Frozen/HTTYD Chapter Nineteen

[afterandalasia]

Chapter Nineteen

Of course, it wasn’t as if things always went smoothly. It wasn’t just the big things that they needed to learn about living with dragons - how to feed them, or they fact that Toothless would sometimes try to heat up the floor with his breath while still half asleep and almost set Hiccup’s room in fire - but sometimes the small things that got them. Hiccup had managed to get all of the others together and get a large sheet of slate from the edge of the Wildlands, which was now sitting outside waiting for them to work out how to get it into his room. What he could not do was anticipate that something as innocuous as Gobber bringing out dinner and starting to serve it up would send Toothless bounding across the room.

With a hiss, Toothless ran halfway up the stairs, paused to growl in the direction of the table, and then leapt across all of their heads to perch on one of the beams. His lashing tail knocked a shield off the wall, and as he jumped down a chair and a footstool followed it over. He thumped across the ground with his forelimbs, wings flaring and furling again.

“Stop that!” said Stoick, at the same time as Hiccup said, “What is it, Toothless?”

Toothless shrieked, a sound rather too loud for inside a house, and then narrowed his eyes and growled at the table. His teeth were fully extended, back arched.

“What’s gotten into you, then?” said Gobber. “You’ve had your supper, now let us have some eel stew in piece.”

“Eel stew?” Hiccup leaned over to look into Elsa’s bowl, filled where his own still stood empty. She leaned back out of the way. It was hard to tell what the fish in it was, but he supposed that it could look like eel. Turning round on the bench, he reached for his cane. “Yeah, that explains it. It’s all right, bud, it’s not going to hurt you. It’s already dead.”

“Would anyone mind telling me what is going on?” His father was already sounding frustrated.

Luckily, Elsa replied, while Hiccup was still trying to edge towards Toothless with his hand outstretched. “Dragons do not like eels.”

“And I don’t like baths,” said Gobber, “but I don’t go wrecking the house over them.”

If it had been any other time, Hiccup might have argued with that, but now he was more concerned with getting over to Toothless. The dragon shook his head, shrieked again, and for a moment Hiccup saw green at the back of his throat. All right, this had gone markedly downhill. “I think we should go outside for a bit,” he said. “Come on, bud.”

“Oh no, you are not going out in that snow,” said Stoick.

“I’m not sending him outside on his own!” Hiccup protested. He lunged across to throw an arm around Toothless’s neck, and though Toothless squirmed and rumbled warningly he did not pull away. “Dragons just don’t like eels! It’s not his fault!”

Another lash of Toothless’s tail sent the chair across the floor and whipped against the wall, knocking the wooden ducks off the shelf upon it. Hiccup fought to keep himself upright while simultaneously keeping an arm around Toothless.

Stoick looked around the scene, and then sighed heavily. Getting to his feet, he dumped his bowl of stew back into the pot, then picked up the bowl in one hand and the pot in the other. “Come on, then, Elsa,” he said. “Looks like we’re eating outside tonight.”

“Dad, I didn’t mean-” Hiccup started, but as Stoick walked towards the door Toothless gave another cry and bounded halfway up the stairs in one go. Hiccup grabbed at the overturned chair to keep himself upright, cursing the Red Death all over again, but by the time that he had managed to get himself standing straight again the door was closing behind them.

It couldn’t be considered a snowstorm outside, at least not by Berk’s standards. Arendelle might disagree on the matter. But it was certainly snowing, winter preparing to really settle in now.

“Thor’s goats,” grumbled Hiccup. He looked round to Toothless, now crouching on the stairs with his flaps right back and tail still whipping from side to side. “Are you pleased with yourself?”

Gobber ambled over, righted the chair and footstool, and set about picking the ducks off the floor. “Well, that’s one thing to remember,” he said. “No eel stew from now on.”

“Sorry,” Hiccup said. “I didn’t realise...”

“And I didn’t tell you,” Gobber replied, shrugging. “Oh well, I’m sure it’ll do just as well for lunch tomorrow while you’re off flying.”

He glanced over to the door. “Should I...”

“No, leave them to it. Elsa doesn’t mind the cold, does she?” When Hiccup shook his head, Gobber gave him a heavy pat on the shoulder. “Well, there you go. Your father won’t mind, trust me.”

“It’s freezing out.”

