"Astrid?" Tuffnut, like he was holding a stranger, asked in complete confusion.

What's wrong?, Astrid said to herself. Her confidence fell a little, and her mouth started to dry in the cold. She thought that perhaps Tuffnut did not like what she was wearing. She did feel a little silly that she might have overdone her outfit. Or, was it her hair? Her hand immediately felt her ribbon to try if it was still in place. It was. So, what was he staring at?

Tuffnut kept his gentle hold on Astrid's arm. He scanned her from her curly blonde head of hair to her pointed and dark boots in the snow that stood below a lightly fluttering hem of the most plain yet becoming dress he had ever seen on Astrid. It was astounding. She looked more than hot. Astrid actually looked like other girls in the village to him-she was cute. The dress's fabric of light green that complimented her skin tone was adorable on her.

"Holy whackamoly," Tuffnut said once, not even minding what words were falling from his mouth. They were afterthoughts to his observation of her in which he didn't mean to linger, but he couldn't help it. His face held a still expression like it was the only speech he could make after mildly gawking at her in the middle of the moving crowd. He couldn't believe he had her all to himself for the day. Had she really cared about what he would think about her enough to find another new dress to wear that he couldn't imagine in his life that Astrid would ever own?

Astrid went mute for a small moment, and then she chuckled unsurely to him, "I'll take that as a compliment?"

"You look beautiful," Tuffnut said blankly, and he smiled at his own revelation. He touched the bow that her waisttie had made at her side and made a quiet coo of adoration. He had to laugh again, reservedly, at how adorable she looked. He loved cute things because it made him feel like he wanted to protect them. It was for that reason he loved to see baby rabbits when he wandered into the woods. Not that Astrid was anything like a baby rabbit, but in the same way he had held them when he would aimlessly walk through the forest, Tuffnut wanted to hug Astrid right then and feel her small yet fierce frame engulfed in his arms and safe from every evil thing in the world that would ever try to hurt her.

"Sorry, I jus' had'ta say it," Tuffnut said in a race, making his unaware choice of romanticized words void. Tuffnut perceived that everything he said with Astrid, now that they were spending closer time together, had to be carefully thought before he spoke them. If he hadn't been quick enough just then, Astrid would have gotten the wrong impression that he was forcing himself onto her too quickly. He had to be careful not to say many things too soon because he feared he would frighten Astrid with the new feelings she let bud in him since they had paired together.

Tuffnut's praise assured her that she was, in fact, at least sometimes as pretty as others told her she was. It sounded different when a boy at her own age confirmed it and not solely her friends or people she knew in the village. Astrid pretended she didn't feel the heat rising to her cheeks under Tuffnut's gaze again, like she had felt when he first gave her an unbridled compliment that had been as brash as a foreigner.

Astrid gave a third little laugh that sounded coyer in front of Tuffnut than she wanted it to be. Her body drew inward against her will like it was a natural impulse for her to make herself small when she was flattered. Maybe it was a natural thing to happen when she was with her heart's new flame. Astrid had not experienced such shyness with Hiccup, at least. For Hiccup, Astrid had not had many chances to act as a delicate thing that would shatter if Hiccup held her too tight. Their times to share innocent romance had been plenty, yes, but still, compared to what she felt with Tuffnut in the short time she had spent with him, those moments with Hiccup were dull in comparison. Although somewhere her heart ached for those times with Hiccup again because they were familiar, and she was used to them, she was anxious, instead, of the thrill she felt with Tuffnut at that very moment for knowing she was someone he requested to be close with for the entire day of Snoggletog, perhaps until the night, if the fest carried until the dawn as it usually did, or if he expressed that a morning together wasn't enough.

It was troubling, her curiosity for Tuffnut's companionship against her pining for Hiccup that refused to yield. Astrid looked down sheepishly just for thinking it in front of Tuffnut.

Astrid agreed, "you look nice."

"Oh," Tuffnut said as if he were just noticing that he was there, too.

He looked down at his heather, long-skirted shirt with firm ties near the collar of cotton rope. The leg hems of his dark trousers were tucked securely in sturdy winter boots, the same as he wore some time ago when he and Astrid last spoke. His mantlet was made of chocolate-brown and poufy hide from a grazing animal and it covered his shoulders and the front of his chest and it fell like a pyramid over his torso until it reached his hips to rustle in place with the icy wind. His pendant of a creature's tooth hung at his neck.

