My Leftovers:
A joy ride on Toothless compares to nothing else. Whatever imaginings you might have called 'thrill' or 'delight' are blown away after two minutes of riding. It only took Heather seven seconds to reach top her happiest memory post-Night fury riding.
Every second got more fun; and even the grumpy looking cutie on the ground couldn't stop her fun! Well, not until he whistled at the Nightfury and she and Toothless dove to the ground.
It was a sharp turn that almost twisted Heather's head around- she did not mind. It was a blast!
On solid ground, Hiccup had his arms crossed and his feelings a tad on the miffed side. Watching his awesome beast skillfully land without a dent in the earth made him very proud; seeing the girl jump off his precious dragon, not so much.
"Oh. My Gods! " Heather hopped off Toothless, and bounced around Hiccup in total glee. "Now that was a thunder bolt to the brain!" she was almost incoherently giddy.
"Yeah, thunder to your head, I had that image in my mind, too, now that you mention it." Hiccup said, slightly annoyed. He walked around Heather to check on the 'In-Case-of-Emergency-Tail' on Toothless.
Heather noticed the unflattering tone but stayed perky, "Alright, alright, you shoulda come too, but it's not like I'm on trial here, right?"
"Ya know, in some parts of the world, theft is dealt with by chopping off a hand." A small part of him was relieved that he was alone with her because a certain axe he knew was all too eager to do so by suggestion.
"While you making me a gear-hand would be neat, you didn't not know beforehand I was taking him out for a spin." Heather stated, her face close to his shoulder.
Hiccup turned around to show his sour face. "Leaving an I-OWE-YOU on my tool desk isn't how you ask a favor."
"Ow! While I was there, I peeked through your notebooks- I love the shading you give to his eyes." She sincerely meant only to mention nice things- uncaring about unpleasant ones.
"Do you just pick out what sounds best to you when people talk?" The miffed feeling increased, with a little invasion-of-privacy-annoyance and slight flattery.
"Oh, and even if some of your equations are lacking in fine detail, I have good vibes for the bigger pictures of them." Heather continued, listing in her head all the things she liked about Hiccup.
"I am now completely convinced you haven't got half a clue about anything." The pacifistic Viking was feeling uncharacteristically confrontational; also confused because he secretly enjoyed it a little.
It was late afternoon; the sun was setting, the two humans and dragon had Berk's shore to themselves.
Heather put her arms behind her and twisted herself in cutesy, playful ways. Hiccup didn't know what to think about it because most women he knew were more on the solemn side. She wasn't chatting anymore- even though nothing she said really offended Hiccup. They were actually really nice things, but that bothered him because he felt guilty for liking her…talk.
Biting her lip, Heather tested the air and walked a little closer to Hiccup. She didn't say this out-loud, but he was so cute when serious. The boy thought of crazy possibilities all the time, but the one her eyes were offering he did not want to agree with. He couldn't even if he wanted to, actually.
"I kind of need elbow room here." He tried to say commandingly- it came out more awkward and endearing.
Heather's face got closer to his. "Better to hear your ranting, my dear."
He laughed ridiculously at 'my dear', but had enough strength to step back.
"Would you stop it, please?"
"Stop what?" she wasn't innocent; Heather just had fun in talking.
She was too close for comfort, andHiccup was in a war in his head. "You know what. This- whatever this is, it's bad, okay very bad!"
Heather raspberried, a little humor lost as she said, "You shouldn't be so scared of her hurting you."
"I'm not, I'm scared of me hurting her." The deepest truth he had in him at that second.
Heather nodded her eyes half closed and smiled. "You are a really good guy- for a total dork, I mean."
Hiccup smiled sarcastically. "Golly, thanks."
"You welcome." Heather said, and then she kissed Hiccup in the way a girl would kiss a nervous boy she liked.
The feeling of it was soft, enjoyable; why did he ignore this for so long? The he remembered when he wasn't feeling bruising in that fun way,-why this was a very bad idea!
He broke it off with her then started wiping his tongue. "Dammit! Damn it, damn it, Odin damn me!"
"I liked it too." Heather forgot for a second she wasn't on Toothless when she saw the creature a few feet away from her instead of under. The dragon's mouth was hanging open in shock.
"Shut up, just shut up!" Hiccup was digging his fingers in his hair as he estimated in his head how long he actually enjoyed that…too much...
…
Miserable in his workshop, Hiccup squeezed his eyes when he heard his girlfriend approaching.
"There's a rumor going around that Hufflepuff was riding Toothless like its funny or something." Astrid said, testy but not as bad as she could get. And she was about to get worst.
