As the time for semester exams approached, the Haddock twins soon showed their mental prowess over their classmates. They'd had studying habits instilled in them from a young age and both were grateful for those habits. Signy had ended up inviting Astrid over to study, given the blonde's lack of skill in both history and science, and Hiccup had hidden in his room to avoid any awkward conversations with his longtime crush. After all, he had to focus. Exams were in less than a week!
"I'm never going to get this!" groaned Astrid, flopping onto Signy's bed dramatically.
"Come on—it's not that hard!" laughed Signy, spinning around in her chair. "History's a lot of interpretation and memorization. It's easy once you learn the tricks."
"Easy for you to say, Miss Haddock-Genius. You and Hiccup are the smartest kids in our class—if not the whole school."
Signy shrugged and spun a little more, yelping as she almost fell. Astrid snickered and stuck out her foot to stop the chair, keeping Signy from hitting her head on the desk. The redhead gave her a look and stuck out her tongue. Her smile, though, said that she didn't really mind the affectionate teasing.
"I'm going to get a drink of water," Signy laughed, standing up. She stumbled a bit, being dizzy from the spinning, before exiting the room.
Astrid sighed and laid back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.
She'd realized a couple months earlier that Signy was a good friend to have around. The redhead was honest, good-natured, smart, and refreshing to interact with compared to the other kids in their class. If Astrid had to pick a best friend, she'd probably say Signy before anybody else.
A loud, repeated buzzing shook her from her thoughts and she glanced at the desk. Signy's phone was going off. Out of pure curiosity, she looked at the screen to see the name 'Eret' flashing across it. Knitting her eyebrows together in confusion, Astrid tried to think of anybody with that name who Signy might know. Only one came to mind, and he was dating Thorn.
The phone went to voicemail and Astrid stared at it.
"What happened?" Signy asked, coming back in.
"Your phone went off… some guy named Eret was calling."
"Oh, yeah, my boyfriend." She had a happy look and Astrid felt a pit in the bottom of her stomach.
"Your… boyfriend? He's not… he's not Eret Eretson, is he?"
"As a matter of fact, he is."
"I hate to ruin this for you, but he's dating Thorn. He's cheating on you." Signy tilted her head.
"No he's not."
"Yes, he is." Signy started fiddling with the end of her braid.
"Astrid, can you keep a secret?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"It's just super important."
"Just go ahead and tell me."
"I'm… I'm only telling you because I trust you." She took a deep breath. "I'm Thorn."
"Wait, seriously?!" Astrid's eyes widened.
"It's my stage name. I came up with it when I got 'discovered' to protect my identity."
"So you weren't at boarding school."
"No. I came home to be with my family… but I don't know how much longer I'll be here. Please, keep this a secret. And especially don't tell anybody at school. I like my privacy."
"I won't tell anyone. I promise." Astrid shook her hand, then studied the redhead's face.
How did I not figure it out before? She's the same except for her hair and the lack of makeup.
"Thank God it's over!"
Hiccup smiled at his sister as she slumped against the fence on the way home. Exams had just wrapped up and winter break was officially starting. He was excited to have her home for Christmas for the first time in three years, and he'd already gotten her Christmas present. Her blue-green eyes were lit up with her own excitement as she skipped along.
"Christmas, here we come!" she cheered.
"Are you sure you're ready for snow?" he asked teasingly.
"Of course. It's going to be real snow instead of the fake stuff that I saw in California. I haven't seen real snow in years."
"It's going to come hard and fast."
She snorted.
Suddenly, a car pulled up beside them. Inside were the Thorston twins, Dagur, and Snotlout, all holding their phones to snap pictures of Signy. Her eyes widened in shock and confusion.
"What the hell?!" she blurted.
"It's not every day one of the biggest teen stars in Hollywood lives in our town!" Tuffnut told her cheerfully. "Everyone knows you're Thorn!"
Signy's mouth hung open, her lower lip quivering slightly. Hiccup saw the look on her face and felt rage come over him as he grabbed her wrist and pulled her along. He then turned back to those in the car.
"Leave her alone," he ordered, his voice taking on a low tone that scared his former tormentors. They sped off and Hiccup ran home with his sister, slamming the door shut and locking it behind him.
Signy staggered to the couch, falling onto it and burying her face into the cushions. Hiccup could hear her muffled sobs and knelt beside her. His fingers ran through her hair to try and comfort her. It was something he'd done for her since they were young, and he'd picked it up from a nanny they'd had fairly early on. The action almost always calmed and comforted Signy.
Not this time.
"She lied to me," Signy croaked. "She promised me she wouldn't tell anybody."
"Who?"
"Astrid. I told her the truth, and she promised me that she wouldn't tell anybody!"
The warmth that Hiccup usually felt at hearing Astrid's name was absent, replaced by cold contempt. He'd seen his sister's friendship with the blonde grow, and the trust that he and Signy found hard to place in people had been placed in Astrid. Astrid had, in turn, taken that trust and crushed it into pieces by revealing a secret Signy wanted to keep hidden.
"Sig, I'm sorry," he whispered, hugging her. She cried into his shoulder. "Maybe Berk isn't the best place for us."
"But I'm happier here!"
"No, you're not. Sig, I saw the pictures in your desk." Her eyes widened and she stopped crying.
"A-are you going to tell Dad?"
"No, I won't, but we need to fix this."
"It's depression, Hiccup. And broken trust. It's not like Toothless's tail-rig; you can't just take a screwdriver and wrench to it."
"We need to leave Berk and let things be." Signy took a deep breath and nodded.
