Lingering Embers

by pandaluna

Summary:

Most of the islands inside the archipelago suffered from consistent dragon raids. Berk was no exception. The more the dragons came, the more determined they were to fight just as hard and protect their own.

 

And then came the curse. New baby Berkians were born to the violent life with the raging raids, but these ones had one difference—they had marks on their skin, like tattoos of dragons.

 

Before they could so much as lay a hand on either of the babies, lightning struck the earth. Two figures appeared out of thin air, standing between them and the condemned babies. One of the figures was a tall young man with unruly auburn hair. The other was a black-as-night dragon that was curled around the man’s legs, sharp teeth bared as it snarled, glaring at the Berkians like it wanted to blast them to bits.

 

---

Then, Hiccup had no mark on his skin connecting him to a dragon.

Now, Astrid is looking for two people - one who'd help her save Berk and another who'd help her save herself.

Chapter 1: Prologue

Notes:

Okay, so here's the deal:

I don't know why I'm doing this. I have no idea how exactly to handle this fic, meaning it might get abandoned at some point just 'cause I have no idea how to proceed with it. It's not entirely planned out, not in details, but I'm having fun with it and I have a few bits already written. I'm frankly baffled by what I'd done with this because this isn't something I'm good at writing but... we'll see how it goes.

The chapters here are going to be short, all of them. I was going to let it be a one-shot, but I feel like separating the parts in it to chapters. Mostly because it'd be amusing, leaving people without immediate answers. Just like me! I swear, I'm only seeing parts of the future of this fic, which isn't very promising, I know.

...I have nothing else to say - I really don't know how this is gonna go. I just remembered this existed and decided to keep on working on it. Let's see if I make it through or not.

Either way, have fun if you're giving this a shot :)

Prologue

Most of the islands inside the archipelago suffered from consistent dragon raids, where the beasts would rain down on the tribes living on the islands, claws outstretched and maws releasing bursts of fire and smoldering lava at the people, buildings and animals while trying to capture as many fish, sheep, yaks and every other possible source of food available.

Berk was no exception.

The people have lived on the island for seven generations already, and the dragon raids have never deterred them. They suffered and lost and grieved and mourned. But they were Vikings; warriors. The more the dragons came, the more determined they were to fight just as hard and protect their own.

Leaving Berk was out of the question. They weren’t going to submit to a bunch of mindless beasts. They weren’t going to leave their home because of the risk to their lives. They were going to fight tooth and nail to defend what was theirs. If the dragons were relentless, so the Vikings they had on the other end of their fangs were even more so.

And then came the curse.

New baby Berkians were born to the violent life with the raging raids, but these ones had one difference—they had marks on their skin, like tattoos of dragons. Each baby had its own damning mark, unique in some way or another. And the marks were alive, crawling along the fat, smooth skin of the babies as if exploring the area like hatchlings.

The parents were frantic. They had no idea what was going on. Everyone was certain it was a sign from the gods—some kind of punishment for their inability to finish the dragons off already. It was a bad omen. The gods’ way of telling them that they were disappointed in their failure, in their incapability, in their ongoing war that should have already ended.

Despite the lack of anything sinister appearing in the babies, the villagers started whispering about killing them. If the devils were marked on their skin, it was bad. It meant they were condemned from the very start. It would be merciful to end their pain and suffering now, when it was still fresh and they weren’t aware of much beyond their hunger and confusion.

Naturally, the babies’ parents were less than happy with this conclusion, although they themselves weren’t sure how to process what was happening. They had no way of conversing with the gods to ask them what the next step should be. They had no way of defending their children when the dragons’ marks were so clearly etched on their young skin.

Berk was getting ready for the event, already mourning the new generation they would have to slaughter so they wouldn’t live a cursed life. They prayed to the gods every day, begging for healthy babies next time. They got the message—they had to end the raids faster, deal with the threat and be done with it already. Just please, give them unharmed children.

But before they could so much as lay a hand on either of the babies, lightning struck the earth, cutting off the grim ceremony. The people froze and looked up to the sky as storm clouds covered every inch of it, making the world go dark as it started to snow.

And then—an apparition.

They gasped as two figures appeared out of thin air, standing between them and the condemned babies. They weren’t solid, looking more like creations of mist. But the shapes were unnatural and clear enough to make it obvious this was the work of the gods once more, sending another message.

One of the figures was a tall young man with unruly auburn hair. He wore strange clothes that looked as if they were made of dark scales. His features were soft, his eyes kind. Despite his lanky build and his obvious missing leg, he seemed to stand tall and confident. In his hand there was a flaming sword that made the Berkians back even further away. And his other hand was resting on top of the other figure.

The people felt like fainting as they held their breaths, staring with trepidation at the black-as-night dragon that was curled around the man’s legs, sharp teeth bared as it snarled, glaring at the Berkians like it wanted to blast them to bits. Its wings were folded over its back, frills moving as it seemed to listen carefully and take everything in with sharpened senses. Some noticed the strange, red fin it had attached to its tail where there should have been black.

The two were standing together, like a united front in front of the villagers. Even the man’s kind eyes were challenging, as if daring them to harm the children in any way. They were nothing more than smoke, but they looked so real, so alive. Menacing.

It lasted only a couple of seconds. Then the smoke vanished at once, leaving the Berkians rattled and hysterical, the babies crying in the background from the earlier loud noise that had followed the lightning strike. No one knew what to do next, how to interpret the strange vision.

Until the village elder stepped forward and tried to calm everyone down. He told them it was the gods’ will to keep the dragon-infested children alive. They didn’t know why, they weren’t sure what it meant, but they knew they had to leave the babies unharmed or suffer by the hand of those… those strange spirits.

“God!” cried one of the Berkians. “This must have been a god!”

“The god of the demons,” wailed another. “With his pet.”

“We’re cursed!” a third one chimed in. “We’re cursed by the evil god!”

“The god of dragons,” someone muttered.

“The god of dragons!” everyone agreed fearfully.

The rumor spread around the archipelago, people whispering about the unnamed god and his dragon. The protector of dragons. The man no one dared give a name to. They looked up to Odin and sought his help, but they cowered in fright at the mere mention of the dragons’ god.

They called him the Dragon Lord, or Dragon Master.

No one ever recounted his kind eyes. Instead, they focused on his flaming sword, which must have been the creation of a god, for such a thing could not exist, could not be designed by man. His smile, in the stories, became a loathing scowl. His forest-green eyes were rumored to be filled with the same sort of flames as his sword.

He was a demon, a monster. But a powerful one they knew was not to be trifled with. And the look in that dragon’s eyes… they knew it would be sent from Asgard if they disrespected the damned babies or so much as entertained the idea of getting rid of them.

The raids continued. The Vikings fought. But now they prayed to a new god, begging him to have mercy on them, to take it easy, to forgive them for whatever sin they had done to draw his ire. They’d left the babies alive, after all. They’d heard his warning and acted accordingly. So why were they still being attacked?

In the meantime, the babies grew. Berk was hesitant around them, unsure how to proceed. They feared these Vikings would grow up to be wild and strange. They feared they might join the dragons and betray their own tribe. But instead, the babies became children, and the children became adults. They fought alongside their people, recognizing the threat the dragons posed.

But they still had the dragons etched on their skin. It didn’t hurt, nor did it make them act out in any way. The strangest thing these people did was see no real threat in the little beasts they had attached to their very being. They weren’t sure what the dragons meant, just like everyone else, but they grew up this way—they were far less frightened by the phenomenon.

Yet the older they got, the bigger the dragons became. They were still rather small—never bigger than the palm of a person’s hand. But they grew sharper and more detailed until they looked just like the raiding dragons that were attacking the island. And when the kids became teenagers, the dragons started popping out of their humans’ skin, appearing in front of the alarmed Vikings in their full size.

They made the mistake of attacking the first dragon that had done it. The human it belonged to was too stunned to react, but his mother reacted instantly—she saw a dragon, so she grabbed her mace and attacked with a battle cry. The dragon never even had a chance.

It fell dead at her feet after letting out a shriek of agony.

Unfortunately, right next to the dragon’s body lay the boy’s one, no longer breathing.

It happened three more times before the Berkians realized that somehow the lives of these children were connected to the dragons. If they wanted the teenagers to be alive, they had to leave the dragons be—let them come out and keep an eye on them, but not kill them.

So the remaining dragons poked out and started exploring Berk, staying close to their humans, who anxiously looked over their shoulders to make sure no one was attacking their dragons. They had to keep an eye on the strange dragons too, to prevent them from burning down the village or killing all their livestock.

Luckily, these dragons seemed to be much more civil. The Berkians watched, utterly fascinated, as they roamed around, cawing and crooning at everything around them without setting fire to their houses. They still chased the sheep and ate their fish, but they never harmed the livestock—it looked more like they were playing a game.

Then came the next raid. The strange dragons were still up and about. They rarely ever returned to their humans’ skin, instead preferring to stretch their bodies and enjoy their freedom. The Berkians thought nothing of it and instead hollered loudly as they ran around the village to fight the monsters invading their home.

But something changed in the strange dragons. Their domesticated personalities shifted. Their pupils narrowed down and their wings flapped anxiously as they got out too, joining the fray—but not to help their humans, but to fight them along with the other dragons.

More such dragons were killed that day. More humans dropped dead inexplicably, joining their ancestors.

The ones who weren’t killed by the time the raid was over, looked mostly dazed, as if they were waking up from a dream. They were caged and locked away, the Viking prodding at them to see how they were reacting. But they were clearly domestic again, warbling in distress at the sight of their humans so far away, staring at them with fear in their eyes.

They were let out eventually. But the next time there was a raid, the dragons’ humans tied them down or locked them up so they wouldn’t be able to help the other dragons. They weren’t sure why it was happening, but Berk wasn’t going to take any chances. It was best this way, with the dragons hissing and spitting without being able to hurt anyone.

To the frustration of the Vikings, the first batch of demon-infested babies was only the beginning. Every other child since that point in time came out into the world with their own dragon hatchling tattooed on their skin. They were never harmed, of course, since the story of the Dragon Lord showing up to show his displeasure was being told again and again, passing on from father to son.

Eventually, Berk was left with only people who had these unique dragons. They knew other islands didn’t have the same phenomenon, but to them, it was ordinary. They kept on fearing the dragon god, but they no longer feared each other. No one killed these dragons and no one shunned them out. They were a part of their society that they had to lock up only during raids.

As time moved on, people started referring to the demons as dragon souls—meaning they were draconic, sure, but they were related to their humans’ souls. They never strayed too far, never flew away from Berk. They didn’t always listen—Vikings had to shout at them constantly to try and get a reaction out of the beasts—but they weren’t as harmful as the raiding dragons, which was good.

And tucked in the back of the Meade Hall, covered in shadows and collecting dust bunnies and spider webs, was an old, faded painting of an old ceremony—one where the Berkians stood in an arch around several wailing babies, a tall man with a flaming sword and his dragon separating the two groups.

Notes:

Lemme know what you think ^^

Cya!:)

Chapter 2: Now...

Notes:

And thus our story begins!

...I dunno why I wrote that. Let's ignore it and move on to the story itself, yeah?

Now…

Astrid sat on the boat, rowing with a pair of oars while looking around to squint at the open sea all around her. She sent a look back toward the direction she’d come from and her heart squeezed. She tried to calm herself down, but just imagining everyone she knew, trapped and helpless with those men sneering at them with mean smirks sent a shiver of uneasiness down her spine.

Her muscles strained from sailing for so long, but she had no other choice. She needed to do this. She needed to free her island, and for that she needed help. This was necessary, despite everything inside her clenching at the thought. It felt wrong—so terribly wrong—but there wasn’t much time, and her hand was forced. This was the only way.

She’d been asking around for a week now. Drifting from place to place, she asked where she could find someone who would help her fight and free her tribe. She asked if anyone knew of a way to win this, flip the odds. She asked if there was anyone willing to lend a hand and maybe be kind to her and the Berkians.

No one volunteered. She had nothing to offer. The chances of taking the island back were slim to none, so if they failed, she would have nothing to give to the people who might help her. And without any sort of payment, nobody saw any reason to come to their aid. They just sent her away dismissively.

Several people, though, gestured for her to lean in closer so they could whisper about a man—a man who could defy the odds and win. A man who could come up with a plausible plan even when things seemed to be impossible. A man no one knew the name of. They couldn’t even describe him well, always claiming he kept a helmet on his head to prevent recognition.

When she asked them how she could possibly find him in that case, they told her to look for a Night Fury.

The thought still sent a jolt down her spine. She’d seen a Night Fury when she was slightly younger. It had been living in their village—a dragon soul. No one knew who it belonged to. No one remembered a baby with the dark dragon’s mark on their skin. But they could feel it—the difference in the dragon.

But growing up with the illusive dragon around made Astrid feel utterly hopeless now. She knew spotting a Night Fury was nearly impossible. The chances of running across one were slim to none. Except for that dragon soul there hadn’t been any sightings of Night Furies in decades.

Well, there had been one—the pet dragon of the god of dragons. But that hardly counted.

Now… how was she supposed to find a Night Fury without a clue as to where she was even meant to be looking? It sounded like this dragon rider flew all over the place, which left Astrid stumbling all around, trying to figure out where he might go next. All of that while knowing there was a big chance he might not even help her. Why would he, after all?

Her eyes drifted down to the blue Deadly Nadder pruning on the back of her hand. When Astrid tried to get Stormfly to find the Night Fury, her dragon chirped lightly, sniffed the air, then gave up without even trying. No matter what Astrid did, it was like her dragon soul just didn’t want to help her.

And now she was pruning.

“You could help, you know,” she grumbled to her dragon.

Stormfly peeked up at her, chirped in Astrid’s mind, then went right back to pruning.

Astrid fumed.

“Typical. You never listen to me,” she scowled, then kept on rowing.

The sky was cloudy, but not bad enough to shroud the world in darkness. The light was dim, but Astrid could still see the blurry vision of the sun that was beaming up from above the cover of clouds. Luckily for her, the waves were rather tame, so even though her clothes kept on getting sprinkled with the freezing ocean water, she wasn’t going to capsize out of nowhere any time soon.

She gritted her teeth when the cold weather made her shiver but just kept on rowing. She had to move forward. There was no other way. She had to save everyone, even if it seemed impossible. And if she failed… she hoped it would be in battle and not because of the stupid sea water soaking into her clothes and chilling her to the bone.

And then a familiar shriek reached her ears and Astrid’s eyes widened. Her automatic response, as always, was to duck down and take cover. But then she realized what it meant and she quickly straightened up and waved her hands up high to try and draw attention to herself despite every single warning from dragon training screeching at her to shut up.

“HEY!” she cried out as loudly as she could. “HEY, DOWN HERE!”

She called out again, desperate to be heard over the wind and the waves of the ocean. She wasn’t even sure if this was the Night Fury she’d been looking for. She couldn’t see its back, so there was no guarantee anyone was up there but the dragon. And if there was no human with it, the beast might hear her and come down just to end her existence, the way wild dragons did.

But then a head poked out over the side of the dragon. Astrid could hardly see a thing from her spot since the dragon was too high up, but she could tell there was a helmet on the man’s head since she couldn’t see a face or any hair at all. It was just… black, like the color of the dragon crossing the sky.

Her heart sped up when the Night Fury suddenly pulled its wings in and dived toward her boat. Her knuckles turned white as she tightened her grip on the oars and threw herself onto her legs while trying to force herself not to reach out for her axe to attack the dragon.

It landed with a heavy and loud thud on the edge of her boat, barely leaving her any space at all to back away from its sniffing snout and narrowed green eyes. The scrutinizing look it was giving her made Astrid freak out a little, though she did her best to hold herself back from flinching. This was a dragon, but… something about it felt different.

The man on top of the dragon drew her attention next as he cocked his head to the side, his eyes looking at her from behind the slits of his helmet. The shade made it so that she couldn’t see their color, but she was happy to note they seemed to be human. She wasn’t sure why, but the possibility of them being inhuman had been in her mind for a while now.

“A-are you the dragon rider everyone’s been telling me about?” she asked him, trying not to react to the way his dragon kept on sniffing her.

For a long moment the man said nothing. Astrid was beginning to fear it wasn’t him and she just stopped some other nutcase who decided it would be a great idea to fly a Night Fury. Maybe he didn’t speak Norse. Maybe he couldn’t understand her.

And then he cleared his throat and said, “You were looking for me?”

His voice was… slightly altered, she could tell. He was clearly using some kind of fake accent while deepening his voice. She wanted to snort at the ridiculous choice, but decided against it when she noticed the dragon still giving her its full attention. Now was not the time to make fun of the man who could conquer a Night Fury.

“You’re the Dragon Conqueror?” she said, somewhere between asking and stating a fact.

When the Night Fury puffed at her, the hot air hitting her face, Astrid couldn’t help but take a hesitant step back. She could tell her hands were shaking around the oars, but holding them was better than reaching for her axe while facing a vicious beast.

The man snorted. “I hate that name,” he grumbled, still in a fake voice. “Whoever started calling me that doesn’t know anything. I don’t conquer dragons, okay? Right, bud? I ride them, if they let me. I help them, I free them. I don’t control them in any way.”

Astrid’s eyes widened when the Night Fury growled a little at the man’s words, the sound low and menacing. The terrified whimper that slipped out of her mouth was, in her mind, very justified.

“He’s not gonna hurt you,” the man told her, almost sounding amused as he patted the dragon’s scaly head. “As long as you don’t attack either of us, you’re as safe as can be.” He hesitated. “You have my word.”

The dragon let out another noise. It almost sounded like he was… grumbling. Astrid watched as it rolled its eyes up to the rider on its back before turning back to her.

“I don’t think your word means much when I don’t even know who you are,” she managed to say.

“Well, can’t help you there. I’m not in the business of going around, sharing my name with everyone I meet,” he said, shoulders hiking up and down with his words in a way that seemed to be subconscious. “Anyway, why were you looking for me? I’m guessing it wasn’t because you wanted to meet Toothless.”

“Toothless?”

He gestured down at the dragon, who warbled in response, holding its head high like it was relishing the acknowledgement. Astrid leaned a little back, though she could tell the dragon wasn’t preparing to blast her. It really was just… proud, maybe.

“You called… you called a Night Fury ‘Toothless’? Are you crazy?” she blurted out thoughtlessly.

For a moment she was horrified, figuring that was it—she would die by the jaws of this vicious dragon. But to her surprise, all the man did was chuckle a little. His dragon didn’t seem to find anything to be mad about either, because it kept on looking at her in relative peace; not attacking, yet not taking its focus off the potential threat.

“I can promise you he lives up to the name,” said the man in amusement. Then he once again cleared his throat. “So… you need something?”

She glanced at the Night Fury once more, just to make sure it wasn’t going to bite, chew and spit her out any time soon. Then she focused on the covered face of the man. His helmet was covered in dragon scales, just like the rest of the strange suit he was wearing. The overall look made him appear like some kind of dragon, which was unnerving.

“I do,” she said, ignoring the way her voice wavered a little. “My village was taken over by our enemies. Everyone was captured and locked away, although I think I saw a couple of bodies. I’m the only one who didn’t get caught with the rest, so I set out to look for help. There’s no way I can take over the island by myself, no matter how good I am.”

He looked at her intensely. “How were you not captured, then?”

“I wasn’t in town. I’d gone on a search to look for… for someone.” Gods, she couldn’t even say his name without a lump forming in her throat. How pathetic. “I came back and saw the crest of our enemies on the ships at the harbor. I snuck around to try and see what was going on. I just got lucky, I guess.”

“Looking for someone?”

“That’s not really the point,” she told him irritably. “That’s not… it’s not why I need your help. I’m just… I’ve been asking around if anyone could help us and everyone sent me to you.”

The man hummed a little noncommittally. The Night Fury warbled, eyes once again rolling to try and see the human on his back. As strange as it was, it almost looked like the dragon was concerned or asking how his rider was doing with the new information provided to them.

She discreetly sent Stormfly a look. Her Nadder stopped pruning at some point, and was now looking at everything around her curiously. Her yellow gaze seemed to focus mainly on the other dragon in the vicinity. Astrid expected to hear some kind of indignant screech from her, but instead there was something almost familiar in the way her dragon cooed.

“Which island are you from?” he said eventually. “Who are these enemies of yours?”

Astrid opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. “You need to know this upfront—I can’t pay you back for the help. If this works, I’m sure my chief will give you anything you’d ask for, but… if it doesn’t work and you end up risking your life for nothing, I’ll have nothing to offer.”

His dragon let out a huff.

“I have something in mind that you’ll be able to give me.”

Despite the man’s eyes remaining in the shadow, Astrid thought she could see them twinkling in amusement. It made her frown to herself, thinking he might just ask for something that didn’t involve gold. The people she knew back home were all friendly enough and would never think of harming, buying or possessing a woman (although Snotlout was still a prick).

But she’s been all over the past week. She saw some of men’s behavior away from her home, and some of them gave her the creeps. The way she kept on being stared at, the way they seemed to lust after her with this light of mischief and desire… it all made her well aware of how much on guard she had to be around these strangers. And this man was no exception to this rule.

Astrid dropped the oars and wrapped her arms around her body protectively and scowled at him. “Forget it. I’m not that desperate.”

He blinked at her, then recoiled on his dragon. “Wha—no! Oh, gods, I didn’t mean anything like that,” he said hastily. His dragon laughed. “Ugh, I-I would never do that! I had a, uh, dragon-related request.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “What request?”

“Don’t hurt dragons anymore. You and the rest of your village. If I help you, you have to promise me you will never harm the dragons again.”

Her hands fell down at that. She narrowed her eyes at him, trying to see if he was joking or not. But he seemed to be completely serious. His fake voice wasn’t helping, but she could see the sincerity shining brightly in his eyes—he was honestly asking her and Berk to stop killing their invaders.

“How do you know we hurt them?” she challenged.

“You’re clearly terrified of dragons,” said the man lightly. “A-and you look like you’re trying to force yourself not to touch your axe. Which is appreciated, but it kind of gave you away.”

“Shows you how much I need the help, for me to ask for the help of a… a dragon rider,” she muttered.

“Your home is important,” he said simply, shrugging. “Promise me you’ll stop killing dragons and I’ll help you.”

“You won’t otherwise?” she tried.

The man didn’t answer, simply looking at her along with his Night Fury. The two of them seemed to be studying her, waiting for her decision to be made. It was annoying, how Astrid could almost tell they knew she would cave, considering she really did need their assistance.

The urge to take out her trusty axe and lash around with it to let out her frustration was overwhelming, but Astrid pushed it down anyway. She had a mission to accomplish and an island to save. Her family was at stake, as well as the chief himself and… everyone else, really.

She could almost picture Hiccup—wherever he was—returning to the island some day only to find it had been taken over. She figured he would be horrified, yet obviously incapable of doing anything. Gods, she wasn’t even sure if he was alive or not, yet she hoped… one day…

She had to ensure ‘one day’ won’t end up being a disappointment for the both of them.

“We need to be able to protect ourselves during the raids,” she argued sternly. “If they come at us, we have to be able to stop them somehow. We can’t lose all our food and houses to them.”

“There are other ways to deal with dragons,” said the man easily. “I can teach you guys. And you’re gonna need it. I was just on my way to their nest. I’m going to stop the raids.”

She stared at him, unimpressed. “You’ll stop the raids? Right. Good luck with that, dragon boy.”

“You’re gonna eat your words when there are no more raids and your village is left unharmed,” he said in a sing-song voice.

“Doubt it,” she dismissed. “But even if it was a realistic future, I’ll have to have my village for this prediction to come true. So…”

“Sorry, I still haven’t heard any sort of consent there.”

She growled at him, which earned her a growl back from his dragon. Her nails dug into her palms as she tried to control her breaths. She knew she was easy to get upset, but the thought of this man taunting her while knowing she really needed his help… annoyed her. So much. This wasn’t fair. She wished she could have done it without him.

“Fine,” she gritted out. “We won’t harm dragons in Berk, okay? I’ll let everyone know the moment we free them. Just… just help me.” She exhaled slowly, closed her eyes, and added in a small voice, “Please.”

The man nodded. “Well, since you asked so nicely.” He hopped off his dragon’s back to stand in front of her despite the lack of space on the boat. Then he reached out his hand and said, “What’s your name?”

She shook his gloved hand uncertainly. “Astrid. I’m from Berk. Have you heard of it?”

He hummed again a little. “I’m… familiar with the name, yes.”

For a moment she could see his eyes flickering down to her hand, where Stormfly was unabashedly gazing up at him from Astrid’s skin, like the curious dragon that she was. She dropped his hand and pulled hers away before she could even comprehend what she was doing.

Luckily, he kept his mouth shut about her dragon soul.

“The Outcasts invaded us,” she added, “led by—”

“Alvin the Treacherous,” he cut her off. “Gotta love that guy. He’s been trying to capture me for a really long time now; honestly, it’s embarrassing. He had me in one of his cells this one time and I still managed to escape. He’s not all that bright.”

Astrid let out a huff. “Well, at least he’s a common enemy, then.”

His eyes twinkled again. “The enemy of my enemy…” he trailed off, a smile clear in his tone of voice.

“What am I supposed to call you? If you don’t give out your real name… give me something. I don’t care what. Just as long as I have something to shout in case I’m trapped or something.”

“Huh, that’s… that’s a good point,” he said, tapping his chin slowly as he seemed to ponder this. “How about… Ryder? Too on the nose?”

She rolled her eyes. “As long as I don’t have to call you Mr. Conqueror, I’m good.”

He laughed, and the sound was much more real than his fake voice has been thus far. It caught Astrid off guard because there was something… something in the laughter that made her skin tingle. Something that prickled her brain and made her breath catch a little, like she just got to see something holy.

She shook the feeling away and focused. They had some work to do.

Notes:

I wrote it a few monthsback, but I do remember bringing up the question of what Astrid should call him and getting stumped. So Ryder was my brain just giving up and going: "The simplest answer is the best one, duh!"

I swear, my mind is very simple. No matter how many stories I write, I'm not strategic or creative enough to come up with smart plans. So I just never know why I bother writing stories like this one. How the heck am I supposed to come up with a plan for them to save Berk? I don't know how they're supposed to do it! My mind is blank. Everything I can think of is stupid. What is wrong with me?

Cya! :)

Chapter 3: Then...

Notes:

And now, a riddle for you all. Please tell me the answer because I don't know what it is:

How many pandas does it take to write a story?

Please and thank you ^^

(I'm not weird; just tired.)

Then…

“Ugh, who let him in?” said Ruffnut, pointing at Hiccup like he was yak dung.

He ignored the jabs sent his way from the other teens as he walked into the kill ring after all of them, shoulders hunched and head bent down to watch his feet as he strolled in. The boring rocky floor that was covered in drops of blood was far more interesting and captivating than the leering voices of his peers, sadly.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure what his dad was thinking. Sure, Hiccup’s been wanting to join dragon training, but half of dragon training involved training dragon souls, and Hiccup didn’t have one of those. Which should have been great news, but everyone around the village seemed to think it was a bad omen.

He had no idea why they were all so afraid of what it meant that he didn’t have the mark of a dragon on his skin. Wasn’t it better this way? Hasn’t it been established that dragon souls were some sort of curse put upon Berk? Why did everyone have to take one look at Hiccup’s unblemished skin and go: Know what? We change our minds. Dragon souls are awesome!

And now he was let into dragon training, where half the time he would be forced to just… sit it out and watch as the others worked on training their dragons to obey them. Since he had no dragon soul, they would have nothing for him to do. And since Gobber would be busy watching them, he wouldn’t allow Hiccup to train with an arena dragon in the meantime.

With a sigh, Hiccup tried to let go of his bitterness in favor of focusing on the good. For example—he was in dragon training. He would finally be educated by an adult on how to properly kill a dragon so he could help with the raids by doing something other than staying inside the forge. Which, admittedly, was helpful, but certainly not as heroic as bashing the head of a Nadder with a hammer.

Despite his realistic understanding that he would most likely not prove to be some kind of dragon-killing prodigy, Hiccup still found himself hoping that things would be good for him. He wanted to prove himself, show he was a part of this tribe even though he didn’t look the part.

Maybe his dad will finally smile at him with pride.

He looked around to see the other teens as they stood in a line, listening to Gobber as he introduced them to the species of dragons they had locked up in the cages currently. He could see their eagerness to start and bash some heads—especially the twins.

Was it stupid of him to wish he would be the one chosen to kill the Monstrous Nightmare by the end of their training? He knew it wasn’t likely to happen, but he just… he wanted to see the look on his father’s face as he beamed down at him. He wanted to see the acceptance on the Berkians’ faces as he finally stepped up and became one of them.

It was nothing more than wishful thinking, but… he couldn’t help but imagine it lustfully.

Of course, first he’d have to survive training with Gobber as the instructor. He’d already nearly gotten himself killed several times in the forge because of the man’s… lacking teaching abilities. Somehow he figured it wouldn’t be any better when faced with raging dragons who’d want to blow his face off.

Soon, all six of the teens were stumbling around the arena with their shields and weapons, escaping the angry Gronckle that was lunging and firing at them, its wings buzzing loudly as it flew up and down, picking up rocks from the ground to chew on, for some reason.

Ruff and Tuff were the first ones out. Next was Fishlegs. That left Astrid, Snotlout and Hiccup. Then Snotlout got blasted too, and Hiccup wondered if maybe staying last was even something he wanted the honor of, considering it involved a lot of being chased by a large, heavy and violent dragon that wanted to kill him.

He found himself pinned against a wall with nowhere else to go rather quickly, pressing into the stone behind him as much as possible, as if the rock would swallow him protectively in order to hide him from the dragon that hovered in front of him, face contorted and maw opening and glowing as it summoned its fire.

Everyone else was too far away to help. Gobber was on the other side of the arena, running toward Hiccup, yet clearly not being fast enough to prevent the catastrophe.

Hiccup had enough time to wonder whether his father would be more mad or disappointed in him for failing that grandly on his first day of training. All of his dreams of becoming the best at dragon training fleeted his brain as he stared into the narrow pupils of the Gronckle, feeling the searing warmth from the building fire that would surely incinerate him on the spot.

That was it. That was the end. He was toast.

But a moment before the fire was released, a loud, familiar screech came from behind the Gronckle, startling the dragon and making it swallow its fire with a look that was clearly panicked. Hiccup gasped and gaped, watching as the bulky dragon lowered itself to the ground and turned away from Hiccup to look at the source of the screech.

“Night Fury!” yelled Gobber. “Nobody move!”

Hiccup, breathing hard, peeked behind the Gronckle that was blocking his field of view, and his breath caught in his throat when his eyes laid on the sleek black dragon that kept on arriving at Berk during raids. Its body was smaller than Hiccup had imagined, but everything about it made him realize the size didn’t matter—this dragon would be able to handle anything they threw at it.

And right now, it was standing in the middle of the arena, hissing and snarling at the Gronckle who seemed to curl into itself, as if ashamed or scolded. The Night Fury’s wings were spread around it, as if to make itself bigger. Its toxic-green eyes were cold and menacing, holding the promise of pain within their depths.

“Can I kill it?” whispered Snotlout loudly.

“No, you moron,” said Astrid in a hiss, “it’s a dragon soul. If you’ll kill it, someone will die.”

“Then we’ll know who it belongs to,” the guy said before grunting from the force of Astrid’s punch.

“I say we let him try,” snickered Ruff. “Maybe the dragon will barbeque ‘im.”

“We’ll come and mourn every year near the Snotlout-shaped ashes on the floor,” said Tuff, wiping a fake tear from the corner of his eye.

Gobber looked like he wanted to choke all of them as he crept behind the Night Fury slowly, keeping his eyes on the dragon while also carefully maneuvering without making a sound. Although, if Hiccup had to guess, he’d say the Night Fury could hear him, since the frills at the sides of its head moved in Gobber’s direction, following his progress.

Growling and barking, the Night Fury kept his focus on the Gronckle, who sheepishly—was it even possible for a dragon to be sheepish? Wow—walked toward its cage before stepping in obediently, without any prompting. The Night Fury only quieted down once the Gronckle sat down in its pen, wings resting against its back.

They all stared, astonished. Seeing the Night Fury in the light of day was already unheard of. To have it force a dragon into its cage before it could kill a person? That was… madness! Utter madness! Hiccup couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around the fact that this mysterious, elusive dragon had just shown up to… what, save his life?

It was such an incredulous thought, he nearly laughed out loud. Yeah, right, a rare dragon soul showing up to protect him. That’s exactly the kind of tale Hiccup’s mind would conjure up at a time of distress. Honestly, it was asinine to even entertain the thought.

But then the Night Fury’s acidic gaze turned sharply as it swiveled its head, and suddenly Hiccup found himself gulping under the full attention of the dragon who seemed to just watch him quietly, no longer hissing or snarling or emitting any sort of sound. It looked like it was studying him, trying to figure out whether intervening just now was a good idea worth its while or not.

“Hiccup, don’t move,” warned Gobber quietly as he kept on moving around the arena toward the spot where Hiccup was, still leaning against the wall. “No sudden movements, no loud noises. We don’t want tah startle it, eh? Easy does it…”

Hiccup drowned out Gobber’s voice, too engrossed in the eyes of the dragons. They were so… expressive. He felt like he could read the exact emotions the Night Fury was feeling while looking at him despite being unable to communicate. There was uncertainty and apprehension, a little bit of wonder, some curiosity, a tinge of fear…

His hand itched. His fingers twitched until he forced his hand into a fist to get them to stop. The dragon’s eyes followed the movement, then met his gaze again.

The dragon warbled.

Gobber tensed, freezing in his tracks for a moment. He looked between Hiccup and the Night Fury, as if trying to understand what was happening. Off to the side, the other teens were discussing Hiccup’s chances of survival now that there was a Night Fury facing him. They didn’t sound too bothered by their own grim predictions.

And then the dragon took a cautious step toward Hiccup. And another one.

“O-oh, gods,” he muttered, once more pressing himself as far into the wall as possible, eyes blown wide. “Y-you don’t want to eat me. I’m all… knees and elbows.”

“You’ll probably give this dragon indigestion,” mocked Snotlout.

“It’s a dragon soul,” said Astrid sternly, though she sounded slightly uncertain. “They don’t hurt humans unless there’s a raid going on.”

She was right, but there was also no real reason for the dragon to show up and prevent that Gronckle from finishing Hiccup off, so all bets were off, in his opinion. Gobber seemed to think the same because just as the Night Fury started sniffing Hiccup, pushing its snout closer and closer to the petrified boy, he jumped forward with a battle cry, his hooked hand waving in the air as he ran in to attack the dragon.

Before the blacksmith could so much as graze the Night Fury, though, the dragon vanished, the way dragon souls did whenever they appeared on someone’s skin. If only they knew who had the Night Fury as their dragon soul… then they’d be able to ask someone all their questions.

Gobber’s hand dropped down as he scratched his head and looked around warily.

“That damned beast,” grumbled the man.

Hiccup shook his head mutely and dropped to the floor, finally releasing the breath he’s been holding this entire time.

Notes:

Toothless! ^^

I actually wasn't going to post another chapter today, but I just finished writing a really angsty one later on and I felt like posting something more cheerful and hopeful. Kinda. So there, be happy I wrote something that thoroughly depressed me just now, I guess.

You must be asking yourselves why I'm writing about then and now. Why I'm moving through time like that. Why Astrid is in the present and Hiccup in the past..... well, keep askin' because I've no idea, gang! I actually have a thing against characters who are stuck in the past. Like, I read My Sister's Keeper once and was so upset with the mother for only speaking about the past, it annoyed me to no end. And here I am, sorta doing the same. Only I guess my intention isn't to show that a character is stuck in the past. It's just to show another POV that can explain a different side of the story. Coincidentally, the past part of Hiccup is an altered version of a story some of you may have seen in, say, an animated movie once or twice in your life.

Anyway, I'd really appreciate hearing from y'all so I know if the POVs feel right for the characters. I don't promise my writing doesn't change later on, but I try to be more serious with Astrid and more sarcastic with Hiccup. So... just lemme know, please *pleading emoji*

Cya! :)

Chapter 4: Now...

Notes:

My brother told me only one panda is required. I'm not sure I believe him...

Now…

The Night Fury was sent to fly ahead of them after Astrid had insisted that she wasn’t going to fly on its back, nor was she about to leave her boat behind. They were on a time limit, true, but riding a dragon seemed like a bit much. And as far as she knew, this Ryder guy wasn’t reliable at all. She didn’t even know what his face looked like—how could she trust him not to shove her off the back of his dragon over the open sea?

So the two of them remained on the boat, rowing in silence while being surrounded by nothing but freezing waves that kept on spraying her clothes and chilling her. When she started shivering, Ryder sent her a look before pulling out a fur vest from the satchel he had taken off his dragon’s back.

Sure, there was a suspicious part of her that didn’t want to accept the vest from this stranger, but it was just too cold and the fur looked so inviting… so she wore it over her clothes and basked in the warmth it provided her. It wasn’t perfect, of course, but it was better than freezing to death.

Opposite her, Ryder seemed to be doing just fine with the weather and water. She suspected it had something to do with his strange scales-covered suit. Maybe it was keeping him warm and protected from the droplets of water. After all, he was too lean to be like the Vikings who could brave through the colder days in Berk thanks to their larger stature and—er—layers of insulation.

The sun was beginning to sink lower and lower in the sky, painting the clouds overhead beautiful shades of pink, purple and red.

“So,” said Ryder eventually, “is there anything you can tell me that might actually help? I know we’re up against the Outcasts. But do you know anything more? Any little piece of information might be useful.”

She bit her lip and pondered the question, trying to picture what she had seen while sneaking around Berk. There wasn’t much. The Outcasts seemed to be rather chaotic, never sticking to a clear route while scanning the area for threats. She would have said it was a good thing, but honestly… unpredictability made her nervous. It meant she didn’t know what to expect.

“They locked up almost all of my tribe in the prison cells,” she said thoughtfully. “We don’t have enough for everyone, so they’re all cramped together. I tried to release them, but there were too many guards and no blind spot. I had no choice but to leave them be.”

The man’s head tipped to the side. “Almost all of them?” he said.

“The chief was left in one of the cages we have for dragons in the killing arena,” she said, trying not to think too hard about the fact that she was talking about the place where they killed dragons in front of a dragon sympathizer. “Alvin hates him in particular, so he isolated him. Plus, he’s the strongest man, so I’m guessing he was worried a regular cell wouldn’t have cut it.”

