A/N: This chapter is a little over half the length of previous chapters. That's deliberate—I'm going to shorten the chapters so I can put them up quicker. I've been sitting on these three thousand words for half a week and I won't be able to write properly until the weekend, so I figured, hey, why not post what I have? I'm not used to it but I'll adapt. Additionally, this chapter is Hiccup POV, which I won't do often but I wanted to give it a go. Enjoy!

Hiccup kept touching his hair. It stuck out more than it did when it was longer, which made him nervous. Then again, today? Everything made him nervous.

"Big day today," Gobber chimed, turning from the anvil to greet his arriving apprentice. "Odin Almighty! What'd you do to your hair? You look like you've been struck by lightning."

He winced—he hadn't thought it was so bad, maybe not the popular style but when had he ever subscribed to such a thing (for better or for worse)? "I cut it, Gobber. I cut my hair."

"With a hatchet?" Gobber joked. Little did he know.

"Yes," said Hiccup flatly. At the smith's impressively animated guffawing, Hiccup threw up his hands. "Okay, okay, but it seemed like a good idea at four in the morning when I couldn't sleep because I was so worked up about today, and you know, Toothless was encouraging at the time—" He slumped over to his workstation. "—which, I now realize was more like… egging me on."

Gobber tossed him an apron, grinning. "Bit nervous, I take it?"

"I'm not nervous," said Hiccup, sounding as if he were about to climb out of his own skin and run off.

"You better hope short hair's in style down South." Gobber gave him a knowing wink, a frightening gesture in and of itself, but the implication was worse.

He tied on his apron and tried, "Don't know what you mean."

"Oh, don't waste your breath," crowed his old master, examining a mangled broadsword, "you've been staring longingly at the harbor since the day Astrid left, all hearts in your eyes and whatnot. All of Berk knows it! You're driving your father mad," he confided. "Says it distracts you."

Hiccup glanced at the ceiling; so okay, maybe his dad wasn't entirely off base on that one. He could probably sail to the South and back in the bleeps and instants and hair-widths of time he'd lost to thoughts of Astrid.

"Okay, fine." He started at the bellows, scowling. The task came easier nowadays, which made him feel both proud and certain that he would wake up any minute from this dream and be a shrimp again. Not even a big shrimp, like one of the babies he gave to Sharpshot for doing tricks. "It's just… She's going to have seen so much, Gobber, I just don't want her to get back here and think, 'oh, the sheep are bleating, the dragons are lighting things on fire, nothing's changed on the tiny damp isle where I grew up, might as well turn back around and keep… exploiting the riches of an unknown world!'"

Gobber assessed him, and gave a little nod. "Well, I'm sure a haircut will go a long way." Groaning, Hiccup laid his face against one of the timber pillars supporting the forge. "But you're mad if you think nothing's changed."

Hiccup sat up. "What?"

"Aye. Great Hall's been almost entirely repainted, all you teens have grown another foot, new bath house'll be ready in time for the freeze. I can't wait," he said mistily. "Oh, and you've got that racket of a sword! She'll like that one."

Hiccup glanced down at his leg, where the sword, Inferno, was snug against him. He was still working out some of the kinks—a way to store extra cartridges, a smoother retraction mechanism, and stronger bolts on the telescopic element, to make it more of a weapon and less of a hyped-up torch—but he'd done a small demonstration for the village about a month ago, to tremendous awe. "Yeah," he muttered. "She will like that one."

"Honestly, Hiccup, if she found a way to like you here on Berk the first time around, no adventure or gold beyond her wildest dreams or handsome famous war chieftain with a great white steed who wants to marry her and make her Queen of the South—" This specificity did a little too much for Hiccup's imagination. "—is going to top that! Whatever makes a girl like that go for a guy like you, that's powerful stuff." Gobber slapped him on the shoulder, thinking he'd been quite supportive with this speech.

"Thank you, very reassuring, that," Hiccup said through his teeth. His teacher made an effort, at least, even if he was stuck on the notion of Hiccup as a fourteen-year-old, when he'd been full of potential but all his successes looked like accidents. You couldn't blame Gobber: even Hiccup himself was a little stuck on that notion. He went searching for a piece of metal to bang up on.

"No problem," Gobber chirped. He proceeded to whistle through the day.

The first letter had come in May, on the wings of a Terrible Terror: Trip extended. Can't say no to gold. See you in August.

The second letter arrived the first of that month: Met some pirates! Sticky situation. More like September.

And the third one appeared in the middle of September: War on the continent. Going the long way. Expect us October in time for Winter Nights.

Then two days ago, a final letter. October 11th, mid-afternoon with good weather.

Not four months, not even six. Nine months, they'd been gone, and today, she'd be back.

