"How goes the code-breaking?" Astrid said, joining Hiccup at the edge of the water.

"Slow," he replied, running a hand through his hair. "But we're making progress. Jannick does a lot on his own, so we're just trying to help him out."

"Really, eh?" Astrid said, smirking. "He's smarter than you and Fishlegs put together?"

"Seems like it," Hiccup said, laughing sheepishly. "We're pretty lucky he's on our side."

"No kidding."

"Speaking of 'our side', I was thinking I should probably go check on the dragons before dinner," Hiccup said. "Wanna come too?"

"Sure, okay," Astrid replied. They both got up and stretched.

"It's a bit of a walk," he said. "Marta was really serious about keeping them out of sight."

"Yeah," Astrid said, nodding as they started on their way up along the harbour. "Seems like overkill if you ask me. She couldn't just warn everybody, 'hey, by the way, we've got dragons around for a couple days'?"

"I don't know," Hiccup said. "After what I saw today I kind of see the reasoning."

"What do you mean, what you saw today?"

The sun was still high above them, the sky almost cloudless, and light reflected off of the harbour in all directions. The brightness of the water-of all the multi-coloured huts-was garish, almost aggressive, and dry reeds crunched underfoot as they headed through the village.

Hiccup tugged nervously at the small braid behind his ear as they walked. "We saw this guy having some kind of breakdown," he said. "I mean, I guess Marta did warn us, but she seems so normal-it was-well, it was pretty messed up. He was really messed up."

Astrid looked at him, eyebrows raised. "What happened?"

He told her what they'd seen from the ship, and what Marta had told them afterwards, after she and Jannick had gotten the man settled and safely inside again. The length of the story took them as far as the woods, where the garishness dissipated under the thick canopy. Hiccup looked at the ground as he spoke, and glanced back up at Astrid when he finished.

Her face was completely white.

"Astrid?" His expression turned worried. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, but she chewed at her lower lip and grasped nervously at her upper arm, and Hiccup detected the almost-imperceptible tremor in her voice that showed she wasn't.

Hiccup stopped dead, stepping into her path and facing her. "Astrid," he said. "Come on, that's not going to work on me forever."

She looked up at him, her expression defiant, still chewing her lip. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said, casting her eyes back down.

"Yes, you do," Hiccup said.

"No, I really don't."

"Yes, you really do." He sighed. "Astrid. Keeping secrets isn't going to help anything, whatever it is."

She chewed her lip and held her arm and said nothing, not meeting his gaze.

"Astrid, you know you can trust me, right? Whatever it is-"

"It's not that," she said, cutting him off. "I just don't think you'll-" she paused, taking a deep, sharp breath, and shut down again.

Hiccup put a hand on her shoulder-guard. "You don't think I'll what?" he said. "You don't think I'll understand?"

Astrid sighed. "I'm just worried you'll lose respect for me if I tell you," she said, colour coming back into her face.

Hiccup looked at her in blunt surprise, mouth open. "Don't be ridiculous," he said, his lips forming a small smile.

"I'm not," Astrid said, her voice openly stricken now. She looked down again, teeth clamping hard onto her lower lip.

"Astrid," Hiccup said, grabbing her hand and holding it in both of his. "I've got more respect for you than for anybody else I know put together. Whatever's bothering you isn't about to change that."

Her expression softened a little at his words, and she stole a quick glance upwards, meeting his eyes for a split second before looking down again.

"You promise?" she said softly.

He squeezed her hand. "I promise."

She exhaled slowly. "Okay. I'm... I'm worried about all these warriors that went mad from being at war." She inhaled sharply. "I'm worried that it could happen to me."

She didn't need to explain what that meant for her-Astrid, the lifelong Viking warrior, the soldier, the protector, who spent countless hours training, whose battle axe had been her most valued possession since childhood. Astrid, who was stronger than anyone Hiccup knew, and always had been.

Astrid looked up at him nervously as these realizations crashed across his face, and in a split second he dropped her hand and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close. Her eyes widened for an instant, but she rested her head on Hiccup's shoulder, letting him comfort her-just this once.

"I mentioned it to Heather and Ruffnut," she said quietly, "but they just told me it would never happen. And I want to believe them, Hiccup, I do-"

"But what?" Hiccup replied, his voice barely above a whisper, his mouth inches from her ear.

