#tuffamore

Tuffnut was nowhere to be found, despite Annamore's efforts to find the young Viking. Normally he could be found by following the sound of trouble, but today trouble was nowhere to be seen, either. A peaceful town was a boring town, she decided. She gave a low whistle, calling her dragon to her. The dragon was currently invisible, but she could feel its approach, and so she reached up and put her hand up, reaching out till she felt scaly flesh. Running her hand up to a spine, she used it to heft herself up on it's back, giving it a light squeeze with her leg to prompt it to take off. Between the spines on it's back, she was invisible to anyone on the ground, which she used to her advantage today, flying across the island unseen until she spotted him, sitting alone on a cliff overhanging the ocean. Landing, she hopped off and approached. "What's wrong?"

He jumped up, looking annoyed momentarily before he relaxed, "I- Nothing's wrong." He protested, turning to glower at a rock, kicking it over the edge.

She shook her head and walked over to him, waiting patiently. 

"I... Annie. What if everything my parents ever said about me was right? What if I'm a horrible Viking? What if I never amount to everything. I know they make fun of me in the village." He slumped back down to the ground, but gave her a worried look. She sat down next to him and waited for him to continue. "Even my friends think I'm stupid. I mean, yeah, I do stupid things, but I help just as much as they do. Sometimes I even think I annoy Ruffnut." 

"Tuff..." She stared at him for a moment as she digested this information, "No, you're perfect. Just they way you are. Your parents lied to you. I think you're a great Viking, and I know that the others trust you. I mean, when Hiccup needs something important done, he asks you to help a lot. Like that time I accidentally fell from my dragon. He didn't come after me himself, he shouted at you because he trusted you'd catch me, right? And Snot's your best friend! They wouldn't think that about you!"

Annamore's heart felt like it was being squeezed by a fist that had forced its way into her chest. She had just found out from Hiccup that Tuffnut's parents had just arranged a marriage for him, and as such, not only did she need to move out, but the guy she loved was to marry someone else. She couldn't even handle the thought of seeing him right now, as distressed as she felt, so instead of returning to the house, she had whistled for her dragon and taken off for one of the small side islands, to a cave that she had once explored with him. Alone, she curled against the dragon, head pressing against her knees as she tried not to cry, and failed.

"Annie?" A soft voice asked from the entrance of the cave, as Tuffnut's shadow filled it. She looked up, revealing a tear stained face. He looked just as distraught as he approached her and sat down, putting an arm over her shoulder in that half cocky, half unsure manner of his. "I'm not going to do it. I can't do it. I lo-" He cut himself off, realizing he was about to say something unmanly. Instead of saying it, he pulled her onto his lap and kissed her roughly, his eyes narrowing when he released her. "We've got dragons, Annie. I'm not sure where we'll go, but you and I? We are going to fly away together. I'll tell Snotlout what we are doing so that they know not to worry about us, but I'm not going to stay here if it means I have to be with someone not you."

It had been a slow build up, to be sure. At first, while living in Berk, she’d been too distraught over having lost her powers, her wings, and her home in the clouds that she had worked so hard to make, to even think about having feelings. Especially since at every moment she was worried that if she did start to get close to the people of Berk, that she might suddenly regain her powers and lose them all.

But she still hadn’t turned back, and the months were passing, and she had grown closer to the twins than she had any of the others, especially Tuff. On the night she’d realized the moon wasn’t going to turn her back, that she was free of being Cupid, Tuff had given her a bow. She’d suspected that he had carved it himself, and that caused an unusual flutter in her heart.

But then it got worse from there, almost always over mundane things. The way he would laugh at her when she did something stupid around a dragon, or how she hated yak milk, or the way their fingers would brush against each others when passing something at the table. Even how he offered to cut bits of singed hair for her after she nearly got crisped during a bad dragon training day, and then braided it for her just because he had wanted to mess with it.

Now the feelings had built up to the point that she could barely stand it. She would seek him out at random, for no reason at all, just because she missed him. Or she’d watch him out of the corner of her eye, smiling as he did something that the others would consider stupid, but she found charming instead. And then she’d kick herself and tell herself that he couldn’t possibly feel the same way, because she wasn’t even a Viking. But sometimes she’d catch his eye and wonder.