sirenspull_logs | What's Going On

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What's Going On

Who: HICCUP and ~* Asssstrid *~
When: Sometime after Astrid's arrival
Where: At the Tower Apartments. Outside. Somewhere.
Summary: Late to Astrid's welcoming party, Hiccup tries to make up for it by meeting her at the baseball diamond and its starter apartments. Confusion ensues.
Warnings: THESE ARE VIKINGS. VIKINGS.

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The amount of dishes being brought in from the front always had a tendency to look like they weren't going down. Even if he had gone through ten, twenty of them at a time, there were still more to get to. He knew he had to finish doing them, but this day suddenly became very important to him.

Astrid - the star Viking pupil in his dragon-training class and the girl of his dreams - was here.

In his haste, Hiccup made it a point to fish out the rock from the bottom of the metal sink, yanking off the apron and shrugging into his fur vest as he sped out the back door of Nibbleheim, making up explanations for his departure as the shouts of his supervisor faded behind him, thin legs sprinting toward the baseball diamond and its apartments.

The distance itself was something he forgot to acknowledge ahead of time, causing his epic run to falter, slowing to a stop. But with his type of persistence, he caught his breath and continued running the rest of the way.

Once the diamond was in sight, all Hiccup had to do was look for the blond girl with the axe in her hand. And she did say she was going to climb a tree. So the best way to go about spotting her was to glance at the trees in the area while calling her name. "Astrid?" The boy jogged, taking in a few calming breaths while green eyes darting back and forth. "Astrid! Hello?"

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Following quietly she trotted after Hiccup as he lead her out of their room and back into the living room. Although it was a small room it was full of things she'd never seen before. The kitchen as well was filled with just as many strange and new things.

"Well, there's a lot of things in here. What's first?"

The living room was as good a place as any to start. Hiccup held out his hands, using them to point out several things. He started with some of the clocks - explaining what they were, why one was traditional and the other digital (along with why they were so different), and admitting that he still needed to figure out how they worked in general.

"The digital one has this thing called a radio built into it. Sounds come out of it - like from the devices we got." Or a rock. Which made no sense. "Talking, music, sometimes both. They also come in bigger forms that have multiple settings, it's crazy!"

Clearly he was in his element. Who else would nerd over the technicalities of modern technology?

He then walked over to pick something up from the coffee table. It was slender, with many colored buttons on it. "Now this? It's a remote. It's no good on its own, but if I do this..." The 'power' button clicked, triggering a low, electric hum. The screen of the television set gradually brightened, displaying people and noise.

It was an action film of some sort, and a car exploded.

"Whoa!" Even if Hiccup did mess with the channels beforehand, he still flinched. He also remembered that this would garner the same reaction from Astrid - maybe even worse. "It's okay!" he piped up, waving his hands at the girl in supplication. "That's normal! That's its function! Television. Function."

Clocks. Now they were weird. Somehow people were able to tell time with them, or keep track of it. Not even Hiccup seemed to know how to read them or the symbols on display, so at the very least she felt slightly less stupid for being completely and utterly clueless. At the very least though, Hiccup seemed excited enough about them. That meant he'd figure them out eventually, right?

But even then, shouldn't she try to figure them out too? Just because Hiccup was more familiar with technology and how things worked didn't mean she'd be any less capable than he was, right? She just...needed to learn. Study...which meant reading. Reading wasn't the worst thing she'd ever done, but it wasn't the best either.

Suddenly the attention was turned away from the clocks back to what Hiccup soon labeled a remote, which he pointed at...whatever that box was and suddenly, as if a magic spell had been cast, a moving picture immediately overtook the screen with an explosion. Astrid found herself flinching, eyes wide as she cringed in awe at the explosion happening before her.

"It...shows you things exploding?"

She could get used to a function like that.

Hiccup didn't mean to ramble on, but it was good to see that Astrid was actually paying attention to what he was saying. He was also glad that she had the same reaction he did when the television was turned on for the first time.

There was also something about those explosions that made it all the better.

Eyebrows raised slightly. He then nodded, giving a small, lopsided smile. "Eh. Sometimes? Depending on the channel."

"What's a channel?" She couldn't help but ask, glancing over at Hiccup and his dorky smile. The wreckage from the explosion ultimately won her attention back however, blue eyes fixated on the flames on screen and twisted metal.

"There's more than just explosions on this thing?"

The boy had to pause to watch that as well, forgetting what he was doing for a moment. He then snapped back into the present, almost dropping the remote in hand.

"A channel is...uh, how do I explain this..." The remote tapped against his face several times in thought, eyes lighting up once he came up with an example. "It's like a book. Different channels, different books. Or chapters. You can turn to any chapter or channel you want - channels just happen to have a lot more variety than one book would. Unless you compare volumes to channels. That's also possible, actually."

"Ohhh."

