A/N: A few things—firstly, thanks for all the lovely reviews and faves and follows and whatnot. As always they're very encouraging. Secondly, there is a lot of talking in this chapter but also some doing, hopefully all entertaining. Thirdly, I think I may end up temporarily switching POV for the next chapter or part of it. That might make more sense after you've read this one, but be prepared for the possibility. And lastly, I just wanted to put out there that I think this fic will be anywhere from 7-12 chapters, but if the interest is there I'll do a second half that's post-HTTYD2. Mainly because, Valka and Astrid? Yeah. Here for it. Okay, enough, here's a chapter.

Astrid had been pursuing Hiccup for twenty minutes to no avail when the air around her went gray and dense: they had flown right into a storm.

He'd started out north, turning around and waving to call her off, but in spite of Toothless's speed and the declining weather Astrid gave one hell of a chase. Now she was shadowing the occasional glimpse of a red tailfin through the thick cloud cover—whatever kind of storm this was, it felt more like dust than the cold dewiness of a raincloud, and she began to cough, eyes streaming. Vikings were no strangers to the damp, and she'd flown through a fair amount of mist in her life, but this was dry mist—not really mist at all. It was now too dusty to see the tip of Stormfly's nose, let alone make out Hiccup. Astrid pulled her hood up and leaned low over her dragon's neck, trying to shield her face from the harsh air, and screamed for him as loud as she could. Stormfly slowed, writhing nervously beneath her.

After a moment of fearful listening, she heard him.

"ASTRID? ARE YOU OKAY?"

"Yes!" she shouted at the wall of gray surrounding her. "I can't see anything."

"Stay where you are, I'll come to your voice." A moment later, the end of a rope flew out of the nothingness. "Did you get the rope?" he asked, now sounding much closer.

She latched on to it before it slid away. "Yes, I have it, I have the rope!"

"Tie it to your saddle, it'll tether us together. Then we can try to get below whatever this is and land somewhere." Her hands shook, slowing the progress of her knot.

"It's done."

"Okay. Lower, bud."

Astrid stroked Stormfly's neck. "Lower, girl."

The two dragons flapped downwards in unison—maybe they had some special sense that helped them pinpoint each other's locations without sight. Instead, she had only an inkling that Hiccup flew near, only an inadequate feeling that he was okay, frustrating for Astrid who worked best with the tangible.

Minutes passed before the cloud cover started to thin and she could see the outline of Hiccup and Toothless, hovering twenty feet from them. The journey down had left them a stone's throw from the surface of the sea. They were joined by the tether, which he started to cut, but she raised a hand. "Leave it. Just in case."

Hiccup nodded. He had that look of shaken strength in his eyes, staring up at the cloud in wonder and disconcertion. "We need to land and let this thing pass."

"Back to Berk?"

"No, we're leagues from Berk now, we were moving pretty fast before we hit the cloud." He pointed to the horizon, where a tiny, probably unnamed island stuck out of the water. More like a few trees parked on a dirty rock than an island, really. "There."

She gestured her agreement and they set out across the ocean, Stormfly's talons skimming the waves. The layer of strange dust crept further towards the earth, crushing them into the surface. The sky had been swallowed up, reduce to a sliver of clear air between them and the island. It made Astrid shiver, and wrap her hands around the rope that connected her to Hiccup.

When they reached land and dismounted, the air was still cloudy, and the dragons began to snort and stomp at the dust in their lungs, but the ground comforted her nevertheless. She went to Hiccup's side at once, but he was trying to look out, his expression consternated. "It's bizarre," he muttered. "I can't see a thing. What's doing this?"

Tugging at her mind, through the layer of fear and surprise (what was more helpless than not being able to see five feet in front of you?), was the conversation they'd been having before this catastrophe cropped up. Scared or not, they were stuck on this island until the foul weather cleared, and if Hiccup thought he could escape her—could escape her… Okay, so admittedly she hadn't really had a plan for when she caught him! She only knew that it was important for her to do so, and that she would… figure it out as she went along. Didn't seem like it would be too hard: there was nothing negative in what she felt, unless you counted anxiety that he'd try to recant what he said, or humdrumming about the future, both of which were drowned out by adrenaline and the depressing vacancy of her lips. She almost felt relieved that he'd been the one to put it out there, so she didn't have to—confessions were never really her forte.

