Thank you to everyone who liked and followed my little series! I am surprised at how popular these little shorts are, especially given my lackluster ability to update! Here is another nice long glimpse into Astrid's life.

Nobody's Girl

Thunk! Her axe landed in the exact middle of the final dragon-shaped target. Astrid, covered in beads of sweat and arms shaking with fatigue, grinned widely. She lived for the moments when she knew she had been absolutely perfect. She straightened out of her throwing stance and turned to face her audience.

"Like Thor's own arm," Stoick Haddock approved. His arms were crossed and his eyes gleamed appraisingly. "Ye've a good eye for the next move, lass. Most only think of what they're doing now."

Her father said nothing, but clapped her on the back, hiding a grin behind his thick blond beard. He had promised not to embarrass her by exulting in front of the chief, but she could feel the pride rolling off him.

"Arvid, I am very pleased to have you as witness for this," Stoick rumbled, drawing his own heavy broadsword. He let the tip touch the ground and held the hilt in one hand. Without being told, Astrid wrapper her own comparatively small hand over his. "Astrid Arvidotter of clan Hofferson, as your chief, it gives me great pleasure to name you head of the Fire Brigade. You will be responsible for directing the training and coordination of the team, whether in time of peace, or under attack. Do you swear to me, in the presence of your people, to act honorably and bravely at all times, and to be willing to lay down your life to protect our village?"

"I swear, my chief," she replied proudly, tossing her head to get her wispy blonde bangs out of her eyes.

"Then seal your word with blood," he commanded, moving his free hand to lightly scrape the edge of his sword. She mimicked him, and the sharp metal drew a thin line of blood on both their hands. He clasped her bloodied hand over the pommel of the sword, making her oath one to die for before breaking faith. "I know," he added, with a very unofficial grin on his wise face, "you'll do your family proud."

"That she will," Arvid said, doing nothing to hide the glowing tears in his eyes. "Well done, Astrid."

She nodded, grinning and feeling like she could burst with happiness. "Thanks, dad."

Stoick straightened, releasing her hand, and sheathed his sword. "Vikings of Berk!" he raised his voice so the assembled village could hear him. "You have seen Astrid Hofferson fight, heard her pledge to me, and know her character. Do you pledge your children to fight under her?"

"Aye!" came the raucous cry, even from those whose children were too old or too young to be part of the Fire Brigade, the elite group of teens whose task it was to keep dragon fire from spreading during raids - a difficult and dangerous task, to say the least. At fifteen, Astrid was the youngest leader the Brigade had had in living memory.

"It is witnessed; let it be done!" Stoick cried in a mighty voice above the roar of the crowd, raising his arms in triumph. Astrid took in a deep breath, gazing out at the crowd that surrounded the training arena. Though it would be a year before she was allowed back in here to train to fight dragons, her test for today had to take place somewhere everyone could watch without getting hurt. The whole village had been assembled, partly for the feast that was to take place after the judgement and ceremony, and partly, Astrid suspected, to see a Frozen Hofferson fall on her face. The latter group would go home disappointed.

"Break out the ale!" someone called, and as quickly as the hoary, cheering crowd could move, they burst into the main village longhouse where the tables groaned under the weight of foods piled on them. The celebration was not for Astrid, necessarily - it was high summer, and there was always a feast at this time, provided Berk had the supplies to spare. Her achievement was an added source of mirth to the usual festivities.

"Well done, Astrid!" her eldest brother Argin crowed, sitting down heavily in the seat beside her. Like her father, he was built like an ox, and had the sunny blonde hair and bright blue eyes that were common in their family. "They'll call ya Fiesty Hofferson after this!"

"Aye, or Ferocious Hofferson?" the middle brother Bjorn laughed, lifting a mug of ale in Astrid's direction, saluting her. He was thinner and not so beefy as his brother and father, but he possessed broad shoulders and was clever with a sword.

"What about Flawless Hofferson?" Argin's wife Onion teased, offering the teen a hot damp rag to wipe her sweaty face with.

"Fearsome Hofferson," Arvid proclaimed, waving a huge joint of roasted mutton to emphasize his words. "She's Fearsome Hofferson, and one day you'll hear dragons scream it as they fly away!"

