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

"How do you think it tastes?"

"Astrid?" Tuffnut, like he was holding a stranger, asked in complete confusion.

What's wrong?, Astrid said to herself. Her confidence fell a little, and her mouth started to dry in the cold. She thought that perhaps Tuffnut did not like what she was wearing. She did feel a little silly that she might have overdone her outfit. Or, was it her hair? Her hand immediately felt her ribbon to try if it was still in place. It was. So, what was he staring at?

Tuffnut kept his gentle hold on Astrid's arm. He scanned her from her curly blonde head of hair to her pointed and dark boots in the snow that stood below a lightly fluttering hem of the most plain yet becoming dress he had ever seen on Astrid. It was astounding. She looked more than hot. Astrid actually looked like other girls in the village to him-she was cute. The dress's fabric of light green that complimented her skin tone was adorable on her.

"Holy whackamoly," Tuffnut said once, not even minding what words were falling from his mouth. They were afterthoughts to his observation of her in which he didn't mean to linger, but he couldn't help it. His face held a still expression like it was the only speech he could make after mildly gawking at her in the middle of the moving crowd. He couldn't believe he had her all to himself for the day. Had she really cared about what he would think about her enough to find another new dress to wear that he couldn't imagine in his life that Astrid would ever own?

Astrid went mute for a small moment, and then she chuckled unsurely to him, "I'll take that as a compliment?"

"You look beautiful," Tuffnut said blankly, and he smiled at his own revelation. He touched the bow that her waisttie had made at her side and made a quiet coo of adoration. He had to laugh again, reservedly, at how adorable she looked. He loved cute things because it made him feel like he wanted to protect them. It was for that reason he loved to see baby rabbits when he wandered into the woods. Not that Astrid was anything like a baby rabbit, but in the same way he had held them when he would aimlessly walk through the forest, Tuffnut wanted to hug Astrid right then and feel her small yet fierce frame engulfed in his arms and safe from every evil thing in the world that would ever try to hurt her.

"Sorry, I jus' had'ta say it," Tuffnut said in a race, making his unaware choice of romanticized words void. Tuffnut perceived that everything he said with Astrid, now that they were spending closer time together, had to be carefully thought before he spoke them. If he hadn't been quick enough just then, Astrid would have gotten the wrong impression that he was forcing himself onto her too quickly. He had to be careful not to say many things too soon because he feared he would frighten Astrid with the new feelings she let bud in him since they had paired together.

Tuffnut's praise assured her that she was, in fact, at least sometimes as pretty as others told her she was. It sounded different when a boy at her own age confirmed it and not solely her friends or people she knew in the village. Astrid pretended she didn't feel the heat rising to her cheeks under Tuffnut's gaze again, like she had felt when he first gave her an unbridled compliment that had been as brash as a foreigner.

Astrid gave a third little laugh that sounded coyer in front of Tuffnut than she wanted it to be. Her body drew inward against her will like it was a natural impulse for her to make herself small when she was flattered. Maybe it was a natural thing to happen when she was with her heart's new flame. Astrid had not experienced such shyness with Hiccup, at least. For Hiccup, Astrid had not had many chances to act as a delicate thing that would shatter if Hiccup held her too tight. Their times to share innocent romance had been plenty, yes, but still, compared to what she felt with Tuffnut in the short time she had spent with him, those moments with Hiccup were dull in comparison. Although somewhere her heart ached for those times with Hiccup again because they were familiar, and she was used to them, she was anxious, instead, of the thrill she felt with Tuffnut at that very moment for knowing she was someone he requested to be close with for the entire day of Snoggletog, perhaps until the night, if the fest carried until the dawn as it usually did, or if he expressed that a morning together wasn't enough.