Did I tell you what my morning gift was? Apart from tangled hair.
It was… well.
You know, I have married the sweetest dork in the history of Vikingdom.
We were pulled from our bed, crusty-eyed and happy, and I barely even saw him before I was whisked away back to my family home.
After a quiet but happy sojourn at my parents' little lodge in which my mother pinned my hair up and put the new wrought-steel band and cloth over it (it was lovely, and I wondered what she'd sold for it), she kissed my cheek and led me outside.
"Ainid?" she called, "your sister's going up to the hall now!"
"But Mum!" I heard him yell, and I grinned at the sameness, the familiarity.
"If you don't come see my gift, Ainie, I'll thump you," I warned.
"And if she doesn't, I will!" Mum added. I heard him grumble, but two seconds later he tromped around the side of the house, his sleeping Terrible Terror in his arms.
"For the gods' sake, Ainid, the poor beast is asleep, let her be," Mum snapped, and Ainid sighed and put his pet back in the fur-lined basket on his shoulder.
"I like to have her with me," he said sulkily.
"Fine," I said quickly, and I was thinking of you, sweetie. "Bring her, but it'll be noisy. She might wake up."
"Really?" he squinted at me. "Maybe I'd better leave her then."
"I would," Mum said dryly. "Hurry up."
Once Ainid had deposited Spickle back inside the house, we made our way to the mead-hall. It looked like the celebrations had continued for quite some time, and groaning revellers were still dotted around the wooden benches. Ale-cups, flagons and goblets were scattered all over, and in one corner Spitelout Jorgenson and Hensteeth Ingerman were still sitting and drinking with bleary determination. I sensed a challenge had been thrown down.
At the circular central table where Hiccup and I had dined the previous night, Stoick was sleeping propped against his equally comatose battle-brother Gobber. The snores were thunderous, and I wondered how I was ever to get to sleep in the same lodge as that sort of noise.
We picked our way over the strewn debris to where Bloodnut Thorston and some other village women were cleaning the banquet-table.
"Mrs Thorston," I said politely.
"Mrs Hofferson, Mrs Haddock, Master Hofferson" she replied with a twinkle in her eye.
I was floored. Mrs Haddock. Gods, I was ancient already. A married woman. An old lady.
"You've broken her, Bee," Mum chortled, pointing Ainid to the broken pottery by the door.
"I remember when someone first called me 'Mrs'," Bloodnut replied, chortling. "Feel old, dear?"
"Oh, stop it," I growled.
"I heard you accepted the Ingerman's offer?" Mum said conversationally, beginning to pick up cups and plates.
"Now that Ruffnut's regained her sanity," Bloodnut replied with exasperation. "Astrid, please don't think any of that nonsense was our idea. Their father always let those two have too much freedom, I say, and Ruffy always did like to push boundaries."
"Of course not," I said, righting a bench. "Ruff was being… Ruff. Water under the bridge now."
"Very kind of you, dear," Bloodnut beamed at me as the door creaked open.
Stoick jolted awake. "Wha..? Who's there? W're under attack?" he mumbled.
The assorted ladies chuckled. "It's your son," said Mum pointedly, and Stoick grunted.
"Tell him to stop that damned beast from tap-dancing on the warning drums," he slurred, and his head fell back against Gobber's with a donk.
"He's still out of it, I see," Hiccup's voice came wryly from behind me. Every nerve in my body came alive, and I span to face him. I couldn't stop the silly smile from spreading over my face. At least he was giving me one back.
"Just look at those two, Gerdie," Bloodnut cooed, "newlyweds, young love! Makes you giddy just to see it, doesn't it?"
I wanted to punch her, but smiling at Hiccup took precedence. "Morning," I said.
"Morning," he said back softly, before looking at the assorted village women. "So, we've got to get those two up?"
"Hmm," Mum looked at Gobber and Stoick. "I'm hoping you've got some ideas here."
That made me blush, and I could see a stain on Hiccup's cheeks as well. "Ahem," he coughed, "well, yeah, this is something I've got a lot of experience with."
He leaned over to his father's ear, and took a deep breath. Then, startlingly, he yelled, "under attack! We're under attack! Dragons, barbarians, Visigoths and Danes! Under attack!"
Stoick jumped, his helmet slipping over an eye. "To the catapults! Under attack! Under a- HICCUP! I've told you to never…" he broke off as the ladies' laughter dawned on him. "And in front of witnesses too. Did it cross your mind that I'm the Chief of this place? I suppose you're wantin' me to lose the respect of the village?"
