Hey everyone! I'm glad to see that this story is moving right along! I told you before that I'm a little irregular in my updates, so expect sporadic postings in the near future. A huge shout out to (in my opinion) one of the best authors this fandom has to offer, Midoriko-Sama! My little brother and I literally just finished reading the two stories that she posted and it really stoked the fires of inspiration in me! It was literally her first review of last chapter that coaxed me into writing this out as fast as I possibly could. That being said, I hope you enjoy this next installment!
Hiccup knew that the rain wouldn't stop soon and that waiting it out in the forest would result in a serious case of death from an enraged axe woman. So when Astrid finally stopped shouting at him for bringing misfortune to her yet again, he calmly stood and looked at the ground. Astrid must have took this as his submission to her anger and finally allowed herself to feel that he was on the road to being properly chastised. After all, he didn't receive an axe blow to the head, but instead a sigh of resignation accompanied with her annoyed, "We had better get back to the village. I don't want to be out here and add getting sick to the list of your many screw ups today." She huffed and marched past him, forcefully ramming her shoulder into his in passing.
Being bullied by others was something that Hiccup was unusually used to, however when Astrid did it, the pain seemed to almost be unbearable. She had never done it before and he thought that it was because she despised acting like Snotlout. His assumptions seemed somewhat moot at this point as he was starting to feel like he did before he became friends with Toothless. Slumping his shoulders in defeat once again, he trailed after Astrid silently and hoped that she would just ignore him on the journey home.
His hopes were dashed short as he heard her gasp and pant like she was out of breath. He knew that she had been training, but she sounded fine earlier. He looked up at her and saw her swinging her axe unnecessarily at a clump of brush that they could both just as easily walk around. There is not much that escapes his attention when it is fully captured by something and it was during this berserker-like rage that Hiccup finally saw the reason behind her anger. Astrid was a fine Viking and one of the most talented youths of her generation. Her mastery of the Viking way was only surpassed by his giant of a father. Things like fear and sadness did not have a place in Viking society, so it was masked with anger, honor, mead, and other things of the like. Vikings did not know how to react to feeling scared or depressed, so they sought comfort in the feelings that they reveled in and Astrid was no exception to that fact. So when he saw the smallest glimmer of despair show itself in her eyes for a moment before it was drowned in rage, he understood why she was so bent out of shape about all of this.
There are a great many things that Hiccup has done in the recent months of his life that has made him change in ways he had not anticipated. Befriending Toothless had led to him becoming the hero of Berk and hugging Astrid inside Toothless which lead to this mess just to name a couple. However, on both occasions, he was not thinking of himself and he did not think of himself this time. So, almost out of reflex, his hand came up to rest on Astrid's shoulder, bringing her attention to him for a moment. She turned as if to strike him, but was met with a burning gaze of emerald determination that stayed her hand and froze her in place. "Tell me." Was all that he said. It was confusing, it was infuriating, it was unexpected, and it was exactly what she needed to hear at the moment.
"Tell you? Tell you what?" Astrid tried to look confused, but Hiccup saw through her admittedly poor acting skills.
"Tell me why. You were so against marrying me when we talked earlier, then change your mind right in front of my dad. It just doesn't make sense and I can't apologize to you until I know what I did wrong." Hiccup finally ground out. He wasn't angry, but his confusion and drive to help her outweighed his common sense. Fortunately for him, it was enough of a question to make Astrid stumble back away from him and drop her aggressive stance.
"You want to apologize? You think that it will make it all better? What's done is done, Hiccup. You can't change anything now and an apology will do nothing to make a difference. You may have tricked me into believing you once, but not again. I trusted you earlier when you said that you would help me and now look where we are! Exactly in the place that I wanted to avoid!" Astrid steadily got louder as she spoke, screaming at him in the end. Her voice only challenged by the steady rainfall around them.
Hiccup watched as her hair stuck to her face and the water run down her cheeks. He knew it was the rain, but he couldn't help but imagine them being her tears as she yelled so desperately at him. He didn't like confrontation or contention and avoided it at all costs. However, if it was something he could not avoid, he did not turn from it. "I tried. I was going to tell my father that we wouldn't make a good match. I was trying to help you!"
"Help me? You'd be condemning me to a life full of guilt! Did you not think that I wouldn't find out that you would have had to marry another clan's daughter if you didn't marry me? I would have been consumed with the knowledge that I forced that on you! What kind of life would that have been?" Astrid was near hysterical. Hiccup could see the truth behind her words and it threw him off guard.
"What? I would have been married off to another chief's daughter? Where did you come up with that?" He was wracking his brain, trying to find where she could have come to that assumption. Granted, when the chief had brought them into the house and demanded to hear from either one of them that there was nothing between them, he was a little out of sorts. He had made up his mind to make sure that Astrid didn't get married, but the way his father asked the question, it made it seem that he would have to give up on ever marrying her again in the future. Pictures of her married to another man had filled his head and it made him angry both at himself and at the situation. He had bit his lip and fisted his hands in an attempt to calm his raging emotions and tried to muster up enough courage to give up something he so desperately wanted in the future.