“He locked him up like a dragon?” said the man, and he sounded oddly offended by this. Then he inhaled sharply and scoffed. “Well, at least now he’ll know how it feels, I suppose. So everyone’s in the prison and Da—Stoick is in the arena.” He kept on rowing, but lowered his head to stare at his lap. “It’s weird. I’ve dealt with Alvin before. He’s not the type to take prisoners when he can just kill everyone. It’s like he’s trying to achieve something from all of this.”

“You think he’s going to demand something from some other tribe in the archipelago?” she said worriedly.

Ryder shrugged. “Might be. But if so, we should make sure before we reach Berk. Toothless and I can go around and see if anyone got a letter from the Outcasts. Enough people don’t like them, so they might actually cooperate. But if we don’t find anything…” He shook his head a little. “It’s just a little concerning. Anything else?”

Astrid nodded. “It doesn’t help all that much, but dragons keep on flying to Berk, even now. And with the raids still going on, I’m sure eventually one will start and distract them all. It would be the perfect time to sneak into the village and free everyone.”

“That’s true,” he said.

“They’ll be too busy fighting to notice two people passing by,” Astrid continued. “Granted, it might be a bit risky to try and get past the dragons when they’re raging all over town, but they’ll still be a great divergence.”

Ryder shook his head. “An actual raid might be too unpredictable. The dragons won’t be able to control themselves properly during one of those. But the alternative is to find dragons and get them to purposefully distract the Outcasts and I’m not going to take that risk. They might actually get killed by those goons. But a raid might still take a while. They don’t happen every night, after all.”

“Sounds like you’re familiar with them, huh?”

He let out a huff. “I grew up with them,” he said easily. “A dragon-killing village like all the rest.”

“Yet you ride a Night Fury.”

The man shrugged again. “What can I say? I was just different than the rest of my village. I was never a violent person, and when I had the opportunity to choose which path to take, I picked Toothless’s.” He squared his shoulders. “Back to business, though. If we manage to free the Berkians, we’ll need to get them armed. Whether there’s a raid or not, they should be able to fight and protect themselves.”

Astrid’s shoulders slumped down. “That might be a problem.”

“Why? We’ll just pass through the armory—”

“It’s not there anymore,” she said. “Right before I left it was set on fire. We suspect it was a wild dragon that was just passing by. But it doesn’t matter how it happened—I’m guessing Berk lost to the Outcasts only because they had no weapons to use. We were defenseless.”

“And the Outcasts conveniently attacked you when you had no way to fight back?” he said slowly, his fake voice lowering a little. “It sounds too good to be true. What if the armory wasn’t destroyed by a dragon? What if the one responsible for the fire was an Outcast? Or a spy? Someone who helped Alvin from the inside.”

Astrid blinked at the suggestion, her mind racing. It wouldn’t be too outlandish to entertain the idea. Alvin could have sent someone ahead of time to get rid of their weapons. It sounded like the kind of dirty trick the man might do just to get an easy win.

But the idea of someone in Berk—one of them—betraying them in favor of helping Alvin was unheard of. Astrid couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing. Why would they? The Outcasts were their enemy. This band of criminals and psychos was nothing to Berk but a pest they had to keep an eye on. Why would any of the Berkians help them? They had no reason to.

“It couldn’t have been a spy,” she said sternly with a shake of her head. “Nobody would betray us like that. It was probably a man Alvin had sent, though. It sounds like the kind of thing he would do.”

Ryder was quiet for a moment, as if thinking about all of it some more, mulling over the information. Or maybe he disagreed with her on the dismissive way she approached the ‘spy’ assumption. Although he had less of a reason to believe the Berkians would be loyal, she thought, since he didn’t even know them. It was understandable why he’d not rule out this option.

And then he said, “Well, we can’t rescue them only to send them out to fight without any weapons. We’ll have to figure something out. Alvin will just put them back in prison if they escape like that. Or he might actually kill them then, which you might want to avoid.”

“That would be appreciated, yes,” she said dryly.

He chuckled. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out. I’m afraid I don’t have too much gold—especially not to buy weapons for a whole tribe. And I’m guessing you don’t have that kind of money on you, either. But… if there won’t actually be a raid to cover us up, we might just be able to get help from some dragons.”

“You want to use dragons anyway?”

“No. I want to ask dragons for their help,” he said, like it wasn’t the craziest thing Astrid had ever heard. “I’m not going to force a dragon into this fight. It’s not theirs, and they’ll have a lot of enemies to face if they come. Berk isn’t exactly dragon-friendly, after all. They’ll probably attack the dragons even after getting rescued by them.”

Astrid had to admit that was an apt description of her tribe, but she didn’t say anything, refusing to confirm it out loud. She got the feeling Ryder knew she was agreeing with him, anyway.

“Anyway, we should camp for the night,” he told her after several silent moments.

She glanced over her shoulder and noticed a small uninhabited island not too far from where they were. The world around them was turning dark. The light from the moon was dim at best thanks to the clouds still hovering thickly above them. It was probably a good idea for them to settle down somewhere on land for the night.

“What about your dragon friend?” she asked.

“Oh, Toothless should already be there,” he dismissed easily. “He’s probably waiting for us with a pile of fish. Oh, a fair warning—don’t touch his fish without his permission. He’ll blast you to bits.”

“That’s… comforting.”

She had the feeling the man was smiling at her from behind his helmet, but she couldn’t confirm it.

Notes:

I'm working on this fic with the movie's soundtrack in the background and while it's working out better than if I'd put a song to listen to, it's still not perfect.

See, I tend to lose my concentration because of music. I love music, and whenever there's a song I like, I sing along with it and can no longer do much else unless it's a thoughtless act. Which writing is, arguably, not. So I can't listen much to music while working. You'd think it wouldn't apply to music without lyrics, but my brain just goes: I can hum this soundtrack! Now there's a challenge! Plus, I try to detect certain parts in the music and my head is constantly trying to understand which part of the movie I'm listening to. I keep on nearly crying at certain bits, which is also unhelpful...

But I love the soundtrack and it's not too bad, so... on we go with the soundtrack and the writing and the struggles.

Also, I'm sorry if any planning regarding the overthrow of the Outcasts feels stupid - just gonna sit here and remind you guys I'm a terrible strategist. I'm creative in other ways. I guess. Kinda.

I should stop writing. Cya! :)

Chapter 5: Then...

Notes:

I know this fic is sorta about Hiccup and Astrid, but the best relationship and the one I care about the most in this fandom is the one between Hiccup and Toothless. I don't like it when Toothless is portrayed as mostly an animal or a pet. A smart one, yet mostly animalistic. In the first movie he was an animal that acted like a human. And the two other movies sort of undermined that by making him more animal than a person. I still loved the second movie, but mostly because of the bond between him and Hiccup that showed just how much he cared about Hiccup, okay?

So... I know this story's focus is mostly Astrid and Hiccup with Toothless as a secondary character, but every scene with him means a lot to me, so... Toothless and Hiccup *heart-eyes emoji* ^^

I should be working on an original book I wrote. Instead I'm working on this, another original HTTYD story I obviously haven't posted yet and a possible continuation to If I Stepped Down... because apparently I'm bored (and also can't concentrate on the things that could actually somewhat help me in life. Then again, nobody would read this book, so... would it actually help me? Food for thought.)

Continuation of this rant in the end notes.

Then…

Hiccup furrowed his brows while working on the sword handed to him by one of the Berkians so he could fix it after an unfortunate accident. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his tunic and hammered down on the hot metal, ignoring the loud clangs that echoed around his brain.

He tried not to think about the fact that his peers were currently training in the arena with their dragon souls, probably proving themselves to Gobber and Gothi in a way Hiccup could never accomplish, considering he had no dragon soul to try and handle.

That wasn’t even the main thing on Hiccup’s mind, though. While he couldn’t help but envy the other teens for having their dragon souls, which made them match every other Viking in Berk instead of standing out like him, Hiccup could get over that. He was more than used to having no dragon following him around or looking up at him from his freckled skin.

No, the most prominent worry that was currently occupying him was that look on Astrid’s face when she had told him they needed to talk.

It’d happened the day before, during dinner. Hiccup had sat alone at his own table, munching on his food while trying to ignore the jeers he was receiving from the other teens at their table. Gobber hadn’t been around, so he couldn’t make them stop—if he would have even bothered trying.

And then they’d all left, except for Astrid. She’d sent a look after the others, and then approached Hiccup’s table, which had stunned him into gawping at her openly, his spoon hovering somewhere between his mouth and his plate as he froze, brain struggling to process the fact that Astrid Hofferson was coming toward him.

She’d clearly been meaning to say something before she got rudely interrupted by Ruffnut, who’d poked her head back into the Great Hall, calling out for her to join the rest of them already. So instead of saying whatever it was that had been on her mind, Astrid had told Hiccup they needed to talk about something tomorrow, and just… left.

So now he was stuck working at the forge to pass the time, sweating both from the heat of the furnace and the stress of waiting for the unknown. He had no idea what Astrid wanted from him, but whatever it was couldn’t possibly be good, right? She never expressed any sort of interest in him. They used to be friends when they were much younger, but since then she’d only spoken to him when needed or when she had some sort of critique to throw in his face.

What did she want to talk about? Was she going to chew him out for not giving his all during dragon training? Because he was—he really, really was. It’s just that he had no experience with wielding weapons, and he was too weak and scrawny to manage to fight dragons any other way. He couldn’t stand his ground against these beasts because he was… he was just Hiccup.

But she’d already lashed out at his for not working hard enough. Several times. She’d made that point abundantly clear, making it rather obvious that she was less than impressed with him and his abysmal display of no talent against the scaly monsters in the arena. So why schedule another talk such as this when she could just keep on spitting the words in his face in front of the entire class?

And if what she had to say had nothing to do with dragon training… then Hiccup was truly lost. They didn’t have much in common, as far as he was aware. And he wasn’t going to delude himself into believing she might be sorry about treating him like he was either nonexistent or simply way beneath her—which he was, but it still hurt.

Heaving a little, Hiccup stopped hammering and nodded absently at the fixed sword. It looked much better now. Putting down the hammer, he went to go get a swig of water before stopping in his tracks, eyes widening impossibly at the sight of a black dragon sitting behind him, watching Hiccup with cautious eyes, tail swishing behind it slowly, like a cat’s.

He remembered this unnerving gaze. He remembered the black scales and the imposing presence that kept every single Berkian on their toes. He remembered being stared at by the same exact green eyes, pupils not quite narrow but also not too wide.

The intelligence in the dragon’s eyes caught Hiccup off guard once more. He couldn’t help but feel like he was staring at something that was more than just a mindless reptile. This creature looked at Hiccup like it was thinking, not simply following instincts. It was… it was conscious, aware and very much fascinated by Hiccup, for some reason.

“So…” said Hiccup after a long moment, his fingers twitching as he resisted the urge to turn around and run away. “You—er—you come here often?”

The Night Fury let out a grunt that was very clearly unimpressed with Hiccup’s choice of words. It seemed to be almost frustrated or disappointed with the pointless question. But considering the dragon truly appeared to understand the question in the first place, Hiccup figured it was huge news.

“I-I should, um, say thank you,” blabbered Hiccup, wringing his arms by his sides. “For stopping that Gronckle the other day, right? ‘Cause you… you made it stop before it could kill me. So… thanks.”

Head tipping slightly to the side, the Night Fury watched Hiccup, a warble emanating from deep within its scaly body. Hiccup tensed a little, but there was nothing threatening about the sound. It almost sounded like… it was accepting the gratitude. Which was an odd thing for a dragon to do, but Hiccup already found the Night Fury to be different, refreshing and intriguing. What’s one more thing to add to the list, right?

His heart stuttered fretfully when the dragon suddenly clambered to its feet, wings shuffling a little without spreading wide. It shook itself, as if stretching its body, and then hesitantly stepped closer to Hiccup, its green eyes watching the boy carefully the whole time.

And all Hiccup could do was stare and stand his ground, too afraid to move in case it angered the dragon. With his luck, Gobber would return to the forge and find the dead, scorched body of his apprentice on the floor after an unpleasant confrontation with this black dragon.

But there was no promise of pain in the dragon’s eyes. There was nothing threatening or menacing about it, apart from it being a Night Fury. It looked at Hiccup like it was afraid he might hurt it, which was… ridiculous. Hiccup was so incapable of violence, it was almost laughable.

He only flinched a little when the Night Fury sniffed the air around him, as if testing the water. But then he noticed the way the dragon’s pupils were slowly growing in size, widening more and more as it seemed to relax. It looked… friendly, almost. So different from the snarling, hissing and lethal beast every single Viking alive knew Night Furies to be.

“Whoa,” yelped Hiccup when the dragon nudged him with its snout, making him stumble back a step. He stared owlishly at the giant black head that kept on nuzzling him. “Do I smell like fish or something? W-what are you doing?”

The Night Fury pulled back and warbled again.

Hiccup furrowed his brows in confusion, trying to get to the bottom of the dragon’s behavior. Then he wetted his lips, shifted between his feet agitatedly, and finally gave in to the strange urge to hold out his hand.

He was a little worried the dragon might chew his hand off and make him end up like Gobber, with a hook for a hand for the rest of his life. But instead the reptile watched the hand with wariness and apprehension without moving. Its frills flicked, but it wasn’t backing away, nor was it attacking Hiccup.

An inch from the dragon’s snout, though, the Night Fury growled. Hiccup’s hand froze for a moment, then he retracted it. The dragon stopped and stared at him again, still looking curious to see what he would do next.

Searching these intelligent eyes, Hiccup chewed the inside of his cheek. What was he supposed to do? This was someone’s dragon soul. It wasn’t going to hurt him… probably. But what if it did? What if there was a reason nobody ever saw the human this dragon was attached to? What if everyone was mistaken and it wasn’t a dragon soul?

“What do you want?” murmured Hiccup. “What do you want me to do?”

The dragon only kept on watching him quietly, waiting.

With a gulp, Hiccup rolled his shoulders in preparation, then turned his head away from the Night Fury and held out his hand again, letting it hover between the two of them. It was probably insane of him, but something in him whispered this was what he needed to do; what this dragon wanted. A show of… of trust.

His breath hitched and he flinched minutely when slick scales pressed against his palm, warm to the touch. Hesitating for a second longer, Hiccup turned back to look at the dragon, finding it pressing its snout into Hiccup’s hand with its eyes closed peacefully. It was purring contentedly, as if finally happy with the turn of events.

“Hiccup?”

He tensed when Astrid’s voice came from the hatch at the front of the forge. The Night Fury’s eyes opened and its purrs stopped as it looked at Hiccup one last time before just… disappearing.

“Hiccup!” called Astrid again.

Mind reeling, he went to approach the hatch and see what Astrid wanted from him, but then he paused when something made the back of his hand itch. Glancing down, he expected to see some kind of bug, maybe, or a rash from something he couldn’t remember touching.

Instead, he found himself gawking in amazement and shock at the small tattoo of a familiar black dragon that was curling around itself on his skin, eyes closed as if it was taking a nap.

This was impossible. It was… it was impossible. The Night Fury was someone’s dragon soul, and Hiccup had no dragon soul. This couldn’t possibly mean what he thought it might mean!

“Are you in here?” said Astrid, this time sounding irritated.

Snapping out of his shock and pushing it away, Hiccup quickly tugged at the sleeve of his tunic to cover up the inexplicable sight of the dragon napping on his skin as if it was the most logical place to use for such a pastime. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but he didn’t feel like sharing it with anyone before he figured it out for himself.

And right now he had to find out what Astrid wanted to talk to him about—joy!

Notes:

My brain is foggy from iced-coffee. That's why I'm writing nonsense. I should shut up now but I also know if I stop writing this I'm gonna write the rest of this fic instead and I'm not sure I'm in the best headspace for that... 'cause I'm just rambling about... nothing. I should be rambling about how much I hate the live action movie. Which probably sounds ridiculous because it's basically an act-for-act of the original animation movie. In theory it should have worked for me just about the same, right?

(Spoilers? I guess?)

BUT - and it's a big but - the live action movie took out certain lines (and a whole freaking scene) and added other stuff instead... and it just didn't work anymore. Like, a lot of these lines were really important, okay? They showed the beginning and end of certain parts of the stories. They showed what the characters were like. And the live action ruined it. Not to mention Astrid. Not her actress not being a blonde - I didn't care about that as much as I cared about her just being annoying and insufferable. I barely forgave Astrid in the original movie; her only redeeming quality was that she mostly stayed out of Hiccup's way and let him be while the others went out of their way to mock him. Plus, she accepted Toothless relatively quickly. But in the live action movie... she joined in on the mockery and was generally unlikeable. I just wanted her to shut up.

Choosing to make her apologize to Toothless was a weird choice when in the original when she apologized she apoligized to Hiccup, which was what Toothless had been waiting for. He had nothing to do with her, he only showed up to protect Hiccup. In the live action movie, though, NO ONE APOLOGIZES TO HICCUP! Even Stoick apologizes to Toothless when he thinks Hiccup dies. What the hell? It was so annoying. Also, when they gave Hiccup's leadership lines to Astrid to show, I dunno, girl power? I didn't like it? I hated it? That was the point in the movie where I truly gave upcompletely. Half the point in the animation was to show that Hiccup had it in him to lead the village, and instead they gave it to Astrid? I don't care that she's a girl, let the main character have his arc!

Also - and that should be obvious after I mentioned Toothless and Hiccup are my favorite - when Hiccup is about to face the Monstrous Nightmare in the arena, I hate the choice to change their lines. In the original, as you may recall, Astrid uncertainly tries to wish him luck and Hiccup tells her that if anything goes wrong, she has to make sure nobody finds Toothless. Because, naturally, that's what he cares about. It's the only being in the movie who shows he doesn't care how much Hiccup messes up, Toothless loves him unconditionally. He's Hiccup's first and best friend. In the live action, though, Toothless isn't even mentioned there. Instead, he warns Astrid not to go down with the ship if anything goes wrong. Toothless isn't even on his mind, I guess. And, like, understandable - that dragon isn't as cute as the Toothless in the animation, although I can sorta forgive them for that too.

And then - and that makes me laugh from how much they messed that part up - Hiccup faces the Nightmare and Stoick startles it. We all know how it goes. But in the animation Toothless hears Hiccup's scream when it reaches him all the way to the cove. He startles and jumps into action because he knows Hiccup is in trouble and he wants to help him. Which is just about the most adorable thing in the world, I love them so much, oh my God.

In the live action... the Monstrous Nightmare roars at Hiccup, and the scene cuts to show Toothless's head perking up at the sound of the draconic roar... which is weird, because why should he care? It doesn't make much sense...

I'm not getting into the fact that the movie cut out a very important scene. That's a given. I was confused by it while watching the movie because it literally means the ending no longer makes much sense. But the ending of the movie annoyed me anyway with the Astrid thing and the awkward, little conversation with Stoick and Hiccup that wasn't as touching as the original one... so whatever.

(And the chemistry between the characters didn't work anymore. Also, showing the relationship between Snotlout and his dad from the show was a strange choice that's only purpose was to - I suppose - make me pity him? And I didn't? It didn't work in the show either. I don't pity people who behave badly because they have a sob story... sorry?)

Cya!

Chapter 6: Now...

Now…

Astrid couldn’t help but look all around every few minutes, anxiously scanning the area. Stormfly chirped at her in her mind, almost like a soothing sort of promise that she didn’t need to worry. But Astrid kept on looking all over the darkness that surrounded her and Ryder.

The eerie eyes of the Night Fury were watching her in clear bafflement, like it couldn’t understand why Astrid was this agitated. Similar to its rider, honestly, who watched her while tending to the fire he lit up between the two of them to keep them warm and make some food.

“You realize Toothless already scanned the island, right? It’s an uninhabited island so there shouldn’t be anyone around, anyway,” said Ryder when Astrid once again turned to look around. “You have nothing to worry about. There won’t be anyone ambushing us. And if there’s anyone approaching this area, Toothless will hear them and let us know.”

She sent the man a look, then shook her head impatiently. “I’m not worried about that.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

Biting her lip, she flicked the hair out of her eyes, then turned to watch as Ryder held a stick with two fish over the flames, turning them over and over and watching as they slowly got roasted. Her stomach growled at the sight of the food but she kept quiet and didn’t whine. She wasn’t going to complain to this stranger and appear weak.

Off to the side, the Night Fury inhaled another raw fish and gurgled contentedly, as if there was nothing better on this earth than raw, slimy fish. Astrid would argue, but she didn’t feel like annoying a very dangerous creature that might as well just blast her for disagreeing with it.

Focusing back on the masked man before her, she said, “I’m just looking for someone.”

He cocked his head to the side, lifting his gaze from the cooking fish. “I thought you were looking for me.”

“I was. But before that… I was looking for someone else.”

“Oh, yeah. You said that’s why you weren’t caught with the rest of Berk, right?” he said. “You were out, looking for someone. Who were you looking for? Why do you think they might be here of all places?”

Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t really expect to find him here,” she admitted. “I just don’t want to miss him because I didn’t bother searching thoroughly enough.”

Ryder turned the fish over again. “Who is it?”

“Just… a friend.”

“Did something happen to him?” he asked, and suddenly she noticed the way he straightened up, as if getting ready to scour the island along with her. “Who are you looking for? What happened?”

She looked down at the flickering flames. “No one knows. One day he just… wasn’t there anymore. No one saw him leave, no boat was missing. He just… vanished without a trace. His journals were gone, his little room in the forge was stripped down almost entirely. It… it looks like he ran away somehow, but how could he have disappeared like that without taking a boat, right?”

Ryder’s body turned a little stiff as she talked, like he was trying to digest the information and analyze it the best he could. She almost snorted at his doomed-to-fail attempt. She’s been trying to understand this mystery for a while now, and nothing was making any sense. Not yet.

Looking up from its fish, the Night Fury warbled softly at its rider, as if trying to understand what was wrong. Maybe it was interpreting the man’s rigid form as a sign of distress. Or maybe it could just tell something was off. She wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t going to comment on it as long as the Night Fury didn’t attack her for making its master mad or something.

“Maybe he took a dragon soul,” said Ryder slowly, as if he was testing the theory while it was coming out of his mouth. “Maybe he used them to get off the island undetected.”

Astrid groaned. “No one but you would be crazy enough to ride a dragon,” she said. “Besides, he had no dragon soul. He was the only one on the island without one. Well… Mildew didn’t have one, but no one’s surprised about that…”

“Oh,” Ryder said, and for a moment he turned to look at his dragon, as if exchanging silent words with the reptile. Then he turned back to Astrid. “Well, then, quite a mystery you’ve got there.”

She scoffed. “I wish it was less of one,” she said wryly, then eyed the man guardedly. “How do you know about dragon souls, anyway? Only Berkians have them, as far as I’m aware. And we don’t exactly spread the rumor around.”

The guy chuckled a little, but the sound was slightly nervous and strained. The fake quality of his voice faded away for a moment, and she found herself scrunching her eyebrows together and the raw, awkward sound he just let out. It made her brain itch and prickle insistently, like it was trying to tell her she was missing something.

But then he spoke up, once again deliberately distorting his own voice. “I’ve been around. I know about Berk to, um, some level. So I’ve heard and seen some dragon souls. Don’t worry, it’s not something a lot of people are aware of yet. At least, it’s nothing people find too intriguing. Not enough to discuss it randomly.”

She watched him for a moment longer, then sent another look around, squinting at the dark land and the vast sea. Nothing, still. She couldn’t see even a hint of Hiccup, which was frustrating, but what could she do? Not like she actually expected to find him there of all places.

A part of her was worried she may have told this stranger too much. After all, she had no reason to tell him about Hiccup at all. He was there to help her with rescuing Berk from the Outcasts—nothing more. But… but something about talking to an anonymous person made her feel safer. Maybe since she couldn’t see any sort of judgement aimed at her with this mask on his face.

Inside her head, Stormfly crooned. Astrid absentmindedly rubbed her stomach, where the dragon was currently residing.

“The moment Berk is free again, I’m going to look for him again. I can’t go back before,” she said in a low voice.

“Why is that?”

“Because the new heir of the chief wants to marry me, and there is no way in Hel I’m going to agree to it. I’d rather get lost at sea or die than actually be married to Snotlout. But I can’t say no without a valid reason that would prevent him from doing as he pleases; not without finding Hiccup first.”

Ryder glanced up at her once more, his shadowed eyes twinkling a little in the light of the fire. She still couldn’t understand what was going through his head, but she could almost hear the gears turning inside it as he seemed to ponder her words.

“Why would that help you?” he inquired after a while.

Astrid hesitated, then pulled at the thin string tied around her neck until the pendant at the end was fished out from underneath her shirt, dangling before her eyes. It wasn’t much, really. A piece of round metal that Hiccup had crafted, carving the emblem of a Nadder onto the surface in great detail.

“Because we’re already betrothed,” she said, showing the necklace to Ryder, who quietly stared at it.

She expected Ryder would react to this some more. She expected a gasp or a hum of acknowledgement at the very least. She expected… something. Instead, all she got was an offered stick with two roasted fish impaled on it.

“Hope you find him, then,” was all he said before turning to make himself his own meal, too.

Astrid stared at him for a moment, then dropped the necklace, allowing it to dangle freely for a change. The fish was flavorless, but it wasn’t all that surprising. She ate quietly, wondering what was going through the head of her companion, who seemed to be thinking hard about something, paying no attention to Astrid and only scratching his dragon’s head when it nuzzled him demandingly.

Well, at least it wasn’t a negative reaction, right?

Not that it really mattered what this stranger thought of her premature engagement to someone he hasn’t even met.

Chapter 7: Then...

Notes:

See, I'm all excited because I'm nearing the end of this story. But you're not really that close yet ><

Anyway, there you go. (Is it just me, or arethe Hiccup scenes more interesting? I like them more... that's probably not a good thing.)

Then…

“H-hey, Astrid,” he said distractedly, rubbing the back of his hand absentmindedly at the feeling of the dragon that resided there.

Hiccup nearly jumped out of his skin when a soft rumble echoed around his head. It wasn’t hard to dictate that it didn’t come from the outside but rather right from inside his own body. And it also wasn’t difficult to assess that this was the voice of the Night Fury, who was somehow… on his skin. Like a dragon soul.

He still wasn’t sure what to think or how to even try to interpret it. So instead he focused on the girl looking at him with a spark of irritation in her azure eyes. She was leaning on the counter, looking into the forge with her axe glinting in the sunlight on her back, making her look every bit as fierce as Hiccup knew her to be.

Next to her, eyeing Hiccup and chirping curiously, was Astrid’s dragon soul—Stormfly. She flapped her wings a little, shifting on the ground like a restless bird. Hiccup felt slightly unnerved under her intense gaze because it made him wonder if she could tell there was a dragon, um, bonded to him now.

Seriously, how did that even happen?

“Finally,” said Astrid. “Were you busy?”

“Um… j-just fixing up a sword,” he said with a forced grin. “Sorry, I was just, uh, engrossed in the work, I guess. O-or something like that. I didn’t… I didn’t hear you at first.”

She narrowed her eyes a little, then shrugged, accepting his excuse. Hiccup tried not to be too obvious as he heaved a sigh of relief. He wasn’t sure what he would have done had she pressed him some more. Gods, she could have heard the Night Fury’s voice from the back. Then it would have been absolutely impossible to come up with a way to explain it without telling her the truth.

And despite knowing that having a dragon soul was a good thing, Hiccup couldn’t help but feel like… maybe he should keep this to himself for now. He wasn’t sure how people would react to him suddenly having one. What if they thought he stole the dragon somehow? Even though he hadn’t done anything wrong, as far as he was concerned. People were allowed to touch other people’s dragon souls, right?

“Well, I’ll let you get back to your sword in a minute,” she said. “I just needed to ask for a favor.”

“Do you need to get your axe sharpened again?”

“No.” She blinked and grazed the handle of the axe thoughtlessly. “Okay, maybe. But that’s not it. I can do that another day. I need you to ask me to marry you.”

Hiccup stared at her blankly. He scratched his hand again, feeling the peculiar itch going up his arm. He could imagine the Night Fury was travelling over his skin, exploring the area. At least it didn’t feel like it was clawing its way forward with its sharp claws, right? That would have been more than unpleasant.

“Y-you what?” he said.

Astrid frowned. “Ask me to marry you.”

He felt his face growing hot under her intense glower. She looked completely serious, but Hiccup just couldn’t take her seriously when she was saying something this absurd and outlandish. It was too ridiculous to be true. He even looked around to try and spot Snotlout or the twins snickering in some hiding spot, enjoying the show.

“Ha-ha, yeah, very funny,” he said dryly. “Did you actually want something, or—”

“I’m serious!” she said, slamming her hand on the counter and startling Hiccup. Next to her, Stormfly fluttered her wings anxiously, squawking in distress. “Look, we both know one day Snotlout is going to demand my hand in marriage, and everyone will expect me to say yes. I won’t really have a choice in the matter. So I need to make sure he can’t do it. I need to have a good enough reason to decline.”

Hiccup rubbed his shoulder. “And you couldn’t ask Fishlegs because…”

“Because his family doesn’t have as much power as Snotlout’s. If Snotlout asks me to marry him, he’ll have the right to challenge him for my hand because he outranks him. He’s the nephew of the chief. You, on the other hand, will outrank him. He won’t be able to do anything. Nobody would.”

“B-but… but you don’t want to marry me, either,” he spluttered.

Why was he arguing? He couldn’t even understand himself. He had an enormous crush on Astrid, and here she was, asking to be betrothed to him, only for him to question and try to dissuade her. What the heck was wrong with him? He was supposed to jump at the opportunity, embrace it tightly with both hands and never let go.

He really was crazy.

The Night Fury let out a chortle in his mind. Great, even the dragon was laughing at him.

“No,” said Astrid flippantly. “I don’t really want to marry at all, but if I have to make a choice, you’re the better option.”

Ouch.

“Plus,” she continued obliviously, “I can be promised to you without you forcing me to marry you. Then Snotlout won’t be able to touch me, and—”

“I won’t be able to marry anyone else but you,” he cut her off with a frown. “Astrid, you may not want to get married someday, but… I do. I want to find someone I love”—You, he wanted to say—“and marry her. I don’t… I don’t want this option taken from me. And as flattering as it is to know that I’m a step-up from Snotlout, I don’t really feel all that good knowing you want to do it out of convenience.”

She stared at him, apparently speechless. Her brows were drawn together as she observed him, as if trying to see a hidden reason that he wasn’t sharing with her. But there wasn’t one. He was turning down Astrid Hofferson’s request—something he would have jumped at any other time—because… it didn’t feel right. He didn’t want to be her scapegoat. Or free card. He wanted to mean something to someone.

Even if that someone would end up not being Astrid, unfortunately.

“You’re… you’re saying no?” she said after a while, sounding incredulous and unsure—which was uncharacteristic for Astrid.

Another warble echoed in his mind. Hiccup thought it sounded sympathetic, like the Night Fury could tell how Hiccup felt about this conversation and wanted to show he was there for him. It was so strange, it made the whole thing just a tad bit less awful, because Hiccup’s mind wandered toward the hidden dragon once more, distracting him from the girl before him.

“Yes,” he said, heart cracking a little.

For another heartbeat Astrid kept on standing there with Stormfly, the two of them looking at Hiccup like he was an alien. Or, well, Astrid looked at him like that. Stormfly still looked mostly curious, peering down at Hiccup as if to try and see past his tunic and detect the Night Fury on his shoulder.

And then Astrid scowled, squared her shoulders and marched away, her dragon chirping good-bye and following her.

Hiccup stared after them, then collapsed against the counter bonelessly.

“What did I just do?” he moaned to no one in particular.

The dragon crooned at him reassuringly.

Notes:

Nothing left to do but smile and pretend I'm not cackling, so.

Cya! :)

Chapter 8: Now...

Now…

“No way.”

“Oh, come on, Astrid, if you want this to work—”

“I’m not doing it. Forget it!”

“—we need to make sure you’re comfortable around dragons—”

“I’m comfortable around dragons! I don’t need to prove—”

“You are not comfortable around them. The only one you’re okay with is your dragon soul, and she stays on your skin most of the time too, so it doesn’t count for much. Just give it a chance.”

She glared at Ryder, her arms crossed defiantly over her chest as she ignored the Night Fury standing behind the man, eyeing her with disdain that made her feel judged despite knowing she was in the right here.

Her eyes felt itchy after a night of tossing and turning, never sleeping quite well. She couldn’t help it—she was around a stranger and his dragon; she would have been remiss had she not been wary around the two of them. Stormfly, for some reason, had no problem with the two of them, falling asleep with ease, but Astrid couldn’t help but keep an eye on the sleeping form of Ryder most of the night, just to make sure he wasn’t stepping out of line.

And now, with all her weariness and anxiety over her tribe’s predicament, she found herself at the end of her rope, facing Ryder and his Night Fury, both of whom seemed to want her to try to bond with a wild dragon to make sure she’d be able to go through with their plan to save Berk. Which was crazy because wild dragons were wild. They were dangerous, merciless, bloodthirsty beasts. Befriending one was insane and impossible.

“Forget it,” she gritted out. “I’m not crazy enough for something like that.”

Ryder rolled his head back in exasperation. “Not crazy enough to befriend a wild dragon, yet you had no problem searching a stranger riding a Night Fury,” he grumbled. “Are you even hearing yourself right now? You sound insane.”

“Are you hearing yourself?”

He groaned and dragged a hand down his masked face. “Let’s compromise, okay? You don’t have to face anything like a Gronckle or a Timberjack. Terrible Terrors are small and relatively not as life-threatening, right? You can toss one aside if you really do feel like you can’t stand it anymore, but they’re also easily befriended. And they’re literally crawling all over the place so it’s not difficult to find them.”

She gestured around at their isolated island. “We haven’t seen a sign for any other dragon on this island apart from ours.”

“I know a place where there are a lot of Terror packs nearby. It’s on the way to Berk and not too far from here.”

Astrid brought her hand up and started fiddling with the pendant hanging from her neck, her lips pressing together as she concentrated on the familiar sensation of Stormfly prancing around her lower back, stretching her legs a little. She wouldn’t let a Terror hurt her human, she knew, so the risk was very small. But the idea of going against every instinct that had been drilled into her since childhood still made her skin crawl.

“Just one Terror?” she said skeptically.

“One Terror,” he confirmed. “Don’t tell me one of the smallest dragon species scares you.”

She bristled at his taunting voice but quickly squashed the feeling. He was doing that on purpose, she knew. She had no idea how he figured out the best way to get her to do something was to challenge her pride, but he did and he was using it against her, the jerk. Her fingers gripped the pendant tightly as she held herself back from punching him for this dirty trick.

Still, it worked.

“Fine,” she bit out, whirling around and beginning to stop toward the shoreline and her boat. “One Terror, just to show you that I will be perfectly fine during the execution of this plan, then we’re heading straight toward Berk.”

He fell into step beside her. “Deal.”

Toothless rumbled cheerily, as if detecting the good mood of his rider. Astrid side-eyed him, her eyebrows furrowing a little.

Once again Ryder sent Toothless ahead of them, the dragon flying way up above the ocean, his form soon distorted by the clouds. Astrid squinted up at him for a moment too long, then realized Ryder was already standing in the boat, holding out his hand to help her step inside. She caught it slightly awkwardly, then sat down and silently joined him in rowing in the direction of the island he’d mentioned.

About five minutes into their journey, she said, “You know, we had a Night Fury back in Berk.”

He glanced at her before focusing on his oar again. “Oh, yeah?”

“It was someone’s dragon soul but we never really figured out which person it belonged to,” she added. “It used to just appear from time to time, whenever it felt like it. It was never seen around one specific person but… it was obviously a dragon soul. They feel different. We could just tell.”

“Sure.”

“We haven’t spotted it in a while, though. I don’t think I’ve seen that Night Fury for a couple of years.”

Ryder didn’t say anything this time. He just kept on rowing. He leaned his head back for a few seconds to try and spot Toothless, though, his eyes squinting up at the cloudy sky from behind his helmet. Astrid watched him, an idea presenting itself to her, pestering her insistently.

“Where did you find Toothless?” she asked.

The man huffed a little and looked at her. “Actually, he found me. He saved my life and then never really left.”

She hummed. “I’ve never seen a Night Fury other than the one in Berk, you know. I kind of started thinking they went extinct or something.” After a brief pause, she added, “Your dragon kind of reminds me of that Night Fury, actually. Granted, I only saw it a couple of times and never from up close, but…”

She trailed off once she noticed Ryder’s shoulders tensing a little. Her lips quirked up smugly as she mentally patted herself on the back. Apparently her theory wasn’t utterly false, then. Not if Ryder reacted to her words like they were unnerving and stressing him out. Why would he react this way if he didn’t know anything about what she was trying to insinuate, after all?

Apparently his mask was great for covering his face but not that great when it came to hiding his reactions.

“It’s the same dragon, isn’t it?” she said.

“Er…” Ryder turned his head all around, as if physically searching for a way out of the corner Astrid had backed him into. Then his shoulders slumped and he muttered, “Y-yeah, okay, yes. That’s Toothless, you’re right.”

Her dedication to rowing slipped a little as she eagerly leaned closer to Ryder. “You’re a Berkian.”

He didn’t respond.

“Is that why you’re changing your voice? Worried I might recognize you?” she pressed. Before he could even try to answer, she added, “Do you recognize me?”

With a sigh, he said, “Astrid Hofferson, the best warrior among your age group. Who hasn’t heard about you? Are you asking if I’ve been living under a rock?” He was still using a fake voice, which was frustrating but Astrid didn’t comment on it. “Yes, I’ve heard about you. No, it doesn’t mean I’m gonna suddenly tell you who I am.”

She pouted. “Killjoy.”

He let out an amused snort.

They kept on rowing silently. Astrid racked her brain, trying to recall someone from back home who could possibly be the man sitting across from her. But she hasn’t even heard his actual voice, hasn’t seen his face, has barely gotten a glimpse of the color of his eyes. How was she supposed to know who he was? Not like she knew who the mysterious Night Fury from Berk had belonged to even before making the connection just now.

Stormfly slowly made her way from her back to her elbow, her wings flapping excitedly, almost mockingly. It made Astrid wonder if she’d been aware of Ryder being a Berkian all along. Maybe that was why she hadn’t reacted much to his presence around—she knew they could trust him, as much as a masked man from Berk could be trusted. At least he grew up around the same people and culture as the one Astrid was familiar with.

