Tangled Vows

Chapter 17

"Are you sure Fishlegs invited me?" Astrid asked, pulling away from Hiccup's side and hesitantly backing away from the entrance to the Twins' bar. "They probably don't want to see me."

Since she had arrived back in Berk, Hiccup had been the only one out of their friends that she had managed to become somewhat neutral with. The fact that he no longer wanted to rip her head clean off of her shoulders whenever they laid eyes on each other was a clear sign of improvement after all. 

However, this was not a level of neutral standing that she had managed to obtain with the rest of the gang. She still remembered the hateful look of Fishlegs when he had seen her standing in the living room, in Hiccup's house. If Fishlegs was not ready to forgive her, perhaps the Twins weren't either.

Especially Ruffnut.

It was her that Astrid was truly afraid to see out of the lovable half-wits, after all, Astrid was the one who was supposed to be her maid of honour and ran out of town before the wedding. If anyone were to hate Astrid with vengeful spite, it would be Ruffnut.

"Come on, you're with me. They can't hate you too much when I'm the one who brought you here." Hiccup suggested, marching up to Astrid's cowering figure and grabbing her by the hand. "Now, quit being a coward and come on! I need a drink."

Pulling her into the bar, Hiccup barely realised that he had grabbed her hand and linked their fingers together as he marched through the doors of the bar. However, once they stepped inside, Hiccup released his hold and made his way into the bar, leaving Astrid behind to stand awkwardly at the door.

Looking around the bar, she couldn't recognise many people and wasn't sure who the people were that she did recognise. There were vague memories of names and faces, some that Astrid could remember vividly, and others that she could remember vaguely. They all morphed together into one unrecognisable image of her past.

Not wishing to address the past, and not willing to stay isolated at the front of the bar in sight of everyone, she hurried after Hiccup towards a quiet table.

It was a table in some shadow, yet managed to be by one of the windows that looked out over the front porch of the bar and into the evening sky hovering over Berk. It was a beautiful view, and one that Astrid remembered before leaving everything behind, and it made her nostalgic for the good times they used to have in this bar.

With a reluctant glance, Astrid looked over to the bar to find Ruffnut. She was standing behind the bar with her trademark toothy grin and bright laughter. There was something about her that brought life into the place and made the entire bar feel like a party zone.

Yet, one look at Astrid and that bright, jovial smile fell off of her face and through the floor. Astrid tried to smile in apology, regretful about her past. But the fact that Ruffnut turned away without any acknowledgement of her presence, before continuing to speak to one of the patrons, showed Astrid how much guilt she still had hanging over her.

"Yep, she still hates me," Astrid announced to Hiccup, who was sitting opposite her and watching her shift uncomfortably in her seat as she got her bearings. It seemed that he was enjoying the show, and deciding whether letting her stay was a truly good idea.

"Nah, I don't think she hates you as much as you think," Hiccup assured her, looking over to Ruffnut who was busying herself at the bar. 

"What makes you so sure?"

"Well, if she truly hated you, she would have kicked you out of here the moment you stepped through those doors." Hiccup nodded towards the entrance where they had just appeared from, "But she didn't. So, you're safe."

Astrid sighed heavily, her shoulders sagging as the immense guilt weighed heavily onto her shoulders. "I don't know what to do."

"What do you mean?" Hiccup asked, curiosity eating at him as he leaned closer towards her.

"I mean... I did what I could to make things right. I even wrote all of you letters to explain why I did what I did, and to apologise for everything. Yet, you still all hate me. I don't know how to get you to forgive me, all of you to forgive me." Astrid sighed, picking at her fingers nervously as she remembered those awful letters she spent hours writing. She still felt the pain in her hand at times from the terrible cramps she suffered that night.

Hiccup frowned, leaning back and wracking through his brain. Yet, what he said next was not what Astrid would have ever predicted to come from his mouth.

"Astrid, I never got a letter."

Suddenly, it felt as though the ground beneath Astrid had given way and she fell towards the centre of the earth. Her stomach dropped and her heart sank as she realised the true horror of her betrayal had extended farther than she had first believed.

"What? What do you mean?"

"I never got one." Hiccup shrugged simply, shaking his head in affirmation of the fact that her mention of such a thing was the first time he had heard anything about a letter.

"But I wrote each of you a letter. I addressed them and put them in envelopes. I left them for my parents to send out after I'd left. What do you mean you never got one?" Astrid explained, a mild sense of panic coiling around in her stomach as the painful truth revealed itself from the shadows.

"Just... I never got a letter. Fishlegs didn't get one. Snotlout didn't. The Twins certainly didn't get one." Hiccup revealed, listing them off on his fingers as every name added another weight of guilt onto Astrid's conscience.

"So, Ruffnut never got my letter? She never got my apology?" Astrid asked in disbelief, shaking her head, completely bewildered by this idea.

Yet, Hiccup let out a short scoff and rolled his eyes. He folded his arms over his chest and smiled to himself, watching Astrid torture herself with this new revelation.

"Do you think those letters, any letters, would have immediately forgiven you of any betrayal you had caused? Did you think they were a get-out-of-jail-free card?" Hiccup accused, bemused by Astrid's explanations.

"No, but they might have helped..." Astrid suggested, her voice small and unconfident as the words fell from her mouth.

"Astrid, you left. You caused me the most pain when you decided to leave. You hurt Ruffnut by not being there for her on her most important day, despite promising her you would be there. You abandoned your friends and your family. No letter could excuse you for that." Hiccup reasoned sternly, reminding Astrid of the weight of her actions. "You were incredibly selfish, Astrid. Thinking that any explanation would help any of us forgive you, is even more selfish than you were already being. Remember what I told you the first few days that you were here?"

Astrid couldn't forget it. Those words circled her mind daily and haunted her dreams as the guilt of her past drowned her in every waking moment that she stayed in Berk.

"Don't act all high and mighty like I deserve some kind of forgiveness, because I don't. Right?" Astrid recalled the words clearly, reminding Hiccup how much they had burned themselves into her brain without her consent.

Hiccup nodded, her expression dark and his shoulders stiff.

"I'm going to get a drink. You want one?" Astrid nodded before Hiccup walked away to the bar, leaving Astrid alone to fester with her thoughts.