Gobber gave a fond, slightly sad smile. “Aye, but your father loves the snow. Won’t admit it, of course,” he added, picking up the shield to put it back onto its mount, “but he’d gladly watch every snowfall, if he could.”

Sitting down on the stairs, Hiccup gestured for Toothless to come down and join him. The dragon rumbled in a manner that Hiccup could only describe as petulant, but when Hiccup patted the step beside him again he gave a rumble and slunk back down. “There we go. You... really mean that?” he said to Gobber.

“Oh yes.” Gobber paused for a moment, and chuckled. “The winter before you were born, I caught him and your mother out early one morning making snow angels. Made me swear not to tell anyone.”

The image of his father in the snow, flopping around like a landed fish, was enough to make Hiccup start laughing. He just wished that he could picture his mother there as well, to complete the image. “Shouldn’t that mean not telling me, as well?”

“Bah, you were there.”

Toothless nudged against Hiccup’s shoulder, and with a roll of his eyes Hiccup reached to scratch him under the chin. He hadn’t meant anything by it, Hiccup was sure, had just jumped away from the eels. Hiccup only wished that he knew why. Though he could say the same thing of his father often enough. There was still a lot about Stoick that he didn’t understand. “I wish I remembered her,” he said, more quietly. Gobber stopped his tidying up and looked round, the firelight putting deep shadows under his eyes. “Or that Dad talked about her more. Or... something.”

“I wish he would too,” said Gobber. “Your mother was a fine woman, and she and I were good friends.” He crossed over to Hiccup and sat down heavily beside him on the stairs, wood creaking under the combined weight of two Vikings and a dragon. “I think he’s just trying to... bottle all of those memories up, so he doesn’t lose them.”

Like the one carved bust that Hiccup had found, along with the journals. In some places the edges were still rough, unfinished, but the face and hair had been worn smooth from innumerable touches. “I suppose.”

Gobber but his arm around Hiccup and squeezed him tightly. A little more tightly than was comfortable, if truth be told, but he appreciated the sentiment. “We’ve managed to keep the house together this far, haven’t we, hmm? You, me, him, a dragon and a wildling. I don’t think there’s any of us would have predicted that.”

He had a point. “We do make for a strange household,” Hiccup admitted. He tried to scratch the middle of his back, where it was hardest to reach and which therefore always managed to be the point that itched. His nails were dirty when he drew them out again. “Yuck. Gods, I need a bath.”

“Really?” Gobber leant in and gave an exaggerated sniff. “You’re right, you definitely do.”

“Oh, sure, I’m the one to talk.” Hiccup pretended to wave away Gobber’s armpit.

“I haven’t been dunking myself in the sea,” said Gobber.

There wasn’t really an argument for that either, and Hiccup settled for trying to look unimpressed. It probably didn’t work too well. “You reckon the ice on the well should still be breakable?”

“Drop a good stone down, sure,” said Gobber. “Or you could have one of the dragons blast it, nowadays.”

“There’s a point,” he said, nudging Toothless with his shoulder. “Get to make yourself useful, huh?” Since the Red Death he had only been stripping and washing, being careful around the developing scar around his stump. A thought occurred, and Hiccup felt his cheeks heat up. “Though, uh, there is one issue.”

“I’m sure the well can handle a good blast. We only dug it the summer before last, after all.”

“No...” Hiccup pointed to the door. “I meant Elsa.” Having a bath in front of the fire had been no problem at all when it had been just the three of them, aside from Gobber’s jokes about using the bathwater for the following day’s stew. “I can’t exactly...” he gestured down at himself. If his father didn’t like the idea of them being asleep in the same room, he didn’t want to think what would be made of Hiccup being naked in the same room as Elsa. “Maybe I should ask Astrid to take care of her for a couple of hours.”

“Take care of her?” Gobber raised an eyebrow and snorted. “You are just like your father sometimes.”

“Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a difference of about eighteen inches, three hundred pounds and an enormous beard,” replied Hiccup. He raised his left leg. “And a foot, nowadays.”

“Protecting your own,” said Gobber, giving him a hard enough push to rock him back where he sat.

All that Hiccup could manage was an indignant splutter. “She’s not mine, I’ve told you that!” he said. “And it’s not as if I’m parenting her.”