"I guess," Tuffnut replied shakily, still not used to a pretty girl giving him compliments. Tuffnut held an impish smile beneath his low-burning, blue eyes that invited Astrid to say more to him if she felt like it.

Astrid didn't know if Tuffnut knew how peaceful he looked. She could melt in the feeling he gave her when he gazed at her that way. His eyes became slits of exuberant happiness for no particular reason, and Astrid's eyes did the same. It felt like an acceptance of new beginnings with each other and full understanding that none of them knew quite exactly what they were getting into.

Then, Astrid felt like the chill in the air returned again when Tuffnut faced away from her to follow his sister's voice.

"What's goin' on?" He asked.

"Hiccup wants us to meet someone." Astrid said.

Hiccup, Fishlegs, Snoutlout, and Ruffnut had come to talk to a faint figure in the snowfall, which had blurred everything more than a few paces away in a fog of white and raining snow. Tuffnut moved forward to join the small gathering that had formed a distance from the busy front of the sweet shop.

Astrid wanted to hug Tuffnut and feel his pelt on her skin as they would press together, for it looked warm and inviting as it moved while he walked away from her. Astrid believed her hand would disappear in the fabric if she made a move to grasp it. She didn't know it would get as cold as it did in the afternoon, for she expected the Sun to come out and defrost the square by then. The final day of winter was the eve of the start of spring, after all. The Sun was being stubborn, and Astrid shivered.

Tuffnut stopped abruptly and said, "you coming?", a little loudly so she would hear him at the distance he had walked from her.

Astrid shook her head free of thoughts. She had to stop daydreaming when he was around. She had been very level-headed before and she didn't know why she ended up in tangents of thoughts when she was with Tuffnut. She rushed behind him and they approached where their group went off to.

When everyone faded into focus from the whitening snow in Astrid's vision, she saw the girl for the first time in clear sight. The girl found something Snoutlout said extremely funny. She had an obnoxious giggle that was unfairly cute to Astrid, and the sound accented the girl's upbeat personality. The dress the girl wore was faded blue and muted from possibly soaking in a washbin with other garments that could have been sogged from farming or hard labour.

The girl was tall and her head nearly met the same height as Hiccup and she looked slightly plump. Her skin, tanned, was peppered in dark freckles that spread to her hands. Astrid saw that the girl was currently grinning to Ruffnut. She had the smile that most girls in a village wished for. The girl's long teeth and pink gums that showed under her lips made an original charm emanate from her that could leave anyone spellbound if they laid eyes on her. Astrid saw that the girl also had springy, red coils of hair on her head that lengthened to the middle of her spine and fanned outward around her face like a mane of bright copper. A feeling loomed over Astrid that made her feel she couldn't compare to the newcomer who was seemingly close to Hiccup. Astrid felt her observations of the girl strike into a burning flame of envy.

Within only a few moments of Astrid meeting Tuffnut, the girl had become compatible with everyone. The girl turned to Astrid and Tuffnut who approached the group. A buzzed quiet fell over everyone to allow for Astrid and Tuffnut to state their arrival.

Hiccup spoke first. "This is Helda. She's all the way from the east isles in a village called Oar's Rest."

When the girl looked at Hiccup and smiled, and then looked to Astrid and repeated the action, Astrid saw she had expressive brown eyes that were hazel in the morning light.

"Oar's Rest?" Tuffnut said suddenly with a smirk. He shouted, "no way!"

Helda lightened up when she recognized Tuffnut. "Tuffnut?! Is it really you?!"

"More or less!"

Astrid looked in confusion to Tuffnut, who looked surprised and elated to see Helda.

Helda squealed like she had won a prize. She ran to Tuffnut and threw her arms around him, whining into his embrace, "I haven't seen you all year!"

Astrid whitened when Tuffnut clutched her and laughed as he spun her around and wheeled the petticoat of her dress. She hoped that Tuffnut would quit smiling at Helda.

Helda separated from Tuffnut, sprucing herself neat and feeling flustered under the gaze of Tuffnut's other friends from his homevillage.

