How to Start a Self-Discovery
Chapter 3: It's Okay to Be a Girl... Sometimes
Astrid really liked flowers. She would always wander out into the woods to look at them growing randomly against trees, or in a patch of grass. Sometimes, if she was feeling brave, Astrid would pick one of the pretty flowers and stick them into her headband, giggling a bit as it flopped lopsidedly into her face.
Astrid liked flowers, so she wondered why her father hated them.
It was one day that she was feeling bolder and braver than ever, like a real Viking; Astrid decided to wander out into the woods again and picked a flower, securing it in her headband. But then she thought back to her mother and her father in their little hut in the village, and wondered if they had ever seen flowers before. Astrid was fairly sure the two of them would love flowers, because who couldn't love such things of beauty?
So Astrid spent the better part of an hour crouched down in a little patch of the flora, trying to decide how to organize the jumbled bouquet and wondering which colours her parents would like best. Halfway through her task, Astrid decided that her parents would probably fight over the beautiful bouquet, and started to pick more flowers to make a second set.
It was finally two hours past when Astrid straightened up, grinning at the two sets of vibrantly-coloured flowers in her tiny fists. She made her way back to the village, showing her mother the beautiful set with a toothy smile. Her mother looked surprised down at the plants, before smiling (sadly?) and accepting them with a curt nod. Astrid, excited that her mother liked them, quickly found her father in the kitchen as he poked the fireplace, adding more wood.
"Look, father!" she had cried, thrusting both tiny arms out to present her gift. "Aren't they pretty?"
Astrid was expecting him to beam happily (and for a moment was excited at the idea, because she had never seen him smile like that) and take the flowers, patting her head and telling her he loved her with all his heart.
Instead, he roared angrily and chucked the charred stick at her, snatching the flowers out of her frightened hands and throwing them into the fire to burn away into ashes.
"Stupid girl!" he spat out, slamming his hand on the table. "Stop bothering me with such useless things!"
"S-sorry, father," Astrid whimpered, flinching when his voice roared again for her to leave him alone. She did so quickly and quietly, ducking out the door of her house to run to the hill that overlooked Berk. It was there that she met her friend, Hiccup, who was holding a stick and trailing it against the dirt floor.
"Hi Astrid!" he called in greeting, his lips beaming in a smile that Astrid really liked. His large green eyes flickered up to her headband, where her blue flower was still hanging lazily. "Nice flower!"
Startled, Astrid's hand flew up to the long-stemmed plant hiding in the blonde locks of her hair, and frowned. She held back the tears that wanted to come out, grabbing the flower and hurling it onto the floor. Her leather boot crashed down over the beautiful flora, twisting to further mash it into the dirt.
"Flowers are stupid," Astrid told Hiccup as she marched over to him, ignoring the surprised widening of his eyes. "They're stupid and useless. And Vikings don't need stupid or useless things."
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...
"Are you stupid, or did you not hear me the first time?!" Astrid shouted angrily, hands planted on her hips as she glared at Hiccup with the sword in his hand. "No sparring!"
Snotlout rolled his eyes, hiking the hammer on his shoulder while Tuffnut snickered and Fishlegs fidgeted under Astrid's heavy gaze. Ruffnut rose an eyebrow at Astrid's proclamation, mirroring Hiccup's before his lips settled in a frown.
"I gotta do some offensive training, sometime, Astrid," Hiccup reasoned before a grin lightened his face. "At this rate, Toothless will die before I get some action." Toothless' ears perked up at the sound of his name (he had retreated back to the outer area of the training dome), and he huffed before settling back down again.
"Come on, babe, it's just a little friendly fight. I'll go easy on the wimp here, promise," Snotlout boasted, falling into an attack stance as he faced Hiccup. Astrid quickly picked up the double-axed pole at her feet, throwing it at Snotlout to embed it into the ground as a warning.
"I. Said. No. Sparring!" she hissed, causing Snotlout to quiver nervously, and Hiccup to become more worried about his girlfriend. Ruffnut sighed, getting tired of this hold-up and grabbing Astrid's wrist.
"Come on," she said, her height being a significant advantage as she herded Astrid along, out of the training ring. "Let the sissy guys have their fun. We can come back later and kick their butts." Snotlout and Tuffnut shouted indignantly at that presumption, prompting Hiccup to grin in amusement and chuckle over at Fishlegs (who simply shrugged and smiled).
