Once she started to feel somewhat normal again, Estrid began the process of unsticking her hand from Hiksti's and propped herself up onto her knees. He protested lightly, moving to crouch beside her.
She slowly peeked over the back of the couch to take a look at the surrounding room. My parents are… They're not getting their deposit back.
The TV seemed to be fine for the most part. There was a crack along the side where the DVD player had been sitting, which meant it would probably have to be replaced, but it still looked functional. Where the DVD player was was now a smoking half of a box. She could see wires and parts where the top had blown clean off.
Estrid stumbled across the room on shaky feet, hurrying as fast as possible towards the movie cabinet. She ran into it with her hip, and leaned on the corner with one arm, all too aware of the tiny sparks still shooting off the broken DVD player. She bent over the cabinet and grabbed at the plug that connected to the extension cord that powered both the TV and the DVD player. She yanked it out of the socket, then turned around to face Hiksti, standing uncomfortably behind the couch, still pretty out of it. She felt really bad for threatening him, now. He looked at her worriedly, with one hand plugging one of his ears.
"Yeah… The beeping," Estrid muttered under her breath. It was grating. She wished she had a pair of earmuffs.
In the couch, there were at least three different pieces of plastic from the DVD player. Stuffing peeked out of the holes. Maybe Estrid could sew it back together? She hadn't had a lot of practice with the needle, but she knew she was capable. She shook her head. It wasn't the time for that. She made a beeline for the kitchen.
There were multiple shards of plastic stuck in the wall, two of which were there. Everything important seemed to be unharmed, thankfully. Only one of the cabinet doors had been hit, a pasty gray door swinging off of its top hinge. Estrid grabbed at the space between their fridge and one of the countertops, cringing in disgust as her hand made contact with the sticky sides of it. There was a stepladder somewhere in there, she knew it.
"Ha!" She tugged at the ladder's handle, putting her whole weight into it. The stupid thing was jammed.
She jumped as a hand tapped her shoulder, glancing backwards to see Hiksti, who'd followed her into the kitchen. Estrid gave him a considering look.
"You want a go at it?" She offered, pointing towards the crack and making space for him to slip past. He looked at her and then up at the alarm again and mumbled something flatly, though a few moments of verbal silence had him hesitantly bending down to try and see what she was looking for. Maybe he'd have better luck than she did pulling the damn thing out.
It was funny watching him try and reach for the ladder, too. The space between the fridge and counter was a bit too dark for anyone to make out any details, so he'd had to crouch stiffly and squish his face against the fridge to shift around the ladder. His face was kind of scrunched up too, confused over what he was grabbing at.
It looked like he was trying to get ahold of the far end of the ladder handle, something she couldn't do because her arms were too short. He was kind of wiggling it out, the ladder making noise when it hit the counter and fridge, which was pretty smart. Estrid wrinkled her brow. Hiksti yanked at the ladder again, and it fell onto its side, exposing the top half to the light of the kitchen.
Estrid heard a light knocking from the front door. Hiksti hadn't noticed yet. Shit, shit, it's probably the neighbors. While most of the apartments down her hall were empty and the couple above had gone on vacation just before her parents left, there was another couple in the apartment below who'd probably been privy to all of their noise. She felt bad that she'd disturbed them, but also a bit irritated that no one had come over to check on her when she'd needed it.
Impatient now, but still wary of Hiksti, Estrid debated grabbing onto the handle too, hands twitching. The alarm spurned her on, having her dropping to her knees roughly and grabbing into the top end of the handle, though she made sure to still keep an eye on him. Hiksti's jaw twitched slightly and he moved his hands down to give her more space.
She wasn't really sure if she was helping or hindering him. Or getting on his nerves. For a second, they'd been pulling into two opposite directions. They'd gotten it sorted a moment later, though, and were both able to pull out the ladder. She stood up with it, while he stayed crouched, semi-forcing him to let go of it so she could pull it closer to her person as she moved towards the less cramped living room space again.
The knocking had started up again, a bit louder this time, causing Hiksti to get up on his knees to peer out from around the kitchen counter.
Estrid stressed out silently. What would she do with him and with… with whoever was outside her door? Should she ask them for help with… this? What would she even tell them? She's pretty sure what happened just now broke the laws of physics.