"I just don't," she said. "The warrior here-Sigfried-he didn't do anything wrong. He wasn't a coward, or a bad soldier. It wasn't that he was weak, or he didn't train hard enough. He did everything a good Viking is supposed to do, Hiccup! He went into battle to protect his tribe, and he didn't back down for anything, and then one day he just couldn't anymore. And after everything he went through, his own people he worked so hard to protect abandoned him!" Hiccup felt her shudder against him. "If it could happen to him, then who's to say it won't happen to me? What's the difference between Sigfried and me?"

She buried her face against Hiccup's shoulder, and her arms wrapped around his waist as he held her a little tighter, reacting to her now-very-obvious distress.

"You've got me, for starters," Hiccup said softly. "You've got all of us."

He tucked a loose strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "I wish I could promise nothing will ever happen that will make you like Sigfried," he said, "but I can't know that for sure, and that scares the hell out of me." He paused. "But what I can promise you is that we're never going to abandon you like Sigfried's people abandoned him. I don't care how crazy you get, Astrid," he said. "I'm not going anywhere."

Hiccup felt Astrid relax a little against him, and he smiled faintly.

"Even if I get aggressive like Sigfried?" Astrid said, turning her head so her voice wasn't muffled.

Hiccup smirked. "You're always aggressive."

She snorted. "You know what I mean. What if I'm, you know, yelling and swinging an axe around?"

"Still sounds like vintage Hofferson to me," Hiccup said. Astrid took a hand off his waist and punched him in the kidney. "-Ow! Case in point!"

She finally lifted her head completely to look up at Hiccup, a half-smile on her face. "Thanks," she said. "I really needed to hear that."

"Ah, it's no proble-" Hiccup stopped, looking down at her face. "Astrid, you're bleeding!"

"I am? Where?"

He tilted his head to one side and lifted his hand, gently running his thumb along Astrid's lower lip. "Here," he said, holding it up to show her the smudge of blood on it.

Astrid curled her lip into her mouth, tasting the blood. "Oops," she said, looking down sheepishly and instinctively biting at the exact same spot. "Bad habit."

"You're just making it worse!" Hiccup said, sliding his thumb across her lip again, and her teeth released it. "There."

Astrid looked up at him then, and their eyes met, and in that moment Hiccup was suddenly conscious of how close together they were, how many social boundaries he'd crashed through by touching her lip, by holding her like this. He was fractions of a second away from pulling back, letting her go-but in that same instant Astrid tilted her head upwards and kissed him.

This had happened before-Astrid suddenly kissing him-but not for almost four years, so long that Hiccup had barely dared to hope it would happen again. The thought of kissing her himself, of doing it first, seemed riddled with complications, since he was more or less the leader of their group.

The idea that she might reject him-or that she might not reject him even if she wanted to, worrying about how it would affect the Edge and their operations-had scared him off of the idea, even though it had been on his mind for months now. His hands had been tied by his sense of duty to the group, but now... well, now his hands were on Astrid's back, on the side of her face, and her lips were on his. If the ball was in his court now, Hiccup decided, he wasn't going to waste the chance.

He pulled her closer and deepened the kiss, and she made a small approving noise when he did. Hiccup let one of his hands slide down her back to her waist, the other one gently tracing the edge of her jaw. She had one hand on his lower back now and one at the back of his neck, her fingers batting gently at the small braids in his hair. Old feelings he'd been trying hard to tamp down came surging up again, and it was such an incredible relief to just let them.

Hiccup felt Astrid's tongue brush lazily against his lips, and he very tentatively tried to duplicate the move.

He pulled back abruptly, and Astrid looked up at him in concern, her face flushed. "Something wrong?"

"Tastes like blood," he answered, sheepish.

"Oh," she replied, putting a hand over her mouth.

"I mean," Hiccup said, "Not that I'm complaining."

She gave him a weird look, and he backpedaled hastily. "I mean I am complaining about the blood," he said. "But. You know. The experience as a whole, I mean-that was generally complaint-free."

Astrid grinned and rolled her eyes. "You are such a dork, Hiccup," she said, untangling her limbs from his. She planted a kiss on his cheek and then started walking, not checking whether or not he was following yet.

"Hey, wait up!" Hiccup called after her. "Got any other pent-up secrets you feel like sharing, Astrid?"

"Shut up," she yelled over her shoulder.

"Come on, that's two-you don't have a third thing to tell me? Make it a nice significant number?"

"You're the worst."

"Hey, two out of three's not bad."

"Oh my gods, Hiccup."