In The Archipelago's Secret Service

4: Friends

Chapter Four: Friends

The Gymnasia were on the lower ground floor, huge rooms packed with weight machines, treadmills, cycling machines, elliptical trainers, rowing machine all other sorts of instruments of torture. Hiccup usually only visited them for showers when he forgot to go home and fell asleep at his desk...when he still had a desk. He had a small locker here-every employee did-but he generally avoided the Gyms for two reasons. One was that he was lean and not especially muscular and so ended up being pretty harshly taunted by everyone else. The other was the PE evaluator and combat tutor: Astrid Hofferson.

He slank into the changing rooms and dispiritedly changed into his sweats, hoping that maybe Astrid would be on a day off. The way he was feeling, she would beat the crap out of him and fail him hopelessly...and that would end his AI6 career dead. He sighed, ran his fingers through his messy auburn hair and took a shuddering breath. He hadn't asked to have a Dad who was Commander of AI6, he hadn't asked to have a family that all worked in the service, he hadn't asked to be skinny and clumsy and he certainly hadn't asked for a cousin like Snotlout who was determined to hog all the glory at the expense of every other person despite his complete stupidity and overconfidence: all he had wanted was a Dad who liked him and for someone to actually treat him like a human being. Really, was that too much to ask?

He closed the locker and headed into the Gym, looking around as he entered-and he inwardly groaned as he saw her: Astrid Hofferson. She was a young woman of his age: beautiful, athletic, ferocious and determined. Her long thick blonde hair was braided over her left shoulder and she had a blue headband to keep the sweat out of her stunning azure eyes. Her lithe form was sheathed in a pale blue lycra sleeveless vest and matching leggings. She face lit as she watched him trudge into the training zone.

"Hiccup!" He groaned: at least she sounded pleased to see him.

"Oh, hi Astrid, hi Astrid, hi Astrid!" he gabbled and instantly wanted to face-palm. He had a terminal crush on her-had since the moment he first saw her and definitely since she first threw him in basic combat training. A blonde eyebrow arched as she inspected his flustered shape.

"What are you doing here, Hiccup?" she asked directly. His shoulders slumped.

"I had an accident in Q department and demolished my desk," he admitted. "It was that purse I was building..."

"The one with a gun, an explosive and a tranquilliser?" Astrid asked, a small smile lifting her lips. He had told her last time he had seen her in the canteen, enthusing about the new device. She liked Hiccup-he was genuine, kind, enthusiastic and enormously well-meaning but he was clumsy, accident-prone and cursed with amazingly bad luck. And bad relatives, she added silently.

"Yeah-it was going really well...but I saw the twins messing with it and I guessed they had done something...and I kind of fell asleep at my desk while checking it over and this morning...I knocked it and when it fell to the floor...it exploded."

"Not especially useful for a device designed to be used as a combat weapon," Astrid added, trying not to smile. She could tell from his tone that he was upset. He sighed.

"Kinda got that...though I would be almost as good as a suicide pill," he muttered. She did smile at that-she secretly loved his sarcastic sense of humour. "Not sure I could've got Eret to take it, though." Her smile faded: Eret Eretson, VA1, the leading agent was a sore point for Astrid. The man had decided she was worthy of her attentions and had pursued not very subtly, even hinting he would get her on the active agent programme is she slept with him. Infuriated, she had turned him down...but he had seen this as a challenge, not a rejection and had redoubled his pursuit, hounding the girl whenever he was in HQ. He seemed genuinely surprised that she wouldn't just leap into bed with him and submit to his demands but Astrid was fiercely independent, determined and a high achiever in her own right. She didn't want to be counted as just another conquest and known as getting on the active roster just because she was one of Eret's bed-warmers.