It clicked, somewhere in that head of hers, as Hiccup explained it. Well, that made sense at least. It certainly made things more exciting too. Snotlout would've loved the idea - why read when you could watch the events before you play out instantly?

Totally awesome. Expectantly she held out her hand for the remote, itching to play with it.

"That makes sense. Can I try?"

Having everything make sense made it easier and a little faster, and it was good to see that he was sounding like he knew what he was talking about. At least, he was able to communicate and lay it out without getting overly technical about it.

He shrugged, waving the thing around for a moment before tilting it her way. "Sure!"

Why not? It wasn't too difficult to use.

Hiccup handed the remote over, pointing out some of the buttons. "Okay. So you point it at the television like this. And if you want to go back and forth between channels, you can push these two buttons." The plus and the minus signs were indicated. "And if you want it louder - or even quieter, for that matter - you can push these two." The same symbols were there under another set of letters. "Annnd if you want a specific channel, then there are the rest of the numbers...but that may have to wait." Because he wasn't too clear on that yet.

"And the most important of all," he added, tapping the top brightly colored button, "is the power button. Because it turns the thing on and off."

With the remote in her hands, Astrid listened as attentively as she possibly could while Hiccup pointed out which buttons did which. She decided to start with the power button, pushing it intensely as she focused, brow furrowed in concentration. Off the television went and she looked taken aback, just as she had with the light switch, only to push the power button again to turn it on. Next came fiddling with the channels as she flipped up and down, passing cartoons and cooking shows in awe. Volume was turned up and down, to deafening heights, only to be muted entirely.

Astrid felt as if she could control the world.

The other buttons then, the symbols for numbers as Hiccup called them, now that was certainly different. She'd never seen anything like them before. So, which number was exactly which?

"Hey, have you figured out which number is which? Cause our numbers certainly don't look anything like these symbols, that's for sure."

He watched her fascination grow, folding his arms loosely over one another. Surely he wasn't that into things when he first tried it out, but...he didn't mind this. It was good.

A short laugh was given, sheepish in his own way, telling of how much he actually knew. "Oh man, it's hard. The only numbers I got down so far are one, two, and three. And then my eyes started crossing when I tried looking at the rest of them." Which was probably true. And being the Viking nerd that he was, he was determined to make sense of it. "I was gonna look them over again anyway. It shouldn't be that difficult."

A man was talking about cooking ribs on the television and unfortunately it took Astrid a moment to react to Hiccup's answer to her question. They looked delicious. Really delicious. But, right.

Numbers.

"One, two and three, huh."

Blue eyes peeled themselves away from the screen and focused on Hiccup's green ones, moving closer to him to hold out the remote so they could both look at the symbols together.

"So I'm guessing 1 is one." She pointed at the symbol before pulling her finger back. "But as for the rest, I'm completely clueless." Which admittedly, was a hard thing to admit. "But you're right. It can't be that hard. Just because we're stuck in the future doesn't make us stupid. I know I'm not stupid, and you certainly aren't."

She gave a determined nod.

"We'll get this. We're Vikings. It's not as if we can't count to ten."

As she did, Hiccup met her gaze before looking down to study the numbers again. "Yeah, that's right," he nodded, glancing away from the remote briefly. "It's mainly the shapes. The curves on some of them, the strange angles." When it looked like it made sense in one way, it took another turn when the numbers doubled.

He couldn't help but smile when she said this. It was true - they never let anything stop them. They were Vikings. That was the only reason. A good reason.

"Exactly. We've got a good start on them right now, anyway."

They'd figure it out. Two heads were always better than one, right? (Unless they were the two heads of a Hideous Zippleback.) "Here." Handing the remote back to him, Astrid moved to sit back down, cradling her cheeks in her palms, elbows firmly planted on her knees.

It was then she allowed herself a moment of silence, thoughts trailing away from the wonders of television and back to more serious matters.

"Hey, Hiccup? Can you promise me something?"

The remote was back in his hands. Hiccup absently flipped it gently over and over before letting it rest back in its original position, green eyes hastily running over the exact number of buttons on its surface. All of them were accounted for before he looked at Astrid, tilting his head slightly.

"Um." He couldn't help but shrug. "Sure."

"Promise me you wont get yourself killed."

A heavy promise, maybe coming a bit from left field, but it was a legitimate worry for her. The thought of Hiccup dying, of having to endure that gut-wrenching feeling she'd had when she'd saw Toothless crash to the ground...Astrid wanted nothing to do with it.

"...Building a boat to burn your body in would be a pain."

His small smile faded.

This hit him just as hard as the events he now knew he was going to go through. But they were Vikings. It was an occupational hazard to go into battle, looking death in its face.

But it was also unnerving.

He tried to play it off like it was nothing. It didn't work as well, but her comment eased some of the weight behind the promise. "...Well. Sorry if it would be too much of a hassle." The faint sarcasm was then lifted from what he added afterward.

"It'll be tough, but...I'll do my best."

"Good."