“You said you’ve been travelling, right? That’s what I managed to gather from all the stories going around,” she said after a while.

Ryder turned to look at her once more. “Sure…”

“And if you’re originally from Berk… that means you know Hiccup, right? Everyone back home knew Hiccup.”

He looked back at his oar. “R-right.”

Astrid’s mouth formed a straight line. “So you would have recognized him had your paths crossed.” She waited, but when he didn’t say anything, she pressed, “You would have told me if you knew where he was right now, right?”

“W-well, then I would have needed to ask for some kind of payment for the extra bit of help,” he babbled. “That’s not exactly what I agreed to do. And—and for the record, finding people isn’t really—it’s not something I do anyway. Toothless isn’t a tracker so it’s not one of our specialties—”

“Ryder,” she cut him off sharply, “you would have told me, right?”

His eyes flickered in the direction of her necklace and she had to fight the urge to shove it back under her shirt. Then he looked up and she held his gaze, unwavering. She needed to be sure; needed to hear from him that he truly couldn’t help her in her search to find Hiccup—

“Right,” he said.

His eyes were green, her mind registered dully as disappointment and frustration smacked her in the face. They reminded her of Hiccup’s eyes, which wasn’t helpful in any way. It only made her want to see her friend’s eyes again—preferably twinkling mischievously with a new idea in mind.

“I’m sorry,” Ryder offered lamely.

Astrid cast her gaze across the ocean. Her heart felt heavier all of a sudden, but she pushed through it. She had a mission ahead of her and she needed to focus on it. Hiccup could wait a little while longer. Once everyone else was safe; once Berk was free of the Outcasts… then she’d be able to resume her search, with or without help.

Chapter 9: Then...

Then…

He was sitting outside the kill ring, watching as the other teens worked with the dragon souls and cringing at the loud shouts of everyone as they desperately tried to get their dragons to listen to them. Which basically meant that to every human shout a dragon responded with a loud screech or roar. Or, in Snotlout’s case, a burst of flames and the shriek of pain from the teen as he rushed toward a bucket of water to de-flame himself.

Gobber walked around them all and twirled his moustache with his hook, Grump watching it all from his perch nearby, body slumped against the floor of the arena, looking like he wasn’t going to move from that spot no matter what Gobber shouted at him. Honestly, Hiccup found it slightly amusing to think that the instructor of dragon training was someone whose dragon hardly ever listened to him.

His hand absently scratched the fabric of his tunic over one of his ribs, where the Night Fury’s tattoo was. Hiccup couldn’t see him, but he was pretty sure the dragon was walking in circles just to irritate him, taunting him in order to get a reaction from his human.

His human, because after much consideration Hiccup had come to the inevitable conclusion that the Night Fury was probably his dragon soul. He must have been his dragon soul all along, yet instead of residing somewhere on Hiccup’s skin, it had chosen to roam around Berk freely, risking both their lives and making Hiccup stand out. Maybe he was just determined to embarrass him to death—it was a dragon, Hiccup assumed he couldn’t possibly understand why it was acting the way that it was.

He. He was.

A chill ran down his spine and made Hiccup straighten up when he realized Astrid’s piercing blue eyes were watching him from down below. She was facing her preening Deadly Nadder—who was currently busy ignoring the girl entirely in favor of pruning and squawking. But Astrid didn’t seem to notice, instead glaring up at Hiccup with narrowed eyes and her bangs falling into them. She flicked her head a little to fix that but didn’t break eye contact.

Was he supposed to feel this crushing guilt every time she looked at him now? He couldn’t stop doubting his own decision to turn her down the other day. He thought he’d made the right choice, but it didn’t sit right with him. Every time he attempted to imagine a future in which Astrid was married to Snotlout, Hiccup found himself shuddering and pushing the mental image away. It was just too horrible.

But was he actually supposed to give up on his own future to make sure Astrid didn’t end up bound to someone like his cousin? Well, it wasn’t like his chances of finding someone who would agree to marry him were that high—especially when he couldn’t bring himself to imagine himself getting over his current crush—but if he were to agree to Astrid’s plan, he would seal his future for good. He wouldn’t be able to even try to look for someone else if he ever felt like it.

The Night Fury crooned softly in his mind; a reassuring sound, like a reminder that Hiccup was no longer alone.

He stopped scratching his tunic and instead pressed his palm over the dragon in silent gratitude.

For a moment Astrid glared at him angrily, clearly still frustrated with him for the way he’d turned her down. But then her posture mollified a little and her expression softened. She was pretty far away from where he was sitting, but he thought he could see her lips forming the words: It’s okay, I get it. Which didn’t make him feel much better, but Astrid not being furious with him was a slight improvement, right?

Up until Snotlout came bounding toward her, loud and arrogant, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and smugly saying something about how she didn’t need to worry about training her dragon because she would clearly get it soon enough if she let him help her a bit. Astrid turned to scowl at him, her eyebrow arching at the sight of his smoking clothes.

When he opened his mouth to say something more, Astrid grabbed his wrist and twisted just enough to make Snotlout whine in pain. He stumbled away from her, clutching his wrist to his chest with as much dignity as he could muster. Hiccup could almost imagine the tears prickling at his eyes, trying to slip out. It brought a small smile to his face.

Then he realized this was what was awaiting Astrid in the future—the rest of her life with Snotlout there to make her uncomfortable and annoyed, forcing her to retaliate physically because it was the only thing that seemed to get the guy back away for small periods of time.

“Hey, muttonhead!” called Gobber. “Yer dragon is out o’ control. Get back in ‘ere!”

Hiccup shook his head and got up. He turned his back on the trainees and quickly scrambled away from Berk and into the forest. He had no real destination in mind—all he knew was that he wanted to put some distance between him and the others in order to think more clearly. Or maybe he was trying to push his wandering thoughts out of his head for a little while. He wasn’t sure, honestly.

A couple of minutes into his trek through the woods, the Night Fury materialized next to him, scaring Hiccup half to death. While he was busy pressing a hand over his racing heart that was trying to beat right out of his chest, the dragon started bouncing around excitedly, bounding ahead a little before glancing back at Hiccup, as if telling him to follow.

Assuming the Night Fury wasn’t planning on doing anything worse than giving him a heart attack, Hiccup obliged.

After years of escaping into the forest to get away from the villagers and their jeers, Hiccup had been convinced he knew the place like the back of his hand. Which was why he was flabbergasted and shocked to find a cove on the island—a peaceful, hidden place he’s never stumbled upon before. But the Night Fury seemed to be familiar with it because he glided down there with practiced ease, looking remarkably at home down there.

Peering down at him, Hiccup’s lips tugged up a little before he searched for a way for him to join him in there. It took a little longer since Hiccup couldn’t just spread his wings and fly, but eventually he managed to find an opening and a way to climb down into the cove. Once his feet touched the ground, he turned around and found the dragon lounging in a patch of sunny grass nearby, peeking a catlike eye to watch as Hiccup approached him.

“Is this where you’ve been all this time?” Hiccup asked in wonder. “All the time you’d spent away from Berk, you’ve been here?”

The dragon warbled what sounded like a confirmation, wings shifting a bit.

Hiccup hesitated for a brief moment, then sat down and leaned his back against the Night Fury. The only response it earned him was a low rumble that made Hiccup’s body vibrate a little. Although there was nothing upset or wary about it—the black dragon sounded almost content, like he was purring.

“Are you really my dragon soul?”

The Night Fury chirped, almost like he was mocking Hiccup for taking this long to come to this realization.

“H-hey, you can’t blame me for being confused about all this,” he said defensively. “You haven’t exactly been acting like the other dragon souls around here, you know. Everyone else grew up with them and only saw them in their full size years later. I only ever saw you—er—prancing around like this”—he gestured at the dragon with his hand—“so it’s not my fault for never making the connection, all right? And you—you—you haven’t exactly been around me that much before now.”

This time the black dragon’s reaction sounded more like an apologetic whine. Hiccup considered whether it’d be a good idea to try and rub his snout comfortingly or not. Then he decided to just go with his gut feeling and give it a try. He was relieved when the Night Fury purred again, nudging his hand encouragingly.

With a mirthful snort, Hiccup mumbled, “Guess you’ve been really fond of never showing yourself. Even to me.”

The Night Fury warbled back at him, tail swishing behind him twice before he brought it up and around Hiccup, almost protectively. It brought a smile to Hiccup’s face.

“W-well, I guess I’m glad you’re here now. Better late than never, right?” He scrunched up his nose. “Actually, I’m not sure whether having a dragon soul is the kind of thing that’s better to have than not, but… you seem okay. We can—we can get along, can’t we? I just need to figure out what to call you. And how to tell my dad and—and everyone else that you’re my dragon soul. That’s gonna be a fun conversation…”

He frowned at the memory of the other teens training with their dragon souls under Gobber’s watchful eye. They’ve been yelling ‘til their throats turned sore. That has always been the way Vikings dealt with their dragon souls because they were beasts that were required to be put in their place by their humans. Gobber’s words—not his.

But… but nothing about the Night Fury’s behavior indicated he was a wild beast that needed to be yelled at to be put in line. Actually, so far he’s been skittish yet friendly. He hasn’t hurt anyone or anything, hasn’t done anything wrong. He’d protected Hiccup without any prompting when the Gronckle had gone after him. If anything, he’s been acting the way the Vikings around Berk always wanted the dragon souls to act, but while they had varying levels of success after years of training their dragons, the Night Fury was seemingly as well-behaved as could be, albeit very elusive.

Maybe they could find a different way that would work better for them, Hiccup thought. But until he knew for sure that a different method could actually work, maybe he’d better keep his dragon soul’s existence to himself.

Or maybe he just wanted an excuse to spend some time away from everyone else, with their mockery and contempt, and instead get to know this dragon who seemed to genuinely enjoy Hiccup’s presence. Yeah, that was probably it.

Chapter 10: Now...

Now…

The sound of Toothless roaring made Astrid startle and Ryder look upward, his eyes narrowing behind his helmet.

“Your dragon,” he said without looking at her. “Astrid, Stormfly should join Toothless, at least for a while.”

She furrowed her brows and covered the mark of her dragon on the back of her hand. Even while knowing the man sitting beside her on the boat was from Berk and knew exactly who she was, Astrid couldn’t help but find her insides coiling at him using Stormfly’s name so casually, like it was common knowledge. She hadn’t told him what her dragon soul’s name was, yet he knew it. He knew more about her than she did about him, which was unnerving and put her on edge.

Still, she ploughed on.

“Why?” she demanded.

He finally tore his gaze away from the sky to look at her. “We’re nearing the area around the nest. The queen’s call is stronger around here, so it’s harder for the dragons to resist, and that includes dragon souls. The safest bet is to let them fly around to stay out of the queen’s grasp. Toothless knows this—he’ll guide Stormfly so she makes it out safely.”

“What queen?”

“The one at their nest. I told you Toothless and I were on our way to try and stop the raids. We were going to kill her.”

Her grip on her hand tightened a little at the news. “But… but what if something happens to them when we’re not around to—”

“Toothless knows how best to avoid the queen’s immediate range,” said Ryder, his voice urgent yet compassionate. “He’s not gonna let anything happen to your dragon, Astrid. He’s gonna make sure they both make it to Berk safely. Please, trust me.”

She gulped at the sincerity in his voice—no matter how distorted it was. With her heart pounding, Astrid mentally poked at Stormfly, silently asking her if she’d like to join Toothless and go through with this. The ease with which the Nadder accepted the plan, popping up in the air beside Astrid with her wings flapping to keep her above the water, made Astrid once more question everything she knew about Ryder. How come he and his Night Fury had such an effect on her dragon? How come Stormfly trusted them both as much as she did? Who was he?

Even more shocking—instead of instantly flying upward to catch up with Toothless, Stormfly cooed and chirped at Ryder, her voice fonder than Astrid had expected it to be while interacting with a stranger. Which, once again, made her wonder how much of a stranger he actually was in the eyes of her dragon.

The man chuckled a little and reached out a hand to caress the Nadder’s snout, making her preen and trill happily before she finally pulled away and shot up to catch up with the black dragon soaring above them.

Biting her lip, Astrid kept on rowing silently for a minute, then turned to Ryder sharply and asked, “What’s the deal with that queen, then?”

“Huh?”

“The queen. The one in the nest. You said you and your dragon were on your way to kill her before I flagged you down. So what’s the deal? How’d you find out about her? What’s her deal?”

He let out a long exhale. “O-oh, man. That’s—that’s a long story.”

Astrid blinked at him expectantly.

“Imagine a mountain with eyes, teeth, legs and wings,” he said eventually. “One that breathes fire and has no mercy.”

“Dragons don’t have mercy,” she countered, because that was all she could focus on when her brain was struggling to picture such a dragon.

“Correction—the queen doesn’t have mercy, and the dragons she controls are bound to her, they can’t do anything against her will. They have to obey her orders, and so they attack human villages in order to give her food. If they don’t, she eats them. I saw it happen. She—she snatched a Gronckle and a Zippleback out of the air and gulped them down.”

Astrid shook her head. “That’s…”

Ryder’s eyes met hers, the intensity in them making Astrid reel back a tad. “If you pay attention to the dragons who raid Berk—really pay attention to them instead of swinging your axe at them—you’ll see it. They’re starving, they’re hurt, they’re desperate. That’s why dragon souls look so dazed after raids. The queen’s reach expands to get them to do her bidding, and then they snap out of it once the raid is over. None of it is their fault, they’re as much the victims in all of this as the people they attack.”

Frowning, Astrid’s shoulders hunched as a memory sprang into her mind—a memory of Hiccup standing in the kill ring during training, holding his shield uncertainly while looking around at the scoffing, skeptical looks of his peers and Gobber. The way he’d timidly brought it up, spoken about something that made them all snort incredulously since of course Hiccup of all people would come up with such a bizarre and ludicrous idea.

“Like a beehive,” she mumbled, one of her hand rubbing the pendant hanging from her neck. “They’re the workers and she’s their queen…”

“Exactly.”

Guilt filled her lungs. “Hiccup tried to bring up this possibility once. We laughed at him.”

“Well, it is kind of outlandish.”

She squinted down at her feet. “How could he have even thought of it? Do you think he’d found the nest too, somehow? That maybe he actually knew this was the case, like you?”

The man was quiet for several moments, then he asked, “Only a dragon can find the nest. How would he have found it?”

Astrid shook her head. “I guess it’s impossible… not when he didn’t have a dragon soul. And he may have been a little crazy, but I don’t think anyone back on Berk is crazy enough to fly on the back of a dragon. No offence.”

“None taken,” he said lightly. “I get it—it’s not for everyone. Although it’s the best experience. Kind of a shame so many people can go through it and—and choose not to. You have no idea what you’re missing out on, m’la—Astrid.”

“I’m fine with both my feet on the ground, thank you very much. But if I ever lose my mind, I’ll call you.”

“I answer to dragon calls,” he joked.

She hoped he was joking.

Giving him a sidelong look, Astrid chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully then said, “Can you show me?”

“How to make dragon calls?”

“The queen, you muttonhead.”

He froze. “You want—you want to see the queen? W-why?”

Astrid rolled her shoulders uneasily. “I guess it’s just one of those things you can’t just wrap your head around unless you see it with your own two eyes. Come on, a dragon the size of a mountain? You’ve got to admit it sounds absurd. You know what they say—seeing is believing. And if this monster really does exist, I want to see it with my own two eyes, then report to the chief.”

Ryder turned to face straight ahead. “That’s a really bad idea.”

“What? But—”

“Listen to me, Astrid—if you told Da—the chief that you know where the dragon’s nest is and that there’s a giant monstrous dragon there that would kill everyone on Berk, he’d hear the first part of what you have to say and ignore the warning. He has this… this problem with listening to other people. Trust me, if you bring it up, he’d send half of Berk or more over to the nest and they’d all die.”

“An army of Vikings would die by the queen’s hand, but you and your Night Fury would be able to kill it? Are you even hearing yourself?”

He shook his head from side to side. “I don’t know that we’ll make it,” he said honestly. “Toothless and I kept on postponing this again and again because no plan ever came close to being good enough. I kept on coming up with ideas and scraping them. But the thing is… people keep on getting hurt. Dragons keep on getting hurt. It’s a cycle that won’t reach an end until the queen is dead, so we have to at least give it a try. We don’t have any other option here. Not unless we want to let the war continue.”

“But you won’t accept the help of an entire tribe,” she said flatly.

“I would—if their leader wasn’t the type to ignore warnings and throw his people into the fire obliviously, believing they were invincible. Look, I’d love the help, but the only chance of getting past the queen is by riding a dragon. Do you have any dragon riders back on Berk?”

Astrid scowled at him.

Ryder’s eyes crinkled. “That’s what I thought.”

She scowled some more.

“I still want to see that queen,” she told him after a long pause.

He groaned and threw his head back in exasperation.

Notes:

And now - an unnecessary rant from someone who isn't actually called Luna (I love the moon. I love space in general) because I just wrote a random line that reminded me of that:

My parents and I went on a trip to one of the Nordic countries. I remember two things vividly:

1. Since I was too busy having a meltdown on our first night there, I missed it, but then the next morning we went outside in the morning and saw the sunrise. It was beautiful, so we hurriedly took photos, then realized we could have taken our time because it lasted just about forever. Same with the sunset. Seriously breathtaking, but also so long, you could stare at it and waste half your day wondering why the sun is moving so slowly.

2. I come from a country that's... pretty warm. We flew there when it was getting warm, at the end of Winter, so finding warm clothes was even more difficult than it would have been. We had to find warm clothes that would be good enough for the cold there, which... not a lot of shops sell since there's no need for that here even during the coldest bits of Winter. Still, we found everything we needed; we were prepared.

An important note: I hate warm weather, I love the cold. That's why I joined this trip, actually. I wanted to see what it was like over there. Another thing to know: even during Summer, my hands and feet tend to be much cooler than the rest of my body, which isn't much of a problem here. It is a problem when you fly to a country where your fingers can literally freeze. So that entire trip my body was warm enough except for my hands and feet. People told me to move my fingers and toes, hold heating pads and whatnot. I did everything and still found myself worried my fingers might fall off. I remember having to take my gloves off one time while we were outside. Then I went to pull them back on but I couldn't move my fingers, they were incapable of any type of function. My mom had to pull the glove on for me. I swear, I was the only one who struggled with that in our group. It sucked but... I loved it there and I still love the cold. Sue me.

And with that, I bid you a fond farewell until next time :)

Chapter 11: Then...

Notes:

Migraine. A mild one, but one nonetheless. Why in the world do pills do nothing to help with that? I ask you, why do none of the pills I have affect my headaches? My body doesn't like feeling well, I swear to the gods. Pick whichever one you prefer, they're all in on this joke.

And on that happy note... enjoy ><

Then…

Hiccup wiped his hands on his fur vest, looking awkwardly at the stunned faces of his peers and Gobber who were standing across from him, gaping at the closed pen of the Zippleback. And while he couldn’t really blame them for being shocked at his astonishing success at chasing the two-headed dragon back into its cage, Hiccup cringed at the knowledge that the only reason he’d made it was because of the eel Toothless had refused to consume earlier on.

Berk generally didn’t have many eels. Catching one was rarer than catching other type of fish. Which must have been the only explanation as to how no other Viking around the island had discovered before today that dragons were frightened of the striped marine life. It was curious and kind of funny, but also tremendously useful while dealing with dragons. Case in point—Hiccup would have had his face blown by the Zippleback had he not had the eel with him.

With a forced smile straining his face, Hiccup said, “Right, yeah. So… are—are we done? ‘Cause I’ve gotta—I have a lot to—I’m just gonna…” he gestured vaguely with his hands, then rushed out of there.

Toothless chortled in his brain like the traitor that he was.

Bad dragon, Hiccup thought fondly.

The Night Fury gurgled back, his paws scratching lightly against Hiccup’s calf.

The feeling of something on his skin was taking some getting used to. He still found himself hyperaware of where the dragon was on his body every time Toothless decided to occupy his skin rather than go out on his own. After fifteen years of not experiencing such a common phenomenon on Berk, Hiccup figured he couldn’t be blamed for reacting to the dragon’s prickling presence on his skin, unlike the others his age who’d gotten used to the sensation over the years.

He thought he’d be more annoyed and irritated with Toothless for leaving him hanging like that for years, believing he didn’t even have a dragon soul of his own and making him suffer through the jeers of the Berkians. But instead all Hiccup could feel was content and happy at finally having Toothless there.

Having him around was nothing like Hiccup had assumed having a dragon soul would be like. Everyone else always treated the dragon souls as these pets they couldn’t get rid of. Things that had to be looked after but weren’t really meaningful or important. They were dismissive of the dragons, mostly ignoring them—and if they weren’t ignoring them, they were yelling at them to get them to obey orders.

But the more time Hiccup spent around Toothless, the more abundantly clear it became to him that unlike he was led to believe, his dragon soul wasn’t an unwanted presence by his side or a threat just waiting to be revealed. He wasn’t a malicious beast on the verge of snapping or something to be wary of.

Toothless was playful and kind and thoughtful (although Hiccup had to talk to him about how humans weren’t that fond of regurgitated raw fish). He was friendly and pleasant and nonjudgmental. He was intelligent and snarky and—and—and Hiccup couldn’t believe he’d managed to live fifteen years without his companionship.

While everyone else in Berk—including his own father—always admonished, berated and scolded him for his mistakes, Toothless didn’t seem to mind it whenever Hiccup did something that didn’t quite worked out. Instead, the dragon would nudge him eagerly, as if telling Hiccup to try again.

The Berkians always reacted to Hiccup’s sarcasm with either bafflement or exasperation and frustration, but every time Hiccup snarked at Toothless—almost without fail—the dragon would adopt this hooded, unimpressed expression, then proceed to warble and burble in this distinctly sardonic tone to match Hiccup’s. The first time he’d done it, Hiccup had been so surprised, he stumbled straight into the lake in the cove, then splashed water in Toothless’s face to get him to stop laughing at him.

Hiccup wasn’t sure how exactly it happened, but he found himself enjoying his dragon soul’s company more than he did other people’s. For one brief day he’d had lingering reservations regarding it, but then he got over it, forced to admit that as absurd as it was, his best friend was, apparently, a Night Fury. Gods, his dad would probably have an aneurism if he ever heard about it.

Honestly, Hiccup was just trying hard not to think about what it meant about Berk and the way people have been treating him that a dragon was the living being he was closest to.

“Hiccup!”

His sprint toward the forest faltered at the sound of Astrid’s voice. He hummed in confusion back at Toothless’s quiet croon or surprise, then turned around to face the girl who was running toward him, her axe strapped to her back and her bangs falling into her eyes. He glanced down at his calf, just to make sure his pants really were long and covering Toothless’s form there; then he smiled at Astrid that same painstakingly fake smile from before.

“H-hey, Astrid. Hey, Astrid,” he babbled, shifting his weight on the balls of his feet. Then, for good measure, he added “Hey, Astrid,” and wanted to smack himself.

She came to a halt in front of him, panting slightly. With a flick of her head, the bangs were swept aside. When she met his gaze, Hiccup expected to see some resentment reflecting back at him; maybe bitterness at his refusal to go along with her plan. But she didn’t look like she was upset with him at all, instead offering him a timid smile.

“I don’t know how you did what you did just now, but it was pretty great,” she told him.

He blinked. “Did—did what?”

“The Zippleback? Just now?” she said, quirking an eyebrow at him. “The way you made it back into its cage without even using a weapon?”

“Oh! Oh, y-yeah, that! Of course! I—thank you! Thanks, Astrid. That’s—I mean, that’s really… nice of you to say?” He cringed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Thank you.”

She dragged her foot over the dirt, looking mildly hesitant. “You… you wouldn’t happen to feel like sharing your secret of how you just did it, would you? I mean, I know we’re competing for first place and all, but—”

“Eels.”

“Excuse me?”

“Eels. I-I used an eel,” he explained, pulling his shoulders. “Apparently dragons are terrified of them. I’m not sure why, but… you saw what happened—it works. I just had an eel on me and the Zippleback sniffed it and panicked, I guess.”

Astrid gave him such a dumbfounded look, he wasn’t sure how to react. Toothless found this immensely amusing, though.

“Eels,” she croaked after a long moment, her nose wrinkled. “How in the world did you even find that out in the first place?”

“I had to feed—er—feed Grump,” he lied. “I found an eel and tried to give it to him, but he just—he freaked out. So I figured I could try it out during training, see what happens. A-and it worked! Yay…”

She huffed and shook her head from side to side, looking exasperatedly amused. “Figures the person who’d find this out about dragons is the only one who doesn’t have a dragon soul.”

Hiccup let out a very strained, faux chuckle, his eyes darting all around anxiously. Toothless purred reassuringly at him.

For a few seconds longer the two stood there, facing each other without saying a word. And then Hiccup took a step back, muttering something about going away to do something, his hands gesturing all around like mad, to the point where he wasn’t even sure what he was trying to tell Astrid with them. He couldn’t help it, though—it felt like they were out of his control when he was this stressed-out and uneasy

But before he could turn on his heel and flee so he wouldn’t end up making more of a fool of himself, she locked eyes with him and very seriously said, “I’m sorry, Hiccup.”

That gave him pause.

“Er… y-you’re—huh?”

“What I asked you to do the other day? You were right to say no. You’re right—I can’t really ask you to give up your future just to help me out of a tight spot.” She took in a deep breath, as if steeling herself. “I’m just going to find some other way to handle this. There had to be something I can do, right?”

Hiccup could honestly not think of a single thing but he figured that wasn’t the kind of answer Astrid wanted to hear.

“Y-yeah. I’m sure there’s something…” He scuffed his shoes against the ground. “I—er—I know we’re not really friends, but… I can help you look if you want.”

She huffed, then punched his shoulder. Hard.

“Ouch!” he said, rubbing his bruised arm and staring at Astrid warily. “W-what was that for?”

“We are friends, Hiccup,” she said, like it should have been obvious to him. “Or—well—I haven’t really been much of a friend since we were kids, but I can at least try to do better. And I wouldn’t mind hearing some of your crazy ideas. If anyone can find a loophole in our laws, it would be you.”

Toothless warbled appreciatively at her words, which made Hiccup’s lips twitch upward.

“I—yeah, sure, okay,” he said.

“Great.”

A pause.

“I really should get going now, though,” he added, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb. “I’ll—I’ll see you at dinner?”

Astrid turned around and started walking away, although she threw him a smile over her shoulder. “I’ll save you a seat.”

Hiccup stared after her for a long moment, a stunned and dopey grin on his face. The spell broke when his Night Fury dragon soul started chortling at him again, this time his voice coming from directly behind him. Shaking his head and grumbling at Toothless, Hiccup whirled around and resumed his walk toward the forest with his best friend by his side.

Notes:

What was this tidbit about? I don't remember and haven't checked. Just copy-pasted it. I haven't written a thing today. Gonna write tomorrow. Hopefully. Begone, migraine! Thou shall not disturb my happy-writing-while-wanting-to-bash-my-head-against-the-nearest-wall-for-some-ideas session!

Too much of a mouthful?

Anyway... hope you like the chapter! (I really don't remember what it's about. Should I have checked? These things might end up being out of order because I mess up posting them and then also forget to make sure they make sense...) Have a good day! ^^

Cya! :)

Chapter 12: Now...

11. Now…

Sailing through the foggy terrain had seemed like the creepiest thing on the way to the queen. Astrid had heard the stories of the surviving Berkians after they returned from their search parties to try and find the nest and destroy it. She always shuddered at the thought of travelling through uncharted territory with dragons lurking all around and fog and mist obscuring the area enough to make it difficult to see the enemy.

Now she found she’d been wrong, though. Travelling through this landscape with a wild Deadly Nadder leading the way—that was so much worse.

Ryder had found and trained it after realizing Astrid wasn’t going to let this go. He’d told her they’d need a dragon with them to take them to the nest and help them navigate through the fog, but it was also their escape route. In case things went horribly wrong, they’d need something faster than a boat to get away from the queen, and with Toothless and Stormfly gone, they had to find another dragon to help them.

The first dragon they’d stumbled upon was a Gronckle, but Ryder had told her they needed a faster dragon, so they looked some more before spotting a Deadly Nadder. Astrid wasn’t sure she really trusted some unknown, wild dragon to help rescue them in case things took a turn for the worse, but Ryder seemed to be confident the dragon would help and she had no way of countering this claim and making his belief waver—not when he seemed to be more familiar with the behavior of wild dragons than she was.

“There’s a chance you won’t even see her,” he told her while they were climbing up the mountain at the nest. “She doesn’t always come out. She’s at the base of the mountain and unless she chooses to show herself, you could be looking all day long and nothing would happen.”

Astrid swept the hair out of her face and huffed. “I’ll take my chances.”

The orange Nadder was flying anxiously beside them, squawking every now and then, as if urging them to move more quickly. Astrid tried not to inch away from it. She’d already declined taking the easier route and allowing the dragon to carry them to an opening of the mountain. The least she could do now was at least put up with its presence, no matter how nerve-racking it was.

The black stone of the mountain was warm to the touch. Astrid’s clothes were sticking to the skin. She had no idea how dragons had no problem with all this heat, especially when they themselves had fire in their bodies. Weren’t they constantly running too hot? How could they cope like that? She was losing her mind from the humidity, yet these beasts lived here.

Weird.

Even weirder was the fact that while Ryder wasn’t too bad a climber, he wasn’t the best either. She had no idea why she expected him to be better than her at this kind of stuff, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t exactly struggling, but he wasn’t having the best time of his life either. His grip slipped a couple of times, making him yelp in alarm before he could find a hold for his limbs once again.

His alarmed yelps itched at her brain but Astrid had no idea why. Maybe because a part of her could actually recognize his voice whenever it lost its fake quality. This person was from Berk, after all. She must have been at least mildly familiar with him. But no matter how hard she tried to think about it, nobody came to mind. Especially not someone crazy enough to befriend and ride dragons.

She hissed from time to time, her ears picking up on the sound of more dragons warbling and clicking nearby, probably watching their approach from the shadows. She wanted to grab her axe and defend herself, but Ryder barely even acknowledged the other dragons, and she wasn’t foolish enough to believe he wasn’t hearing them. He was just comfortable around them, apparently finding no reason to feel threatened by them.

She had to trust him, she told herself. She had to because otherwise she might as well just try to save Berk by herself. If she was counting on him to help her with the Outcasts, surely she could trust his judgement right now. Right? Unless his plan was to just get rid of her now, where nobody would ever find her body…

Shaking her head, Astrid kept on climbing.

Ryder reached the stone platform that led into the heart of the mountain first. He climbed on, then reached out his hand to help pull her up. The Nadder landed beside him, trilling quietly, almost reverently. The man sent it a look while panting a bit and catching his breath. He brushed his fingers against the orange scales of the dragon. Astrid thought she heard him muttering reassurances to the dragon, but his voice was too low for her to be able to tell for sure.

Then he focused on her and said, “We have to be quiet. If the queen hears us, we’re in trouble.”

“Can’t she smell us?”

“Yes, but there are a lot of scents around here all the time,” he said as the Nadder started leading them into the mountain. “Last time I came here with Toothless it took her a while to detect our scents. I’m counting on it.”

That wasn’t exactly comforting, but Astrid still followed beside him, her hand gripping the handle of her axe subconsciously. She couldn’t help it—she was walking into enemy territory with a person she hardly knew at all and a random dragon. She needed to feel the axe with her hand, know she had a weapon on her just in case. It reassured her just enough to get her to go further and further into the mountain.

There were dragons everywhere. In every corner, every nook, every platform carved into the mountain. Their narrow eyes watched the two humans as they progressed, sending chills down Astrid’s spine. They warbled and growled and crooned and sneered at them, but none of them attacked. They worst Astrid got was a suspicious, wary look from a purple Monstrous Nightmare.

“Why aren’t they attacking us?” she whispered.

“Why should they?”

“You said all these dragons are being controlled by that queen, right? Shouldn’t that make them attack us?”

His head tipped a little to the side as he hummed under his breath. The Nadder peered back at him and ruffled its wings nervously, chirping at him urgently, as if to tell them to hurry up already. Ryder obeyed and picked up his pace, his hand tugging on Astrid’s wrist to make sure she wouldn’t fall behind.

“She controls them to get food,” he said after a short while. “And while they still listen to her even when there aren’t any raids, I’m guessing taming wild dragons wouldn’t have been possible when they’re in her reach had they been completely in tune with her whims. M-my best guess is… er…”

He trailed off and shut up.

Astrid tensed a little and looked all around. “Did something happen?”

Ryder’s helmet swiveled to face her, his shadowed eyes peering at her through the slits. “I-I’m just used to getting shot down before I can voice my opinion, I guess.”

She relaxed a little. “Well, I’m listening.”

“D-duly noted,” he said, and she thought she could hear the smile in his voice. “Well, I think—I think she controls them, but they still have somewhat control. Especially without any raids. S-she wants food and for the dragons to stop the Viking expeditions that come over here to search for the nest. But other than that, I guess she—she doesn’t bother with telling them to kill every living thing they cross paths with. And they don’t like being subjugated to her, so they have—they have no reason to attack us unprompted.”

Astrid glimpsed a red Terrible Terror that was watching her warily from a small alcove. It was chirping at a bunch of other Terrors nearby, all of which moved to watch the humans curiously, their coos and squeals rather hushed, like they were just as afraid of alerting the queen as Astrid and Ryder were.

She saw a Gronckle stationing itself between the humans and a pair of smaller Gronckles. She saw a Nightmare flapping its wings threateningly while sending Astrid a wounded look, clearly more afraid than menacing. She saw a Zippleback hiding in the shadows while burbling at the orange Nadder questioningly, clearly baffled by the presence of the two humans with it.

“None of them are attacking us,” she noted in wonder.

“They have no reason to. Although it would certainly help if you stopped touching your axe. It’d help them calm down—they’re familiar with our weapons. Enough dragon raids mean they’re aware of what we can do with sharp objects.”

“I don’t see them hiding their teeth as a show of peace,” she shot back.

Ryder let out a breathy sort of laugh. “Well, they’re not all like Toothless.”

She still had no idea why in the world this idiot named his dragon that, but she had other things to worry about.

“We were taught a dragon would always go for the kill back home,” she reminded him. “Gobber told us if a dragon spotted us, it’d attack.”

His grip on her wrist tightened for a second. “Something to think about, eh?”

“The book of dragons says they’re all extremely dangerous.”

“The book of dragons is filled with very biased opinions on dragons. All it does is tell you what a dragon can do to hurt you, then explains how we can maybe try to kill them. It doesn’t say everything there is to know about them, though. It doesn’t mention the sort of things we’d only find out by observing a living dragon without attacking on sight.”

She frowned. “Like what?”

“Like… like how they don’t like eels.”

Astrid’s heart squeezed painfully. “Hiccup found that out when we were in training together,” she told him. “He said dragons were terrified of eels for some reason.”

“It—it makes them very sick,” said Ryder. “Eating an eel is a threat to them. Toothless ate one once and then… it was a whole mess. He nearly shot me with a plasma blast because he was so out of control. It took me forever to figure out how to make him feel better. Trust me, it’s better not to let dragons go near eels.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, mouth dry. “So you’re telling me everything we’ve learned about dragons… it’s all wrong?”

He made an uncertain noise. “Not all of it. Some things are true, just not that important, I guess. There’s just—there’s so much more about dragons we haven’t even tried to explore. We’ve been trying to kill them instead of studying them properly to try and figure out what they were doing, why they were acting they were that they were. Sometimes waving an axe around isn’t the answer.”

Before she could even try to come up with a reply, the tunnel opened up to reveal the center of the mountain. Astrid and Ryder stopped, the Nadder nudging him toward a more hidden alcove they could stand in. Pulling her close, Ryder carefully made sure they were both in the shadows, then pointed toward the orange-lit mouth of the volcano.

Astrid saw nothing there, but her throat still constricted at the sight of it and her heart speedup, as if knowing danger was impossibly near.

The dragons close to the edge were hissing and warbling cautiously. Even Astrid, with her limited understanding of wild dragons, could detect the notes of terror and dread in their animalistic voices. And considering this was their home and she was the intruder, it wasn’t exactly calming her nerves.

Their orange Nadder rattled and cawed shakily, flapping its wings like it wanted to fly away from there and leave the two humans cope on their own, but Ryder kept his palm pressed against its muzzle, somehow calming the dragon enough to make it stay by their side, somewhat hidden behind the same stone pillar the two of them were cowering behind.

A low, rumbling growl emitted from the depths of the mountain then.

Astrid’s eyes blew wide open, her muscles locking and her brain screeching to a halt at the sheer volume of the sound. It rattled her to the bone, making the ground tremble below her feet. It was louder than any dragon roar she’d ever heard before in her life and even greater than the combined, enthusiastic shouts of the Vikings back at Berk whenever they had a reason to come together.

A pit formed in her stomach as she found herself flinching away from the center of the mountain and pressing herself closer to Ryder, her breaths shaky and shallow. The Nadder’s yellow eyes zeroed in on her and it squawked almost sympathetically, as if offering Astrid words of reassurance despite its own mortification.

“The queen?” she mouthed at Ryder.

She couldn’t see his lips, but all he needed was to nod back at her, his eyes appearing to be darker than usual. She knew it was the lightning that was causing this, but something about the way his stance shifted a bit and his grip on her wrist tensed made her believe he was furious with the monster that was residing at the center of this mountain. No matter how big it was, the man with her hated it for forcing its will on all the other dragons.

Her eyes trailed up and down the body of the Deadly Nadder. It was pretty dark so it was difficult to make out much detail, but she was convinced she could see the bones underneath the dragon’s scaly skin. Some of its scales and spines were sticking out in a way that looked decidedly painful. Astrid noticed that one of its legs was slightly elevated, and every time the Nadder put its weight on it, it let out a little whimper of pain.

These dragons really were suffering under this tyranny.

“This is all wrong,” she whispered, head shaking. “All of it is so wrong.”

“I know,” said Ryder grimly. “That’s why Toothless and I have to put an end to this. It will just keep on happening if nobody stops it. These dragons don’t deserve this. The Vikings don’t either. And if peace is an option… we have to try.”

She shuddered at the memory of the queen’s growl.

“But against that thing down there?” she said, nearly elbowing him as she pointed at the pit in the middle of the mountain. “You can’t possibly win this fight. It’s suicide.”

