A/N: SURPRISE CHAPTER! Who's it for? You'll have to find out. :B
I update daily everyday, and I think I'll stay like that, it's a really good pace for me ever since I lengthened my chapters. If you go back and look at my first ever fanfiction, you'll see that the chapters are really short. And when they were short, I update twice or three times. But since I made them longer, I do it daily ;)
My friend came over yesterday, and we were watching Spongebob. And it was that one episode where he thinks he's a star because of that Krusty Krab commercial you know? And I started laughing SO hard because of the part where that guy asks for the napkin? Here's how I saw it, of course:
Toothless: Hey, you! Can I have a napkin, please?
Hiccup: Sure! Though, next time, please come up and ask me. It must be so degrading to ask from across the room. *derp face* ALRIGHT. *takes out a napkin and a pen* Who am I making this bad boy out to? :D
Toothless: -.- TO MY TAILFIN.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! You all love me ;^;
•0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙
A blast of cold wind met her as she exploded out of the door, skidding and stumbling as she landed into a large bank of snow. Spluttering, Ludi wriggled out of the mass of white snow, shaking out her fur and causing white snowflakes to shower around her. Tail drooping down to the ground, Ludi lifted her head to look up at the window that was Hiccup's room. It was dark now, he turned the light off.
Ears flattening to her head, Ludi let out a small whimper, turning and looking over across the village. The square was empty except for the softly falling snow, white against black. Casting one look back at Hiccup's house, Ludi started to pick her way through the deep snow, tongue slightly sticking out as she went. Her small paws sank into the white drifts easily, causing it to be much more difficult than it had to be.
She didn't know where she was going, but she was pretty sure that she wouldn't stay there. Although, going back to Hiccup looked like it would be a hard thing to do. She still didn't see why he was mad at her, they had been playing together one moment, and then the next he was shouting at her. Hiccup never scolded her, not even when she knocked that plate down a few days ago. She just hadn't expected it.
The cat let out a small sigh, quickening her pace as the house fell farther and farther behind her. Maybe he would be better tomorrow, maybe he would get over it. The thoughts did little to help her though, tomorrow was a long way away. And she was already colder than normal. Usually she had Hiccup to brace the wind away from her when they went around the village.
She could go back to the house, but the bigger person that stayed there frightened her somewhat. He wasn't gentle with her like Hiccup was. When he picked her up on occasion, he always did it with one careless hand. It was uncomfortable, and he more or less smacked her when he tried to pet her. No, she didn't feel like being slapped right now. Her heart weighed more than it usually did in her chest, making it ache.
She felt like this was her fault, the way that sometimes Hiccup's smile faltered for a strange reason as he looked at her. The way he got quiet in his sentences, reaching up and petting her as he did so. She didn't think that she did anything wrong, but she also didn't think she did anything wrong before when she tore up those papers. But apparently they were important to Hiccup, she didn't think before doing that. She didn't think she needed to.
A noise behind her made her stiffen, turning around and perking her ears. "Hello?" She asked, eyes darting from side to side as she spun around. Tail lashing through the air, she started as a shape took place amid the snowflakes, getting closer and closer to her as she took a hesitant step. She faltered for a moment, tilting her head to the side as she realized that the shape wasn't that big. Bigger than her, of course, but it was still small.
She came into view, and Ludi's eyes widened with realization. The cat was a large, smoky-gray with gleaming yellow eyes. She was so familiar, and Ludi's face broke into a smile as the she-cat came to a stop in front of her. "Hello, daughter." She said, concern showing in her yellow depths as she saw the state of the kitten. "What are you doing out here? Where's Hiccup?"
"Oh…" She cast a glance back at the house, which was far away from her by now. She realized that she had been closer to Bertha's house. That must have been why her mother had caught sight of her. "He's back at the house. I had to…I had to leave for a while."
Her mother blinked, taking a seat in the snow in front of her. "Why?" She asked, looking at her kitten carefully. "Did something happen, Ludi? Is it something bad? Something you want to talk about? Ever since you got taken away from me, I haven't seen you really except from across the village."
Ludi lashed her tail uncomfortably behind her, eyes downcast as she looked at the ground. "It's nothing hopefully." She branched out, grimacing. "We were playing, and I messed up. I started to attack a bug and there were papers underneath and they got shredded. Hiccup got mad…I guess that they were really important to him. I didn't think about it, I just did it. And he shouted at me and told me to get out. So I did." She paused for a moment, looking at her mother out of the corner of her eyes. "But I'm sure that it will blow over, right?" She asked hopefully.
