Chapter 13
Astrid hated these occasions - where exhaustion had a death grip on her entire being, but her mind cavorted around too much to actually let her sleep. She flipped from her back to her side once again, tucking an arm beneath her head and squeezing her eyes tight.
Every time she closed her eyes, her vision filled with shades of green: the prickly grass tickling her feet, leaves fluttering above her head, Toothless's gaze affixed on her. All this time, she'd been preferential to the blue of the morning sky and her eyes in the mirror. Her adventures now left her treasuring green. Of all the new hues of colors that she had been introduced to on her birthday, the complexity of green captivated her most.
She experienced so much over the past few days that she hadn't enough time to process it all until now. But here, even as she lay in bed, her brain refused to give her the sweet embrace of sleep that she so desperately wanted after walking all night and all morning. She had been straining to sleep for hours now.
That straw bed at the Moldy Cabbage had been so tempting last night, but her mother had - in a wise move, admittedly - insisted that Snotlout and the twins would expect them to stop at an inn. Even without that threat, Astrid couldn't trust Dagur. He and Heather most definitely were doing Hiccup's bidding.
And there was the other reason she couldn't sleep.
Growling, Astrid sat up and threw back the blankets of her bed. Sleep was not materializing. Continuing to beckon to it was an exercise in futility. She allowed her anger to fester as she slid her dress over her underclothes.
He had betrayed her. Astrid let him see the inside of her home, followed him through the wilderness, freely shared information about herself, revealed at least part of the magic of her hair - and he had betrayed her.
Astrid stalked out of the alcove serving as her bedroom, past her mother's alcove - where Mother slept soundly - and down the stairs curving along the wall of the tower. Astrid needed to do something with her hands.
She found her reflection in the large mirror. Stalking over to it, she began yanking at the flowers and vines weaved through her locks. When every bloom, stalk, and petal lay scattered around her on the rug, Astrid attacked her braid next, yanking mercilessly at the intricate weaving until her hair spread across the floor unhindered. Had her mother been awake, the older woman would have protested loudly at Astrid's brutal treatment of her hair, which Mother insisted must be treated with delicacy and grace. With every yank and twist, Astrid felt her anger pulse freely inside of her. Her eyes traced the creases and bends in her hair. She wanted to enjoy how different it looked, but her anger surged again. It refused to let her feel anything else.
For once, she didn't hesitate to grab the broom tucked in the corner of the kitchenette and begin sweeping with a strange frenzy. The instinctual preference for a clean floor sparked briefly with satisfaction before being deluged by the engulfing anger.
With every sweep, Astrid spit out an insult under her breath. "Son of a half-troll ... rat eating... munge bucket... dirty... rotten..." She snarled those words over and over, replaying Hiccup's deceptively innocent or cheerful words in her mind while highlighting all the moments he stuttered over answers or left silences too long unfilled.
The fugue of fury suddenly broke, and Astrid found herself standing in a thoroughly swept floor. Grabbing the tiny metal pan hooked on the wall, she began collecting the dirt and flowers as she struggled with the kind of disorientation that surfaces only after intense and immersive thoughts.
As she tilted the pan to drop the pile of debris out the window, her mind disconnected from the anger and stared at it as if it was some strange distant object burning brightly in the distance.
Had Hiccup really ruined anything?
Yes!
But then she immediately was forced to grapple with the truth. Astrid ventured out into the world with the goal of seeing the lanterns up close. In that chief pursuit, she succeeded. Regardless of Hiccup's betrayal, Astrid witnessed the lanterns in person. So why did the entire experience feel so sour?
Exhaustion lay heavy across every bone, intensified by the anger. She clung to that exhaustion, now that the anger had dissipated. Something hiding beneath that anger and exhaustion was threatening to choke her. She couldn't let it.