He met her gaze coolly. “We have to try.”

Astrid bit her lip and looked at the red pit where the dragon queen was hiding. She wasn’t so eager to see her anymore, not after hearing her mere voice. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to handle seeing that monster without losing it completely. So fighting that thing? It sounded insane—not that she had any delusions regarding the sanity of the man she was with. He was definitely crazy, albeit not in the sort of way that’d make her run hysterically in the other direction.

“Come on, we’d better go,” he said after a long stretch of silence. “Berk still needs saving.”

She followed him numbly, allowing him to drag her after him by the hand. The Nadder seemed to be relieved at their choice to leave, its wings fluttering agitatedly as it hopped ahead of them, clearly eager to escape the mountain as soon as possible.

Behind them the queen let out another deep, chilling groan. Astrid sent a brief look over her shoulder, then forced her legs to move faster.

Notes:

The Red Death always appears when they go to the nest. Why is that? Why would it bother? It was pure luck that they got to see it in the movie, honestly. I decided to go with - let's scare Astrid to death by vaguely hinting at what's residing inside the volcano instead! If you hate me for this choice... I frankly don't care. I'm trying to be realistic here, obviously. I'm writing about a fantastic world where dragons and soulmates exist but whatever.

Question - what's your take on the queen's power? I know in the movies what they say is that she controls the dragons. Astrid said that. Hiccup told his dad that if the dragons don't get enough food back, she eats them. We know all of that is true. But the question is... does the queen control the dragons all the time or only when she wants them to raid islands to get their claws on some food? Are they free the rest of the time? Makes sense they would be constantly under her control because otherwise wouldn't they just try to leave the nest and find a new home, away from her? Then in the movie Toothless being grounded and building a friendship with Hiccup would be what snaps him out of it. But then... how did the teens get the other dragons in the arena to listen to them and ignore the queen? They barely knew their dragons back then...

I have no idea what the logic is regarding all of that. An explanation or interpretation would be much appreciated ^^

(I actually wrote this chapter on a whim. I mean, I have no real plan with this fic beyond the vague idea of what's supposed to happen in it - my usual way of writing stories, really - but showing the nest was never supposed to happen here. This fic wasn't supposed to be about the queen. Still, it made sense to put it in and I'm not sure why. Maybe to get Astrid to see the bigger picture more clearly instead of just hearing about it from Hiccup.)

Chapter 13: Then...

Then…

A gurgle.

“No.”

Another gurgle.

“Toothless, no. Seriously, I don’t—”

Another one.

“I don’t need your fish, bud.”

Half a regurgitated fish spilled from Toothless mouth and landed on the ground before Hiccup. The boy wrinkled his nose in disgust and threw his head back. He groaned and rubbed his eyes tiredly. No matter how many times he told Toothless he didn’t want to share food, his dragon never seemed to learn.

Well, no, it had worked the previous time. Hiccup had told Toothless not to regurgitate his fish for him and the dragon had listened. Back then Hiccup hadn’t been hungry, though. Plus, he’d had his own fish to eat—one he’d cooked properly. This time around they were resting on the beach on the other side of the island after a day of playing together, and Hiccup was hungry yet had no meal prepared.

The moment Toothless heard his stomach growling hungrily, he turned to look at him with his intelligent eyes and started heaving. It was a sweet sentiment, but Hiccup preferred going hungry for a little while. Eating a slimy, raw fish was not on his agenda today, thank you very much.

“Ugh…” He met Toothless’s gaze and said, “Bud, you should eat it. I told you, I don’t—humans don’t eat raw fish, especially after it came out of someone’s stomach. Maybe it’s delicious to you, b-but I’m just gonna get sick from it. I’ll eat later, it’s no big deal.”

His dragon soul crooned and huffed a little, like he couldn’t believe Hiccup didn’t find the appalling fish utterly tempting. Then he trilled dismissively and swallowed the fish back up, licking his lips in delight once he was done. His green eyes met Hiccup’s and seemed to say: I don’t know what you’re talking about; this was the most delicious fish in the world.

Hiccup smiled and shook his head in exasperation. “What can I say, I guess humans are more picky with their food.” Innocently, he added, “At least we don’t run away scared when we see an eel, though.”

He probably deserved Toothless’s retaliation, but he still squawked indignantly when the black tail of his dragon swept his legs from under him, making him land in the sand with a grunt. Before he could get up, Toothless dropped his head on top of Hiccup’s stomach. It made the boy splutter a little in between peals of breathless laughter.

“You’re so heavy,” he whined. “Maybe you should eat less, bud.”

The Night Fury’s reply was a low, sarcastic grumble. Still, his eyes fondly watched as Hiccup gave up on trying to shove him off, instead allowing himself to lie on the sand, his limbs sprawled limply under the weight of the dragon. Hiccup smiled at him before closing his eyes and taking a moment to simply bask in the moment.

He was still surprised everything was going so well for him all of a sudden.

Obviously, he had Toothless by his side to rant to, to play with, to feel validated, loved and appreciated by. The dragon soul was probably the best thing that had ever happened to Hiccup. He was still having a hard time believing his dragon soul’s been around all along—that it was a Night Fury of all things. He still expected to wake up one morning and discover it was nothing but a dream.

But there was also Astrid. They weren’t exactly the closest of friends, not even as close as they had been as children. Before Astrid had decided to step away from all of her friendships with the other teens and before the village as a whole had discovered that Hiccup was, in fact, the worst Viking Berk had ever seen. Before all of that coming in between the two of them, Hiccup could remember a time when he and Astrid had been real, actual friends.

Snotlout had been obnoxious even then; the twins’ affinity for destruction and chaos had been milder yet still present even when they’d been young; Fishlegs had been… well, he and Hiccup had gotten along, but they’d both been shy and wary to a degree which meant that they had mostly geeked out together for short periods of time, then shared awkward silences in each other’s company.

But Astrid and Hiccup had gotten along great back then. She was smart and funny and didn’t mind Hiccup’s tendency to overuse sarcasm, especially while feeling threatened or out of his depth. They’d discussed dragons, pondered some of Hiccup’s first ideas for new and improved inventions to take down the beasts, played together to pass the time while their parents were busy.

Astrid’s mother had invited Hiccup over to their house for lunch rather frequently, too. He was pretty sure it had something to do with her feeling bad for him not having a mother to cook him meals, but Hiccup had just been happy to feel welcome in their house. And it meant that he and Astrid could keep on hanging out together a while longer, albeit while under her mother’s watchful gaze.

So okay, they weren’t as close now. Years of mostly silence and judgement couldn’t be wiped away as if it had never happened. Hiccup couldn’t go back to feeling carefree around the girl because now he felt like every single word out of his mouth could make her scrunch up her nose and turn her back on him once again. He was wary of making a mistake, feeling like he was navigating a minefield with a blindfold on.

And his crush wasn’t exactly helpful either. He couldn’t help it—every time he was around her his body tensed, like it was preparing to whisk him away from her. It was like he had to either run away, freeze in place or lunge forward every time she was in his vicinity—which wasn’t helpful in the least. It only made everything that much more awkward. He wasn’t going to delude himself into believing Astrid was oblivious to his crush—that would imply he was good at hiding it, which he was decidedly not.

But they were both trying.

Hiccup did his best to actually communicate with her instead of relying on half-baked vowels and stuttered words, and Astrid swiftly overlooked his more incoherent and embarrassing moments, instead pushing through until he managed to collect himself in order to speak to her like a human being. Which he was, even if he didn’t exactly deliver that point across quite so well to Toothless’s immense amusement.

Then again, Toothless seemed to think Hiccup was more dragon than human, so…

Anyway, Astrid was less dismissive of him. She no longer brushed him off whenever he tried to approach her, nor did she stand aside while the other made fun of him. She’d actually punched Snotlout in the face and slammed a bucket over Ruffnut’s head when they’d both laughed at Hiccup for one thing or another, efficiently making them shut up.

Not that the other teens were laughing at his expense as much anymore. With him learning from Toothless so much, Hiccup was actually doing rather well in the ring. Of course, Gobber and the others thought his success meant that he was getting better and better at subduing dragons before killing them while in actuality Hiccup was mostly making the dragons drop at his feet with more pleasant tactics. Not that he was going to correct them.

Astrid knew the truth, though. To an extent. He still kept Toothless a secret, but he shared his discoveries with her, using Grump as his cover. So she knew about the eel and about the strange grass that somehow made dragons almost high with ecstasy. And while she seemed to think it was all un-Viking-like and untraditional, she didn’t straight out chide Hiccup for using new tactics against the dragons in the arena, which was good enough for him.

He was startled out of his peaceful wonderings by Toothless’s growl.

“W-what’s going on, bud?” he asked.

The only reply he got was his dragon lifting his head and moving toward his pile of fish. Hiccup sat up and his confusion quickly morphed into a mix of amusement and anxiety at the sight of a pack of Terrible Terrors trying to snatch some of the fish for themselves. They weren’t even paying attention to Hiccup, instead completely focused on the food.

It wasn’t hard to deduce these Terrors weren’t dragon souls. Hiccup couldn’t explain it properly, but watching them let him know almost instantly that they were wild dragons. His hand crept toward the knife he had strapped to his waist, practiced wariness warning him that wild dragons were dangerous. The book of dragons literally said wild dragons had to be killed on sight; all of them.

But his head cocked to the side and his hand fell back down once he realized the small dragons really didn’t seem to want to hurt him in any way. They were far more invested in the fish Toothless was currently guarding, teeth bared and tail swishing in agitation. Most of the Terrors scattered away and out of sight at the sight of the annoyed Night Fury.

Hiccup’s brows shot up in mild surprise when Toothless shot a small plasma blast into the mouth of a green Terror that was either incredibly stupid or brave for staying behind to try and steal a fish. The fire made it stumble away from the Night Fury unsteadily, smoke coming out of its nostrils and beak.

“Huh,” he muttered curiously, “not so fireproof on the inside, are ya?”

The Terror let out a pained, devastated chirp. Its eyes narrowed in on Hiccup for a moment, which made the teen freeze as he expected the dragon to finally attack him. But instead the Terror shook its head some more and miserably curled up on the sand.

Getting up, Hiccup moved past Toothless toward the shoreline. He ignored Toothless’s inquiring warble and instead focused on the task at hand. He pulled out his knife and gripped it expertly, scanning the water for any movement. Once he spotted a struggling fish nearby, he struck, impaling it with his small blade and pulling it out of the water. It twitched several times but eventually stopped moving completely.

“Nuh-uh, that’s not for you, bud,” he said when Toothless cooed excitedly.

His dragon whined. Hiccup merely smirked at him as he walked toward the Terrible Terror.

The tiny dragon opened one eye at the sound of Hiccup’s approach. Its body tensed immediately, wings unfurling at his sides and maw opening to reveal the sharp teeth inside. It hissed at Hiccup defensively, though its eyes looked scared. Hiccup winced at the sight of slightly inflamed-looking inside of the dragon’s mouth.

Pulling the fish off the knife, Hiccup went to crouch down to get closer to the dragon, but he paused when he noticed the narrowed eyes of the Terror were focused on his weapon. He cast it a baffled look, then glanced back at the wary green dragon. Years of warnings screeched at him to keep the knife in his hand while facing a wild dragon, but his instincts whispered another thing.

You’re going to protect me if anything goes wrong, right, Toothless? he thought.

His dragon soul crooned a confirmation in his mind, although he sounded somewhat befuddled still.

Bracing himself for the worst, Hiccup resolutely tossed the knife away to the Terror’s obvious amazement. The small dragon’s nostrils sniffed quickly, its pupils expanding a tad as it pulled its wings back against its body, its gaze moving from the spot where the knife had been thrown to and over to Hiccup and the fish in his hand.

With a smile, Hiccup held the fish out for the Terrible Terror, who flinched away minutely though wasn’t running away.

Slowly, the Terror crept closer, repeatedly looking between Hiccup and the fish. And then it jerkily snatched the dead fish from Hiccup’s hand and backed away a few steps. It gulped down the fish with ease, letting out a soft squeak of delight once it swallowed the whole thing.

And then its attention was fully back on Hiccup.

Maybe the teen should have been more alarmed by this, but he couldn’t bring himself to fear the Terror. The dragon looked so small and harmless—apart from the sharp teeth, the claws, the fire-breathing tendency—with its pupils now blown wide open and its gentle, curious chirps.

It took a tentative step toward Hiccup, then another one. Hiccup was probably supposed to finish this interaction already, without giving the Terror the chance to pounce at him. But he found that he wasn’t really expecting the little dragon to attack him anymore. So he stood his ground and tried to look at nonthreatening as possible—which wasn’t hard to do when he was… well, Hiccup.

Slowly but surely the Terrible Terror advanced toward him, until its snout was pressed against Hiccup’s palm, sniffing it cautiously before slipping underneath it and pressing its entire body against Hiccup’s side and under his arm.

Staring down at the small, green dragon, Hiccup’s lips parted in surprise. He shot Toothless a glance but his dragon soul merely kept on eating his fish and warbling contentedly. Then he looked down at the Terror again as he stroked its back gently, feeling the way it trembled under his touch, breathing fast. It looked so calm and peaceful now, nothing like the vicious beasts every Berkian believed all dragons were.

He left the Terror in favor of making his way back toward Toothless, where he sat down with his back leaning against his dragon’s wing. The Terror watched him in confusion, then joined him once more, resting its head in Hiccup’s lap as it closed its eyes and purred.

“Everything we know about you guys… is wrong,” muttered Hiccup in astonishment.

Toothless regurgitated another fish for him, peering at him with anticipation.

Notes:

It's not even that I think Toothless is adorable, hence I love him. I think Toothless and Hiccup are adorable, hence I love them. Not to say that Toothless isn't adorable. He is. Absolutely. His face, the sounds he makes, the way he moves, his personality that matches Hiccup's one... I love how he can genuinely look intimidating and adorable (not at the same time). I still remember watching the movie for the first time and thinking Toothless was scary and menacing and not cute but rather lethal. Andd then in the cove he became this gummy kitten with big, innocent eyes and I was floored by the drastic change. It's kinda like Aang being goofy and sweet and cheerful, and then suddenly entering the Avatar State and demolishing everything and everyone in sight.

But really, Toothless and Hiccup's friendship is so precious. It's so... honest and genuine and cuts deep. My best friend literally cut ties with me, so watching this is painful, but also this thing I hope I'd have at some point. Like, can you imagine someone who accepts you with all your quirks and flaws the way Hiccup and Toothless do? That's friendship goals.

And look, I love the second movie (although I never really connected to Stoick or Valka so those mushy scenes never really made me feel much, I mostly felt happy for Hiccup and then sad for him), but the way Toothless was made to be more snimalistic than he was in the first movie bothered me. Like, Hiccup is closer to Astrid than Toothless by that point, by the looks of it. And even though they still care about each other so much, Toothless acts more like a pet in that movie. And I... I don't like it. When Astrid called him Hiccup's pet in the first movie I was genuinely insulted. This dragon is Hiccup's best friend and she calls him a pet. That's degrading. I'm not a voilent person, but I would have siked Toothless at her for saying such a thing. So what they did to him in that movie and the one after that... felt like a stab to the heart. It hurt, but I usually try to overlook it. Also, I mostly watch the first movie and The Gift of the Night Fury (which is the best, I'm obsessed, oh my God; and I will die on this hill) because Toothless's character is okay in those.

Okay, pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but oh well. My memory sucks. Makes you wonder how I can write a fanfic without constantly having to go back and read what's already written. The answer is that I do go back a lot, although I try to roll with it and sorta hope for the best.

Cya! :)

Chapter 14: Now...

Notes:

It's short. I know. Live with it.

(Was that rude? It wasn't meant to be rude, just concise.)

Now…

Astrid dreamed of that moment of realization, of devastation.

She dreamed of waking up and getting ready for the big day ahead of her, a smile on her face. She probably shouldn’t have been happy considering the honor of killing the Monstrous Nightmare ended up not being hers, but she found that she truly did believe Hiccup deserved that after all of the discoveries he’d made to make it to the top.

She dreamed of walking to eat breakfast at the Meade Hall with most of the population of Berk, only to step inside and instantly feel the shift in the air, the uneasiness that permitted the room. Looking around revealed anxious expressions and exasperated scowls. Listening to the chit-chat let her know someone was missing, someone was gone, someone couldn’t be found.

She dreamed of her blood running cold and her eyes growing impossibly wide at hearing from the other teens that Hiccup was gone along with all of his stuff. His clothes, his sketches, his notebooks. Everything—all gone. There was no explanation, no letter, no reason given to anyone. He was just there one day, and the next one he was gone, as if the gods decided to erase him from existence.

She dreamed of scouring the island, searching, searching, searching for the personification of a needle in a haystack. No boats were missing, so he had to still be somewhere on the island. They just had to find him, that was all. He was a fishbone, easy to overlook, but with all the search parties thoroughly scanning Berk, Astrid had to believe he could be found.

She dreamed of sleepless nights of tossing and turning in her bed, scowling up at the ceiling accusingly, as if it was the one to blame for Hiccup’s sudden disappearance. But there was no one she could blame, really. The only one at fault here was Hiccup for falling off the face of the earth, but she couldn’t yell at someone who wasn’t around to hear her. It would be like shouting at the wind.

She dreamed of stomping through the village like a woman possessed, constantly looking over her shoulders at the feeling of being watched, the feeling of the answer lurking just around the corner. She joined every overseas expedition there was, determined to keep a look out for Hiccup no matter how unlikely the chances of finding him were, especially when most journeys sent them in the direction of Helheim’s Gate.

She dreamed of her chief’s face growing older and wearier; of the lines around his eyes and mouth running deeper and more prominent. He always looked sad, almost lost. The strongest man in their tribe was broken, a mess, ever since his son vanished. He still did his job, still looked after his people, still led them all in their fight against the dragons. But there was hollowness in his eyes and he never smiled anymore, not even in the presence of his blacksmith friend.

She woke up to the feeling of being gently carried out of the boat and onto land. Before she could find it in herself to tense at the feeling of arms holding her up, Astrid was put back on solid ground. She felt blades of grass poking at her exposed skin but she didn’t move. Stormfly was comfortably lounging on her hip. Then she felt the brush of a warm fabric against her skin as a fur vest was placed on top of her to keep her warm.

Or maybe she was still dreaming because a second later she heard the friendly warble of a dragon, followed by a nasally voice whispering softly, “Y-yeah, I know, it took us longer than expected. We paid the Red Death a little visit on the way over, bud.”

She shot up into a sitting position, eyes blinking rapidly as she tried to focus on her surroundings. The moon-washed landscape that greeted her was mostly barren. There were more rocks than grass and not a lot of trees visible in the distance. The island was rather small, and maybe she would have recognized it from all her travels some other time, but she was currently busy trying to spot the source of that voice—

“’iccup?” she slurred.

Her eyes blurrily landed on Toothless and Ryder, both of which turned to look at her from their spot a few paces away from her.

“Sorry, did I wake you up?” said Ryder.

Her eyebrows furrowed as she blinked at him, then whirled her head this way and that, searching, searching, searching…

“Thought ah heard ‘im,” she mumbled, her heart sinking.

The masked man crouched beside her, his eyes watching him from behind his helmet. “Who? It’s just us, Astrid. You fell asleep on the way here. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you. You can go back to sleep.”

Astrid’s forehead crinkled. “Thought ah heard ‘iccup.”

“Hiccup?” Ryder repeated, his distorted voice slightly high-pitched.

Shoulders sagging in defeat, Astrid lay back down and curled into herself. “Musta been a dream…”

Unwanted tears prickled her eyes and Astrid squeezed them tightly, trying to will them away, same as with the sharp stab of pain in her chest. She cursed herself for even believing this could have been anything but a dream. She must have been trapped somewhere between the dreamscape and the real world for her to confuse the two things.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

A warm hand landed on her back, over her shoulder blade. The urge to shrug it off rose in her for a split second, but then disappeared. Instead, she leaned into the touch and tried to soak up as much comfort from it as she could. Even Toothless’s soft croon nearby soothed her, making her eyelids feel heavy once more as sleep crept over her brain.

“I’m sorry,” she heard Ryder whispering to her.

“S’not your fault,” she muttered.

His hand disappeared at once, followed by the sound of his footsteps creating distance between them.

Astrid fell asleep, wondering why everyone always seemed to leave her.

Notes:

Remember I mentioned bumming myself out with a depressing chapter? ...you're welcome :)

Honestly, it's probably not as bad as my brain made it out to be. Writing it felt like taking my heart and splitting it in two because I felt so bad for Astrid in this. It's not as detailed a chapter or as long a chapter as some of the others, I think, but I felt like it was the right thing to do here, y'know? I dunno... it's probably not as bad as I think it is. I find it depressing, okay?

My pinky is cramping from typing... I use all of my fingers in my right hand while typing and it's the one usually pressing the Enter bar. It was so much worse on Friday. I could hardly write, but I still did. I kept on whining about it but I wanted to continue working on this story because it's so much fun. I'm not really the type to write short chapters or... short scenes, I guess? I tend to go overboard with them. Like I did yesterday with one of the chapters (I split it in two because it really got out of hand). Anyway, yesterday I was fine, but today my hand hurts again. My brain is numbly buzzing from iced-coffee, which is to be expected. But it also makes my hands tremble so... I can't think and can't write. I still do though, so if any part of this story is bad, it's probably because I keep on working on it while feeling like... like... nothing comes to mind, wait... um... (my brother keeps on telling me I use too many '...' while texting. I think I don't use it as much in my stories, but it's really prominent here, huh?) like a trembling panda, I s'pose. Let's go with that.

I'm just rambling at this point. You can literally see my brain stopped working while typing this thing, it's hilarious to me right now, but also incredibly frustrating.

If I have original songs, where the heck am I supposed to post them? YouTube is too complicated sometimes. It forces me to actually sing them. But sometimes I just wanna show the lyrics without singing 'em. Or those short paragraphs I write about what I feel before writing an actual song about it. Or the songs I haven't composed. Am I using the right word here? English is tough. So many words I don't even know. Don't even start on the Grammar...

I miss the cold of that Nordic country I'd visited. It was so nice... maybe my fingers froze but the rest of me enjoyed the cold. I wasn't actually cold, y'know? I remember being on a ship at some point. My parents and I were on the deck and looked at the view, the wind blowing in our faces until they were numb. And while they both stayed out there to watch the wonderous sunrise, I went looking for a way inside because I felt like I was turning into a pandacicle. It was horrible. Even worse - after finally thawing inside, my mom dragged me back outside so I could take pictures of her (I hate being photographed so I ran away from the camera). And I had to take my gloves off for that. I sprinted back inside the moment she was satisfied.

Oh, not to mention the fact that I have sea sickness. I knew that already before getting on the ship because when I was a child we'd gone on a boat for a little trip and I forced everyone to turn back 'round so I could get off that horrid ride. But I still went on that ship. It took me a while to feel sick, honestly, but then I spent the rest of the day feeling ill, so... was it worth it? I think not. Sea sickness is the worst, isn't it? Car rides make me sick, reading in a vehicle, amusement park rides... everything that moves, really. It's why I was so terrified of taking driving lessons. I was fine during them, but - hahahaha - I remember my teacher taking me to a highway, telling me to enjoy myself because this is the part all of his students like; being free to speed up without all the traffic. I refused to speed up too much and told him I hated every second of it. I just wanted to stand in a red light again.

Okay, my rant got out of hand. I'm gonna shut up now. Sorry :/

Cya! :)

Chapter 15: Then...

Notes:

Okay, I think I'm done typing for today. Now two of my fingers are in pain.

Ouch.

Have fun!

Then…

He scratched the nape of his neck, where he could feel Toothless prancing about. The smugness of his dragon truly knew no bound—case in point: he was currently showing off to no one while warbling proudly in Hiccup’s mind about the teen’s success in the kill ring. He sounded like he was the one who’d taken down that Gronckle with the dragon-nip and not Hiccup.

Are you done yet, Mr. Braggart? thought Hiccup dryly.

The Night Fury preened some more.

While sending Hiccup a thumbs up, Gobber dismissed them all, encouraging them to head over to the Great Hall to eat dinner together before retreating to their beds so they could get a good night’s sleep before their next day of training. He seemed to be in pretty good spirits even since Hiccup started doing well in training despite Hiccup’s refusal to share his secret for success with the two-limbed man.

“Hiccup!”

“H, you coming?”

“Yeah, dinner! I’m starving! Let’s go, Use—I mean, Hiccup!”

Running his fingers through his hair, Hiccup went to blurt out some lame excuse as to why he couldn’t so he could head out to the forest and hang out with Toothless instead which sounded infinitely better than sitting around a table in a hall filled with Vikings who only seemed to like him now that he was showing some promise where once there had been none. Plus, he wasn’t fully convinced the twins wouldn’t end up blowing his food in his face if he agreed.

But then his gaze landed on Astrid. The girl was shoving Snotlout away from her with a heavy groan and a painfully-obvious eyeroll. Then she met his eyes and smiled invitingly, her head tipping slightly to the side in a silent request for him to join them. Whether it was because she didn’t want to deal with Snotlout without a little bit of help or because she just wanted him to join her, Hiccup wasn’t sure; nor did he particularly care, if he was being honest.

“Oh—er—sure,” he said, stumbling over his feet to join the others.

Toothless stopped parading around and rumbled in distaste in his head, whining about not getting to spend some time with Hiccup instead. And while Hiccup shared his disappointment, he also found that he didn’t mind giving this a shot. Maybe—just maybe—hanging out with the others in his age group wouldn’t be as terrible as it usually was now that he was being more accepted by everyone.

He still dragged his feet and lingered slightly behind the group on their trek toward the Great Hall. They tried to involve him in their conversation several times and let him comment without stomping on his ideas instantly. But for the most part he managed to stay out of it. Only Astrid cast him these probing looks every now and then, as if waiting for him to fully immerse himself in their discussion.

“Barf could totally take Belch on,” said Ruff as they sat down at one of the tables.

“Ho-ho-ho, I’m afraid you are sorely mistaken,” said Tuff. He took a bite of yak and with a mouthful added, “Belch is very clearly the superior head in this duo.”

“Actually—” Fishlegs tried to speak.

“Uh-pup-pup-pup,” Tuff cut him off, covering the blond’s mouth with his hand. “We are talking about the subjective—or is it objective? I can never tell them apart—truth here, Fishmeister! Do not bring your logic into this.”

Fishlegs blinked at him dumbfoundedly.

Hesitantly taking a seat beside Astrid, Hiccup said, “Er… but Barf and Belch are the same dragon…”

The twins moaned in perfect synchronization.

“Now you did it,” muttered Snotlout.

Tuffnut glared at Hiccup. “What did we just say?”

Rolling her eyes, Astrid stabbed the food in her plate and mumbled, “Here we go again.”

“No logic!” replied Ruff grandly.

Pointing at her, Tuff repeated, “No. Logic.”

Hiccup decided it would be best to focus on his food.

Or even better—he got up for a minute, moved past the shield portraits lining the walls, picked up an old book from a dusty shelf near the back of the Hall that no one ever approached because Vikings weren’t big on reading. But his dad had made sure Hiccup knew their laws and traditions by heart, so Hiccup had read the books there several times, his eyes swimming with the words.

He still remembered it all fairly well, of course, but he’d told Astrid he would look for a way to get her out of marrying Snotlout against her will and he was going to stand by it. So he dragged the law book toward the teens’ table, sat back down and started leafing through it while carefully eating his dinner and making sure the pages remained unstained.

“Hiccup?” Astrid leaned closer to peer at the book. “What’s this?”

“Our laws,” he said absently, eyes skimming over the paragraphs, searching for anything useful. “You know, I-I want to make sure I’m not forgetting anything. Maybe there’s a loophole I can’t think of.”

She looked surprised for a brief moment, but then she nodded once and tuned back into the conversation going on around the table, leaving Hiccup to it. He still found himself frowning to himself as he heard Snotlout’s poor advances from Astrid’s other side and her repeated retaliations—either verbally or physically. It made him read more urgently.

“I can’t believe you’re reading right now,” groaned Ruff. “Shouldn’t you be sharing with us your dragon expertise instead?”

“We brought you here for answers, Hiccup!” agreed Tuff. “You’re supposed to be talking to us. We’re much more interesting than books. Books are boring—”

“—they never talk back—”

“—they never punch you ‘til you see stars—”

Ruffnut crossed her arms over her chest and sniffed. “They’re just not as good a company as we are. Besides, how are we supposed to befriend someone who likes books?”

Raising his hand, Fishlegs said, “I like books.”

Tuff patted him on the back consolingly to the husky boy’s mild embarrassment.

But Hiccup wasn’t listening anymore. His eyes were glued to a page he flipped over to, reading the same lines again and again with a feeling of despair coursing through him at the implications. He brushed his finger over the lines, a furrow forming between his brows as he bent down a tad to make sure he wasn’t reading it wrong. Not that he truly believed it—he knew this law… just hadn’t thought about it much since reading it the first time around.

But now he was reminded of another reason why he couldn’t possibly accept Astrid’s request to ask her to marry him and then never actually go through with it—Hiccup was the chief’s son, meaning he would one day become the next chief of Berk and would be required an heir of his own. Which meant that whether or not Hiccup was happy with it, he’d have to marry someone eventually in order to have a child and ensure the future of the village.

His heart sank. It was stupid, really. He’d already told Astrid he wouldn’t do it, after all. He didn’t want to miss out on the slight chance of finding someone he liked and marrying her. Even if it wasn’t the girl he was currently infatuated with. He’d told her that and Astrid had accepted it. Why was he upset with being unable to help her, then? It wasn’t like he’d changed his mind ever since then.

“You know, maybe you should drop out of dragon training, Astrid,” said Snotlout airily from the other side of the table. “I mean, you wouldn’t have to fight anymore once you’re married to me. And we all know that’s gonna—ouch!”

Hiccup sent his cousin a look and found him covering his nose with both hands, eyes shimmering slightly. He mumbled something about how strong Astrid was, but it lacked any conviction as he cowered away from the irritated girl. But as she turned back to her food, Hiccup noticed the panic glinting in her blue, downcast eyes. She was tense and on edge, still looking like she was ready to pound someone to a pulp. But she also looked… almost afraid of the prospect of her life amounting to nothing.

Closing his eyes, Hiccup could almost picture it—a future where Astrid was married to Snotlout against her will, leaving her hollow and miserable. She’d hate every second of it, he was certain of it. Then he added himself to this looming future, leading a village full of people who didn’t really like him, supporting a little child and being flanked by a faceless woman. Maybe someone he would actually love—he wasn’t sure.

But there was no joy to be found. The more he imagined such a future, the more certain he was none of it would be worth it if he saw Astrid trudging through town with a dejected look on her face and her shoulders slumped in defeat. How could he possibly imagine a happy future for himself when she was destined to be depressed and melancholy for the rest of her life?

The urge to turn to her and take back his words was strong. He wanted to tell her he would go through with her plan, he’d do anything just to make sure she wasn’t miserable forever. He would remain betrothed yet unmarried for the rest of his life to make sure she was as happy as could be. But the words about his required heir danced around his head on repeat, forming a lump in his throat.

He really couldn’t help her even if he wanted to. His hands were tied.

“Hiccup?” she probed after a few minutes. “Are you okay? Did you—did you find anything?” she added in a lower whisper.

He closed the book with finality and gloomily said, “Sorry, m’lady, not a single thing.”

Astrid’s lips formed a straight line as she seemed to hunch down a little. Then she offered him a grateful little smile before pushing away from the table and leaving the Hall. The others all ignored her departure, too busy with their own conversation, but Hiccup followed her figure with his eyes before he finally abandoned his seat as well in order to follow her outside.

When Toothless warbled questioningly in his mind, all Hiccup could think back was, I don’t know, but there has to be something, bud.

Notes:

Help me! I just wrote the last scene in the 'then' segments and I still have more to go but I don't know what to write in them. Plus, I'm not sure whether or not I actually wrote Hiccup's arc well enough to, like, excuse his secret in the present with Astrid... you know? Like, what if he ends up being just annoying and you guys don't forgive him? I can't have that! I'm trying to write two characters who make sense and whom people should like. Not a likeable character and one who makes no sense. The reason should be good enough and I just wrote that part and I'm not sure I handled it well enough!

I'm driving myself crazy, trying to figure out if it's good enough or not. Also, how to continue this ><

Cya! :)

Chapter 16: Now...

Now…

When she woke up Ryder seemed to want to tell her something. His body language was tenser than usual, his fingers fidgeting anxiously. His dragon soul looked agitated as well, pacing behind his human with an air of uncertainty, its acid-green eyes peering at her every now and then, as if judging her. She had no idea what the verdict was, though.

In the end he didn’t end up saying anything. Instead, he explained to Astrid that he was going to take Toothless and fly to the neighboring islands to see if he could figure out what Alvin and the Outcasts were planning. In the meantime Astrid was supposed to work on maybe training a wild dragon without getting killed or killing it. She wanted to laugh hysterically in his face, but the memory of the nest was too fresh in her mind for her to completely dismiss the notion.

She watched pensively as he looked around before finally spotting a green Terrible Terror that was flapping its little wings almost frantically in order to get to Ryder. The dragon smashed into the man’s chest, sending him back a step, then clawed its way to his shoulder, where it rubbed its head against Ryder’s neck and purred in content.

“Hey, Sharpshot,” he said fondly.

Toothless grumbled nearby before nudging his human, as if to remind him that he was still there.

“Oh, stop whining, you big baby. You’re still my favorite. But Sharpshot is perfect for what we’re trying to do here. Aren’t you, little guy? You’re a friendly little fellow, aren’t ya?”

The Terror chirped merrily and allowed Ryder to pull him off his shoulder and hold him carefully in his hands. Astrid had to fight every instinct in her body in order to stay still when the masked man held the Terror in front of her, his eyes visibly crinkled in a smile.

“Sharpshot, this is Astrid. Astrid, meet Sharpshot. He’s the first dragon I befriended—apart from you, Toothless, yes, gods—and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind making another friend and getting you acquainted with wild dragons.”

Astrid wrinkled her nose. “Are you sure about this?”

His only reply was to place the Terror on the ground, where it immediately started crawling all around, squawking in delight at absolutely nothing and ignoring the low, irritated rumbles the Night Fury was making while watching him warily. Every time Sharpshot got too close to Ryder, the dragon soul hissed sharply, startling the Terror just enough to get him to back away a bit.

Inside her head, Stormfly chirped curiously, her eyes peeking at Sharpshot from her place on Astrid’s throat.

A few minutes later she found herself standing there, staring down at the Terrible Terror who let out slightly baffled and sad chirps, its eyes scanning the horizon, where Toothless and Ryder had flown off to. Then it turned to Astrid and squeaked at her apprehensively, sniffing and pawing a little at the ground while watching her.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she grumbled.

The dragon cooed, its narrow pupils following her every move.

Taking in a deep breath, Astrid lowered herself to a crouch in front of the wild dragon. She tried to offer it a smile, but the idea was so foreign, it ended up feeling more like a grimace. Eventually she gave up on that and instead held out her hand toward it, the same way she’d seen Ryder do earlier with the orange Deadly Nadder at the nest.

The result wasn’t the same this time, though. While that Nadder had accepted the dragon rider almost immediately, pressing its snout against the offered hand, the Terrible Terror let out a small hiss and withdrew back and away from Astrid. It bared its teeth at her—not a lot, but enough to let her know he wasn’t happy with her—and pawed at the ground more insistently.

She quickly pulled her hand against her chest and frowned down at the little Terror. How come dragons were okay with Ryder but wary of her? What was the secret here? What was she supposed to do?

Stormfly crooned at her reassuringly as she made her way from Astrid’s throat to her shoulder. She settled down there and watched the little Terror with her yellow eyes. Astrid was pretty sure she wasn’t going to intervene unless things truly did take a turn for the worse. And even then, she’d probably require quite a bit of prompting.

How come every dragon soul Astrid knew of barely seemed to care about their humans, mostly just standing beside them without paying attention to anything or listening to what they were being told? Or more accurately—how was it possible none of them cared, yet Ryder’s Night Fury dragon soul was so dedicated to his human? He seemed to be so attentive and caring, remaining nearby the man at every opportunity he got, protective and poised to strike.

Was there some kind of secret to it? Was the Night Fury just different than the other dragon souls? It was a possibility, of course, seeing as no one else had a Night Fury they could compare Toothless to. But her brain insisted that it probably had more to do with Ryder’s approach toward dragons in general rather than anything that was unique about his dragon. Maybe it wasn’t Toothless that was different but rather his human.

Eyeing the wary Terrible Terror that kept on staring up at her but which had stopped hissing now that her hand was retracted, Astrid tried to figure out what Ryder would have done in this position.

He’d just offered his hand to that Nadder, though. What was she doing wrong?

“Okay, let’s start over,” she said eventually. “My name is Astrid. And your name is Sharpshot, right? Well, it’s… it’s nice to meet you, I suppose.”

The Terror—Sharpshot—crooned up at her, tail wiggling.

“Fine, it’s not great,” she admitted. “I’m not used to interacting with wild dragons, okay? I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do because this is all new to me. But I-I think I get it now. You’re not intent on killing humans, are you? You’re just trying to survive with that horrible queen looming over you.”

Sharpshot squeaked and his nostrils sniffed her several times before he took a tentative step closer.

Astrid quirked an eyebrow. Well, that was better than nothing, wasn’t it? Even Stormfly seemed to preen and congratulate Astrid in her mind, her wings flapping excitedly.

“Well, I promised me and my people would stop hurting dragons, so I guess I’m trying to turn a new leaf now,” she continued. “I promised your friend because he’s helping me save my village. You’re the first wild dragon I’ve tried to interact with so everything I’m doing wrong is the result of me having no idea what I’m expected to do here. Do you even understand what I’m saying?”

The dragon let out an offended caw.

Smiling a little, Astrid tried to hold out her hand for the Terror once more, but it hissed and snarled, then scattered away and out of sight.

Astrid got up and kicked a pebble in frustration. “Well, so much for that.”

But he returned eventually, crawling closer and closer to Astrid while she was busy fishing Stormfly and her lunch. At first she tensed at the sight of him, but then she realized his eyes were trained on the couple of fish resting at her feet and she forced herself to relax. He was just hungry, that was all.

Picking up one of the fish, she waved it in the Terror’s face, then let it drop in front of him. Without hesitation, the dragon lunged at the dead fish and swallowed it whole. He stuck his tongue out of his mouth once he was done, already eyeing the second fish Astrid had beside her.