Her mother purred, "I'm sure it will, little one." She assured without hesitation.
But Ludi still wasn't sure. "It's not just now." She said, her mother blinking as she straightened. "It's a lot of times where he gets weird. He gets all quiet and he stares at one thing for the longest time. When I try to get him up in the morning, he always just stares at this corner of the room and wont say anything for the longest time. Today his friends wanted to go out flying with him, but he said no. I think that it's because of me. He doesn't want to leave me, so he can't go flying with the others." She shuffled her paws on the ground shamefully. "Maybe I should just come back and live with you."
To her surprise, her mother merely smiled at her, reaching out and licking her affectionately in between the ears. " No, no." She said gently, leaning back and giving her a warm smile. "That is not the case, my dear. You see, it was a few weeks ago when it happened. You might know that Hiccup once had a Night Fury dragon named Toothless?" When Ludi nodded once, her mother went on. "Well, it was a few weeks ago when Hiccup and Toothless found another Night Fury. She was a female, and it was very peculiar, because we had all thought that Toothless was the only Night Fury out there.
"Well, Toothless slowly started to get more and more angry towards Hiccup. Nobody really knows why, even now. But then one day Toothless attacked Hiccup and so did the female. He came back to the villages in shambles, and that's when Stoick had enough of it. They were going to drive Toothless out over the ice with the female to where they came from, but Hiccup made a new tail for Toothless to allow him to fly on his own. Since Toothless only had one tailfin on his tail, he couldn't fly without Hiccup's help. Now he can, and him and female flew away together. That was the last anybody saw of the two."
Ludi blinked, straightening as her mother explained. "Wow." She meowed quietly, looking down at the snow in between her paws. "So it ISN'T my fault then? But…that's still so sad." She looked back at the house once more, ears folding against her head. "Weren't they really close though? Now I get it…Hiccup doesn't even have another dragon to fly with."
"That's right."
"Well…then those pictures I ripped up?" Ludi asked sullenly, shoulder slumping. "They probably had something to do with Toothless. And when Hiccup got mad…he said 'I don't want this cat. I never did.'" She looked at her mother, eyes round with distress. "That means he doesn't want me anymore. What do I do now?"
"Don't think like that." Her mother chastised, going over and pressing her flank close to her daughter's. Ludi relaxed somewhat, leaning into her mother's warmth with a shiver. "Of course he loves you, he just got mad is all. I've seen the way that he lets you stay on his shoulder, and the way he pets you and smiles at you. He loves you very much, dear. And you should never forget that. In a way, you might become something just as close to his heart like Toothless."
"But I don't want to do that. I don't want to just be something that replaces his old friend." She objected, her mother drawing back slightly with surprise. "I'm ME. Not Toothless. I want Hiccup to love me because I'm me, not just because he lost his other friend and needs a replacement. How will I know if he really cares about me? If Toothless comes back one day, will he just cast me aside? And never take a look at me again?"
"I doubt that would really happen." Her mother said fairly. "Hiccup isn't one to do that. He is hopelessly heroic, no matter what he may look like. If Toothless ever comes back, he will have you on his shoulder and Toothless by his side. It will all turn out right eventually, trust me, little one."
Ludi gave a hum of reply, the two going silent for a while. Overhead, the snow was getting stronger, coming down in thicker clumps that felt slightly hard. One landed on Ludi's nose, and he gave a squeak, shaking it off roughly. "I'm getting cold." She whined to nobody in particular.
Her mother drew back, giving her a small nudge back the way she had come. "Well, then you'd better go back to your home, Ludi." She said quietly, yellow eyes warm. "It's been nice talking to you. Perhaps we can meet more often, I would like to see my daughter more than once."
Ludi smiled crookedly, much like Hiccup's own smile. "I'd like that." She purred, before spinning around and charging back to the house. She was confident in her ways, because she was not Toothless. She would never hurt Hiccup like Toothless had, she was going to be there for her human. And if he needed a long time to get over Toothless, that was fine by her. She understood his strange behaviors now, and she knew that she had to be careful. She had to be careful, and she had to be gentle. And understanding.
