Well, it's been a very long time, sorry! Since the new film is out, I guess this is now solidly AU. If anyone's still out there, concrit is appreciated.
Toothless shot past the dramatic rock formations off the coast of Berk. The scenery was beautiful, but Hiccup wasn't paying attention. His head was full of his father's face and the angry shouts of the war council. He should have known he'd screw this up, that he didn't fit into this village. But then why would he want to be part of a clan that was so easily led, and capable of such cruelty? His mind wandered back to the struggle it had been to get the dragons accepted, how the slightest mistake could drive them into a murderous rage. That was what it meant to be a Viking, and Hiccup wasn't sure he was wired that way.
But then he thought of his mother and understood some of that anger. What he remembered most was warmth, and a safety born from knowledge of her power. She and his father must have made quite a pair. He smiled briefly at the thought. But then she had been taken away and nothing had been the same. His father became distant yet stifling, not letting him explore the forests with the others, not letting him out of the house during dragon attacks. If she'd lived he would have been happier, he was sure of it. But then if she'd lived he'd never have met Toothless... Toothless!
Toothless had lost patience with his rider's inattention and had suddenly dropped into a steep dive. Hiccup tried to bring him out of it, slamming his metal leg back to adjust his tail, and the dragon levelled out just before hitting the ground. He came to a screeching halt on a grass bank and Hiccup was thrown over his friend's head, landing with a thud a few feet away.
"Ow. Toothless why would you..." Hiccup looked up and paused at the look in Toothless' eyes. The dragon regarded him intently, with a look of puzzlement and mild irritation, before snorting and shaking his head.
Hiccup sighed and got to his feet, brushing himself down. Walking stiffly over, wincing from his rough landing, he rubbed his friend's head and leaned into his neck, feeling the warmth from the dark scales.
"I'm sorry boy" he said quietly. "I guess flying wasn't enough to clear my head this time."
"Grrrk" the dragon leaned his head into Hiccup, then shuffled back round to look at him again. Hiccup stumbled at the sudden movement. Toothless stared, then bared his withdrawn teeth in what between them passed as a smile. Hiccup smiled back despite himself.
"Ok, no more flying for today. Want to go down to the cove? We could go fishing?" Toothless snorted again, and continued staring hard at Hiccup.
"Fine, well I'm going to the cove okay boy?" Hiccup found himself wishing, not for the first time, that he could understand Toothless as well as Toothless seemed to understand him. He started off into the forest, the dragon following beside him, occasionally sniffing something interesting in the undergrowth.
When they arrived at the cove, Toothless suddenly bounded forward ahead of Hiccup, coming to a halt before the Deadly Nadder that stood preening itself next to the lake.
"Stormfly?" said Hiccup in surprise. Then "Oh.. Hi Astrid."
Hiccup went red as he remembered the look on Astrid's face when he'd tried to reason with his father. Her expression was similar now as she regarded him from beside her dragon. He hastily tried to brush the mud off his clothes from where he'd fallen, and ran his fingers through his hair.
"What are you doing here? Did you come looking for me?" she said angrily.
"Uh, no, I just came here to try and clear my head," replied Hiccup. Astrid's expression softened slightly.
"You too huh? I'm guessing for different reasons though. And it looks like you took a detour through a hedge."
"Fell off Toothless. I was distracted, wasn't paying attention."
Astrid's eyes widened and the corner of her mouth twitched slightly into a brief smile.
"I guess even the greatest dragon riders fall off sometimes."
Hiccup laughed awkwardly, then sighed and dropped down opposite her. There was a brief silence, while Hiccup sketched meaningless lines in the sand with his finger. While he still found Astrid terrifyingly beautiful, their friendship meant the feeling no longer intimidated him, and he'd come to accept that while she would occasionally kiss or touch him when the mood took her, she wasn't planning on being his girlfriend any time soon. The uncertainty occasionally bothered him but today he was glad he could rely on her friendship.
"You seemed pretty sure of yourself in the council," he said after a while, not looking up from his drawing.
"You wouldn't understand," retorted Astrid, and Hiccup smiled slightly at the childish tone in her voice.
"Try me," he said, looking up from his drawing. He felt the familiar feeling in his stomach as she met his eye, and didn't look away. "It seems I need convincing that this whole 'attack the clansmen' thing is a good idea. You seem pretty convinced. I don't know what I think, so try me. Explain to me why we should."
Astrid looked hard at him but Hiccup met her gaze. She looked away and slumped onto her back in the sand, staring up at the sky.
"How much do you know about the clansmen?" she asked.
"As much as everyone knows really. They have powerful weapons that we don't understand. They ride horses, which we've never been able to keep because of the dragons. They dress strangely but speak our language, or something similar. They drove us out seven generations ago, after we came to their land from the far north, but nobody remembers what the far north was like." Hiccup racked his memory for anything else he had heard or read about their enemies.