She planted her hands on the windowsill and pushed herself to sit between them. Her motion knocked her mother's satchel, still packed, onto the floor. Astrid sighed and hopped off her perch to lean down and grab the bag. Mother said she'd come back to the tower early, but perhaps she had managed to still obtain the seashells. Astrid huffed out a tiny laugh. This foolish errand she sent her mother on could still prove useful. Mother had dropped straight into the silent treatment the moment they set foot in the tower - having to use the stairs nearly submerged in dust from years of disuse - so Astrid might as well try her hand yet again at painting to pass the unending stretch of time laying before her. Maybe she could begin by attempting to repaint the lanterns.
Even if Mother hadn't obtained the shells, the least Astrid could do was unpack her mother's things for her. Guilt at her deception had set in halfway through the journey home, certainly exacerbated by her mother's passive comments between all the expressions of sympathy -
"Oh, if only you'd told me how much you truly want to see those lanterns, Astrid. Had I known, we could have gone together!"
"He must have addled your thinking, Astrid. I just know you never willingly would have gone behind my back like this!"
"Darling, I ever wanted was for you to be happy and safe! I wish you understood that!"
"I really did try to warn you what it was like out there, Astrid."
"You are all I have. Imagine if something had happened to you! Imagine how distraught I would be!"
Every footstep closer to the tower had fallen heavier and heavier as Astrid grappled internally with what she had done. The lanterns would reappear every year, but her relationship with her mother was the only constant goodness in her life.
Her mother's satchel held so much more than Astrid's own smaller bag could. Astrid quickly found the shells carefully wrapped near the top, and she tucked those on a shelf already housing her paintbrushes. She raised her eyebrows, impressed and surprised, to unsheathe a long, ornate dagger hiding in one of the pockets. Flipping her wrist a few times to watch the candle lights gleam on its blade, she eventually laid it carefully on the dining table for Mother to put away later. Astrid had never seen the dagger. Indeed, she never knew her mother to have any tolerance for weapons or sharp objects. She felt a flicker of respect, muted by tiredness, that Mother wisely chose to protect herself in the wild world she traversed.
Pulling out a navy-blue shawl, Astrid paused in folding it when she spotted something glimmering at the bottom of the satchel. Another dagger, she guessed, and, intrigued, she reached back into the bowels of the bag to unearth the shiny object.
She dropped it onto the floor with a loud clang the moment she recognized it: the crown.
"What?" Astrid whispered, backing away as she stared at the ornament that seemed more and more like a curse the more she interacted with it. "But... how?"
Astrid's mind whirled. Her mother said Hiccup had taken the crown - attacked her mother to get it, in fact. He'd run off, and her mother had only seen him talking to Snotlout. She hadn't gotten the crown back. So how did her mother have it now? What was it doing in her bag? Was this some sort of trick? Some point in Hiccup's plan?
She squeezed her fists as if that would more rapidly evoke the memories of what Snotlout had said to her when he confronted her on the docks. What did he say? Hiccup told him about Astrid's hair - however much he knew about it, of which Astrid could not be entirely certain. Hiccup traded her to Snotlout and the twins for the crown, both men seeking their profit. His messenger had cut a deal-
Astrid stood up straight, a shock turning her blood cold. Hiccup sent a messenger. Snotlout said Hiccup sent a messenger. But her mother said she'd spotted Snotlout talking to Hiccup - that's how she knew what was happening and how much danger Astrid was in.
So who was right? Could Snotlout manufacture such a lie? He didn't seem intelligent enough to do so, but Hiccup was the person who had assured her of Snotlout's mental deficits - and Snotlout's behavior certainly belied Hiccup's claims, so she'd quickly believed them. But why would Snotlout lie? Why say Hiccup sent a messenger? What purpose would that serve him? Was this particular falsehood another key to Hiccup's plan? He'd certainly proven manipulative enough to trick her into trusting him for two days. What purpose could this serve? Why this detail? And none of these questions led her to any kind of solution as to why her mother still had the crown.
What was going on?
