Word Count: 3,158

Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD

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2. Sleepless Night

Sunlight filtered through the window of the twins' bedroom early in the morning, causing them to wake up as the bright rays shone into their eyes. Tuffnut groaned and rolled off his bed onto the floor, and Ruffnut turned onto her stomach and put her pillow over her head. It was safe to say that, amongst other things, the Thorston twins were not morning people.

"Tuffnut, I told you board up the window days ago."

"I was going to, but then we crushed up all the wood for our splinter bombs and Dad never got any more."

Ruff groaned and chucked her pillow at her brother before rolling off her bed to join him in his despair on the floor. "Then what do you do? You go out into the forest and chop up some more yourself."

Tuffnut rolled his head over to her with a scowl. "I was going to, but then I remembered that you existed and was too depressed to do anything."

The sister twin sat up instantly, ready to slam her hammer through his skull, but then slumped down just as quickly. "Ah, I'm too tired. I'll kill you after breakfast."

It took a while, but after spending almost an hour of suffering through their existential crises and contemplating why 'waking up' had to even exist (as was, unsurprisingly, routine for them every morning), the two of them sat up and shrugged on some fresh clothes before grabbing their helmets and half-heartedly shoving each other as they traipsed down the stairs. Scarface and Tuffnut Sr. were bright and early risers, unlike a certain two children of theirs, and it was safe to assume that if they weren't sitting downstairs that they were already at work. It's a wonder that two of the calmest and most professional Vikings on the island could produce... well, whatever they were. No one was really sure.

Tuff pulled open the door and Ruff shoved him so she could get out first. The sunlight was blinding, and the girl rubbed her eyes as she stepped forward, expecting her boot to step on the wooden porch but instead finding it on something uneven and squishy. She looked down and saw that she was not, in fact, stepping on the porch, but rather she was stepping on a body.

She didn't scream, but she did jump backwards and crash into Tuffnut, who lost his footing and caused the both of them to topple to the ground. Ruffnut sat up and fixed her helmet, ignoring her brother's moans and complaints, and crawled over to the undeterred person on their porch. Their back was facing the doorway, but she could recognize that blond braid anywhere.

"Tuffnut, did you kill Astrid?"

He sat up, rubbing his nose, sounding offended by her accusatory tone. "I did no such thing."

She cocked her head and poked her friend, who just slumped to the side. "I don't know, she seems pretty dead to me."

Tuffnut crawled to his sister's side and assumed the same position. He tried poking Astrid himself, but received no response. "Well if she's dead, I didn't kill her. Why are you trying to pin this on me?"

"Because you're the only person insane enough to kill a Hofferson."

He scratched his chin before widening his eyes in realization and scrambling to his feet. "Oh no, I can't back to jail!"

Ruffnut didn't hold her breath. "Tuff, you've never-"

Her brother started pacing back and forth, his hands clutching his helmet. "I'll have to run away, hide in the mountains-"

"Tuff-"

"-I'll never be able to return, I don't want to put you or our parents in danger-"

"Tuffnut-"

"-I'll have to shave my head and wear sackcloth- but don't worry I'll still be more attractive than you-"

Astrid groaned and rolled over, rubbing her forehead. "Can you please-"

He leapt backwards and pulled a small dagger out of his pocket and pointed it at her. "YOU CAN'T PROVE ANY- oh. Yikes. Sorry Astrid."

The addressed girl didn't say anything. She just turned her back to them as she sat up, swung her legs over the porch and stretched almost casually, seemingly not planning on offering any form of explanation whatsoever. Ruffnut stared at her skeptically. "What in the gods' names were you doing asleep on our porch?"

Astrid looked over at the twin for the first time, and stared at her as if only just noticing her presence. Then she looked away again and sighed. "I was only there for two or three hours. Your parents were gone and you guys were still sleeping, and I didn't feel like dealing with the emotional toll of the fit you two would give me for waking you up."

Ruffnut lowered herself down on the edge of the porch next to Astrid and glanced her way. Her eyes appeared bloodshot from exhaustion and her clothes were disheveled and sweaty. There were woodchips sticking out of her clothes and hair here and there, and there was a long scrape on her left bicep that looked shallow, but probably stung. Her hands, which were normally calloused and sporting the occasional blister or scab, were now raw and distressed. She didn't think she'd ever seen the Hofferson girl look so undone, and it was... well, uncomfortable, to say the least. She and Astrid had never been all that close, although she did like to think that she was slightly closer to the younger girl than the other members of their friend group, if only because they were the only girls and could stick together when even Ruffnut was tired of dealing with the boys' chaotic tendencies. So she didn't know Astrid well, but she knew her best, and she glanced over at her brother to see if he was at least beginning to realize that something wasn't right. He was just staring off into space and using the blade of the dagger he'd been pointing at Astrid just moments prior to pick something out of his teeth, so, no, apparently not.