"Oh, don't tell me the great Hiccup didn't think of that! You knew about it and-" Astrid was about to go on, but Hiccup stopped her with a palm in front of her, signaling her to stop for a moment.
"I didn't…" Hiccup breathed out heavily and shaking until he regained his composure. "I didn't do it because of that." He finally found that he did not like the rain falling against him and suddenly took a step around Astrid. He was hurt that Astrid had only wanted to marry him because of her guilt. To be honest, he didn't really expect anything spectacular as to why she said that she would, but knowing the real reason behind her actions made his aching heart feel cold and dull in his chest. Either from this new revelation or from the cold rain, he felt numb all over. He was done talking and thanked the downpour while he walked on as it masked his flowing tears.
Astrid was stunned for a second or two. She never thought that Hiccup would stand up to her like he just did. Then had the nerve to just up and leave her behind. That boy made her so angry sometimes and she wasn't sure if going after him was such a good idea at the moment. She wasn't too confident in her ability to keep herself from strangling him. Instead, she chose to raise her axe and continue in slaying innocent trees and underbrush. That is, until she remembered that it was still raining. She wondered in quiet silence how Hiccup could make her forget about the weather as it was literally tapping her on the head to remind her of its presence.
Deciding that she couldn't afford to be sick in the coming days, she ran towards the village on a different path than the one Hiccup had taken earlier. Above all, she did not want to meet up with him again until she could get her anger under control.
The path ahead of her seemed to blur as she fell victim to her stray thoughts. She could not help but replay the words that he had spoken before he parted with her. Errant questions such as why he did it flew into her conscience. She quickly shook her head and made a point not to think about it until later. He was the one that wronged her, so why should she care why he did it? Besides, she was a Viking. Thinking about things usually led to a lot of bad things. Look at what it did to Hiccup before he met Toothless.
Astrid became even more enraged as she involuntarily brought the walking fishbone back into her thoughts. She was tired of all the things that he forced her to feel. Vikings don't have mushy feelings, they have stone cold steel and chorded muscle that they thrived on. Thanks to his little speech earlier, she was less of a Viking now. Yeah, that was it. Hiccup was so bad at being a Viking, he made the Vikings that were close to him even worse! When she saw him again, he was going to die! Astrid turned a little and seriously considered going and hunting down the boy to exact her revenge for making her less of a Viking until a very poignant thought entered her mind. He killed the Queen of the dragon's nest, saved her from falling to death in battle with said Queen, and then single handedly changed an entire tribe's views on dragons.
A very frustrated sigh escaped her lips at the thought of how Hiccup's story was more Viking-like than her own. Who was the one that trained for combat from sunup to sundown? Who was the Viking that continually worked her muscles until they screamed at her to stop and then worked them some more? She did! And all that hard work for nothing! The image of Stormfly entered her head. No, it wasn't for nothing. She gained a truly great friend and confidant that she just didn't have before. Dammit! She couldn't even be angry at him for that! Astrid huffed and finally saw the village ahead of her. "Screw it, I'll think about it tomorrow."
The storm had made the sky darker than usual and with all the rain, no torches were really lit either. Astrid was at least glad that it was light enough for her to see her house before taking one last look up the hill at the chief's house. It had smoke rolling out of the chimney and all seemed well. Unfortunately, she thought. Willing the house to explode from night fury plasma blasts mentally, she closed her eyes and then opened them again. When it didn't happen, she rolled her eyes and finally entered her own.
Well, she reached for the door to enter her home, only to realize that it still wasn't fixed yet. Dang. She hadn't thought of that until now. It will be even harder to stay warm tonight when all she could do was prop a piece of furniture up in front of the doorway to keep the rain out. Sighing, she went on up to her room, soaking wet and feeling a lot colder than she liked.
Stormfly met her in her room as she flung her wet clothes off of her. The vain dragon had accidentally blasted a hole in her roof not too long ago and Hiccup had worked with her to build a trap door for the dragon to enter her bedroom when she wished. Arg! Why is it everything that she thought of today involved him? She threw her wet tunic at the contraption in a fit of anger and watched it splat against the door and fall down onto the floor. Stormfly cocked her head to the side and squawked in confusion at her rider's behavior. Astrid looked at her dragon and decided that she was also responsible for the mess she was in as well. "Don't try to play innocent with me. You left me behind when you came back to town!" Stormfly had the decency to look ashamed before she stood and went over to nudge her rider and ask for forgiveness.
