dictated

[mildcalibrationissue]

--whoah whoah whoah whoah!

[Hiccup sounds mildly panicked. Again. I sincerely hope no one is surprised.]

Uhh - I think I broke the computer Alan let me borrow.

[A pause.]

Odin. [It's spoken like a curse, and then, muttered:] I meant to filter that from him.




Okay, so - um. The screen keeps turning blue. Does anyone know how to fix this? Because, seriously, I'd appreciate it a lot.

[And anyone in the lobby may see him tinkering with said laptop, at a complete loss. When it's not bluescreening, it's filled with popups, because Hiccup of course is the only person in the castle who could infect his machine with spyware without ever connecting to a network.]



[And then, added later:]

Soooo. Hey.

Comments

[ex_battleaxe109]

[ Astrid smiles at him, draping her opposite arm loosely over his shoulders. ]

You're not wrong. It's cute. I always assumed you'd look pretty good with confidence.

[mildcalibrationissue]

You know what?

[Hiccup ducks his head, chuckling breathlessly under his breath.]

This is still all pretty surreal to me.

[ex_battleaxe109]

Right. Too much.

[ She slips her other arm around him and hugs him, squeezing him tightly before puling both arms away from him. Astrid tucks a loose strand of blond hair behind her ear rather awkwardly. ]

You can go back inside if you want, I guess.

[mildcalibrationissue]

Nah. [He pulls back, trying not to look sheepish.] You wanna go for a walk?

[ex_battleaxe109]

That would be nice.

[ She holds her hand out for him to take, trying to hide her smile. What, she didn't want him to go inside okay. ]

[mildcalibrationissue]

[He grabs her hand, grinning a little as he starts around the castle grounds.]

So. Have you had hot chocolate yet? [Hiccup is all worldly now, Astrid. Let him show you.]

[ex_battleaxe109]

No. Is it any good? [ Well, surely it is if he's bringing it up-- Hiccup wouldn't try to poison her or anything anything disgusting she may give him is purely out of the good of her heart ok. She squeezes his hand.

[mildcalibrationissue]

Yeah. It's kind of awesome, actually. And.. movies, too. Which aren't food, but equally great. There's a lot of really awesome technology here.

[ex_battleaxe109]

You'll have to show it all to me, because without you I'll probably just break everything.

[mildcalibrationissue]

I'll show you whatever you want to see. [He casts a sideways glance at her.] I guess that sounded pretty cheesy, huh? But it's true.

[ex_battleaxe109]

It's not cheesy. You're just being the good, helpful boyfriend you should be. [ To balance out her violent uselessness, of course. ] But I really want you to show me everything you can.

[mildcalibrationissue]

Boyfriend.

[Oh, shit. Did he repeat that out loud? Hiccup shakes his head hastily.]

Remind me to show you some of the videos I've made, okay?

[ex_battleaxe109]

[ Ah, good. When he repeated it she got worried-- but he didn't question her about it and the relief instantly settled back in. ]

What's a video?

[mildcalibrationissue]

It's this - technology, and it.. stores.. things that it sees..

[SO COMPLICATED.]

I'll just show you.

[ex_battleaxe109]

[ OKAY, HICCUP. THAT'S A BRILLIANT EXPLANATION. SHE KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT A MOVIE IS NOW. ]

I think... that's best. You've just confused me more.

[mildcalibrationissue]

[Astrid. He is just.. going to take you to the games room and show you all the movies and video games, okay? :c]

Sorry. I'm pretty good at being confusing.

[ex_battleaxe109]

I don't think it's you. This place just really knows how to make someone feel really... really...

[ She doesn't want to say dumb. She really doesn't. She's not dumb! She's pretty smart. But. ]

Dumb.

[mildcalibrationissue]

There's nothing dumb about you.

[He shakes her gently, playfully.]

[ex_battleaxe109]

No, I know that.

[ Astrid fights off a smile, nudging him with her hip as they walk. ]

I just already blew up one of those microwaves and I don't even want to bother with all of this other stuff-- everyone always looks at me strangely when I can't figure out how to do things that... everyone else seems to know how to do. You like all this stuff, you probably fit right in. I still want to go swing an axe around and...

[ Do things that no one else likes to do :( Adstring is not friendly to vikings. ]

[mildcalibrationissue]

Fit in. Yeah, right.

[Hiccup gives a little snort of disbelief, shaking his head.]

Not only was I the only one from Berk here for a long time - no, none of this technology makes sense to me, even now. The social rules are all different, everyone knows each other already, it feels like..

I don't know. Living here is neat. Novel, even. But it's really lonely.

[ex_battleaxe109]

Yeah, lonely.

[ Her arm hooks around his, pulling him even closer as they move. ]

You would think in a place like this where everyone is displaced there would be more people like us... not from Berk, but just. Like us.

[ A pause. ]

I also think you understand a lot more of this stuff than you think you do.

[mildcalibrationissue]

I've just had a lot longer to get used to it. Um -- Ray showed me this thing the other day. It's called a Walkman, and it just sort of.. plays music. Right out of these little things you put on your head.

[He pauses, too.]

My point being.. as soon as I start thinking I understand stuff, I find new things like that.

[ex_battleaxe109]

I'm not really sure how familiar I want to get with all this, anyway. Sure, it's fun for a while but when we go home we won't have any of it. I wouldn't want to depend on something that I'll never have back home.