Ruffnut looked around the table she was sitting at. Tuffnut and Snotlout were arm wrestling and Fishlegs was half-asleep on the table. She hadn't managed to catch Arne in the Meade hall, she had hoped he would be here with the others, but Tuffnut let her know that they haven't seen the blond boy anywhere as he had been training since the morning and had only showed himself during lunch when he had tried to follow her. Ruffnut hoped that he was already at home and that Hiccup would be free to get to the forge.
Most of the adults were either drunk or already at home, so Ruffnut only had to worry about the other teens because they had more freedom now that they had entered Dragon Training. Ruffnut wasn't tired yet, she was very worried. Anything could go wrong, especially when Hiccup was involved, the shorter girl had a habit of getting into dangerous situations.
Ruffnut had practically dragged Fishlegs back to the table when she got to the hall. The boy had wanted to go home, but Ruffnut didn't let him because he had a clear view of the forge from his front door and Ruffnut didn't know when Hiccup would reach the building.
The Meade hall's doors opened with a bang and Arne marched in, he was clearly looking for something. His eyes landed on the teens and he huffed while walking towards them. Ruffnut felt panic briefly take hold, but she calmed herself down, if the boy had seen something he would certainly be shouting loud enough to wake everyone and not trying to find them.
"Arne!" Tuffnut greeted him when the blond boy sat at the table, "What's up, dude?"
Arne ignored Tuffnut and crossed his arms while staring at Ruffnut, the female twin did her best to look bored and stared back at the boy. The staring contest went on for a few minutes until finally Arne blinked.
"Ha! You lost!" Ruffnut laughed, but deep down she was worried.
Arne wasn't at home and he would have had to go through the village if he was coming back from the forest, that meant that there was a chance he did see something. Ruffnut decided to not think about that and adopted the best indifferent expression she could.
"What's wrong with Hiccup?" Arne asked and Ruffnut didn't need to act anymore.
Her eyes widened in shock and her mouth fell open. Nobody had ever asked her about Hiccup, the teens had never wanted to know anything about the shorter girl, Arne's question was both shocking and suspicious.
"What do you mean?" Ruffnut decided to ask him, "There's a lot of things that are wrong with Hiccup," she decided to joke.
"Why is she staying in the forge at night?" the boy clarified and at this point the others at the table were listening to the conversation with interest.
"Because she can?" Ruffnut answered in confusion.
It was clear to her now that Arne hadn't seen Toothless, but he did see Hiccup and that wasn't strange in the slightest. Ruffnut had seen her in the forge at night countless of times before and she knew that Hiccup preferred when there were less people to bother her and she could work without interruptions.
"She has never done this befo-" Arne tried to say.
"Yes she has," Ruffnut quickly interrupted him, "She does that very often. Why are you even asking me this?"
"Because she's acting weird!"
"You have no reference on how she acts normally!" Ruffnut exclaimed.
"Tuffnut said that you and her go to train in the woods," Arne said completely ignoring Ruffnut's previous words, "You have never done that before."
"You don't know what we do," Ruffnut scoffed and got up from the table, ready to head home now that she knew Hiccup had done what she needed to.
She managed to get outside the hall when Arne caught up to her and stopped her by grabbing her arm.
"Listen," he said quietly, his face showing nothing but genuine concern, "I'm just worried she's going to get hurt."
Ruffnut scoffed and shook of his hand, but stayed standing in her place. She crossed her arms and sighed.
"Arne, she doesn't need to be coddled or protected," she told him, "Hiccup is stronger than you or I will ever be."
"Does she even know how to train properly?" he asked in a defeated tone, Ruffnut sighed.
"Yes she does," she shrugged, "She's at the top of the class, you do know that?"
"Yes, I do. But – "
"No 'but'," Ruffnut interrupted him again, "To me it seems like you're just jealous."
Arne looked at the ground and shrugged, Ruffnut rolled her eyes.
"There's a lot of things wrong with Hiccup," she started again, "The biggest one is that she doesn't see what a great person she is. She doesn't even want to be the best at dragon training."
