Nine Months Out of the Year
Title: Nine Months Out of the Year
Author: janna_hawkins
Summary: "It snows nine months out of the year, and hails the other three"
Characters: Hiccup, Toothless, Astrid
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to HTTYD except the first four books, a Hiccup action figure and a Night Fury figure
Author Notes: First of all no matter what the title says, this is not the "dragons in snow" fic I promised. That's still a WIP but it's coming along slowly. No, this is something completely different...well sort of. Dedicated to my amazing beta, danaems for not minding it when I texted her at 9 last night to get the correct translation from the books(she's borrowing them at the moment)for something Toothless says. Yes, I had Toothless talk in this. Hope you like!!! :D
~..~
Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third was having a bad day. Not only was it an incredibly awful day, even for the island of Berk, but the fact that he was outside in the horrible weather made it even worse. And of course to make matters worse, if his cheerful running around was any indication, his dragon seemed to love this weather. Every so often Toothless would run over and try to pull Hiccup out from underneath the eaves of their house to join him, but the young Viking was happy to remain under the roof and remain even the tiniest bit drier. Therefore, the dragon played in the rain and sleet all by himself and Hiccup watched.
"Isn't it weird how they like this weather?"
Hiccup glanced over and smiled weakly at the soaking wet, but still beautiful girl beside him. "You'd think that the incredible cold and wet would bother him. Apparently not."
"Same with mine," Astrid replied, watching as her Nadder joined Toothless in what seemed to be a game of tag.
"There's so much we don't know about them."
"A lot more than before, Hiccup, thanks to you."
He shrugged.
"Oh come on, this is all because of you," she said, bumping him with her shoulder.
Hiccup winced as the force of her friendly nudge caused his weight to settle on his prosthetic leg.
Astrid frowned. "I'm sorry. Is it still bothering you?"
"Yeah, Gobber says it's because of the cold," he replied, rubbing at the place where the metal met the remaining skin of his leg. "He says it should stop hurting after a few months or when the weather warms up. Whichever comes first."
"Well, why aren't you inside by a warm fire? Wouldn't that help?"
"Of course it would. But he," Hiccup motioned to Toothless who had now found an old piece of leather and was engaged in a game of tug of war with Astrid's Nadder. "Needed to get outside. He was going just a little stir-crazy...and to tell the truth, so was I. There's only so many times you can play fetch with him before you run out of things to play with."
"It's those teeth, huh?"
"No, not the teeth. He eats a lot of the things I've tried to use. He even swallowed my dad's shoes."
Astrid winced. "How'd he take it?"
Hiccup motioned to where they were standing in the rain.
"Ah."
"Yep. We have to stay out here until Toothless has worn off some of his energy."
Astrid looked out to where the large dark dragon was now enthusiastically running in circles. "That might be a while. How long have you been out here already?"
"An hour or so. It's not so bad."
The Viking girl raised an eyebrow and took in his slight shivering.
Hiccup sighed. "Alright, fine I'm cold. There's not much I can do about it until he gets worn down at least a little bit."
"Well, maybe not a lot you can do..." Astrid replied with a grin. The girl leaned forward and kissed Hiccup on the cheek.
"Better?"
Hiccup's red face was quite evident as he smilingly shrugged. "Not really, no."
Astrid rolled her eyes and leaned forward again.
~..~
A short time later, Toothless looked up from his game to huff in annoyance at the two humans. Silly creatures, didn't they know they were in plain view of the entire village? He looked over at his companion and both dragons rolled their eyes in unison.
Then Toothless caught sight of something moving behind a pile of baskets. "Miaowla!" he exclaimed in Dragonese, "Me eaty di miaowla!"
"Me eaty di miaowla," the other dragon growled.
The two dragons headed after the hapless cat, they themselves being chased by two incredibly annoyed, disheveled and soaking wet young Vikings.