He chirped happily when she threw him the second fish, but he still refused to come any closer.

Astrid sighed, shook her head to herself and went back to the task at hand. She caught as many fish as she could, careful not to let Sharpshot eat them all so she and Stormfly would have some left. Then she walked away from the shoreline and watched as Stormfly wordlessly appeared beside her, eager to eat her meal.

“Stormfly, fire,” she said sternly before the Nadder could eat.

Yellow eyes focused on her in disdain before the Nadder ruffled her wings, opened her beak and shot some fire at a pile of twigs that caught the flames instantly. Once she was done, she shot Astrid one final look, then started eating.

Astrid didn’t interrupt her again, instead putting her axe aside in order to sit down comfortably. She impaled a fish and held it over the fire so she could roast it. She knew the flavor wouldn’t be great since she had nothing to add, but eating something tasteless was better than starving to death. And she’d need all her energy if she wanted to be able to invade Berk without the Outcasts noticing. Ryder and she couldn’t fail, so she had to take care of herself while he was gone.

“He’s going to come back, right?” she mumbled, sending a look at the sky. “He wouldn’t abandon me and Berk. I mean, he’s a Berkian himself—surely he cares what would happen to everyone there, right? At least to some degree.”

Stormfly squawked cheerfully and gulped another fish.

And then a small pressure climbed into her lap and Astrid startled, her gaze immediately dropping down. She found Sharpshot curling between her legs, making himself comfortable while pressed against her body. Any type of aversion he may have had against her was gone now, apparently. She looked at him, baffled, but when he even let him stroke his scaly back a tad she calmed down and shook her head.

“You’re a weird little guy,” she told him.

The Terror purred.

The sky was turning darker by the time Ryder came back. He hopped off Toothless with ease and approached Astrid, who was playing fetch with both Stormfly and Sharpshot, the two of them fighting over the stick she kept on throwing for them. They were both eager to win and Astrid found it immensely entertaining to watch them squabble like that over something as simple as a twig.

The moment Sharpshot noticed Ryder, though, the little Terror let out a squeal of delight and abandoned his game in favor of tackling the man once more. Ryder laughed and caught him—once more earning a discontent growl from Toothless—then turned to look at Astrid with his head slightly cocked to the side and his eyes twinkling behind his helmet.

“Well, how’d it go?” he asked.

“He’s weird,” she announced.

Ryder snorted. “That’s one way to put it.”

“He climbed into my lap and refused to leave for almost an hour,” she admitted, taking the stick from Stormfly before throwing it once more. “But I’m not sure… why.”

Scratching the Terror’s small head, Ryder hummed. “W-what do you mean?”

“He wouldn’t come too near me at first. I have no idea why. I gave it some food and he still wouldn’t step closer. But then he suddenly demanded pats. I have no idea what’s changed.”

Ryder sent a look around, then pointed at the discarded axe lying on the ground. “He was probably wary of you carrying a weapon with you. Did he only come near you once you put it away?” he asked. At her stunned nod, he chuckled. “He still felt threatened, but then you dropped your axe and he didn’t see you as a threat anymore.”

She blinked in astonishment and clicked the bangs out of her eyes. “That’s…”

“Dragons are smart.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to see it.” She pursed her lips and took the stick back from Stormfly, but this time she didn’t throw it away again. “So… did you find anything?”

Notes:

My hand still hurts >< I wanna write and I can'tttttttt (she wrote)

Chapter 17: Then...

Notes:

Can't-- write-- hand-- aching!

Seriously, I've been working on the same chapter all day long, I feel like I haven't done anything. Granted, I was editing another story and I actually wrote half a chapter and then started from scratch, but STILL!

Then…

He caught up to her at the bottom of the stairs outside the Mess Hall, then hung back to watch warily as she pulled her axe up and started swinging it around angrily. The sharp blade met the stone steps again and again. Hiccup winced with every blow, imagining how bad it was for the metal. He’d have to sharpen it later.

But for now, he stood back and observed without intervening. Astrid was distressed—living in Berk meant people knew better than to try to approach an upset Hofferson.

Toothless warbled in his mind, as if to say he wasn’t scared of the blonde. Hiccup merely shook his head in exasperation at his dragon’s ego. He had no idea how he of all people ended up with a dragon who seemed to bask in his own importance and pride, but he found that he didn’t truly care that much. Not when he could still hear—or maybe feel—the underlying note of worry the reptile was feeling.

Well, at least Toothless didn’t take after Snotlout who cared about himself and pretty much nothing else, right?

On his back, the Night Fury flicked his tail. It didn’t hurt like it would have had the dragon been in his physical form, but it still stung a bit. Hiccup threw a weak glare over his shoulder in the general direction of Toothless’s perch, then rolled his eyes and focused back on Astrid.

At some point she stopped hacking at the stairs and instead stopped to stand in place, panting slightly while glaring at the ground. Her axe was clutched tightly between her trembling fingers, her hair falling into her eyes, though she didn’t seem to mind it much because for once she wasn’t pushing it away.

Seeing as she was no longer trying to murder the inanimate objects around her, Hiccup stepped closer cautiously.

“You—er—are you okay?” he asked tentatively.

Astrid’s eyes squeezed shut. “Oh, you know, I’m swell. My life is just flashing before my eyes. Thanks,” she retorted flatly.

“I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, kicking the dirt at his feet. “I-I wish—I wish there was something I could do but I can’t think of—of anything. I mean, the only solution I can come up with is for you to leave Berk b-before Snotlout asks you to marry him, and it’s kind of the coward way, so I’m guessing you wouldn’t even dream of doing it.”

“And Snotlout is just the worst person I can possibly end up with. Fishlegs would have probably let me still be a warrior. Tuffnut would have probably encouraged me to do whatever I wanted to do as long as it was unusual and irregular. You—no offence, Hiccup, but you wouldn’t have been able to stop me even if you wanted to.”

He shrugged. “None taken, you’re right. Not that I would have tried to—never mind.”

Clenching her free hand, Astrid growled, “But all Snotlout wants is for me to stay home all day and be this… this useless wife who’d cook for him all day long and bear his children and whatnot while he’s out there, boasting about it. I never signed up for this kind of life. I’m a warrior! I’m the best in our age group! What kind of reward is that? I want to protect our home and instead I’m going to have to step aside and let Snotlout do everything while I’m busy… busy washing his clothes or something.”

She swiped at the bottom step again, her axe clanging against the rock. Her shoulders slumped.

“Ugh, this is so messed up,” groaned Hiccup. He tousled his hair absently and muttered, “I wish—I honestly just wish I could help you like you wanted me to.”

“But you don’t have to give up on your future,” she said, and there was no resentment in her voice. “I get it, Hiccup, I do.”

“N-no, I don’t think you do. I-I would’ve asked you, I swear I would have. I-I-I’ve been thinking about it, a-and how I could ever be okay while you’re—you’re stuck with Snotlout for the rest of your life?”

Astrid’s gaze lifted and she looked at him with a spark of hope twinkling in her eyes. Hiccup hated stomping on it, but…

“I can’t,” he bit out in frustration, watching as her defenses rose back up. “I just read about it—and I knew it already but I haven’t really thought too deeply about it until now. But since I’m the next chief, I’m gonna have to marry someone. Berk’s gonna need its next heir eventually.” He rolled his eyes and gestured wildly with his hands. “I mean, I-I would have helped you otherwise. B-but you don’t really want to marry—it would defeat the whole purpose of this—so i-it’s out of my hands…”

A frown appeared on her face as she kept on staring at him. There was a tinge of confusion marring her face, like she was trying to figure something out yet couldn’t seem to get it right. And then her face cleared and she tipped her head to the side, her grip on the axe lessening just a tad.

“So you’re saying… the only problem is that I didn’t want to get married?” she said slowly, as if testing the words in her mouth.

Hiccup shrugged and nodded helplessly.

Astrid scuffed her boot against the ground. “I’m supposed I’m not as opposed to the idea as I would have expected to be…”

“Wha-wha-what?”

She punched his shoulder hard, smirking. “I’m saying you’re not a bad person to spend the rest of my life with, Hiccup.”

He rubbed his arm with a grimace. “Y-you’re serious?”

“Dead serious.”

“B-b-but you—but you said you didn’t want to—”

“That was before we actually started hanging out,” she said, looking mildly apologetic. “Look, Hiccup, I’m not saying my dream is to someday fall in love and get married, but I don’t feel like chopping my head off when I imagine doing it with you. At least we’re friends. Hanging out with you is fun, we get along, you don’t try to tell me how to live my life every five seconds like someone we know…”

Brain struggling to follow the conversation, Hiccup found himself saying, “Yeah, well, if I tried that, I’d probably find myself at the sharp end of your axe.”

Astrid glanced down at her weapon, then strapped it to her back and turned back to Hiccup with a new, determined set to her jaw and her head held slightly higher, like she finally found her rhythm again. Which was honestly ironic because Hiccup felt like the ground was shaking below his feet as he kept on trying to understand what in the world was happening.

“What do you say?” she asked.

“Er…” he murmured eloquently.

Toothless chortled in his head.

Astrid held her hand out for him, then waited quietly for him to make up his mind. He stared down at the hand. On the back of it he could see Stormfly peering up at him, looking rather excited at what was happening. Her yellow eyes met Hiccup’s and he could almost imagine her trilling at him lightly.

His brows furrowed in thought. “Can I have one of Stormfly’s spines?”

The blonde blinked at him blankly. “Uh… why?”

“I have an idea,” he said. Then he shook his head to clear it a bit and shook Astrid’s hand shyly. “You’ll tell me if you feel like backing out of it at the last minute, right?”

Face brightening, Astrid promised, “I won’t change my mind.”

“I’ll hold you to that. S-so can I have that spine?”

Notes:

What? Oh, yeah, I'm here to tell y'all you had some lovely predictions about where this story was going and they were... kinda wrong. As you can see. At least about the betrothal thing. The original plan with this, by the way, was to actually make Hiccup say yes to Astrid's plan from the get-go. And then it didn't make sense from his point of view and I changed it. All of that happened a few months back, and when I read it all over again now to continue this story I just sort of... stared at the fanfic, then shook my head and wondered what the heck I was trying to do with it because how was I supposed to go from Hiccup saying no to a future where it's confirmed that the two of them are engaged? What is wrong with me??

Anyway, after running through a bunch of ideas in my head, I figured this would be the one to go with. Does it make sense? I mean, yes. But it's also still not out of love. Hiccup says yes to the plan because he wants AStrid to be happy and she agrees to the new terms. And Astrid accepts it because... well, she's closer to Hiccup now and even if it's not love, she still cares about him and is willing to go through with it, especially if it would also get Snotlout off her back in the end.

Does that make sense to anyone but me?? No????? (and a few more ?????????)

I'm eating souffle while posting this. My mom put too much chocolate in it but still put it in the oven. We're a family of sweets to there's no such thing as too sweet. It's delicious. I'm more of a sour kind of gal, but sweets are okay. I prefer fries. Chips. Whatever you wanna call 'em, I'm gonna have 'em.

You know, I have a question. I just saw this post about a kid who got grounded. The details aren't important. But I just... I commented something about how my parents never grounded me - it wasn't a thing in our house. I never knew anyone who got grounded, only heard about it from books. Anyway, so I wrote this, and someone said something along the lines of: "Well, I'd hate to see how you turned out." And, like, I think I'm fine. My mom keeps on telling me how she heard about all the drama from other parents she worked with, meanwhile me and my brothers were little angels who never did anything wrong. So like... what is it with grounding? I honestly... don't think it would have even been effective, considering how I prefer being home than going out with friends. Seriously, explain this to me.

It's unrelated to the fic, but it's a matter of importance. To me, personally.

Also, I watched Grease yesterday for the first (and last) time with my mom (who also hadn't watched it before) and it was... wow. Just... wow. What the heck. It was hilarious at points, but the ending baffled me so much, it's so not the kind of messages movies today push down our throats ><

Okay, I'm done.

Cya! :)

Chapter 18: Now...

Notes:

I'll admit, this is the part where I truly started fumbling around with this story.

Have fun! ^^

Now…

Seeing as Ryder found no new information on his flight to the islands near Berk, Astrid and he reluctantly decided to sleep for the night, then make their way to Berk. She knew they were both wary of what Alvin was planning by keeping the Berkians alive, but without a clue what his plan was, all they could do was hope for the best.

So, feeling anxious yet determined, they made their way to the far side of the island, Toothless and Stormfly flying ahead of them to check that the coast was clear. (Although Toothless didn’t seem to appreciate Sharpshot staying with Hiccup without his supervision.) Once they made it, they rushed to take cover in the forest, then Astrid followed Ryder to a cove she hadn’t even been aware of. It felt strange, to discover new things about her own island when the one in the lead wasn’t anyone she recognized, yet she let it go.

The cove was isolated and peaceful, but close enough to the village so that Astrid wasn’t worried they’d take too long to reach Berk if they decided to act quickly. Still, she was much more wary of the place than Toothless and his rider seemed to be. The two acted like the place was as familiar to them as the back of their hands—er… paw? They settled in a shadowy area with all the ease and familiarity in the world.

When she asked about it, Ryder told her Toothless used to spend a lot of his time in the cove when he wasn’t around him, and when they started getting closer together, the dragon had shown the place to him so they’d have some place to be by themselves, without anyone else. It brought up a couple more questions to mind—like why they felt the need to escape everyone else, or why Toothless had wandered all the way to this cove instead of staying with his human—but she didn’t ask.

A bit past noon, Astrid and Ryder set out to scour the woods and look for anything suspicious. Or maybe some wild dragons they could somehow train and possibly work with. They had no idea when the next raid would be, nor was Astrid too thrilled at the idea of having to rescue her chief and people with dragons raging all over the place, despite it being their best shot at success.

“We won’t be able to lean on our dragon soul’s assistance,” she reminded Ryder while he was scratching the chin of a wandering Zippleback, the other head nudging him pleadingly. “Toothless, Stormfly and every other dragon would be out for the count, remember?”

“Toothless would be fine,” he said flippantly. “He can throw off the queen’s control for the most part. If he concentrates enough. Although he would be slightly dazed during it all, so he wouldn’t be too helpful until he manages to shake her off.”

Astrid gawked at him. “He can do that? How?”

“Sheer determination and stubbornness?” he offered.

Later on, when they were discussing their plan in more detail, Ryder told Astrid she’d have to sneak into the Mess Hall and look for the prison keys hidden behind the books at the back of the room. Which was an odd place to hide the keys in Astrid’s opinion. Ryder’s only explanation was that he needed a place where no one would have looked, just in case he got himself in trouble.

“It’s good to see you’ve been aware of the laws you were breaking, at least,” she noted dryly.

His eyes crinkled behind the mask. “Hey, one thing I know pretty well is the law. Just grab the keys and leave the Hall without getting caught. I would have gone there myself, but Alvin would probably be either there or at the chief’s house, and… I’m guessing he’d recognize me faster than he’d recognize you if either of us is seen.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “What’s your deal with him anyway?”

“Oh, you know…” He shot the Night Fury tattooed on his palm a look. “He heard there was someone who could ‘control’ dragons and decided it would be excellent to try and kidnap me so I could help him control the dragons at Outcast Island so he could use them to infiltrate Berk. I, er… I didn’t really feel like it.”

“Does he know you’re from Berk?”

He laughed hollowly. “He knows exactly who I am. So… yeah, p-pretty much.”

Astrid tried not to feel hurt that their common enemy apparently knew more about the man who was helping her than she did. Stormfly still cooed at her softly from Astrid’s thigh, though, clearly aware of her human’s betrayed feelings.

“Well, he took over the island without the dragons in the end,” she said grimly.

“At this point he just hates me for managing to evade him, honestly,” Ryder said with a shrug. “I-I wouldn’t be surprised if his plan here is just to lure me in…”

“You—you really think this is all him taunting you?” she scoffed.

Ryder waved his hand dismissively. “Nah, he also hates Berk and Da—the chief. He would have tried to take over the island no matter what. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he was counting on me heading back over here to try and help either.”

She crossed her arms. “You weren’t exactly eager to help.”

“Ngh… I would’ve helped,” he confessed. “I wouldn’t have let you handle all of this by yourself, especially when it’s Berk that’s in danger. But hey, I managed to get a promise out of you before. I figured I should at least try.”

“You really care about these dragons, don’t you?”

They both looked around the cove at her words. Their eyes flitted over all the sleepy dragons that had followed them over there. They all looked so peaceful and calm; nothing like the ferocious beasts Astrid had grown up believing they were. And they were all wild dragons, none of them belonging to a human. It was surreal yet… oddly endearing.

“Dragons are… simpler,” said Ryder after a long pause. “I don’t need to act a certain way around them. They don’t judge me as much when I mess up. Even when Toothless laughs at me because I do something wrong I can tell he’s not really mean-spirited about it. But humans…Vikings are tough and strong and utterly frustrating. I never fit in with them the way I do with dragons.”

She frowned at him. Trying to wrap her head around the idea of getting along better with dragons than humans was utterly impossible. Astrid couldn’t comprehend such a thing. How could anyone find more solidarity or understanding in an animal, after all? Humans had their flaws, but they could communicate, could help each other, could lean on one another.

Her eyebrows sank lower as the image of Hiccup popped up in her mind again, shoulders slouched and head hung low under the scrutiny of the village. After all, she reminded herself, not all humans received help from others. Some—like Hiccup—had to live their own life surrounded by people who didn’t like them, who demanded more from them no matter what they did.

Astrid, being the best Viking among her peers, was popular in Berk. There were very few around the village who didn’t like her or didn’t count her as worthy. She was strong, determined, fearless, courageous. Everything a Viking had to be. Unlike Hiccup, who’d resorted to building strange contraptions just to try and appeal to everyone else, to prove he wasn’t the useless rant everybody claimed he was. And none of his work had ever earned him any sort of respect—even as Gobber’s apprentice—until he became the top of their dragon training class.

“So I need to take the prison keys from the Great Hall, preferably without getting caught,” she said after clearing her throat pointedly.

“Yup.”

She pursed her lips. “How did you even get the keys to the prison?”

She could hear his smirk when he said, “I have my ways. L-let’s focus, shall we? You need to get them and set out to free everyone that’s locked up there.”

Astrid nodded. “But the chief isn’t there. He’s—”

“Yeah, you told me. The training arena,” Ryder sighed. “Either Alvin didn’t want him to escape the prison somehow, knowing the cages at the arena are sturdier, or… or he separated him in order to present him as bait.”

“You think he put him there to lure someone in?” she said in surprise. “Let me guess, you think it’s a bait for you?”

He didn’t answer, instead staring down at Toothless. She obviously couldn’t hear the dragon soul, but with Ryder keeping quiet Astrid really had no chance of understanding what was passing between them. The only thing she was certain of was that the two were communicating with each other while leaving her out of the loop.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” the man said eventually, shrugging. “Maybe there’s nothing fishy about it and he’s just trying to enrage D—Stoick by pulling him away from his people. That might be it.”

She got the feeling he didn’t truly believe that.

“So I’ll free the people at the prison, then I’ll head over to free the chief—” said Astrid.

“I’ll handle that. You’ll have to lead the Berkians so they know what to do.”

“You just said it could be a trap set for you!”

“I’ll be fine,” he dismissed. “Listen, they’re gonna need a way to defend themselves and attack the Outcasts. Even with a raid going on Alvin’s men will fight. They’ll need weapons.”

She shook her head. “The forge is on the other side of town. We’ll never make it there without being noticed. Not with everyone wandering around. We’re Vikings, we’re not exactly great when it comes to stealth.”

Ryder hummed thoughtfully and tapped his chin over the mask. “Well… the prison is close to the forest, though. So maybe you should lead them there, away from the Outcasts. They can come here and hide. I’ll drag the chief over here as well. He’s probably gonna want to fight Alvin instead, but we’ll need to arm everyone before. So once they’re all here, we can sneak into the forge and sneak out everything we need. We’ll just have to do it at night and be very careful not to get caught. Alvin will probably scour the island for his escaped prisoners. He’s going to have guards everywhere.”

“Bet the twins can sneak out the weapons,” Astrid said. “Ruff and Tuff are devious enough to sneak in and out of town without getting noticed.”

“Y-you sure?” he said skeptically. “Because the vibe I always get from them is: would get caught if chaos will ensue. Th-that’s not really what we’re going for here.”

“Guess it’s your turn to trust me,” she said with a smug grin. “We’ll just have to stress to them just how important this is. They’ll do it. They don’t want Berk overrun by Outcasts any more than we do.”

She could tell he was still pensive about it, but he nodded all the same. The fact that he took her word for it made something in her chest ease up.

“Okay,” he said. “Once everyone is ready for a fight, they can just run the Outcasts off the island. Berk’s warrior can take them on. They’ll never let themselves get caught unprepared again. And if they have the advantage, they’ll take over the village again, no problem. Plus, the dragons will help.”

She watched as he scratched Sharpshot’s back. The Terror was resting nearby, breathing calmly in his sleep. He’d curled up beside Ryder earlier, clearly feeling at ease around him despite Toothless’s irritation. And while the sight made Astrid smile a little, a problem popped up in her head.

“Erm… how do you think a tribe of dragon-fighting Vikings is going to react once they get to a cove filled with wild dragons?” she said warily. “They’ll take one look at this sanctuary and attack, even without any weapons. I know these dragons are calm now and will maybe help us later—”

“Actually, I trained them mostly so they’d be safer during the raid,” he said, almost sheepishly. “Trained dragons get less affected by the queen. It’s like the connection to humans makes the queen’s voice muddled for them or something. I’m not sure why, but it works. The fact that they could be useful against the Outcasts later on is a bonus.”

Astrid shook her head and moved right past that. “Whatever the reason is for them being here—the moment everyone sees them, it’ll become a bloodbath.”

Ryder’s shoulders slumped a bit. He sent his dragon tattoo another look, as if begging for an answer. But all Toothless did, as far as Astrid could tell, was blink up at the man with his acidic green eyes.

“Well, I-I guess you have a lot of explaining to do during the trek here, eh?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It’s going to be a disaster.”

“That’s the spirit!” he said brightly.

Notes:

So I have a problem. I reached the end. And... I'm not sure exactly how to finish this thing. Like, what the conclusion should be. You can't really help with that because it's gotta be something I come up with myself. The problem is that I think people are gonna hate the only bad ideas I manage to come up with.

Meaning ya'll clearly have a lot to look forward to! :D

Cya! :)

Chapter 19: Then...

Then…

“What do you say, bud?”

Toothless’s head tipped to the side as he sniffed the pendant Hiccup held in front of him. When he went to lick it, though, the boy pulled it back and shot the Night Fury a mild, exasperated glare.

“You know that doesn’t wash out,” he chided. “The last thing I need is for Astrid to—to chew me out for giving her a necklace coated in slobber. Eh, why do I even bother? Y-you’re a dragon. Your taste is different than a girl’s, right?” He blinked. “At least, I hope so.”

Crooning, Toothless flicked his tail behind him a little, then bent forward on his front paws and looked at Hiccup expectantly.

Hiccup wanted to be upset with Toothless for dragging him away from something he ought to think about for longer than a minute. Besides, he still wanted to make sure the necklace didn’t have any flaws before actually handing it to Astrid—he shuddered to think how awkward it would be to stand there and suddenly see all of the tweaks he’d forgotten about.

But he couldn’t bring himself to be upset. Not when flying was such an amazing, incredible, liberating experience. Toothless had taken him flying a couple of times before, his eyes darting back to watch Hiccup’s reaction. So he’d seen just how ecstatic Hiccup had been every time they took off. Hiccup hadn’t really made any attempt at hiding his exhilaration and delight at finally taking his feet off the ground.

True, it had been mortifying at first, and Toothless’s daredevil twists and turns weren’t helpful. The Night Fury sure did love taking unnecessary spins in the air, his wings cutting through the wind, creating that familiar whistling sound every Berkian knew to associate with the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself.

Despite the fact that he was human, Hiccup soon found himself absolutely addicted to the feeling of skyrocketing off the island, soaring through the open air above Berk and basking in the pure freedom that the sky provided him. Even though he was completely dependent on the dragon soul he was riding, Hiccup felt more unrestricted, limitless and free up among the clouds.

Maybe it had something to do with it being very new to him. Maybe it was because the open sky felt like they were boundless, endless, stretching on and on and inviting him to discover new and unknown lands. Maybe it was because, while flying, he was finally off of Berk and away from the people who’d scorned and belittled him ever since he could remember himself—the people who were now welcoming him with excited grins and astonished laughs because of his success in dragon training.

Whatever the reason was, the temptation was too great once Toothless lowered himself invitingly.

Stashing the pendant away, Hiccup happily clambered onto the dragon’s back and tried to get as comfortable as possible while once again making a mental note to get back to the forge later so he could maybe make himself a saddle, just in case Toothless felt like letting him fly on his back more often than not in the future. Because flying on a dragon’s bare back was… hilariously dangerous. And as much as Hiccup didn’t mind Toothless’s wild and dangerous tricks in the air, he felt like a saddle would make him feel slightly more secure up there.

For now, though, he wrapped his legs around the dragon as far as he could and held on tight to Toothless’s neck. An joyous whooo! left his lips the moment Toothless shot into the open air, his wings spreading wide on either side, catching the wind.

Hiccup laughed when Toothless twirled fancily for a moment before swooping down in a spectacular dive, the two of them plummeting toward the treetops. He wasn’t afraid, though. Not a single spike of fear pumped through his heart. Hiccup simply did his best to remain on top of Toothless as he beamed. How could he be scared when he trusted his dragon to catch them before they could get hurt?

Spreading his wings once more at the last second, Toothless caught them before they could crash. They glided over the woods, then the dragon pumped his wings several times to rise back up.

Last time he’d started taking Hiccup closer to the village than the boy was comfortable with, especially when it was light enough outside for the Vikings to be able to look up, spot the Night Fury and realize there was a figure on his back. He had needed to steer Toothless away from there, urging the dragon to keep to the uninhabited side of the island so they’d keep out of sight.

This time Hiccup didn’t need to say anything—Toothless knew not to wander too close to the Vikings. Instead, he took them to the sea stacks on the far side of the island. They weaved through them seamlessly, with Toothless roaring and warbling contentedly and Hiccup holding on for dear life while whooping excitedly and enjoying the ride.

They moved past the sea stacks and flew swiftly over the waves, the breeze ruffling Hiccup’s hair and stealing his voice away. He didn’t care. Once he felt steady enough on the dragon’s back, he lifted his hands and spread his arms to the sides, his eyes closing as he focused on the feeling of being away from everything and everyone who expected things from him, out here atop his dragon soul and in the company of his best friend.

Killing a dragon hadn’t been the thing that’d been missing from his life, hew knew with astonishing clarity. All this time he’s been working so hard on proving himself to the villagers who scrunched up their noses at him. But he didn’t need to kill a dragon to be happy. He didn’t need their approval or acceptance anymore. Toothless was more than enough. Hiccup knew, without a shred of doubt, that as long as his Night Fury was with him, he’d be happy.

He was pulled out of his ecstasy by the feeling of Toothless jerking to the side without a single warning. Hiccup’s arms dropped at once and he once more gripped the dragon tightly to prevent himself from sliding off his back and into the ocean. He furrowed his brows in confusion when he realized Toothless’s happy croons were replaced with an odd, almost involuntary.

“Toothless? Toothless, what’s wrong?” he asked, trying to press his palm to the dragon’s head.

Toothless shook him off sharply and kept on flying away from Berk.

“Bud, what’s happening? A-are you okay? W-w-what’s wrong with you?” he pressed, his stomach clenching with trepidation. When Toothless once more jerked away from his touch, Hiccup frowned deeply. “Bud, s-stop. Where are we going?”

He didn’t get an answer. Instead, Toothless simply kept on flying forward with an odd sense of purpose, like he had a very specific direction in mind. Hiccup went to ask him what was wrong again, but then he heard it—the sounds of other dragons nearby, all of them growing closer and closer.

Stomach sinking and heart pounding behind his ribs, Hiccup lowered himself, pressing as close to Toothless as he could. He prayed to the gods he would get out of this safely. He and Toothless, because whatever was going on with his dragon, it felt off. He wished he could help, but he had no idea how to handle this.

Toothless flew straight into a thick fog over the ocean, and while Hiccup couldn’t see them, he could hear the other dragons doing the same. He could see their shapes only vaguely through the mist. Sea stacks seemed to appear out of nowhere as they kept on flying, but luckily Toothless seemed to know where to go because they didn’t slam into a single one.

Hiccup still felt like he was in grave danger, even if it wouldn’t be at the hands of an inanimate piece of rock sticking out of the sea and looming over him without his eyes detecting it.

He had no idea how long it took, but eventually they moved past the suffocating fog and Hiccup’s eyes immediately fell upon a volcanic mountain. He could finally see all of the other dragons that were flying in the same direction as him and Toothless, although other than casting him brief glances none of them seemed to mind his presence there much. They were more intent on flying toward the volcano.

Heart in his throat, Hiccup tried to make himself as small as possible as Toothless flew into the mountain through an opening, the other dragons doing the same. They navigated through the dark, intense heat greeting them and making Hiccup’s palms turn slick with sweat as he desperately held on to his dragon’s neck.

And then the tunnel opened up to reveal a hole in the center of the mountain, red-orange light emitting from its depths. Hiccup gulped thickly as the other dragons all flew toward the pit and threw in their haul—sheep, fish, yaks. He knew that Toothless would never hurt him by tossing him into a pit of lava, but he also couldn’t help but note the fact that his dragon was the only one seemingly without anything to throw in other than the human on his back.

But instead of heading toward the middle like the others, Toothless shook his head a bit, then twisted sharply to the side and steered them toward a stone ledge. Hiccup heaved a sigh of relief once his dragon’s feet touched the ground. When he tried to touch his head again, Toothless let him, although he still looked tense and incredibly focused on what was happening with the other dragons.

“The nest,” Hiccup croaked, his voice barely audible to his own ears.

Toothless’s frills twitched. He hissed, the noise sounding almost like a warning to Hiccup.

How did you know where it was, bud? Hiccup thought desperately. Why’d you bring me here? Why are they all dumping their food instead of eating it?

No reply. Typical.

Wiping his hands on his tunic, Hiccup kept his eyes on the glowing hole, watching as more and more dragons arrived only to get rid of their catch. He felt stump, struggling to comprehend the dragons kept on raiding them… only to get rid of everything they could steal. What was the point, then? Was it just a game? A challenge? Why would they bother stealing from Vikings if they were just going to dispose of their haul in the end?

And then a Gronckle regurgitated a fish, hovered in the air for a moment longer almost drunkenly and went to move away—but an enormous maw burst from the pit, snapping around the Gronckle and swallowing it whole. The jaw sank back down slowly while every other dragon in the vicinity froze.

Hiccup’s eyes grew wide with utter dread and horror. His body shook, his breath accelerated. His jaw dropped as he stared at the disappearing head that had just snatched a Gronckle and swallowed it in one bite. He felt like his brain was going to explode from the sheer absurdity of it. Because this wasn’t possible. No dragon was that big. No dragon existed. No, no, no.

And yet. This was clearly happening. So.

Tearing his eyes away from the gruesome sight, Hiccup peered down at Toothless. The Night Fury’s pupils were shrunk down to slits. He looked both menacing and frightened by the monster lurking in that pit. And more than anything, Toothless’s fear kickstarted Hiccup’s brain and cleared his mind just enough for him to be able to think with a bit more clarity.

Before he could so much as open his mouth, the gigantic dragon’s head stopped descending, instead hovering there, its nostrils sniffing the air. Hiccup’s gut sank when he realized the head was inching in their direction, apparently detecting the strangers.

“Come bud, you’ve gotta get us out of here,” Hiccup called urgently.

This time his dragon soul didn’t hesitate—he spread his wings and shot up. It happened just in time too; a second later the head emerged from the hole once more, the strong jaw closing around the ledge Hiccup and Toothless had occupied.

Hiccup encouraged Toothless to fly faster, twist more sharply, take wilder turns. It was hard to navigate now because the rest of the dragons started flying toward the exit as well. When Hiccup briefly glanced at them, he could see their own panic as they escaped the monster still trying to capture him and his Night Fury. Still, Toothless somehow managed to twirl between the hoard of dragons without the giant dragon capturing them.

They kept on flying at top speed even while crossing the foggy terrain again. The open sea revealed itself to them but Toothless still didn’t slow down. Hiccup was too dazed and shocked to notice. His limbs were locked around the dragon, refusing to let go. He wasn’t sure whether it was because he was afraid for himself or for Toothless. Either way, he was frozen in place and neither one of them seemed to care.

But eventually Hiccup’s body thawed and Toothless’s speed ebbed away.

Straightening up a little, Hiccup shakily said, “What was that?”

Toothless warbled weakly.

“What was that thing?”

Toothless sounded more miserable this time around, but his answer was still not satisfying in the least.

Hiccup opened his mouth to question him some more, but then he noticed the way the dragon’s wings were trembling a bit—ant not from the wind. His pupils—usually so wide and friendly—were still narrow, albeit less than before. He crooned faintly, his voice torn between confusion and fear.

Taking in the deepest he could manage at his state, Hiccup rubbed Toothless’s back and muttered, “It’s okay, bud. We’re okay, both of us. It’s fine, we’re safe.”

Are we? Toothless’s next warble seemed to say.

Hiccup didn’t respond.

Notes:

Me? Oh, I finished writing the story, that's all. I'm good, thank you for asking. (Pretend you'd asked, please and thank you.)

Will you like the ending? Frigg knows. Do I care? N-- yes, I really do, but we'll get there. I have, like, ten more chapters to go.

Cya! :)

Chapter 20: Now...

Now…

There was a raid a couple of days later, which Astrid and Ryder spent at the cove, watching over the other dragons and getting closer to them. Astrid still felt slightly disturbed by the knowledge that she was going against everything she’d been taught, but they weren’t attacking her nor were they hostile in any way. They looked mostly pathetic, hungry and tired.

The funny thing was the difference between Stormfly’s and Toothless’s reactions to it all. Because while Astrid’s dragon soul kept on encouraging her to hang out around the wild dragons, Toothless very obviously preferred hissing at any and all dragons who got too close to his human, grumbling unhappily every time Ryder petted a wild Nadder or Zippleback instead of paying attention to him.

Ryder’s only reaction to his dragon’s displeasure was an amused eyeroll every once in a while.

It was dark when the raid started. Astrid woke up by the sound of all the dragons around her stirring awake and growling. She tensed when she realized what was going on, but before her hand could automatically reach for her axe, Ryder put a calming hand on her wrist, shot her a look, then got up and started cautiously approaching as many dragons as he could, speaking to them softly to try and get them out of their trance.

She remained frozen to the spot, only watching, until she noticed Stormfly squawking nearby, her legs stomping on the ground irritably. The dragon soul’s pupils were narrow, her wings fluttering desperately in an attempt to carry her upward so she could join the raid for the queen. The only reason she was still on the ground was that Toothless had her tail clasped tightly between his jaws.

The only way to stop a dragon soul from going crazy during a raid was to tie them down and simply let the madness pass. That’s what Astrid had learned her entire life. She was used to tying Stormfly up with a bit of a struggle whenever dragons raided their village. It’s become second nature by now.

But she wasn’t at the village. She was in the forest, surrounded by wild dragons Ryder was calming down effectively. And while Stormfly was clearly still affected by the queen’s commanding voice, Toothless wasn’t very clearly still in his right mind. His eyes were still wide, albeit slightly glazed over. And he was using what little resistance he had to prevent Stormfly from leaving.

“Stormfly, stop!” she called, scrambling to her feet and toward her dragon. “Stop, stop, stop right now!”

Stormfly kept on flapping her wings and chirping in distress. She sent a burst of flames in Astrid’s face but the girl rolled out of the way before it could hit her.

“Yelling’s not gonna do anything,” Ryder said, keeping his voice as mild and soothing as ever as he cooed at a red Terrible Terror. “This dragon cares about you, Astrid. Show her you care about her too. Don’t shout at her or throw orders in her face. Try to talk to her, pull her back to her senses.”

The idea was bizarre. Then again, this whole thing was bizarre.

They had to act quickly, she knew. The raid wouldn’t last forever and they had quite a bit of things to accomplish while it was raging on. And for that, she needed not to have to worry about Stormfly. So Astrid pushed her reservations to the back of her mind and tried to meet Stormfly’s yellow eyes and look… she wasn’t even sure—harmless, maybe?

“Easy, girl,” she said, trying to copy Ryder’s soft tone. “You—you don’t have to listen to that dragon, okay? You can stay here instead of raiding Berk. Doesn’t that sound much better? You can help us free everyone. We could really use your help, actually. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Stormfly squawked, her head shaking from side to side. Astrid could see Ryder looking away from the Gronckle he was with to glance at the two of them. When Astrid didn’t say anything else, he motioned for her with his hand to keep on going.

So for a few minutes Astrid kept on talking to Stormfly as lightly as possible, inching closer and closer to her dragon while trying not to appear malicious or threatening. At some point Toothless seemed to decide his services were no longer needed because he let go of Stormfly and bounded away toward his rider, crooning proudly as he nudged the man almost urgently.

Astrid kept her eyes on her dragon for the most part. She only relaxed once Stormfly chirped at her, pupils wide and friendly again. She rubbed the scaly beak of the Nadder and exhaled when she responded with a contented coo, nuzzling the hand.

Once the dragons were calm, Ryder and Astrid both rushed out of the cove. Before she could really protest much, he climbed on top of Toothless, then dragged her to sit in the space behind him. The feeling of Stormfly appearing on her ankle almost went unnoticed by her as the Night Fury beat his wings and carried them out of the cove and toward the village as quickly as possible.

She screamed until her throat felt raw. Her arms wrapped around Ryder’s middle in order to keep herself on the back of the dragon. She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to the back of the man sitting before her, her pulse fast and her breaths panicked. Past the wind in her ears she could hear Ryder trying to both shush and reassure her while apologizing for grabbing her like that.

“W-w-we had to leave already. We don’t know how much time we’ll have,” he tried to explain.

She nodded mutely, still refusing to look at anything and instead trying to focus on the movement of Toothless’s muscles beneath the two of them, the cold air that prickled against her skin, the distant roars of dragons and Outcasts coming from the village as they approached it at breakneck speed.