Ruffnut dragged a kicking and screaming Astrid all the way back up to her house, throwing her inside the room she shared with her brother and slapping Astrid's head to shut her up. "Geez, Ash. Hiccup's a Viking too, you have to let him train like everyone else," the female twin muttered, opening her closet and digging around inside of it.
"Hiccup's at a severe disadvantage with only one leg to rely on. He'd get seriously hurt in that ring!" Astrid shouted, trying to defend herself only to draw a snort from Ruffnut.
"Gobber the Belch has two missing limbs, and he's one of the best fighters in Berk," she reasoned. "And even though Hiccup's skinnier than a lot of Vikings, he's still a Viking. You can't really survive in a warrior clan without being a warrior yourself." Astrid pouted, crossing her arms and turning her head to the side, as if trying to avoid admitting that Ruffnut was right.
"He could be a bread-making Viking," she muttered helplessly, drawing laughter from the other female.
"Oh, that'll be the talk of the town. 'Chieftain's son decides to make bread instead of lead the village of Berk!' Like we really need more bread-makers." Astrid growled, growing tired of Ruffnut's teasing and turning to face her, ice blue eyes narrowed.
"What do you want, Ruffnut? I'm guessing I'm not just here for nothing." Ruffnut smirked, bobbing her head before reaching down and grabbing something from her chest of clothes. It was thrown at Astrid, smacking her in the face before falling in her outstretched hands. "A dress?"
"I've hatched another brilliant plan to make Hiccup fall in love with me!" Ruffnut said, grinning before pointing to a previously ignored bouquet of flowers in the room. "You know how all the guy Vikings here like to think they're all tough and stronger than us girls?" Astrid snorted at the understatement, her mind whirring to Snotlout and his irate sense of self-importance and invincibility. "Well, Hiccup's not like most Vikings, " oh that was for sure, "so I figured he wouldn't want a Viking girl that was like most Viking girls. So," Ruffnut plucked the long dress from Astrid, holding it out in front of her and smiling, "I'll wear a dress!"
Astrid blinked.
"A dress."
Ruffnut nodded.
"A dress."
Astrid was silent, wondering whether or not she should really care right now.
She decided she didn't want to.
"Okay, well, good luck with trying to steal my boyfriend away from me. " (Hiccup's sarcasm was really rubbing off way too much.) "I'm going to go make sure Snotlout hasn't decided he wants another Gobber around to beat him in a race."
Astrid turned swiftly to walk out, yelping when a hand ensnared her long braid, yanking her back into the room.
"Ruffnut—" Astrid started, only for the rest of her sentence to be muffled as Ruffnut smothered her mouth with the green Viking dress. She was further mollified when she felt the straps of her armored skirt start to give way, her hands scrambling to keep it up. "Ruffnut!" Astrid barked out harshly, the dress falling to the floor in a heap as she pushed the taller girl off of her.
"Astrid, come on! I need you to try the dress on for my plan to work properly!" Ruffnut whined, still tugging at Astrid's skirt. The weapons specialist held fast though, her eyes narrowed and glaring at the twin who was currently trying to undress her and confuse her at the same time.
"And why in the name of Freyja do you need me to try on your dress?" she asked, Ruffnut pouting when the other girl brought in the name of the female god they worshiped.
"So I can spy on my competition, duh," Ruffnut stated as if it was the most obvious thing, successfully tugging Astrid's skirt off of her and quickly (or quickly trying to) take her shoulder-pads off. Astrid, already used to the strange sense of logic from Ruffnut and her twin brother, grunted when one of her metal shoulder-pads smacked her in the face, leaving her dazed and open for Ruffnut to stuff the dress over her head. "Awesome!" Ruffnut exclaimed, stepping back to observe her handiwork, only to frown as she got a good look at Astrid. "Okay, not awesome. You totally look like Freyja in human skin. Not fair, Astrid."
Astrid huffed, wishing she could get the dress off of her without help (but unfortunately, could not). "I didn't exactly ask to be put in this dress," she muttered, crossing her arms. The necklace that rested against her breasts was getting in the way of Astrid trying to cross her arms and look stern. She was thoroughly put off, exclaiming "In fact, I hate this thing! Get me out of it, now!"
Ruffnut moved to do as she was told, only for a Viking woman to burst in, livid, screaming, "Out! Out of my house if you can't pipe down!" Astrid found herself forcibly removed from the Thorston hut, protesting loudly the entire way but not loud enough to overpower Mrs. Thorston's overpowering voice. "A woman tries to get some sleep when her blasted twins are finally out of the house, only for one twin to bring friends and make more noise! You youngsters have no consideration these days!"
