Tuff Love (A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction | Astrid x Tuffnut)

"How could you eat at a time like this?"

Not too long after, the whole of Berk was clustered in the stands of a giant stone arena. There was a feeling that was colorful in the air, and excitement was sprinkled on the faces of every man, woman, child and sheep. The outskirts and insides of the arena were garnished like a festival. Children and adults had painted their faces with stripes of teal, ruby-red, banana-yellow and charcoal, and the village's bakers had lugged their carts all the way from their homestead to feed the audience as they milled around impatiently for the challenge between a Thorston and the son of Stoick himself.

When a duel was, if ever, promised, it was to be planned by the next dawn, before the birds had started to sing and would be finished at any cost until the sun would disappear for the night. Astrid only thought those beliefs were a myth until she saw the arena for herself when she followed the loud commotion from the emptied streets to the grounds of the Dragon Riders Academy that served as a school and a year-round stadium.

At seeing all of the commotion she had caused, Astrid felt guilty. To her greater shame, Astrid hadn't lost her affection for Hiccup. Hiccup was a teensy-bit dragon-crazy ever since he had found his first clue that there were entire species of dragons yet to be discovered, but Hiccup hadn't changed very much. He was the kind-hearted and humble leader he had always been with an extremely vulnerable side and a subtle sense of humor that Astrid still adored. Since Hiccup had agreed to embarrass himself that morning in front of all of Berk for her affection, could it mean that Hiccup still believed in their relationship? Astrid considered that deeply as she searched for an empty place to onlook the stage. The sun felt hot on her skin. The cold hadn't left yet, and Astrid thought it best to wear her armsleeves with wool. That day, Astrid also did not want to be noticed, so she wore her usual clothes in winter that included her handed-down knee-high boots with thick fur on the shins, worn and dark leggings, a skirt made of a hairy pelt with a symmetrical and pleated pattern of leather strips with metal studs underneath a belt of skeleton talismans, and a carrot-red top that always fit her comfortably. Over her shoulders she wore a half-parka with a large hood to warm her neck and ears whenever they began to numb. Astrid hadn't slept well that morning and hadn't enough time to braid her hair. It had been left to toss and tangle in the wind, much like her own thoughts did.

Astrid pondered also about her stubborn alliance for Tuffnut aside her heart's allegiance to Hiccup. Before her separation from Hiccup, Astrid had never cried herself to sleep every night because it was too hard to realize Hiccup wouldn't come near for her for a flight outside of Berk in their own early-morning adventure. She had not knew how long it would take to feel Hiccup's presence coming from a mile away if she chose to sit over a view of the village and pretend she wasn't listening for him to say, "afternoon, m'lady." Her dinners had been tasteless without Hiccup's dry humor, and her errands without his meddling voice had been restless.

Astrid picked at her grimy fingernails in memory. She had confessed her struggles to Ruffnut because she hadn't knew what else to do to get Hiccup to love her again, and she only needed someone to listen to her feelings of dealing with her first break-up. She hadn't cared if Ruffnut had a real solution. She didn't know Ruffnut's brother would balm the emptiness in her heart and replace it with joy. That's what every moment had felt like with Tuffnut the other night. Joy. Tuffnut ran on a different fuel than Hiccup that never fizzled dry, and talking to him over stew in the tavern had been exhausting yet intoxicating. Tuffnut's way of humor was wacky to Astrid and not as puzzling as Hiccup's had become over the years. Astrid had felt that to laugh again the other night was to live again. She had kissed Tuffnut because she missed the feeling, and was that so bad to want after close to a month without it? Astrid could slug any thug that crossed her, she could throw an axe better than the stockiest of her age could, her battlecry could scare a dragon far away, and she liked her ale unsweetened. She wasn't a girly-girl, yet she was still a girl, and she had vain feelings she couldn't help. Hiccup had been willing to appease them by giving her kisses to the cheek when it was time for him to leave her for the day, or by holding her hand on their long walks, but he only did those actions when Astrid had asked. When Tuffnut had kissed her, Astrid remembered that it sometimes felt nice to not have to ask for affection.