And then her stomach swooped as they started dipping down. Astrid’s grip on Ryder tightened and she anticipated they’d touch the ground at any moment. The thud of Toothless’s legs landing back on the earth wasn’t as shuddering as Astrid had expected it to be, but she still felt like her entire body rattled from the impact.

Once she was certain they were no longer in the air, she opened her eyes. They landed at the edge of the forest, relatively close to the Great Hall. The kill ring wasn’t anywhere near their spot, but that wasn’t really her priority right now. She needed that key, then to free the Berkians. Ryder would take care of the chief.

Letting go of the man, Astrid shakily pushed herself off Toothless and shook her limbs a little. She nodded at Ryder as bravely as she could when he lingered behind a second longer, peering at her through the slits of his mask. Then he put a cautionary finger over his lips before patting the side of Toothless’s head.

And just like that, they disappeared into the night, the black scales of the dragon and the dark armor of his rider camouflaging them against the night sky.

Astrid shook her head to try and clear it, then rushed toward the village with her axe in hand and her eyes peeled back.

There were wild dragons all around, going for the food stored in the village while burning down houses. Outcasts were scattered all over the place, attacking the beasts with their weapons and hollering in rage. The dragons roared right back and retaliated by attacking with their claws, teeth, spikes and fire. An idiot using one of the catapults fired at the village, caving a house in and nearly killing a fellow Outcast who started shouting in outrage.

Despite every instinct in her body screaming at her to get in there and help protect the place she called home, Astrid ignored the chaos and instead tried to stay out of sight. It wasn’t hard. All the intruders were busy dealing with the dragons, so one lithe Viking girl going unnoticed was to be expected. Astrid just hoped luck would remain on her side for the rest of the night.

She tiptoed around burnt buildings and ducked under the legs of a wild Nadder. She feared for a second the dragon would chase her, but a buff Outcast lady showed up then, trying to decapitate the dragon and effectively distracting him.

Astrid kept on running, frowning at the guilt pooling in her stomach for leaving that dragon to fend for itself and possibly get killed. It was a wild dragon. It was controlled by the queen, but it was going after Berk and threatening people. Astrid couldn’t pity them all. If she had to make the choice between a human and a dragon, she’d pick the human. Always.

The Great Hall was open, light washing out from within. She crept toward it and peered inside, spotting only a few people inside. They were all too busy grumbling about the raid and whining about how it was too cold outside to fight the dragons to notice her. She stuck to the shadows the best she could, praying to the gods that her sunny hair wouldn’t catch their attention. They might not realize she was a Berkian at first sight, but surely they’d know she wasn’t one of them.

Either she was really great at sneaking around or the men were simply too thick to notice someone entering the room they were in. Either way, Astrid rushed toward the back, basking in the feeling of the shadows enveloping her. It wasn’t hard to spot the shelves of books, all of them dusty and ancient. Astrid had read maybe one or two of them, but reading really wasn’t her thing. She preferred taking action; like most Vikings. Actually, this made it the perfect place to hide something… Ryder was right about that.

She went to tug at the books and look for the keys behind them, but then footsteps approached her corner and Astrid dived to the narrow space between the wooden bookcase and the wall. She forced her breaths to come out without a sound, her hands gripping the handle of her axe tightly as she braced herself for a fight.

“Ye want ter read?” a gruff voice said incredulously.

“Better than fightin’ these beasts again,” a second one grumbled.

“But read?”

“Maybe ah’ll find somethin’ Alvin would wanna know about, eh? Wouldn’ tha’ be nice?”

Astrid held remarkably still. She could hear the two men stopping in front of the bookcase, then the sound of the books being roughly shoved around as they looked for something to leaf through. They kept on bickering with each other, both ignoring the shouts and roars from outside as the raid kept on raging on. Apparently they didn’t care about that as much as they cared about impressing their leader.

She glanced around to try and see if she could see any part of them from her hiding spot, but all that was visible to her was the wall and the stone floor of the Mess Hall. Her nose wrinkled at the sight of stains of either food or blood on the ground. Vikings really weren’t the best at cleaning after themselves, were they?

Her eyes climbed up the wall until they landed on a shield hanging off it. Most of them were closer to the front of the hall, displaying the chiefs of Berk with their heirs. Hiccup would have had his own shield with his father had he not disappeared a short while before it was supposed to be commissioned. As it were, there was no shield of the latest heir of Berk—and at this rate there wouldn’t be one either.

The shield she found herself staring at showed something else, though. An image she’d seen before when she was much, much younger. Half a circle of Vikings standing and staring at a batch of babies ready to be sacrificed to the gods. Between the two groups stood two figures—a man covered in a strange, black armor and a dark dragon. The man had a flaming sword held before him, his other hand resting on top of the dragon’s head, unbothered by the black and red tail wrapped around his legs.

Her jaw dropped.

When the men finally stepped away from the corner with whatever book they felt like reading, Astrid crawled back out, but instead of looking for the keys she approached the drawing on the shield, her breath caught in her throat and her mouth feeling incredibly dry.

The dragon, she knew, was a Night Fury. She would have recognized one immediately after spending as much time as she did around Toothless. And, more importantly, other than that strange red tailfin he seemed to have in the drawing, the shape of the head, the frills along its sides and the green eyes of the Night Fury matched Toothless’s to a tee.

Her gaze drifted toward the man in the painting. The flaming sword and the fact that he was touching a dragon should have been the most astonishing and captivating thing about him. But what Astrid found herself staring at was his face. Because while the rest of his body was covered in a suit that matched his dragon’s hide, the man’s face was bare, which meant that the painter had been able to capture his features.

It wasn’t as detailed as Astrid would have liked, and the stoic expression on his face made her wonder if maybe the one who’d painted this was just a little biased, but she still recognized a mop of wild auburn hair, a rather large nose and those eyes—emerald-green eyes that seemed to pierce right through her soul.

The first person that came to her mind at the sight of this face was Hiccup. Sure, the boy in her memories was shorter, softer, ganglier. He’d been awkward and his face rounder than the one in the drawing. But she could imagine him growing up into this. She could imagine his features sharpening, his body sprouting up, his shoulders pulling back with a bit more courage and confidence than before.

But the presence of the Night Fury by his side—a Night Fury that she couldn’t help but see Toothless in—made her brain provide the image of Ryder instead. And the armor the man had in the painting was also similar to what the man she’d called for help had on. The flaming sword was new, and the pegleg was slightly worrying, but she still thought this man appeared to be a lot like the dragon rider.

Her brows furrowed.

She remembered Hiccup suddenly learning so much about dragons and utilizing his knowledge during dragon training. She remembered his explanations about learning it all from Gobber’s dragon, but maybe… maybe he’d lied to her about that. She remembered his sudden suggestion that maybe the dragons were being controlled by something else, forced to raid Berk and the other islands nearby. They’d mocked him for it, believing dragons were just vicious, ruthless creatures.

But how had he even come to that conclusion in the first place? As far as she was concerned—as everyone—was concerned, Hiccup had no dragon soul. He couldn’t have possibly used one to ride to the nest then. And he probably wouldn’t have used a wild dragon… right?

He’d disappeared the night before his last test against the Monstrous Nightmare, where he was supposed to slay the dragon. He’d talked to Astrid just a little while before that, but then she woke up the next day and there was no trace of him. Incidentally, the Night Fury dragon soul that occupied the island from time to time hadn’t been seen ever since then.

Ryder was from Berk. He knew stuff about dragons that none of the Berkians did, like how friendly they could be. He knew how to handle them, how to subdue them, how to make them drop in ecstasy instead of pain. He knew the same tricks Hiccup had used during training, probably after learning them from Toothless. Toothless—the mysterious dragon soul that had, as previously mentioned, disappeared around the same time as Hiccup had dropped off the face of the earth.

And hadn’t she had that weird wakeful dream of hearing Hiccup’s voice before realizing it must have been her mind playing tricks on her since she’d only been around Toothless and Ryder at the time? Unless, believing she was asleep, the man had dropped his phony accent to talk to his dragon properly.

Astrid’s eyes grew wider and wider as she stared into the green eyes of the man in the painting. Someone she was sure looked like Hiccup. And she knew the same eyes had stared at her from behind a mask countless times already over the last few days.

Stormfly bounded up to Astrid’s cheek, looked at the painting and let out a cheerful caw in Astrid’s head.

Of course. Her dragon recognized him from the beginning, probably thanks to his scent for the most part. But maybe there was more to it. Maybe Astrid had just not been willing to see the truth, trying to hold on to the image of the boy in her mind instead of allowing herself to believe he might have changed and become… a dragon rider—something that went against everything Berk believed in.

Frowning, Astrid turned away from the shield and instead approached the bookcase again. She moved the books out of the way and felt behind them for the keys. At the familiar feeling of slim metal, Astrid’s fingers closed and she pulled out the hidden prison keys. Hiccup had put them there, most likely before leaving Berk for good. Maybe he’d expected to be caught and accused of treason and had made some kind of plan of escape.

It didn’t matter. She had to free everyone. She had to go through with the plan.

There’ll be time to freak out and punch Hiccup for lying to her later.

Notes:

Excuse me, I'm just cackling in the corner. Please, don't mind me. I'll see you later :)

But really, this is... hahahahaha I forgot this was the next part. I mean, can't leave Astrid clueless any longer, she's not THAT stupid.

Cya! :)

(Edit: Can somebody agree with me on this - I had this pointless debate with someone online, okay? There was a post with an unpopular claim that I agree with about a cartoon character. Someone commented and said: Well, you clearly haven't watched the show on it, so I argued and said it actually made sense. The person told me I didn't watch the show either and should go watch it. Now... I have watched the show. A bazillion times. I watch things I like a whole lot and I remember everything that happens there. So I replied with a detailed explanation (which is annoying, I know, but it's what I do. And I love arguing with people. Don't judge me), and the person... replied that I should watch the show again without offering any kind of explanation or reasoning behind their claim. So I just sorta jumped ship and decided this wasn't worth it. I like arguing, not throwing words at a wall. But seriously, don't argue by saying something that doesn't explain your point at all. You can't listen to a thorough analysis and then answer with: You need to watch it again because that doesn't actually say anything. It's a pointless arrgument. If you don't have an argument... maybe say you don't have one. Or if you can't explain it properly, say that. It's better than repeating the same thing again and again without actually saying anything.

I know it's a petty thing to complain about, but seriously, people don't know how to argue anymore. It's like arguing with my dad - we'd say something; he'd say something; we'd counter that; he'd change his claim and still argue with us despite having switched to our side, then he'd deny doing it. COME ON. I get not finding the words - I can only argue online because I have time to think and collect my thoughts. I can't argue properly face-to-face. But I try to do better than: Go watch it again, I have nothing else to say.)

Chapter 21: Then...

Then…

Astrid stared at the necklace with wide eyes and Hiccup squirmed uneasily, wringing his hands to try and dispel some of the energy he had lodged in his body. He couldn’t help it—he kept on expecting her to scoff and toss it away without a second look. He knew Astrid didn’t go around with jewelry since the most important thing to her was feeling comfortable and ready for a fight, not looking pretty.

Even though her name kind of gave the wrong impression…

But Hiccup knew there had to be something given to her to symbolize the engagement. Usually the families would discuss it all, but seeing as they were both doing this behind their parents’ backs, Hiccup figured he’d have to do things a little differently. He honestly wouldn’t have bothered, seeing as Astrid didn’t care for gifts or money, but he knew that down the line it could pose as a problem if there would be nothing exchanged between them.

There were enough loopholes Snotlout or anyone else could exploit to make sure their agreement with each other was invalidated. So, keeping that in mind, Hiccup tried to create something he figured Astrid might actually not have as much of a problem having. The idea of using her Nadder’s spike to create it had been a spur of the moment thing, but what was better than something that was connected to Astrid specifically, right? Not that Vikings appreciated their dragon souls that much, but still.

The pendant was round and smooth with a metal ring as its exterior. Held within it was a round glass with swirls of azure and yellow inside, matching the colors of Stormfly. Hiccup must have worked on that for hours and hours before he was satisfied with the result. And even then he was mostly doing guess work, since he had no idea how to work with glass for the most part. Merchants from different lands have told him the basics but not much more.

But it was small enough to go unnoticed for the most part, and Hiccup made sure the leather string it was hanging from was long enough for Astrid to be able to tuck it under her shirt so nobody would notice what she was wearing. He had no idea if it would irritate her during combat, but he hoped not.

“Is that what you needed that spike from Stormfly for?” she asked eventually.

Hiccup nodded timidly, longing for Toothless to be with me. Sadly, the dragon was spending his day at the cove so he couldn’t offer the boy any comfort whatsoever at the moment.

The Deadly Nadder standing behind her preened, flapping her wings and chirping excitedly at the pendant. It glinted in the sun washing over the training arena, reflecting off the surface of the glass. And just like that, the dragon set out to chase the spot of light dancing across the walls of the kill ring.

“Wow,” she said eventually, and to his relief her lips tugged up. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“W-well, the merchants that pass by m-mentioned working with glass from time to time and –and—and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give it a go and see what happens. I mean, i-it could hurt ‘cause you’ve gotta—you’ve gotta work with it when it’s really hot, but I-I’m used to it already from the metalwork. A-and I tried to make it small enough so—so it wouldn’t bother you at any point, y-you know?”

She punched his arm and ignored his yelp. “Well, I think it’s impressive. Thank you, Hiccup.”

Rubbing his arm, Hiccup smiled back at her, watching in amazement as she actually tied it around her neck before hesitantly hiding it under her shirt. He stared at the leather still visible around her neck and his face felt warm at the knowledge that this was her accepting it and actually committing to their plan. That was it. No turning back.

“Well, now I can’t wait to see the look on Snotlout’s face when he finds out about this,” she said, pushing Stormfly away when the dragon tried to sniff the pendant.

Hiccup released a nervous chuckle. “O-or my dad’s. He’s—he’s—he’s gonna love it.”

“Well, he and the rest of Berk will probably consider this a scandal,” she said with a shrug. “But with you doing so well in dragon training and me training as hard as I can, I don’t think anyone would protest much.”

He couldn’t help it—another uneasy chuckle escaped his lips. Hiccup rubbed the back of his neck, then carded his fingers through his hair. He wanted to tell her about Toothless—the truth about his success with the arena dragons. She deserved to know, didn’t she? She knew about the tricks, just not the truth about how he figured all these things out. And—and it wasn’t like having a dragon soul was a big deal, after all. People have been treating him poorly for not having one. So revealing that the elusive Night Fury was his dragon soul… it would make him be more accepted, wouldn’t it?

Before he could blurt out anything about Toothless, though, she added, “Just as long as you don’t have any more crazy ideas about dragons being the victims here. Where did you even come up with that one?”

And just like that, telling Astrid the truth suddenly became this impossible thing. Hiccup shrugged, smiling bashfully, but he couldn’t help but cringe internally. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to forget the scornful and skeptical looks he’d received for trying to bring up the existence of the queen in front of the rest of his peers and Gobber. They’d all looked at him like he’d gone insane—more so than usual.

“R-right. That was—that was crazy. I’ll just have to—I’ll have to—to… come up with more plausible conclusions, huh?” he said with fake levity.

And then the raid started.

The bell in town started ringing, alerting everyone present. And considering more than half the warriors were off the island, searching for the nest, there weren’t a lot of people to warn. Still, Hiccup and Astrid startled and turned to look at the sky where a hoard of dragons could be seen, flying toward the village.

Behind Astrid, Stormfly spread her wings and went to join them, but the Viking girl jumped at the Nadder, pulled out a rope from a pocket of her skirt and expertly tied it around her neck. Infuriated, the Nadder tried to attack Astrid, then Hiccup. Astrid used the blunt side of her axe to throw the dragon’s head away from her, then Hiccup reacted instinctively when she came at him—he reached out his hand and scratched her chin.

For one moment he couldn’t find the right spot and he thought he was going to be blasted, eaten or pierced by Astrid’s dragon soul, but then he finally scratched the correct spot. Stormfly collapsed at once, purring blissfully between him and Astrid.

The girl flicked the bangs out of her eyes and scowled. “Gods, Hiccup, you’re so lucky you don’t have to walk around with a dragon that could turn on you at a moment’s notice like that,” she said, then tied the end of the rope to one of the cages before running toward the exit. “Come on, let’s go help protect the village!”

He sent Stormfly one last look, then followed Astrid.

While every other Viking present attacked the dragons with their weapons, hollering at the top of their lungs while trying to compensate for the lack of warriors present, Hiccup ran around, doing his best to take dragons with his more pleasant tricks. It wasn’t a permanent solution nor did he know what these dragons would do later on or how the Vikings would react to seeing them, but he couldn’t bring himself to try and properly attack the creatures who were being forced to attack them all in the first place.

He saw Gobber fighting with a hammer, shouting at Fishlegs who was mostly cowering behind a shield while screaming in alarm. Snotlout, while running away from a Gronckle, nearly got three houses on fire by basically leading the Gronckle all over the place, forcing it to spit lava at the houses Snotlout passed by. The twins… well, Hiccup was honestly unsure as to whether they were helping the Vikings or the dragons; it mainly looked like they were enjoying the chaos while dousing people with buckets of water every once in a while.

All in all, this wasn’t really such a bad raid. There weren’t too many dragons, and the ones who were there mostly focused on taking the livestock and food rather than the Vikings trying to defend their home.

And then came the familiar whistle of a Night Fury and Hiccup stopped in his tracks in order to crane his neck and look up at the sky. It wasn’t difficult to spot the black blur that flew over Berk. It was even harder to miss the way the dragon shot a plasma blast at a catapult, destroying it and forcing the woman manning it to jump to safety.

“Toothless?” Hiccup muttered in horror.

Right. He never had to worry about a dragon soul going berserk during a raid because Hiccup had no dragon soul. Except now he did have one. And his dragon soul was the most feared dragon as far as Vikings were aware (because they had no idea that monster in the nest existed).

Still gawking, Hiccup watched as Toothless whirled back around. With another high-pitched whistle another catapult was blasted. And he was going for a third.

Kickstarting his brain, Hiccup got over his shock and sprinted toward one of the undamaged catapults left. He ignored Gobber’s order for him to handle a bunch of Terrors and Nadders that were on their way toward the sheep, instead keeping his eyes focused on nothing but Toothless.

“Toothless!” he cried once he was far enough away from everyone else but as close to Toothless’s flying form as possible. “Toothless! Bud, come on! Snap out of it!”

The Night Fury didn’t even seem to hear him. He blasted another catapult—not the one Hiccup was next to—and then targeted a watch tower. Hiccup watched with despair as the people ditched it in alarm, escaping the fire. And Toothless was still going; he didn’t seem to notice or care about the people, too far gone.

How was Hiccup supposed to stop him? Could he do anything? The other Vikings knew better—they simply subdued their dragons during raids in order to keep them out of harm’s way and prevent them from going insane. But Hiccup hadn’t done so with Toothless. He hadn’t even thought of trying to make sure his dragon was safe because he was used to helping Gobber at the forge without worrying too much about his own dragon soul turning against him at a moment’s notice.

Was it even possible to snap a dragon soul out of the queen’s trance?

Well… yes. Hiccup had already done it. They’d been to the nest and Toothless had listened to the queen… but he never went as far as she would have probably liked, did he? He’d arrived at the nest, but he hadn’t offered her any food even though he had Hiccup conveniently stationed on his back. And then when the queen had noticed their presence there, Toothless had finally snapped out of it and escaped—to keep Hiccup safe.

Eyes widening, Hiccup scrambled onto the catapult. He watched and flinched as Toothless took out another watch tower, then turned in the air and went to blow up the catapult Hiccup was on. Heart hammering erratically in his chest, Hiccup gulped and stared at the approaching black shape, listening to the shriek as those wings cut through the air—

Toothless landed on the ground in front of the catapult, wings still unfurled and pupils narrowed to slits. He was staring directly at Hiccup, looking at him like he was a stranger. But instead of shooting, his maw remained open without releasing any fire. He was just standing there, breathing hard and looking at Hiccup.

“H-hey, bud,” said Hiccup.

Toothless hissed and shook his head from side to side. But he wasn’t shooting fire at him, so Hiccup counted it as a win.

“I know you’re fighting her,” he said. “I know you don’t really want to do this, Toothless. You don’t have to. You don’t have to listen to her. You’ve ignored her before—do it again now.”

His dragon soul whined, tail swishing behind him in agitation. And even though he still didn’t look all that friendly, Hiccup found that he wasn’t scared of him. He knew for a fact Toothless wouldn’t hurt him. He was certain the Night Fury would rather do just about anything else than listen to the queen if it meant harming Hiccup. So there was nothing to be afraid of, was there?

Slowly climbing off the catapult and maintaining eye contact, Hiccup smiled at his dragon. “You can do it, bud. Don’t listen to her, don’t do what she tells you to. I know you’re in there, okay? I-I know you can hear me. Come back to me, bud.”

Pupils expanding to a degree, Toothless warbled in confusion, head tilting to the side.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Hiccup held his hand out for Toothless. “It’s me. I’m here, I’m here. It’s going to be okay, bud. You’ve just got to ignore that monster, okay? You can do it. You don’t want to hurt anyone here, you don’t want to hurt me. I know you don’t. Throw her off, Toothless.”

Sniffing his hand, Toothless crooned unsurely, then his pupils dilated fully and he pressed against Hiccup’s hand, letting out sad rumbles. Hiccup exhaled in relief and rubbed the dragon’s scaly head, noting the fact that Toothless seemed to push against him, as if worried Hiccup might leave and let him be taken by the queen once more.

“You did it, you’re amazing, buddy,” cooed Hiccup, pressing his forehead against Toothless’s. “It’s gonna be okay; I’m not going anywhere.”

Notes:

I don't think this part was extremely important, the story could do without it. But I really wanted to write about Toothless's reaction to the raids and how Hiccup learned to snap him out of it ^.^

Cya! :)

Chapter 22: Now...

Now…

Astrid cursed once she got close to the prison, seeing all of the dragon souls flying nearby and fighting the Outcast guards. There were also distressed calls from within the prison—familiar voices of people crying out while being attacked by their own dragon souls without being able to escape.

An irritated growl escaped her lips as she ran forward and bending down on the way there to pick up a discarded shield someone must have dropped at some point. She couldn’t risk attacking the dragon souls with her axe, after all. So protecting herself was the only way she could possibly get past them.

The guards were too busy fighting off five dragons to stop her. She slipped past them and rushed into the prison. A hallway presented itself to her, with cell doors lining the walls. In each cell the Berkians screamed and yelled as they tried to handle the dragons trapped inside with them. From one of the cells Gustav was attempting to slip out through the bars, although he was clearly stuck.

Fumbling with the keys, Astrid approached the nearest door and started trying to unlock it. A few people noticed her and started shouting unhelpful suggestions and insults. A shriek from further down the hall made Astrid’s hands tremble before she managed to remind herself of her training—she had to keep calm, think clearly. They needed her.

Finally finding the correct key, Astrid listened to the click it made before the door slid open. The Vikings rushed out, including Fishlegs who looked like his life was flashing before his eyes. He looked at Astrid like she was the most incredible sight in existence, then wrapped her in a bear hug. A second later he yelped and backed away, looking frightened by his own actions.

“Listen to me,” she told him as she turned to the next door, already working on finding the key, “you have to make sure everyone gets to the forest. They can’t go to the town and try to fight the Outcasts. With the dragons and the armed men running around, we wouldn’t stand a chance. We need to regroup and then get ourselves some weapons. There’s a place in the forest we can use until we’re ready, but they have to stay out of sight for now. We don’t want Alvin to rush over here.”

Fishlegs gawped at her. “B-but—the dragons are—there’s a raid!”

“I know there’s a raid! We’ve been waiting for a raid so we’ll have some cover,” she snapped at him. The key clicked and another door opened. “Just lead them to the forest, Fishlegs. It’s our best bet right now. YOU HEAR ME? FOLLOW FISHLEGS TO THE FOREST!”

“Are ye out o’ yer mind?”

“We want ter get our home back!”

“Get this dragon off me! It’s chewing my leg!”

“It’s chewing yer boot, laddie.”

“Oh…”

Astrid moved on to the next door while ducking under a Terror that was finally released and flew outside and toward the chaos. A few people managed to snag their own dragons before they could help with the raid, but most of them watched in mild despair after their escaping dragon souls.

“We don’t have anything to fight with! We need weapons if we want to take over the island again!” Astrid said with as much authority as she could muster. “Our only chance right now is to retreat, regroup, make sure everyone is accounted for—”

“The chief isn’t here!” said Phlegma as she walked past Astrid. “They took him somewhere else.”

“Aye,” Gobber said, waving his prosthetic through the bars above Gustav’s head. “We don’ know where they keep ‘im, but ‘e’s not with the rest o’ us. We need ter find Stoick and—”

Flicking the hair away from her face, Astrid said, “I know. He’s at the arena, caged like one of the dragons. He’s being rescued right now, too.”

“Rescued by who?” demanded Tuffnut. “Do we know anyone else who hasn’t been captured? Ooh, ooh! Is it a guessing game? Can I guess? Wait, I need to count everyone first… let’s go to the forest so I can count!”

“Someone’s helping you?” Fishlegs inquired.

She shot him a look. “You’re still here?”

He squeaked and hobbled away, calling for everyone to follow him into the forest. Tuff and Ruff followed him soon after, helping him round everyone up and—by the sound of it—knocking out the Outcast guards.

A hook landed on Astrid’s wrist as she went to open the cell of Gustav and Gobber. “Yer got someone ter help ye? Who is it?”

That painting on the shield popped in her mind and she shook her head mildly. “A friend. I think.”

“Ye think? Well, now ah feel much better then.”

She ignored him.

“Astrid, babe, I knew you’d come rescue me!” Snotlout’s voice came from behind another door. “I mean, I was going to perform this spectacular rescue mission soon so we were never in any real danger, but I just knew you would come.”

She ignored him too.

Soon enough all the cells were open, all the Berkians free and only some of the dragon souls still around, fighting against their humans who were trying to keep them close while also not letting them harm anyone around. Much. Astrid was relieved to see that the twins and Fishlegs managed to steer the Berkians away from Berk and into the forest, where they kept on streaming toward, with her bringing up the rear.

Once she reached the tree line she cast a look over the burning village, her eyebrows dipping at the sight of the dragons fighting the Outcasts. She tried to look for the chief’s flaming hair and bulking figure; maybe spot a pair of green eyes belonging to Toothless. She knew better than to expect to see much of Hiccup when he was wearing his black armor, so she didn’t even look for him.

Either way, she saw nothing. Not in the arena and not in the trail leading from it to the forest.

Hoping they were safe, she followed everyone else, then started pushing herself to the front, knowing Fishlegs and the Thorstons had no real idea where they were going. While walking ahead, she tried to make sure she could see everyone she could think of—her parents, Silent Sven, Gothi, Mulch and Bucket… It looked all right to her, but she’d feel much better after properly checking for attendance.

“I need to warn you before we get to our sanctuary,” she said once she was positive they were far enough away from the village so that even the struggling dragons with them wouldn’t alert anyone. “Preferably before we get there.”

“Wha’ is it, lassie?” said Gobber as he hobbled forward. “There aren’ any more Outcasts in the forest, are there?”

She shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that, honestly. See, the person helping me—he’s…”

Most of them were listening, she could tell, waiting to hear what she had to say. A few of the younger kids were already complaining about being hungry and thirsty. Mildew was whining in the back, looking as dreadful as ever while warily eyeing the dragons accompanying them.

“…he’s a dragon rider,” Astrid finally said.

He’s Hiccup, she wanted to say. He’s alive, he’s back, he’s helping us. But I don’t think he wants to stay afterward.

“A dragon rider?”

“Blasphemy!”

“Odin, help us!”

“Shut up!” she shouted. “Do you want to get caught again? Besides, this guy is helping us all—he’s trying to free Chief Stoick as we speak. I know he doesn’t follow our rules and beliefs, but he’s an outsider who’s risking his life to assist us. And… and he only had one thing he wanted in return.”

“I forgot my wallet back home,” said Snotlout dryly.

She shook her head. “He didn’t want money.”

A gasp cut through the forest. Astrid turned her head to see her mother staring at her in horror. “Oh, Astrid, tell me you didn’t—”

“That wasn’t it either,” she said quickly. Her mother sighed in relief. “He wanted us to stop killing dragons. And seeing as I had no other choice and no one else who was willing to come and help us, I accepted.”

“Stop killin’ dragons?”

“Is ‘e mad?”

“They’re the ones attackin’ us!”

“Clearly, ‘e’s tryin’ ter get us all killed one way or another, lass,” sneered Mildew.

She gritted her teeth. “Well, I learned a lot from him—enough to make me see the dragons attacking us aren’t the problem. I know they’re wild dragons who keep on invading Berk for food, but they only do that to serve… something else. Some kind of monster that lurks in their nest and forces them to do her bidding. The dragons themselves wouldn’t have needed to attack us otherwise.”

There were murmurs of distaste and disbelief, but Gobber and her peers looked at her with wide eyes. After all, she was quoting the person who’d suggested this ludicrous idea to them all years ago. They were familiar with this theory, even if not actually willing to take it seriously. And now she was repeating it, bringing it up again as fact. She could see their doubt, but also a hint of wariness and dawning realization that maybe… maybe Hiccup had been right.

“I saw it with my own two eyes,” she insisted and a hush fell among the others as they kept on strolling forward. “I know he’s telling the truth. I know the dragons can be pacified, calm. I know they don’t want to hurt us if they don’t feel threatened. And… and there’s a whole bunch of them at the cove we’re going to right now.”

There were more shouts of outrage, but mostly uneasy murmurs about how they were going to die no matter in which direction they went. Astrid sent a brief glance back at the lot of them and sent a quiet prayer to the gods for at least not sending a bunch of armed Vikings toward the agitated dragons back at the cove. That would have been a disaster.

Fishlegs tentatively said, “Er… when you say there are dragons there… you don’t happen to mean dragon souls, right?”

“Wild dragons,” she said. “And we calmed them earlier. They didn’t even join the raid in the end. I saw it happen—it’s possible to reach them, to get past the queen’s call. We just need to learn how to do it.”

“Wow,” he awed.

Sidling up to her, Gobber gave her a skeptical look. “And yer sure we can trust this… dragon rider you’ve brought along with ye?”

Flashes of the past disasters a much younger Hiccup had caused streamed behind her eyelids. It brought a smile to her face, no matter how upset with him she was for lying to her face and not coming out and admitting the truth. Honestly, she was just relieved to have him back, no matter what he was doing with his life.

“We can trust him,” she promised. “He’s skittish and gets along better with his dragon than with people, clearly, but he’s a good person and he cares about Berk. Plus, he’s an enemy of the Outcasts so he has another reason to be on our side.”

He hummed a little. “And yer sure those beasts yer takin’ us ter won’t finish us all off, eh?”

“As long as you don’t provoke them, they have no reason to attack you.”

“Well, at least nothin’ ‘ere is borin’.”

Despite their general discomfort with the idea, the Berkians kept on following Astrid, most likely because they felt like the dragons and she would be easier to handle than the Outcasts. They complained and moaned about having no weapons to fight the dragons off with—Snotlout mentioned being strong enough not to need a spear to fight a dragon—but they walked in her footsteps like a herd of sheep walking toward the slaughter.

Once they reached the cove, Astrid kept her attention on the people as they climbed down toward the dragons, most of which were still very much awake, looking both terrified and in pain. The fact that they were still resisting the queen’s call was good, but Astrid could tell they were on edge, especially now that they had even more company—people they must have remembered as their enemy.

Approaching the nearest Monstrous Nightmare, Astrid tried to stifle down her own apprehension in favor of smiling at it as calmly as possible. She murmured reassurances to it, the way Hiccup had done earlier, then sighed in relief when it crooned back and lowered its head back down, as if accepting that there was no threat near. A few other dragons in its vicinity copied it, apparently taking its cue.

“See?” said Astrid, relief coursing through her as she turned to look at her people. “They’re not going to hurt us. Just get comfortable and get some sleep if you can. We’ll need all the energy we can get to take back Berk.”

Although hesitant, the Vikings spread around while keeping as much distance between them and the rest of the dragons. Some of them stirred in response but most barely batted an eye, which seemed to help the feeling of the people as they started whispering between each other again.

“Amazing,” she heard Fishlegs muttering.

Gobber was staring intensely between a few dragons, as if trying to remember where he knew them from. Then he shook his head and turned around to settle down on an empty patch of grass.

“Ruff, Tuff,” Astrid said, walking toward the twins, “I have something I need you to do.”

“Say no more, we can certainly make a boar pit,” said Tuffnut.

“Although it might take a little time,” said Ruffnut with a look around. “We don’t really have boars here… maybe it can be a dragon pit.”

“A dragon pit—it has a nice ring to it.”

“Guys,” Astrid groaned. “I need you to go back to the village and sneak as many weapons as you can out of the forge without getting caught.”

Matching devilish grins spread across their faces, sending a shiver down Astrid’s spine.

And then a familiar whistle reached her ears and her head snapped up. Cries of: “Night Fury! Get down!” came from the cowering villagers, but Astrid ignored them in favor of running toward the dark shape that approached the cove, barely visible against the black sky except for the stars it concealed. And then it descended and Astrid ran forward to greet Toothless and chew out his rider—

But once the Night Fury landed, the figure that scrambled off his back wasn’t of the lean, tall and masked rider that usually occupied that seat but of Stoick the Vast. The chief put as much space between himself and Toothless as possible, giving the dragon a hateful, wary look. Yet he wasn’t attacking him, so he clearly realized Toothless was trying to help, no matter how draconic he was.

Completely disregarding Stoick, Toothless crooned and warbled in distress, his green eyes wide and his pupils narrower than usual with pure panic. The second he noticed Astrid, he bounded toward her and rumbled, hissed and whined at her with a kind of urgency she wasn’t familiar with from him. His entire body was agitated, his wings ruffling, his tail swishing, his paws dancing over the ground like he wanted to move out of there already.

“Hey, hey, Toothless, what’s wrong?” she asked.

“Toothless?” someone spluttered.

“It’s a Night Fury!” another one hissed.

A third person hummed a little. “Isn’ tha’ the dragon soul tha’ used ter live ‘ere?”

The dragon ignored them all in favor of crooning miserably, his head moving this way and that as he tried to tell her something. She had no idea what. He wasn’t her dragon soul, he was Hiccup’s. Still, his distress was infectious. She could feel Stormfly’s concern and restlessness buzzing in her skull in response.

“I don’t—I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. Toothless, Toothless, hey, listen—where is he? Where’s your rider?” she asked.

His eyes seemed to become even more frantic. She could’ve sworn something in them broke at the mention of his rider. It made her stomach clench and her brows furrow. When she tried to put her hand on Toothless’s muzzle to try and get him to calm down just a little—or maybe just to offer some comfort—he pulled away with an angry hiss.

“Alvin has ‘im,” said the chief.

Astrid whirled around to face him. “What?”

“Aye. He was caught trying to sneak me out. Alvin’s men grabbed ‘im. I was already out and was going ter help, but the lad told ‘is beast ter take me away,” he explained. “I suppose he has ter be brave ter come close ter a Night Fury of all dragons. But we can’t worry about that now. We need to take over Berk and—”

“No! No, no, we have to save him!” said Astrid as she started walking toward the opening of the cove. “He came here to help us, now we have to get out there and help him! Alvin hates him, sir! He’s going to do—I don’t even know what to him. We must rescue him—”

“Astrid, I appreciate everythin’ the lad had done fer us, but Alvin has ‘im now. Our duty is to Berk and its people. That dragon rider will either manage to free ‘imself or we’ll free ‘im once we take over our island.”

Toothless growled at him, shaking his head as if to dismiss the chief’s words. Or maybe to tell himself that no, he couldn’t shoot him for speaking about his human so flippantly even if he wanted to do so very much. Either way, he looked even more upset than he did before.

“No, I’m going to save him now.”

“Astrid, the village—” the chief tried to speak, but she whirled around and cut him off.

“It’s Hiccup, all right?” she snapped, her fists clenched. “That dragon rider—the person Alvin has and would either torment or kill or the gods only know what—it’s Hiccup.”

Everyone stared at her in shock.

“Hiccup?” echoed the chief, grief in his eyes.

Behind Astrid, Snotlout let out an obnoxious laugh. “Hiccup? But he’s gone, isn’t he?”

“Hiccup is alive?” said Fishlegs excitedly. “Really?”

“The lad is back?” muttered Gobber. “Well, isn’ this day full o’ surprises, eh?”

Straightening up, Astrid met the chief’s gaze and said, “Hiccup’s dragon soul is Toothless. They ran away together. I found him by chance, but I’m not going to let the Outcasts hurt him. Even if he doesn’t want to stay in Berk, he’s one of us, a part of the tribe. And I’m going to try and rescue him, just like he helped me do with the rest of you.”

Inside her head, Stormfly chirped encouragingly, now resting over Astrid’s heart.

Toothless nudged Astrid’s hand, then gestured back at the saddle on his back, as if inviting her to sit and let him take her over to Hiccup already. She didn’t hesitate—she climbed on and tried to quell down her apprehension regarding flying again—and this time without anyone to hold on to other than the dragon.

“Ruff, Tuff—the weapons. Everyone else should rest,” said Astrid. “We’re going to take our island back. Hopefully without losing anyone.”

“That was really Hiccup?” Stoick managed to choke out as Toothless’s wings spread wide. “He came ter rescue me? Us?”

Astrid nodded.

His expression became stormy. “I’ll lead the attack on the Outcasts, then. You… you go save ‘im, lass.”

“Come on, Toothless,” she said.

The dragon didn’t need any further prompting—he took off at once, knocking the breath out of Astrid and setting off into the sky and over toward Berk and his human.

Notes:

By the way, if I mess up the accented bits... it's because I have no idea what I'm doing and I'm improvising while trying to mentally run these sentences in my head with a Scottish accent. And I can't do a Scottish accent well as far as I'm aware.

Oh, yeah, and the truth is out! Hiccup's in trouble! All things that could have been expected, right? Right??

Cya! :)

Chapter 23: Then...

Then…

“Well?” said Astrid from the mouth of the training arena. “Ready to see which one of us is actually better?”

Hiccup had to force himself to tear his eyes away from the image of his dad. The man looked exhausted and frustrated at once more returning from a failed expedition to try and find the dragon’s nest and destroy it. He looked devastated at once again losing ships and a couple of Vikings to their generations old cause. And who could blame him—he was the one leading these search parties, and while the purpose was important, the losses always hurt.