"Astrid? What's going on out the-" Her mother's voice from above cut off abruptly.
Looking up, Astrid watched the woman's fingers, pale as moonlight, grip the bannister, Her mother's now wide blue eyes were pinned to the crown, and even from the distance Astrid could tell her mother's pupils had shrunk. All breath seemed suspended in Mother's throat.
"Why do you have this?" Astrid surprised herself with the steel ringing in her voice.
"Dearest... I-I can explain..." Mother spoke slowly, softly. Astrid had never heard her mother stutter before.
Astrid repeated herself, louder: "Why do you have this?" Though the anger had retreated to brood in the back of her mind minutes ago, it now crept back out of the shadows, and Astrid felt her lungs heat with that smoldering anger.
Her mother, meanwhile, remained frozen.
"Say something!" Astrid snapped.
Mother shivered before her face warmed into a gentle, concerned look. "Oh, dear," she said, wringing her hands as she gracefully descended the stairs, "I told you, sweetheart! I managed to get the crown back from him!"
"You didn't tell me-"
Her mother laughed, high and ridiculing. "Of course I did! It's not my fault you don't remember! Where else would I get all those wounds?" Mother had insisted that Astrid use her hair to heal her as soon as they left the docks, and Astrid had been too distraught to voice her concern of being spotted using her powers. Astrid struggled to remember them - where they were, what they looked like.
"I don't know where you got them, Mother," Astrid gritted out.
The woman's lips morphed into a sad pout. "Dearest, I know you're upset about leaving your tower, but please don't take it out on me. This has been such a horrible experience for me - for us both."
"What aren't you telling me?"
Mother laughed again as she reached the bottom of the stairs and approached Astrid. "Darling, do you even hear yourself? Why would you ask such a ridiculous question?"
She reached out her arms to hug her daughter, but Astrid impulsively shoved her back. "No! Something's not right!"
"Yes! This attitude you're having with me is most certainly not right!" The woman glared, and the glare that Astrid sent right back sent a shock through her core. She had argued with her mother before, but never like this. She had backed down before, despite the burn in her throat that always demanded she stand up. In the past, that burn had always shivered down to a painful guilt over her own actions, but, in the present, Astrid fanned the flames. She wanted to be angry.
Her mother continued on, lifting her chin to frown down at Astrid. "After all the worry I felt trying to protect you, after all the energy I spent trying to keep you safe, after all-"
"-After all these years of taking care of me!" Astrid parroted those words she'd heard so many times. "I know, Mother, I know! We've been through this so many times-"
"So you should understand by now, Astrid. You're a young woman, and you're acting like a child! You want responsibility and independence, but you're putting yourself in danger chasing those ridiculous lanterns-"
"It's not about the lanterns!" Astrid yelled, and she, her mother, and the air seemed to shake from her words. Astrid clenched her fists and continued, speaking truths she had never understood before they tumbled across her tongue. "It was never about the lanterns! It was about the world! I wanted to see the world! I protected myself-"
Her mother recovered enough to snort. "Protected yourself? Not from that boy!"
Astrid felt a tear threaten to rise in her eyes, and she blinked it back furiously and grabbed a tighter hold on her fury. "I was happy! I was free!" She shook her fists that were pale from tightness. "And maybe Hiccup tricked me, maybe he wanted to use me! But I..." Her voice and her stomach dropped. "...I don't regret going out there. I was meant to be out there!" She stomped her foot, enjoying the sting of impact on her bare feet. "I can't be here anymore!"
Her mother gaped before gasping, "What... what are you say- You can't be serious, Astrid. You should know now more than ever that it's not safe out there!"
"It'll always be dangerous out there! But I can't live the rest of my life in here." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Hiccup was right about that."
"But Snotlout-"
This time, Astrid was the one to laugh. "I knocked him out once. I'll do it every time until he gets the idea to leave me alone."
Her mother's lip curled. "But Hiccup." She didn't have to finish the sentence.
