Author's Note: Since Raberba girl has requested (well, sort of requested) a chapter or oneshot of Astrid's pre-Toothless opinions of Hiccup, and since any such side-story would undoubtedly include a little romantic thought, for a Valentine's Day Special I'm temporarily deviating from the main plot to chase down that side plot. Don't worry, next chapter will be back in the action!

Every unicorn breed had its own preference for where and how they boarded in a barn; most ranches just put them in an ordinary barn like what horses or cattle used, but Berk Ranch had recently added a specialized barn that allowed stalls to be customized according to those preferences. It was just barely tall enough plus the foundation that two unicorns could be stabled one on top of the other, and ceiling and floor slats were moved around to put a stall higher or lower according to the beast's desires. Lowland Unicorns very much preferred having their hooves on solid ground and never mind if water might seep in for being belowdecks; all their stalls were solidly at the bottom. Highland Unicorns appeared to have a phobia of anything being above their heads, and didn't care at all if the roof leaked; all their stalls were directly under the eaves. Inland Unicorns didn't want to get the least bit wet, so they were set at a halfway level between the Highlanders and Lowlanders and had plenty of protection from all the hazards of rain.

Astrid had her own room, in the space below Stormfly's stall; one of the side benefits of being the only teenage female to work as a ranch hand. Since Stormfly was a Highlander, the basement beneath her stall was easily roomy enough for one human of relatively spartan tastes to live alone. Nothing got by Stormfly, either, so Astrid could always walk into her domain with no fear of being taken by surprise.

Except by her cat.

"Sneaky! One of these days I really am going to step on you," Astrid scolded as she caught herself on the doorway, having jerked her weight back just in time to keep her left foot from coming down hard on the gray cat that seemed determined to rest on the throw rug.

Sneaky wasn't concerned with Astrid's warning; he always started to move when he felt her foot above him, and he moved faster than her foot's ability to squash him. After nearly tripping her, he was now sitting on her bed grooming where she'd touched him.

Astrid sat down next to him. "How have you been while I was on vacation, anyway? Did Mulder put out food for you, or were you catching mice for two weeks? Did you play with Iggy and Pain?" Iggy was Fisk's, an orange tabby with a calm and friendly nature and a surprising interest in fetch; Pain was a black-and-white tuxedo that was Scott's in the sense that it attacked him and ignored everyone else. All three cats were part of a litter of six, donated to the ranch by dear old Gothi; seemed she finally had too many cats to keep another full litter. Astrid hoped she'd spayed and neutered most, if not all, of the cats she still had now.

The twins got nearly-identical yellowish things, and brought them home from the range; Astrid couldn't remember their names, but probably they both got something to do with hairballs.

Hiccup got one, too...he'd chosen last, the little dirt-brown that no one else wanted.

Scott was always too hard on Hiccup. He never quite dared to do more than shove the boy around, knock him off of fences, and toss him up onto half-tamed unicorns to scare him - this last time was a first, throwing Hiccup onto a unicorn that wasn't really tamed at all - but he made it very clear that he considered his cousin far below a friend. He'd reached into the box first, blocking everyone else off.

Fisk and the twins had kind of cut Hiccup off from the box, too; none of them had actually meant to, but Fisk was large, and it was dangerous to try and push past Ruth and Tully with the way they shoved at each other. Astrid hadn't - she'd come from the other side of the box altogether - but couldn't she have waited until Hiccup could stand up and look?

Couldn't Fisk have?

You snooze, you lose. That had always been her mantra, even when she felt sorry for Hiccup. Now she was wondering. He had a way of coming from behind with a "loser's choice," but that didn't mean he always had to have the last pick. If he could make those comebacks when handicapped by what he got, just imagine what he could do with first pick. Astrid wondered which one he would have picked if he could have gotten to the box first.

Wait, she and Hiccup had discussed the cats before; one of those days before Toothless put him back in his head.

"Everybody got the cats they deserved that day. We all knew that the twins would go for those matching yellow hairballs the minute we saw there were two so nearly identical. Nobody would have fought for them, it was too perfect. And the tuxedo kitty chose Scott, not the other way around; karma's great, isn't it?" He giggled. "And Fisk and I got the only two trainable cats in that entire box."

"Cats can be trained?"

He laughed aloud at that, and nodded vigorously. "Patience and treats, Astrid; lots and lots of patience, and treats."

Great, now she was thinking about how nice his laugh was when he wasn't trying to force it.

"Maybe I'm just going crazy." Astrid started to stand up - and claws dug into her shoulders as Sneaky protested the sudden movement. He'd draped himself over her neck while she was thinking, and she never even noticed. That was about as common behavior for him as the sprawling on the floor right where she would step, and those hobbies among other things had earned him his name.

