Chapter Text
The Phoney Royals of Berk
Astrid didn’t know how she ended up in the situation she was in now. Scratch that. She knew exactly how. She just didn’t want to admit or accept it. The rebels had given her the assignment to assassinate the crown prince and she had nearly succeeded. Unfortunately, guards had been called for and they escorted her out and toward the throne room where she’d be answering to the royal family. That’s not to say she didn't fight her way out of it. There just happened to be more of them leaving the odds in their favor rather than her own. Now, she was being dragged across the throne room floor and thrown unceremoniously at someone’s feet. Lifting herself up, she looked into the face of the boy she met in the woods the night before. The same boy who kissed her.
The rebels had formed not too long after she was born. They weren’t satisfied with how the royal family was treating their subjects and knew something had to be done. At first, it was stealing their resources and handing them out to those who needed them more than them. However, soon, it wasn’t enough. The royal family still continued to heavily tax the people and take whatever they could or wanted. That’s when they decided something had to be done that would directly impact them. And that had been to assassinate the crown prince, overthrow the royals and find a proper replacement to rule the kingdom.
The first step was to kill the prince which meant finding the perfect assassin. Or rather, make the perfect assassin. Any child from Astrid’s generation was trained in secret to be the perfect hit-person. Test after test, they had decided on her. She was cunning, quick on her feet and small; meaning she was next to unstoppable. However, there had been someone standing in the way of her getting the spot and that had been this mysterious new member of the rebellion. He barely ever spoke, nor did he often show himself. Despite those minor details, he had caught the eyes of the leaders quite quickly. Yet when it came to choosing, he insisted she be the one to do the deed. Despite her knowing he’d be better for the task, she felt a sense of respect for him. He was new to the resistance whereas she had been raised in it. He only ever seemed to show himself at sunset and left right before sunrise, practically staying up all night along with a few others from the rebellion.
The week of when she was to do the deed, she had gotten to know the young man. Turned out he wasn’t too happy with how the royal family was taking care of the kingdom either yet hadn’t known about the rebellion until much later, or so he told her. He had mentioned something about being sheltered and expected to act a certain way. When she had asked how he had heard of the rebels, he gave a rather vague response by simply saying he had heard it through the grapevine. Though the response didn’t satisfy her. In her opinion, he was a little too friendly with a few of the members. Despite their different upbringings, they had a lot in common. Only children whose parents had expected a lot from them. Yet while she had far succeeded her parents’ expectations, he had yet to prove himself to his own, he told her. Astrid felt bad for him and had offered the honor of killing the crown prince to him but he declined, saying if anyone spotted him, he’d be in a lot of trouble.
“Who are you really? ” she had asked him, raising an eyebrow.
“No one of consequence,” he had simply replied, looking up at the few stars that had remained in the sky.
“Somehow, I find that very hard to believe. At least give me your name.”
“Not unless you give me yours, Stormfly.”
That had been the thing about being in the resistance, they were not allowed to give out their real names in case any one of them became compromised or caught. It was a simple rule. A rule that everyone abided by. Never had she wanted to bend that rule more than ever.
“I guess neither of us will ever know,” she shrugged her shoulders, refusing to budge. There was no way she’d do that just for some man she was just beginning to get to know.
“Suit yourself,” he replied, standing up and dusting off his pant legs. “Should probably get going. I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow, Stormfly. If not then, then definitely at the celebration we’ll be having when you kill the crown prince.”
“I suppose so.”
He had been right. Astrid hadn’t seen him the next day, however, he did return the night before the assassination was to happen. He had pulled her aside and wished her good luck, though he looked rather nervous while doing it as if he was the one about to do the prince in rather than her. If any other guy sounded or looked the way he did with his head tilted down and rubbing the back of his neck, she’d have found it annoying that he’d be so shy around her. Yet with him, she actually found the act endearing. Sweet even.
