How It Came To Be (An LBR story)

Chapter VII

Uneventful days go by. Astrid and Hiccup train as usual and do dragon training at the academy.

"Hiccup," Astrid calls as they head back to Berk from the forest. "I can't help but feeling like I'm being watched recently."

"Huh? What do you mean, Astrid?" Hiccup takes her hand.

"I mean exactly what I said. I feel like I'm watched from time to time these last few day."

Hiccup pulls Astrid close in a hug to assure get that nothing is wrong. She buries her head in the chest, letting out a long sigh. They stand that way got a minute or so, enjoying the moment of being wrapped in each other's arms.

"Tell you what," Hiccup says to Astrid. "It's been a while since it's been just you and I alone. Meet me at the beach tonight."

Astrid looks up with a smile. "That'll be nice, just you and me."

The continue their walk back to Berk, talking about things such as the possibility of new dragons somewhere in the world, the academy and how it's coming along, and the training they've been doing for the past few months.

Hiccup's range of weapon skills had vastly improved, but his mastery if the sword is unrivaled, while Astrid is the exact same way with the axe. They were equal with the bow and depending on who was feeling better, one had better accuracy than the other with throwing tomahawks and knives.

They arrive in Berk and head to the great hall for lunch, the rest of the gang at a table waiting on them. Fishlegs was starting to thin up and gain some muscle mass while the twins didn't look in different in the past year. As of now, there was a two year age difference between the twins and everyone else because they're birthdays are later in the year around fall. Snotlout was gaining muscle, too, but hasn't grown which left him the shortest of them all.

"Man, it's not fair. How am I supposed to compete with anybody if I'm the short one here?" Snotlout says as Hiccup and Astrid walk up.

"There's nothing wrong with being short," Ruff pipes in.

"Yeah there is," her brother says. "You can't reach the top shelf when you need to get something," he laughs.

Ruff shoots him a glare and it shuts him up. Hiccup looks at her, wondering why she spoke up for Snotlout.

"So guys, anything interesting happen this morning?" Astrid asks.

"Well the sheep somehow scattered on us while we were trying to put them in the pens, we had to put a couple fires out, and rebuild the fire bucket," Fishlegs answered her.

He came up with a way to deal with fires that brake out, but so far we can only build one because we don't know how to keep it working.

"Well that's all in a regular days work," Hiccup says as he sits down.

"Days that you haven't done recently," Snotlout crosses his arm. "And all beca-" he didn't finish as Astrid hits him.

"Because Hiccup has been training and learning how to be chief so that his actual training will be easier," Astrid says.

Hiccup gets up from the table and exits, leaving the gang staring as he leaves.

"Great, now look what you've done," Tuff says.

"And what is that?" Snotlout asks.

"Make the future chief mad," he answers back. "You do know that he can give you the lowliest jobs when he's chief, right?"

"Hahaha. Yeah right... Wait, he can?" Snotlout says a little worried.

"Indeed he can," Fishlegs chimes in.

"Oh crap..." Snotlout says.

Astrid gets up from the table, motioning for Tuff to come with her. Astrid and Ruff have become best friends since they really have no other girls to hang out with that want to be with them. They head towards Astrid's house and sit down on the step in front.

"So how's it coming along with Snotlout?" Astrid asks her.

"I honestly have no clue. I want him to know how I feel, but I don't want to come on to strong like I usually do to people," Ruff answers. "What about you and Hiccup?"

"Oh you know, the usual madness," Astrid says as she fingers the butterfly pendant and her eye get a dreamy glaze. "He's gotten so much cuter as time goes by."

************

Hiccup leaves the table after his stupid cousin make a comment about Astrid and him. He love physical activity recently as a release for his anger. He doesn't know where the anger comes from, it's just there a lot recently. Since winter was coming soon, he uses that as the perfect excuse to take a splitting maul to chunks of wood.

He is alone, usually, because he doesn't want to accidentally hurt anybody. He's gotten a lot stronger from training with Astrid. He could use the splitting maul as a regular weapon.

A/N: For those of you who don't know what a splitting maul is, it's an axe/sledgehammer type device used to split wood and it's very heavy. The sledgehammer side is there to hit in case you get stuck

Hiccup goes through the wood in an hour, the weight of the maul finally starting to feel heavy as sweat soaks his shirt. He takes the shirt of so he doesn't completely ruin the shirt.

"Hello? Who are you?" a voice says from behind him.

Hiccup turns around in a fighting stance, the maul gripped in a way so he could either throw it or swing it. He finds a girl with black hair and brown eyes standing there with a boy that stood a good head taller.

"Who's asking?" Hiccup responded, careful not to give his name in case they were looking for him.

"The girl is, you idiot," the boy says. He was built more than Hiccup, but he looks fresh in the face. Hiccup could most likely take him in combat. The girl, on the other hand, look quick.

"I see that," Hiccup answers, not letting his guard down yet. It's been a year since someone had come to kill or take him away and he wasn't going to put that away just yet.

"My name is Paul," the boy says. "And this is my sister, Rachel."

Hiccup sets the maul head on the ground, leaning against it. He looks the two up and down, scanning for hidden weapons (another part of training at the academy). He also noticed that the girl couldn't peel her eyes away from him, but he dismissed the thought as he got the same thing from other girls in Berk who came to flirt with him when Astrid wasn't around.

"My name is Hiccup, son of the chief of Berk, Stoick the Vast," he finally says, deciding they were ok. "What brings y'all to the edge of the village?"

"We were looking for a place to stay while we try to find a new home. Our village got attacked by raiders last week and we've been on the sea ever since," Rachel answers his question. Something didn't add up to Hiccup, but he paid it no heed.

"Well you're more than welcome to stay in Berk for a bit while you look for a new home," Hiccup says.

Hiccup puts his shirt back on and heads off towards his house where his father should be.

"Well, you coming?" he laughs.

They two waited for him to get a few steps farther.

"That was easier then expected," the boy says.

"Yes, yes it was," the girl replies.

They flash an evil grin towards each other before heading off towards Berk.