"Hiccup," she said quietly, standing behind him as he peered out beyond the island's sheer edge. His hair stuck out in all directions, made stiff by the dust; she thought her own must've looked dreadful, coarse as it felt, and she knew her eyes were red and puffy. The dragons had stilled and were curled up together, Toothless trying to cover his nostrils with his feet and then forgetting to breathe from his mouth, while his master prattled on.

"I think the whole cloud must go a thousand feet up, it's unreal. It's probably going to reach the village eventually, and Thor help us then, who knows how—"

"Hiccup," she said again, louder.

"It's barely clearing," he continued, clueless, shaking his head. "We'll have to pray the North Wind isn't strong tonight, maybe it'll get carried west."

With a sigh, she wheeled him around by the tunic and planted a kiss hard against his lips, then let go as she pulled away—though pulling away turned into something more like idling inches from his mouth to get a glimpse of his expression, without precluding the possibility of more. It looked like she'd managed to wipe his mind of dust clouds and North Winds.

"Astrid," he mumbled, careening toward her, and their lips met a second time, more by the nature of gravity than either of their individual wills. Seconds ticked by and they were still kissing, then harder—the first time she had ever really kissed Hiccup, instead of just teasing it. They had their arms around each other, a closeness provoked by the danger of the situation and the inviting absence where there had once been a wall between them, preventing just this kind of thing. Ranked among the few kisses she'd had, it was mind-blowing. Earth-shattering. Ground-shaking. Sky-shaking. Tree-shaking.

Wait.

They parted and the shaking didn't stop. The dragons flopped and squawked, squealing—the island beneath them shuddered again and again, and Astrid tried to reach out for Stormfly with one arm while clinging to Hiccup with the other.

"What's going on?"

He shook his head, wide-eyed. No idea. They went about trying to calm the dragons, shoulder-to-shoulder—she didn't want to lose touch.

"Should we try to fly somewhere else?" she yelled over the rumbling under their feet.

"The visibility is still impossible, we have to stay here."

A searing heat materialized on her upper arm and, crying out, she flinched away from it, right into Hiccup, a smoking gray flake drifting to the ground where she'd stood. Where it had touched her there was a stinging red welt. "Ash," she gasped. They frowned at each other, her arm coiling around his—now there were little streams of smoke falling all around them like hail.

Above their heads extended two wings, one black and the other splotched blue, orange and purple; Hiccup and Astrid fell cross-legged to the cold ground, with Stormfly and Toothless lying on either side to keep the ash off their masters, purring umbrellas. The earth continued to rumble and groan, and Astrid kept Hiccup's hand firmly in hers.

"It's a volcano," he offered up, trying to sound excited and not terrified. "I've been scouting an island around here, thinking it might've been one, but I never—" A huge boom shook the sky above them, and the ground on which they sat, as though Odin himself had taken the world in his hands and jostled it around. Instinctively they reach out to each other, and she heard Hiccup exhale sharply as he wrapped himself around her. She had heard stories of volcanoes, and how they could level towns, wipe out peoples. She thought of the people back home, of her mother, and how frightened everyone must have been. Stormfly curled closer to her.

"Are the gods angry?" she whispered—the island was covered in soft ash, like snow.

Hiccup smiled weakly, as they pulled apart, but not by much. "Something like that."

"When you say 'an island around here,' not this island, right?"

"No. It's miles away." He stared out beyond the island, to where a horizon must have existed, but they could see only ash and flecks of fire. "We'll be safe, we just have to wait until the eruption stops and the ash clears."

"And how long is that gonna take?" As if to answer her, another quake rattled the island. His hand gave hers a squeeze.

"A day? Maybe two?"

Astrid buried her head in his shoulder and groaned. "My mom is going to kill me."

"Hey, at least a volcanic ash cloud is a pretty good excuse," he replied, with forced levity. "And we're close enough to Berk they've got to be seeing the effects of it a little. No skepticism this time around!" They both put a good but failed effort into laughing.

"How do you know so much about volcanoes?" she asked, and he shrugged. "No, that's a real question. How do you know?"

Hiccup moved away from her, his brow furrowed at the toe of his boot. "It's nothing." It seemed like a simple enough thing to ask, factual and whatnot, and she couldn't help pouting at a little as his weird standoffishness.

"What's the big secret?"

"Not a secret," he answered, a little sheepish,. "Okay. Well, when we were younger, you and the twins and Snotlout… less so Fishlegs, but pretty much, you guys…"

"All hated you?"

"Thank you for summing that up," he said dryly.

Astrid smiled, thinking how the tables had turned, and Hiccup shot her a glare. "Sorry," she spluttered, covering her mouth. "Keep going."

