The Glass Dragon

Chapter One:
Training a dragon is hard. Do you want to know what even more of a challenge is? Training a bloody Viking. Stubbornness issues and all of that. But, even Stoic has his own dragon, which no one ever thought would happen. Even if he has named it Thornado. We did try to tell him it was a dumb name.
Things on Berk are looking up for us, I guess. Hiccup has had his Academy open for almost a whole year now. He’s managing. Better than most would have expected, really. Plenty of the Berkians thought he would have been dead by now.
Thank Freya he’s not.
I know that I kissed him. I know. And I thought that it would have meant something to him. Anything...
After the school opened, though, and after all of the success he’s had on the island, Hiccup is the new popular guy. He has no time for anyone from his old life, except for Toothless. No time for me anymore.
Call me Astrid the Useless now…
Sure, I try and talk to him. Or I did, anyways. I can maybe get three words out, before he’s telling me later, or there’s a new crowd gathering around him, mostly the girls of the village.
Why do they think that they know him? Why do they think that they have a right to him? Just because he’s grown up a bit. Alright, a lot. And he’s taller. And smart. And good with his hands, and the first Viking ever to have ridden a dragon.
That doesn’t make him brave or anything.
He’s still dweeby little Hiccup Haddock…
He just rides dragons now. And trains them. And has the only Night Fury that we know of.
I slammed down Stormfly’s saddle onto the planks, sitting down hard on one of the crates to condition it. If I didn't do it now, the leather would get stiff and dry out, and it would hurt her scales. She hated me when I forgot and her scales chafed.
I did most of my equipment upkeep in the arena--I mean the Academy. Not arena. Not anymore. I was rubbing it down with oil and lamb’s wool, working it into the leather in small circles. I think was scrubbing a bit harder than I needed to, though, just to work out my frustration with this whole thing. My stupid eyes wouldn’t stop stinging. The feeling was nothing new to me anymore, after almost a year of it happening. I just fought them down, then killed something. Or punched something. Or stabbed something. I always felt better after that.
I was half done when I heard the main gate to the Academy open. I tried to ignore it, as well as the small hope bubbling in me that it could be Hiccup, and hoped that no one chose to come into the tack room.
I should be so lucky…
I heard Hiccup calling nervously to someone, though I couldn’t make out his words. One of his new adoring admirers, no doubt.
The door creaked open and he slipped inside, his eyes closed. I stopped what I was doing and watched him. He didn’t open them as he let out a deep breath he’d obviously been holding for a while, and leaned on the door.
“More adoring fans?” I asked, resuming my work, looking away from him.
He must have jumped two feet in the air. “Gaa-Astrid!” he stammered. “Hey.” See? Same old Hiccup. Just taller, and with more scars. His hand rubbed the back of his neck as I felt his eyes take me in. “So how are the saddle repairs coming?” he asked. “Need any help?”
I snorted some. “That was three months ago that I asked you about saddle repairs, Hiccup.” I looked up just a bit, so I could watch him out of the corner of my eye.
“Really?” he said, sounding surprised, and his brow furrowed some, his floppy red-brown mop slipping into his eyes. “Nah. It can’t have been….Has it really been that long?” He looked at me again, this time looking guiltier than a dragon in an empty fishing boat.
I looked over at him finally and raised my eyebrow with a short nod. “Yeah, three months.”
He came closer and sank down onto a crate near me. “Wow.” He looked up at me with those green Hiccup eyes, full of regret and something else that I couldn’t quite make out. “I’m sorry, Astrid… I didn’t…” He faltered again.
I shrugged some as I resumed work and finished wiping down the saddle. As I worked, I could see him leaning over, inspecting it, out of the corner of my eye. I caught my lower lip between my teeth.
“I know,” I said quickly. “It’s not as good as one of your fixes, but I think I managed alright on my own. We can’t all rely on the Hero of Berk for such trivial things anymore.”
I could tell he rolled his eyes and chose to ignore my snarky comment, but he did smile some as he looked it over. “No, it’s great, really, Astrid. You did good. I’m impressed. What did you sew it with?” He touched one of the seams, looking at my sloppy work.
My stitches were large, uneven and a bit crooked. I didn’t work with the nimble hands of a house woman, or a shire maiden. I was a fighter, and as such, I had hands and the skillsmanship of one. “Sinew,” I said slowly. Sinew was hard to come by for those of us in the village who weren’t Gobber or Hiccup. “I traded for it.”
He didn’t pry, and I was glad. He only nodded and continued to look it over. I think I traded in my small game that I used for meals for two weeks to get that sinew. I could have gone to Gobber, or Hiccup, or even Stoic for it, and I knew that they would have let me just have it. But I waited for the trader, and got it myself. It meant more that way. It also meant that I was able to take care of it myself and not have to wait for the Hero of Berk to come and save me. I wasn’t that kind of girl.
I put all of my supplies away on the shelves, screwing the lids on the jars and tossing the rag in the bin by the door. There was silence between us for a while. I was the one who finally broke it.
“This is the longest that we’ve been in the same place, alone.”
I didn’t have to turn around and see him to know that the corners of his lips had tugged up into a lopsided grin, the kind of grin that made my insides turn molten like rock under dragon fire.
“Astrid,” he started, but I cut across him before he had time to finish.
“Don’t. Don’t worry about it, Hiccup.” I forced a smile onto my face as I turned around and leaned on one of the bins, finally facing him. “I get it. I’m not important in your life anymore.”
He let out a groan of frustration as he sighed. “That’s not true, Astrid…”
“Three, Hiccup.”
His exasperated expression faded and his eyebrows knit together into a look of confusion. “Three?”
“Three times in the course of one week that you stood me up.” I couldn't meet his eyes for fear of him seeing just how truly hurt I was by that fact.
His furrowed brows shot up. “Th-three?” He gulped some. “Gods! Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you come and find me in the Cove? You know where I go. You’re one of the only ones who actually does know where I sneak off to. You could have come and found me there.”
I didn’t have an answer to that. He was right, of course. But those three times, that had only been within one week. And there were months full of weeks like that. After a while, I just gave up. Besides, I couldn’t go barging in to the Cove like that. Hiccup went there to escape, not to be hounded more. I didn’t want to disturb him while he was thinking, or with Toothless.
I finally opened my mouth to respond, to tell him all of that, but the door banged open, making us both jump. Snotlout ran in, looking haggard for breath.
“Hiccup!” he said desperately. “The Nightmare keeps setting itself on fire again!”
The smaller Viking groaned some. “Can’t you deal with it? You have Hookfang…”
“Don’t you think that I’ve tried?” he said, his voice raising an octaves with each word he spoke.
Hiccup looked at me, his eyes full of regret and sorrow. “I’m sorry,” he admitted quietly, giving my hand a small squeeze. He placed a kiss on my temple before darting out of the room behind his cousin.
I sighed.
Someday, I’ll take Stormfly and get the Helheim out of here…