Hiccstrid Shorts

Warmth

Astrid Hofferson was freezing.

Frigid.

Frozen.

Frosted over.

Turning into an ice-cube, for lack of a better term.

The heavy woolen furs she had cocooned herself in before falling asleep (or attempting to) did very little to shelter her skin from the sting of the arctic air, and even less to ward away the tiny, fluffy snowflakes just beginning to fall lightly from the star-less sky. She could no longer feel her fingers, or her toes, and she vividly pictured each digit slowly turning a brilliant blue beneath the covers. Her body had long since given up on shivering, for it seemed fruitless; her lips were chapped and blistering from the burning wind that rushed past and shook the branches of the empty trees; her eyes dry and aching from the bitter bite of the Archipelago's winter. She would have been fine she hadn't neglected to pack warmer clothes for their impromptu expedition into the northern woods of the Piquolot Mountains. She would have been fine if the gusts hadn't blown the campfire out. She would have been fine if she had decided to curl up with Stormfly and the other dragons in their messily adorable muddle of limbs and teeth. Of course, all her mistakes would have been easy to correct, but that involved getting up and out of the relative safety of her layers, and Astrid preferred to suffer only half of what the elements could dish out for the whole night, instead of the entirety of the weather's wrath for a couple minutes.

However, as the night wore on, she started to regret her decision.

As soon as the snow had started, Astrid had glanced longingly over at the bundle of blankets a few feet away from her, knowing that he would provide more warmth than her layers could ever hope to (most likely from his blushing at the close proximity). Her friends, though, slept near, and if she and Hiccup wanted to keep their relationship on the down low, they couldn't be discovered in such a compromising position by the other riders. She imagined waking up to the jeering sneer of Snotlout, the scandalized expression of Fishlegs, the utterly bewildered faces of the twins, and Heather's smug "I told you so" grin. Not something she was too keen on.

Astrid rolled over on the hard forest floor, feeling a twig dig into her hip, and telling herself firmly that she didn't care, because if she did, she'd have to reach outside the blankets to move it, and her hand most surely would not return. She wiggled her torso irritably in a vain attempt at shuffling it out of the way. Sighing, frustratedly beyond all else, she curled in on herself farther.

Astrid had been sick plenty of times-once with a horrible hacking cough and bloodied phlegm at age six that had the entire village worried she wouldn't survive; once with a stomach bug that had her rejecting everything slammed down her throat; more recently, she came down with a bout of eel pox that had her drunkenly tottering around her house hopped up on pain herbs. She'd wondered if that was how it would end-if this soggy heap of sweat and pale, glistening skin was how she would be remembered. Her nights spent tossing and turning with aching limbs and a pounding skull, grimaces torn from her raw throat with every shift of her exhausted frame were anything short of torture. If asked, Astrid would have, hands down, replied that those short stints of malady were the worst days in all her nineteen years; the lingering stench of stale body and rotting barf and sour clothes haunted her every time she so much as sneezed. Right now, though, she would take those sleepless, boiling hot, crampy, achy nights over this sleepless, freezing cold, shivering, frore night any day.

Pursing her lips-which was painful and probably ripped the skin open in multiple places-she finally came to a conclusion: she didn't give a damn what her friends thought. Better to endure the teasing and the invasions of privacy than the endless glacial winds. Resolutely gathering the blankets about her shoulders, Astrid stood up, stumbling a bit as feeling started to flow back into her feet with a barrage of pins and needles, and marched over to her sleeping boyfriend. Her teeth chattering, she knelt down next to him and carefully removed her pauldrons and arm guards, along with her skirt and (sadly) her boots, attempting to minimize the amount of metal she brought into the huddle.