And Hiccup had to be like that too. They were as much of a team and he and Toothless had been, and there was no going back now. She was stuck with him now, and he was stuck with her. With the icy wind flying through her fur, all of Ludi's worries over Hiccup vanished. She would go back up to the room and make things right between them, because after all, she had been the one to make things wrong.
Bounding up the steps, Ludi jumped up onto a windowsill, squeezing through the cracked-open window with care. Glancing around, she realized she was in the kitchen. The other man who was rough with her was nowhere to be found, and it appeared like the house was empty. Taking a deep breath, Ludi launched down from the sill and landed with a gentle thump on the ground.
Perking her ears, Ludi turned and walked into the living room, turning and jumping up the stairs one by one. There was a soft fire in the hearth, the crackling and popping of the fire reaching her ears as she went up the stairs slowly. Coming to the top, she leaned over to look around the corner, heaving herself up as she saw Hiccup's room at the end of the hall. Paw steps seeming to echo in the silence, Ludi brightened as she neared the room. The door was slightly open, leaving just enough room for her to sidle in without causing attention to herself. She wasn't sure that she wanted Hiccup to see her yet.
Coming into the room, she spotted a small sheet and recognized the thing as paper. It was a full sheet, many others stacked on each other lying beside the desk. Hopping over to the pile, Ludi took a sheet gently in her mouth, making a face at the odd taste that entered her mouth. Nevertheless, she turned and looked up curiously at Hiccup's bed. The teen was lying down, barely moving. Was he asleep?
But the slightest twitch of movement told her otherwise. Huffing around the paper in her jaws, Ludi veered off to the left and walked around Hiccup's bed, pausing as she came to the edge. Gathering herself, she pushed off from the ground and shot into the air, leaning forward and landing right beside Hiccup without any difficulty.
The boy started as she fell beside him, obviously surprised. Before he could do anything else, she dropped the clean sheet of paper beside him, turning and jumping back down to the ground. Hiccup blinked, pushing himself up and looking down oddly at the piece of paper. "Ludi?" He asked, trying to see her through the darkness of the room.
A few moments later, she hopped up once more, holding something else in her mouth. As it dropped with a small clatter, Hiccup picked it up and realized it was his charcoal pencil. Blinking rapidly, he looked over at Ludi, confused. The kitten's large eyes were like mini pools of sadness, and she wore the "Cuteness" look as she stared at him. Hiccup could basically hear her asking for forgiveness. She reached out and small paw and prodded the surface of the paper imploringly, not tearing her gaze away from him.
Pausing for a moment, Hiccup stared at her blankly. Slowly, a weak smile came over his face, and he reached out and patted the cat on the head. "You make it hard to stay mad at you." He said. But Ludi's ears flattened as she saw him look over sadly at the mess of shredded papers on the ground.
Lying down dejectedly, Ludi stared at Hiccup as the boy leaned over the piece of paper, taking the pencil in his hand and starting draw. The charcoal made scratchy noises on the surface of the paper, and Ludi suddenly realized that she was tired. Worn out, and still cold. Fluffing out her fur, she rested her head on her paws and closed her eyelids gratefully, snuggling into Hiccup's warmth with a rumbling purr.
Right when she was about ready to fall asleep, Hiccup poked her awake, making her eyes snap open. Blinking blearily, the kitten raised her head and looked with a puzzled look at Hiccup. The boy was holding the piece of paper tightly in his hand, a small smile on his face as he showed it to her. The surface now held a small picture, dark against pale yellow. The image he had drawn was something Ludi hadn't expected, and her ears perked up along with her tail as she smiled.
It was her! Hiccup had drawn a small cat on the paper that looked remarkably close to her own image. Ludi purred loudly, giving a meow of happiness as he reached up and prodded the paper with approval. She looked over at Hiccup to see what was on his face, but blinked as she saw that the boy had already lied back down, his eyes closed.
Smiling, Ludi turned away from the paper, purring as she bundled herself underneath Hiccup's hand, pressing herself against the boy's skinny frame as she closed her own eyes. Soon enough, both of the them were sound asleep, the shredded papers in the corner of the room slipping both of their minds as the image of the cat lied to the left of both of them.
•0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙ •0·˙
A/N: I felt like we once again needed a break from angst and go to fluffy-ness~
I don't know whether or not I will update tomorrow, I have PSR to go to AKA my after-school religion class, remember? So that's a heads-up for all of you~
Next chapter will contain something VERY important! So stay tuned! :D
MA NA MA NA! DO DOOO DO DO DO! :3