Astrid paused. She didn't think her fists could clench any tighter before they curled in even more as she spoke. "I'll deal with him too." Swallowing hurt, and she grasped for something to cover up that frightening feeling that had been crouching beneath everything since last night. She remembered why she'd been so angry in the first place with her mother, and she stalked toward the woman, eyes narrow. "But you still haven't answered my question, Mother. You aren't telling me something. What is it?"
"Astrid-"
But Astrid had tired of letting her mother throw out weak attempts at guilting her, scolding her, manipulating her - Astrid plunged forward even as her mother backed up, inching toward the mirror. "You said you overheard Hiccup and Snotlout talking-"
"Yes-"
"But Snotlout said he never talked to Hiccup! He said Hiccup sent Heather-" Astrid paused. "But... he never said Heather. He said an older woman with dark hair made the deal with him on Hiccup's behalf." Gazing at her mother, Astrid realized another piece of the still nebulous truth. "You."
She had never seen her mother's face like this - some deep emotion that made the woman cower slightly, eyes wide, jaw dropped. Her mother was afraid. Astrid realized that she had never seen real, genuine fear on her mother's face until this moment. Shock, like when her mother had seen the crown on the floor, yes, but not fear. "You were the messenger," Astrid whispered. "Hiccup didn't make that deal. You did."
"A-Astrid-"
"You told Snotlout about my hair. You gave him the secret! You told him Hiccup was keeping the crown, but you kept the crown." Astrid bared her teeth at her mother. "You did this. Hiccup didn't betray me." She lifted a finger, and it didn't waver as it pointed at her mother. "You did."
It was as if a switch flipped off the emotions in her mother's face. She straightened to her full height her eyes dark, her face cold. Staring at Astrid, the woman's voice was monotonous as she said, "Everything I did was to protect you."
Astrid stared. She replied, "But you were wrong."
"What?" her mother said with a sneer so unfamiliar that it made all this easier and harder at the same time somehow, to clench her fists, to continue, letting her voice grow in volume as she spoke.
"You were wrong about the world. You were wrong about me!"
The woman stared at Astrid. Her blue eyes seemed made of ice. She said nothing. Her mother did not, Astrid realized, care about Astrid. Not really. Not in the way it mattered.
She felt that lurking emotion again, and it swelled up in her, demanding to be felt.
Pain.
No.
Astrid seized her anger again and forced it to fill her lungs like air, like it alone could keep her alive. She spun away, lifted her head back, stared up at the rafters of her prison, and screamed.
The plan was to climb through the agricultural records tunnel, exit the stables, skirt along the water's edge of the city, sprint through the gate, get to Toothless's primary hiding place, and fly around searching for Astrid.
Hiccup spent about 45 seconds out of the stables before the twins slammed him up against a wall.
"How much is he paying you?" Hiccup asked, defeated.
"Not much," Tuffnut griped.
Ruffnut shrugged, but her grip pinning Hiccup's left wrist and elbow to the stone wall remained steel-strong. "At this point, we're here for the chaos and the carnage."
"And the drama."
"Oh, definitely the drama too."
They gave Hiccup matching grins eerily similar to Raincutters, and Hiccup would have smiled back in normal situations - which he was beginning to wonder if he'd ever experienced.
"Hiccup, Hiccup, Hiccup..." Snotlout swung himself around the corner to strut down the alley of Hiccup's current captivity. "You have a lot of nerve, don't you?" Laughing in a clearly fake manner, Snotlout wagged his finger and his head at Hiccup.
The twins swung their heads from Hiccup to Snotlout, then back to Hiccup. They were eagerly anticipating the standard battle of quips that Snotlout and Hiccup commenced in every interaction. But the gnawing in Hiccup's gut had grown into a twisting, burning virus. He knew he needed to get to Astrid and figure out the situation, and he certainly didn't trust her mother, but some deep instinct was screaming wordlessly at him. Something was wrong, even worse than it already seemed, and Hiccup could not waste time on witty dialogue.