Estrid waved her hand at Hiksti, strongly gesturing for him to sit down on a relatively unharmed part of the couch. Estrid held out one hand and gestured for him to sit.
"Sit down!" Estrid whisper-shouted, panicked, "Sit!" Hiksti looked at her incredulously.
Estrid scanned over the room again, wincing at all the marring on the wall, "...Please!"
Hopefully he got it, she didn't have the time to keep an eye on him anymore. Also, friendly or not, she wanted to keep him within her peripheral vision.
Estrid quickly slipped behind the couch again. She unfolded the ladder with a snap and dragged it under the alarm. The feet of the ladder made a nails-on-chalkboard kind of noise as she quickly positioned it, then hurried up the steps. She'd never disarmed a fire alarm before, she hoped she wasn't making a bad situation worse by messing with it. Her fingers fumbled along the sides until she felt a raised bump and pressed it, hoping it was the button to disengage. The alarm went completely silent a moment later.
"OPEN THE DOOR," The knocking hadn't, unfortunately. Instead, it only became more furious. And so had her visitor. Estrid rushed to the door, undoing the lock and opening it by only a hair. She peeked outside. Upon seeing who was waiting, moved so that her body blocked as much of the exit as possible. A wrinkled, manicured hand, scrabbled for purchase, forcing the door open so Estrid's face was clearly visible. Ok… So, I was right. Not the neighbors.
No, outside of her door stood Ms. Wendy Harris. Her landlord.
Old Wendy looked as if she'd been pulled straight out of a rift in time. She was a tall, crabby older woman with the voicebox of a longtime smoker. She often wore around a raggedy old bathrobe and her hair was almost always pinned up by a series of round, pink curlers, like straight out of a movie from the seventies. The sunspots which littered her complexion were clearly visible through a half-applied facemask. A pair of cucumbers lay across her brows, turned off of her eyes like the lenses from a pair of flip-up sunglasses.
Estrid pulled her face into a very forced smile and did her best to not break eye-contact. She squeaked out a squeaky, "Hi." I am so screwed.
Harrison looked down at her, face red, "Tell me why, at nine-thirty in the morning, I got a noise complaint- a call about the fire alarm, in Complex C, of course, and-and where in the seven fresh hells are your parents, Estrid? I smell smoke! There better not be any god-damn damage to any one of my rooms!"
I hate my neighbors. Estrid heard shuffling and pointedly avoided looking back towards the living room. Please, please don't get up now. Just stay where you are right now, pleaseee.
"Nooooo, no no no. Everything is fine. Completely fine. Just-just a-uh, a cooking accident. No damage, or anything." Ms. Harris tried to peer over Estrid's shoulder, bracing onto the wall with both of her hands. Estrid rose on her tip-toes to try and block her view. She heard footsteps and a thump and struggled against the urge to squeeze her eyes shut.
"A-All taken care of! My parents are out of the country right now. They, ah, sent in a notice." Estrid had delivered it to Ms. Harris personally to where she was in her flat in Complex A. Ms. Harris bobbed back and forth, trying to get a better view. Estrid shifted from side to side to try and keep her covered.
"Who is that?" Harris asked sharply. The cucumbers over her landlord's brows slid down slightly, displaced by an expression of vicious glee.
"Ah-uh, no. I-I don't- " Estrid struggled to find a response. There was a loud crash from behind her and she shut her eyes momentarily, begging whatever higher power there was for peace.
"I don't allow overnight visitors!" Her neighbor brought girls over all the time.
Ms. Harris was just looking for a reason, any reason possible to use to Get rid of the Bengtssons. Her landlady was quite fond of her father, but not so much of Estrid or her mother.
Her standards were quite different for everyone else in the complex. They both knew it, and the air was taut with the tension of it. Queue the bullshit.
"No one is here!" Estrid braced her shoulders and shoved the door open briefly, powering her way through and shutting it quickly behind them, "No person. No... no relation! No-one-"
Ms. Harris looked absolutely pissed at being forced away from the door. She shoved past Estrid, roughly pushing her into the wall with her shoulder.
"Don't lie to me, Estrid! I'll have you know that-" She grabbed onto the handle of the door and twisted. It wouldn't turn, at first. Estrid hoped it never would, but she wasn't that lucky. Ms. Harris put her side against the wall and used her whole arm to twist it, while shoving the door open.