With a huff and a slam of the door, Mrs. Thorston disappeared from sight, and Astrid glared furiously at Ruffnut, who was glaring furiously back at Astrid.
"Gimmie my dress!"
"Get me out of this!"
Both sentences were shouted at the same time, blending and mixing the two until they were unintelligible. But Astrid, who was obviously the more sensible of the two, growled and spun around. "I'm going to go home and get this ridiculous thing off me. You can say good-bye to it until tomorrow morning." Ignoring Ruffnut's protests, Astrid began to march back to her house, lamenting the loss of her clothes back in the Thorston household and the unusually sunny day in Berk that made the dress stuffier than ever to wear.
Ugh, Astrid hated flowers, and it was just her luck that there were floral designs sewed into the dress. For most of her life, Astrid always hated flowers, but she never really knew why. She supposed it was because they were just pretty. I mean, they weren't very useful for a Viking, who was warrior and needed items that would aid a warrior in battle. Hiccup liked flowers for some weird reason, which only made Astrid hate them more.
Speaking of Hiccup, Astrid saw him wandering around outside her house, looking in to see if she was there. Unable to help the smile on her lips, she crept up on him, shushing the Night Fury who had looked back curiously at her. "Hi Hiccup," she greeted as she appeared right at his back, causing him to jump and whirl around to look at her.
"Oh! Astrid, I needed to talk… to… you…"
Dumbfounded, Hiccup's jaw dropped open as he gazed at Astrid in the traditional Viking dress, her necklace emphasizing a particularly pleasing area to him. He didn't bother being subtle at all, striking green eyes riveted to a spot below her collarbone.
Astrid blushed red, taking in her won ogle-worthy sight as a bare-chested Hiccup met her blue eyes. He was still wearing his fur vest, but had obviously stripped off his long-sleeved green shirt in the middle of sparring. Though not as heavily muscled as the rest of the Vikings, that didn't mean Hiccup was without his own toned abs. Which were, at the moment, glistening with sweat that glittered in the sunlight.
Toothless, impatient, nudged his rider with his tail, growling softly. Hiccup snapped out of his trance, gulping as he forced his eyes back up to Astrid's face.
"I should go," he said, prompting Astrid to snap out of her own trance, blushing wildly. Toothless ambled away, giving the two a little alone time and running off to terrorize a pack of Terrible Terrors. Hiccup was very thankful for the dragon's thoughtfulness, stepping forward to breathe softly on Astrid's blonde bangs, running a large hand down the side of her face. His touch sent shocks through her cheek. "I should really go," he murmured again, dipping his face to brush his lips in a feather-light touch across hers.
Astrid's breath hitched under his husky tone, fingers trembling as she grasped at the edges of his open fur vest. "R-right," she agreed, but found herself drawn closer to Hiccup's uneven breaths as he splayed an open-mouthed kiss on her lips.
It was unlike anything Astrid had ever felt before. Normally, her kisses with Hiccup were pleasant, and butterfly-inducing, and altogether incredibly sweet. But this kiss; this kiss was beyond that. This meeting of lips and hands and bodies was aggressive and passionate, igniting her Viking soul and making it burn hotter than it's ever burned. She felt weak and strong all at the same time, melting under Hiccup but tightening her fists furiously on his clothes. She felt helpless under Hiccup's ministrations as his large hands traveled down from her face to her hips, pulling her flush against him and causing her to gasp softly into his mouth. It was strange.
Astrid felt like a girl.
"Oh man," Hiccup chuckled when he pulled away, running a hand through his hair and raking his heated eyes down Astrid's ravished figure. "I really need to go now before I do something I regret." Astrid took a shuddering breath, her heart pounding in her ears as she only partially registered the extent of Hiccup's words. When it came through, her hands immediately released their grasp on his vest, and she stepped back quickly.
"R-right," she repeated, only now the reply was less breathy and more awkward. Hiccup didn't feel that awkwardness, though, and quickly pecked Astrid on the forehead before limping away to Toothless (who was laughing at one of the Terrors). Astrid watched him go, feeling her heart beating wildly under her hand and her legs quivering with the aftershocks of Hiccup's amazing kiss. And for a moment, Astrid thought it wasn't so bad being a girl.