She did deserve Sneaky. He was constantly doing something to keep her off-balance in her own domain, disrupting her thought process, making it harder to maintain a competitive focus. In his bizarre feline brain, humans were supposed to relax and let him slide all over them like so much silk.

"Come on, get off..." Astrid tried to pry Sneaky off. He just wrapped himself all the more firmly around her neck, rubbing his head directly under her chin and purring against her throat. It felt weird, like she was the one purring...

Eep -

Goosebumps raced up the back of her neck and made her scalp prickle. She froze, eyes widening, completely ignoring the fact that Sneaky was kneading her collarbone with his front paws.

Oh. My. Gods.

Hiccup, I am so sorry I mocked you.

Her ASMR, evidently, was triggered by sounds that could be felt. Come to think of it, now that she had a name for it and connected it to the sensation, she'd experienced it before. Wind across a microphone.

Hiccup wasn't kidding, the tingles were amazing.

She wondered if he ever triggered them for himself. Without the videos (and that part still didn't make sense, how watching someone pretending to touch your hair would have the same effect as someone touching your hair). Sure, his own hands would probably be about as effective as trying to tickle yourself, but if he could train his cat...

Sharps, that was his name. And yes, he had been trained to scalp massage. That had come up in the discussion about cats; Astrid hadn't understood what Hiccup was talking about at all, because evidently trying to talk about your ASMR while a unicorn is holding your brain hostage just triggers it and gets you sidetracked, but he'd got as far as Sharps climbing onto his head. Someday I want to see that.

Why did she always think of Hiccup when she thought of the cats? Fisk had been the one to go and pick them up from Gothi.

"Demented cats, all of you," Astrid informed Sneaky. Then she picked up a water bottle and poured some into his dish.

That did what all her earlier tugging didn't do. Sneaky jumped down and started lapping.

Maybe it was because Hiccup was always the one to offer help with the cat problems. Used to be, when the cats were brand new and not just part of their routines, Hiccup and Fisk would discuss modifications to their kitties' diets and ways to teach them where they could and could not play. Seemed like it was always Hiccup to offer tentative suggestions to the others about how to keep their cats out of trouble (ignored altogether by Scott; who knew about the twins?). Astrid couldn't remember any specific instance where Hiccup had given her advice, and certainly couldn't remember if she'd ever taken it, but there was one time...

Sneaky had figured out how to open the cupboard where she stored her pads. Or maybe she hadn't closed it quite tight. Either way, when she opened the door and saw the shredded mess he was nesting in, she'd freaked out. Her menstrual calendar hadn't stabilized yet; she didn't know when her next period was coming, not really. And she couldn't simply up and leave - she was due to assist on a roundup, and Buckingham was her superior. How could she explain to the man better known as Bucket that she had to buy pads? He might not be embarrassed (nothing much seemed to embarrass him), but she would be.

Scott tried to flirt that day, too. Usually, she would have beaten him into the ground, but when he included the words, "If there is anything at all I can do for my lady..." she saw an opportunity to get rid of him. She couldn't give up the roundup, but she could ask him to buy her pads: if he did it, she would be restocked, if he didn't he would avoid her for the rest of the day, and either way he would be too embarrassed to talk to her for weeks. Win-win. Sure enough, the instant he understood what she was asking him to pick up from the store, he turned several spectacular colors not within his normal tone and took off towards the Big House.

That had been expected; what had not been expected was for Harold to be within earshot, and of the opinion that Astrid's problem was more important than his own embarrassment at helping her. He had come up, stammered out that he would be happy to buy some pads (somehow she doubted the adjective, given how red his face was, but he was volunteering), and then asked some basic questions about what exactly she wanted and where to find it. After the roundup he caught up to her again, still the color of tomato sauce, and gave her the bag of pads; he'd splurged and got her a big bag, too, when she had vaguely said that it didn't matter. That was probably when her opinion of Hiccup climbed in the general direction of the roof: a small bag would have been easier to hide, and maybe easier to blow off as a "favor" to whoever was running the cash register. Somehow, the fact that he was brave enough to walk out of that store with a gigantic bag of what was essentially ladies' underwear liners...made him far more of a man than his bigger and burlier cousin who had run in panic at the thought of buying even a small package.

I should have known then that he loved me. How did it take until he lost a leg for me to realize that?

And how did it take this long for me to realize that I love him?

How on earth would she ever be able to look him in the face and admit that? She didn't talk about her feelings. Ever.

I suppose I could just walk up to him without preamble and kiss him on the lips. That would go over well. A slow smile spread on Astrid's face, imagining Hiccup's expression if she ever did that. Yeah...that would go over really well.