Not So Fireproof on the Inside
Chapter 2 Staring at Stjörnu
Hiccup could feel the wind whipping past his leather mask at a blinding speed. He could hardly hear over the roar of it and could barely see through the stinging in his eyes. The sensory deprivation offered him none of its usual comfort.
With a flick of their respective prosthetics, he and Toothless levelled out of their dive and rose back up to the blue Nadder's altitude. Astrid couldn't see her promised's face, but she could tell that it still wouldn't have been smiling. There were few things in the world if any that brought him as much happiness as flying with his best friend, and so if this sourness persisted through that much, she was at a loss for what to do.
Through the dark of the night, she spotted a small island far below, steadfast in the churning sea. She urged Stormfly closer to her fiancé and, having gained his attention, she pointed downward to the landmass. He simply nodded and they began their descent.
Astrid dismounted Stormfly and planted her feet in the sandy beach below her. They were alone on the island, with no part of themselves that needed hiding. She looked purposefully at Hiccup and he soon jumped off of his friend's back. After some scratches under Toothless' chin, Hiccup sent the reptile off to play with his Nadder buddy while their humans talked.
Astrid sat in the fine powder and beckoned her husband-to-be closer. He complied willing and when he too collapsed onto the sand, she moved behind him, his back pressed to her chest. She wrapped herself around his abdomen, one of the few places she could actually feel him without leather riding armor in the way. She rested her chin on his shoulder and simply blew air in and out with him for a few moments, savoring their proximity.
"Hey, babe…" she sighed contentedly after breathing him in slowly. His hand grazed her forearms.
"Hi, Astrid…" he answered, though he didn't convey the same amount of satisfaction she did. It stung her that he'd been so depressed for the past couple of months. If she left him to his own devices, he'd keep it all to himself, possibly trying to save her from his troubles, but she wouldn't allow that. That's not what their relationship was about.
"So what was different about today that made you snap?" she asked tenderly, squeezing him a little tighter as a measure of keeping him calm. He tensed; she felt it through her fingers.
"Nothing really, it was the same brand of failure that it always is," he laughed, a bitter, dry sound. She pinched him in the stomach for it. He craned his neck to look at her in the corner of his eye and said, "Tell me that I'm wrong." He knew she wouldn't, as it would mean another pointless, circular argument where he would never admit that situation was anything less than a curse.
Instead, she smiled sweetly and kissed the cheek he'd flatly presented her, disarming him entirely. He sighed yet again, still disappointed in himself for taking out his frustrations on his loved ones. He began once more, but this time more evenly, "Astrid, I have no idea what I'm going to do".
"I'd start with trying not to throw temper tantrums at meetings," she reproached him satirically. He didn't turn around again, lest he be kissed another time and lose what little conviction was left in his speech.
"I'm serious. I really don't think I can keep this up any longer…" he replied despondently. He sounded more and more defeated with every passing second.
"Sure you can. You handled Snot, Fishlegs, the twins, and I pretty well for a while," she suggested confidently.
"You know that's not the same. Not to mention that you and Fish were the only ones who ever listened," he said, growing frustrated by the end of the sentence, his words turning into a pessimistic grumble.
Once again reassuring him, Astrid nuzzled her face into his neck. He leaned into her touch appreciatively and sighed. "How am I supposed to manage a whole tribe when I can't even convince half of my five best friends to do anything?" he asked.
She didn't have an answer for him, even though it was probably a rhetorical question. She couldn't think of anything that he was doing wrong or any departments in which he was lacking as a leader. True, her view of the boy was a bit biased, but even objectively she couldn't begin to help him. She didn't know anything about being a chief or what it was like aside from the way Hiccup dreaded the thought of it. She could only offer advice based on the single example she had, the one whose shadow he felt as though he was living under.
"Hiccup…" she called him, coaxing him to look up at her so she could see those deep, verdant eyes of his which she always found enchanting. They seemed distressed. Delicately, she told him, "You can't keep comparing yourself to him. You're not the same person and you were never going to be the same kind of chief."
