I burst through the doors of the school library, the smell of thin paper pages and gum hitting me the second I stepped in.

Lunchtime had finally arrived, and I was supposed to meet my presentation partner, Hiccup, so we could discuss how we were going to do the presentation, but he was nowhere to be found.

"Are you searching for someone, miss?" A raspy female voice caught my attention. I spun around, almost crashing into the small, grey haired woman that had been standing behind me. Seeing as she was wandering around here, I assumed that she was the librarian.

"Um...Yes, I actually am! I don't suppose you've seen a guy about this tall," I raised my hand to what I estimated to be Hiccup's height. "Stumble around here?"

"As a matter of fact, I have" She informed me as she adjusted her glasses. "Auburn hair, black jacket?"

I nodded in response. She began walking towards the counter -where she would normally sit- and stopped as we neared the first table. To my big surprise, there sat Hiccup, tapping away at his phone, not even noticing the two of us.

I quickly thanked the librarian before sitting down in the chair opposite of him. "Hey"

Hiccup let out a sigh before stashing his phone into his pocket and looking up to face me. "Can we please make this quick? I'm starving"

I took a deep breath, attempting to bury the annoyance that was building up inside me as I set focus on the task at hand. "The presentation, how do you propose we do this?"

Surprisingly enough, we actually managed to do some work during the fifteen minutes we sat in the library. We split the different parts between the two of us and decided who would start the presentation and who would end it.

Eventually, we split up. I went to go eat lunch with my friends and he went to do... whatever it is that Hiccup does.

I met up with Heather and Ruffnut in the cafeteria, where they both sat at our regular table. I plopped down in my seat and shot them both a smile.

"How was class, Ruff?" I teased her, knowing fully well how much she hated Social Science.

An annoyed sigh escaped her mouth as she threw her head back in agony. "It's the second worst thing that has ever existed, only ruled out by my brother"

Tuffnut was Ruffnut's twin brother. The pair shared many things; cutlery, a bedroom, a pet, matching grey beanies, blonde hair, blue eyes and height. But apart from that, they weren't all that similar.

Ruffnut braids her waist-long hair into three braids, two on the front and one on the back. She enjoyed wearing edgy tank tops with a faux fur sleeveless jacket over the top.(just to keep PETA on their toes)

Tuffnut enjoyed having his hair in dreadlocks. He was a big supporter of wearing heavy metal band t-shirts under a ripped jean jacket that matched perfectly with his ripped jeans.

I had known the twins for as long as I had known Snotlout, which was unfortunately a very long time. The twins on the other hand, had actually improved a bit over the years. They no longer brought herds of sheep to school, they actually did some of their homework and they paid attention in some classes.

The sound of roaring laughter could be heard all the way from the other side of the cafeteria. I let my eyes wander over to a table that had been pushed all the way to the wall, where Tuffnut sat with Snotlout and Fishlegs, talking loudly.

I noticed Ruffnut furrowing her brows at her twin and his friends for a split second, before she turned back to the meat sandwich she held in her hand.

"So, Astrid, How did you library date go?" Heather asked me as she wiggled her brows. I raised my own brows at her, as if to say: 'Really?'

A curious look washed over Ruffnut's face as she glanced up from her sandwich and joined the conversation. "Did I hear 'date'?"

"Yes, you did. You see, Heather and I were talking about when her next date with Fishlegs is" My mouth bent up into a smirk as I shot Heather a smug look. Blood streamed up into her cheeks, leaving them a tomato red.

"Fishlegs!?" Ruffnut exclaimed, dropping her sandwich as a result.

"Ruff, you really got to speak up, I don't think THE WHOLE CITY HEARD YOU!" Heather snapped at Ruffnut, informing me that she hadn't taken the time to tell Ruff the big news yet.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do, missy" Ruffnut said. Right as Ruffnut finished her sentence, the bell rang, allowing Heather to escape the dreaded conversation, for now. Talk about being saved by the bell.

***

I struggled to keep my eyes open as I stared at the empty PowerPoint-slide in front of me. I hadn't written a single word since we had begun the presentation.

Unable to focus on my own work, I glanced down on Eret, who was sitting on the floor, tapping away at his laptop like there was no tomorrow.

I must've been staring at him for some time, because after a while, he let out a deep sigh, set his laptop on the floor beside him and turned around to face me. "Why are you staring at me? Shouldn't you be working on your presentation?"

"Thanks for reminding me, mom" I teased him. He rolled his eyes at me.

"Ha ha, very funny. But seriously, have you made any progress yet?" I slowly shook my head, earning a disappointed sigh from him.

I glanced over at the laptop which sat on the same empty slide it had been on for at least an hour now.

"This is a partner project, right? Why don't you ask your partner for some help?" Eret suggested, trying his very best to be as helpful as possible.