"Come on, let me go, Snotlout. I'll owe you money."
Though Snotlout clung to that bemused, condescending face, a twitch of the eyebrow revealed that the mention of a bribe had rallied his interest. "Desperate to escape my wrath, huh?"
"Sure, whatever! Just- I need to go."
A scowl darkened Snotlout's visage. "After you double-crossed me? Ha-ha-no, I don't think so," he growled. "We made a deal. You think you can just make deals with me and then not follow through?"
Hiccup struggled, trying to shift his uncomfortable position against the wall, as he replied, "What- what deal are you talking about? We never had any deals." He shuffled his memories around, looking for one that connected to Snotlout's words. "I just asked to see the crown, Snotlout. That wasn't a deal. That was me trying to return something that didn't belong to you."
Scoffing, Snotlout snapped, "You know what I'm talking about! The deal! We just made it! Yesterday!"
"What are you talking about?"
"You know what I'm talking about."
Hiccup usually tried to manage his anger by employing his time-honed strategy of experience immediately followed by release. Snotlout, though, had a true knack for evoking anger that Hiccup couldn't easily dispel. Gritting his teeth, Hiccup groaned out, "Why don't we pretend that I don't know what you're talking about at all. Explain it - explain the deal to me."
Ruffnut and Tuffnut, whose eyelids had sunk with boredom as the quip-less exchange of abysmal communication skills played out in front of them, decided to end everyone's suffering.
"It's simple, Hiccup," Ruffnut began.
Tuffnut picked up the story alongside her. "Mystery woman approaches us in the shadows."
"Mystery woman says she's acting as your messenger."
"Mystery woman says that if we let you keep the crown, we obtain custody of the girl with the magic hair."
Hiccup jerked back in shock, adding another collision to the back of his skull when it rammed into the wall. As he hissed in pain, Hiccup felt his head shake back and forth as his jaw lowered slowly.
"Is he..." Ruffnut murmured.
"... Speechless?" Tuffnut finished, reverentially.
"I've never seen this before," remarked Ruffnut, eyebrows raised as she marveled at the moment.
Mutterings tumbled from Hiccup, breaking that silence. "I... what... how... mystery woman..." His head still tilted back, Hiccup stared up at the overhanging thatch of the roof above. What mystery woman would- Realizing almost immediately, he jerked straight up, eyes wide. "Snot, describe her."
"Whoa-ho-ho, buddy, only my friends get the honor of calling me-"
"Describe her," Hiccup snapped. Snotlout took a breath to continue arguing, but yet again the twins came to the rescue.
"Remember when we got chased by that one yak last winter?" Tuffnut asked. "He was mad because Sister Dearest and I were throwing eggs at it, and you just happened to be there but decided to join in the time-honored tradition of running away with us?"
Hiccup managed to reign in his anger, and he nodded. He'd participated in enough conversations with Tuff to recognize the meandering path to the point. Interrupting only made that path longer.
"Same color hair as that yak."
"With some gray streaks, but she wasn't particularly thankful when I pointed that out," added Ruffnut. "Big blue eyes, skin even paler than Tuffnut-"
"Dark red dress?" Hiccup interrupted.
"So you do know who I'm talking about!" Snotlout cried triumphantly, pointing at Hiccup as the thug tried to regain control of the conversation.
Hiccup glared. "Because she stole the crown from me and knocked me out. Yeah. I know her." He watched three jaws plummet. "Wait- let me get this straight- she came to you and told you that I was making this deal with you?"
"Yup," answered Tuffnut.
Snotlout, his brain working as hard as it ever had, furrowed his brows together. "I agreed... then I found that girl Astrid on the beach, and she knocked me out!" His meaty fists clenched at his sides at the embarrassing memory. Hiccup nodded in sympathy.
"The mystery woman knocked us out too," Ruffnut explained. "We'd separated to get into our hiding positions so we could ambush Astrid when Snotlout gave us the cue."