Unfortunately, Astrid was in the middle of putting on dry clothes when she did and easily became unbalanced after being seemingly tackled by a giant dragon. Her feet were caught in her leggings and she fell over towards her bedpost. Luckily, the dragon reacted quick enough to extend its wing and stop her before she landed. Astrid was grateful that she had been caught and let the anger fade away towards her dragon. After being righted, she clung to the reptile with a mighty grasp, not a foolish and childish thing called a hug. So what if they looked a lot alike, only true Vikings could hold a dragon still…yeah, that's what she was doing, holding her dragon still. After all, she didn't want to be knocked over again.
Stormfly unfurled her wings and enveloped her rider with them. Warmth immediately infused Astrid while she breathed in and out as the steady rhythm of Stormfly's heartbeat lulled her into relaxation. It didn't matter that she was still partially soaked or that her dragon was wet, this embrace was exactly what she needed at the moment. Her anger had finally dissipated and those weird feelings of sadness and confusion returned in its absence. She would not cry, she had promised herself that she would never do so. So instead, she just tightened her hold around her companion and closed her eyes. Stormfly seemed to understand her feelings and crooned in comfort before wrapping her tail around her as well and squeezing in sympathy. The last thing that crossed Astrid's mind was of course how this felt compared to being hugged by Hiccup inside toothless. Her heart suddenly ached and the world disappeared into darkness.
Astrid woke to the sound of furniture being slid across a wooden floor. The screeching and grinding noise traveled upstairs and through her closed door to bombard her ears. Stormfly had moved at some point during the time that she was napping with her and now law next to her, but still had her tail around Astrid's waist. Astrid sighed and remembered that someone had to move some furniture in front of the door to keep the rain out. She wanted to go back to sleep, but her stomach had other ideas. It rumbled loudly in protest and forced her to get up and look for something edible. So finally rearranging her clothes to where they should be, since she had somehow thought making sure her dragon didn't tip her over was more important than getting fully dressed earlier, she made her way downstairs.
She was a little ways down the stairs when she spotted her father groaning to move a weapons rack that was fully loaded into the proper position against the wall. "What are you doing, dad?" She asked, stopping on the stairs.
"Well, good evening to you as well, sleeping beauty! Nice to see you up and about! I'm just putting all the furniture back where it belongs." He gave a particularly mighty heave and set the weapons rack in its usual place.
"Putting it back in place? Why?" Astrid couldn't keep the knowing smirk off of her face as she waited for her father to explain about the door that HE was thrown out of by HER.
Angnir turned to look at his daughter with a devilish smirk on his face. It made her feel uncomfortable seeing as every time he had that look it meant he was up to something or knew something she didn't. "Well, you know how we were having problems with our old door? Well, I was at Stoic's and in the middle of talking about the upcoming wedding, my future son-in-law strides right in, soaked to the bone. I asked the lad if he was alright and he nodded that he was, then he went up to his room and came back downstairs with some tools. He asked me if I had any spare wood he could use to fix our door and I told him that we had some in the back where we used to keep your dragon." Astrid had a sinking feeling in her gut, but Angnir seemed oblivious to that fact and continued with his story. "So the next thing I know, he starts heading out and Stoic stops him for a second. He says 'You're soaked to the bare bones, Hiccup! Why don't you change first, you'll catch your death out there like that.' And then the boy says, 'I'll get wet anyway, no use in getting more clothes drenched.' Then walks on out in the rain with nary a thought." Angnir took a glance at his daughter.
Astrid was pale as a ghost and her fists clenched. Angnir thought it had something to do with remembering how cold she felt. "Don't worry, Astrid, I'll get the fire going soon. After all, you and Hiccup must have been soaked fixing the door!" He made his way over to the fireplace and began to start a fire when he heard Astrid's voice.
"I didn't help fix the door, dad. I was in my room sleeping." Her voice contained truth in it, but a little bit of sadness and anger as well. After the fire was properly started, he went back into the kitchen and grabbed a tankard for him and his daughter.
"Oh. Well, either way, the door is fixed and looks like it should. I'm glad that I will have such a handy son-in-law soon!" He meant to sound jovial, but knew that it would get under Astrid's skin pretty easily. He knew that the best way to get the complete truth out of his daughter was through her anger.
She didn't disappoint, either. Straightening her shoulders, she yelled back defiantly. "I'm so happy that your life will be sooo much better now that you've destroyed mine! Couldn't sell me off fast enough, huh? Had to make sure that you picked someone rich too, like the chief's son!" Her eyes were glassy, but no tears left them. Righteous fury boiled in her stomach and heated her face.
Angnir filled his tankard with mead and hers with water before calmly setting them down on the table. Then he slowly walked over to Astrid. "Astrid, you are of age. You need to find yourself a husband and have children." Most parents wouldn't try to anger the same child that threw them out of the door earlier that day, but Angnir felt that this was something important to Astrid. He needed to get to the root of the problem and if making her mad got him there, then so be it.