"Yeah, she borrowed him for some unplanned fun," Hiccup turned away from his desk and looked at Astrid…it hurt. "She's that kind of girl; flighty, irresponsible…"
"And about to have a major gap in her teeth." Astrid cracked her knuckles- she thought Hiccup was upset because he didn't know how to confront the girl on her crime. That was okay, Astrid was very okay with handing Meriwether alone.
Hiccup gently grabbed the calloused but achingly familiar hand. Astrid was distracted by this, catching on that he was having an un-manly moment.
"Oh calm down, I'm not gonna kill her for real." Astrid assured him, not getting the weepy face and took her hand back.
Hold that thought, Hiccup said in his brain. He couldn't find the right words to come from his mouth.
Astrid didn't like guessing games, so she peeked over his shoulder and asked, "Are you building new limbs for Gobber? They lack finesse and look like you're just starting from the bone-"
"I kissed Heather." Hiccup blurt out with as much speed and softness as he could mange.
Astrid was still for a second, shook her head and casually asked him, "Sorry, my hearing went insane for a second, could you repeat that?"
"Heather and I kissed, I feel sick about it and I just want to remind you that you are the most amazing person I know, and Astrid….I am so sorry." Going over and over explanations, apologies and alternate truths- after all that, Hiccup decided in the moment before talking to just go from the heart. He got that from constantly talking to her, which also taught him he should tense up before Astrid used necessary violence.
Astrid's face wasn't murderous, hateful or even close to sad; it was blank. If anything shocked beyond reconnection, but it lacked the passion she usually had for stuff. She stared at Hiccup as she took a seat next to his chair; her eyes weren't huge but barely blinking.
Hiccup counted that too much time had gone by since she'd moved. He had anticipated cursing, throwing pointy objects or the ripping of his spine out of his back but Astrid did nothing but seat next to him.
"Um….Astrid? I was kind of anticipating a more corporal reaction. (she said nothing, making him feel worst) Could you please tell me what going on in you right now?"
The blonde looked down, then she soberly said, "I'm trying to comprehend that….you…did what you did. You."
With their history dating back to toddlerhood to Red-Death times, Hiccup understood what she was saying- it made him feel disgusting.
"Could you at least break my other leg off or something? I mean, I made these extra limbs because I thought you'd let me live, so some bodily harm would be appreciated."
Her lip pouted a little, "Yep. It's you." Only her nerdy sweetheart would say stuff like that.
Hiccup was slouching in a begging sort of way, "Come on! Say you wanna separate my skin from my face or twiddle my fingers into hairpins!"
She shook and her lip jutted out more, but her voice was still emotionless. "That's the crazy part, Hiccup. I don't feel. There's nothing that can motivate me right now."
Heather poked her head into the unhappy atmosphere. "Hey, tell her the good news yet?"
The first movement Hiccup noticed was the balling of her fists. Astrid stood up, posture like an angry Nightmare about to go ablaze.
"Wow, I got a feeling again."
Astrid said this right before she walked up to Heather and back-handed the brunette's face.
The action felt right, but didn't mend Astrid's bubbling insides. Maybe another swipe would help that.
Feeling the mutual dislike, Heather glared at the mean blonde. She stopped patting her check and slapped Astrid.
Hiccup was in full of view of the horror that was his present life. Before they started spilling blood, he had to stop them. When in doubt, call in the dragon. With pleading eyes, Hiccup asked his dragon to quickly step in. Toothless rolled his eyes and waddled in between the two slap-happy girls.
"Get off!" Astrid said as the giant black paw pushed her away from the brunette she never trusted and wanted to slice in half.
Toothless gave a warning growl at her. Heather wasn't fighting the dragon; she didn't want to kill anyone- even though she considered a world without a certain stick-in-the-mud to be more pleasant.
"Ya know what, that's fine." The blonde said as she pushed herself out of Toothless' gripe. He kept his eyes on her; she seemed to have swallowed all her fury and cooled down in no time at all.
With her eyes half opened, she pushed her bang out of her face and calmly told Heather, "You want the pathetic, troll-bedding slut? You can have him."
Though it should be the last thing on his mind, Hiccup's ego did bruise at her cursing. Maybe it was even more egoistical, but he had hoped Astrid would've still wanted him after.
Heather was happily relived, "Well alrighty then!"
Annoyed beyond belief by the brunette's chipperness, Astrid turned to walk away. Then Heather said,
"Don't worry, Hiccky, she'll find some other gold to dig in no time."