But now, sitting and overlooking the kill ring from above with the rest of Berk to watch the final exam to determine which of the top two students would receive the honor of killing the Monstrous Nightmare they had locked up in a pen, the weariness was replaced with joy and anticipation. Even from all the way at the entrance of the arena, Hiccup could see the twinkle of hope in his dad’s eyes.

After the disappointment of once more losing to the dragons without even coming close to finding their home, Hiccup winning dragon training and killing his first dragon in front of the entire village seemed to help the chief’s grief. Suddenly he had something to look forward to—a reason to smile and laugh along with Gobber and whoever else was around him. He was looking forward to seeing Hiccup’s victory, his success—he was looking forward to being surprised by Hiccup’s apparent skill when it came to dealing with the dragons.

Instead of filling the teenager with pride and exhilaration, all Hiccup could feel was the urge to hurl the breast-hat as far away from him as possible and curl into a ball. He didn’t want the glory, didn’t want the attention, didn’t want the acceptance that came with taking down dragons. Not when he knew better now—knew about the dragons’ true personalities, their reason for raiding Berk. He no longer wanted to fight them, hurt them or kill them. All he wanted to do was get out of there so he could spend some more time with Toothless.

Looking at Astrid proved to be no better than looking at his dad, though. She was smiling at him, appearing to be genuinely happy to be around him, even if they were about to compete against each other. She wasn’t scowling, frowning or ignoring him, instead giving him her full attention while turning her axe over in her hands. Her eyes were twinkling, a friendly and fond gleam shining in them.

How sad was it that Hiccup was finally receiving her attention and friendship and instead of enjoying him he felt like running away from it, knowing she would change her mind about him the moment she learned about his treacherous thoughts regarding wild dragons? He would most likely die at the hands of his betrothed. How… adequate, honestly. That was just his luck.

Forcing a smile onto his face, he said, “Oh, y-yeah. Can’t wait.”

She nudged his side playfully. “Relax, Hiccup. You don’t need to be nervous. Everyone already knows you can do it. I mean, I’m good as well, but it doesn’t really matter who wins this. No one is going to think less of you now—you’ve already proven yourself.”

“Such a relief.”

“Your dad already looks proud of you,” she added.

He tried not to grimace too obviously. “Wonder how long that’s gonna last…”

“You’ll be fine,” she dismissed. Then, more teasingly, she added, “But don’t expect me to go easy on you just because your dad is watching. I’m here to win, dear betrothed.”

His gaze dropped as he automatically went to look at the pendant. He saw nothing, of course. Astrid still had it hidden, but the leather strap was taunting him with the reminder that as unbelievable as it was, that had actually happened. Face feeling slightly hot, Hiccup met Astrid’s eyes and did his best to ignore the mirthful glint in them as she smirked.

“N-never expected anything else, m’lady.”

“Step into the ring!” called Gobber from outside.

Cheers followed the exclamation. Hiccup listened to the voices chanting Astrid’s name and was surprised to hear his own name being shouted as well. He was going to hurt so many people if they knew the truth about his tricks and where they were coming from, wasn’t he? He was going to lose the little bit of recognition and glory he’d finally managed to scrounge up and there will be no way to redeem himself from that.

His thoughts screeched to a halt at the feeling of something pecking his cheek. Incredulously, he turned to gawk at Astrid as she leaned away with a shameless smile etched on her face. She looked almost smug when he brought a numb hand to brush against the spot she’d just kissed.

“Good luck, Hiccup,” she said.

“T-thanks. You—you too,” he stuttered.

Then they both stepped out.

Hiccup tried to look like he was enjoying the roaring crowd, but compared to Astrid’s genuine pride he figured he looked more like he would much rather turn the other way and march out of the arena. Still, he rolled his shoulders and limply pulled his knife out of its place underneath his fur vest, fingers barely bothering to close around the handle. What was even the point if his best chance of survival required him to lose it?

With a sign from Gobber, the cage of the Gronckle was unlocked and the boulder-class dragon sprang into the arena, wings buzzing loudly. It didn’t try to attack Astrid and Hiccup immediately, instead shooting as quickly as it could toward the rocks spread around the arena. It picked them up with its maw and crunched them with its teeth.

Hiccup wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, but he could have sworn there was a look of relief on the dragon’s face once it finished munching on the rocks.

Finally, the dragon’s attention switched to the two Vikings locked inside with it. Its eyes zeroed in on Astrid—the bolder, livelier, louder one of the two and it charged, warbling angrily. Not really feeling like facing it, Hiccup ducked out of the way and hid behind one of the wooden fences spread around the ring—most likely to make the show more interesting than the teens simply attacking the trapped dragon.

He closed his eyes for a second, praying to the gods this fight wouldn’t force his hand. He didn’t want to fight the Gronckle, nor did he want to win this. He just wanted this to be over already. He wished Toothless was there with him, but a part of him was also glad the dragon soul wasn’t around to witness Hiccup’s useless attempt at staying out of Astrid’s way.

Tilting his head up, Hiccup found his dad beaming down at him encouragingly, nodding a little. It made the whole thing even worse because he knew he was going to let his father down one way or another. And the man had no idea, of course, believing Hiccup’s true colors were finally revealing themselves to the entire village—to him—after years of being ‘the worst Viking has ever seen’. His words, not Hiccup’s.

That still stung, actually. As much as ‘It was rough, I almost gave up on you’ did.

Offering his dad a placating smile that felt more sarcastic than anything else, Hiccup righted the helmet he had on top of his head—too big yet too meaningful to be left behind—and sighed in defeat.

He straightened back up and stopped hiding behind the fence. He instantly noticed the Gronckle buzzing about, looking for more rocks to eat. Apparently, they were his food. Did that mean it didn’t eat fish or meat? Has this dragon been starving all along, constantly offered the wrong sort of food to maintain it? Wasn’t that a chilling thought…

Astrid was nowhere in sight, most likely wanting to surprise the Gronckle by catching it off guard.

Unfortunately, Hiccup’s movement was enough to capture the dragon’s attention. Its eyes locked on him and it zoomed straight toward the alarmed boy. There wasn’t much malice in its gaze, though. Hiccup got the distinct feeling it was going toward Hiccup because its experience with him was better than with the other teens, seeing as Hiccup tended to deal with the dragons in ways that were more pleasant than banging them over the head with a bludgeon.

“Oh, man, come on…” he groaned.

There was no sign for Astrid, though. And the dragon was determinedly shooting toward Hiccup, pupils slightly dilated. So, with a heavy feeling in his gut, Hiccup quickly let go of his dagger and allowed his shield to slide off his arm to show that he was unarmed. He pulled a bit of dragon-nip from his pocket, meanwhile knocking his helmet off his head in a way that he hoped didn’t look too intentional.

By the time Astrid showed herself—running at the Gronckle with her axe held up high, ready to strike, Hiccup already had it purring at its feet. He looked at the content dragon with mild hysteria, wishing it hadn’t known to go toward him instead of Astrid, then met Astrid’s gaze. At least she didn’t look like she was upset with him for stealing her victory—she had a resigned smile on her face instead as she lowered her axe.

The crowd of excited Vikings cheered loudly. Hiccup’s dad stared down at him with such pride that he almost didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t used to the man looking at him with anything but a disappointed scowl at this point. This was… different. What wouldn’t he have given for such an expression to appear on his dad’s face while looking at him a mere weeks ago?

A hush fell over the arena as Gobber hobbled toward the two teens after taking the Gronckle back to its cage. Everyone turned to watch Gothi as the old hag peered down at Astrid and Hiccup, ready to make her decision regarding the winner of dragon training this year.

Gobber first put his hook over Astrid’s head, but Gothi shook her head. With a grimace, Hiccup looked down at the floor as the blacksmith pointed at him. He didn’t see Gothi’s reaction, but the enthusiastic roar of the people all around was enough to make Hiccup flinch.

“Ye’ve done it!” cheered Gobber excitedly. “Ye’ve done it, ‘iccup! Ye get ter kill the dragon!”

Up above, his dad called, “That’s my boy!”

“Nice going, Hiccup,” said Astrid with a little smile.

He wanted to cry. Instead, he reluctantly let the overbearing Vikings that flooded into the ring lift him up and carry him to the Meade Hall where his dad decided to celebrate. Everyone was in such high spirits, laughing, applauding, rejoicing. After all, it wasn’t every day the heir of Stoick the Vast did something right. Actually, this must have been the first time in his life that everyone was cheering him on instead of pushing him out of the way.

“Heh,” he said with false cheer that fell flat. Everyone else was too cheery to notice. “Oh, yeah! Yes! I can’t wait! I’m so…”

He glanced at the back of his hand at the feeling of his skin prickling. His eyes met the familiar gaze of Toothless’s tattoo. The dragon crooned curiously in his mind, head tipped to the side and tail swishing leisurely behind him.

Leaving, Hiccup wanted to say. We’re leaving.

But his eyes fell on Astrid, still standing in the ring, now talking to her parents. They seemed to comfort and congratulate her on her loss yet spectacular use of technique. She was smiling at them, nodding and accepting their words. Her gaze drifted toward Hiccup for a moment, not a hint of resentment woven into her fond expression.

His heart sank. How could he leave Berk when Astrid was counting on him?

Toothless warbled at him hearteningly and offered Hiccup a gummy smile.

With a bitter taste in his mouth he realized that if it came down to it, he’d always choose Toothless over everyone else, even Astrid. They were friends now, sure, but she was nowhere near as close to him as the dragon. And killing a dragon—even a wild one like the trapped Monstrous Nightmare he knew he would have to face the next day—was out of the question as well. He couldn’t do it; he couldn’t kill it or any other dragon. It just wasn’t who he was.

Maybe I could talk to her, he thought hopelessly. Maybe she’d hear me out and see my point.

He knew the Night Fury wasn’t any more convinced than he felt, but what else could he do but try to explain it all to the one person who might actually take him seriously?

Notes:

I... have nothing to say. I'm so tired and sorta feeling depressed today. And my headis buzzing and my eyes are stinging and I wanna write despite knowing I would make everything so meh and my body feels ridiculously weak and ill despite being objectively fine if that even makes sense (it does, that's its perpetual state of being).

So I'll just shut up and go head out to get myself something tasty to eat that would, hopefully, cheer me up! ^^

Cya! :)

Chapter 24: Now...

Now…

The sun was beginning to rise, painting the sky a paler blue and a mixture of yellow, orange and purple. Astrid would have marveled at the sight had she not been completely devoted to the need to find Hiccup and get him to safety. She probably would have been just as enamored with the feeling of being on a dragon’s back, way up in the air again, but that thought had slipped her mind as well in favor of concentrating on scanning the ground below.

A few houses in the village were still on fire, but Outcasts were working on putting out the flames, throwing buckets of water wherever necessary and cursing at the sky, where the dragons could be seen flying away with whatever they could get their claws on. The few dead dragons left on the ground would have normally made Astrid feel nothing but satisfaction, but her heart pinched this time.

They were killed for nothing—just because they were forced to serve a beast that threatened their life, took away their free will and used them for her own personal gain. There was no glory in killing such beings.

Keeping to the outskirts of the village, Astrid made sure she and Toothless remained out of sight in the brightening morning. She had no intention of getting caught, nor did she want Toothless to get captured, especially if Alvin might recognize him as Hiccup’s dragon. She figured he wouldn’t be too kind to either one of them, so better only have one of them in his grasp.

A part of her wanted to tell Toothless to go to Hiccup by simply transferring to his skin. But she knew that if his human was locked up, the Night Fury wouldn’t be able to escape in the same way. He’d be just as trapped as Hiccup. So the better strategy would be to keep him with her, out of Alvin’s reach and free to roam about. At least for now. If things became dicey… well, they might not have any other option but to get Toothless to Hiccup.

Landing silently near the killing arena, Astrid hopped off Toothless’s back and crept toward the metal bars, making sure she was on the more shadowed side of the ring so she wouldn’t stand out too much. Toothless stalked close to the ground, clearly in an attempt to make himself as invisible as possible. He was looking all around, alert and on edge. His pupils were narrowed angrily, a sort of low growl emanating from his throat, like he couldn’t help it.

“Train it,” a voice growled below.

“I-I don’t think I will,” another answered.

Astrid had to bite her tongue to keep from making a sound. This was, without a doubt, Hiccup’s voice. The nasal quality in it, the sarcastic drawl, the concerning disregard for his own safety even when faced with terrible odds… that was him. Her eyes stung a little although she wasn’t sure whether it was from anger or relief.

Beside her, Toothless let out a tiny coo.

“Wasn’ a question, boy,” the unknown man said.

“Didn’t really think it was. S-say, do you guys really expect different results every time you capture me, or are you just—what—too stubborn to realize this isn’t going to work out for ya?”

“Train the Nightmare!”

A roar followed the loud command but no whimpers or shouts of pain.

Astrid strained her eyes to see what was happening down there. She saw the unfamiliar shape of a buffy man standing near the center of the arena, a sword in his meaty hand, which he was levelling at the handcuffed, lanky figure beside him, though it didn’t appear to be doing much intimidation-wise.

Facing the two of them was a Monstrous Nightmare who must have been freshly captured during the raid just now, its skin alight with dancing flames. It tried to lash out but four large men were holding it down with ropes, preventing it from escaping. All of the men below seemed to shy away from the dragon, though, clearly wary of it—except for the one prisoner other than it.

Ignoring the Outcasts, Astrid let her gaze roam over Hiccup. He was still wearing his dragon-scale armor, although now his helmet was gone—someone must have removed it once he was captured by Alvin. His hands were tied behind his back, and despite his casual stance she could see him squirming a tad to try and loosen the rope. He was scuffing his foot against the floor of the arena, looking for all the world like he was bored out of his mind.

His face was almost identical to the one in the painting in the Great Hall. His hair was tousled and wild, his jaw sharper than it had been when they were younger. He probably still had his freckles because Astrid couldn’t imagine all of them fading over the last few years, but from this distance and in this lightning she couldn’t really see clearly enough. His eyes were definitely that same forest-green shade that she remembered, though.

Looking up at the Nightmare, Hiccup calmly said, “You do realize that yelling the same thing isn’t going to accomplish anything, right? H-have you tried drinking some tea? Maybe a good tankard of ale. Heard it’s good for the soul o-or for people who are too strung up.”

“Yer a real piece o’ work, aren’ ya?” the man grumbled. “Ah don’ see why Alvin even bothers with ye. ‘E should ‘ave just killed ye when ‘e ‘ad the chance the last dozen times.”

“That’s—that’s probably true,” Hiccup conceded.

Idiot, Astrid thought.

Stormfly chirped at her soothingly.

“Maybe ah should put ye out o’ yer misery, then,” the man said cruelly.

“When that happens, I’ll give you a call.”

One of the men holding down the Nightmare said, “Innit a bit odd ‘is dad didn’ try ter help ‘im? Ah thought Alvin said we should separate the chief ter draw the Dragon Conqueror in. Thought ‘e’d care fer ‘is son.”

Another one muttered, “But it worked. We ‘ave ‘im, so does it really matter?”

“Well, we don’ ‘ave the chief…”

The guy with the sword growled, “The chief was only a secondary target, ye fools. Takin’ over Berk was a bonus. The real objective was this sarcastic fishbone who clearly doesn’ know when ter shut up.”

“Stop it, Savage, you’re making me blush,” Hiccup said flatly.

The Monstrous Nightmare roared once more. One of the men stumbled when the dragon tried to flap its enormous wings but the three others managed to hold still and keep the dragon subdued enough, which seemed to irritate it if its frustrated snarl was anything to go by.

“Do we really need ‘im, though?” said one of the men skeptically. “Can’ we kill ‘im and just do what ‘e does? How hard is it ter hold yer hand out ter a dragon?”

“Why don’t you give it a shot?” encouraged the prisoner.

Savage sent him a hateful look. “The last one who said somethin’ like tha’ ended up without ‘is hand. Do ye really want ter take the chance it might not work?” Before the man could reply, Savage turned to glare at Hiccup. “And you—one more word out o’ yer mouth and ah swear ah’ll slice off yer head, ye hear me? We’ll find another way ter deal with the beasts. Got it?”

Silence.

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Got it?”

“You told me not to say another word,” said Hiccup in exasperation. “M-make up your mind.”

“JUST TRAIN THE DRAGON!”

“I feel like we’re going in circles here.”

Astrid rolled her eyes at the way Savage seemed to seethe at Hiccup’s nonchalance.

They needed to get Hiccup out of there. Astrid knew she and Toothless could easily get past these men. She was a skilled warrior, after all, and Toothless was a very protective Night Fury. There must have been a very good reason why Vikings decided these dragons were best left alone. Other dragons—people encouraged to kill them. Not Night Furies, though. So that surely wouldn’t be a problem.

The fact that Hiccup had a sword against his throat kind of worried her, though. Astrid wasn’t sure whether this Savage guy would actually kill Hiccup in case someone came to his rescue or would rather keep him alive—a prey for another day. She could see the man wanted to kill Hiccup, but he hasn’t done so so far, so maybe…

But the Monstrous Nightmare posed another problem. It wasn’t a tame dragon or even a dragon soul. This was a wild one from the raid. It was most likely willing to hurt them all as long as it could taste freedom again. So if the men holding it bound were attacked, would the Nightmare attack everyone in the area before trying to fly out of there or would it see an opportunity and take it?

Astrid would have counted on Hiccup instantly training the dragon or calming it down just enough to protect them, but with his hands tied she wasn’t sure he would be able to do it. And what if neither she nor Toothless could make it over to him to cut the rope before the dragon attacked them? And she wasn’t going to delude herself into believing she could be the one to calm the dragon—she barely managed to make a Terrible Terror to touch her, and that had been when there was no danger around.

Stormfly, she thought authoritatively, then quickly softened her tone. Stormfly, girl, can you help?

The dragon trilled at her, still sounding somewhat dazed from the raid. Astrid’s skin tingled when Stormfly fluttered her wings restlessly. But the message was clear in her mind—Stormfly was out for the count for now. She needed a bit more time to come to her senses. Which, again, left Astrid and Toothless on their own for now.

And she had the feeling these people were expecting the Night Fury to show up, most likely aware of his bond with Hiccup.

“What do you think, Toothless?” she whispered.

The dragon’s eyes were focused on Hiccup, unwavering. He hissed angrily, head jerking a little in dismay at the sight of the blade threatening his human’s life. And Astrid couldn’t blame him—she felt like throwing herself at Savage too just for his obvious malicious intent. Her hand inched toward the handle of her axe and she had to remind herself that they couldn’t just throw themselves into this fight when they were outnumbered and with Hiccup in palpable danger.

Before they could figure out what to do next, a familiar vast man stormed into the arena, his black hair and beard disheveled and dirty. He had a prominent scowl on his face as he brushed past the Nightmare without so much as a glance, dark eyes trained on Hiccup and nobody else.

“Ye little brat!” Alvin exclaimed. “How did ye do it?”

“Oh, hey, Al,” greeted Hiccup calmly, even as the man stopped right in front of him, his grimy face barely a breath away from his own. “I’m—I’m sorry, I’ve been kind of busy going through our regular routine. Can you—can you be a little more specific? W-what did I do?”

Shoving Savage’s sword out of the way, Alvin fisted the dash of Hiccup’s armor and growled, “They’re all gone! All o’ those mangy Hooligans are gone! How did ye do it? Where is yer precious Night Fury? Where did ye tell it ter take Stoick? Answer me now, ‘iccup, before ah lose me patience.”

“Gee, I would love to help. Really, Al, nothing would make me happier. But as you may have noticed, I was busy trying to get my dad out of that cage over there—I kind of had my hands full. But hey, m-maybe the others escaped on their own. They—they do know the prison better than you do. Maybe they had some trick up their sleeve; were just waiting for the right moment to slip away.”

“Ah know yer behind this!”

“When I figure out how to be in two places at once, I’ll let you know so you can come back to this claim,” Hiccup said mockingly.

Alvin’s face twisted furiously as he threw Hiccup back, making him stumble before catching his balance again. The men holding the Nightmare looked at each other uncomfortably, apparently unsettled by their leader’s displeasure. Savage’s hand itched, like he wanted nothing more than to lash out with his sword and kill Hiccup already.

“Really, can’t we just cut to the chase and skip this whole thing?” said Hiccup nonchalantly. “We’ve been in this situation before. You capture me, I refuse to cooperate, you threaten my life, I escape… it—it’s getting kind of old, don’t ya think, Al? It would be much easier if you just gave up from the start; would spare us all some trouble.”

Snorting, Alvin shook his head. “Do ye take me fer a fool?”

“Frankly… yes.”

Sneering, Alvin turned to Savage and said, “Get ‘im on a ship. Lock ‘im in the dragon-proof cell. Tha’ Night Fury wouldn’ be able ter help ‘im then. We’re leavin’ the island before Stoick attacks. And we’re takin’ the Dragon Conqueror with us.”

One of the men squirmed uncomfortably. “Erm… Alvin, what if that Night Fury attacks on the way ter the ship?”

“We ‘ave a portable dragon-proof cage. Well use it fer the transfer,” said Savage. “Ah’ll go ge’ it.”

Astrid watched as he left, but Alvin stayed behind and pulled a sword out, pointing at Hiccup threateningly. Toothless once again shifted his weight and let out a low rumble that sent shivers down Astrid’s spine. He didn’t sound all too happy with these turn of events, his sharp teeth bared as his muscles twitched restlessly. He looked like a cat preparing to launch itself at its prey.

Once more a part of Astrid couldn’t help but wonder what had possessed Hiccup to name his dragon Toothless when he clearly had a mouthful of teeth.

“We’d better get him out of there before they come back with this cage,” she muttered to Toothless. “You’ll protect Hiccup—I’ll try to take out these guys.”

With a confirmation growl from the dragon, Astrid launched into action.

Notes:

Oh, hey, I loved writing this chapter. It's the one I had to split up. This sentence led directly into the next bit and I decided it was a good time to stop. I liked Hiccup's lines here. Maybe it's just me. I had fun, that's all that matters.

Cya! :)

Chapter 25: Then...

Then…

Hiccup had a permanent frown on his face as he moved about the small space of his room in the back of the smithy.

Gobber had had too much to drink at the celebration of his victory so he’d left for the night. Technically, Hiccup wasn’t supposed to be there since his mentor had told him to get some rest back home before the big day, but he’d assured him that he could man the forge for a little bit. “To distract myself from the—the nerves,” he’d said.

There wasn’t really anything to do, though. Which was good, seeing as Hiccup wasn’t there to fix weapons but rather to clear up his space and make sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind. He’d organized everything the day before after his father’s visit to the cramped space, figuring he couldn’t let such a close call occur again. Now he was glad for his choice since it made packing up that much easier.

A growing stack of papers on his desk was put aside so Hiccup could later burn it in the furnace. He didn’t need everything he had stored away, and there was no need to leave it behind. And the things he did choose to keep went straight to the bag he’d attached to Toothless’s saddle. Each added item he chose to take with them earned him a curious croon from his dragon, but he didn’t explain much, instead focusing on the task at hand. The night wouldn’t last forever and Hiccup had to pack up the stuff back in his room too.

Not to mention how packing meant he had something to think about that wasn’t the fact that he was going to leave Berk, his life, his family. His dad would be heartbroken, he knew, but he’d get over it. He’d been disappointed in Hiccup ever since he was very young, so surely he would be able to at least look on the bright side here—for example, the fact that the town would no longer get wrecked by his crazy inventions.

But Hiccup would miss him. No matter how dismissive his dad was or how oblivious, stubborn or unwilling to listen he was—Hiccup would miss his booming voice, his tender, rare moments of sincere love and care. He would miss eating dinner together, discussing running the village, complaining about Mildew. He would miss having his dad around, really. Flaws and all.

Toothless cooed gently.

“I don’t have a choice, bud,” he said as he added a drawing to the pile on the desk. “You showed me the truth; that monster in the volcano. How can I possibly go out there and try to kill that Monstrous Nightmare after all of that? I-I can’t do it. A-and they won’t let me get out of it. T-they’ll ask questions, they’ll demand answers. A-a-and if I tell them wild dragons aren’t monsters… best case scenario—they’ll laugh in my face. Worse case—they’ll execute me for treason.”

The dragon soul warbled sadly.

Hiccup put an old notebook in the bag. “I know Dad, bud. He’s—he’s so fixated on finding the nest and destroying it, he would probably hear me slipping up about knowing how to find the nest, and then he’ll completely disregard all of the following warnings. It’s—he’s—it’s s-s-so… infuriating! B-but I can’t tell him. He’d get everyone killed for the chance of protecting the island.”

He looked around and spotted the breast-hat his dad had given him. Something that had apparently belonged to his mom, although Hiccup wasn’t sure how to feel about it. His frown deepened as he picked it up by the horns attached to it, turning it this way and that. Should he take it with him? It had been his mom’s, and it was a gift from his dad. But did he really need this helmet? He wasn’t even sure where Toothless and he were going to go so could he allow himself to take with him something that was merely sentimental but held no further value?

Despite having never met his mother, Hiccup had to wonder what she would have said had she been here right now. She probably would have chastised him for claiming dragons weren’t the evil monsters everyone thought they were. Would she have been as focused on the village as his father was, too busy to hear Hiccup out and too stubborn to try and change her mind? Would she have brushed off his claims in favor of training him to be the dragon killer everyone wanted him to become?

For a split moment he let himself entertain the idea of his mother listening to him, hearing him out, nodding along to his words and patiently taking everything in. He imagined her accepting what he had to say, giving him a chance to prove dragons could be friendly and unharmful creatures. He imagined changing her mind and then working along with her to convert the rest of Berk.

A snort left him as he shook his head with a bitter smile. Yeah, like that was possible. From his dad’s stories about Hiccup’s mom, the woman was a formidable warrior and equally as stubborn as her husband and every other Viking who lived on the island. The chances of Hiccup changing her mind were slim to none, just like they were with every other Hooligan.

But it was nice to dream about these distant what-ifs.

“I don’t think my dad could accept dragons,” admitted Hiccup as he put the helmet on his desk, still unsure about what to do with it. “I me—I mean, my mom was killed by a dragon. I-I can’t imagine him forgiving that. Gobber told me after that he—he tried to find the nest with even more fervor. He wouldn’t be able to—to move past that. How could he?”

Toothless pressed his muzzle into Hiccup’s palm, warbling softly, as if to say: You moved past it.

Smiling lopsidedly at the dragon, Hiccup muttered, “It’s—it’s different for me. I don’t remember it happening. I was—I was a baby when she died, bud. I didn’t see it happen; I didn’t have this memory playing around in my head. M-my dad does, though.”

With a croon, Toothless maneuvered his tail around the small space until it was wrapped around Hiccup’s legs protectively. The action was so small, yet Hiccup couldn’t help but feel like it spoke volumes—louder than the shouts of drunken Berkians, louder than roaring dragons during raids. It felt like the unconditional acceptance and support Hiccup had never received from his tribe. It didn’t fix anything, but it untied a few of the knots in his stomach that’s been bothering him.

“Thanks, bud,” he murmured.

His dragon soul purred back.

Both their heads snapped toward the curtain separating the back room from the rest of the forge at the sound of Astrid’s voice calling Hiccup’s name uncertainly, as if she wasn’t really sure he was even there.

He was planning on talking to her later—once he had an idea of what he was going to say—but it looked like he was going to have to improvise it and hope for the best instead.

“If this ends up badly and she kills me, d’you think she’d mount our heads on her bedroom wall?” he whispered.

Toothless flicked the back of his head with one of his tailfins, then vanished in the blink of an eye before a scratchy feeling on Hiccup’s hip let him know where he settled this time. The dragon warbled in his head, the sound somewhere between a grouse and a chortle.

“Sure, leave me to deal with it by myself,” Hiccup grumbled and rolled his eyes. “Useless reptile.”

The Night Fury was definitely laughing at him then.

Trying to ignore the draconic gurgle rolling around his brain, Hiccup plastered a an awkward smile to his face and stepped out into the forge to face Astrid.

Notes:

Yeah, it's short. I'm not gonna apologize.

Cya! :)

Chapter 26: Now...

Notes:

And now (no pun intended) the moment you've all been waiting for.

Now…

She dropped into the arena through the spaces between the metal chains tied over the place in order to keep the dragons inside. From the corner of her eye she could see Toothless vanishing without a sound before abruptly appearing beside Hiccup, body low, wings expanded and eyes locked on Alvin, who roared indignantly at the dragon and immediately slashed with his sword in his direction.

Seeing as Toothless was handling that, Astrid allowed herself to focus on the men still struggling with the Nightmare. She prayed to Odin she wouldn’t regret fighting them when there was a furious dragon just waiting to be set free right there, then ran past Hiccup, Alvin and Toothless straight toward them, her axe in her hands.

“Who—” one of them started at the sight of her, then he had to duck to avoid the blade she aimed at his head.

“Get ‘er!” one of them yelled.

A man let go of the rope in favor of grabbing his mace. He charged at Astrid but she rolled out of the way before he could hit her, then sprang back up to her feet and used her axe to cut through the handle of his weapon. Dumbfounded, the man blinked at the two pieces of the mace, then yelped when Astrid kicked him off his feet and knocked him out with a smack from her axe.

Before the three others could retaliate, she attacked another one of them, taking him out as well. He wasn’t unconscious—just moaning on the ground, but Astrid decided he no longer posed a threat so she trained her eyes on the other two men.

She lifted her axe, preparing for another attack, but before she could do anything, the Nightmare tugged at the ropes binding it and managed to throw the two men off balance with the force. It roared victoriously at finally managing to set itself free, then stalked toward the men, eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring. The flames licking at its scaly body intensified.

Taking a cautious step back, Astrid watched—somewhat shaken up—as the Nightmare picked up one of the men with his teeth. The Outcast cried out in pain at the sharp teeth mangling his legs. The dragon shook him from side to side ruthlessly, then threw him aside dismissively. She figured this guy would have to get used to using peglegs from now on—if he survived at all.

The last of the men scrambled to his feet and ran toward the exit of the arena, screaming bloody murder all the way there. The Monstrous Nightmare stared after him with a sneer, then turned its slitted eyes down at Astrid, who turned stock-still. Years of training screeched at her to defend herself, do whatever it took to get out of this encounter. She unconsciously tightened her grip on the handle of her axe, her muscles tensing in preparation for a strike.

But with a worried squawk from Stormfly in her mind, the image of that frightened orange Nadder at the nest popped in her mind. She needed to fight this dragon, she knew, because she couldn’t possibly train it when it was this worked up from the raid and the Outcasts capturing it. But… was she really going to hurt an abused dragon even further?

She ran out of time way too quickly. Astrid felt like one moment the dragon was far enough away from her, then it was suddenly right in her face, its fire singing her hair and its maw opening wide to either shoot fire or bite her. Both options weren’t all that pleasant.

Before the dragon could cause her any harm, though, a hand grasped her shoulder and pushed her slightly aside—not violently, but urgently. She stumbled a little, feeling dazed, then focused on Hiccup as he took her place in front of the Nightmare, a concentrated expression on his face. Instead of flinching away from the hissing dragon, he stood his ground and moved slowly while maintaining eye contact.

Astrid watched with trepidation as the dragon snarled at Hiccup. But instead of backing down, Hiccup slowly moved his way toward a curious tube he had strapped to his belt. The moment he had it in his hand, he flicked it, making a blade extend from it. The Nightmare’s hisses grew stronger at the sight of the weapon, but then died down when Hiccup pressed a button and the blade burst into flame.

Her jaw dropped.

Hiccup had a flaming sword. He had—he had a sword he could light on fire. He had… he had the same weapon the old portrait in the Great Hall had shown him with.

The Monstrous Nightmare stared at the fire, transfixed by it apparently. Its growls stopped completely, and as Hiccup started waving the sword about lightly, the dragon’s head followed it, mesmerized. Its own fire extinguished, its pupils dilating. When Hiccup tentatively reached out his hand, the Nightmare sniffed it a bit but didn’t try to pull away.

With the dragon calm down, Hiccup deactivated his weapon and put it away, instead rubbing the Nightmare’s muzzle to the sound of its content purrs.

Finally breaking eye contact, Hiccup turned to face Astrid and cheerily said, “What took you so long?”

“Why, did you miss me?” she shot back.

A lopsided grin appeared on his face. Astrid absently noted the fact that he did, in fact, have those familiar freckles still.

Internally, Stormfly chirped brightly.

“Come on, we’d better go,” he said after a moment, grabbing Astrid’s hand and pulling away from the Monstrous Nightmare in favor of running back toward Toothless. The wild dragon looked slightly baffled by the sudden departure, but it quickly got over it and happily followed them to Astrid’s mild astonishment.

Toothless was handling Alvin rather well. He had his paw on the man’s chest, pinning to the floor and growling at him warningly. The man’s sword was on the floor, out of his reach, and sheer strength didn’t seem to be enough for him to overpower the Night Fury looming over him.

“Told you we should just skip ahead to the end,” said Hiccup as he approached Toothless. He peered down at Alvin and added, “I-I’m thinking that if these dragon pens managed to hold my dad prisoner, they’d be able to keep you here until you can be thrown in jail.”

“Me men will come fer me,” snarled Alvin.

“With the chief free to take back over Berk?” Astrid scoffed. “They’ll flee and leave you behind instead of risking getting caught too.”

The Monstrous Nightmare huffed some smoke in agreement. Before they could intervene, it grabbed Alvin between its teeth and pulled him from under Toothless. Instead of flopping him like it’d done to the man earlier, it moved toward an open cage and threw Alvin inside. The Outcast landed inside with a grunt, and Astrid and Hiccup shut the door in his face before he could escape. Moving quickly, she pulled the lever and locked the outraged man inside.

Looking very proud of itself, the Nightmare nudged Hiccup once, then flapped its wings and looked at the exit from the arena longingly, questioningly.

“Yeah, time to head out,” Hiccup agreed. He mounted Toothless with ease, then pulled Astrid after him. “To the cove?”

“Everyone is there,” she confirmed. She put her axe away and wrapped her arms around Hiccup’s middle to secure herself as Toothless and the Nightmare took off. “I didn’t get to make sure they were all accounted for. Your dad showed up on Toothless not too long after we made it there and I left pretty much immediately. But I did tell the twins to get the weapons if they can in the meantime.”

“Would be nice if everything kept on going this smoothly.”

She snorted. “You just got captured.”

“And escaped.”

“You had a sword against your neck.”

Hiccup threw her a mirthful look over his shoulder. “Wouldn’t be my first time.”

“You’re so—”

She was cut off by the loud yell from below, followed by Toothless’s sharp turn in the air to avoid a bola launched toward them. She peered down and saw Savage standing next to a cart with a green cage, glaring up at them. More Outcasts were alerted by his cry, their gazes scouring the sky before noticing the two dragons flying across the sky.

For a split second Astrid felt like sighing in relief. Savage had missed them despite the abrupt attack. But then Toothless let out a horrific screech and despite still flapping his wings, they started tipping to the side and descending toward the treetops of the forest, the Nightmare sending them a look but ultimately choosing to make a run for it.

“What’s going on?” screamed Astrid the wind threatening to rip her apart from Hiccup and off the dragon’s back.

“I don’t kn—Toothless? Bud, what’s wrong?” said Hiccup.

He glanced at the wings as Toothless seemed to try and avoid crashing down too roughly by gliding downward instead of plummeting. Then he twisted even more and peered at Toothless’s tail around Astrid, his face turning pale and his eyes widening in alarm.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he started muttering frantically. “I thought he missed!”

Toothless let out an agonized shriek.

Astrid had no idea what was going on, but she closed her eyes and braced for impact as they finally reached the trees. She felt the way Toothless furled his wings. Branches smacked her in the face before she pressed it against Hiccup’s back. She could feel her arms and legs getting scratched; her heart thundered in her chest and her bones seemed to rattle from the shaky impact. An involuntary scream ripped through her.

It felt like an eternity before everything stopped moving. Astrid’s body was shaking, her lungs feeling small and empty under her ribs no matter how much she tried to breathe. Her skin on her elbow tingled as Stormfly paced there frantically, squawking at her in concern while flapping her wings and shaking her head.

“Toothless!” Hiccup called.

Still disoriented, Astrid nearly face-planted off the dragon’s back when Hiccup pulled free of her grip and hopped to the ground. She blinked furiously and shook her head to try and get her brain to work properly again. How in the world was Hiccup managing to walk around to crouch in front of Toothless after falling out of the sky. Better question—how often did it have to happen for him to get used to it enough to just walk it off?

The Night Fury moaned and hissed.

“I know, it’s gonna be okay,” murmured Hiccup. “It—it’ll be fine. You’re g-gonna be okay, bud.”

“Whtappned?” Astrid mumbled as she shakily got off Toothless’s back.

“That bola—it didn’t miss; not completely.”

Hiccup let Toothless rest his head in his lap, his green eyes watching despondently as the dragon huffed in pain in between crooning and whining. He tenderly brushed his fingers against the black scales, looking torn between heartbreak and utter fury at whatever it is that Savage had apparently done to his dragon soul.

She shook her head again and rubbed her elbow with a wince. “What?”

Taking a few calming breaths, Hiccup jerkily pointed at Toothless’s tail without looking away from the dragon. “The bola was supposed to wrap around him, tuck in his wings so he wouldn’t be able to fly. But Toothless moved out of the way, so instead it just grazed his tail. But it—it clipped his tailfin. Without his tail to help him steer properly…”

He trailed off, his face darkening as he shook his head and pressed his forehead to the top of the Night Fury’s head. Toothless crooned back sadly, almost deliriously.

Astrid gulped thickly and forced her body to cooperate despite the shock and aching muscles. She turned around to stare at Toothless’s tail, where one tailfin was resting against the grass, flapping numbly. But the second one—its mirrored counterpart—was gone, replaced by empty space and a jagged, bloody line along the end of the tail.

What had Gobber told them all during their dragon training what must have been a lifetime ago? It’s the wings and the tail yer really want. A downed dragon is a dead dragon. And now Toothless’s tail was mangled beyond repair.

Stormfly let out a mournful trill. Astrid wanted to hurl.

Notes:

*Gasp!* Deadpan voice: Toothless lost one of his tailfins? Whatever shall he do? Oh no. What a nightmare. He's never gonna recover. What a mess. Oh no again.

