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Chapter 8: Midnight Meetings

Laying on his bed and completely unable to sleep, Hiccup reflected on how much his life had changed in just a couple of short months.

He almost laughed when he recalled the reason he'd endeavoured to shoot down a dragon in the first place.

I'd been trying to impress her. Trying to get her to look at me.

And now, in an extremely roundabout way, shooting down the dragon had been the key to winning Astrid after all.

He just wished that she'd have become more accepting of him by now, but even though she was presumably having to prepare for the wedding like he was, she had been elusive as ever, and after a few days Hiccup had more or less stopped trying.

If she wanted her space before the wedding, then he'd gladly give it to her. He just hoped her aloofness won't be still present afterwards.

Glancing out the window at the dark sky, he sighed again. He hadn't even felt this nervous on the night before the trials. But this was different, this was the night before his wedding.

His father had told him to get some sleep for the big day tomorrow, but he hadn't warned just how difficult that would be.

What if she doesn't agree to marry me? What if she says no at the altar?

Shaking the pessimistic thoughts out of his head, Hiccup quietly got up and decided to head to his safe space.

Luckily, Gobber trusted him enough to have given him a spare key to the forge, and an hour of tinkering should help relax his nerves. Some extra polishing on the ceremonial sword won't hurt either.

Astrid Hofferson was too tired to sleep. It was probably sometime around midnight, but the butterflies in her stomach simply weren't going away.

Her last day as a maiden. As a free woman.

Was it that wrong to want this night to stretch on? to stave off sleep for some more precious minutes? as closing her eyes will mean an instant journey to the harsh reality of tomorrow.

Not that she felt like sleeping anytime soon anyway, her body felt buzzing with energy. Was this how everyone felt the night before their wedding? Hmm.

Rubbing her eyes, she peered out her window and noticed a fire burning in the distance from the smithy. Her hunch was right.

Looks like I'm not the only one who's having trouble sleeping.

She had resisted the temptation for days, but she felt she just had to talk to him before tomorrow. She was gonna speak her mind, and he was gonna listen.

If she was gonna get married tomorrow, then Hiccup better know what he was getting himself into.

Meeting the groom the night before the wedding all alone was probably inviting trouble if anyone caught them, but Astrid didn't really care at this point. She was already at rock bottom, unafraid of getting into more trouble than she was already in.

Throwing caution to the wind, she snuck out her window with practiced ease, and silently jogged over to the smithy.

She hesitated at the door, and put her ear to the wood, hearing whistling and grinding sounds coming from inside.

So it was definitely Hiccup, but what surprised her was that he was whistling?

She'd expected him to be stressed like her but she guessed it was to be expected, cause unlike her, Hiccup actually wanted this marriage. What did he have to worry about?

Why was she nervous to face him all of a sudden? Perhaps cause she'd been avoiding him all this time? or maybe it was because he was her very soon to be husband. The mere word itself made her crinkle her nose in distaste.

Psyching herself up, she pushed open the door, instantly feeling the pleasant heat of the room.

Hiccup jumped at the noise and looked up, and she didn't miss the way his face lit up the moment he laid eyes on her.

She found her mind wandering to the fact that she probably looked like she'd just gotten out of bed, because she had, and her hair probably wasn't too tidy and- she feeling a bit self conscious all of a sudden.

"Astrid?" Hiccup broke the silence, and she realised he was holding a large and rather dazzling ceremonial sword- the one he would present to her tomorrow?

"Hiccup, we need to talk" she said, crossing her arms and giving him a serious look.

He blinked in surprise before stammering, "S-sure Astrid, here have a seat"

Astrid took a seat on one of the stools and spoke, cutting right to the chase: "I want to make something very clear. You won the trials according to the law, and I will not disgrace my family by backing out on my word. But this does not mean I want this marriage in the slightest. So, if you're expecting me to be all fine and dandy and ready to become your subservient wife, I'm afraid you should re-evaluate your expectations"

Hiccup continued staring wide eyed at her, before nodding unsteadily. "I- I understand"

"I have dedicated my life to protecting Berk and restoring my family's honor, even if that means making some hard choices. I have to be with you out of necessity, but that doesn't mean I will ever forgive you for putting me in this position. Or ever care in the least about you. There is no way this will mean anything to me beyond the legal sense."

"Astrid I'm s-"

"I don't want your apology" she snapped.

Hiccup shut up instantly, and Astrid winced at the hurt look on his face.

Toughen up Astrid, she told herself. He doesn't get to act like a victim when he's the one who ruined my life.

She very deliberately refrained to add that if everything went according to her plan, it will be a very short marriage indeed. No point in jinxing things.

Hearing the grinding start again, she glanced up to see his lean frame illuminated by firelight, the sweat on his face indicating he'd been at it for a while. His eyes were firmly focused at his hands, as if he was making an effort not to look up.

"Why are you awake anyway?" She asked, frowning.

"Oh well- I... couldn't sleep" he said sheepishly. "I'm guessing you couldn't too?"

Astrid didn't bother to reply, still agitated from her rant. Her thoughts drifted to the fact that she had only a few hours of night left, but the warmth of the room was way too pleasant to resist. Maybe five more minutes to warm up.

After a few minutes, Hiccup put the sword away and said quietly, "I'm going home to get some sleep." He met her eyes. "You should too" he said, guilt stealing over his face.

She huffed in reply, and watched as he put on his fur vest, extinguished the fire, and with one more hesitant glance at her, left.

Astrid groaned out loud now that she was alone. This little tirade was supposed to make her feel better, not worse.

Absently walking over to the sword which Hiccup had placed on the wall, she ran her fingers along the gold handle, inlaid with crystals along its length. Even she had to admit it looked immaculate, and Hiccup and clearly put a lot more work in it than he really needed to.

She hadn't really been alone in here before. Out of curiosity, she ambled into a side room which turned out to be Hiccup's little workshop. It was too dim to see around, so she lit a candle and peered inside. The room was quite chaotic as expected, but the thing that made her face redden is when she realised that littered amongst the various plans and drawings for different contraptions, were various drawings of her.

Fighting in the arena, eating in the dining hall, braiding her hair by the cliff side, and even one she recognised was recent where she was resting in the forest during one of their training sessions. Each sketch had been done with remarkable skill, capturing every detail of her face like Hiccup knew it extremely well. After some digging, she found some in which she looked younger, and realised Hiccup had been drawing her for years.

Okay so Astrid wasn't a fool, she knew that Hiccup liked her. So did a lot of others in the village. But she had assumed he just liked her as someone like Snotlout liked her, just caring that she was a pretty girl on the outside.

But apparently Hiccup's admiration of her went way deeper than that, judging by how perfectly he'd captured her essence in so many of these sketches, as if a part of her itself had been projected onto paper.

Some of them didn't even show her face, just her silhouette, wielding her axe, facing a dragon, looking all battle ready and Valkyrie like. Astrid didn't feel as amazing as these sketches showed her at all. Is this how he saw her?

Why would he work so hard on drawings that he clearly never intended to show her?

Amongst the various sketches, she noticed one of a dragon's outline, but what was strange was that it didn't look like any dragon she'd ever seen or read about. She was about to take a closer look when she felt a yawn coming, and realised she really needed to get some sleep in the few hours of dark remaining, otherwise she won't be able to function at all tomorrow.

Putting everything back where it was the best she could, she went home and quietly got in bed and this time, thankfully, sleep came much easier.

This was originally part of the next chapter but it got too long so I split it off here. So Astrid finally talks to Hiccup and discovers his hidden trove as well? :p We all know what's coming in the next chapter, hope you guys are as excited as I am! ;)