"But Mystery Woman got to us first," Tuffnut said. He nodded with his eyes closed. "You have to respect her stealth and her dexterity with that frying pan."
Snotlout stared in rapidly expanding confusion. "If she sneaked up on you, how'd you know she used a frying pan on you?"
"Please," Tuffnut scoffed, "I've hit every metal object in this plane of existence on my head for purposes of self-education. I think I'd know what a frying pan hit sounds like."
Hiccup shook his head hard. All those hits to his own skull were finally shooting bolts of pain through his head, the most recent one just intensifying the difficulty of thinking. But he had to comprehend all this.
A new question occurred to him, and his body chilled at the implications. "Listen, Snot-"
"You're still not my friend."
"Snotlout, fine! Snotlout, did you tell Astrid about the deal?"
"Yeah, so? What does that matter?"
Hiccup felt his eyes widen as his lungs constricted. "So Astrid thinks I sold her out. She thinks I betrayed her," he murmured to himself. That would have worked perfectly for her mother, who would just affirm that Hiccup traded Astrid for the crown. Then Astrid would go back to the tower, thinking Snotlout was out to get her and Hiccup didn't care about her at all. He took a deep, shaky breath.
Hiccup doubted her mother would let Astrid remain outside any longer than necessary. She had to be at the tower by now. He had to get to her - to make sure she was okay and to make sure she knew he'd never betray her.
"What else did she say to you?"
Snotlout crossed his arms and scowled. Hiccup groaned and looked between the twins. "What did she say to you?" he repeated.
"Well, she certainly didn't elaborate on exactly how Astrid's hair was magical," Tuffnut reminisced, tilting his helmet back to scratch his forehead.
"She didn't explain much of anything, actually," Ruffnut said.
"Did she say anything about a tower?" It was a long-shot, but it was worth asking in order to get precise confirmation that the tower was where he needed to check first to find Astrid. He couldn't afford to waste time. The twins shook their heads in unison, and Hiccup wracked his brain for another question that could yield any helpful information. "Anything that seemed weird?"
"Nope," Ruffnut answered, twisting her lips into a sympathetic frown.
Tuffnut blinked slowly, his pupils sweeping left and right in thought, before saying, "She said that the hair was worth its weight in gold, but it would become useless if anybody cut it." He snorted. "Which explains the length."
The dread weighing in the pit of Hiccup's gut only ached worse. Something was definitely wrong with Astrid's mother - in addition to keeping her daughter locked in a tower, knocking Hiccup out with a frying pan, and then contriving an extremely manipulative plan to ensure Astrid would return to the tower.
Hiccup began muttering to himself, his hands twitching in the twins' grips, which restricted the gestures that usually punctuated his sentences. "Why would her own mother treat her like that? She keeps talking about the hair, the hair, like it's more important than Astrid is. She's obsessed with keeping Astrid away from other people. It just doesn't make sense." He'd had run-ins with terrible, controlling mothers in his adventures, but Astrid's mother occupied a category all her own.
Snotlout squinted in thought, momentarily too curious to remember being annoyed at Hiccup. "They don't even look alike."
A moment passed before Hiccup comprehended the words. He froze. His head snapped up to pin Snotlout down with a stare. "What did you just say?"
Shrugging, Snotlout said, "I mean, they're both hot, but like totally not the same hot, you know? They don't look anything like each other."
Hiccup crushed his hair in his fingers as his hands grabbed his head. He felt like he'd been bowled over by a Gronkle. "They don't. They look nothing alike." It was a crazy idea that seemed more and more logical by the moment. How powerful and fragile Astrid's hair seemed to be was definitely a factor in her mother's strange obsession with keeping Astrid away from the world, but... What if there's more to it than that?
"Snotlout, that's exactly it."
"Okay, buddy, look here-" Snotlout began, before drawing back, slack-jawed again.