“Aye, sure you’re not,” said Gobber, standing up again with one final ruffle of Hiccup’s hair. “Now, let’s get you and me some dinner, if eel stew’s off the menu.”

Hiccup looked at Toothless, who was now the very picture of innocence again. “Yeah, that sounds like a plan. And I’ll get Astrid to do... whatever it is girls do when they spend time together.”

“Can I get a good seat for when you say that to her face?” called Gobber. There was a clattering from the pantry.

Hiccup leant around the edge of the bannister. “What do girls do when they spend time together?” Gobber leaned backwards out of the pantry to give him a singularly unimpressed expression. “What? How am I supposed to know?”

“For that matter, how am I supposed to know?” said Gobber. “If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been living in a house full of men as long as you have. Probably braid each other’s hair or something.”

Hiccup decided against pointing out how much time Gobber spent keeping his moustache properly combed and braided, or for that matter how much effort Stoick’s beard took to maintain. Instead he leaned back on the stairs, his head coming to rest next to one of Toothless’s feet. “I’ll just ask for a report when she gets back.”

At which point, Toothless decided that now would be an excellent opportunity to lick Hiccup’s face.

“Aw, bud, come on!” he tried to roll away, but Toothless stepped sideways to keep him in place and continued to drool on him. Hiccup slithered down a few steps instead and sat up, rubbing Night Fury spit off his face with his sleeve once again. At least he didn’t have to rinse out his sleeves before returning home for fear that his father or Gobber would catch the strange smell on him. “Thank you. You’re really in fine form tonight, aren’t you?”

He didn’t ask, in the end, what Astrid had planned for the two hours or so that she said she was going to borrow Elsa for. Mostly because Astrid would probably punch him if he so much as asked, and partially because whether she punched him or not, he doubted that he was going to get an answer. Instead, he tried to figure out how to get Toothless to carry buckets of water without spilling it, failed, and was relegated to waiting inside while Gobber hauled in the buckets instead, muttering about it along the way.

A few inches of warm water felt like luxury compared to a basin that was usually barely above freezing. Even if he did have to put up with Gobber’s repeated suggestions on how carefully he should wash his wound.

“I have been doing this for over a moon now, Gobber!” he said finally, waving a less-than-threatening sponge. Toothless sniffed at it, then tried to lick Hiccup’s arm. “Quit it.”

“And I’ve been doing it for three decades,” Gobber replied. His return wave of a knife looked somewhat more impressive. “And you’ve got to be careful.”

“For Thor’s sake, both of you,” said Stoick, appearing out of the main bedroom with a half-carved wooden duck in one hand. “Can you not cut it out?”

Hiccup leant his chin on the edge of the tub and frowned, hair dripping into his eyes, then straightened up to stop Toothless from trying to splash in the tub for what felt like about the twentieth time. Probably a better idea than Gobber’s mutter about Stoick now knowing how Gobber felt, which made Stoick glower in his direction. Instead he dumped a pitcher of water over his head and then pushed his hair back out of the way again.

The door slammed open, and he almost jumped clean out the tub. “Chief!” Elsa shouted. “Astrid needs you!”

Hiccup thought about standing up, thought better of it, and tried to grab at the towel warming in front of the fire instead. Sadly, it was just out of his reach, and for want of any other options he clung to the edge of the tub and tried not to look too naked.

“What’s going on?” said Stoick, bolting to his feet. Elsa was panting for breath, clinging to the edge of the door.

“Stormfly,” said Elsa. When Stoick looked blank, she tried, “The Nadder. Astrid needs you. You too, Hiccup.”

They had been through this before, Astrid with an axe in her hand standing in front of Stormfly. But the worst of the troublemakers should have been gone by now. “Go, Dad,” said Hiccup, waving to the door. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Elsa bolted from the doorway, and Stoick hurried after her. Hiccup gave up on the towel and grabbed for the table on the other side instead, using it for leverage to haul himself upright. His clothes were pooled on the table itself, and he started pulling them on without even waiting to dry himself off. He was getting better at standing on one leg to put on his foot as well, even if he wasn’t really supposed to do that.

“Are you planning to freeze solid?” said Gobber disapprovingly.

“Elsa just came running over, by herself, because Astrid sent her for help.” Any part of that would have had him hurrying out, but all three together was making his heart pound in his chest and his fingers shake as he did up his belt. He shook his hair, sending water everywhere, and grabbed his cane. “Sorry, Gobber! I’ll mop up later!”