"Well, if you know what kind of chief I'm going to be, for the love of Thor tell me," he grumbled sarcastically. He stared off to the horizon contemplatively.
Astrid followed his gaze and couldn't help but notice how clear the stars in the sky were to her without the torches and bonfires of Berk. Some she'd learned of, like the North Star, but most were a beautiful mystery to her, humble little things that shined brilliantly, even without being given names. She took her hand off her intended's chest to point at a group of them.
"You see those three stars up there that are kinda in a line?" she said, drawing his attention to the cluster of lights. Hiccup nodded, his interest piqued ever so slightly by the girl. Tracing a figure out of the dots with her finger, she continued, "That's Stjörnu. Those three are his belt. That one and the big orange one are his shoulders. He's holding his sword above his head and his shield in front of him(1)". With every sentence, she outlined parts of this silhouette until she drew out a whole figure in the sky. Hiccup payed attention, but retained his skepticism.
"Well, Stjörnu was a chief among the stars," she added. Now he understood where she was going with this.
"Astrid…" he chided her, but he never got to finish his sentence.
"Just shut up and listen," she returned sharply, drawing her hand back to beat his sternum. She hit him harder than usual so that he'd feel it through his armor. He rolled his eyes, but allowed her to keep going.
"Anyway…" she began again, pointedly glaring at him. "Stjörnu was a chief. His people chose him to lead because he was their fiercest warrior in battle. United, they raided and plundered for many years and his people prospered. They were so good at raiding, in fact, that they eventually had taken everything from the surrounding lands and so, for the first time, they were both rich and at peace".
Hiccup wondered where she had gotten this legend from. Perhaps her mother had told her or maybe she'd read it somewhere. He followed along, if nothing else, out of admiration for her storytelling.
"But without war, Stjörnu had nothing. He was lost. Conquest was all he'd ever known and he had no idea what to do with a peaceful tribe. And soon, his people, who'd always lived by sacking homes and taking what they wanted, turned on themselves. Neighbor robbed neighbor and sons stole from fathers".
He relaxed into her as she talked, her softly spoken words doing their best to soothe his turbulent mind. The slightly damp sand beneath them was cool, a stark contrast to the heat her body was throwing. He found it hard to be upset in such a comforting environment.
"So, what do you think Stjörnu did?" she asked abruptly. Hiccup feigned a pensive hum as he stroked an imaginary beard.
"Let's see…cut his losses and killed everyone, because that's what he was good at?" he joked, smiling for the first time that day.
Astrid rolled her eyes, chuckling. "No, you muttonhead. He took his sword, grabbed his shield, and went to the heart of the village. At the top of his lungs, he yelled that because he was chief, all of their riches belonged to him and those who disagreed would have to fight him for their property".
Hiccup interrupted again, "Really nice guy…why are you telling me this?"
"Will you just be quiet for another minute? Odin's saggy left nut, were you always this impatient?"
He snorted at her colorful language and allowed her to continue once more. She took a big sigh before starting again.
"Obviously, no one was just going to give him all their treasure, even if he was their best fighter. Because they knew that none of them would ever win a one on one fight with him, they came up with a plan. The whole tribe banded together, picked up their weapons, and attacked Stjörnu in the village square. Together, they defeated him without injury to any of them. But Stjörnu died happy that day, because his people were once again united, even if it was against him," she finished finally.
"So what you're saying is I should let everyone kill me? Yeah, I'll get right on that…" he replied sardonically.
"Once again, no…" she answered, sighing in frustration at the boy who was missing the point entirely. "I'm saying that the best leader doesn't have to be the strongest one, just the one that would give the most."
Hiccup had to admit, as cheesy as it was, he liked the story. He turned to look at his fiancé, seeing her smiling at him warmly.
"You just made that up didn't you?" he accused her playfully.
"Maybe…" she led on in return, "Was it good?"