"Are you sure you know him?" Fishlegs said cautiously. Helda seemed too normal to know a Thorston.

Ruffnut asked, "I don't get it. How do you possibly know this numbnut?" Ruffnut said pointing incredulously to her little twin brother.

Tuffnut remained giddy with her for a moment before he explained, "we met during a trade, when her jewelry guild docked at Berk. She makes, like, the coolest stuff!" He thumbed his tooth pendant and said happily, "she made this for me!"

If a guy ever wore something around his neck everyday that a girl made for him, Astrid knew there was a chance that there were heavy feelings attached to the piece.

"Wow," Hiccup said, impressed. Hiccup didn't expect anything of the sort to happen. He had no indication that Helda had ever been familiar with one of his friends. It looked like separating Tuffnut and Helda would be like pulling an axe from tree trunk. He hoped that their rekindled connection wouldn't distract Helda from their arranged date. It made things easier, though, for Hiccup to prove to Astrid that she wasn't the only interesting girl around he could spend his time with. Hiccup asked Helda lightly, "could you make me one, too?"

"When my boat comes around here again, you'll have a necklace fit for a chief!" Helda promised, patting Hiccup's bearskin shawl heartily.

Fishlegs recited the place she had come from. "Oar's Rest." He had heard of it every once in a while. "What's it like there?"

"Oh, it's about seven miles from freezing to death!" Helda said. Everyone laughed with her except Astrid.

"It's just like Berk, Fish. Maybe colder." Tuffnut said, earning a few notes of knowing giggles from Helda. "But they have the best caves-you've all gotta see 'em sometime."

"Right?!" Helda nodded eagerly at Tuffnut.

Astrid wondered from the sound of Tuffnut's immediate chortle if he was referring to a location they had seen together.

Helda acknowledged the new faces she had met who asked her questions about her village's landscape and began to chatter away and hold everyone's attention without effort.

Astrid didn't like how much Tuffnut was already warming up to her. The red-headed chick was the stranger, here, among everybody else. Yet, Astrid nearly felt like a quiet outcast while Helda engaged her own friends like she had known them for years.

"How did you meet her, Hiccup?" Astrid asked over her friends' excited voices.

"One day I was out riding Toothless like always," Hiccup began innocently in the brewing tension of the group. "and I stopped at a village on the way back to Berk. She invited me into her family's house to eat lunch, and we talked, and it just happened. I asked her to Snoggletog, since she said she only visited Berk once or twice a year. And," Hiccup made a nonchalant toss of his hands. "here we are!" Hiccup finished.

Hiccup was satisfied at Astrid's strained smile at Helda when Helda shrugged and giggled in response to Hiccup's simple tale. Now, Astrid knew how she had made him feel. Hiccup hoped Astrid's throat was burning with rage and she felt like she was dizzy and about to spill her guts on her shoes, because that was his reaction when he had saw her kissing Tuffnut and smiling all the while with her eyes closed in enchantment. Hiccup tuned in to the group's conversation in time for a snarky comment to him by Snoutlout.

"You make way too many drop-dead gorgeous friends, little cousin."

Hiccup scoffed as Helda turned to Hiccup and clasped her hands together with another laugh that sounded like bells in Astrid's ears.

"I wouldn't say that," Hiccup said with a slouch on his metal foot in the snow.

Tuffnut snuffed in humor next to Astrid while Astrid upturned her lip and softly crossed her arms.

Astrid was relieved when the subject changed, but she angered again when Tuffnut asked Helda about how things have been since he last saw her. He appeared highly interested in her answers and commented actively on them. Astrid stewed when Hiccup effortlessly joined in and Helda had his attention, too.

Fishlegs interrupted Astrid's concentration on the new girl when he suggested his strategy for navigating the festival. "We should start with the easier games first," he said, "until the lines in the hard games go away."

Ruffnut corrected Fishlegs, "no; if we go that early, then when we get to the frozen apple dunk we'll be playing against a bunch of old people." The senior citizens in Berk liked to stick to the less competitive Snoggletog games with the children. "Then, we'd have to let them win. It's no fun."

Snoutlout cut in, "last time we decided to eat last, and then they ran out of fudge. We're almost to the candy shop and there's no one waiting yet. Let's eat first."

