away the sweat on her forehead with her arm. She went around him, glancing at what he was holding. before Hiccup finally replied with an "Oh, nothing", snapping out of his reverie at the sound of her voice.

Hiccup glanced at the flower and then back to Astrid before casually holding it in front of him, between him and her. "Here, you can have this then." Hiccup said, not really thinking deeply into what he was doing. Astrid stared at the thing in his hand and then looked at him with a slightly wary look. "What am I supposed to do with a flower?" she asked, not really familiar with such feminine and impractical things, her voiced slightly laced with irritation because of her confusion. "Oh! Sorry! It wasn't really for anything!" Hiccup reflexively apologized, not really knowing why she suddenly sounded annoyed, but also not wanting to aggravate her more. "So why did you pick it up then?" Astrid asked, putting one hand on her hip, while the other gestured to it. "Hmm... It just sort of... kinda... ever so slightly... somewhat... reminded me a little bit of you." Hiccup stuttered abashedly, only slightly realizing what he was actually saying. "Your hair and the rose have somewhat similar colors." he noted, lifting the rose to her slightly for her to inspect. Astrid reached behind to take her braided hair in her hand and lightly tugged it over her shoulder and to the front so she could see the ends. Looking at the braid in her hand, and squinting at the flower in Hiccup's, she could only mutter a "Not really...", unsure of even the idea that any part of her was being compared to a flower. After a moment, Hiccup surprisingly nodded in agreement although he was not really thinking about the same thing and blurted out, "Yeah, yours is much nicer."

Hiccup had complimented her and had even taken a step closer to bring the flower closer to her hair to make a more precise comparison. Astrid blinked in surprise at his words and now overly close proximity. She couldn't help but blush as Hiccup had implied that he thought her hair was prettier and began to reach to take the antagonizing flower from him before he could say anything else to fluster her. But, as she began to make motions to accept the small gift from him, Hiccup pulled away taking the flower with him. Astrid gave him a confused look, addled by his actions and unsure of what to make of it. "Did you not want to give it to me after all?" she asked, wondering if he had changed his mind, although not really caring either way. "Ah, no, that's not it." Hiccup replied holding out the rose back to her. "I just thought to warn you about the thorns." he said, carefully placing the flower on top of her hand. Astrid gave a loud snort at his careful demeanor, although she too held the flower delicately between her fingers. "I'm not some sissy little girl who is afraid of some thorns." she admonished, lightly touching the pricks, not enough to draw blood but doing so to prove her point. "In fact, I'd welcome them." Astrid said, placing the flower's stem into her flask as they walked back to their dragons who were now awake and energized to go. "If a flower was born into this world with no other choice but to be the most beautiful, it should at least grow to be sharp as well." Astrid said, picking her axe from the ground and strapping it onto her back before hoisting herself up on Stormfly's saddle still holding on the yellow rose in the flask. "You mean like you?" Hiccup teasingly answered, as he also climbed on Toothless back. "What do you mean?" Astrid asked as they all took flight and headed back to Berk. Hiccup had gone silent and began to get lost in thought again on the way back home. A few minutes later, Astrid had completely forgotten that she had asked him a question. It would be quite a while again before Astrid remembered this moment again because the field of colorful planets had been buried again the next day and was not seen again, not for a few more seasons because of the predictably unpredictable snow.


Author's Note:

Phew! I was so inspired when I was starting the 2nd chapter of my other HTTYD fanfic, "Together, We Map the Universe", that another story popped out. It was supposed to be a short series, with each chapter being a drabble (which according to Google is only supposed to be around 100 words), but it ended up long like this. So apparently, I don't know how to write short fics. Not sure if that's a good thing.

Anyways, I'm glad that this story was born. I was able to prove to myself that I could write a plot, without depending much on another story. This story will have 7 chapters, the first chapters rated K, before slowly moving onto T. There might be an 8th chapter that will be separated from this one that will be rated M because it's supposed to smut but I'm not sure about that one since... I lack the experience to describe a scene so, and I have never done written one before... I'm hoping someone else can write it for me? Haha. Maybe. Maybe not.

So, this story seriously came out of nowhere to me when I suddenly thought that Astrid was similar to a thorny rose in both personality and form. Her skirt reminded me of thorns. Now, I know Astrid is not a rose, but another kind of flower, but please bear with me. Also, I saw on Google that the roses of different colors, have different meanings depending on which list I was looking at. Most of them were similar, but when it came to orange, pink, peach, and those colors, they seem to get interchanged. Well, whatever. I wrote as the title, what the color was supposed to symbolize for the chapter.

As a bonus, I also added some quotes I Googled off the net. They mostly come from The Little Prince, because I love that story. I got the quotes from GoodReads by googling "roses" and "quotes". Awesome, right? :D Google is my best friend. Google is your best friend. I use Google Docs to type my stories up and it has this fancy right click define feature that I use to search synonyms when I feel I'm being too redundant.

Anyways, don't forget to review! And follow hatchethaddockhoneyhofferson on Tumblr! That's me. :D