Tangled Vows

Chapter 11

"So, this all happened yesterday, and you only decided to tell me today?" Astrid was cleaning the kitchen whilst Hiccup was in the living room.

There was no wall separating the two rooms, allowing Astrid to look freely into the living room whilst Hiccup could see clearly into the kitchen. Hiccup was lounging back on the sofa, the TV turned on but barely any volume so that Astrid could hear him over the racket of the television. 

Meanwhile, Astrid was wiping down the counters and cleaning up the table from dinner. She wasn't doing a brilliant job, but she was trying, and she knew that things would only get better with time. She was far from becoming the perfect housewife any time soon if her cleaning skills were anything to go by.

Hiccup had finally decided it was time to tell Astrid about his conversation with Miss Isolda at the store when she had been away for lunch. However, Astrid was unsure about how frustrated she should be about being left unaware of this conversation's existence considering who it had been about.

After all, it was her parents. The same parents who had cut her off the moment she had left town. Those same parents who had begged her to return home and keep their tradition going. To keep the Hofferson family in Berk like the many generations before her.

"I didn't think it was too big of a deal," Hiccup shrugged, picking up the remote and beginning to flick through various channels. It was the evening on a weekday, and not much was usually on at that time that was worth watching.

"It's my parents, Hiccup." Astrid argued, throwing the cloth onto the counter and turning back towards him. Yet, Hiccup kept his focus on the television as though to avoid looking at her. "Of course, it's a big deal."

Hiccup sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "So, what do you want me to do? Turn back time so that I can tell you about it earlier?"

Astrid groaned, turning back to her task at hand and finishing her work in the kitchen before having to move onto the living room.

"I blame you for this. This is all your fault," Astrid complained to herself as she wiped down the last of the counters and rinse the cloth of all the grime she had managed to clean up.

Hicucp scoffed, wanting to burst out into laughter at the ridiculous comment.

"Did I say something funny?"

"Yeah. Blaming me for this." Hiccup countered, still smiling and chuckling to himself as he rode out the last of his amusement over her comment.

"How are you not to blame for this?" Astrid put her hands on her hips and began to walk into the living room.

"And how aren't you?" Hiccup argued back. "If you hadn't started mouthing off to that guy at the counter, Isolda wouldn't have overheard you proclaiming your marital status for the entire store to hear. So, this one is kind of on you."

Astrid scoffed, folding her arms across her chest and rolling her eyes at the ridiculous notion of Hiccup's comment. She started to wander further into the living room to get a better view of Hiccup's nonchalant expression and indifference towards her mild predicament.

"Actually, it's kind of on you. Because whose 'brilliant' idea was it to put me at the counter in the first place?" Astrid argued back, letting a victorious smirk pull at her lips as she thought she had begun to win the fight.

But when Hiccup's expression didn't falter, and instead he only rolled his eyes, Astrid felt herself begin to frown. Suddenly, she didn't feel as though she was winning this fight.

"I think you'll find that the person who got you into this mess, is you. Because if you hadn't wanted to get married, then you wouldn't have wanted to get an annulment, and we wouldn't have found out about this whole thing." Hiccup smirked, watching his stinging bullets hit the target.