Ruffnut looked at her brother. "Did Hiccup just... agree with Snotlout?"
"Where's the town crier? We're witnessing history right now."
Hiccup looked between the three of them, previous animosity temporarily forgotten. His thoughts tumbled out of his head and out of his mouth, desperate to be shared. "Think about it, gang. They don't look alike. The woman cares more about the power of the hair than about Astrid, her own daughter. She keeps Astrid permanently locked away in a tower-"
"What?!" three voices yelped in unison.
"- and none of it makes sense for a mother to do that to her daughter. Unless... they aren't mother and daughter at all."
"But what does that mean?" Ruffnut asked, scratching at her forehead now.
The dread was only intensifying. "I don't know exactly," Hiccup admitted. "But whatever it is, it means Astrid's in danger."
He watched their faces drop, and he couldn't understand the concern he saw there. They'd barely met Astrid.
You've barely met her.
That's different.
Is it?
He knew the look in his eyes had to be desperate as he faced Snotlout. "That woman can't bargain with Astrid. Astrid doesn't belong to her. I never made that deal. She'd already knocked me out by then. So there's no deal, so I didn't betray you, and I've already promised you money, so you can let me go."
He was met with a glare. Snotlout, now twice duped, doubled down on his grumpiness as he tried to save face.
Ruffnut and Tuffnut looked back at Snotlout themselves to raise their eyebrows in a question. A beat of time passed before Snotlout sighed, groaned, and said, "Fine."
The twins relinquished their hold, and Hiccup dropped forward, rolling his shoulders and neck as he hummed at the wave of relief washing across his back.
After getting himself reacquainted with control of his limbs, Hiccup squared his shoulders, fists at his sides. "Don't follow me," he warned. "I'm going to find her."
And, ignoring the cacophony of questions that sprang up in their midst, he turned and ran.
Hiccup's mind and feet raced. Once he reached Toothless and confirmed the dragon's safety, he estimated the flight to Astrid's tower would take roughly three hours. When he and Toothless first approached the tower - an eternity that somehow lasted only three days - he was already past the Moldy Cabbage when he escaped Snotlout by jumping on Toothless. Hiccup couldn't perfectly predict the length of the flight now that he would begin it much closer to the city. Flying inside the clouds would obscure him and Toothless enough to avoid a zig-zag flight pattern, but Hiccup would still be able to see most of the world below. He would be soaking wet the entire time, of course, but he could have a cold after he made sure Astrid was alright and knew he didn't betray her.
A few villagers squawked and jerked out of his path as Hiccup sprinted down the streets toward the outer walls. He debated whether to sail straight through the front gate and risk being stopped by the guards or to use his trusty tunnel to exit the city.
Hiccup's planning of his route so thoroughly distracted him that when Heather jumped into his path, Hiccup nearly bowled into her. She grabbed his forearms to steady herself as he lurched to a sudden stop. The calm, witty demeanor he'd come to expect from her was gone.
"Hiccup," she began. All faint hints of color had vanished from her already pale complexion.
"Heather, I"m sorry, I can't talk right now."
Her grip tightened. Why is everyone so intent on manhandling me today?
He struggled. "Heather-"
Heather's entire body was tight and tense as she interrupted him. "This is important. You live in the castle. Your dad's captain of the guard."
Over time, he had stopped wincing at that lie. "Yes, I"m well aware, but this isn't the time to discuss my tired existence."
"Please, Hiccup." Her fingers were snow-white, and he wondered if her goal was to cut off circulation to his arms. "This is important. I overheard someone in the inn-"
Hiccup quickly rotated his arms up and backward to twist out of Heather's grip. "I'm sorry, I'd normally stop and listen, but you're just going to have to tell a guard if it's that serious-"
"I tried!"
"I need to go." He stepped back, turned, and began running again, but Heather grabbed at his arm again, forcing him to a stop. Hiccup turned, and he unashamedly begged her to let go. "Please, Heather. It's Astrid. Something's wrong - I think she's in danger."
