"Hey. You're not terrible." Hands to cheeks then, pushing them in as he puffed them out, squishing his face gently. Hiccup really was big on self depreciation, wasn't he? That was something that would have to be worked on. It wouldn't come quickly, Astrid knew that much. Old habits died hard, after all. Still, it wasn't impossible.

"Sure, you're not really like the rest of us, but that's not a bad thing." She said, now cupping his cheeks rather than mushing them together. "You've got the...spirit. The crazy spirit. The stubbornness. Those kinds of qualities all good Vikings have. Plus you're smart, too. You solve problems using your head and I don't mean that literally."

Just because some Vikings favoured headbutting their problems square in the face didn't mean there weren't other ways one could put their heads to use.

"We didn't know it, but we all needed a little more of...this." She gestured toward him with a nod. "Myself included. Especially now, here in this place."