Astrid - The Next Morning

It was an absolutely beautiful day. The sky was a bright blue and there was barely a cloud in sight, and the sun was belting down hard as I got off the bus. I was dressed simply enough, dark tights and a short brown skirt with black calf-high boots. Not to brag or anything, but they made my ass look great, and the red sleeveless shirt helped my other assets out a lot. It was pretty hot so I had the top couple buttons undone, though on the plus side that'd definitely make it easy enough to tease my date with.

With the shadow keeping the belting sun from my face, I lifted my aviator sunglasses off of my eyes and positioned them on top of my hair as I looked at the sign on the building in front of me. The Hidden World Animal Sanctuary, Northwest Berk.

I had to admit, it looked pretty cute. Some of the videos Hiccup had done took place all around this place so it seems that I'd seen most of the building just through watching them. I felt a great deal of excitement and joy overcoming myself as I finally opened the door and went in, but suddenly felt this good feeling completely drop because of what I saw.

Hiccup was leaning against the desk behind him, with a pair of clearly not boy's legs wrapped around his waist from behind. The hands that accompanied these legs held his face, but things went sideways when the girl these hands and legs belonged to finally revealed herself, planting a kiss on his cheek and making a loud, dramatic noise as she did. "Mmmmmmmmmmm-WAH!"

I almost lost my breath as I saw this, but I managed to hold it without making any noise. Not that it mattered, since Hiccup and the girl hadn't seemed to notice me yet, both of them laughing as he let her go and she jumped off of him while having the time of their lives. It was probably time for me to but in. "Hiccup?"

Hiccup went wide-eyed and I could tell that the girl who's messy hair concealed most of her face did as well, both of them looking up at me as if they'd not expected me to be here. Because it wasn't like I'd made an appointment to meet him at eleven in the morning (which it currently was) or anything like that, right?

"Am I, uh... interrupting something or..." I was trying to be sort-of jokey about this, but I could feel myself starting to get mad or upset or something. I had to stay calm, I knew that much, but I was really resisting the urge to not pound that little bitch's messy ass into the floor. "Ugh... maybe I should..."

"Uh no, um... Astrid, sorry, I just... I kinda lost track of time..." Hiccup itched the back of his head and looked down to the floor, clearly trying his hardest not to look me in the eye. I'm fairly certain he had no control in what this girl had just put him through so I didn't blame him for it anyway, but it was somewhat nice to see that he was trying his best to separate himself from it.

"Yeah, but uh... damn, eleven already, huh?"

"Um... yeah..." I managed to say, and I hoped I let a smirk come across my face as I did. Since his eyes weren't letting mine make contact I had to focus on the little strumpet that was making a move on him a second ago.

She was exactly a head shorter than he was, and the large web of blonde, very wild hair stuck out long and curly in all directions to the point where her face was barely visible under it. As she used her forearm to brush her hair aside so we could look at each other I was silently praying that she wasn't going to be pretty underneath it all, but I sort of knew that she was going to be.

Her eyes were mostly blue with a greenish tint around the iris, not perfect but still very striking, and they were effectively emphasised by the navy-blue makeup on her upper eyelids. Not perfect but very striking seemed to apply to this girl as a whole, carrying onto her freckled yet rosy cheeks and the blood red lipstick that helped bring out the smug little smirk on her face.

She was shorter than me too, but her actual body was quite a bit curvier than mine and it seemed just over half of her below-average height belonged to her legs that started with small feet and led up to the round hips that her hands were currently relaxed on. On her right hand she wore a fingerless black glove but didn't have one on the left, and the shark-teeth necklace hanging off of her was marked with the Bog Burglar crest. She was only wearing a dirty, yellow long-sleeved shirt with a sleeveless brown vest, but the V-neck it had gave her just a bit of cleavage, not that she needed it since she was visibly on the larger side of the chest size spectrum.

"I'm Camicazi... Camicazi Westergaard." she said this in her smug, sultry little voice. Not to say that this voice didn't fit the rest of her look, in fact it fitted too well. Messy as she was, she was gorgeous, and I felt myself taking less and less of a liking to her.

"Hi..." I forced this out through my teeth, hoping this would serve as a sign of disapproval towards her. But of course, she wasn't deterred by my tone at all yet.