"He's kinda right." Tuffnut said. "I'm ready for fudge." Tuffnut met eyes with Hiccup, and Hiccup gave him a passive nod that Tuffnut interpreted as a good sign towards their rebuilding friendship. Ruffnut and Snoutlout complied by changing their argument to the best flavors that would be in the mart.

"How does fudge taste?" Helda said as she followed the direction of the Hooligan group who approached the sugary-smelling storefront far from them. "I've never had it before."

"How do you think it tastes?" Astrid sniped under her breath.

Everyone looked surprised at Astrid.

Helda lost her curious expression and became concerned she had said something wrong to lose the Hooligan's friendship for the day before it began.

To himself, Hiccup smirked. By sundown, he would have Astrid so livid that there would be nothing she could do except beg for him back.

Snoutlout raised a brow at Astrid. "Who the hell spit in your porridge?" Snoutlout said jokingly in efforts to balm the traction in the air. Tuffnut, Ruffnut, Fishlegs and Helda settled the moment with nervous chuckles before walking ahead.

"Well," Helda stammered in response to Astrid's question. "if you all like it, it can't be all bad." Helda sounded cheerful again. She looked around at the bustling atmosphere of Hiccup's village. "When my village celebrates Snoggletog, we sing worship songs all night, and then we have a bunch of boring ceremonies after that." She sighed and finished off in a distant twang, "it's somber, really."

"Ours is the complete opposite, you'll see," Hiccup said.

Astrid pinched her lips at seeing Hiccup take Helda's hand in the snow. Her friends' voices, including Tuffnut's, blurred together in a buzz of racket as Astrid watched her former fiancee's fingers intertwine with Helda's as they made way to the fudge mart.

"What are you gonna get?" Ruffnut said. It was the same question she asked for all Snoggletog fests, and Astrid's answer of the flavor she preferred remained the same. This time, however, butterscotch was not her first choice since it had been suggested to Helda by Snoutlout.

"Huckleberry." Astrid droned. Her heart plummeted when Helda fastened to Hiccup's arm ahead of them.

Ruffnut gagged at the name of the bitter fruit and shuddered. She didn't question Astrid's sour mood as they walked in the snow, deciding Helda and Hiccup were the culprit. And, she wasn't positive how Astrid had handled Helda's friendship with Tuffnut. Ruffnut kept her comments to herself, since they were all out on a holiday, and she didn't want to worsen any complications she could easily see. "What about you? Vanilla?" Ruffnut asked her brother to her far right. She expected to hear a grunt of confirmation.

Tuffnut replied lightly, "I think I'll try huckleberry."

"It'll taste like rust on a stick!"

"You look like rust on a stick."

"Watch it."

Tuffnut sniggered, but he relented.

Astrid glowered at Helda and Hiccup who were still hooked with each other's warmth as they led the group. She and Tuffnut were slightly behind everyone else.

Suddenly, Astrid felt tingles in her spine when Tuffnut grazed her hand with his pinkie in a hidden question to take her hand as they walked side-by-side. Astrid feigned ignorance until Tuffnut stealthily came closer to her side to brush the top of her palm with his fingertips.

Astrid could hear her pulse rushing in her ears. She kept her eyes on her shuffling boots as they trudged forward in tiny white hills of snow. It was only a short distance left and she thought it would be nice if she could spend it with her hand squished within his to feel his warmth heat her veins from the cold.

Astrid reached and felt Tuffnut's fingers immediately there, waiting to be held as snowflakes grated on their numb, bare hands like granules from a saltshaker. On Astrid's second try, she could feel Tuffnut's hand begin to accept her reach like a cocoon enveloping a caterpillar, slowly morphing around its shape and devouring it whole.

Then, Astrid withdrew her hands and stuffed them under her armsleeves and complained, "I should have brought my parka."

Tuffnut didn't answer for a second, but his voice tone remained friendly, just above the surface of his emotions she had just stirred in him. "It'll warm up." Tuffnut stated like a cold fact that was as sure as stating the sky was blue.

Astrid hoped a big, chewy block of fudge would help her forget she was single-handedly ruining her first real date with Tuffnut. Gods help me, Astrid prayed. Could this day get any worse?

To be continued

Words: 3543