Once again, I shook my head. "Yeah, that's not going to work. That guy hates me"

"Hates you?" Eret raised his brow, confusion painted all over his face. "How?"

I shrugged. "Don't ask me"

"Who is this guy? What's his name?" Eret asked me, anger slowly seeping in to his words.

"Hiccup Haddock"

"As in Stoick Haddock?"

"Ding ding!"

Just as Eret was about to reply, the door to my room swung open, and in flew someone I had missed very dearly. "Stormfly!"

The blue and yellow parrot screeched as she landed on my shoulder and started pecking at my hair. I gave her a nice scratch under the chin before letting my hand run over her silky feathers. "There's my girl"

About a week ago, Stormfly had managed to catch some sort of bird fever. She got really sick, and it ended with us having to leave her at the veterinarian so that she could have a doctor watch over her 24 hours a day. I thought that I wouldn't be seeing her for another week, but seeing as she was here now, it seemed that she had made quite the speedy recovery.

Stormfly cheerfully jumped from my shoulder and onto Eret's. Stormfly loved Eret. I remember when I brought Eret home for the first time. Stormfly had been really down for a while, seeing as she had just lost one of her animal friends in a tragic car accident. I had introduced Eret to her, and he immediately knew what she needed, so he brought her outside and the two of them played fetch. Stormfly quickly declared him as one of her best friends, and sometimes I wonder if that bird loves him more than she loves me.

Eret scratched her chin and let her peck at his fingers.

The sound of heavy footsteps rushing towards us became louder, and in the matter of seconds, a heavily panting man stood in my doorway.

His dark, blonde hair had been neatly slicked back, making him look like he had been pulled right out of a James Bond movie. On top of his neat hairdo sat a pair of black rimmed glasses which matched his pants and shoes. Tucked into his pants was a white shirt, and over that again was an ocean blue tie that matched his twinkling eyes.

"Hi, dad" I told my father as he entered the room.

"Eret!" His voice boomed throughout the room. "I thought I heard your voice up here!"

Eret got up from the floor, causing Stormfly to fly off his shoulder and back onto mine. "Mr. Hofferson, long time no see, how was Montana?"

"Eret, you're a part of the family, please, call me dad!" My father chuckled as he pulled Eret into a bear hug.

"Of course Mr. Hoff-, I mean dad" Eret placed his hand on my father's shoulder. "Anyway, why don't you tell me about Montana?"

I rolled my eyes at the two of them before I decided that it was time for me to try to do some work.

My father and Eret really hit it off. In the beginning, my father wasn't really his biggest fan, (seeing as Eret was 5 years older than me) but eventually, my father warmed up to him, and since then he has treated Eret like the son he never had. I'm almost certain that my dad has already started saving up for our wedding.

I managed to squeeze in some work on the presentation -exactly 18 words-before my mother called us all to come eat dinner. As we made our way into the kitchen, she got up to greet Eret, having to stand on her tippy toes in her 5-inch heels just to hug him.

My mother wasn't exactly the tallest member of our family. She barely reached my father's shoulders without heels and I was taller than her when I reached the age of 13. But what my mother didn't have in height, she made up for in everything else.

My mother is a gorgeous woman. Her long, blonde hair had been braided into her usual french braid, keeping all hairs away from her beautiful face. Her grass green eyes were highlighted by the light eye makeup she wore, and her lips were painted a soft red.

She straightened the dark jacket she wore over her white blouse before serving us the chicken and pasta she had prepared. As we ate our delicious food, I couldn't help but study my parents. I was definitely a good mix between the two of them.

My eye color was my father, but my eye shape was my mother. My blonde hair came from the both of them, but my nose was my father and my lips were my mother. I shared many similarities with my parents, and those similarities definitely bled into my personality and character as well.

I spun the spaghetti around my fork as I tuned out the conversation my parents were having with Eret. Every time he was over, it was like this, and to be fair, I quite enjoyed not being the center of attention for a bit.

I felt a buzz in the back of my jeans. I may not have been allowed to use my phone at the table, but seeing as my parents weren't watching over me, I did it anyway.

New Text From : Hiccup Haddock

"Hey, I was just wondering how your part of the project was going"

"It's going horribly tbh, haven't written a single paragraph yet"

"Wow, really?"

"Yes,"
"Do you have a problem with that?"

"Nope, not at all"

"How's your part going?"

"Better than yours, that's for sure"

"Oh yeah? How many slides have you finished?"

"2, and that's 2 more than you"

"Yeah, yeah, how about we meet up somewhere tomorrow so you can help me?"

"I'll pass"

"Why not? Did I do anything wrong?"

"Yup, whenever we had a project in elementary or middle school together, you'd always make ME do it"

"Okay, can we please stop talking about elementary and middle school, because I honestly do not remember anything"

"And there's your answer"

"??"

"See you in the library @ lunch"