"Do you like Tuffnut?" Helda asked.
Astrid stammered. Tuffnut even looked interested in her answer.
"It sure looks it!" Helda said. "You were giving him the sweet eye plenty of times today," she said, winking cheerfully.
Oh, Thor, Astrid griped to herself.
"Astrid, everyone saw the duel." Snoutlout mused. If Tuffnut had decided to settle his claim over Astrid with Hiccup like Vikings did from years ago, it was clear that Tuffnut was serious about her. "It's not like you can hide it from us anymore. Have you two kissed yet?"
"That's none 'a yer business!" Ruffnut sniped. Astrid showed Ruffnut a glance of appreciation for saving her life from Snoutlout's torment.
Hiccup cut in, "Snoutlout, this is no time for...being yourself." From the suspecting eyes on Tuffnut and Astrid, Hiccup figured that none of them knew the true answer to Snoutlout's presumption, and he was glad for it. He could only take so much humiliation in front of his friends in one month.
"Too personal?" Helda asked Astrid. She thought that speaking about Tuffnut as common ground with Astrid would make Astrid see that she was friendly. She realized Astrid was more sensitive than she thought, and she immediately felt guilty.
"No, it's okay," Astrid said. To everyone's shock, she mentioned, "we're...we're actually just good friends!" Astrid then grinned to Helda, who looked more understanding.
"What do you mean, Astrid?" Fishlegs said, looking suspiciously at Astrid. She wasn't fooling anyone.
Ruffnut saw that her brother was truly bothered, because similar to the time she had lost his mace after using it for a parachute, he didn't mumble a word. Instead, he sat there beside Astrid, with his hands suddenly to himself, and he focused at a single point on the table.
"'We're just friends?'" Tuffnut grunted, glaring at his unknown fixation.
"Well, we are, right?"
Tuffnut scoffed in a voice that sounded fatigued.
Astrid growled. She slammed her hands on the table, jolting everyone and her forner fiancee. "I panicked! Everyone's staring at me! What am I supposed to say?!"
"Oh, I dunno! We're not 'just friends'?!"
"Let up on me a little! I'm not used to this yet!"
Tuffnut, growing more irritated by the moment, asked what Astrid possibly meant by "this". It sounded to him like she was describing a new disease.
Astrid instantly grew hot. He still wasn't listening to a word she was saying. "This! Us!" Astrid fumbled. "You!" She threw her arm furiously towards him in display.
"If you didn't wanna come with me-ya coulda just said so!"
Astrid gasped slightly. Tuffnut and Ruffnut both sounded terrifying when truly angry. She knew she had seriously upset him.
"Easy, bro," Ruffnut, in direct earshot, warned. She didn't care if he yelled at her, but she didn't like him yelling at Astrid, even though she knew Astrid had thick skin.
Astrid stewed in place and felt the weight of everyone's eyes on her. Her stomach burned in naseuaem. Only a short while had passed since she agreed to date Tuffnut, and they were already fighting. Astrid was hurt because their time together was already taking a dismal turn, but then she felt regret that she had resorted to yelling at Tuffnut too instead of being the mature one out of both of them.
"Can we, uh, bring things down a notch?" Hiccup said.
"Thank you!" Fishlegs agreed.
Helda heard Hiccup sigh with relief beside her in the uncomfortable quiet.
Since Tuffnut and Astrid felt comfortable enough to scream at each other, Hiccup sadly knew there wasn't a chance for Astrid to be dissuaded from Tuffnut as he had thought. But, he kept on a cheery face before Helda. It was an ancient holiday. Hiccup attempted to stay in moral, upbeat spirits for himself and for his friends' happiness. "She doesn't mean anything by it, Tuffnut. If there's anyone that knows Ash, it's me."
Tuffnut breathed latently as Hiccup, as always, refused to stick to his own beeswax. Tuffnut listened, though.
Astrid had sounded correctly herself to Tuffnut when she had declared them to still be in the friend zone. She had never missed her chance to tell him how to feel, and treat whatever he said as a minor disturbance to her own feelings. It was the same thing she did for every mission they embarked on in Dragon's Edge, from sanctioned duties on the island to formations in the air, where the tactical strategies of he and Ruffnut were second to everyone else's and most definitely hers. Astrid had a sour attitude that was sometimes off-putting to him. The Hoffersons were prideful in everything they did more than any other family clan in the Hooligan Tribe, and Tuffnut could bet that even Snoutlout's clan of the Jorgenson's couldn't compare to the self-righteous demeanor of Astrid's family. The apple never falls far from the tree.
Although Astrid had a clear domineering side to her, Tuffnut knew of her sweeter side that he had witnessed in the tavern and in rare moments when she didn't know he had been listening or watching, and he knew that it would only be a matter of time until it emerged again. He still wanted to spend the day with her and he didn't want to give up on that goal. But she was making things difficult. And maybe his temper was as well.
The focus on the table quickly changed when the owner came to hear the disturbance in the empty dining area by her most peacful group of regulars. They and their coily-haired guest had finished all their fudge and not left a crumb. They all fell silent upon her arrival.
The owner asked cautiously in her motherly timbre, "would you all like some tea?"
"Please," Snoutlout grunted. "By the time we finish it, we'll all be on time for Tuff's funeral, if we don't miss the games first."
"Oh, that's one bother! The games have ended," the owner relayed in a slightly saddened voice to the teens.
"What?! Why so quickly?!" Hiccup asked. No one had bothered to send him a memo. He was a little offended.
"Plans have changed, dear. There's a nasty blizzard about."
The group looked out of their nearby window in dismay. It was a sheet of white and whizzing ice. It was so snowy that they couldn't see the outline of Gobber's smithy across the street.
"Some dangerous hills have formed for sledding. I think you youngbloods would be interested. I've heard many were going there with their dragons."
"Dragonsledding? Sounds like fun!" Helda perked, desperate to lighten the mood of her new friends. She saw Tuffnut appear mildly interested.
"Sounds like death," Snoutlout said. "Have you looked outside?"
"I'm up for it," Hiccup said. He added, "we could introduce Helda to Hookfang, Toothless, and every one else. It would be great. Y'know, and maybe we could possibly act like we're all still friends here?"
"Please?" Ruffnut said.
Astrid met Tuffnut's eye with her thumb still winding unconscious circles around her other thumb in her dress's lap. She was responded to nicely when Tuffnut lightly tweaked his lip in an apologetic way.
"Can do, sis," Tuffnut said, clasping Astrid's hand once more.
Hiccup felt torn, but was at peace when he saw Astrid smile gently.
"I guess there's only one way to handle this," Snoutlout proposed. "Okay. Who votes to stay here by a perfectly warm fireplace... surrounded by all the delicious, free food we can eat...and who votes to freeze to death before we even reach the cliffs?!"
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