It was hard for a man as vast as Stoick to look sulky, but he was making a valiant attempt. I was snickering, and Ainid was outright guffawing.
"Sorry, Dad," Hiccup apologised. "Special circumstances and all…?"
"We'll talk about this later, Hiccup." Stoick stood and folded his massive arms.
"Gobber's next," said Hiccup in a promising voice, and Stoick's shoulders un-bunched a little. "You wanted to watch that one, didn't you?"
"Well," he sniffed, "I guess you know me that well."
Hiccup patted his father's burly shoulder, and then carefully leaned over to Gobber's ear. "Gobber! Oh my gods! Gobber, the shop is burning down! The smithy's on fire! The socks are gone! There's no breakfast! None! You've got to get out and save the breakfast!"
Gobber jerked awake and his eyes were wild and bloodshot. "No breakfast! No breakfast! Th' shop's burned down and no breakfast! It's trolls! It's the Boneknapper! It's Ragnarok!" His mismatched limbs flailed wildly, and he fell back off his bench.
I couldn't help it this time. I laughed uproariously, hearing my laughter joined by the hall.
"I know that laugh, that's… that's Astrid! Did you steal the breakfast?" Gobber lurched drunkenly from the floor, and I laughed harder as Hiccup tapped his mentor's shoulder.
"Gobber?"
"Eh? Hiccup? Oh… oh no, ohohoho no…"
"Now… don't kill me," Hiccup said placatingly, "please don't kill me…"
"You promised not to do that e'er again, boy!" Gobber picked Hiccup up with his hook. It didn't work so well now that Hiccup had his adult height, and his toes dragged on the floor.
"I know, and I'm sorry, but the breakfast is extremely very much not stolen and you can put me on charcoal duty for a week," Hiccup gave him a winning smile. Gobber growled and set him down.
"An' I will be," he prodded Hiccup's chest, making him totter backwards.
"After we do the presentation, though," Hiccup amended, and I blinked, remembering why we were all there.
"Well? Go on then," Gobber said grumpily, "quicker it's done, the quicker you're tending to charcoal pits."
"We're to wait for the rest of the village, aren't we?" I asked, but my mother shook her head.
"Close family is fine, Astrid," she said. "We're all here."
"Um, I could use a hand, you two," Hiccup confessed.
That piqued my interest. What needed two men to lift?
"Which way?" Gobber sighed.
"Ah, over here," Hiccup click-thumped over to an immense sea-chest secreted in a dark corner. "Dad, do you mind helping with this again?"
Stoick seemed to wince at the memory, but between the two massive men, the chest was dragged in front of me.
I gave Hiccup a sceptical look. "A sea-chest?"
He shifted on his feet nervously. "Open it."
It was full of…
There were dresses and tunics, many in that same green woollen I had given him. There were simple pendants and gorgeous brooches decorated with dragon-scales, amber or bright stones. There was the thick pelt of that white rodent lining the collar of a coat. There were headpieces and rings and wrist-cuffs.
"Where did you get all this?" I blurted. It was a fortune. It was a…
Hiccup bit his lip. "I made it," he admitted.
"He's been in and out of the smithy for three days and nights running," Gobber added.
"When he weren't makin' a racket in the loft," Stoick muttered.
"Though, you see those two headcloths with the bronze headpieces and matching brooches, oh, and those cuffs there? They- they were my mum's," Hiccup said, giving his father a worried, guarded look. Stoick's bearded face was impassive, but his eyes flicked to Hiccup and softened before growing distant.
"Well, Val would have wanted Astrid to wear it," he said gruffly. "Doin' nobody any good sitting in her old jewellery-coffer."
He made it, girl. He made it.
Hiccup made me a dowry.
My parents should have given me clothes and jewellery and linens and all sorts to bring to the marriage, but both Stoick and Hiccup knew my mother could do nothing of the sort.
He'd deliberately kept my side of the shelves empty to surprise me in the morning.
Then I knew he'd thought about Oglaranna. About... about dying.
Because if he'd made me all this…
If... if he...
Sorry. Just need a moment.
...
If he died, I'd get to keep it. My morning gift. And wouldn't go empty-handed into…
Into w-widowhood.
The ship's been sighted.
I can't…
I wish Toothless were awake.
I can't talk… about this.
I can't lose him now.
I.
I'll see you later, Spike.
Did you know that as part of the Chief's family, we had to tromp down to the wharves to meet them?