Everyone nearby laughed goodnaturedly. Of course dragons couldn't understand things like names. They were devils, evil malicious beasts, but still ultimately just dumb animals barely above the sheep they stole. For every Viking the winged monsters managed to kill, the blood of dozens of dragons was spilled.

Still, as Astrid thought to herself soberly - she had always been prone to keep her mind on serious things, even during a party - the dragons were more than clever enough to do real damage, and it had been getting steadily worse. Looking around the room at the gathered village, she could only see five possible recruits for her fire brigade: Snotlout, the twins, Fishlegs, and Hiccup. They were the only teens of this generation who had survived past the age of ten. She frowned sharply, thinking of how she should go about structuring the team. I need to keep Snotlout focused on the job - not too hard if he thinks there's glory at the end of it. The twins can be motivated to stop the dragon's chaos if I tell them it makes their own craziness look tame. Fishlegs… I can make him more afraid of me than he is of the dragons. And Hiccup will be fine, if he can keep from doing anything crazy. She let her gaze linger on Hiccup for a moment, the soft pang in her heart reminding her that he had ruined their friendship a little over two years ago and she had never yet found anyone she trusted so much. No one else remotely close to her age understood her, and she had stopped letting them try. To be open was to be vulnerable, and that was just asking for more awkwardness and hurt.

Hiccup seemed to feel her eyes on him; he lifted his gaze from his plate and gave her a half-hearted wave and smile. She kept her expression stern, nodded in recognition, and turned back to her family. She couldn't ignore him fully - she still remembered the good times too vivdly for that - but she had to make sure there were no chinks in her emotional armor. If she wanted to be the best, to continue restoring her clan's honor, she had to be above the slings and arrows of broken friendships.

"Noooooo, I've drunk ale befur now," Tuffnut drawled, stumbling across the pathway in the wrong direction. "I'm pacticurly a man." He tried to inflate his skinny chest, and the effect was comical.

"You have not," Ruffnut retorted in a muted, dreamy tone. She walked in a zig-zag around her brother, smiling stupidly. "Mom won't let you."

"Ugh, figures the one time your voice doesn't grate on my ears, you're drunk," Astrid grumbled, grabbing the twins by their ears and hauling them forward. She had caught them in the taproom having a go at a tub of mead - they must have slipped off during the celebration, and it wasn't hard to imagine them daring each other to drink far more than their young bodies could handle. "I'd tell you that you're in for a world of hurt, but you won't remember this tomorrow." Astrid pinched their ears to make them follow her instead of slogging off to the sides. "Come on, mutton heads."

"Are we going to see the Yak-Father?" Ruffnut asked, hiccuping dreamily.

"Yak-Fathur livesh with rainbowsh in the shkies," Tuffnut proclaimed, trying unsuccessfully to lift his arms in a dignified way while being led by the pulling on his ear.

Astrid shook her head as she led them outside, looking for a water trough. I have a lot of work in front of me if I want to whip these two into fighting shape. They stumbled down the steps leading from the Great Hall and to the nearest source of cold water: the rain barrels at Gobber's smithy. With no great difficulty, Astrid plunged both their heads in the water for a few seconds. Even at the height of Berk's summer, the water was unpleasantly cold, and they first shivered, then came up gasping for air.

"My heaaaaaad," Tuffnut groaned, collapsing in the ground.

"It'll hurt worse in the morning," Astrid told him, smiling with slightly malicious satisfaction.

"Not as worse as mine hurts!" Ruffnut whined, looking pathetic and wet as she lay on the ground.

"Go home when you've got your legs working again," Astrid instructed. She gave them a final warning glare until they both murmured agreement, then spun on her heel and headed back to the party. She wasn't about to miss the celebration because of a few stupid lightweights. But before she could make it even a dozen yards away from the smithy, she heard someone grunt in pain. A very familiar someone.

"And then Stoick just glows with pride as she swears her oath. Like he doesn't even remember that you exist," taunted another familiar voice. "Oh, that's right; he doesn't. Because you're Hiccup the Useless."