Hiccup had read every one of these correspondences aloud at the council meetings, since the Terrors delivered to him, and he faced many knowing smiles when he'd looked up from the fourth letter. Maybe he'd been a little obvious without realizing. The attitude he'd taken on was half gratitude at everyone's sincere desire for his (their) happiness, and half silent pleading that no one screw this up for him. It was rare to get a second chance at a first impression. The probability he'd embarrass himself was high enough, he didn't need the added risk that came with a peanut gallery.

By his father's decree, the opening celebration of Winter Nights—which would go on for a week, with festivities through the days and evenings—had been expanded to include a thanksgiving for the return of Phlegma's fleet, as well as the traditional welcome of winter. So it was the biggest festival in years, and preparation had been underway for over a month, including a massive banquet every night, a tournament, mask-wearing, games and races, poetry readings, and a fair amount of animal sacrifice (Vikings, you know). Privately, Stoick had confided in his son that the treasures of this expedition would be the greatest in Berk's history, if Phlegma fulfilled her promise, and Hiccup did hope the Hoffersons would continue their good record with promises.

He hammered himself into a sweat at the forge that morning, working his nerves into a shield, an axehead, and a small, intricately detailed knife he'd been laboring over for several weeks, rehearsing some filigree openwork. It would make a good gift for someone, though it was maybe not as good as the knives of Southern craftsmen. But he couldn't think too deeply about that.

At noon, Gobber took one whiff of him and laughed, saying, "You give me a run for my money, good work," at which point Hiccup knew he needed to bathe.

The sun shone high and bright over Berk as he went out into the village, the weather blessedly warm for fall, Terrors flitting from the feeding station in the square to the roofs of houses. In the arena, Snotlout instructed their new crop of students on transporting up food from the storehouses with their dragons, with Fishlegs supervising. Stoick was at the harbor, clearing space for new goods. Owing to an incident involving some rotten fish and a catapult, the twins were punished with decorating the Great Hall for the night's festivities, and their argument about who got to wear the largest of the masks could be heard halfway across the isle. After their morning flight, Toothless had abandoned his master to lie on the warm stones in the plaza, and Hiccup caught the fluttery sounds of the dragon's snoozing as he approached his best friend.

It was all very ordinary, when he sort of felt like they ought to be running around like Zipplebacks with their heads tied together.

Toothless perked up when he saw Hiccup, and then twitched once he caught the smell. "Yeah, okay, bud," Hiccup muttered, flipping his prosthetic into the flying attachment. "I get it, I stink. We're going to the bathhouse." Berk's bathhouse was the first full structure Hiccup had been allowed to conceive and design entirely on his own, after many years of frustration and embarrassment at the lack of privacy around what was basically a tiny hot spring at the bottom of the village. Secretly, he'd been taking baths in the unfinished building all summer, under the pretense of checking up on things; he liked the sense of authorship he had over the building, it was a tangible reminder he could do things. It would be deserted today with everyone getting ready for the holiday, and the spring the village had been using during the construction was a twenty-minute walk. The bathhouse was five.

But Toothless took one glance at him and stretched back out under the midday sun.

"Are you serious? You can come right back here after, it's a thirty-second trip."

One eye closed, the dragon gave him a look that clearly said, then make it yourself.

"Fun day. Great day," Hiccup grumbled, readjusting his leg. This downward trend would need to reverse itself by mid-afternoon. Only a few more hours, and what had been a productive, sobering, lonely nine months would be over.

He grabbed a set of clean clothes from the house and started the almost entirely vertical journey, zigzagging down the side of the stacked cliff, where he passed a few houses, their residents peeking outside to wave at him. Everyone knew his name. Of course they did—he'd be their chief someday. He waved back, tried to look comfortable with celebrity. On another day he might have stopped and spoken to each of them—his father did that whenever he walked through the village—but today was not an ordinary day. Today was a Zippleback-heads-tied-together kind of day. And he wasn't chief yet, hard as that was to believe sometimes. He'd slip into it unthinkingly, and then have a sort of out-of-body experience: Who's this kid calmly giving orders, what's his deal? When did he get tall? That's not me. Hiccup would remember that Hiccup didn't even want to be chief, not for a very long time. Leadership, ha. Power? Overrated.

The bathhouse was nearly complete, missing only its roof. It sat just down from the hot spring, and had a large stone tub that caught the stream, and a drain flowing into the sea. Not a very complicated design, but the first of its kind on Berk, and as he dunked his head under the water he thought how simple wasn't always bad.

He could see the sky through the open roof, that impossibly blue shade it sometimes got to be, and once he'd scrubbed himself and rinsed his hair (it was indeed very short), he sat there staring up at it contemplatively. It was the calmest he'd been in days. Maybe the nerves had been silly in the first place: Astrid was coming home. The only thing he should really have been was happy.

But he was still nervous—just having a good moment.

He puffed out his cheeks and exhaled, touching his hair yet again. Nearly dry, important since he didn't anyone to surmise he'd been using the bathhouse before everyone else. He clamored out of the tub and started to mop himself off, until something familiar streaked across the peripheral sky and he slipped, almost tumbling back into the water as he called out.

