Tangled Vows

Chapter 25

It had been over a month since Astrid had been with Hiccup, staying in Berk together, and slowly Astrid was beginning to forget what it had been like to live in the city. Suddenly, everything about the city felt unfamiliar and wrong, and the only place that she could picture her future was by the ocean, growing old in Berk.

Perhaps when she returned to the city, she could ask Eret if he would to Berk with her.

Despite these worrying thoughts, Astrid was enjoying her peaceful morning as she and Hiccup were off work whilst another employee took care of the shop for the day. When she realised this, she had to ask twice to make sure it wasn't a joke. Yet, Hiccup explained that he needed extra workers for when his side preparing business got too much to handle, so these workers would occasionally take over the shop in a part-time capacity, giving Hiccup a couple of days off every few weeks.

However, her peace was disturbed when Hiccup came barrelling down the stairs and stormed into the kitchen with a sense of urgency.

"Everything okay?" Astrid couldn't help but ask as she watched Hiccup hastily search the kitchen cupboards for something.

Not looking up, he answered. "Yeah. I'm looking for some spare plastic bags. I've gotta go to the store to get some more stuff for the month. I'm running low on a lot of stuff."

"Can I come?" Hiccup paused at the request, finally looking up to see whether Astrid was serious in her plea. Seeing that she was, Hiccup let out a soft chuckle of disbelief.

"You want to come with me to pick up groceries?" Astrid nodded enthusiastically, wanting to get out of the house instead of being cooped up for the rest of the day watching TV.

"Please?" She almost begged, pouting her lips like a child in order to get Hiccup to agree.

Hiccup pinched the bridge of his nose quietly, "Man, you can act like such a child sometimes. Fine!" He gave in, earning a small cheer of victory from Astrid before she rushed upstairs to get her jacket.

***

Riding along in the car with Hiccup was peaceful. Due to the size of Berk, and the types of stores it could hold, the convenience store was not as close as Astrid had been expecting. So, they needed to drive 20 minutes out of town in order to get the type of groceries they required.

Yet, despite the long-ish drive, neither of them spoke a word until they neared the store.

"Oh, do you mind if we stop off at that coffee shop? I still need my morning pick-me-up." Astrid begged, pointing out the window to the nearby coffee shop that sat in the car park to the convenience store.

It was a large store and thus had a massive car park. On one side of the car park was the store itself, stretching far and wide with hundreds of cars gathered near its entrance and exit like a cult gathering. However, on the opposite side of the car park was a small building, about a twelfth of the size of the store, sitting quietly and patiently waiting for any customers to wander far enough into the car park to see it.

But Astrid knew it was there, it had been since she was a kid. She'd been to the store before, and like Berk, not much had changed around this area either. So, she directed Hiccup to where she wanted to go, and he obliged with immense reluctance.

"Couldn't you have had your coffee earlier?" He complained, driving down towards the coffee shop and parking it up in any random empty space nearby, as there were a lot of them.

"I didn't need it earlier," Astrid retorted, hopping out of the car the instant that Hiccup shut off the engine. She bounded over to the shop, with Hiccup waddling along behind her reluctantly.