"So," he continued, relaxing as she sidled nearer to him, "I was alone a lot of the time. I drew things. And I read books. I read all the annals of Berk."

"The annals of Berk?"

"The yearly record—it's the weather patterns, harvest yield, births and marriages and new chiefs. That kind of thing. The Elder keeps it, so I borrowed them from Gothi." She nodded. She had never once thought that anyone might be writing this sort of information down, but as established, Hiccup had a very different perspective. "And in there, there was some stuff about volcanoes. There have been eruptions in the archipelago before." And then, as if hearing he'd begun to sound too much like the annals himself, he added, "I also chased trolls. I was a weird kid." The dour expression on his face read, Still am.

"I chased trolls too," she said dismissively. "They're real."

"You did?"

"What?"

"Astrid!"

"What?" He was grinning at her, and she started punching at his arm to get him to stop, which he didn't.

"You chased trolls? In the forest behind the village? When we were kids!"

"Yes," she half-grunted. His laughter was sort of infectious; she fought to live the humor down.

"How come I never saw you?"

"Because trolls aren't blind! I was hiding."

"So you saw me?"

"Yes. All the time." She remembered he would come barreling down the path from the village, an annoying surprise that had once nearly knocked her out of her tree perch. Peering at his hand in hers, she realized that was when she had first pegged him as a loser—not in the sense that he was uncool (that was also true, but Astrid didn't put much stock in the abstract idea of "coolness"), but in the sense that he would never win. And all Astrid had cared about was winning. Again, how the tables had turned, right on to her head.

"And what did you think?" A grin still split his face, sending her stomach into spasms.

"I thought, 'oh, there's that weird boy who doesn't know trolls aren't blind,'" she replied, and they laughed genuinely this time, their shoulders knocking. As she caught her breath, she found him looking at her with an almost exacting expression, as though struggling to make sense of something in her face.

"What?" she demanded, flushing under his gaze. The most violent shaking seemed to have stopped, at least for the time being, and only the distance rumbled, the ground beneath them twitching every so often in tandem with that sound. She was practically used to it, by now. The falling ash was sort of lovely, even, and it felt warmer than it had been in weeks. One of them had to have some food and water in a saddlebag, or they could try to fish when it cleared a bit—she could spend two days here, no problem. She didn't think she'd be bored.

Hiccup said, in a tone that seemed to admonish its own stupidity, "I really like your nose, a lot."

Astrid laughed, very loudly, and tried to cover it with a cough. "Oh man," she said, putting her hands over her gut like she'd been punched there, "you are never going to hear the end of that one. That's awful. Yikes."

He put his face in his hands. "I wish I were never born."

"Oh, come on, this from the boy who defeated the Red Death?"

"This is worse, this is terrible." Behind him, Toothless made a noise that sounded a lot like laughter.

"Gods, Hiccup," she moaned, pulling his hands away and toward her, so she could lean in. "Everyone's got to start somewhere."

She kissed him again, gentler this time, to a less resoundingly positive response. When she sat back, he looked torn.

Astrid frowned. "Or not?"
"It's not that," he said, but she didn't feel convinced. Hiccup groaned-sighed, a sort of characteristic noise from him, where it sounded like someone had sat on his abdomen in the middle of an exhale. "Astrid, we need to talk."

"Oh no," she muttered, exchanging a panicked look with Stormfly (who was always on her side in these situations).

"Oh yes," he cut in, "because, because whenever I try to talk to you about this we get interrupted, or you pull that pouty face, and I'm just… we need to talk about it."

"You said you'd bear with me, Hiccup!"

"That was months ago, I've been bearing, I am bearing—I just want to talk."

"Talk about what?" she tried, but he was ready with an answer, sitting forward to address her.

"About how you were so angry thinking I'd forgotten about you that you reacted by lying to me when you were in danger, because you get so upset when someone mistakes us for being together, but then you don't want anyone else to come on flights with us because that's 'our thing', and you'd—you'd rather kiss me than say you care about me, which, let's face it Astrid, is a little bit weird?" He'd let go of her hands and dropped them in her lap, where she stared at her fingers in silence. "It's just… it's just confusing. Every time I say it's confusing you just, tell me I'm confusing too, and maybe that's true! I'll answer any question you have, Astrid, I just need you to tell me what's going on. Please, Astrid." Her face was wet all of a sudden.

