~Astrid~

I blinked at the man that was reaching his hand out to me, waiting for me to shake it. I arched a brow as I crossed my arms over my chest. "Alright Hiccup Haddock, give me one good reason to why you're on my balcony and why I shouldn't kill you right here and now."

A chuckle escaped the man that had been named after an involuntary bodily reaction — much like the many emotions that were busy rushing through my body at that moment — before he scratched the back of his neck. "I-I really should've thought this through before I just went and showed up at your balcony, huh?"

He must've expected a laugh from me, but I was dead serious as I awaited his answer. There was no time for humor in the life of the betrothed of the Berserker Chief. Realizing that he wasn't going to get any reaction from me other than a judgmental stare, Hiccup cleared his throat and begun: "Well, after we made eye contact last night ... wow, this is sounding really weird! Or maybe it's more like when we made eye contact I just ... I'm sorry if this sounds really strange but I just felt something between the two of us, something like a spark and I knew that if I ignored that feeling I would regret it for the rest of my life."

I swallowed the lump that had been growing inside my throat, surprised to hear that I wasn't the only one who had felt ... whatever had happened the night before so intensely. I allowed my gaze to meet his and I was instantly sucked right into those mesmerizing eyes of his as it felt like a colony of butterflies had taken off in my stomach. As soon as I felt my cheeks grow hot, I tore my gaze away from his and attempted to fall back into my previously icy exterior.

With a sigh, I stuck out my hand to him as a small smile pulled at the corner of my lips. "I'm Astrid, Astrid Hofferson."

Hiccup took my hand in his, tightening his firm grip around my fingers as a crooked smile appeared on his face. "I'm assuming this means you won't kill me?"

A laugh escaped me, but as I was about to answer, there was a heavy pounding on my door. My eyes shot open wide as I began pushing Hiccup out of sight. "Hide! If they find you here, you're a dead man!"

"What about you?" He furrowed his brows and for yet another moment, our eyes met, but I refused to drown in those emerald green eyes of his once more.

"I'll be fine, just hide, please!" I urgently whispered as I went inside and closed the balcony doors behind me.

"Miss, are you alright? Hello? Are you there? We're coming in!" I breathed a sigh of relief at the voices that came from the other side of the door, luckily, it didn't seem like Dagur was there.

"I'm fine, just please, give me a minute!" I shouted back as I rushed over to the bed and grabbed a fur to cover myself before the guards threw open the door and streamed into my room. The four, heavily armed guards split up and searched the room as the head guard — whose name I had yet to be told — turned to me with a furrowed brows.

"We heard a loud sound coming from up here before the tower shook, what happened? Were you attacked by another dragon?" The head guard asked, glancing over at the balcony doors every now and again as if he feared said dragon would burst through any second.

I shook my head, fabricating the perfect lie in my head in a matter of seconds. "No, no, nothing like that. I was just having some ... female problems and naturally went a little mad."

The other guards stopped their search to share a glance with their commander and one another before the one that had been searching my wardrobe spoke: "So you made an explosion?"

"No, no! Nothing like that!" I shook my head as I threw my hands up in defense "I just tore down the wardrobe, that's all!"

The guards glanced over at the tall and obviously very heavy wardrobe in the corner of my room, which had been decked in deep gashes and slices from all the times I had used it as a training dummy. The guard by the wardrobe blinked, obviously taken aback by how I, a feeble woman, had not only managed to damage the wardrobe to the extent that I had, but had also somehow managed to knock it over hard enough to make the entire tower tremble. "You did this?"

I nodded. "Yes and then in my rage I managed to make it fall over, which caused what you all heard and felt."

The four guards once again shared a look, as if they weren't sure what to believe. Clearly, none of them knew a thing about women, or else they would've known that I was majorly bullshitting them, but for now, that would be my little secret.

"Very well, but the Chief still requests that we do a routine check if there's ever any suspicious activity." The head guard informed me, refusing to meet my gaze as they all continued to search my room.

Whilst they busy turning my room upside down, I stood silently by the door, terrified that they would find anything to incriminate me or to take away from me to make my life a tenfold more awful than it already was. If they even tried to take my mother's axe ... I had no idea what would become of me.

My mother's axe ... oh my gods, I had left it outside! With Hiccup! So if they so much as opened the balcony door and found not only my axe but also Hiccup and his dragon? Gods, I was certain I'd be moved to the dungeons in an instant! The head guard was making his way over to the balcony door, which caused a wave of panic to crash over me as I desperately scrambled for something to say that would keep him away from the balcony. "Odin almighty, what could I be hiding on the balcony that I couldn't very well have hidden in this room?"

