37. Night-time talks
Hiccup yelped as Stormfly let him go from her claws. He actually was too high from the ground to land on his feet, so he would've landed on his ass if he hadn't managed to roll backwards and jump to his feet. Living with Storm had its advantages, like learning how to not get hurt. Stormfly landed in front of him and Astrid got down from her back.
"Shit! I'm sorry," She said as she ran to him and swiftly looked him over for any obvious injuries. "I thought she would release you when you were closer to the ground…"
"Well, dragons are literal creatures, Astrid," Hiccup stated, his voice a little hesitant. He dusted himself off and expectantly looked at the viking. "What's the meaning of this?"
Seeing that Hiccup was okay, Astrid took a deep breath and schooled her features. She crossed her arms, and with as much confidence as she could muster, started speaking.
"We need to talk about some things."
"What do you-" Hiccup tried to ask, as if he was confused.
"You know damn well what we need to talk about, Hiccup." She couldn't help but let anger seep into her tone.
She took another deep breath to calm herself down. She had thought about this, had decided to hear Hiccup out and not let emotions cloud her judgement. Astrid looked towards Stormfly, the Nadder was preening at her reflection in the cove's lake, and gave something for Astrid to look at. The viking feared that if she looked at Hiccup she would not be able to stay calm.
"So… you know who I am." Hiccup hesitantly said as he removed his helmet so he could talk with Astrid face to face.
"Of course I know! You know I do!" Astrid exclaimed throwing her arms up in frustration, she didn't appreciate that he was acting like he didn't know.
"Okay, okay," he said, lifting his hands in surrender. He glanced at the helmet in his hands before meeting Astrid's eyes. "I'll answer any question you have."
"Why?" she asked turning away from him.
"Why… what?" He asked, genuinely confused at what she wanted to know.
"Why did you leave?" She finally turned to him. "Why did you disappear? Why did you never give any indication that you're alive? Why are you lying to me - to us? To your father? Just… why?"
Hiccup looked into her eyes, they were burning with anger and confusion. His hearth ached, but he reminded himself that he had good reasons for what he did and telling her would hopefully dissipate any negative feelings she had.
"Why did I leave?" He repeated her question. "I left because I had no place here, nobody wanted me here."
"I wanted you here! Gobber wanted you here, when you left we were devastated!"
"Two days." He quietly stated. "I stayed at dragon island for two days after I left, foolishly hoping that you will show up!" His voice raised as the frustration he felt surfaced. "Nobody knew that I did that, not even Storm, because I couldn't bear to let her know how stupid I was."
"We didn't know," Astrid whispered so quietly that Hiccup almost didn't hear her.
"When I left the house, all of the tribe was outside of it, like they knew – because they knew what my father was going to tell me. But I saw you. I saw you trying to get to me and I hoped you would look for me." He was almost shouting at this point, the anger he had felt that day he left came back at full force. "You had dragons, for Thor's sake! Dragon island is an hour's flight away… and I waited two days." The heartbreak in his voice was unmistakable.
"Stoick gave us orders not to leave the island!" she defended herself, after all, she was the one who was supposed to be mad at Hiccup, not the other way around.
"Stoick also had the order's to kill dragons on sight!" He started talking normally, like he hadn't been yelling a second prior. "But that didn't stop me, did it?"
"I'm not you!" Astrid shouted. "Is that what you want me to tell you? I'm not you, I didn't have the strength to defy your father. That does not make me a bad person." The last part of her sentence was dripping with venom. Hiccup let out a humorless chuckle.
"That is why I left. Because my father told me, that my one friend, who stood by me no matter the orders he got, needed to go. I would've been alone once again, because my father gave the order to get all of the dragons off of Berk, and you would have followed the orders no matter how you felt about me. I couldn't – I wouldn't leave Toothless. That's why I left."
Astrid stared at Hiccup. She hadn't thought about the situation like this, she thought he left because he believed the tribe still wouldn't like him, even though they had, at least after he saved them. She slowly nodded in understanding.
"Okay," she said softly. "But why didn't you let anyone know you were alive and just disappeared?"
"I hoped you missed me, I didn't know you did," He said, already feeling drained. "When I left, I was thrown head-first into danger. This war with Drago that we are facing, isn't my first one. Telling you that I'm alive only to die the next week didn't seem appealing to me. If you thought I was already dead, you wouldn't have to mourn me."
"Oh, Hiccup…" Astrid whispered, her voice full of sorrow. "But… You're alive! You're here! Why not tell us now?"
"I didn't know if you changed," He gave her a sad smile. "I did not want to live back at the Berk I once knew. Berk used to be a place where you had to be the best viking or be shunned, Berk used to be a land of kill or be killed. If not for your jealousy for me during dragon training, you wouldn't have noticed me, the others would still bully me," He sighed, tossing his helmet to the ground and took the few steps to reach Astrid and take her hands into his. He stared into her eyes, his were brimming with tears, hers no different. "I was not strong enough to go through that again. I would not be here if Storm hadn't convinced me to come."
Astrid laughed. Storm really was the one bringing Hiccup home, not keeping him away like others might think.
"I will tell the others, but not right now. My father is making changes to 'make Berk a place where dragons could live next to vikings' and I want to see that, I want to see he can change without me breathing down his neck." Hiccup concluded and shared a laugh with Astrid. "I will tell him when time comes."
"There was a meeting today, Chief said we didn't need to be there. Was it about making Berk better?" Astrid asked. She had a small smile on her face, she finally understood so much about Hiccup.
"Bringing dragons to Berk, making vikings live with dragons as a means to make the tribe see that dragons never were the problem is a big part of his plan," he explained. "He told me so in his letter."