"It was alright," he said, tilting his head back to capture Astrid's lips in a saccharine kiss. She yelped into his mouth at the sudden affection, but had no interest in stopping it. As their lips massaged each other, Hiccup shifts the rest of his body around to let her drag him to the sand on top of her. His hips nestled between her thighs and that felt like where they should have always been. He couldn't begin to describe the amount of closeness he felt to the girl beneath him as her ankles locked around his calves.
He pulled away from her, his arms supporting the weight of his body over her. He looked at his wife-to-be intently, taking in every detail of her: the way her bangs parted and fell around her face to frame it perfectly, her braid coming over her shoulder, no doubt with some sand in it by now, the definite, salacious bedroom-eyes she was giving him, and the way she bit her lip expectantly.
Annoyed with the distance, she pulled him to her roughly by his gambeson(2). Their mouths crashed together again more intensely. She sucked and nibbled at his lower lip lightly, tearing a throaty moan from him. He leaned more and more weight onto her as she arched up into him, each body hungering for the other voraciously. A foreign hardness had long since been pressed against her belly. Eagerly her hand ventured southward along his body until her fingers reached the bulge, buried beneath far too many layers of leather.
Hiccup shivered at the meager touch and bucked against her hand unconsciously. Astrid opened her eyes to see his tightly screwed shut and a shy blush on his face, one she knew she bore as well. This was new territory for them, both fully adults now and anxious to explore the possibilities of that. On this far-off island in the dead of night, no one could think anything of the two and they were already engaged anyway.
Astrid decided to push her luck a little further. She reached for his belt and began fumbling with the buckle (3).
Hiccup gasped into her mouth, recoiling from the touch reflexively. He pulled back sharply from the kiss.
"Mmph…Astrid, what are you doing?" he whispered harshly. His eyes tracked from left to right, even though he knew there wasn't another person for miles. Far off past the tree line, he could hear the dragons romping through the forest, probably chasing some poor, small creature for sport. He looked back at his intended with wide, taken-aback eyes.
Astrid's face reddened bashfully at his reaction. "S-sorry…I just…I thought that…maybe you and I could…y'know…" she sputtered shyly. That was not at all the response she was hoping for. She looked away sheepishly.
"Astrid, I understand, but…"
"It's okay. Really, you don't have to explain yourself. I…we should've talked about it first…or something," she cut him off with a timid, embarrassed voice. He leaned back onto his heels and she sat up so she didn't feel as exposed and vulnerable.
"It's just after today…" he tried to clarify, but she seemed intent on not letting him speak.
"No, I get it. I'm not sure I'm ready either…" she interrupted, not letting him get a word in edgewise.
"Astrid!" he yelled, to fully get her attention. She absently blinked at him, finally realizing that she was babbling and flushing at her own humility. He chuckled to himself, much more softly, "I love you. Of course I'm ready, just not tonight. I don't want to have to think about anything else but…that, when we do".
The gravity of his words hit them both squarely in their chest as soon as he finished. Both stared at each other, their words frozen in their throats and eyes wide, one in panic and the other in surprise.
Hiccup sputtered as he looked at her, "D-uhh…umm…I-I, umm…". He wished he could say anything other than gibberish, but given the situation, he had no idea what he would have anyway. He'd said those weighty three in a spur of the moment, intending to reassure her, but that had no bearing on how much he actually meant them. He'd wanted to say that to her for years, long before they'd even started dating less than 12 months before(4). He'd been holding it in for the right moment, not at all to help convince her not to have sex with him. That he'd even suggested that was a bizarre concept.
She stared at him intently with a perplexing look to her. Eventually, her face twisted into something more annoyed, her forehead crinkling slightly and her brows lowered. True, it wasn't the reaction he expected, but anger was well inside the realm of possibilities with his betrothed.
"Hiccup…" she said in a low voice that nearly reduced him to one of the innumerable grains of sand on the beach they laid on. He swallowed hardly in anxious anticipation. She glared at him more, commanding him "Don't you ever say again that if you don't mean it". He blanched at first in response to the accusation, but reddened as he tried to think of an answer that wouldn't leave him feeling so emotionally exposed. He quickly realized, however, there was no such combination of words.