The head guard shrugged as he placed his hands on the handles of the doors, ready to throw them open. "I don't know, miss, but it's part of my search and I won't ignore it."

My heart was beating against my rib cage as the doors creaked open, revealing ... nothing. There was absolutely nothing on my balcony. I breathed a quiet sigh of relief as I felt my shoulders sink. Thank the gods that they hadn't found anything or anyone.

"All clear. Looks like we're off duty for the evening, boys. Sleep well, miss." The head guard announced as he made his way out of the room, the three other guards following behind like little ducklings following their mother as they shut the door to my room and locked it by key. Another sigh of relief escaped me.

"They lock you in here?" I almost jumped through the roof at the sound of Hiccup's voice. I quickly spun around, shooting him a glare as he stood casually in the middle of my doorway, my axe in his hands and his dragon behind him.

"Give me that." I nearly spat as I threw away the fur I had used to cover me before snatching the axe right out of his hands, overjoyed that I hadn't lost it to Dagur and his men. I made my way over to the chest at the foot of my bed and stashed the axe at the very bottom, hidden under several piles of clothing. At least in there the guards would grow tired of searching before they even found the axe.

"You know, you never answered my question." Hiccup mused as he began exploring my room, dragging his fingers over my desk and tracing the spines of the books I had stacked neatly upon said desk before he turned back to me, eyes furrowed and a certain sadness weighing on those lovely eyes of his.

I raised a brow at him as I closed the chest and slumped down on the side of my bed, crossing my legs as I shrugged. "Why do you care? It's not like it has anything to do with you."

As Hiccup strode over to sit down beside me, his large dragon made its way inside and began sniffing around my room, as if he was searching for any traps I might've set up for him and his master. Boy, did that dragon see the best in me. "Well, seeing as you are now my newest friend, I feel a certain obligation to know what's going on in your life."

A sigh escaped me as I shook my head and leaned back onto the bed. "We're not friends."

"Of course we are!" Hiccup grinned as he turned his gaze to me. "We're the best of friends!"

I couldn't help but roll my eyes at his goofy behavior. "We only met 20 minutes ago."

"And my, has it been the best 20 minutes of my life!" Hiccup's grin grew even wider and I couldn't help but laugh at him. "Now come on, admit we're friends!"

A chuckle escaped me. "I'm not going to do that."

"Yes, you are! Now come on!" Hiccup nudged me with his elbow. "You know you want to!"

A sigh escaped me as I shook my head ever so slightly. "If it'll make you shut up about this, then fine, we're friends."

"See, didn't that feel great?" Hiccup's mood was contagious and it would be a blatant lie if I said I wasn't smitten.

"So great." I chuckled sarcastically as I once again found myself gazing at him. Our eyes met and I instantly knew that the light-hearted banter we were having was fading into a more serious conversation.

"Why do they lock you up in here?" Hiccup asked me, his eyes locked on me as if I were the only source of light in a world of pitch black darkness.

I shrugged nonchalantly, acting as if I wasn't being held prisoner in a luxuriously decorated cell but instead was a willing guest in this hellhole. "So they don't have to worry about me running off in the middle of the night, I suppose. Probably the same thing with putting my room at the very top of a tower. How could a teenage girl possibly escape from a locked up room at the top of one of the tallest towers in the archipelago?"

Hiccup nodded slowly, as if he was tasting every word individually and trying to comprehend its deeper meaning. "So, you are a prisoner? And a well treated one at that? What did you do to end up here?"

I took a deep breath as I once again found my shoulders rising. "Nothing, really. In reality it's my father's fault, hadn't it been for him, we could've been home right now, enjoying our lives and never having to worry about being attacked by the Berserker armada."

Hiccup leaned back on my bed as well, and even though he was staring at the ceiling, he still looked to be intently listening. "So, where is home if this isn't it?"

I huffed and turned to him with a slight smirk. "You think you can just strategically lure information out of me without contributing anything yourself? If so, you've got it all wrong. Now tell me, oh great dragon rider, where is home for you?"

A chuckle escaped Hiccup as he propped himself up on his arms. "Berk. Berk, is my home. It didn't always feel that way, but as soon as I found myself and my buddy over there, it truly became home."

"That sounds lovely," A genuine smile grew on my face as I leaned over to face him. "Please, tell me more about it, tell me more about Berk."