Growing Taller
Disclaimer: I do not own Dreamwork's How to train your Dragon.
Chapter 2: Winter's coming.
Hiccup rode on the back of Toothless, towards Berk. With a sigh he slumped in the saddle. He felt like smacking himself.
"I couldn't do it today either." He muttered to the Nightfury, who made a dragon sound in reply. "Argh I hate this! Why is it that I can kill an enormous Green Death, save the entire village and make myself a new foot, but I can't ask out a girl?" He quickly adjusted the tailfin with his metal foot as Toothless smoothly swerved around a flock of birds. "I mean, I've always had girl problems. But I didn't think I'd have this much trouble after a girl had already grabbed me by the shirt and kissed me! I thought after that that things would just happen...you know...automatically. But apparently not." Once again, Toothless screeched a reply, somehow able to understand every word Hiccup was saying. But of course, Hiccup couldn't understand him. He smiled.
"Thank you for summing that up..." He said simply.
They arrived back at the house and Hiccup relieved Toothless of the leather saddle, flinging it over the fence outside his house. He opened the door wide and ushered Toothless inside. Despite his size, Toothless seemed to fit right in at Hiccup's house. Stoick had long since accepted him, and Hiccup felt bad making him sleep outside. They both went straight to the fireplace and Hiccup loaded it up with wood, before stepping aside as not to get caught up in the blast of fire Toothless used to ignite it.
Before settling down, Hiccup grabbed his sketchbook, as he did every night, and a charcoal stick to draw with. Feeling randomly nostalgic, he started flipping through all the past drawings. He acknowledged all the sketches of Toothless that filled the pages. Said black dragon stared over his shoulder at the pictures, looking quite pleased. Hiccup laughed at his partner's expression. He continued to flip through the book, but stopped when he got to a drawing that was done on the back page. It was an unfinished sketch of Astrid. Hiccup's face turned red. He began this drawing the night he went on that romantic flight through the skies over Berk with her. For some reason that he couldn't remember, he hadn't finished it. Picking up the make-shift pencil, he began to add fresh strokes of charcoal to the page. Toothless eyed the movement of the stick, fascinated.
About an hour later Stoick returned from a meeting with other Vikings bearing good news. He joyfully stomped over to Hiccup at the fireplace.
"Hiccup my boy!" He bellowed in his Scottish drawl. "We've done it, I convinced the elders to except you on the annual hunting trip coming up!"
"Huh? What hunting trip?" Hiccup asked.
"The traditional coming of age hunting trip! Kids learning to be Vikings leave on that trip, and come back big and strong!" Stoick explained, still overjoyed.
"That hunting trip?" Hiccup asked, a bit sceptical. "But isn't that trip for like, 12 year olds? I'm already 16! Anyway, when did I say I wanted to go on that?"
"The other week you did." Stoick said, turning away. He was obviously pretending. Hiccup gave up. Even after he almost died his father was still deciding stuff for him.
"Don't worry I'm sure you'll do yourself proud." He attempted to reassure.
"Do you proud, you mean." Hiccup muttered under his breath. "So how long does it go for? A week? Two?"
"No, no, no, no! It's takes at least 4 months to build a Viking!"
Hiccup's face turned pale. "Four...Months?"
"At least!" He winked, before walking off happily. Hiccup fell backwards against Toothless, who was curled up in a semi-circle around the fireplace.
'Four months...I can't be gone for that long!' Hiccup thought frantically. 'What if Astrid finds another guy while I'm gone...?'
Toothless bent his head down and nudged Hiccup with his nose, comforting him. Hiccup lifted a hand to give him a scratch on the neck. Toothless nearly purred in response.
Hiccup smiled briefly, but it didn't last long. With a sigh he stood up, grabbed a coat and headed outside for a walk. Toothless stared after him, not knowing whether to follow or not. In the end, the fireplace was too warm to leave.
As soon as Hiccup stepped outside he was bowled over by a cold wind. Winter was definitely on the way. And unless Hiccup could think of some way to get out of it, he would be camping in the snow for six months, in the wilderness, away from home.
And away from Astrid.
Hiccup's 1 foot plus his replacement had subconsciously carried him along the path to said Young female Vikings house. 'Oh well...' He thought. 'As if she'd be out at this hour anyway.'
As he turned a corner and Astrid's house came in sight, he discovered that Astrid was in fact out at that hour. She was half standing in her hut outside the house, talking to the blue Nadder that lived in there. Hiccup panicked at the sight of her. He stopped his feet moving forward but his upper body continued. To stop himself falling forward he flung himself around in a silly-looking manner and hid behind a tree just off the pathway next to him. Breathing hard, he peeked around the trunk at her. It was hard to focus on her figure in the darkness, but he was just close enough to hear what she was saying.
"Haven't you had enough already?" She was saying to Sky, her Nadder, who was blissfully munching from a basket of fish. "You have to save some for tomorrow."
When Sky didn't stop, Astrid took the initiative, and closed the basket's lid, tying it tightly shut.
Sky looked at her with puppy-dog eyes. "Don't look at me like that Sky...You're reminding me of him..." She muttered. Hiccup's eyes widened. 'Him...?' His heart started beating rapidly. 'Who could she mean?' He leaned further around the tree.
Astrid sighed and sat beside her dragon. "I can't believe the only one I can talk to about my problems is my dragon...At least I know you'll always understand me."
Hiccup felt heartbroken. He and Astrid had always been able to talk to each other about anything. The only reason she wouldn't talk to him about her problems would be...
"If I'm the problem..." He muttered aloud, almost instantly realising his mistake. Astrid thought she heard mumbling, and turned. Hiccup made himself as skinny as possible on the other side of the tree trunk. (Not that that was very hard) Finally after a tense couple of seconds he heard the grass shifting as Astrid stood up.
"I'm hearing things now, Sky." With that, she closed the hut's door, and went inside.
Hiccup didn't move from his spot. He had never felt this feeling before. It was like all those times back before Toothless when Astrid would ignore Hiccup's attempts to attract her attention. That pain, only ten times worse. He gripped his chest and started breathing hard. Everything he was thinking about before all seemed too meaningless and stupid. He was nearly laughing.
It was too late now.
Hiccup wasn't good enough for Astrid. He wasn't before; whatever made him think that he would ever be?
He stood up and ran home in a blur. He crashed through the door and Toothless and Stoick looked up in concern, but before they could ask, he was slamming his bedroom door in their faces.
All of a sudden, that Four month-long hunting trip was sounding really good...
Ya know it's funny, a couple people reviewed saying stuff like "maybe if hiccup went away for a few months and came back..." ...yea, that was kinda the plan from the start... So please don't think that I'm stealing your idea! Thankyou so much shunxalice as well as mks 12 98 ()