"Hiccup-" she pleaded, but he already yanked his arm away and began his sprint again. With each step away, his mind processed Heather's spooked demeanor more and more, stirring more and more guilt along with the dread already taking up residence in his stomach.
A grimace twisted his mouth. He couldn't help Heather. It probably wasn't as serious as she believed. He hoped. He convinced himself of it and pushed himself to run faster.
His risk of sprinting through the gate paid off. The guards, stiff-backed on either side of the gate, eyed him coldly but didn't interrupt or pursue. Hiccup veered onto the right-most path toward the Hvelnir mountain range. The glade where he and Toothless had first bonded settled between two relatively smaller mountains - Ejnar and Riagan - but between the glade and the city was a bog the locals swore was haunted and stayed far away from. Soggy boots were a small price to pay for Hiccup's privacy and Toothless's safety. Hiccup raced up the faint path tread only ever by himself, occasionally having to vault over logs of trees that had finally succumbed to the elements.
Even before he reached the glade, Hiccup let out a loud screech that, after years of practice, mimicked Toothless's own enough that his dragon seemed to glean Hiccup's call for attention well enough. Weaving around the massive boulders and thick clusters of pine trees that encircled the cove, Hiccup listened for any warnings of human intruders. He heard nothing but the sounds of the forest and smelled nothing but the heavy air of incoming rainfall.
Rain began speckling his skin as he slid down the slope onto the mossy ground of the cove. Toothless, curled up on a small knoll, popped his head up and purred at Hiccup's approach.
"Come on, bud, let's ride!" Hiccup didn't have a firm grasp on how many words Toothless understood, but the dragon had at least picked up on the meaning of that particular phrase. Toothless jumped to his feet, rolled his back and flexed his feet to stretch, and again hummed happily at Hiccup. The hum quickly morphed into a questioning chirp as Hiccup bolted to the dragon's side and swung himself into the saddle. Toothless tilted his head toward the stirrups and belts of the saddle, obviously confused as to why Hiccup had skipped the ritual step of checking his equipment.
Hiccup grimaced. He didn't want to make a habit of poor safety procedures, but the mysterious dark feeling in his stomach had spread across his body, spiking his blood and airflow with a poisonous anxiety. "I know, I know, but we're in a hurry." He grabbed a tight hold on Toothless, shoved his feet into the stirrups, and crouched down in the pre-flight position that Toothless instinctively matched.
"Fast, bud," Hiccup said. Toothless recognized the urgency in tone and catapulted them into the air.
Hiccup pulled his lips between his teeth and bit down hard. Hang on, Astrid.
Author's Note:
I need y'all to understand how many hours I spent agonizing over Astrid using a dustpan.
Here's a fun fact for you: most people attribute Lloyd P. Ray with the invention of the dustpan in 1897, but he only "modernized" it. Sarah Rennie had patented a dustpan in 1877, and T.E. McNeill had patented one in 1858. But I know what you're thinking: "Ami, surely the dustpan was around before that. I mean, what did people sweep dust into?"
Hours. Of. Research.
I mean, come on, think about it, right - brooms are ancient and global. If you search dustpans on Google, you get many articles detailing the history of brooms. But where's the history on dustpans? It's not there, I tell you. "Sure," you say, "but what about Wikipedia?"
That's what I thought too.
Go ahead. Look at the article. There are people I know personally with longer Wikipedia articles than the one on dustpans.
"Ami, we're reading a fanfiction with dragons, magical hair, and modern speech patterns in an ancient world. We clearly don't care about perfect historical accuracy."
I know that. And you know that. But my sudden insatiable need for knowledge about dustpans refused to be sated.
F***ing dustpans.
Have a nice Monday, everyone
UPDATE 3/18/2022: Shoutout to my beta-reader Liv for catching a stupid mistake that literally nobody else caught. Love you, Liv.