"Who…who says I don't mean it?" he asked hesitantly. Bearing his heart to her so completely took a weight off of his shoulders, something that had been eating away at him for the longest time, but also left him wrought with uneasiness at what she'd say next. She sucked in a breath at his response, before (and he figured that he should have been used to it by now) she yanked him by his clothing once more, voraciously attacking his mouth with hers. He whimpered into the affection, the simple contact taking on a whole new depth after his last few words.
She held him even harder than before, heaving him forward off of his heels to collapse on top of her again. He'd barely gotten his hands out in time to catch himself from falling all the way into her. Despite the aggression, not a fiber in his body dissented to her clutching him like this. He'd catch himself over and over again if it meant that she'd be the one to pull him off his feet.
"I love you…I love you so much" she murmured against his lips. He opened his eyes to see tears brimming in hers, joyous little droplets that she'd only ever let fall in front of him.
"I love you too" he repeated, returning to the kiss zealously. The soft, warm flesh around her mouth melded with his perfectly, seeming to draw him in even closer, compounded with the way she snaked her legs around his again.
They found themselves in the same position they'd been a few moments ago, the very stiffness that had been a problem before making its return against her abdomen. Hiccup could tell how much she wanted to go further, but something in the back of his mind told advised against it. He cursed that part of his brain.
He pulled out of the kiss and looked at his beloved apprehensively. She gave him a pleading, pitiful gaze that almost broke his will then and there.
"Come on! You can't just say that and then not…finish the deed" she whined to him, begging him and adding a few gentle rolls of her hips against his just to try and win him over. She smirked victoriously when he bit his lip and looked to the heavens in a small bout of ecstasy, before glowering at her reproachfully.
"Would you rather I take it back?" he suggested jokingly. A confident smile overtook her mouth, one that had always suited her flawlessly, his confident Astrid with her unwavering bravery and fearlessness.
"You couldn't ever…" she whispered to him, like the intimate secret it was.
She was right about a lot of things that night, but most of all, that. That was his understanding of the words too, to care for the other person without doubt forever. He swore to himself that he'd uphold that definition.
A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed. Trust me, this is just the beginning of a wild adventure. Special thanks to PeppermintClouds for all of her help. She might as well co-write all of my stories for how much she works on them, even if she never takes any credit. Anyways, tell me what you think if you can. I'd love to hear what you think so far and where you think this is going, because I'm willing to bet that you guys have no idea ;).
(1). If you know anything about constellations, this is actually Orion I'm referencing. The "big, orange" star is Betelgeuse. Just fyi. And Stjörnu means star in Icelandic. Always translate things like that to see how lazy I uncreative ;)
(2). A gambeson is a medieval piece of clothing. It is very thick, usually made of leather or wool. It offers fairly good protection while being much lighter, easier to wear, and cheaper than chain mail, though it was often worn in combination with it. This is the closest thing I could think of to Hiccup's armor.
(3). I just mentioned undoing a belt buckle here, but after looking at the armor from HTTYD 2, I am somewhat lost on the design of it. How in the hell did he get that thing on and off? It's like a big, leather jumpsuit with all the openings sewn shut.
(4). I say that they have been dating for less than 12 months. The reasoning behind that is according to the wiki page, they are around eighteen or nineteen in Race to the Edge and still very far from dating, but are together by 20 in HTTYD 2. I also assume they're engaged based on Stoick's "future-daughter-in-law" line and that there are rumors of a wedding in the third movie.
-Nick (ncham9)
p.s. What do you guys think of these annotations? I kinda like giving an insight to what I'm thinking while writing this. Also, I'm going to make a poll sometime soon about an aspect of this story. Should Toothless speak Dragonese or not? It's up to you guys, what you want to see. I can work the story around either way. Check every once in a while for my profile to see if it's up.