Satisfied she relaxed back onto the couch, shoulders slumping as she did so, a little sigh slipping past her lips. Now that she'd finally settled down the weight of everything was starting to truly become apparent. Suddenly, all of it was tiring and it showed, even if Astrid did her best to try and mask it.

"Neither of us will be doing any dying."

Without saying anything else in that space, Hiccup quietly lowered the volume on whatever channel the television had on. As he placed the remote down upon the coffee table, he walked over to the couch, taking a seat next to Astrid. His weight did nothing to upset the balance there.

Although he wondered about everything that had been said and down within a couple of hourse, he also felt oddly exhausted. It was probably more of a mental and emotional tiredness, but he said nothing about it.

Instead, he was fine sitting there next to Astrid. His girlfriend. The one he just made a promise to about not dying. The weight of those words were something to think about, but he pushed those thoughts aside as he nodded.

"Yeah. I think we'll be good."

"Mm. We will."

It was a soft agreement of sorts as Hiccup and her sat side by side on the sofa. Neither of them would die. They'd both survive. Things would be okay and there was no real reason to worry.

...Well, that was a half lie. There was reason to worry. A whole lot of reasons if she were going to be brutally honest with herself Astrid usually was. But, this wasn't the time for that. This was the time for something else entirely.

"Hey, give me your hand."

Hiccup furrowed his brow slightly as he gave Astrid a sideways glance, eyes darting from her face to his hands and back again.

"...Uhm. Okay."

After another moment of hesitation, he offered a hand. He wasn't sure why she wanted to have one of them; both weren't that well-cared for. His skin was dry, palms calloused. The nails were another issue altogether.

Hiccup's hands were worn, but Astrid's weren't much better. Both of them had used their hands plenty back home, although Hiccup's were worse for wear compared to her own calloused fingertips. Gingerly she held his hand in both of her's, studying the palm first, tracing up his fingers with one of her own. Even though he was a bit shorter than her, his hands were still slightly bigger. Funny how that worked out.

It was then that she flipped over his hand, gaze glossing over short nails. Her brow was furrowed in concentration before she spotted what she'd been looking for. In all honesty, she hadn't known if he'd have them or not, but considering what he'd accomplished, Astrid wasn't surprised that Hiccup had them.

"Look." She gestured then, hand still in her possession as she pointed at his index finger, unable to keep the grin from tugging at her lips. What was she pointing at exactly? "Nornaspor. You have them. Look! You know what that means, right?"

Nornaspor - little white marks that sometimes ended up on lucky people's fingernails. "You've a few too. They're a sign of good fortune, you know."

The difference in size made up part of his generalized awkwardness. He was still holding onto the hope of growing taller. But as she traced her fingers over his, it tickled. A corner of his mouth quirked as the knee-jerk reaction to pull his hand back was ignored, his gaze watching her features before looking back down at their hands.

"What, those?" He remembered those marks well. Some of them were recent dings from all of the crafting on the prosthetic tail fin. He never really noticed them until she pointed them out, but she sounded excited for some reason. A sheepish laugh escaped him. "I wasn't being very careful there-- "

He blinked. Good fortune? As sardonic as his tone could have sounded, he was curious. "...W-where did you hear that?"

A raised eyebrow said it all before she even opened her mouth. "What? You didn't know that?" The look of surprise wasn't easily removed, but she managed to stifle it to a degree. "My mother told me about it. You've never been told that before?"

Then again, if Astrid took a moment to think about it it really wasn't that surprising. Hiccup's mother, Valhallarama was surely in Valhalla now having been the brilliant warrior she'd been and Stoic the Vast had always seemed awkward toward his son at best. Who else would have told Hiccup about Nornaspor when barely anyone used to talk to him without mocking him?

"Well, it's true. They're a sign of good fortune." She reassured him with a nod. "The Norns have left a little mark on you."

Even if she did do her best to mute her level of surprise, Hiccup still felt a little stupid for not knowing this. He wasn't very good at hiding that, either. "Eh, you know how it is. You're told some things, you learn about other stuff later. Most of the time you get mixed responses from either one..."

Much like how Gobber believed that trolls exist. That held some merit.

He pressed his lips together, forming a thin line as he mulled over the marks. The sincerity was also present in the thought, making his brow raise slightly. "...But if that's the truth, then...things are good."

Neither of them were very good at hiding their emotions, not when it came to things like this. Right then Astrid felt a little bad - she'd made him feel stupid without meaning to. "Of course it's the truth. Why wouldn't it be?"

Maybe it seemed a bit silly, but she truly believed it. Vikings were a superstitious people, and it was true that some of the stories she'd been told growing up had been way too farfetched to believe, but most of the things she'd been told, especially by her parents, she believed in them. Trolls, elves, ghosts - they were all real - and why wouldn't they be? They were just as real as the Nornaspor on Hiccup's nails.

"After all I told you, how can you begin to think otherwise?"

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