Astrid's mouth hardened into a line of determination and her eyes gleamed the blue of steel in the darkness. She broke into a controlled run and came around the corner to find Hiccup sprawled on the ground, hands over his head, and Snotlout standing over him. Neither noticed her until it was too late. A bigger Viking might have slammed Snotlout with their shoulder and knocked him down, but Astrid grabbed his collar and pulled his head down sharply, bringing her knee up to meet his face. There was a sharp crack and the boy dropped to the ground limply. He had probably already had enough ale to make him sleepy, she decided, or he wouldn't have gone down that easily.

"Astrid?" Hiccup yelped, scrambling to his feet and trying to brush his clothes off. "Hi. I, uh, was just gettin' ready to pounce him."

She rolled her eyes and stepped over Snotlout, who was lying on the ground and muttering incoherently. "You need training, discipline, and exercise, Hiccup, but you're not useless."

His face reddened, showing she had read the situation properly. "I - I don't think I'm useless. I'm just waiting for the next dragon raid to prove them wrong."

She folded her arms across her chest. "Them?" she repeated. "Who is them?"

He shrugged wildly and indicated the village at large. "Snotlout, the fishing crews, my dad - you want me to keep going? The list is pretty extensive."

"Hiccup," she sighed, her desire to keep her safety walls up warring with old loyalties.

"I'm pretty sure I heard a sheep bleat 'useleeeeeeess' the other day," he continued sarcastically, even as real hurt flashed in his eyes.

Astrid decided to lower her defenses for just one second and help him. "Stop. Just stop. If you're going to be on my Fire Brigade, you have to stop thinking about what ham-fisted mutton heads like him," she lightly kicked at Snotlout, who started to rouse, "say about you. Do what I did: prove them wrong every day. Don't wait for the next dragon raid! Be diligent, disciplined, and follow orders, and I promise all of 'them' will figure out you're not useless."

Hiccup stared at her like she had grown a second head - or perhaps more like she was the sun bursting out of a stormcloud. "I'm going to be on the Fire Brigade?" he repeated incredulously.

She uncrossed her arms and put one hand on his shoulder in a strong gesture of friendship. "You're a Viking, Hiccup. You and I were born a little different, but we can both make them see we can be the best of them. Just be yourself. Your best, focused, not-running-off-to-see-something-shiny self," she added quickly.

Hiccup cleared his throat and started to say something, but his voice cracked, and he turned it into an embarrassed cough. Before he could try again, Snotlout sat up, and woozily demanded, "Useless, take your hands off my girl! You know I gave you Ruffnut."

Astrid's eyes narrowed dangerously as she let go of Hiccup and spun to face the beefy Jorgenson teen. "I am not your girl," she spat, wishing she had her axe to drive the point home.

Snotlout shrugged and tried to stand up. He slipped on the gravel and sat back down in an undignified heap when the effort failed. "You don't have a lot of options, Astrid. It's either me, Tuffnut, or Useless. Fishlegs is too chicken to even count." With the blunt truthfulness that his tipsiness often brought out, he added, "We're the only guys, after all."

Her white-hot retort died on her lips. Snotlout, idiot Snotlout, was right. Berk's population was slowly being driven away or dying off. Only five teens on the entire island meant that when the time came for her family to choose her husband, she had extremely limited options. She had never really planned that far ahead, and now the reality of it shocked her like a blast of cold water. Married to Fishlegs or Snotlout? I'd rather die, she shuddered, and in that moment, she made her decision. "Then I'll dedicate my life to Freya and be a virgin shieldmaid," she said firmly. "I'll be nobody's girl."

Snotlout shook his head, attempting a smooth smolder and failing miserably. "Wait until I start courting you, babe. You'll be begging to hang out with me."

Astrid grimaced at the idea and turned her back on him to give a final encouragement to Hiccup. To her surprise, he looked even more crushed and hurt. He tried to cover by rambling. "A shieldmaid, huh? That's good. Yeah, you'll be great at that. Alone. Without anyone."

Her surprise morphed into disgust as she understood. "You still - How can - Ugh! Boys!" she shouted in frustration, throwing her hands up and walking away. Both cousins watched her go; one with slightly inebriated confidence and admiration, and the other with hopeless longing.