She rubbed her arm uneasily and stared back at her sort-of-but-not-really friend. "So... you okay?" When the other girl didn't say anything, she pressed a little harder. "You never told me why you were sleeping on our porch?"

Astrid shifted and looked down at her hands. She began to pick around a scab on her knuckle. "My mom and I got in a fight."

Her voice was even and vague, but Ruff could tell it was still too soon. She scratched the side of her head. Growing up with Tuff had required little obligation to exercise her empathy factor- or any emotions that she would want to beat someone up for disclosing, really- so she was understandably at a loss. "...Do you want to talk about it?"

This time Astrid looked at her. Ruffnut didn't know what to do, so she sort of shrugged and forced a smile that came out looking nervous. The other girl stared at her somewhat mistrustingly before looking away and giving a small shake of her head with an unreadable expression. "You'll find out soon enough."

There were so many questions whirling through her head- which was giving her a headache because her brain wasn't used to puzzling over something so much, either- but she refrained from asking any for Astrid's sake and hopped off the porch, trying to appear indifferent. "Whatever. Let's just go to breakfast. I promised I'd kill Tuff right afterwards. You can help, if you want. The more the merrier."

Tuffnut, now paying attention to the conversation, scoffed and pulled the dagger away from his teeth. "I'd like to see her try. She doesn't even have her axe." This however didn't seem to stop him from hiding his dagger back in his pocket- just in case.

Ruffnut was about to explain how girls didn't need to use silly blade-sticks to beat someone to the ground when, as if just noticing that she had been unarmed all along, Astrid's eyes grew wide and she scrambled to her feet, looking around for her cherished weapon. The twins, more or less startled and unsure what to do, stepped out of her way as she turned the entire porch inside out, checking everywhere and anywhere at least three times. Then, realizing that her axe was nowhere to be found, she jumped off the porch and started hurrying towards the forest without so much as a simple 'goodbye.'

"Wait- Astrid!" Ruffnut called just as she disappeared beyond the treeline, but either the girl didn't hear her or didn't care. She looked at her brother bewilderedly, and for the first time, he reciprocated the look with just as much confusion.

Astrid ran through the forest, her uncharacteristically loud footsteps pounding against the dirt floor with the stealth of a pack of stampeding yaks. But at the moment, she wasn't trying to be silent. She was trying to find her axe.

After she ran out of the house the night before, she had let her feet guide her someplace safe while her brain malfunctioned and imploded within her skull. She had ended up in her haven that was the forest, and almost immediately she had started slashing and whacking at the trunks of its trees with wild screams and cries that she didn't even know she could produce. Even after she got showered with a tree's worth of splinters and ruined her hands and stressed her muscles far beyond any workout she'd ever done before, she did not stop. She couldn't risk boiling over in public. That would only do more damage to her dilemma, if that was even possible at this point. No, she needed to empty her soul out, and she needed to do it all right now, even it took all night. Which it did.

Everything after that became fuzzy. She just remembered suddenly feeling very empty and very hollow and very very tired, and her body was on the brink of collapsing. There was no way in Hel that she was going to go home then- and possibly ever again, if she could help it- so she tried to think of the next best option. And somehow she ended up at the Thorstons', and, well, the rest was history.

But somewhere between ending her paroxysm and crashing on the twins' porch, she had lost track of her axe. The same axe that her father had given to her for her eighth birthday, the one she'd dragged everywhere every day since, the one that he had not only taught her how to use, but how to use it exceptionally enough to make her the most advanced Viking of her age. The one that, though she would never admit it, she had kept clutched in her hand every night for the weeks following her father's death until she realized that clinging to his memory wasn't going to raise him from the dead. The one that, even after that, still managed to bring her hope that he was at peace, and hope that she could eventually find peace of her own.

Maybe you're just overreacting, the rational part of her mind told her. The other part of her mind screamed over it, ordering her to panicpanicpanicPANIC.

And panic she did. She followed the sea of damaged trees, both frustrated and faintly impressed at the number of axed trunks. Some of them only had a few scratches, but others appeared as if they had been eaten away at by an army of termites. But there were too many for her to possibly follow a distinct path that may lead her to her lost weapon, and even if she did manage to find a path, there was no way to know for certain that her axe would be there. She might have dropped it on her way to the Thorstons' while passing through a part of the forest whose trees were completely undisturbed. Astrid tried not to overthink it, but her anxiety rendered her with utterly no control over her mind. All she could do was search blindly, crossing her fingers for the extremely lucky chance that she might happen to stumble upon it, and her current panic could be assuaged and she could go back to focusing on the other reasons why her life was crashing down around her.

