A/N: Hi! Long Author's Note at the end again... Sorry if I offended any of you amazing, supportive, brilliant-minded people who do review, favourite, follow and read constantly and read my Author's Notes. Thanks again for your support.
46. Cut
Ruffnut was fed up with her mother. Ingrid Thorston hadn't really done anything wrong, but she'd sure made her daughter very angry over the past few weeks. Ingrid was struggling to come to terms with the fact that Berk didn't kill dragons anymore, so had decided on a new hobby to keep her busy. She'd always had a talent for braiding hair – she'd done so for Ruffnut on many occasions – so thought that maybe she could start doing more ... elaborate things with her daughter's hair. Ingrid had considered doing something interesting with Tuffnut's blonde mess, but thought better of it – it was covered in something greasy and disgusting, and Ingrid didn't want to touch it. So far, she had done neat buns on the top of Ruffnut's head, thin plaits all around it, an odd up do that had fallen over after five seconds and many other fantastical hairstyles – all of which Ruffnut had hated with a passion. She missed her no-fuss plaits and not brushing her hair for weeks. The hairstyles were turning into ordeals that took way too long, and Ruffnut had decided to put an end to them. It wasn't planned, what she did that chilly morning before her mother was even awake, it was merely done out of impulse, and was probably the result of hormones being... hormonal. While Tuffnut was still sleeping like a log, her mother was in bed and her hair was loose, Ruffnut stepped outside with into the cold air with her axe. There was no-one about – most people were relishing the blissful silence that came with cold mornings when the dragons didn't feel like going outside. Ruffnut heard her mother open the door to her bedroom with a creak, her footsteps squeaking on the wooden floorboards. Ingrid was probably preparing the comb and twine to carry out the latest hair disaster. That was what really did it for Ruffnut. She smiled inwardly, and cut straight through her blonde locks. Luckily, the axe was sharp, so it only took one swipe to do away with her long hair. It now fell to her shoulders, just as blonde and soft as ever. Satisfied, Ruffnut got rid of the evidence (the long strands of hair in a pile at her feet) and stashed it in a basket at the foot of her bed. She then got dressed and continued her day as usual. Her mother stood open-mouthed, as Ruffnut paraded through the hall to the front door, tucking a knife into her boot as she went.
"Bye! See you later!" she called out as she walked along the path to meet her friends.
When Ruffnut arrived at their meeting place, everyone was gaping at her, except of course, for Hiccup. He was too busy sketching Toothless and Stormfly chasing each other. Astrid smiled, and then laughed. Hiccup looked up, squinted at Ruffnut for a second and said:
"Oh, you cut your hair."
Astrid punched him in the shoulder.
"Ow! Uh ... it looks nice."
Tuffnut joined their little circle, with two handfuls of Ruffnut's hair tucked under his arms.
"Hey guys! Look what I found," he said with glee, putting a few bits of hair over his upper lip like a moustache.
Snotlout shrugged.
"It looks like someone got an axe and just cut it off."
"That's because I did, idiot."
"Oh, right."
Discouraged by everyone's reactions, Ruffnut slouched in defeat.
"Well, I think it looks ... really pretty," Fishlegs stuttered, "Suits you."
47. Best
She'd tried her best to stay calm. She really, truly had. But Astrid Hofferson wasn't one to take serious issues lightly. The rumours were true - she had cried. But, for the first time, she care if anyone saw her or not. It was nearly a joke that she'd been crying over the same boy who was so infuriating that she'd nearly broken his arm. Astrid really was glad that he was okay, though. She didn't love him, (not yet anyway, she thought with a sad smile) – for Thor's sake she'd only really started to know him for a day before it happened. But she did want to know him, not know the village screw-up who never did anything right. She wanted to understand him, understand what it was like to be Hiccup, not Hiccup the Useless or Hiccup the Dragon Fighter. She definitely wanted to listen to him. It was perplexing the way that he waved his hands around a lot as he spoke to her about issues that he found important, as if they wanted to tell the story for themselves. She could get lost in his eyes. It was like she was drowning in an emerald whirlpool every time she looked at him. When he gave her that shy, crooked smile, she couldn't resist smiling back. It seemed that whenever she was around him her cheeks ached from smiling. It was really quite disturbing for her, and for the people around her, going from her state of aloofness to smiling all the time. Astrid pretended that she was confused about how she'd undergone this drastic transformation, but really she knew that it had everything to do with that same green-eyed boy that she'd been crying over, and whose arm she nearly broke. Like she said, she'd tried to keep calm. But that in itself was proving to be very difficult to do.