"Oh? I HAVE to do that? What rule says that I have to settle down and be so…so…DOMESTIC? I'm a Viking! I tame the seas and conquer the lands with my fighting skills! I haven't went on any adventures or seen the other lands outside of Berk! I want to do so much more than just sit and sew all the day long and take care of a man while HE gets to go live HIS dreams while I can't! I haven't even been given the chance to prove to everyone that I'm as good as Hiccup!" Astrid was screaming towards the end but stopped immediately afterwards. She had of course felt that her dreams were squashed when she was told that she was going to get married, but the nagging feeling that she had around Hiccup was nameless and silent until she screamed it at her father. Her anger at how fast he had gotten his fame with the people of Berk was suppressed with the feeling of guilt after looking at what it cost him. She may have blood, sweat, and tears invested in her gradually growing fame, but he lost an entire foot in order to overcome something that could have wiped out the entire village.
Angnir nodded his head. There was the meat of the matter. "Alright lass, listen to me. You know as well as I that you are not inferior to the boy. He has no backbone, can't fight at all, his ideas mostly cause the village more grief than good, and he is terribly scrawny. That being said, he is worth as much as you are. In this village, every Viking relies on one another. When fighting in the shield wall, it is as equals, not as masters and servants or lesser and betters. And if I know him at all, he won't make you give up on your dreams. The boy is absolutely smitten with you." Angnir finished his speech and waited for his daughter to cheer up.
Unfortunately for the man, his hopes didn't come true. Astrid stood there, listening to her father and admittedly starting to feel better about herself. That is, until her father said that last sentence. In an instant, the image of Hiccup flashed in her head. "I didn't…" Hiccup breathed out heavily and shaking until he regained his composure. "I didn't do it because of that." And then her heart wrenched in agony. It felt as though someone was grasping it in an iron fist and twisting. She knew now. She knew why he did it. Her conversation with him while they were in Toothless ran through her head, his promise to keep her from marrying right now. He was trying to set her free. The blood coming from his bottom lip, his hands dripping the red essence as well, all to try and make himself let her go. Even if he didn't want to, he tried to…for her sake. Her face bunched up and she tried mightily to stop the flow of tears threatening to come out of her eyes. So far she was succeeding, but just barely.
Her facial expressions caught the attention of Angnir and he beckoned her to him softly. She walked down the rest of the stairs and came to stand in front of him. "What is the matter, Astrid? Tell me." He looked at her with concern and placed a hand on her shoulder.
His hand came up to rest on her shoulder, bringing her attention to him for a moment. She turned as if to strike him, but was met with a burning gaze of emerald determination that stayed her hand and froze her in place. "Tell me." Was all that he said.
Astrid brought her hands to her mouth and stifled a sharp gasp of pain. Her eyes becoming blurry, but yet to shed tears. "I can't. I did something terrible today. But I can't… I can't." Finally a couple of tears made their silent trek down her cheeks. She quickly wiped them away. "Dammit! It's so stupid! I can't cry about it, Vikings don't cry about stupid things like this!" She tried to mask her hurt and sadness with anger, but it just didn't seem to work this time.
Then warm arms embraced her and she was pulled into the chest of a man twice her size. His blonde beard soaking up the still barely forming tears into it. "It's true. Vikings do not cry over things such as this. But while you are in here with me, you are my daughter, Astrid Hofferson. So let me be enough Viking for the both of us and just be my daughter for now. Be Astrid and let the tears come. I'll be here to make sure no one sees them." His hands rubbing circles on her back and his voice vibrated from his massive chest.
Hearing those words, Astrid couldn't hold back the all consuming flood of emotions that burst from within her. Reaching around and hugging her father, she let the tears come forth as she sobbed heavily into his chest. She let her sadness bleed out of her bit by bit and all her sorrows melt out of her as she cried next to the heart of the man that held her now.
Angnir felt his own sadness well up inside of him, but fought it back. It hurt him to see his daughter like this and he knew that this was necessary. However, it clawed at his very soul and pulled at his heartstrings when he felt the dampness of his beard begin to soak into his tunic. Still, he muscled through the pain and resolutely held the last and most important member of his family left. His little girl, Astrid.
Alright everyone! I know this one wasn't exactly as light hearted as the others, but I hope I didn't disappoint too much on the romantic side of things. Yes, it's a bit angsty, but I think that it fit their characters pretty well. A big shout out to Midoriko-Sama for the excellent advice she gave me and to those of you who reviewed the story! I'll list all of the people at the beginning of the next chapter to thank you all for your support! While on that topic, I implore each and every one of you that feels like this story deserves a review to do so. It really helps keep me motivated and gives me some ideas along the way! Thanks for all your support and I hope that you continue reading Peculiarities of Love!