"I don't know." When she looked up at him she could see very little anger there, which was comforting, by degrees. He took her hands back in his, mouthing something, maybe whoa, whoa—he had never seen Astrid cry, even like this, silently with her chin held high. Understandable: the last time she'd done so, it involved fleeing to the woods in the middle of the night. "I'm scared, maybe."

"Scared of what?"

She shrugged violently. "Because I used to know what the future was going to be like, and the older I get the less clear it becomes."

He slumped over, hands still tight around hers. "I know that feeling."

"Yes, but you are our future, Hiccup." He drew back, startled by her confidence in this assertion. "Me, I'm… yesterday's girl, or something."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Is it ridiculous, Hiccup?" she said, scowling.

He flushed and ducked his head. "Well, I accept that you're feeling that way and everything, but it's ridiculous to me, because from where I'm sitting you're very much today's girl. Woman. Person."

"Girl-woman-person is correct," she said through a sniffle, and he grinned.

"I can't imagine a future for Berk without you, either." She tried to mop her face on her wristguard, and his hand came to rest on her shoulder. "Though admittedly I'm biased, since if it's not obvious, I am kind of crazy about you?" Astrid chortled, and then inhaled deeply, recovering.

"I didn't need to hear you say that," she began, her confidence restored if shaky.

He conceded hastily, "Of course you didn't."

"But it did help. So thank you."

"Anytime you need someone to sing your praises, you call my name, milady." Hiccup gave her a little salute, and something tightened in her chest.

"I'm sorry I ever hated you."

"I'm sorry I ever treated you like Snotlout does," he sighed, with a pitiful glance out at the ashy island.

"It's okay. That was never really you." He smiled at her and she added, with some awkwardness, "I can say that because I am also crazy about… you."

Awkwardness aside, Hiccup flashed her an enormous smile, his face lit up. "That, Astrid," he pecked her on the cheek, "is extremely good news."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, yes!"

"Well, I don't know what to do about it right now." Now that her emotional moment and the immediate natural disaster had passed, she felt for the first time how much they had really been touching, these past few minutes. She glanced at his hand on her shoulder and, as if on cue, he drew it away. "You know how it is, once we're… that, we can never un-become that, and I'm only sixteen."

He repeated what she'd said earlier, dying hope in his tone, "You'll be seventeen in a few weeks."

"You know it's different for me than it is for you, Hiccup."

He propped his chin up on a knee, mouth twisted into a wanting smile. "I had heard something about that, yeah."

"I'm not ready to be your girlfriend," she said. In that moment she felt braver than she had ever felt in the battle arena, and humbled too; and she looked Hiccup right in the eye, even though the disappointment on his face stabbed her in the gut. But he deserved forthrightness, and a whole lot more—the latter of which one day, she'd give him. Just not today.

"Okay," he muttered. "That's… open-ended." This was just the sort of emotional clarity Hiccup appreciated and valued, which she knew because it had always differentiated him from every other Viking she knew. And he was obviously struggling with the disparity between that value and appreciation, and his intense admiration of Astrid, a very flattering thing that somehow only succeeding in assuring her she'd made the right decision.

"Can you handle it?"

He drew himself up a few inches. "Yeah, I think I can. It's not like you can get rid of me, us being co-chiefs and all."

Feeling like air, she mirrored the kiss he'd left on her cheek not a minute ago. "I did say I wasn't ready, not that I wasn't interested. Personally, I feel like this whole volcano thing is really just Odin's excuse for us to make out for two days." Hiccup started to laugh and she jabbed him in the stomach. "What, is that a no?"

"I can't say no. I don't know how. What's no? Is that a word?"

Late afternoon the next day, Hiccup announced that he thought it was clear enough to fly home. Through an off-white haze, the horizon line was finally visible, but Astrid only groaned, and tried to drag him back to the spot which had been just theirs for twenty-four ecstatic, lazy hours of talking and kissing. So they took another three, just to be safe.

It was starting to get dark by the time they started home, and sunset when they arrived, the short journey lengthened by the still-testy weather. Berk, like the island they left, was covered in ash. They would have to pray for a heavy rain, to wash it away. Crops had already been lost. She caught herself thinking these things and glanced at Hiccup, in front of her on Toothless; how had he already got her considering rain patterns and crops after a day together? That was so chiefly.

They touched down in the square and someone shouted, "STOICK! THEY'RE BACK!"

The chief emerged from his and Hiccup's house, his great feet thundering across the green to meet them.

"Son!"

"Hi, Dad, we're fine." Astrid waved.