"Stormfly!"

The blueish bullet did not return, however. Panicking—if he missed their arrival, he'd miss their arrival—he dried himself as quickly as he could, squirming into his trousers and shirt and starting to strap on his leg. It took too long, he knew it took too long and that it hadn't always been like that. He thought sometimes it might be better to be born like this, rather then spending a quarter of your life with two legs and then, suddenly, one. For such a tremendous loss it only foiled him in small ways, but that was more frustrating, he couldn't make excuses for himself and he couldn't get to the docks all the way on the other side of the village in time to see Astrid step off that ship like he had actually dreamed about multiple times, because his hands kept shaking on the buckles of his prosthetic.

He made it to the door after what felt like an eternity, but dropped all his clothes on the way out, and groaned pathetically to see them lying there, spelling out his hopelessness. Everything was going so, so well!

"Hiccup?"

He stopped. He was holding his dirty underwear.

"Astrid?"

She stood there, indeed, about ten feet from where he was on the path to the bathhouse, the sun giving her hair an orange glow.

"Hi," she said slowly, biting back a laugh. She… looked different. She was still beautiful, of course, and that hit him hard now, when it had been so long since he'd set eyes on her person, rather than one of his bad (bad, unworthy) sketches. She wore a shirt of a ruddy red color, and her hair was braided some new way. And her shape... hips, he realized. He didn't remember hips. Also, something was different north of the hips—she just, looked different. Like a woman. Like the kind of person a famous war chieftain with a great white steed would beg to make Queen of the South.

Ultimately all he could think to say was, "You're early."

Her nose wrinkled (and a great nose it still was), but she kept smiling. "Sorry?"

"No. No. It's not—long time no see," he said, absurdly offhand.

"This isn't going how you wanted, is it?" she laughed.

He shut his eyes. Just Astrid. His friend. "Nope. Not even close."

His friend who could make him woozy with a nudge on the arm, as she did now. "Well, I just came to see the bathhouse. I got here before the ships and Gobber wouldn't stop talking about it. It looks wonderful." She gazed past him, at the building, and then met his eyes again. "Walk up to the square with me?"

He nodded, feeling like his tongue had gotten stuck in his throat.

They went a few meters in silence, and then she said, "So, your hair."

He'd forgotten, but the horrific moment this morning when he'd stood in his room with a hatchet in one hand and two inches of his hair in the other came back to him at once. "Oh," he said, trying to cover it up, "That's just, you know—"

"I can fix it," she said simply. She looked like she was about to reach out and touch the literal hackjob, but then she spotted a woman watching them from the steps of a house and quickly retracted her hand. "It'll look good. You just need to neaten it up a bit, I've got some shears that'll do."

His mouth popped open, to the point where he couldn't even return the timid little smile she gave him. Timid, why? It hadn't even occurred to him that Astrid could be nervous about coming home too, and he felt foolish. After everything she'd said during the ash cloud about futures and Berk, he should have known she was worried she'd been forgotten. He could fix that, he thought, but not now. Not here, with people peeking out their windows to get a glimpse of the future chief and his… maybe-wife. Well, he knew that's what they saw, regardless of what was true, and Astrid would know that. Astrid knew pretty much everything. He wanted to be alone with her.

He coughed, glancing up the incline to the village. "You know, we should—"

But Hiccup almost fell flat on his face when Stormfly, out of nowhere, shoved her way between the two of them and planted herself in the middle of the path, a tree branch about the length of Astrid's entirety dangling from her mouth.

Astrid gasped, giving the dragon a healthy pat. "Good girl, Stormfly. Good job!" She turned to Hiccup and grinned. "I've been teaching her to fetch. I threw this down from the rope bridge twenty minutes ago."

Hiccup's mouth hung open a little (again) and he felt a weird sensation, like a swelling in his chest. Pride, he realized. "That's amazing. I've never seen a dragon do that on command before."

She shrugged, but she was smiling a victorious kind of smile. A smile well deserved. "We were scaling mountains at one point and when equipment would drop, it'd be gone forever," she explained. "One day she seemed to like rescuing my axe, so I thought, 'this could come in handy,' and here we are. It's our game." Stormfly dropped the branch into Astrid's arms and rubbed against her, and Astrid tossed the toy. Weirdly, the tips of Hiccup's ears felt hot.

"I can't wait to hear about everything you did," he said numbly.

"Anytime." She patted her saddle. "Want a ride to the square? Just like old times."

He almost said, Actually, I've got a better idea, let's fly out to our ash cloud island and not stop touching each other for a long time, until it's dark and we've got an excuse to stay there all night, and while we're at it, for Odin's sake and the love of all that is good and righteous in this world, please never leave me again.

But he didn't say that. Instead, he smiled at her, wide enough to get the message across. "Sure."