"So uh... what's up, Nad?"

Nad? Seriously, that's what she's calling me? Bitch.

"I've actually heard a lot about you, and it's clear that what I've heard's not exactly exaggerated."

Was that supposed to be some kind of backhanded diss or something? It suddenly made a lot more sense why Hiccup had been acting so nervous around me. If he had to put up with this girl's bullshit his self-esteem had to have been in the toilet.

"You know, Hiccup really..."

"Yeah, I know. I've known him for years. Thanks." I just nodded, and I knew the tone in my voice had taken this little slut off-guard. There was very little emotion in my voice, which I think worked as an effective indicator that I wanted her to get the fuck away from me, and Hiccup. Her eyes went a little wide as I cut off her words, but about a second later she manged to recover as she put her hands on her round little hips.

"Right, okay... I'll uh... I'll see you round, Hic..." Camicazi patted Hiccup on the back as she said this, and I noticed her squeezing his shoulder a little with her hand as she did. I really shouldn't have been clenching my fist like I was, but the sheer nerve this chick had would almost be admirable if it she wasn't trying so hard to spite me.

And then she turned around dramatically and strode like a short little peacock into the other room. I didn't know or care if she was intentionally walking one foot in front of the other like a model, but my eyes were almost definitely still looking at her backside even when the rest of my face was facing Hiccup's.

She closed the door behind her, which finally allowed Hiccup to straighten up and finally look at me again. The girl's blood red lipstick was still stained onto his cheek but it looked like he'd tried his hardest to wipe it off. He cleared his throat and immediately started to try making excuses for himself.

"I uh... sorry, Astrid, we were just... uh, well it's... see, Cami's my..."

"Hiccup, it's fine..." I put my hand up to stop him, but gently placed it just over his heart and let myself calm down a bit. Camicazi was gone and we didn't have to focus on her for now, it was just me and him. I chuckled a bit and smiled at him, which seemed to almost make him melt on the inside as he let out his own weak little grin in response to it. We just had to pretend that little... incident... didn't happen. Clean slate. Start over.

"So..." I said. "What do you wanna do?"


Camicazi - Two Minutes Earlier

"Well for one thing, I'm not letting you go on a date with your hair looking like something out of Downtown Abbey..." I reached my hand to the hair that he'd tried to slick down with some gel and managed to ruffle it a bit before he jerked away and forced my hand off of him.

"No! Cami, I gotta look nice!" he almost snapped back as he tried to flatten his hair down again, clearing his throat as he tried to keep his distance from me. I'd seen him intense and worried before, more times than you could possibly count, but never this bad. He'd always remained calm when the animals acted aggressively or needed taking care of, but he was really worried about this date he had with the Hofferson girl. Though I guess childhood crushes can do this to you.

"Hiccup, you just gotta relax, okay... it'll be fine. Your mom said that you guys always got along great... just like your old times..."

"Oh that's bullshit, you know it won't be like that anymore... ugh shit, not again..." he said this under his breath as he noticed his sneakers' lace was untied. For a guy with one leg I figured a loose shoelace was even more of a deathtrap than it was for a person with two, so he got down on one knee to fix it. "Cami, I don't think I can meet her like this... alright, I... I feel like I'm gonna have a panic attack, and she's gonna get embarrassed again, and... and... oh man, I can't do this..."

"RRAAAGH! A ha-ha-ha!" I decided to interrupt his overly-panicked thoughts by jumping onto his back and latching my hands onto his shoulders, eventually managing to get one of my arms around his neck and put my other hand over his eyes to blind him as his hands frantically tried to pull me off.

"Agh! Cami, come on! I don't... ugh! I don't have time for this! Aah!"

He struggled to stand up as I kept my grip and hung off of him, and he was clearly trying his hardest not to start laughing like I was doing. I'd always loved doing this to him, ever since we were kids, and as much as he told me he hated it I personally think that deep down that he loved taking it just as much as I loved dishing it out.

This little game of ours devolved as it always did, only now, since Hiccup had shot up like a beanstalk when we were in college, he had somewhat of an advantage over me. You'd think that little metal stump he had to call a left leg would be a liability, but if anything it seemed to support him even more. I hadn't really grown to the extent that he had over the years, at least not in the same way, so when he pushed my arms away I had to resort to latching my legs around his waist just so I didn't fall down and break something.