"They have a lot of rituals and their chiefs live apart from their villages. They defend their land the same as we would. I guess I'm just not Viking enough to see why we have to attack them," he finished bitterly.
Astrid didn't respond at first. What Hiccup could see of her face was set in a frown, but he knew her well enough to recognise thought rather than anger.
"Hiccup, what would you say if your dad decided I couldn't be in the war council?" she asked finally, sitting up.
"Huh? I'd say he's an idiot. You're the best warrior out of all of us," he said with surprise.
"But I'm a girl."
"So? What does that have to do with anything? I mean I guess if you have kids it limits the amount you can fight but at any other time it makes no difference. Most people forget Ruffnut's even a girl. What does that have to do with the clansmen though?"
Astrid got to her feet and went and stood next to Hiccup. He looked up from where he was sitting, squinting as the sun shone behind her, lighting up her blonde hair and shadowing her face.
"In the Westland girls can't be warriors. They have to stay at home, wear stupid clothes that you can't run around in, cook and clean and look pretty. They're there for men to take as prizes and that's it," she said with characteristic bluntness. She crouched down to Hiccup's eye level. "That's why we have to take their land. That's why we have to drive them out. They're cruel and barbaric and unfair."
"I didn't know that," Hiccup said quietly. He was thinking of his mother. Had she known this? Was that why she had gone into battle? Had she been killed defending her right to... be killed?
Astrid sat down beside him, close enough that he could feel her body heat.
"How do you know all this?" he asked her.
She didn't respond at first, but shuffled closer to him until their sides were touching. To Hiccup's surprise he realised he could feel her shaking. He hesitated, unsure whether to put his arm around her. She had been known to react angrily if he crossed her unwritten boundaries and he wasn't sure what they were. He settled for shifting his weight so they were leaning against each other, feeling his heart rate increase.
"I trust you Hiccup," she said quietly, still shaking slightly.
"I... trust you too Astrid," he responded, unsure where this was going.
"What do you know about my father?"
"Your father? Wasn't he killed in a dragon attack?" Hiccup realised as he spoke that he had no idea how Astrid's father had died, so many people on Berk were missing family members from raids or dragon attacks that it was simply accepted as a part of life, and amongst his friends it wasn't spoken about.
"Hiccup my father was a clansman," Astrid said softly and there was a harsh edge to her voice. Hiccup felt his heart beat even harder, but he could tell this was a struggle for her. He was briefly reminded of his first days with Toothless, and forced his voice to sound calm and steady when he replied.
"How?" he said simply.
"My mother was injured in a raid and got lost in a forest. The other warriors were driven off before they could find her. My father found her and nursed her back to health, and they fell in love." The harsh tone in her voice was stronger now, and she almost spat the final word.
"She married him, but it turned out he was as bad as the rest of them. She became his property, he wouldn't let her explore the forest, barely let her leave the house for her own 'protection', and when she got pregnant with me it only got worse." Astrid hunched her shoulders, jabbing a finger harshly into the sand. Hiccup swallowed, her words sounded vaguely familiar.
"Eventually she couldn't bear it any more and she left, stole a boat and sailed back to Berk alone. He probably thinks she died in the attempt, how could a poor simple woman sail a boat by herself." She was snarling now and Hiccup realised she was shaking from anger.
"The village was relieved to see her alive and I was born here on Berk. It's my home and I'm a Viking, and nobody knows otherwise. She's never told anyone about my father but me. And now I've told you." She gripped his wrist and pulled his head round to look at her. Their faces were centimetres apart and Hiccup stopped breathing.
"You will not tell a single person about this Hiccup." There was no hint of a question. Hiccup shook his head as much as her grip on his jaw would allow. He could feel her heart beating. Her brow furrowed, and then she kissed him, hard on the mouth so he fell backwards and for a brief second she was on top of him, pressed against him, pinning his wrists to the ground, her knees digging awkwardly into his leg and her lips against his with a desperate fierceness. There was a warning growl from Toothless and just as quickly she rolled off with a warrior's agility.
Hiccup sat up dazed, and lightly touched his lip where the force of her kiss had bruised it. He looked over to her, but knew better than to speak. He'd received enough punches to know she didn't like to be questioned over things like this. She seemed to be getting ready to go, lifting up her axe from where she'd left it buried in the ground and strapping it to her back.
She looked back over to him and it was like the last half an hour had never happened. She smiled easily with a raised eyebrow.
"If you still need convincing, there's one more thing," she called, as she swung herself up onto Stormfly.
"The clansmen have stories and legends from before we came to that land. Legends of dragons that stalked the air and killed their animals. Until they drove them out, away from their land, into the great sea. Every last one. There are no dragons there now."
With that, Stormfly took off, her wings blowing dust and sand into Hiccup's eyes. Toothless walked over and nudged him gently. He absent mindedly patted his friends nose as he watched Astrid fly away, his head spinning.