"But she's the most popular person in the village because of it," he said with confusion lacing his tone.
"She says that's not the real her," Ruffnut shrugged, suddenly very tired, "Listen, if you want to know something, ask her yourself. She won't appreciate you going through me."
"I tried," he sighed, "But she told me to leave her alone."
"Then try to talk to her in the morning, or do as she said and leave her alone," Ruffnut told him and walked down the steps, leaving him standing in place.
Ruffnut reached her room and threw herself down on her bed. Hiccup was getting herself into some deep shit, but that was nothing Ruffnut could help her with. Hiccup was Ruffnut's best friend, as the only girls in their age group that was inevitable.
She couldn't lie and say that the friendship started just because she thought Hiccup was cool or interesting, their friendship started because Hiccup was the only person who was going through the same things as Ruffnut at the same pace. Younger girls didn't have to go through the same 'training' as she and Hiccup did, older girls were already finished with their 'training' and would find Ruffnut's complains laughable.
Ruffnut remembered when she decided that Hiccup was her last option, the shorter girl had been walking from the forge when Ruffnut had intercepted and dragged her into the forest, to a clearing Ruffnut frequented when she wanted some peace and quiet. Despite the clear panic, Hiccup hadn't run even when Ruffnut let her hand go and only asked why they were there.
"Girl's night," Ruffnut had answered because she didn't know how to explain that Hiccup was her option.
They had sat in the clearing in silence until Ruffnut couldn't take it and started complaining about the chores her mother had started to push on her. At that point her mother was teaching her the harder parts of cooking and sewing, Tuffnut had only been taught the bare basics so Ruffnut was alone in her 'suffering'.
Ruffnut had complained and complained. Even back then she knew that knowing these things would be beneficial, but she wanted to let her frustrations be heard. Ruffnut had just finished telling Hiccup how annoying it was that her mother couldn't show her how to do a stitch every time Ruffnut had a problem with it.
"I could show you how I do it," Hiccup had whispered when Ruffnut had stopped to take a breath.
Those words hit Ruffnut like a crazy yak. She had spent all of that time complaining about how her mother had expectations and didn't have enough time to help her. Hiccup had said 'I could show you how I do it.' Not 'How my mother does it.' No, Hiccup couldn't say that, because Hiccup didn't have a mother who taught her these things.
Ruffnut hadn't understood how she forgot that. Snotlout had been making fun of Hiccup's badly mended clothes for a while at that point and she never understood that was because Hiccup mended them herself.
"Sure," Ruffnut had answered after a moment, a plan already forming in her head.
Ruffnut had managed to make Hiccup warm up to her by telling the shorter girl about all of the crazy things she had done with her brother. When night fell they both went back to the village, before they could go on their own way, Ruffnut had stopped Hiccup and had made her promise to 'help' Ruffnut on the next day.
The next day after 'girl's night', Ruffnut wasted no time and had talked to her mother. When Ruffnut had asked the woman if Hiccup could join their lessons, her mother had agreed without even thinking about it. It had turned out that the women in the village always thought that someone was teaching the heir how to do the basic things, but none had bothered to make sure.
So Ruffnut had roped Hiccup into her lessons, which turned out to be actually fun, and even managed to get Hiccup to participate in some of the pranks she and her brother set off. That was the main reason Stoick didn't actually approve of their friendship, the chief had some sort of belief that Ruffnut had corrupted his daughter, when the truth was that Hiccup had come up with a lot of the pranks she participated in.
Ruffnut didn't know when a friendship of convenience turned into a true friendship, and Hiccup had turned into her best friend. The female twin had told Hiccup the truth eventually, the fact that Ruffnut saw her as a last option hadn't shocked Hiccup and that made Ruffnut feel even guiltier than before.
Even these days Ruffnut felt that lingering guilt sometimes pop up, but she couldn't find it in herself to regret the friendship they had built, not when they had so much fun. Even the fact that Hiccup had befriended a dragon, a Night Fury, proved that being friends with Hiccup had been one of the best decisions Ruffnut had made.