She hadn’t realized how close the two of them were until it was silent and all she could hear, all she could feel was his breath on her. It was just the two of them. Everyone else was somewhere closer to the water while they were somewhere deep in the woods. Alone. Astrid wasn’t sure who had leaned in first but she soon felt his lips on hers. It was a rather simple kiss yet it felt so much more than that. She had one hand on his chest while the other was around his neck, wanting to bring him closer to her. Though it felt as if they hadn’t been kissing for very long, he had been the one to pull away, gasping for air. Astrid was completely enthralled and taken aback by the young man in front of her. She wanted to kiss him again but he moved away from her before he could. He had muttered about needing to return somewhere but she didn’t hear any of it. All she could hear was the blood pumping into her ears and her heart beating rapidly. When she finally snapped out of it, she saw that he had gone. He wasn’t at the campsite. Just gone.
But now she knew where he had gone. Astrid had conflicting feelings for the man in front of her. There was a part of her that wanted to believe that he was simply a servant of the royal family that was sick and tired of the way he was being treated. Yet, when she got a good look at him, by looking at the material of his clothing and the sword on his hip, he wasn’t a servant, but a knight. Meaning he had to have been a spy for the royal family. Infiltrate the resistance, earn their trust, then shut it down from the inside. It made so much sense. She wanted to kick him, swear at him, do something that’d show the hurt she felt by his deception and fraud.
“I see someone hadn’t been doing their job, Captain,” snarled the king, emphasizing the title. “Care to explain this?”
“Apologies, your majesty,” the captain bowed. “I shall be sure to give him a stern talking-to later,” Astrid saw the captain glared at the boy from the rebellion. “Isn’t that right, Hiccup.”
“Of course, sir. What shall we do with her?” he jutted his head in her direction, not looking her in the eye as he did so.
“Lock her up for now. We’ll see what to do with her after we check on the crown prince. I’m sure he’s traumatized beyond belief.”
“Oh, there’s no doubt about that,” he muttered under his breath as he escorted Astrid out of the throne room and towards the dungeons. “You just had to get caught, didn’t you?” he said once they were a good distance away from the rest of the castle staff.
“Well, sorry. I wasn’t aware it was all up to me, Fury,” she replied, using his code name. “Care to explain yourself?”
“It’s complicated. For now, we need to deal with this.”
She was given a layout of the castle before the mission so she’d know where everything was, so when she saw Hiccup not leading her toward the dungeon but to the courtyard if she had remembered the map correctly, she was deeply confused. “Where are you taking me?” she voiced out loud.
“The dungeon.” Just as she was going to vocalize her confusion, he continued, “the other dungeon we have. A secret one. Very few know about it.” He pulled on a candle, revealing a hidden passage then led them inside. “Only the elder staff and the captain’s right hand. I’m taking you there because we need to have a talk. You, me and my father.”
“Who's your father?”
“Me.” Hiccup took a torch and lit the rest of the wooden pegs in the room revealing a man she had only heard about. “Hello, Astrid, Hiccup’s told me a lot about you. ‘Tis a shame things didn’t work out. We were really rooting for you.”
“How did-”
“It was always a tradition that my father would bless every newborn baby and announce the name to anyone who’d listen. Granted, that had been a long time ago. Now, he has his most trusted man to go around and do the announcement for him. I believe you’re familiar with Gobber?” she nodded her head. “Anyway, Gobber would then hand the paper off to me and I’d give it to my father.”
“That still doesn’t explain how he knows my name.”
“That would be my son’s doing,” his father further explained. “Once he was old enough, he’d learn everyone’s name in the kingdom.”
“Back to business. The point in all of this was that we were hoping you’d succeed so my father can finally come out of hiding. The royal family wasn’t always this cruel. I mean, who do you think started the rebellion?” He took a quick glance over at his father.
“And now that you’ve failed, that sets us back how many years…” Hiccup’s father said, stroking his beard in thought. “My brother will only double security and make things worse for the kingdom now that they know there are people out there who’re against them.”
“Wait, you’re brother? But… that means…” she turned to Hiccup with a surprised look on her face.
“Yes, the crown prince is my cousin. Snotlout,” Hiccup said, crossing his arms. “But he didn’t get the title because of his father being the king.”