"Alright Cam... I'm giving you one chance to just let go and not get yourself killed..." he managed to say in a smug tone as I dragged him towards the desk behind him.

"Pah! And miss all the fun!?" I now had both hands in his hair and my own hair was flaying about wildly and blinding us both. "You're the one who's gotta submit, asshat!"

He was loosening up, just as I thought he would. He didn't have a chance in Hel with any girl, especially not one of the Deadly Nadder's standards, being awkward and nervous the whole time, so he needed a good laugh and I think this is exactly what I was giving him.

I managed to latch my hands onto his shoulders again and pull the rest of my upper body back up so my head was next to his. "Don't make me use my Poison Ivy on you..."

"Oh fuck you! You better not!" he said this in an almost threatening tone but it was too late, and I pressed my lips to his cheek to leave a wet, sloppy kiss on it. "Mmmmmmmmmmm-WAH!"

"Ugh! Ew, come on, man! Too far!" Hiccup laughed, let me go and I jumped off of him as he wiped the cheek where my lips had been. He'd always hated the smell of my lipstick and it didn't wash off easy, but in hindsight it probably wasn't a bright idea to send him on his date with a lipstick shape of my mouth on his cheek.

"Hiccup?"

We both went wide-eyed as we heard this voice. I'd heard this voice when I'd watched her perform for BMCA and Hiccup was clearly very familiar with the voice of his childhood best friend, and we both looked up to the main doorway. There she was, Astrid "Deadly Nadder" Hofferson herself, standing there with raised eyebrows, crossed arms and a surprised and almost upset look on her face.

I wasn't sure when exactly she'd come in, but it was probably safe to assume that'd she'd seen Hiccup giving me a piggy-back ride with my legs around his waist and that kiss on the cheek. An odd sight to come into, I'm sure, but she was obviously pretty smart so it was safe to assume that she'd not be turned off the Haddock boy quite yet.

"Am I, uh... interrupting something or... ugh... maybe I should..."

"Uh no, um... Astrid, sorry, I just... I kinda lost track of time..." Hiccup itched the back of his head and looked down to the floor, clearly trying his hardest not to look her in the eye. "Yeah, but uh... damn, eleven already, huh?"

"Um... yeah..." she managed to say. Since his eyes were on the floor and off-limits to her, she'd placed her eyes entirely on me. It wasn't really what I'd expected, but it was clear that I'd have to take charge for Hiccup since he couldn't talk his way out of a paper bag. So I decided to start things off and introduce myself, albeit brushing my messy hair out of my face so she could see it.

"I'm Camicazi... Camicazi Westergaard." I thought about reaching a hand for her to shake but I decided against it. I'd never met Astrid in person before this point, so I wasn't exactly sure where to distinguish her stage persona from her real-life one, and the Deadly Nadder wasn't one for formalities like handshakes in her performances.

"Hi..." she managed to force this out through her gritted teeth. She seemed pretty tense, so I probably had to take a more subtle approach with this. I took a second to think about what to say next, and it came down to the wire between a compliment about her career, a compliment about her clothes or something to big up Hiccup a bit. Eventually, I settled on a mix of all three.

"So uh... what's up, Nad? I've actually heard a lot about you, and it's clear that what I've heard's not exactly exaggerated. You know, Hiccup really..."

"Yeah, I know. I've known him for years. Thanks." she just nodded as she said this, her face being totally blank aside from the lowering of her brow and the flattening of her lips. She was staring at Hiccup, and then me, and then Hiccup and then me again, and it felt like you could cut the tension here with a knife. I kept my grin with my hands on my hips. For some reason it seemed she wasn't really taking to me, so rather than start a scene I decided to remove myself and let the pair get on with their date.

"Right, okay... I'll uh... I'll see you round, Hic..." I said this as I patted Hiccup on the back, squeezing his shoulder for a moment as a subtle little sign of "good luck", and turned away, walking calmly and confidently out of the room while Hiccup tried to get everything back on track.

Hope I didn't screw things up too bad.