➳ Just a short and fluffy humor piece to follow 'Hers.' Enjoy! :)

Hatchet and the Honey

Hiccup knew the second he heard the frantic knocking at the door, that he was bound to be in a heap of trouble, his title as Chief of the Hairy Hooligans of Berk be damned.

He was seated at the table in the front room, the fire crackling low in the hearth behind him, a deliciously scented breakfast stew simmering over the coals. The shutters on the windows had been thrown wide, letting in the morning light and the cool spring air. Normally, Astrid would be the last person that Hiccup would trust to make a meal, but he was currently in no condition to do much moving around; his new wife had graciously allowed him to dictate what to do, however, and followed his instructions to the letter. While they waited for the stew to finish, Astrid had pulled a loaf of bread from the cabinet and unstopped a pot of yak butter for them. She'd forced another cup of willow bark tea on him, despite his fever having dissipated entirely. He'd taken it, but had teasingly insisted that she have some too. Probably just to shut him up, she'd done so, grimacing at the bitter flavor.

"Ugh, maybe one of the traders can get their hands on some ginger, instead," Astrid had grumbled, glaring at the mug of tea as she pushed it away from herself.

"This far North?" Hiccup laughed, biting his lip at the look she was giving him.

"Trader Greta travels down through the Indian regions on occasion."

"She is due in port in the next few weeks," Hiccup mused, tapping his chin. He absently took a sip of his own tea, making a face at the horrible flavor. "I'll ask when she comes in."

Another insistent pounding at the door — harder this time — broke him from his thoughts.

"Astrid? Astrid, lass, are ye home?" Valka's voice called out from the other side of the door, followed by more knocking. "Lass, I need to speak with ye!"

"I'm here, Valka," Astrid sighed, rolling her eyes a little as she moved to stand. "Just a minute."

Astrid was wearing Hiccup's tunic and nothing else; thankfully, it was long enough to reach her knees. Hiccup, on the other hand, was wearing only his under shorts — not that anything embarrassing was showing — and pretty much the whole of his body was on display: old scars, burns… hickeys…

"It's urgent, lass!"

"All right, all right…" Astrid sighed, opening the door enough to allow the frantic Valka to push her way inside.

"Oh, lass!" Valka exclaimed in a worried voice as she immediately turned back toward Astrid and reached forward to grasp her hand in one of hers. In her other hand, she clutched Hiccup's prosthetic leg tightly, and he almost laughed out loud when he realized that she was so distraught that she hadn't even registered his presence, let alone his or Astrid's appearance. "Hiccup wasn't in his room this morning, but Toothless didn't seem to be too concerned, so I thought he must've gone down to the forge early, but when I got there, all I found o' the lad was his leg! And there's blood all over it! Drago came back in the night, I just know it, and—!"

"Hi, Mom," Hiccup said with a little laugh, interrupting the dragon lady's panicked rant. Valka whipped around at his voice, her eyes wide and relieved. She took one step toward him, and then froze as she took in the whole of his almost naked appearance. Turning back to Astrid with a blush spanning her cheeks, she gave her new daughter-in-law's equally as almost naked appearance a once over.

"Oh…" Valka said in a quiet voice, her wide eyes looking between the two in embarrassed disapproval. "But… there are… traditions! And customs! And—"

"And if you haven't noticed yet," Hiccup interrupted again, blushing a little at her scrutinizing look. "…we're really terrible at following traditions."

"But the wedding!" Valka despaired, a longing look on her face as she turned her gaze back to Astrid. "Your mother and I've been makin' the dress perfect for weeks!"

"Sorry?" Astrid laughed, giving an awkward shrug.

"We'll still have a ceremony, if you really want," Hiccup said, trying — and failing — to suppress a prideful grin. Valka rolled her eyes.

"Well, unless traditions have changed that much in twenty years," she grumbled, crossing her arms across her body huffily. "…then part of the ceremony is the public consu—"

"No!" both Hiccup and Astrid shouted at the same time, blushing furiously. Hiccup cleared his throat, glancing away from his mother's affronted expression. "Er… we weren't going to do that, anyway."

"Yeah, Stoick said it was an outdated and embarrassing tradition," Astrid snickered, self-consciously pulling at the hem of the tunic she was wearing. "That… and Toothless and Stormfly stuck up for us in the argument. It's kind of hard to do anything but agree when you've got two dragons baring their teeth in your face."

"Oh… oh, fine," Valka sighed, her whole body slumping in defeat as she rolled her eyes again. She looked up at Hiccup with a glare, shaking his prosthetic at him accusingly. "What the heck is this all about, then?!"

"You haven't met Self Sacrifice Hiccup yet, have you?" Astrid laughed, stepping back and gesturing to the table to invite Valka to join them for breakfast.

Valka glanced between the leg in her hand and Hiccup a couple of times, and then marched over to him and whacked him the back of the head with the appendage. "Ow! Mom!"

"Are ye stupid?!" she hissed, not unlike an angry dragon. She'd smacked him lightly enough, but it still hurt, and he glared at her petulantly while rubbing the back of his head. "How long 'ave you been wearin' this thing?"

Hiccup cringed, avoiding her gaze as he shrugged weakly. Chief or not, the two women in front of him completely owned him. "A few weeks."

A beat of silence, and then—

"A FEW WEEKS?! Why, o' all the stupid, rotten, irresponsible—"

"Oh, I already gave him a lecture last night, Val," Astrid chuckled, taking her seat at the table again and buttering a piece of bread to pass casually to her mother-in-law.

Valka fumed silently for a minute, and then put the leg down on the table as she took the seat next to Astrid and accepted the food with a brief, strained smile. "Thank ye, love." She paused for a moment, contemplating the slice of bread in her hand, and then turned to smirk mischievously at Astrid. "But, dear… you do know the saying is 'honey an' the hatchet,' not 'hatchet an' the honey'?"

Hiccup choked on his tea, coughing as his face burned so hot that he would have thought his fever had come back with a vengeance, if he didn't know any better. Astrid burst into laughter, burying her head into her arms that were crossed on the table in front of her, her own face red.

"Mom…" Hiccup groaned in utter embarrassment, giving his wife an apologetic smile when she looked up, still snorting in laughter.

"Well, I thought he'd learned his lesson," Astrid said in a teasing voice, shooting Hiccup a sly wink that made his blush deepen. "And I think I wanted the 'honey' part more than he did."

"Astrid!"

"Oh, my!" Valka exclaimed, breaking out into her own heavy laugh. "Hm… I'm thinking we should set up this ceremony rather soon, my busy bees. So much honey will make me a grandmother quickly!"

Hiccup groaned in utter embarrassment as his new wife fell into a myriad of giggles.

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