“Just like my brother not getting the role of being king because he was the eldest,” his father added.
“Are… are you two saying what I think you’re saying?” she asked, taking a step back, not believing what she was hearing. “You-”
“Are the rightful rulers of Berk? Yes. My brother enacted a coup. Supposedly killing me and taking over the throne. Hiccup was too young to do anything at the time. We were lucky Gobber took him in.”
“But does no one realize who you are?” she questioned, looking to Hiccup for an answer.
“I was too young to really be recognized and even if someone did, they wouldn't say anything. As far as everyone in the kingdom’s concerned, I’m just a kid Gobber took in and raised.”
“So Hiccup isn’t your real name?”
“Oh, it is. Gobber just takes the credit.”
“But wasn’t your name announced for the entire kingdom?”
“It would’ve but we had other things to worry about at the time,” his father filled in. “Some unforeseen circumstances happened so we were unable to announce his name. All the kingdom knew was that I had a son and would reveal his name when the time was right. Unfortunately, that day never came.”
“So as far as the kingdom knew, I died along with my father,” Hiccup finished before sighing. “We’ll figure something out, father, I’m not giving up.”
“I’m sure the resistance will think of something,” Astrid said, trying to sound encouraging. “Sir, I promise we’ll find a way out of this.”
“Thank you, both of you, but I think we simply must face the reality. This had been our one chance and it failed. Hiccup, tell Gobber to disband the rebellion. We’ll just have to wait and see how Snotlout handles the kingdom. Step in whatever way you can.”
“But dad-”
“No, Hiccup. Lead Astrid back to the woods. Forget this ever happened. I’ll be fine, son.”
Nodding his head, Hiccup took her by the arm and led Astrid down the rest of the way and over to the wall. “Hold your breath.” he quickly said before opening up the trap door and jumping down into the canal. It didn’t take them very long to reach the surface but they were soaking yet and short of breath when they did rise. “You okay?” Hiccup rasped out, gasping for air himself as she coughed out the water she accidentally swallowed.
“I’m fine,” she coughed, dragging herself out of the water and wringing out the access water. “So, what are we doing? Cause there is no way I’m giving up after that. And you can bet the resistance isn’t going to stop either, no matter what your father says.”
“I think, for now, we need to lay low. My father did make a good point. My uncle is most certainly going to boost security but he’s also going to be doing a lot of firing. He’s no longer going to trust a lot of the staff and guards so I say we use that to our advantage. The rebels aren’t going to like it but I think it’s our last chance.”
“And that is?”
“Have them pose as loyal subjects to the king. He’ll hire them on and slowly, we’ll take them out. Do stuff to their food so they get sick. Bring in ‘doctors’ to ‘heal’ them and then we end it.”
“You know, that actually sounds like a solid plan. I’m sure they’ll be down for it. They won’t be pleased I failed but then this makes up for it. But, Hiccup, what if your uncle doesn't plan on changing the staff?”
“Then, I guess the captain will just have to suggest it to him.”
“And how’s that going to happen?”
“His second in command may just have to mention it,” he grinned while shrugging his shoulders. “This is as far as I can take you.” Hiccup said once they reached the edge of the forest. “Just follow the path until you reach the marker of a dragon on a tree, then turn left and continue straight. You’ll reach the camp.”
“Thank you,” she nodded before turning to him. “Hiccup?” He turned back around to look at her. Astrid opened and closed her mouth multiple times before shaking her head. She wanted to ask him about what happened last night but didn’t feel like it was the right time. Instead, she settled with, “When will you be back?”
“Probably not for a while. I need to deal with my cousin and uncle then try to explain things to Eret. Maybe five days from now? It’s going to depend on how long it takes to calm the castle down. But no promises.”
Nodding her head, Astrid made her way inside the woods, turning back for a brief moment to see Hiccup already gone and out of sight. She looked around momentarily before continuing on her way, following the path and looking for the dragon on the tree to see it was a night fury. The most elusive and mysterious dragon of them all. Astrid internally laughed at the picture. It fit Hiccup too perfectly. She had her doubts she’d ever figure him out.