I didn't. No wonder Hiccup cringes from any sort of ceremony, he's been stuck with it since birth.
The longship was sighted this morning. Only one, which was reassuring in a way– it meant the Brassies weren't here expecting to honour their declaration of war.
It also meant the whole thing rested on Hiccup and Oglaranna – which wasn't so reassuring.
Stoick led us to the wharves early this afternoon, all decked out in his Chiefly finery. He looked as Vast as his moniker. Hiccup was wearing the tunic Ruffnut had given him and a new bearskin cloak, a wedding gift from his father.
I was dressed for action. Armoured shirt and skirt, my axe on my back and my headcloth bound tightly around my head to keep my fringe from slipping into my eyes. My only concession to the weather was the coat with the white weasel-skin collar that Hiccup had made me.
I have landed myself a very useful wife.
The ice-choked longship was larger than ours, so when it docked there was quite a leap down from the deck.
I stifled a curse when a gigantic figure dropped down from the ship and landed on the wooden pier with a huge THUD. One of the ancient timbers even cracked.
"Oglaranna the Aggressive," Stoick said evenly.
"STOICK THE VAST!" the huge thing boomed, and strode forward to grasp our Chief's hand. The voice was like being stabbed repeatedly in the ear. "NICE PLACE! THIS DAMNED FOG LED US IN CIRCLES THE LAST TWO DAYS, NEVER THOUGHT WE'D MAKE IT!"
Ow. Ow, ow, ow. My ears.
Oglaranna was taller than Stoick by a couple of inches, and her helmet was adorned with a pair of giant ram's horns on either side of her head. Her blonde hair was a mane of violent curls, and her bullish shoulders were surmounted by Nadder-spiked pendants. I scowled on your behalf, sweetheart.
More gold than I had ever seen encircled her beefy wrists in a pair of burnished cuffs, and a battered breastplate the size of a table was strapped around her great-bosomed body.
Frost-Giantess was right.
"Welcome to Berk, Oglaranna," Stoick said formally. "Sorry t' hear about the fog. Now, what's this trip about then?"
Oglaranna gave Stoick an amused look from under eyebrows the length of my finger. "DON'T PLAY DUMB, STOICK, WHERE'S THAT PRETTY BOY OF YOURS? IT'S A LONG WAY TO COME FOR A WEDDING, BUT HANG IT ALL, I LOVE A HUNT. AH-HA!"
She'd noticed Hiccup, trembling slightly next to me. I touched the back of his hand surreptitiously. "Keep it together," I muttered.
"Yes, ma'am," he managed.
"THERE YOU ARE, CHICKEN! BEEN LEADING ME A MERRY CHASE, HAVEN'T YOU?" Oglaranna boomed jovially as she strode over to peer down at Hiccup.
"I tend to have that reaction to natural disasters in the making," said Hiccup with tremulous sarcasm.
"HA! WITTY LAD, I LIKE THAT!" Oglaranna threw her head back and laughed.
"Dat-da-da, and once more I'm dead," Hiccup groaned.
"Shut up," I hissed, and touched his hand again. He grabbed mine this time, and held on so tightly I could feel the bones in my hand shifting.
"NOW, WINTER'S A MISERABLE TIME TO GET HITCHED, BUT SEEING AS WE'RE…" Oglaranna trailed off.
She was looking at our clasped hands.
"WHO'S THIS?" she turned to me like a tectonic plate shifting. I hesitated, then lifted my chin.
"Astrid Haddock," I said defiantly.
"WHAT?" Oglaranna roared.
"ASTRID HADDOCK!" I roared back.
"You are always so subtle," Hiccup said to me in an almost conversational voice.
"HADDOCK?" Oglaranna turned on Hiccup again. Her eyes were mad blue fire.
"Yeah," Hiccup looked down at our joined hands, and then back at me. "My wife."
He didn't stammer that time. Not even an 'Er,' or 'Um.'
I was so proud of him I almost burst.
If it gets out into the village, my rep is ruined.
"STOICK! YOU SAID YOUR LITTLE DREAMBOAT WASN'T MARRIED! DID YOU LIE TO ME, STOICK? YOU TIRED OF LIFE, STOICK?" Oglaranna was turning purple as she rounded on my father-in-law. He didn't flinch.
"Didn't lie," he said calmly. "They weren't married when we were in Brass Monkey. But there was an…" his eyes met mine, and I swear, they twinkled, "understanding."