Hiccup's nerves went from very scared to terrified as he saw Astrid slowly turn around. Astrid was the cutest when she was angry; to rate her right now, she was the most adorable he'd ever seen her.
Heather didn't notice because her back was turned, she was skipping towards Hiccup with arms open for a hug. The girl heard a little snap from someone's fingers, but didn't think nothing of it until a huge amount of flames fired in front of her.
There was a wall of fire between her and Hiccup, and when Heather looked up she saw a Nadder had produced it. Stormfly continued to blow flames into a circle surrounding Heather, Astrid and Toothless.
Toothless protested at his fellow dragon, telling Stormfly she wasn't helping. The Nadder landed, squawked at him to move out the circle. The night Fury didn't budge, so she pushed him out. He went easily because the whole situation was silly to him and staying in the circle wouldn't really help Hiccup. Hiccup did not agree but didn't know what would help exactly.
In the fire-circle, Heather was alone with Astrid. The blonde petted her Nadder's horn in appreciation, and then gestured for her dragon to wait outside the fire-ring.
"Can you clarify to me what you meant with that gold-digging comment? Hmm?" Astrid asked, sounding politely curious.
There enclosed in a fire circle, with a horrible dragon loyal to a psychotic fever-blister; Heather felt peachy-keen.
"Word around the island is you and the marvelous hunk of Hiccup didn't together until he got a really cool ride; that seems a bit convenient to me." The brunette felt she was in the right because she'd liked him from the first seconds after meeting him.
Astrid blew her band out of her eyes; she had incredible pity for the sleazy harlot that seduced her boy; she knew nothing about Astrid's feelings.
"Wow. You seriously don't have a clue, Honeydue." Heather somewhat expect denial; she also believe that nothing to come out of Astrid's mouth would convince her that she'd always loved Hiccup.
"To be fair you're an idiot, and you haven't been here that long so I can forgive your stupidity on that front." Astrid was about two feet from Heather. They were both standing, and from outside the fire ring Hiccup and the dragons watched in waiting for things to get more interesting.
Astrid breathed in to clam herself, and then breathed out as she started to say, "You are right about one thing; I didn't like Hiccup until he got a dragon. I didn't like the Hiccup that built stupid inventions just to impress his Daddy and didn't care how he destroyed things more than dragons ever could. "
"Okay, so he wasn't always perfect,"
"No, he was a selfish and unprincipled twerp- and had no excuse for it just because he's short, skinny, uncoordinated, lacks muscle, has no communication skills, and zero-"
"I'm growing a beard here, harpy." Heather snapped with enough sweetness to cover her increasing dislike of Astrid.
Astrid rolled her shoulder to not punch the bitch and continued, "So, yeah, I could not find anything attractive about a guy who didn't even like himself; I know this sounds harsh but this was the true impression I got from my years with Hiccup.
Then one crazy day he goes from sniveling coward to a masterful, untouchable ace: how is this possible? He finally had a reason to fight.
Well, actually he was a big cheater who swindled everyone with cheap tricks but, even then, he did the impossible: he thought for himself."
Heather didn't show how her mind was twisting with new considerations.
"I didn't fall in love with a satirical dork that got lucky and saved the world; I fell for a crazy freak with more heart than I thought was possible for any one person to have."
Toothless didn't understand Norse because humans had very twisted rules about grammar; but he learned from Hiccup that humans said things with their faces. What Astrid's face told him, touched his heart: and Hiccup's face spelled out misery. The new human's face was more of stubborn denial.
"You still don't impress me a bit." Heather told the blonde.
"And I couldn't care less about that- I don't know what great wisdom you've gathered that makes you an expert on people's relationships but hear this-"
Directly in Heather's ear, Astrid whispered, "If I'm not his main girl, then it probably isn't you either."
Heather giggled but didn't say out loud how obvious that statement was. Because Heather didn't plan on marrying Hiccup, what stupid teenager plans that's (?) no, she just liked him and liked being with him as much as she could.
With a snap of her fingers, the fire circle was smothered by Stormfly's powerful feet. The two girls started at each other; they both felt cool and didn't plan to hurt each other…today.
"Good luck, Berry." Astrid said, knowing the odds were not in the brunette's favor.
Heather was amused by Astrid's stupid attempts but still snapped, "My name's Heather."
Astrid made a sarcastic 'really?' face and said as she walked away, "You really look like a Berry to me."
She nodded to Toothless and didn't bother to glance at Hiccup. If Hiccup was really a dumb loser who thought another girl would make him happy, then Astrid would let his experiment continue.
Who said she couldn't find a new love interest too?