48. Mend
Hiccup was in absolute awe. Nothing like that had ever happened before in his entire life. He'd been determined to fix the crack in one of the stone pillars in the Great Hall, and needed some different tools, which he'd easily gotten from the forge. He accidentally forgot to ask Gobber, though, so now Gobber looked ready to explode. When trying to hammer in a new piece of stone, the pillar had split in half and nearly crushed him, but he'd managed to dive under a table. The actual fall of the pillar didn't damage anything, but after it fell, part of the roof caved in. It was only a small part, about half as big as a table, but created an awful lot of dust, and would probably take a while to fix. Stoick, of course, was at the scene of the crime almost immediately, his face darkened with anger.
"Do you have ANY idea how much time it will tak-" Stoick had started, but got a kick in the leg from Gobber, who raised his eyebrows in warning.
Stoick took a very deep breath and closing his eyes.
"I suppose that it will only take a week or so. It probably would've been destroyed in a dragon raid if we still killed them anyway. But ... I suppose ... good job, son, for pointing out that crack. It probably would've spread, and given out in a most ... inconvenient time if you hadn't done ... that."
It was clear that Stoick was trying really hard to be encouraging and not lose his cool, and it was having miraculous effects on Hiccup. He blushed, and then looked sheepishly at the floor.
"Sorry dad."
"That's okay, Hiccup. We can fix it."
49. Happy
Really late one evening, when the majority of Berk was trying to sleep, a boy and a dragon crept up a gravel path to a window in the shadow of a massive hill. The window was only at ground level, but the boy still had trouble pulling the shutters open, as they were jammed shut on the inside. Hiccup – with the help of Toothless – managed to yank it open using a knife, but they made an awful lot of noise. Hiccup winced.
"Thanks bud."
Toothless helped the boy to climb through the window rather loudly (Hiccup's prosthetic caught on the windowsill and made an awful racket), and he managed to stand up reasonably unscathed. He brushed non-existent dust off his tunic and pulled something from his pocket. Hiccup took a deep breath, stepped towards the sleeping figure ... and tripped over air. Stupid. He should have known that this was a bad idea. He should have given the gift to her in person. But it was her birthday, for Thor's sake, and he wanted to do something that she would remember for the rest of her life. He sighed. Miraculously, she was still asleep. There was still hope for him. He narrowed his eyes in concentration ... until he got a proper look at her sleeping face. Her flaxen hair was spread out on her pillow, – she was wearing it loose – and she was wearing the tiniest of smiles. Hiccup just stood and gaped at her beauty for a while, until he shoved his thoughts aside. It wasn't the time fir distractions. He had a mission to complete. However, luck wasn't on his side that night – it seemed that luck was never on his side – and as he reached out to lay his gift on the bedside table, he slipped over, hitting his head on the rail below Astrid's bed, his prosthetic un-hinging itself from his leg and skidding across the floor. Astrid sat bolt upright, sliding a knife out from under her pillow and baring her teeth in a frightening-but-still-beautiful (to Hiccup) way. Then her eyes landed on Hiccup – who was rubbing his head – and her gaze softened a bit.
"What in the name of Thor do you think you're doing here?" she hissed under her breath.
"Uh ... hi Astrid ... hi Astrid," Hiccup said sheepishly.
She glared at him.
"Well?!"
"It's your birthday tomorrow..."
"I'm quite aware of that, Hiccup."
"...and I thought that I'd do something special. So here."