"I… I wasn't sure how to bring it up, but… my agent sent me an offer. A new movie that they're filming. They want me to play the villain, and I want to accept."
"Perfect! So… accept it and we'll go."
"Wait, we?"
"I need to be a better brother to you, Sig. And I can't do that if we're separated. If you go to Hollywood, I'm going with you. And Dad can open up that LA branch of Vast Industries that he's been looking to start. I can start over at a new school, and you can play the kind of role you've always wanted to play. It's perfect for us."
She smiled and wiped her tears.
"We'll have to talk to Dad first."
"I'm sure if we tell him what's going on, he'll agree."
And Stoick did, but they had to stay in Berk until the day after Christmas. Signy was fine with that because she had one loose end she had to tie up before she headed back across the country.
Astrid looked at her watch.
4 PM. Signy should've been here by now.
Something was up. Signy had been silent since the last day of school, and her only message to Astrid had been the one she'd sent that morning.
Meet me at Hooligan Park at 4 PM.
The length and tone of the message implied Signy wasn't happy. And she specifically wasn't happy with Astrid. Astrid had no clue what was going on, but she hoped that Signy would shed light on the subject once she got to the park.
"You actually came."
Astrid glanced up to see Signy—clad in a parka with her hood and muffler obscuring most of her face. The only part of Signy Astrid could see were those distinctive blue-green eyes.
"Of course I did! I've had nothing but radio silence from you since school ended, and the only message you've sent me had me worried. What's going on?"
"We're leaving."
"We? We who?"
"My family. Me, Hiccup, and my dad." She kicked over a small pile of snow. "The Haddocks are leaving Berk."
"You just got here three months ago!"
"Yeah, and now I can't take it here anymore. It's full of backstabbing liars." Something in Signy's tone was off; it was as if she was trying not to cry.
"No, it's not!"
"Don't lie, Astrid!" Signy exploded.
"I'm not lying!"
"You already lied to me once. You broke your promise, and it took less than two weeks for you to do it." Tears were now brimming in the actress's eyes, and despite knowing that she was talented and well-regarded in her field, Astrid also knew this wasn't an act.
"I didn't break my promise!"
"Oh, yeah?! Then how do Snotlout, Dagur, and the Thorston twins know that I'm Thorn?!" she retorted. Astrid blinked in confusion.
"I didn't tell them! Why would I?!"
"So you can brag that you know Thorn. For the notoriety. I don't know why people do anything like this."
"They'll forget about it pretty quickly—"
"I won't."
"Signy—"
"Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to trust people?!" Astrid was silent. "I've been exploited before, by people I trusted. I tried to trust my costars, but it always came back to bite me in the ass. I've only been able to trust two people before you, and both of them are related to me. I don't even trust my fucking therapist as much as I trusted you. And you took that trust… and you threw it away."
"I… I…"
"You know, Hiccup has been in love with you for years now?" Astrid opened and closed her mouth in shock. "He loved you unconditionally, and now you know what he's saying? He's saying that he wished he could've seen what a horrible person you are before this happened. Maybe he could've protected me."
"Signy… I don't know what to say."
"I do. Goodbye, Astrid."
School went back in session shortly after New Year's. Walking into her history class, Astrid felt a hole in her gut when she caught sight of Hiccup and Signy's empty seats. Normally, the Haddock twins would've already had their notebooks out and Signy would've called to Astrid. Hiccup would've blushed as the blonde made her way over. Astrid would've begun joking with her redheaded best friend before Ms. Peabody came in and shooed her back to her seat.
None of that would ever happen again.
"Hey, where's Lesser Haddock and Thorn?" she heard Tuffnut ask.
"Dunno," Ruffnut told her brother. "Must be running late."
Astrid sat down in her usual spot, watching the other students stream in. All of them noticed Hiccup and Signy's sudden absence—even more noticeable because all of them wanted to see Thorn. She gripped her pencil, snapping it in half.
Somebody was eavesdropping on me and Signy. That's the only way they could've found out.
Now her best friend hated her. Hiccup—somebody she'd come to think of as a possible boyfriend—loathed her for hurting his sister. And nobody cared. Astrid was beginning to understand the importance of trusting somebody the way the twins trusted each other. That was a person who would stand by you and hold onto things you didn't want everyone to know. Signy had wanted Astrid to be that type of person and Astrid had failed.
Berk was broken, and the gray-and-white landscape outside seemed to match Astrid's inner turmoil. She stared out the window and felt a massive lump in her throat. Signy had been so excited for the snow, and now she wouldn't get to enjoy it. She'd be in sunny California, in a place where there was no real snow for her to play in or shove her brother into as a joke.
Do you have any idea how hard it is for me to trust people?!
Goodbye, Astrid.
Signy's last words to her echoed in her head and she rubbed her eyes.
God. New England winters suck!
And we end Act 1 on a bit of a sad note.
I know I just updated yesterday, but I'm on a roll now and I don't want to stop.
The line 'New England winters suck' was always going to be in the story at some point—that was all I knew about it. I didn't know where or when or who would say it, but the more I thought about the line, the more I wanted it to have meaning. Putting it here was my best option.
I've purposely left it open-ended as to how Signy's secret was found out so that you all can interpret it yourselves. I have an idea of how it happened (which Astrid vocalized) and that's my version of events.
In other news, I have a request of my more artistic readers: could somebody do a cover for this story? I would do it, but I can't draw (or photoshop). You can do whatever you want for the cover, but when you're done, send it to me on my Tumblr: kamije_celeek. I'll pick one to be the cover and reblog them all to give you a little showcase.
Act 2 begins next time, three years later.
So long and thanks for all the fish!