On other news, I have this thing where I talk and then repeat the last couple of words silently without noticing. My brother told me I do it when I was younger and he hasn't mentioned it lately so I thought it passed. It didn't, he just stopped commenting.

On other, other news, we're nearly done with this fic. I think I'm more worried you won't like the ending than excited to be finished with it. Does that make sense? Don't answer that.

Cya! :)

Chapter 27: Then...

Then…

Astrid’s face lit up once he stepped into the shop, clumsily bumping into one of Gobber’s discarded appendages lying on the floor. Hiccup sent it an offended look and gritted his teeth to prevent himself from outwardly snapping at Toothless to stop laughing at him already. Then he looked up and made his way over to the window of the forge where Astrid was standing.

“H-hey, Astrid!” he greeted. “Wha-wha-what brings you, um, here?”

“I wanted to wish you luck. The chief said you’d already left but you weren’t at your house so I figured you might be here.” She sent a look deeper into the shop over Hiccup’s shoulder. “Is there someone in there? I heard you talking just now.”

“N-nope, it’s just me. You know me, though—I… don’t have anyone t-to talk to, so—so I just—I just talk to myself. To fill in the silence. It’s… actually, it sounds really pathetic when I—when I say it o-out loud like that…”

She stared at him blankly. “How is it you’re getting weirder the more I get to know you?”

He let out a forced laugh and ran his fingers through his hair, eyes darting all around. He’s talked to Astrid before. It was always nerve-racking, but he thought he was getting better at talking to her without putting his foot in his mouth. Why was he suddenly so much worse? They weren’t even talking about anything subsequential yet. He hasn’t brought up dragons or his ‘theories’.

Then again, he was planning on pretty much admitting he was a traitor to her in the hopes that she wouldn’t end up chopping his head clean off his shoulders, so… maybe that added to the nerves fluttering in his stomach. The idea of actually messing up whatever friendship they finally had going on made him want to hold his tongue, but he—he had to talk to her. He was going to leave Berk, and before he did that, he needed to at least try to explain himself.

Honestly, at the moment Hiccup would rather face the caged Monstrous Nightmare than Astrid Hofferson, but oh well.

“What are you doing here anyway?” she asked, eyebrows quirking. “Shouldn’t you be getting some sleep before the big day? I know I would have left the celebration to rest, not work a few more hours.”

Hiccup glanced around at the dark forge. “Oh, um, you know me—t-the forge actually calms me down. So—so it’s not weird. I’m just… I have too much jittery energy to dispel of b-before going to bed.”

“Then what are you working on?”

He opened and closed his mouth several times, trying to come up with a suitable reply that wasn’t: I’m packing up all my staff because I’m about to hop on the back of my dragon soul—who’s also the infamous Night Fury—and leave this island for good. You know, the usual. He figured that wouldn’t come across too well with Astrid.

“Y-you know, just… another crazy invention,” he said with a shrug.

“Do you even need those anymore? You can take down dragons without those destructive machines now.”

He flinched. “T-they’re only destructive because they’re first drafts. I-i-if I was given the chance to actually tinker with them a bit they might—they might actually work properly.”

Astrid hummed in this noncommittal way that Hiccup knew meant she didn’t believe him. At least she wasn’t arguing, though. Instead she looked away from him and scanned the weapons spread around the smithy, assessing them like she was planning on buying something. Hiccup knew she wasn’t—she was pretty attached to her axe—but that was still the impression he got.

“Well,” she said, finally focusing back on him with a small smile, “I’m sure you’ll do great tomorrow. But seriously, you should get enough rest, Hiccup.”

“Y-yeah, I will. Thanks, m’lady.”

She took a step back and nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

Hiccup watched as she turned around and started walking away briskly, then startled at the sound of Toothless mentally nudging him. Right, he needed to talk to her. Preferably before she disappeared from his sight.

“W-wait! Astrid, hold on!” he called, bracing his hands on the counter and leaning forward. “C-can I talk to you about something?”

The blonde shot him a look over her shoulder, then curiously approached him again, head tipped to the side. Still, there wasn’t a hint of suspicion in her gaze. She was definitely not suspecting Hiccup might bring up something too controversial right now so she had no real reason to be wary of anything. Which only made him feel worse because he didn’t feel particularly inclined on ruining her mood.

Warbling encouragingly, Toothless shifted a bit on Hiccup’s skin. Scratching his hip absently, the boy furrowed his brows in concentration as he tried to come up with an opening to this conversation that wouldn’t make Astrid run back to the Meade Hall to alert his dad.

“What’s up?” she prompted when he kept on staring at her like an idiot.

Toothless chortled gleefully.

“I was just—er—w-was just wondering,” he said in a rush, “what y-you would have done had peace been a-an option.”

“Peace?”

“W-with the dragons, I mean.”

Astrid leaned back, clearly caught off guard. “Hiccup, is this another one of your crazy theories? Like that one with the beehive nest?”

Chuckling uneasily, he rubbed the nape of his neck. “I-I guess, yeah, yes.”

“You really should pull your head out of the clouds,” she told him with a sigh. She put her hand on his arm—which kind of made it hard for him to think—and said, “Look, I get it, okay? You’re… you’re different than everyone else is. You don’t seem to be as prone to violence as the rest of us are. You’re weak, you’re not great with weapons, you have a streak of building contraptions that destroy the town—”

“D-did you just come here to make me feel worse?”

She pressed on. “But you have been doing really great in the ring during training. Those dragons practically fall at your feet. Never in a million years would I have believed you would win dragon training, but you did and you’re proving everyone here that you really are one of us.”

He frowned at her. “I-I-I’m… flattered?”

Toothless started pacing about in agitation, rumbling in annoyance.

“The point is,” she said sternly, “that you no longer have to come up with crazy ideas and insane theories to approach this dragon problem we’re dealing with. You don’t have to stay inside during raids and let everyone else handle the situation because you can clearly stand your ground now. There’s no need to try and—and approach it from a different direction.”

“T-that’s not really why I’m—”

She squeezed his arm, then let go and smiled. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up being one of the warriors your father would take next time there’ll be an expedition to find the nest. I hope I’ll be allowed to join. Can you imagine the glory that would come with being a part of the group of warriors who’d destroyed the nest and ended the war?”

Hiccup shuddered at the thought. “I-I really, really can’t.”

Astrid rolled her eyes and punched his shoulder. He wasn’t sure whether she was trying to go easy on him and failing miserably or if she wasn’t holding back at all, but every time she did it he felt like she was coming one step closer to drilling a hole through his bones, muscles and skin.

“I wish we’d be there,” she said, almost reverently. “I wish we’d be there to find the nest and then take out the dragon threat. Our ancestors would hail us from the halls of Valhalla. We’ll manage what generations of Vikings had failed to do. Can you believe it? We could actually end this war if we play it right.”

Hiccup tried really hard not to frown at her too much, instead forcing his brain to focus mostly on Stormfly who was crawling up to Astrid’s face before settling on her cheek. The girl didn’t even bat an eye at that. She also didn’t seem to notice or care about it when the Deadly Nadder noticed Hiccup and opened and closed her beak while fluttering her wings excitedly, mostly likely chirping in Astrid’s head.

Toothless snorted grumpily, still safely hidden away.

“Ha-ha, y-yeah,” said Hiccup uneasily. “Destroying the nest and ending the war. W-wouldn’t that be amazing. T-too bad we can never find it, eh?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “We’ll find it eventually. If these dragons can do it, so can we. We just have to search harder. And hey, if your dad won’t be able to find the nest during his time as chief, you’ll have me to help you search when it becomes your job.”

“T-thanks. Dunno what I would have done without you…”

She socked him in the shoulder again. Hiccup couldn’t help the grimace that crept to his face as he rubbed it tenderly. She didn’t seem to notice, instead looking off into the distance with this faraway look in her azure eyes, like she was imagining the future and their glorious victory. Hiccup’s heart clenched, knowing she was most likely not including a mountain-sized monstrous dragon in her vision.

Clearing his throat, he timidly said, “So you—you really don’t think there’s any way we could end this war peacefully?”

Astrid blinked and looked at him again. “You’re a really strange Viking, Hiccup. How can you end a bloody war that’s been going on for this long in peace? More importantly, how can you do it when the enemy you’re dealing with is ruthless and vicious and savage? These dragons have been raiding us and the neighboring islands for years and years. Our parents, their parents, their parents… they all fought in this war to try and keep our people safe. Now it's about to become our duty. These monsters have been killing us for centuries, now it’s our time to pick a side and fight them.”

Hiccup looked into her eyes, seeing the glint of determination and conviction deep inside them as she held her head up proudly, so sure that she had the right idea. He felt like a part of him was shriveling and dying at the realization that no matter what he said, Astrid wasn’t going to change her mind. All she saw in these dragons was vicious beasts—the creatures destroying her home and the one who’d taken so many of their loved ones. Hiccup’s mom, Astrid’s uncle.

He could spend the entire night speaking to her, trying to gently coax her in the right direction, yet she’d always end up steering the conversation right back to what she believed to be true—the dragons had to be eliminated for the Berkians to live in peace. She truly believed that to be the case, never even considering the idea of the dragons being just as victimized in this war as the Vikings.

Toothless tried to coo at him comfortingly, but it wasn’t enough to make up for the pit that formed in his stomach at the realization. Hiccup was really going to have to leave unless he wanted to kill a dragon or reveal his betrayal to the entire tribe and suffer the consequences. He’s been holding on to the shred of hope that maybe—just maybe—Astrid might hear him out and actually see where he was coming from, but that wasn’t going to happen, was it?

“Right,” he said tonelessly, shoulders slumping. “G-guess we do have to pick a side.”

Could he pick his own side?

Toothless crooned agreeably but Hiccup figured every other Viking would see it as him picking the dragons over his people rather than him simply staying true to what he believed in. Unfortunately, that included Astrid.

“Get some sleep,” said Astrid with an oblivious smile. She grabbed the dash of his tunic before he could shrink away and pecked him on the lips before darting away and waving over her shoulder. “I’m sure you’ll do amazing tomorrow. You’re amazing!”

Hiccup stared after her, stunned, confused and immensely disappointed. For a long moment he just kept on standing there, mind reeling and heart beating in his chest despite feeling remarkably heavy after this disheartening conversation. He barely even reacted when Toothless materialized next to him and started nudging his side and rumbling worriedly.

And then he shook his head and somberly walked toward the back, his hand brushing numbly over Toothless’s scales as he hunched his shoulders and tried desperately to get a grip. There was a lot left to do and the night wouldn’t stretch on forever, even if frustrating moments in his life did seem to stay past their welcome more often than not. This moment—this entire day—certainly qualified as frustrating.

“Come on, bud. We need to finish packing up.”

Notes:

This is actually what it feels like to have a conversation with my parents. I wanna say something, they interrupt, they keep on interrupting until I lose my nerve or realize now would be a bad time to speak my mind... Granted, my parents know we don't share point of views but still.

Cya! :)

Chapter 28: Now...

Notes:

And now the moment you've all been waiting for--

Now…

“Think we lost them?”

“Took them long enough to give up.”

“Seriously, I’m not good with losing people. Are they gone?”

“We’ve been alone for nearly five minutes already, Hiccup.”

He sent another look over his shoulder anyway, scanning the trees and bushes carefully, as if expecting someone to jump from behind one of them and attack the two of them. One of his hands was resting over his weapon although the blade was currently sheathed. His other one was pressed over his chest where Astrid assumed Toothless was hiding and resting.

Trekking through the forest without drawing attention to themselves would have been much more difficult had the dragon remained with them, especially when he was in pain and incapable of flying away. So the moment she and Hiccup heard the approaching footsteps of Outcasts searching for them, Toothless vanished and Astrid pulled Hiccup away from there as quietly as possible.

It had taken him a while to snap out of the shock of Toothless losing his tailfin, and it didn’t seem to help that the moment Toothless became a tattoo on his skin, his pain was shared with Hiccup. Luckily, it hadn’t made it so that the guy couldn’t walk or anything, but he was certainly grimacing and wincing every once in a while, dragging his left foot against the forest ground a bit too loudly.

They made more noise than Astrid would have liked, so she’d led him in circles around the woods, taking random turns and attempting to lose their chasers. Hiccup hadn’t even questioned her once, instead simply allowing her to lead the way. At first she figured it was because she was just more familiar with the forest, seeing as she hadn’t left Berk, but she could see in his eyes that Hiccup recognized exactly where they were no matter how lost Astrid herself felt.

This wasn’t really that befuddling, honestly. Astrid still remembered a much younger Hiccup constantly wandering into the forest instead of staying in town. Back then she’d assumed he was just determined to waste his day instead of making the most of it. Only once Hiccup had left did she realize he must have preferred escaping to the forest to avoid the scorn and judgement of the Berkians in the village.

Or, she thought to herself now, he went to the forest all the time to meet with Toothless.

“W-well, we’re nearly to the cove,” he said eventually. “Better get there before things get out of hand.”

“I told them not to attack the dragons,” she told him.

“With my dad there? Who knows if he’ll listen.”

A silence stretched between them once more.

Astrid trudged ahead, questions swimming around her head. She wanted to ask Hiccup everything. She wanted to know why he’d left exactly, what he’d been up to away from Berk, since when he and Toothless had known about each other, why he hadn’t told anyone a thing. She had a thousand and one questions, all tangled-up and all of them loudly banging to come out.

But was now really the time to interrogate him? His dragon was hurt, he was walking toward the place where his dad and old friends—acquaintances?—were, Alvin had had him in his grasp for a short while there… a lot was going on. Astrid cast him a brief look and noted the worried crease between his eyebrows, the way he limped a little from the transferred pain of his dragon soul, the downward tilt of his lips. He looked tired and wary and frustrated. Was now really a good time to air things out?

Suddenly Hiccup sighed and looked up at the patches of sky visible through the leaves and branches. “A-are you trying to be inconspicuous? You’re not exactly subtle, you know.”

She startled. “Excuse me?”

“You’re staring.”

“Am not.”

“Sure.”

“I was—”

“Staring.”

“—looking.”

He snorted. “W-what’s the difference?”

She didn’t reply, instead holding her head high and marching ahead while stomping on leaves and grass blades carelessly. The distant sound of chatter and dragon croons, warbles and growls reached her ears but she ignored it. Her eyes were trained ahead, her fists clenched.

For a while longer they were both silent. Astrid could feel Stormfly fidgeting restlessly while squawking in Astrid’s mind eagerly, as if telling her she had to do something to dispel of the sudden cloud of awkwardness—or was it uneasiness—that had descended upon the two of them. But she ignored the Nadder in favor of making her way toward the direction the voices were coming from—the cove.

“I-I’m sorry I lied to you,” Hiccup said after a while.

She frowned a little. “I’m not mad about that.”

“You—you’re not?”

“No, I…” she trailed off and bit her lip. Then, squaring her shoulders, Astrid said, “You didn’t want to be found. I get that. You were just planning on helping, then falling off the face of the earth again. I get that.”

“I-I-I really don’t think you do,” he said.

Astrid quirked an eyebrow at him, watching with mild satisfaction as he averted his gaze and carded his fingers through his hair. With the mask on he obviously couldn’t have done it, but she remembered this nervous habit of his from before he’d left. Apparently that hasn’t changed over the years—thank the gods.

“It’s—it’s not that I wanted to leave Berk,” he said. “I wasn’t planning on flying away. I was just… after winning dragon training, I didn’t exactly have a choice. It was either killing a dragon or running away. I-I mean, it’s not like I could have just told my dad I didn’t think we should keep on killing dragons. It w—it wouldn’t have come over too well.”

“You could have told me,” she said.

“I t—I tried. But y-you made it pretty extra clear you wouldn’t even entertain the idea of not fighting a-a-and killing dragons, Astrid. I really wanted you to know the truth, b-but you barely even let me speak. You were so excited about destroying the nest and killing dragons. I-I knew you wouldn’t take too kindly to another opinion on the matter.”

She pressed her lips together and furrowed her brows in concentration. She could vaguely recall her last conversation with Hiccup before he disappeared. She’d gone to his house—no, the forge. They’d talked about his test the next day… maybe? It’s been years since then, her memory was less than stellar. It did sound like her, though—getting so excited about the glorious battle between Hiccup and the Monstrous Nightmare in the arena, to the point of not letting him speak his own thoughts on the matter.

What would she have done had he told her the truth? She’d laughed at his beehive idea, but would she have taken him seriously had he managed to show her that he wasn’t kidding? Would she have run to the chief to warn him of his son’s crazy ideas? Would she have given Hiccup a chance to explain, to show her the truth?

It was impossible to know. In retrospect, while knowing the truth, Astrid wanted to believe she would have at least heard Hiccup out. She knew he was right about dragons, so listening could have changed a whole lot. But maybe back then she wouldn’t have cared; maybe she would have brushed Hiccup aside or attacked him on the spot for speaking like a traitor about Berk’s enemies.

Letting out a breath, Astrid wearily asked, “Were you planning on ever coming back?”

“Hmm… maybe a-after killing the queen,” he said thoughtfully. “If I even survived that. I was kind of hoping you’d stop to find out the truth about dragons eventually.”

“Without you to open our eyes? I don’t think it would have happened.”

He smiled a little, then stepped on his left leg and flinched. “Y-yeah, that’s probably true. But without the queen there wouldn’t have been any more raids. Things could have changed drastically.”

“Would you have even heard about it?”

“I come back here all the time, actually,” he said with a smirk. “I mean, I-I keep my distance, but I do visit. So I’m thinking I would have noticed, yeah.”

Astrid gaped at him. “You came back?”

“Yes.”

“All the time?”

“Pretty much.”

“And no one had seen you?”

His green eyes crinkled mirthfully. “I stay close to the forest for the most part. A-although I did use the forge a bunch of times at night when I needed something, I suppose. That place is a mess, by the way. Gobber’s doing a terrible job keeping things in place. It—it makes it really difficult to navigate the workshop at night.”

She shook her head incredulously, a small smile tugging at her lips. Maybe she should have been more upset with him for admitting he’s been around all along, most likely noticing the changes his disappearance had caused. But knowing Hiccup hadn’t just abandoned Berk and its people completely and had instead chosen to keep his distance made her feel almost relieved.

A small part of her noted that it meant that had Snotlout asked her to marry him, refusing to acknowledge a betrothal necklace that came from someone they thought was dead, Hiccup would have probably intervened. But for the most part she was just overcome by a wave of relief, knowing that if all of Berk stopped killing dragons—like he’d made her promise days ago—Hiccup would no longer have a reason to leave.

She opened her mouth to say that, but a loud, angry roar stopped her in her tracks. She blinked in surprise, then rushed forward a moment after Hiccup. Her hand automatically darted toward her axe, but she left it on her back. Weapons weren’t exactly the answer to everything—not anymore.

They reached the cove in under a minute, the two of them climbing down quickly and then stopping to observe the scene—the Berkians were all still occupying the part of the place they had claimed for themselves earlier on. Now they were standing behind the chief who was facing the Monstrous Nightmare that had escaped along with Hiccup. The dragon’s scales were on fire; the chief’s fists were clenched as he scowled at it.

Despite the pain from Toothless, Hiccup sprinted forward and stationed himself firmly between the dragon and his dad, his front mostly facing the dragon.

“No! Hey, hey, it’s okay,” he said soothingly, looking up at the Nightmare with an open expression. “Come on, you know me. We’re friends, right? We’ve established that alrea—o-oh, hey, Sharpshot.”

The little green Terrible Terror chirped from his new perch on Hiccup’s shoulder, looking remarkably cozy and content. Stormfly made a trilling sound, apparently happy to see that the little guy was still there and all right.

“Hiccup?” the chief rasped, his violent demeanor suddenly shifting to one of awe and uncertainty. “Son?”

Hiccup threw him an awkward smile over his shoulder, then focused back on calming down the Nightmare. The rest of the people watched in fascination and trepidation as the large dragon extinguished its flames and readily nudged Hiccup’s hand when the boy raised it. Astrid spotted Snotlout standing with his jaw hanging open and Fishlegs staring awestruck at the scene, excitedly bouncing on his toes.

“That’s it,” said Hiccup as the Nightmare purred. “You remember us. Astrid just saved you, we aren’t going to hurt you. Just ignore these muttonheads—they only look tough.”

“Hey!” protested Gobber. “Ah’ll have ye know ah’ve killed a whole lot o’ dragons with me bare hand and hook.”

Hiccup huffed when the dragon growled a bit. “I-I don’t think you realize saying this isn’t exactly endearing you to this guy,” he commented dryly. “But it’s okay. You’re safe here. Bet you could really use a nap after the long day you must have had, huh? You can rest here, no one is going to disturb you.”

“Does poking count?” asked Tuff.

“Just a little poke,” added Ruff.

“With a stick.”

“Or a mace.”

“Or a spear.”

“Maybe a sword…”

Rubbing the dragon’s scales, Hiccup grumbled, “Hopefully no one is going to disturb you.”

Tearing her eyes away from Hiccup, Astrid turned to scan the Vikings standing around, suddenly noticing they were all armed now. Tuffnut and Ruffnut must have successfully raided the forge while she and Hiccup were busy escaping and losing the Outcasts trailing them. And other than Gobber, who looked like it annoyed him to see all of his weapons in the hands of unpaying costumers, everyone appeared to be prepared for battle.

They also appeared to be incredibly shocked by Hiccup—or maybe by his ability to calm a Monstrous Nightmare down with such ease—but Astrid wasn’t all that concerned about that.

On the ground in front of Hiccup, the Nightmare settled down comfortably, closing its eyes with one last look up at Hiccup, as if to make sure the human wasn’t lying to him. Then it huffed out some smoke and relaxed completely. A moment later it snorted at the feeling of Sharpshot leaving Hiccup in favor of snuggling up to the larger dragon, but otherwise he didn’t retaliate in any way.

Done with that, Hiccup turned around to the others. His eyes first landed on Astrid, but then he dragged them away to the other teens, Gobber and lastly his dad. And even though it’s been a while—even though Hiccup was taller and more confident and sure of himself, the moment he was facing the chief, his shoulders hunched a little and his face became uncertain and anxious.

“Hiccup…” his dad said softly, in astonishment.

Flinging his arms by his sides and kicking the dirt, Hiccup said, “H-hi, Dad.”

For a long moment nobody said anything. Astrid watched as Fishlegs shushed the twins before they could say anything rude or insensitive from the corner of her eye, but she was mostly focused on the guarded expression Hiccup supported.

And then the chief moved forward. Hiccup flinched but didn’t back away. And when the strong, meaty arms of his dad wrapped him in a bear hug that probably knocked the breath right out of him, Hiccup could be seen visibly slumping down in relief before clinging to the man just as tightly.

She thought she heard them whispering to each other, keeping their voices low enough for everyone else not to hear, but she couldn’t be sure. Either way, it was none of her business. So she, along with just about half the Berkians, turned to look all around the cove instead of the reunion. Even some of the dragons seemed to try and mind their own business, although Sharpshot must have decided the Monstrous Nightmare wasn’t comfortable enough because soon he climbed up Hiccup’s leg and back over to his shoulder.

Shocked, the chief reared back a little and stared at the crooning dragon. “Er… ye have… there’s a…”

Hiccup sent Sharpshot an exasperated grin. “Dad, meet Sharpshot. He’s my friend.”

“Friend,” he echoed.

“From a few years back.”

Stoick blinked. “Friend,” he repeated. “Like tha’—tha’ Night Fury?”

“Toothless is actually my dragon soul,” said Hiccup.

Hobbling forward, Gobber called, “Since when do ye ‘ave a dragon soul?”

“I’m assuming the answer ‘since I was born’ is too on the nose?” he replied nasally, then shrugged and smiled at Gobber brightly. “I found out about him during dragon training and just didn’t feel like sharing the news before I wrapped my head around it myself. I-I mean, everyone’s been curious to know who Toothless belonged to so I figured it would be quite a shock.”

Tuffnut laughed. “The runt of the village and the most fearsome dragon in existence? This could have caused so much chaos!”

“Should’ve told someone,” grumbled Ruff in disappointment. “Such a wasted opportunity for some good ol’ mayhem.”

“Well, aren’ ye full o’ surprises,” said Gobber cheerfully as he shook his head fondly at Hiccup. “Back ter help us get our home back, are ye?”

“I did hear you were in need of assistance,” said Hiccup with a glance in Astrid’s direction. “And we could ask these dragons to help us with the Outcasts—if you all promise not to ‘accidentally’ slice them in half for being in your way—I’m looking at you, Snotlout!”

Straightening up, his cousin blinked in shock, then grumbled something and crossed his arms over his chest while looking at his feet.

“You want us ter… ter work with the beasts?” said the chief apprehensively.

“How about… don’t hurt them for now? You don’t have to work with them, just don’t harm them. They’re going to help us if they’re willing and it would be pretty nasty of you to repay them by slicing them with a sword or bashing their heads with a hammer, Dad.”

“Wha’ if they turn on us?” someone asked.

“Wha’ if they burn down the village?” another chimed in.

“They’re monsters!”

“We ‘ave ter kill ‘em!”

“They set me underwear on fire!”

Not looking at them, Hiccup stared up at the chief and firmly said, “Please, D-Dad, let me handle it. They won’t do anything against us, okay? I’ll make sure of it. J-just trust me on this.”

“Aye, I do,” the redhead said without hesitation, albeit still sounding wary. “And I heard—some o’ the men mentioned some kind o’ deal you and the Hofferson lass had struck?”

For a split second Astrid thought the chief was talking about the pendant hanging from her neck and the secret betrothal associated with it. She sent a look down at the blue and yellow glass she’d left over her shirt, eyes widening. She’d forgotten to hide it once more after her travel with Hiccup—anyone could have seen it and realized what it meant—

“Oh, y-yeah,” said Hiccup nonchalantly. “She promised you won’t hurt dragons anymore.”

Her shoulders slumped down in relief as she rubbed the smooth surface of the pendant before tucking it away once more. She ignored the way Stormfly chortled in her head about her initial panic, instead reminding herself that yes, she had agreed in the name of all of Berk to receive Hiccup’s help and in return to quit harming and killing dragons.

“A deal’s a deal,” the chief said gravely, his voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “And ah trust ye know how ter make sure they wouldn’ burn down our homes or steal all our food an’ animals? Ye clearly have a way with ‘em.” The chief took in a deep breath, then more gingerly added, “But after tha’—after we take back our home—will ye stay?”

Hiccup hesitated, his gaze moving from his dad to the others spread all around. He looked at the Berkians, the dragons. Some met his eyes, others were looking in different directions or intentionally pretending not to notice. Bucket waved at him cheerily. Sharpshot squeaked and chirped in delight. His hand rubbed over where Toothless was mostly likely curled up on his chest.

When his eyes met hers, his head tipped a little to the side, as if silently asking her what she thought he should do. Astrid maintained eye contact and subtly gestured for him to go ahead and do whatever he felt was right. If he didn’t end up staying later… well, maybe he wouldn’t mind some company out there. Travelling really wasn’t so bad with the right company, was it?

Turning back to his dad, Hiccup said, “I ju—I just have one more thing I need to do before, b-b-but once I’m done w-with that… sure. I mean, you are going to need someone to teach you properly about dragons.”

Gobber whacked him over the head. “Hey! Ah’m a perfectly capable teacher, ye fishbone.”

“Your students nearly get eaten right under your nose.”

“Gettin’ eaten is a part o’ life.”

“So is staying alive.”

Stormfly preened and trilled joyously in Astrid’s mind, prancing around on her skin. Not that she could blame the dragon soul; Astrid herself was just as ecstatic—albeit a bit wary of the result of what Hiccup was planning to do against the queen at the dragon’s nest.

Beaming for the first time in years, the chief turned to his people while holding Hiccup’s hand and raising it. “MY SON HAS COME HOME!” he exclaimed.

Hiccup and the dragons startled at the cheers and celebratory roars of the Vikings, but the boy quickly managed a tentative smile as he stood by his dad while absently rubbing Sharpshot’s head to try and soothe him back down.

Notes:

--a let down!

No, but seriously, this is the last chapter. The next one is an epilogue. It felt right to start and finish the story on the same sort of tone, y'know? Maybe I should tag this story as open-ended... I'm not sure. It feels finished to me, but I don't think everyone would agree. Oops.

Oh well.

Cya! :)

Chapter 29: Epilogue

Epilogue

Most of the islands inside the archipelago used to suffer from dragon raids in the past, where the beasts had rained down on the tribes living on the islands, claws outstretched and maws releasing bursts of fire and smoldering lava at the people, buildings and animals while trying to capture as many fish, sheep, yaks and every other possible source of food available.

No one knew exactly why the raids stopped. People speculated, of course. They noticed the change in pattern, the way they no longer had to be awoken in the dead of night to the sound of alarms and loud yells to grab a weapon and join the fray. Still, they remembered the terror, the losses, the sleepless nights and endless searches for the nests of the dragons just so they could get rid of the threat once and for all. They remembered, and the refused to forgive, instead attacking the dragons that still showed up on their islands, yelling, stabbing, slashing and either killing, wounding or driving the beasts off their lands.

Berk was the exception.

The people have lived on the island for seven generations already, always with the looming threat of an approaching raid. They’d suffered and lost and grieved and mourned just like all the other tribes. The more the dragons had come, the more determined they had been to fight just as hard and protect their own.

When babies started coming to the world with dragons tattooed on their infant skin, the Berkians had assumed they were cursed—a bad sign from their gods who saw their failed attempts at dealing with the pests raiding their village and decided to punish them. The only reason these babies survived instead of being sacrificed by the people was the appearance of an apparition, a misty figure and a dragon. The two stood between the Berkians and the cursed children, warning burning in their green eyes; a silent promise that if the babies were harmed, nothing good would follow.

The Dragon Lord, they called the smoky man. The Dragon Master.

The god of dragons and his draconic pet.

Growing up, the babies and their dragon souls adjusted right along with the older generations living on the island. More such babies were born, with different dragons peering up at the parents from the folds of baby fat. The more it happened, the less alarmed the people were. The more it happened, the more normal it seemed to become. Suddenly being born without a dragon soul was absurd, ridiculed. The people of Berk had dragon souls, and the ones who didn’t seemingly didn’t belong.

From time to time a baby was still born without a dragon soul. It was became rare, the exception. Still, it happened. With everyone else scoffing at such occurrences, these people tended to grow up bitter and isolated, their hatred of dragons amplified tenfold.

The night an heir to the chiefdom was born without a trace of a scaly body on his too small—too frail—body, the tribe wailed to the heavens, crying out to the god of dragons, begging to know where they’d gone wrong for their future to suddenly look so bleak. After all, how could they expect anything good to come of a dragon soulless successor to their beloved chief? They must have done something wrong; it was a bad omen, a horrible fate, a sign their tribe was in grave danger.

And from the darkness, lurking silently without a single person noticing him, a black-as-night dragon with acid-green eyes watched. Had anyone paid attention, they would have noticed the way the shadows seemed to have formed him, solidifying into a reptilian, sleek body along with the birth of the abominable heir.

Instead of approaching the newborn, the dragon lingered back, basking in the darkness of shadowed corners as he watched the infant growing up. Some nights, after the chieftess had been carried away, the baby would start wailing in his crib, his father nowhere to be seen, perhaps too deep asleep. Then the dragon would tentatively approach the baby, rest his head on his chest and purr and coo at him until the forest-green eyes would droop and close once more.

There was a sort of kinship between them, the dragon knew. He knew they could be like the other humans and their dragon souls. He knew they could grow up together, stay close, acknowledge each other. He knew he could probably trust the small human. But as the child grew older, the dragon withdrew and observed his attempts at appealing to the people around him, coming up with wilder and more desperate ideas to help him take down dragons.

He stopped interacting with the human then, instead opting to keep his distance, explore the island, keep an eye on the child from a distance.

The only reason he intervened in the end was that the human was about to die under the absentminded care of his mentor. The black dragon hadn’t planned on watching the training session, but he ended up dropping by anyway, and he was glad for that later on, as he placed himself between the Gronckle and the human cowering away.

There was no recognition in the human’s eyes as their gazes locked once the danger was gone, but the dragon still found himself intrigued by the wonder shining in the child’s eyes. He was visibly scared, still tense and wary of what might happen, but he was also staring back at the dragon with the kind of curiosity the dragon himself was feeling.

Avoiding the human before that had been easy, but after making contact for the first time—after allowing himself to peer into the eyes and soul of the child properly for the first time—the black-scaled dragon found that he could no longer keep his distance.

Perhaps because of their bond forming so late, or maybe because there was simply something different about them that allowed them to—the human and the dragon’s relationship was different than the one the rest of the Berkians had with their dragon souls.

While other humans would shout at their dragons and demand obedience, the human heir and the black dragon spoke softly and cooed gently at each other.

While other dragons would ignore their humans for the most part, the black dragon and the human heir slipped away to spend time together and feel at peace in their companionship.

While other humans and dragon souls would only care about each other’s safety out of obligation and a sense of survival, the human heir and the black dragon looked out for each other and had each other’s backs because they truly did care.

They were each other’s best friends—first friends. They smiled at each other, confided in one another, played together, shared their meals (although the human would often shake his head at the offered regurgitated fish his dragon would offer him). Without sharing their bond with anyone else, they managed to grow closer by defying expectations and turning their backs on the way others handled this kind of bond between a human and a dragon.

When a badly-evaded shot ripped off the tailfin of the dragon, his human worked for weeks to create a substitute—a functioning prosthetic that would replace the old fin and enable the dragon to soar through the sky again—this time with his human sharing the workload by controlling the artificial tailfin.

When a blazing fire from a dying dragon rose to meet up with the plummeting human, the dragon pulled him into his grasp and enveloped him protectively with his wings so he wouldn’t get harmed. His leg still ended up mangled from the dragon’s desperate attempt to pull him close with his teeth and the flesh and bones had to be replaced with metal and wood. And with every adjusting step the human took, the dragon was there to offer support and someone to lean on.

Eventually, with their guidance, other Berkians and dragon souls grew closer, formed a real bond with each other.

Wild dragons stopped being hunted, shot or attacked by the people on the island. Instead, they pranced around the village freely, cawing and warbling at the people and dragon souls cheerfully, their queen’s reign of terror finally over and done with. Instead, they crooned respectfully at the black dragon and nudged his human in gratitude and reverence whenever they passed by.

The peace between humans and dragons made the island prosper and grow. Instead of living in fear and wondering when their time would finally come to leave the plane of the earth and join the endless sky or the halls of Valhalla, the Berkians—humans and dragons alike—worked together, more joy in their voices and less weight on their shoulders. Their ancestors would have thought them mad, but no one could argue the current state was better than it had been in the past.

And still tucked in the back of the Meade Hall, covered in shadows and collecting dust bunnies and spider webs, was an old, faded painting of an old ceremony—one where the Berkians stood in an arch around several wailing babies, a tall man with a flaming sword and his dragon separating the two groups.

“See?” a blonde woman said.

“I forgot this was even here,” admitted the tall man beside her.

The blunt, black head of a dragon crept close to the painting, sniffing the old shield and cooing curiously. The man snorted, shoulders bouncing up and down in silent laughter. He shifted his weight to his flesh leg, letting his recent stump a bit of a break. Without looking away from the painting, the dragon budged closer and crooned as the man put a stabilizing hand on his back.

“Thanks, bud,” he said.

The woman slapped his arm impatiently. “But you see it, don’t you?”

“I do have eyes.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Y-yeah, I know.”

Behind the woman, a blue dragon squawked and peered at the painted shield before turning to enthusiastically chirp at the man, yellow eyes aglow with familiarity. He smiled and petted her head before focusing on the woman beside him once more.

The blonde hummed a little. “Do you think maybe the dragon souls were the gods’ way of trying to steer us in the right direction rather than the warning the elders believed them to be? I mean, maybe they were supposed to show us another side of the dragons no one was willing to see before.”

“Clearly the message was received with no issue.”

She rolled her eyes.

The man smirked. “They gave a bunch of bloodthirsty, stubborn Vikings dragons with no instructions. Makes you wonder what they expected would happen.”

“Maybe they thought there’d be one stubborn Viking who wasn’t bloodthirsty in that first batch,” she said. “Clearly, there wasn’t. Or if there was such a person, his voice wasn’t loud enough to be heard over all the others.”

“I-it’s because peaceful Vikings don’t grow up hollering every few minutes at the prospect of impaling something with a spear o-or slicing it with a sword. Without all the practice they have no chance of being louder than the other meatheads.”

“Speaking from experience?” she taunted.

He chuckled. “I don’t need a loud voice—I have a Night Fury to draw attention. He’s pretty hard to ignore.”

The black dragon burbled smugly, tail swishing from side to side before finally wrapping around the man’s legs loosely, red tailfin resting over metal leg.

The blonde tipped her head to the side, put her hand on her hip and cleared her throat pointedly. Behind her, the blue dragon seemed to chortle.

“Y-yeah, okay, I-I-I also have you,” the man amended. “You are pretty hard to ignore, m’lady.”

Pacified, she leaned against him without putting too much weight onto his already-unstable form. Both of them turned to look back at the dusty shield hanging off the wall. But while she was looking at the man illustrated in the portrait, he was busy taking in the black dragon wrapped around the figure in a familiar display of protectiveness.

They were quiet for a long moment.

“Your hair isn’t that dark, though,” she commented.

“Toothless’s frills are rounder than that,” he said.

“Why does your nose look like a shapeless blob in this?”

“They—they didn’t add the skull painted on the fin.”

“And I’ve never seen that expression on your face before.”

“W-well, Toothless can look intimidating, so I guess they did do that part right.”

They glanced at each other, eyes twinkling with mirth and smiles wide on their faces.

“Does that mean you’re the god of dragons?” she said, lips quivering.

The black dragon gurgled in amusement.

The man scrunched up his nose. “Oh, gods no. Don’t say that.”

“Dragon Master Hiccup.”

“Please don’t.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“T-they’re gonna strike me down for this.”

“You have nothing to worry about—gods can’t die.”

“Ha-ha-ha,” he said dryly, then held his hand up and covered her mouth. “Seriously, I just survived facing off against a giant dragon. I-I kinda feel like I’ve taunted fate enough for the next few years.”

She removed his hand with ease and said, “Few days, maybe. Weeks at best.”

They kept on bickering lightly, the dragons chiming in with their own warbles, croons and trills every once in a while, nudging them to intervene and be taken seriously. A few Vikings and dragons who were spread around the Meade Hall sent them looks but ultimately let the couple of dragons and humans be.