It was pretty hard to spot the small island the meeting was supposed to happen on, but Heather finally found it, leading Windshear to the landing.
"You sure you weren't followed?" Astrid's voice cut through the air before the dragon could even touch the ground. Always cautious, always so doubtful… But Heather couldn't find it in herself to be hurt by the wariness, it was well-meaning.
"Positive," She jumped on the ground and walked toward her and Hiccup, while Windshear rushed with excitement to play with Stormfly and Toothless. It was cute. She couldn't focus on that though, the meeting had to be short and to the point, any prolonged absence would be suspicious. And talking about suspicions… "Besides, Vigo suspects Ryker and Dagur. He asked me to go with him to capture the Flightmare." She looked at Hiccup to make sure he got the message right. "Just me, Windshear and him."
Hiccup, like he sometimes did, disappointed her immensely.
"Flightmare? Why would Vigo want the Flightmare?" Hiccup…
"Hiccup, you're missing the point!" how could she have made it more obvious?
"He does that, from time to time," Astrid remarked with a fond smile.
"No— No I don't." At his refusal to accept the truth Astrid burst out laughing, slapping her thigh with a hand. "What."
"Heather, dearest, listen," she finally wheezed out, now a little calmer. "Hiccup has a bad case of selective hearing. If you mention a dragon he won't know what the rest of the sentence was about."
"You know what, I can believe it."
"No! I don't!" he looked between them as if to convince them they're wrong.
"Then…" Well, a simple test could prove it, really. "What else did I say?"
"Uh… That…" he looked off in the distance, his words trailing off.
"That's what I thought."
"No, no, I was just distracted. It won't happen again," he promised, sounding genuine. Astrid just laughed again.
"No, it's bad, believe me, a very bad case of dragon selective hearing. Look." She held up a hand, silently asking them to wait until she stopped gasping for breath, and then straightened out. "Hiccup, I found a Night Fury island and I think it would be a perfect spot for us to marry."
"Night Fury island? I thought we debunked that when we were fifteen."
Wait what.
Heather couldn't believe it, did he really— A look at Astrid confirmed her worst suspicions. The girl was shaking visibly, trying not to laugh which became harder and harder with each passing second.
"Hiccup… Did you… hear what she said right after that..?" she asked gently, and the boy made the same looking-in-the-distance-while-questioning-everything face. Dear Thor.
Damn it, now she would have to figure out an excuse for where she was, but gods, she couldn't stop laughing in tandem with the blonde, as Hiccup looked at them, confused.
Poor, poor boy.