"You two are making a habit of this." Stoick put an oversized hand on Hiccup's shoulder, looking deeply concerned. "The gods have sent us a punishment, son."

"It's just a volcano, Dad," Hiccup explained, apparently deaf to the understatement of it being 'just a volcano', and he went on to tell them everything that had occurred in scientific detail, which seemed to befuddle and mystify the Hooligans as much as it clarified the events. If anything, they looked more convinced that the gods had sent them a punishment. When he came to the aspect of the story involving his and Astrid's being stuck on an island by themselves for a night and a day, the general response was something along the lines of, well, of course these two kids found an excuse to cozy up together, and by the end of the unofficial town meeting, Astrid was propped up against Stormfly, rubbing her temples.

Hiccup did the talking because he was better at the talking, and once he'd said his piece, he and Stoick started plotting a cleanup effort for the village, which was her cue to sneak out.

Except that when she turned around, she found the twins, Snotlout, and Fishlegs waiting for her.

Snotlout stepped forward, a hand draped nobly across his chest. "Astrid, I am so sorry you had to go through that without a strong masculine figure to make you feel safe."

Ignoring this stupidity, Ruff grinned at her. "Pretty convenient volcanic ash cloud, huh. Did you have fun?"

"So much fun," Astrid chimed coyly, and then leaned toward her friends, making a special effort to get close to Snotlout. "You know, Hiccup won't brag, but let me tell you, he could. Plenty of material."

She gave their astonished looks a big smile and turned to stalk off. Behind her, Fishlegs whispered, "I don't know what that means." They'd struggle for ages.

But the victorious moment didn't last. She'd made it ten feet out of the square when she heard her mother's voice, and the towering woman appeared out of nowhere. "Astrid. Let's walk home together." Well. There went her escape. She gave Phlegma a pained smile but went along with it.

At first they were quiet, boots crunching in the ash, but Astrid could feel a wallop around the corner.

"So," said Phlegma. "You got your wish."

There it was.

"Well," said Astrid, looking straight ahead.

"Well? Did you enjoy it?"

Astrid turned bright red. Why did everyone want to know about all the fun she'd had with Hiccup? "It wasn't—like that, Mom, I told you—"

Her mother raised a hand and shook her head, not needing an explanation, so Astrid fell silent. "One day I'll ask that question and you'll say yes, you did enjoy it. Which you should." Silent but no less red, apparently. This conversation grew more horrifying each time they tried to have it.

"We didn't," she swore miserably.

"I believe you. That was not my meaning." They had climbed a hill and arrived at the Hofferson house; her mother stopped and turned to her. "When you disappeared yesterday, Astrid, we did not know if you would ever be back. I have been thinking about your frustration lately."

"Yeah?" She glanced down into the square, where Hiccup was trying to stop Toothless from rolling in the giant drifts of ash.

"Yes. You are feeling condescended and limited by your lot."

Her head snapped to look at her mother. "Yes. That's right." She couldn't hide the surprise in her voice—it was a better summary than she could've given herself.

Phlegma cleared her throat, and adjusted her helmet under her arm, where she always seemed to carry it in case she would have to flit off to battle in the midst of a heartfelt talk with her daughter. Though, this conversation seemed to Astrid the weak imitation of heartfelt—but it was honest, for once. "I propose," said her mother, "that you accompany me on my next voyage out from Berk."

Astrid's mouth fell open. "Like a raiding party?"

"Not raiding—expanding the village's resources, coming into contact with new lands and peoples. Exploring, much like you do on your dragon, only we will go further than you could imagine. We are going South."

South. Astrid had heard about the South—that there were cities of gold, warmongering chieftains, unimaginable creatures. There would be new foods to try, new weapons to master. Even just the edge of imagining it made her head spin.

"Are you serious? I could come?"

Phlegma seemed lifted by Astrid's enthusiasm. "I'll mention it to Stoick, but you are my daughter."

"And Stormfly, too?"

Her dragon had been trailing them to the house and had happily slipped back into her stall, but she perked up and crept forward at the sound of her name, nudging Astrid in the back.

"I don't see why not. A dragon could come in handy." Astrid grinned up at her mother (who was and would always been about a head taller than her), who then hesitated. "We'll be gone several months, dear."

Astrid hesitated at that, too. She could still hear Hiccup talking to Toothless somewhere below them. "How many months?"

"Four, at the least. Maybe more, depending on the weather. It could be half way through summer before we return." Phlegma's eyes followed Astrid's, down to the boy in the village square. "Then again," she said gently. "Perhaps some time away from Berk would do you good." Astrid brushed her bangs out of her eyes.