He thrust the things in his hand at her. They were somewhat crushed, but unmistakably purple – a little bunch of flowers. Asters. Astrid looked confusedly at him, and he looked at the floor, and blushed a brilliant shade of scarlet. Then, he grabbed his prosthetic, clicked it back into place and stood up shakily.
"Bye Astrid, I guess I'll see you tomorrow."
She looked at him in disbelief. He awkwardly hobbled to the window and literally fell out, clambered on to Toothless' back, and was off. Astrid smiled, went to the kitchen and put some water in a jar and placed the Asters into it. Then, she left the jar on her bedside table and climbed into bed, a smile etched on her face.
50. Love
One night, after Hiccup had dragged himself from the forge in a bleary stupor, his eyelids drooping considerably due to lack of sleep, and he had managed to fall into bed, Stoick came into his bedroom, wondering why he was still awake.
"S'ry dad. Was ... workin' on new project," Hiccup mumbled into his pillow.
"That's all right. Goodnight," Stoick said.
"G'night dad. Love you..."
Stoick stopped at the door and took a deep breath.
"Love you too, son. See you in the morning," he said awkwardly, and stumbled out the door.
A/N: Well, this is two weeks and one day late. Sorry. I've been caught up with school and netball, and I recently went to the Writer's Festival so I've been working on refining my writing. I meant to publish this a while ago, but my computer died last Sunday, and I still had two drabbles to write, and I didn't find time for it this week. I was going to post it last night, but I was so tired that I couldn't even interpret what I was writing, so deemed it best to finish when I could comprehend sentences. I made it to 50! That's halfway to the finish line! Just 50 more to go! Anyways, I'm not going to explain these. I'll let you guys interpret them how you want to. Except, with 47 I needed to do some origin thing that explains Astrid's reaction at the end of the movie ... kinda. I'm not sure if I hit the target. Last chapter, Tasermon's Partner was wondering what I meant with 45. Well, every good character has its flaws. And especially with characters like Snotlout, authors (or directors) love to give them something that they're scared of. With Snotlout, for me, even though he's afraid of bees, he also has a deeper fear that before the movie events was never really a problem for him. For Snotlout, his fear is being left behind and abandoned. I think that Snotlout's a bit insecure. People always say that ones who bully are unsure of themselves, and in a way, Snotlout's a bully at the start of the movie. We do see some character development towards the end, but not a lot. There's more in the TV show, and hopefully we'll get to see even more in the second movie! But anyways, I think that because now Hiccup's popular (well, of sorts) and he got the girl (excuse that expression – I hate it, but it seemed appropriate), and now Snotlout's kind of stuck, hence the expressions used in 45. So, he's slowly realising that his fears are coming true (that doesn't really make sense, but hopefully you know what I mean), and feeling insecure again, so, he lashes out at unexpected times – in 45 he said something derogatory to Fishlegs – but because people are no longer expecting Hiccup to screw up, there's more attention towards his mistakes. Now, everyone sees him as a perfect viking, but Hiccup's gone and turned the definition of 'viking' upside down, so people are starting to pay a bit more attention towards the feelings of others – especially the teens – because Hiccup's sensitive and they're being great friends by looking after him. But because they're paying more attention towards feelings, they're picking up on those moments when Snotlout says mean stuff to people. And, from what I can gather, what he said to Fishlegs was really mean. So now, he's kind of alone, because no-one knows about his secret fear (except maybe Hiccup – he's so perceptive). And that's 45 in a nutshell. I hope it made sense ... it did in my head. Basically, I'm working on reading character's emotions. I read the Mysterious Benedict Society series while I was on holidays, and I absolutely love it to pieces. I'm thinking of writing something for it. Now, for the thank you s: big, big thanks to Wolf of IndigoRiver, Ferdoos, Tasermon's Partner and LizzyLory, and to everyone who read, favourite and followed (I love you all in a non-sexual way). Well, see you next week for the first five after 50... exciting!
Thank you for your time reading this absurdly long Author's Note and my story in general.
Yours in demigodishness and all that. of-nightfuries-and-mockingjays OUT!