In the end, however, her actions turned out to be nothing but in vain. It wasn't there. She came to the conclusion that there was no such thing as luck, and her beloved axe, the last memory of her father, was going to rot in the woods. Her already hollow heart suddenly became that much more empty, and everything was entirely numb and inexplicably painful as she admitted defeat and walked back to the village. She didn't just lose her axe. She lost herself.

Astrid wasn't Astrid anymore. She didn't even know who Astrid was.

Hiccup placed the new sword in the wheelbarrow before wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his gloved hand. Gobber was whistling and pounding away on the other side of the forge and Hiccup was grateful that the older man was staying out of his business, even though it must've been obvious to him that something wasn't sitting with him right. Maybe it was all his nervous energy that had pent up after spending a day and two nights of dreading the inevitable, but while his insides fell apart and burst into flames, the apprentice's motions didn't portray his mental turmoil to the unsuspecting eye. But to someone whom had known him for his entire life, Hiccup knew that Gobber could see the way his hands worked more quickly and a little less precise than usual, even though it wasn't by very much and didn't affect the quality of the weapon by even a fraction.

He hadn't slept in two days. Both the night he received the news and had stayed up dreading and fearing for his future, and the night before, when he had spent the many hours of darkness worrying about what Astrid would do when she finally found out about their engagement. His entire body ached just thinking about it. He didn't even want to begin thinking about what would happen when they were actually getting married. Then he wouldn't be able to sleep for the rest of his life.

A surge of frustration coursed through his body. He still couldn't believe his dad did this. Just marrying him off in general was absolutely not okay, let alone marrying him off to Astrid. He had no idea how Stoick could possibly think that this would be beneficial for anyone involved. He knew that his dad was oblivious and was terrible at decision making and parenting in general when it came to his son, but this reached a whole new level that Hiccup hadn't even prepared for, and trust him when he said he'd prepared for the worst.

Hiccup didn't notice that Gobber had stopped pounding and had been staring at him with a frown on his face until the man actually spoke. "Why don't ye take a break? Get some fresh air. You look like you're 'bout to pass out, and there're a lot of weapons lying around. The last thing ye need is to lose a limb before your wedding."

Just hearing the word made him want to pass out. Hiccup swallowed the bile in his throat and thanked Gobber before stepping out of the forge.

The considerably cooler air hitting Hiccup's flushed and sweating skin did him wonders. His pounding headache was significantly lessened and when his lungs filled with the untainted atmosphere, he felt like he was just learning to breathe again. He was still tired, but at least the edge on his nerves had smoothed out somewhat.

This didn't last long, however, when he saw Astrid's silhouette walking down the street. He was about to enter protocol 'panic mode,' which meant to hide in the forge and pray he could stall confronting her for the rest of his life, but as she neared closer he noticed something about her was incredibly off. Instead of striding across the road with her head held high, she was trudging along and had her arms crossed over her chest, avoiding eye contact with anything and anyone at all costs. He also noticed how unusually unkempt and battered her appearance was, and judging by the look on her face, she didn't get any sleep last night, either. Hiccup didn't know what had happened to her, but he could take a wild guess as to why.

Then, as if sensing his staring, Astrid had lifted her head and stared him straight in the eye. A look of anger washed over her features almost instantly. Hiccup's heart skipped seven beats and he wished he could have gone back in time and just stayed in the forge, but then she was walking towards him and there was no way he could turn back now. He had to face this dragon head on- not that he was calling Astrid a dragon, of course.

Astrid stopped three feet away from him. Her expression was the epitome of rage. Her breathing was loud and sped up and her eyes were glowing furiously and her mouth was screwed in a scowl. He let out a nervous laugh and tried to wipe the fear off his face, but knowing himself he was probably failing. She opened her mouth and she looked like she was about to yell something, but suddenly she stopped. She shut her mouth and clenched her fists so tightly that her entire body trembled. Then, as if something had clicked, the anger flooded out of her features, leaving her expression rather empty except for... defeat.

"I need a new axe," she demanded. Her voice was cold and commanding and Hiccup walked back into the forge and got her an axe.

He handed it to her and she took it forcefully. He could have asked her what had happened to her, or why she needed a new axe, or if her axe was broken he could've probably fixed it because that was his job and he knew that axe probably meant a lot to her, but did he value his life? Yes. So he accepted the coins she handed him before she left, and his mouth stayed shut.

Notes:

1. I tried.

2. Astrid is not going to murder anyone. I repeat, Astrid is not going to murder anyone. Namely Hiccup, or her mom, or anyone.

3. The next chapter should be up sooner, but if it isn't, take comfort in knowing that I definitely have not forgotten about this story and am most likely writing for future chapters and planning out where it's going to go.

4. Also, thanks for all the phenomenal support. You guys are crazy!

Next Chapter: In the midst of it all, neither of them had actually accounted how the village was going to react. Not that it mattered- nothing could have prepared them for it.