"His letter?" Toothless heard Astrid ask.
He didn't understand what letters had to do with anything, but Hiccup seemed happy, so he was okay with watching the pair from above for the time being. But the Nadder was down in the cove with them, so maybe Toothless could go down there too.
"Yeah, he gave Storm a letter after she yelled at him and told him he was the reason I left," Hiccup laughed. Toothless' ears lifted. Why was Hiccup talking about their sister when he was with Astrid? "The letter reminded me of the ones you and Gobber had left here with my things."
Toothless saw Hiccup take Astrid's hand and lead her to sit near the water. The Fury was happy that the situation ended this way and didn't turn violent. When he heard Hiccup scream, he feared something bad had happened, and when he heard Storm call Shadow, he thought both of his siblings were in trouble.
Toothless had been following Hiccup from a distance, he knew his brother didn't want anyone to see him, just like when they had first met, so the dragon kept his distance. Then Toothless heard the wing beats of a dragon getting closer, and while he was looking around to find where the sound was coming from, Hiccup had screamed. He knew the only the dragon whose wing beats he heard could've took his brother.
So he followed the sound all the way to the cove. He had fallen behind, because Hiccup had forgotten to switch his tail into self-flying mode, and he had to run along the terrain. When he reached the cove Hiccup was already yelling at Astrid, yet his brother was unharmed and wasn't in immediate danger. Toothless had liked Astrid after he learned that she was the one who gave Hiccup strength to find him when he was taken to the nest against his will, so he decided to wait and see if Hiccup needed him to intervene.
"Do you still have them?" Astrid hopefully asked. Toothless whined to himself, he remembered what happened to the pieces of parchment that Hiccup had been so fond of. Toothless slowly creeped forward, he wanted to say hi to Astrid, and Hiccup wouldn't mind.
"I had to burn them," Hiccup regretfully admitted. "They had your names on it, and at the time I was at war, I didn't want the letter to wall into the wrong hands and be traced back to you as a way to get at me... Toothless!" Hiccup exclaimed after finally noticing the dragon in the reflection of the star-lit water.
He turned to the dragon behind him and hugged his head.
"Hey bud, remember Astrid?" He asked while gesturing to the viking next to him. Toothless' tongue reached Astrid before Hiccup could stop him.
"Ew," Astrid complained half-heartedly. "It's good to see you not in the middle of a storm, Toothless."
"So you did notice it was him," Hiccup took her hand again. Toothless bounced away from them, he was done listening to their conversation and playing with Stormfly sounded more fun.
"Yes I did," Astrid washed her hand in the lake after getting rid of the saliva on her face. "How did you get so cool?" she jokingly asked. Hiccup chuckled and brought her hand to his lips.
"I have a lot to tell you," he smirked at the blushing Astrid.
"You never answered my question," Storm prompted, she was enjoying the fresh night air, having removed her helmet half way through the first pass over the route.
"Hmm?" Eret hummed in lieu of a question.
"How are you doing?" she asked again. They were done with the first round of their patrol and were once again starting from the start. They were flying slowly, neither saw a need to rush.
"Good, I'm doing good." He glanced at Storm, and seeing her eager expression continued. "I fixed up the hut, and the villagers had gotten used to me. So Berk feels almost like home."
"So you'll be staying after this is over?" Storm questioned with a tilt of her head.
"I think I am, but I won't know until I have to choose," He honestly answered. "What about you?"
"What about me?" Storm was confused. There was no way Eret knew they had ties to Berk, right?
"Where will you be heading?" He clarified and tried to urge Skullcrusher to fly faster, yet the dragons refused and stayed at the slow pace. Eret looked at his dragon with confusion, all Eret wanted was to be done with patrol, because he was sure Storm told Astrid to only disturb the others.
"Ah, I have no idea, where ever the wind, and Shadow, take me," Storm answered and patted Shadow's neck.
"So I might never see you again?" Eret questioned, the idea of never seeing Storm again gave him a funny feeling in his chest.
"We're friends," She quickly assured after seeing the lost look on Eret's face, "I'll come visit you."
"Friends?" Eret asked in a hopeful tone.
"Yes, and friends visit each other."
Eret thought for a moment. He liked the idea of keeping in touch with Storm, the thought somehow comforted him. She was the one who forced him back to Berk, and practically gave him a chance to start a new life and help get rid of Drago.
"So if I invited you to my home, would you come?" He asked, he would love to get a chance to figure her out without any interference, maybe he would finally find out why her presence gave him comfort.
"Why? So I could see your bedroom?" She asked in a joking matter.
"Yeah," he answered absent-mindedly, still deep in thought.
After she didn't say anything else he looked at her, finding her shocked, staring at him with wide eyes. He heard a growl. Eret glanced at Shadow, the Skrill was glaring at him with narrowed eyes. Finally he registered what had happened.
"NO! I mean no. I mean if you want to then – I'm going to stop talking now." Eret hastly corrected himself, he decided that looking straight ahead was the best for his health, as another slip up would not be appreciated by the Skrill. Storm giggled, a wide smile overtook her face as she stood up and jumped behind Eret.
"Don't worry about it," She whispered in his ear, "We'll get there."
With a kiss on his check she jumped back onto Shadow. In his stunned state Eret didn't notice the blush covering her checks. Storm urged Shadow to fly faster, leaving Eret behind.
"Race you!" Her yell broke his stunned state. He shook his head and urged Skullcrusher to go faster, this time, the dragon complied.
"You're on!" He yelled back. The only answer he got back was Storm's delighted laughter.