"When are you leaving?"

"Another couple of days. Once the ash is taken care of." She patted her daughter's shoulder, a little awkward. "You can think about it until then." Phlegma went past her into the house, and Astrid collapsed on the porch, frowning as Stormfly nipped at her feet.

"I know, girl," she muttered. "It's gonna be a tough one."

A few hours later, with Berk under darkness, Astrid climbed out of her bedroom window to avoid her mother's gaze, something she'd done dozens of times as a child but not so much in later years. Seeing her master awake, a dozing Stormfly perked up in her stall, but Astrid waved her off. "Go back to bed. Just me, tonight." The dragon purred, and curled back up. She'd had a few days just as eventful as Astrid's and was equally tired. But unlike Astrid, Stormfly did not have a massive, potentially life-changing decision to make. So she could get to sleep.

The air was still a little ashy in patches, but she could see the moon well on the otherwise clear night, and it lit her path as she trod quietly through the village.

A part of Astrid had already decided. Really, the difficulty lay in explaining it to Hiccup, and her instinct told her that she couldn't wait an unnecessary second to do so. Which was how she ended up standing under his window after every Hooligan in Berk had called it a night.

The real test here was going to be how well she'd gotten to know Toothless when Hiccup wasn't looking. They'd started out a little rough, sure, but since then she'd made an effort with him (he was the second best dragon on Berk, after all), and hopefully it had paid off, because she was about to test some boundaries.

She stared at the open window for a moment, then hooked her fingers in her mouth and gave a soft whistle.

At first, nothing. Then a rustle. A pair of stunning green (non-human) eyes appeared, peering down at her curiously.

"Toothless," she said in a stage whisper, "I need you to get Hiccup." His ears flapped thoughtfully. "Please, it's important," she added, a little pathetic.

Toothless made a gurgling sound and disappeared. She heard some more rustling, and then a groggy voice: "Okay, you know you don't fit in the bed, bud—what?" Hiccup arrived at the window, and she relaxed. "Astrid?"

"Can I come up, or can you come down?"

"Is everything okay?"

"Sort of. I think so." She swallowed hard. "At the risk of sounding repetitive, we need to talk."

Toothless helped Hiccup down and then promptly fell asleep by the house. So it was Hiccup and Astrid alone who crossed the bridge and sat by the unlit fire pit, looking down at what few lights remained on in the village: one at the armory, another at the Great Hall. Everywhere else was silver under the moon.

"Four months," repeated Hiccup. "That's a really long time."

"Maybe more. Judging by how long my mom usually says her trips are going to take and how long they actually end up taking, it'll be more like six." Astrid bit her lip, watching him out of the corner of her eye as best she could with the darkness. "It is, though. It's a really long time."

"What do you want me to say?" He sounded tired. Suddenly she felt guilty for dragging him out of bed in the middle of the night to tell him she might up and leave for half a year. She had only just shut him down in a different way—had she really needed to make a big deal out of this? On the other hand, it would've been disingenuous to play it down, after everything they'd been through in the past few days.

"Maybe," she suggested quietly, "you could tell me how much you'll hate me and never forgive me if I leave, so I have an incentive to stay."

"You don't already have an incentive to stay?"

"I was kidding."

He didn't laugh. "I'm not going to hate you, Astrid. It sounds like a really cool thing. Go if you want." She did want. She also needed, in the region of her gut yearning for a taste of the air beyond Berk.

"And you won't be upset?"

He hesitated, and then shook his head. "I'll be upset. I'll miss you. But it'll fade. And it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it." Hiccup glanced up at her, and smiled. It seemed forced but the effort was enough to reassure her. He knew a little bit about doing unpopular things for a greater good. "I thought part of the reason you don't want to be my girlfriend is so you don't have to factor me in to your life decisions like this."

She didn't remember saying that, but it was true—he'd probably had some incredible insight into her problem or whatever magic he did with feelings. It made her want to punch him in the arm, but she restrained herself. "Thanks."

"Anytime."

"You're amazing," she blurted out, and Hiccup looked up in surprise. "I'll miss you too."

"Yeah, well," he said with a stiff smile, standing in preparation for their walk back. "Just promise me you'll remember to come back, eventually."

She rose from her seat, and linked her pinky with his. "Promise."

A/N: The title of this chapter: technically true. Lots happening. I thought it was really funny.

And please review, or leave anything on the story other than a hit. Helps a lot!