Hiccup's head jerked towards his father, and then to me, and he raised his eyebrow.
I cleared my throat uncomfortably. Wow, thanks, 'Dad'.
"AN…UNDERSTANDING? WITH THIS? THIS… VILLAGE GIRL IN NEW FURS… A POOR GIRL IN NEW CLOTHES!" Oglaranna boomed threateningly. I bristled. "WELL THEN, UNDERSTAND THIS!"
She whirled faster than I could have ever imagined a person her size doing, and prodded a finger like a sausage into Hiccup's narrow chest. It sat him down on his rear with a thump.
"YOU, BOY, ARE GOING TO PAY FOR THIS INSULT. TOMORROW AT DAWN! YOU CAN PICK THE FIELD. I ALWAYS LIKE TO HAVE MY OPPONENTS PICK A PLACE TO DIE!"
Hiccup stared at the pointing finger as though it could explode.
"AND AS FOR YOU…!"
The giantess whirled on me then, and grabbed my shirt, lifting me up to her eye-level. I fought back an 'eep' and unstrapped my axe with a practised hand, holding it under her chin.
She looked down at it with dismissal, and then at me with a slight flicker of interest. "FEISTY LITTLE THING, AREN'T YOU, MRS HADDOCK," she snarled. I jerked my axe closer to that tree-trunk throat.
"You have no idea," I replied in as steely a voice as I could muster. "Down, please."
"LOOKING FORWARD TO BEING A WIDOW?" she sneered.
"Down. Now," I snapped, and she huffed, tossing me back four feet onto the fallen Hiccup without a sign of effort.
"YOU CHEATED ME OF A HUSBAND, VILLAGE GIRL," she bellowed menacingly. "I'D KEEP A LOW PROFILE IF I WERE YOU."
"You obviously don't know her. Ooof," Hiccup mumbled as I scrambled off him to snatch up my fallen axe and assume a ready stance.
"HA! SHE FEELS LIKE BEING THE NEXT TO DIE! CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT HIM, ASTRID HADDOCK?" she mocked simperingly. It was like being mocked by a mountain.
"Do you even know the first thing about him?" I shot back. Gods, she made me angry. In so, so many ways.
She looked taken aback. "WHAT…?"
"Do you know anything at all about Hiccup?" I growled, unmoving. Oglaranna seemed a bit perplexed. She scratched at her beefy chin.
"HE'S PRETTY?"
I looked pointedly down at Hiccup, and he gave me an 'oh, all right!' look.
"That's what he looks like. Anything about who he is?" I let a superior look creep over my face, hoping to annoy her. "Anything…?"
Oglaranna scowled. "WELL, HE'S STOICK'S SON, AND HE'S GOT A DRAGON CALLED TOOTHY-"
"Toothless," Hiccup muttered.
"That's his father and his best friend, not him," I said in a bored way.
"—AND HE'S A GOOD SMITH, AND HE HASN'T GOT A FOOT BECAUSE HE KILLED A BIG THING CALLED THE RED DEATH-"
"Green Death," Hiccup sighed.
"I thought it was red?" I said in surprise.
"Oh come on, Astrid, it was green," Hiccup folded his arms.
"I remember it as more of a blue-grey," Stoick mused.
"—AND HE'S A HERO…" Oglaranna's voice trailed off.
I let scorn colour my voice. "And those are things he's done. That's it?"
"IT'S A MARRIAGE! YOU LEARN ABOUT EACH OTHER AFTERWARDS!" she said defensively.
"I didn't," I said bluntly. "I've known him my whole life."
"I'm still learning about you," Hiccup said quietly, and I fought to keep the smile from my face.
"Me too," I met his eyes, and couldn't fight the smile any more.
"I KNOW HE MARRIED A SMART-MOUTHED LITTLE SNIP," Oglaranna growled.
"She does know something, then," remarked Stoick. I glared at him.
"You should know something else, though…" Hiccup clambered to his feet, and put a hand on my taut axe-arm, "I love her."
"LOVE HER," repeated Oglaranna flatly.
"And I love him," I retorted just as flatly.
"EH. LOVE SHMOVE. INSULT IS INSULT," Oglaranna grinned like a shark. "TOMORROW AT DAWN. I'LL EXPECT A MESSENGER TO TELL ME WHERE I'M TO KILL YOU."
"Charming," Hiccup muttered.
"WELL, THEY DON'T CALL ME 'THE AGGRESSIVE' FOR NOTHING," she shrugged.