A/N: so I recently fell head first in love with HTTYD (yeah, yeah, I'm late to the party, but better late than never, eh?) and I have had exactly zero regrets. To anyone who is even slightly familiar with my work, I naturally went straight for the main couple, who are now my OTP (to anyone who's read my Leyna stuff, they totally will be canon. And then I can rest in peace).

I did something similar to this for Mark of Athena in Heroes of Olympus and that's actually where I got the main inspiration for this. There are probably other versions of this for HTTYD I haven't gotten around to seeing, but I wanted to do my own version before looking at all those.

I'm not going to lie, the thing I love most about these dragons is that they have a mix of cat and dog behaviours and all the adorableness of both.

Disclaimer: In reality, I don't own anything Astrid (or Hiccup) does or says. Just Astrid's thoughts. And even then I don't really own those.

Also, the trailer for HTTYD 2? Freya has been very kind to our dear Hiccup ;)

Her heart thumped wildly in her chest. She could feel the air whistling past her, around her, through her, and she clutched on tighter. Barely a minute ago she'd been completely soaked, and she could feel the wind burning her with cold fire. Her whole body tensed, muscles preparing for any movement, like it was trying to jump off The Beast and cling on to it simultaneously. Her grip on the person who was supposed to be steering this thing was tighter and stronger than a Gronkle's jaw strength, but given that she was about to die, he maybe deserved it. Her only real sense of direction was West, the direction the light was coming in – everything else was spinning in a mad, dizzying blur an infinite amount of times worse than the morning after too much mead and she cried out.

"Ok! I'm sorry! I'm sorry. Just get me off of this thing."

It was as if she'd said the magic words. Her impending doom came to a searing halt, and she cried out again in surprise. They glided for a moment before she felt something light as goose feathers brush past her. Tentatively, she opened her eyes and stared, amazed, into a view full of clouds. Her heart slowed, her jaw dropped, and a feeling of extreme serenity settled over her. Her vision was a blurred gold, the clouds burned by the setting sun. This was the first time she – anyone, really – had been this close to the clouds, and judging by how well Hiccup had trained The Beast, it would not be her last.

So entranced was she by the sea of clouds, she barely even registered the beast beneath her. Hesitantly, the way you pick up new weapon you've never used before, she reached up to run her hand through the golden frost. Her fingers sifted through it like water through a sieve, like running her hands through the softest, thinnest fleece. She hardly even noticed as the beast kept flying. Feeling braver, she reached up with both hands gleefully, running her hands through the fleece of the gods. She felt free – freer than she had done in months. Free from the expectations of her parents, free from the stress of training, free from the antagonism she'd held towards this boy – this boy, this wonderful boy, who had done the unthinkable and made the impossible possible and trained a Night Fury.

She was a smart girl. She knew her own strengths and her own weaknesses. She commended herself for her own bravery, her skills, and her ability to overcome any obstacle. She always considered herself, as...ah, talented as the others were, the best within their age group. And had the boy sitting in front of her been the Hiccup of a month ago, that would certainly have been the case. She always considered herself the dangerous one. But he was not the Hiccup of a month ago, and she was not even the Astrid of five minutes ago, the one who ran from a dragon. Sitting here, atop a dragon and a Night Fury at that, she realised that she had been wrong all this time. It was him, this deliciously clever boy that she had had a crush on since last winter, that is the dangerous one.

The dragon kept flying – over and under and around and through, breaking through the top most layer into the inky blackness of the night sky. She'd been staring up into the darkness, darker and clearer than she had ever seen it, entranced by the stars and the shining clouds that were even further away and Thor Almighty she wanted to see them all, when the lights broke. Colours of every kind and every name burst across the sky like the gods were putting on a show, just for their viewing. The green of her mother's most prized shield, the blue of the Deadly Nadder in the arena, the purple of her favourite skirt. The clouds here were such a clean shade of white they were almost blue, and she had never seen a more beautiful sky in all her life.

Then Toothless flew over what felt like a cliff made of clouds and she looked down for the first time on Berk from the sky. There was something innately beautiful in seeing your home from above, she decided, and she felt an overwhelming surge of love for the old village with its new buildings. Something she will claim later had more to do with her fondness for Berk and her desire to touch anybody who would know what she felt and less with her fondness for him, she wrapped her arms around Hiccup again.

They flew between the statues, over and around the village, and she spoke again.

"Alright, I admit it, this is pretty cool. It's...amazing. He's amazing."

And even though she had gestured to Toothless with her head, she couldn't help but think that the other him was pretty amazing, too.