Gobber made a sound of disbelief, and Hiccup managed to get the door open far enough for Toothless to help push it the rest of the way. That he could hear shouting already was a bad sign. His breath misted on the air, and his clothes stuck to his skin, already miserably cold, but the fact that his father’s voice had joined the shouting meant that people had not just shut up as soon as Stoick arrived.

Definitely a bad sign.

“What’s going on?” he did his best to bark as he reached the knot of people around Astrid’s house. His father’s helmet was visible in the middle of the throng, but there were perhaps a dozen people altogether, and he heard the ring of metal on metal from the centre. He slammed the butt of his cane against the ground, and Toothless shrieked. Finally, people fell quiet. “What is happening?”

They broke apart, though whether it was for him or Toothless he wasn’t sure that he even wanted to know. His father was physically restraining Astrid, who squirmed and struggled in his arms even though she had been lifted bodily off the ground. A bruise was starting to appear on her right cheek. Opposite her, being held up by Mudbreath, was Mildew. Blood was pouring from his nose and matting in his beard, and he clung to his staff as Astrid fought to get to him.

“You try to hurt my dragon again you half-troll-” Astrid snarled.

“Woah!” Hiccup quickly placed himself between them, side on so that he could keep an eye on both. “What in Hel’s name happened around here?”

“This gutless piece of-”

“I come looking for my Canker and the next thing I know I find-”

The smell of blood caught his attention. Stepping past Astrid and his father, Hiccup found himself looking at the remains of a sheep just outside the woodshed where Stormfly slept. Even that much, he could only tell from the remains of the white fleece; its guts were spilling on the snow, splintered bones poking through. He took a step back again, raising his free hand to cover his mouth.

“Odin help us,” he muttered. Turning back, he looked between Mildew and Astrid, the latter of whom was slowly being lowered to the ground by Stoick. “Oh, come on. You can’t seriously think...”

“Look at the beast!” Declared Mildew, the words thickened by the blood from his nose but still clear enough. He pointed at Stormfly with his staff, and Astrid tried to lunge for him again.

With a sense of dread, Hiccup stepped further across, and Astrid’s father stepped back out of the way to reveal Stormfly. She was in the woodshed, tail curved defensively above her back with the spines flared, bleeding from one wing. For a moment, he thought that the blood around her mouth would be from the same injury, then it hit him like a blow to the gut.

Shaking his head, he turned back to his father. “Dad, there’s no way that-”

“See!” said Mildew. “The boy leaps straight to the creatures’ defence!”

“You’ll speak more politely in my son’s presence,” replied Stoick, but he was still scowling and Hiccup suspected it was not just at Mildew. “And you’ve been told before not to call him a boy.”

Mildew blustered for a second before he managed to find his tongue again. “It killed my Canker,” he said finally. “My poor Canker, she never hurt anyone, I just kept her for the wool and milk and lambing and now it’s killed her. What am I to do for the winter?”

“They eat fish!” said Hiccup angrily.

“Accuse my dragon again,” Astrid was fighting to get out of Stoick’s grip again, banging her hands against his, and Hiccup saw his father wince at the blows. “And I’ll take that staff and-”

“Enough!” said Stoick. There was fury in his tone the likes of which that Hiccup had never heard before, and everyone fell silent. Even Astrid, breathless and red-faced, fell still, and he finished lowering her to the ground where her father hurried forwards to take her arm and pull her away. “Mildew, you will be paid recompense for your sheep. We’ve not yet done the winter slaughter Not a word, Hiccup. In future, don’t leave them grazing unattended.”

Mildew looked disbelieving. “You’re blaming me for the actions of that creature?”

“No, I’m saying that you shouldn’t leave your sheep grazing alone, peace with the dragons or no. If it had been a wolf that had taken one, we wouldn’t be able to have this discussion. Now go home, and tend to that nose of yours. I want no more fighting in the streets. Carr,” he added, to Astrid’s father, “if you and Astrid could come with me. Runa, stay with the Nadder please.”

His tone broached no argument. Mr. Hofferson steered Astrid after Stoick; Hiccup tried at first to fall in beside her and catch her eye, but she gave him such a dark look that he fell back. He looked around to see that, with the crowd dispersing, Elsa was standing over the sheep and frowning. As he watched, she knelt down and reached out as if she was going to touch one of the wounds.