"I'll have you-" Ms. Harris stumbled slightly as she rebalanced, walking right into the threshold of the living room.
I better start packing.
"Don't-" Estrid was speechless. Her landlady was looking back over at her now, silent but angrier than ever. She couldn't do anything, though, because… YES.
There was nothing in the apartment. Or, it would be more accurate to say that there was no visible damage to it. Estrid noted that a few picture frames were moved around the living room. Her box of DVDs had been upturned onto the TV cabinet, over the burnt DVD player. There were still a few burn marks visible from behind the pile, but nothing immediately noticeable if you didn't know what to look for.
Estrid couldn't stop small open-mouthed smile. Huh.
The only real flaw was that there was nothing out in the kitchen; nothing to cover for the alibi she'd given Ms. Harris. But her landlady was probably too pissed to notice that, anyways. Estrid tried not to let her eyes linger lest she give herself away. Instead, they drifted back onto her landlady, focusing in on a vein on her forehead that looked just about ready to pop.
Her blood pressure must be through the roof right about now, Estrid noted delightfully. She straightened her back, suddenly a whole lot more confident.
"Well, if you don't mind…" Estrid waved towards the door, which was half-open.
"I-I- yes," Ms. Harris croaked. She stood up straight as well, now, looking around one more time, "Yes, of course." Her face was still scrunched, sour at being proven wrong. She wasn't wrong, not really, but that wasn't the point.
Estrid held her breath, practically counting every step done by her landlady as she made her way to the hall with the unsteady gait of an old horse. She couldn't resist poking her head out after her landlady actually left to make sure she was really gone.
The door closed behind Estrid with a click, and she leaned against it with her eyes closed, sliding down a little bit. Oh God.
Estrid hoped that her parents never found out about this. She wondered how the hell she was going to hide all the damage. And… and what she was going to do with Hiksti. Where had he gone, anyways? Estrid opened an eye slowly. …Oh.
Pressed against the wall next to the door and rubbing his nose was Hitski himself. It looked like he'd been squished behind the door and she remembered how hard the door to the apartment had been pushed open. Rough. She must've missed him in her panic.
Well, there was one problem solved. Estrid rubbed her eyes tiredly. She slid all the way down to the floor, and looked down at her feet. Hiksti pushed off the wall and she spotted something odd from the corner of her eye as he turned to the side.
… a metal foot.
A peg-legged metal foot. A thought tickled at the back of her mind.
Estrid looked up at his face again. This guy had messy hair. Freckles. …ratty green tunic. Estrid shook her head slightly. She was just being ridiculous. But was she, though?
He could just be a cosplayer… cosplayer? But no, what cosplayer has she ever seen been ejected from the inside her TV. While she was watching a How To Train Your Dragon- No.
Hiksti mumbled something sardonically before rubbing the back of his head. Estrid was feeling pretty sardonic herself, now.
But what about his name? It was Hiksti. He'd made that pretty clear. Sure, it started with the same first few letters, but the end bits were pretty different. And the language. The movie was obviously made in english. Heck, she'd even read some of the books and it was common knowledge to anyone who read the author's biography that Cressida Cowell was British.
But no, Estrid's brain whispered traitorously. He was a Viking, right? The Vikings, well, the Viking spoke Old Norse, didn't they? Estrid tried to keep her breathing even.
Don't be so delusional- How could she even begin to explain this to anyone? Her parents? The Police? She'd be sent straight to the mental hospital. And she'd deserve it, too. Her life wasn't some sort of-of- she wasn't even sure.
Estrid had half a mind to brush everything off as some sort of stress-induced hallucination. Maybe some kind of carry-over from finals. Or dehydration. That happened, right?
"I guess this means I'm keeping you." … For now. Hiksti- No, Hiccup? Well, he turned his head as Estrid spoke, giving her an appeasing, forced smile. He tried to smother a yawn, his face contorting awkwardly. Well, if I'm not crazy and he's real then he's definitely been through it today.
Estrid needed time to gather her thoughts. And he looked like he was in need of some serious rest. She wasn't sure she herself could sleep, or if she felt safe enough to sleep after everything, but she could definitely use her computer. She sighed, then pushed herself off of the floor. The wood was cold, and her tailbone was starting to really hurt. Her back protested as she lurched onto her feet.