“All right,” he said, walking over as quickly as he could. “We’d better go as well, Elsa.”

She looked round at her name, then straightened up again. “This is not right,” she said quietly.

“Tell me about it,” said Hiccup. “Dragons will eat mutton, sure, but they go for fish first. Stormfly’s hunting by herself again in the evenings, with the others now that they’ve figured it out.”

And why would she fly all the way out to Mildew’s farm just for a sheep? There were other farms closer to town, besides the people on the edges who kept a sheep or goat or two just in the clearings near to their houses. By the time that Stormfly had flown out to Mildew’s, she might as well have gone for a boar or a deer in the woods.

The fact that Mildew had been stupid enough to leave his animals unattended... well, Hiccup could just about believe that.

“Come on, we should get back,” he said, nodding after his father and the others. Stoick had all but marched off, and Astrid and her father were matching him for pace.

“Hiccup,” said Elsa sharply. She grabbed hold of his arm, and he almost did a double-take that she had been the one to initiate the contact. Her eyes bored into him. “There are knife-cuts in the flesh.”

He frowned. “Now that, my Dad definitely needs to hear.” He hurried after the others, Elsa alongside him, but even so by the time that he reached the house there was shouting coming from inside again, Astrid’s angry pouring out and his father speaking loudly and firmly over the top of it.

“If that old craven thinks he can blame Stormfly-”

“Astrid, think before you speak-”

“Does he think that I wouldn’t have heard her taking off? My room is right beside-”

Elsa opened the door, and Hiccup slipped in. His bath still stood beside the fire, water all over the floor, Gobber looking unimpressed at the chiefly drama which had just spilled into the room. Astrid was standing right in front of Stoick, unabashedly shouting into his face and gesturing with one hand as if she was still holding an axe. Stoick looked thunderous.

“You can’t be making accusations like this-”

Before it could get worse, Hiccup stepped between them and put a hand on Astrid’s chest to push her back a step. She looked too surprised to fight him. “Dad, she’s right. It wouldn’t even make sense for Stormfly to go after a sheep.”

“I don’t pretend to know the reasoning of dragons,” said Stoick, with just enough of an inflection to suggest that Hiccup shouldn’t either. But this was not pretending.

“Toothless hardly wanted to eat mutton when I gave it to him. Why would Stormfly bother hunting?” He took a deep breath, meeting Elsa’s eyes for a fraction of a second. “Besides. There were knife-marks in the sheep.”

He heard Astrid’s angry drawing-in of breath. “That trollson,” she spat. “He dumps the meat in front of-”

“Silence!” snapped Stoick, making them all jump. “Hiccup, what are you suggesting? That Mildew killed his own sheep, right before the winter set in? Or that someone else killed it and happened to leave the carcass by the dragon?”

“Not happened to,” said Hiccup. “Whoever did it, did it because they don’t like the dragons, don’t you see? You know there are people who want them gone. You wouldn’t let them, so now they want an excuse.”

“Hiccup. What makes more sense?” said Stoick, looking more disappointed than angry now. He rubbed his forehead. “That the dragon got hungry and went looking for an unwatched sheep, or that Mildew killed one of his own and hauled the carcass all the way into town just in the hope of framing a dragon? And without being seen, no less.”

It would have sounded like the simplest choice in the world, just a few moons ago. But having seen what goodness was in dragon nature, and knowing what could be in human, Hiccup was far from convinced. “I don’t believe Stormfly did this.”

“I know you don’t want to,” Stoick said, a little more gently. “But I don’t see a simpler explanation. I’m sure it was a slip, nothing more, but I can’t ignore it. Carr, would you be willing to put a door on that woodshed?”

Carr nodded slowly. “I could get that done in a day or two.”

This time, it was Hiccup’s turn to look horrified. “What? Stormfly was locked in a cell for three years, you can’t lock her up again! Her pen in the arena didn’t even have light!” And in that, it was worse than the jail cells. Hiccup could speak to that, nowadays.

Stoick silenced him with a wave of his hand. “Enough, Hiccup. I’ve got to keep the peace, and we can’t risk losing more livestock this close to the winter. Help Carr put in windows, if that makes you feel better. And if we’re lucky, no one will take notice of the fact that we’re putting a dragon in a wooden shed.”

“No,” said Astrid, so quietly that Hiccup barely heard it. She was shaking with anger, her teeth gritted, and she glared at Stoick as she shook her head. All in an instant, she stormed from the house too fast for her father or Hiccup’s to stop her, and left the door hanging open in her wake. Hiccup saw her burst into a run as she got outside.

For a moment, nobody seemed quite sure of what to do, then Hiccup sighed. “I’ll go after her,” he said. “I know... dragons.”

He also knew Astrid, at least to an extent. There was a grove of trees not far from the edge of town which was impressively scarred from the abuse which Astrid gave it. She would be heading to her house first, to pick up an axe or two, and then out to the trees. Provided that she didn’t do something stupid like take Stormfly. Frowning at the thought, Hiccup picked up the pace as he slipped from the house and turned straight in the direction of the grove.

He did not expect Elsa to appear beside him. It was starting to rain, a steady light fall for now, and Hiccup supposed that at least it made it a moot point that he had not dried off after his bath. She did not ask where they were going, just followed him, arms wrapped around herself.

Hiccup squinted at her in the dim evening. “Is... your hair different?”

In the time that he had known her, she had only ever worn it one way: a simple braid, tied at the bottom with grass at first or with a strip of leather more recently. Now the braid was thick and complicated, and a few stray curls were alongside her cheeks. Elsa reached up to touch her hair as if she had forgotten all about it. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Astrid did it for me.”

Huh. Apparently Gobber was right.

“Then she showed me how to throw an axe.”

“Of course she did.”

Astrid had still made it to the clearing first, to judge by her angry screams and the sound of splintering bark. Even the trees on the island had to be sturdy. With a cautious look around a trunk, Hiccup waited until Astrid was retrieving one of her axes to step out, in the hopes of not making himself too much of a target.

“So, which one’s Mildew?” he said, looking at the battered trees. It was raining more heavily now, though if he stayed under the branches it kept the worst of it off. Astrid was already soaking wet, hair slapping against her face. Her hair, too, looked different than usual.

Astrid yanked her axe out of the tree again. “All of them,” she snarled.

“Good to know.” He surveyed the damage, and waited for her anger to find coherent words.

It didn’t take too long. Astrid backtracked to the middle of the small clearing, picked her target, and hurled the axe overarm to bite into the wood. “That son of a sow!” she shouted abruptly, voice ringing on the trees. “Just because he misses his glory days of hunting dragons, he thinks he can take it out on us. He just can’t admit that he was wrong.”

In light of the fact that she had to put her foot against the tree to get her axe free again, Hiccup chose not to point out that Astrid had needed to be talked around - and, he supposed, flown around - as well. “Well, maybe we just need more time. It’s only been a few weeks, after all.”

“Everyone else sees it. They’re glad that the deaths are over.” Another overarm throw, another tree with the axe sticking out of its trunk. “But no, he tries to get rid of them. Get rid of my dragon,” she emphasised, as she wrenched her axe free.

At any other time, he would have paused to think about what her protective, possessive behaviour and words meant in terms of how far she had come. Now was probably not the time, however. “If he did this, we’ll prove it,” said Hiccup. “We won’t let him take the dragons away.”

Astrid paused, shaking her head, then with another scream lashed out with the axe hard enough to take a bough clean off the tree. Elsa ducked away automatically; Hiccup stood still. He knew that Astrid only hit things that she wanted hit. It didn’t look like his reassurances were working too well to calm her down, however; he tried a different angle.

“Did Elsa do your hair?”

Looking bewildered, Astrid fell still and stared at him. The rain continued to become harder, and icy cold as well.

Hiccup gestured to the braid down her back. “It looks different. Did Elsa do that?”

“Yes?” said Astrid. Well, at least she wasn’t using her axe on the surroundings any more, even if she was looking at Hiccup as if he was talking complete nonsense.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure what to say beyond that. His own hair refused to grow long enough to really do anything with. “It looks good,” he went for.

Whether Elsa’s laughter was at his words, or at Astrid’s continuing look of confusion, he could not even say. He just grinned foolishly, and Astrid finally set the head of her axe to the ground and started laughing as well, brow still furrowed until she reached up to run one hand over her eyes. “Hiccup,” she said finally. “Don’t change. Gods help me, don’t change.”

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