Hiccup was so absorbed in the book in his hands, he didn't even notice Astrid knocking on the door of his hut and coming in until she was right next to him.

"What's that you're reading?" she asked over his shoulder, making him jump.

"What the- oh, hi, Astrid. Don't you knock?"

"I did", she smirked.

"Oh..." He rubbed his neck awkwardly. "Sorry, I guess I was too focused."

"So, what's that?"

"Oh, it's just one of the books we found today. Most of that stuff was useless, but I managed to find some information about a few of the new dragons we've seen." They'd been exploring a new island that day, and they'd discovered a strange library hidden inside a cave. Fishlegs had insisted on bringing back its contents, since nobody seemed to live there. Hiccup showed her what was on the page: a full picture of the Deathsong, and something about its siren call, although the dragon didn't have a name. He pointed to a pile of books by his feet. "I've yet to go through all of that."

Astrid bent and picked one of them. "The art of hypnosis", she read aloud. "Sure brings back memories."

Hiccup laughed. "For all of us, except Fishlegs. I never told him the full story of what happened. He needs to sleep in the night after all."

The blonde laughed as well, then went on. "Anyone can be hypnotised, and anyone can hypnotise other people if they put their minds to it. Yeah, right. I'm pretty sure the twins couldn't hypnotise someone if their lives depended on it." She paused, then looked at the other rider with a smirk that he had seen many times before, when they had races and dragon trick competitions. "I bet you couldn't hypnotise me."

He raised an eyebrow. "Is that a challenge?"

She didn't reply, but it was enough of an answer for him.

"Give me that." He took the book from her hands and skimmed through the page. "It seems pretty straightforward to me."

"That's what an Outcast guard said about training a Deadly Nadder. Right before nearly getting sliced by one of its spines."

"Well, let's find out then, shall we?" He looked at the writing once more. "Let's see. You have to do everything I say, apparently."

"Why would I do that?" Hiccup gave her a look. "Alright, fine."

"So," he began. "First of all, you have to relax. Close your eyes and take deep breaths."

"Now you're sounding like Fishlegs."

"Astrid. Are we doing this or not?"

"Yeah, whatever." She did as he asked and started to breathe more deeply, and at his instruction, she counted: inhale for two seconds, then exhale for four. After a while of this, he decided to continue with the next part.

"Now, empty your mind. Don't think at all." He tried to make his usually nasal voice sound lower, more relaxing, although he felt pretty silly doing so. He waited for a few seconds, then told her, "Imagine the sea, and the waves. Coming in and out. In... and out. In... and out... Slowly in... and they wash over all your worries... and then they're out, erasing everything with them..." Astrid's face was blank, he noticed, and suddenly her knees buckled and she would've hit the floor had he not caught her at the last second. To his surprise, she didn't even stir, and he realised with astonishment that she was hypnotised.

It actually worked, he thought, as he lowered her to the floor. He hadn't believed he'd be able to do it, not that he would ever confess that to Astrid. Now what? He looked at the book again.

While under hypnosis, a person will do anything that is asked of them, and they can remember many things that are buried in their subconsciousness. They can also be made to forget particular things, or to behave in certain ways once they are woken, the page read. None of that was very useful. There was nothing he needed the girl to remember or to forget, and as for making her do things, he was pretty sure if he made her do something weird or embarrassing, she'd find out somehow and beat him to death. But he'd need something to prove to her she'd actually been hypnotised, he thought. While he wondered what that might be, he heard some explosions nearby.

The twins, Hiccup thought. He should probably go check what they were doing, and quickly too, but he wasn't going to leave her in this state. Who knew what might happen if, gods forbid, Snotlout came in and found her like that? Given what had happened with Thor Bonecrusher and the crush the black-haired Viking always had on Astrid, Hiccup wouldn't be surprised if he tried to make her fall in love with him. The image was quite disturbing, mostly because she'd always violently rejected Snotlout, but a small part of Hiccup (one that he refused to acknowledge) knew that it was because he'd always dreamed that one day maybe he'd be the one she'd fall for.

He picked up the book again to find out how to bring her out of it, but to his dismay, it said that people hypnotised with the particular method he'd just used couldn't be brought back until ten minutes had passed. So what did he do now?

As he pondered, he looked at Toothless. The dragon had approached the sleeping girl and was sniffing her curiously, probably wondering why she'd suddenly gone limp. He bumped her face with his snout and cooed, trying to get her to wake up. When she didn't, he looked up at his rider with concern.

"It's OK, bud. She'll be out of it soon. If only we could make sure nobody finds her like this while I go out..." He trailed off, the Night Fury's protective attitude towards his friend giving him an idea. "You know what? Why don't you look after her and make sure nobody comes in here? Can you do that, bud?" Toothless rumbled in agreement. "Alright then." He laid her on his bed, and his dragon went to stand guard by her, hiding her with his wings. "Don't let anyone see her." Confident nobody would find her before he came back, he left to find out what problem the twins had caused now. Luckily Astrid had come by foot, else someone might notice Stormfly standing beside his hut and guess she was there.

Toothless looked at the girl with a mixture of curiosity and worry. He knew his rider cared for her a lot, and he'd seen her just collapse. He bumped her with his snout again, but there was still no reaction. Suddenly he heard someone coming, and since his friend had just left, that couldn't be him. He spread his wings further, making sure no one could see the girl. The fat man, one of his rider's friends, walked in talking, and stopped when he realised there wasn't anyone there. He then looked at the dragon.

"Oh, hi, Toothless. I though Hiccup was here". Then he noticed the two stacks by Hiccup's desk. "Oh, are those some of today's books? I've been reading some of them. There was actually some information on Night Furies in one. It didn't say anything we haven't discovered, though." He stepped closer to the black dragon, who just ensured the girl still couldn't be seen. "It mentioned that you are one of the fastest and most powerful dragons, and how your plasma blasts hit with the force of an avalanche." As he noticed how Toothless protected Hiccup's seemingly empty bed, he chuckled. "Guess what they didn't know is that Night Furies can be really protective. And you're seriously loyal to Hiccup, aren't you? Oh! I'll bet he did the hand thing on you first." He walked back to the door. "Anyway, I'll see if I can find Hiccup. Weird that he'd leave without you."

Unbeknownst to either Fishlegs or Toothless, Astrid's ears had picked up everything the Viking had said when standing right next to the dragon, and her brain was processing it...

Hiccup walked back into his hut, closing the door, and immediately went to where Toothless was hiding Astrid. The dragon moved aside to reveal the still sleeping blonde. "Did anyone figure out what was going on?" He warbled, and he took that as a no. "Okay, let's wake her up, then." He picked up the book and read the instructions. "Astrid, when I say 'now', you'll wake up." He realised he still didn't have evidence of his success, but then again she'd been standing when he'd hypnotised her, and she probably wouldn't remember being carried to his bed. That would have to be enough.

"Three... two... one... now." The other teen blinked, then her eyes opened and she looked around.

"Astrid? Are you alright?"

She looked at him for a few seconds, a strange, searching stare, almost as if she didn't recognise him, and then she did something he would've never expected: she jumped off the bed and away from him, crawling on all fours, and growled at him. Growled in the same way dragons did, not humans.

"Astrid? This isn't funny." He tried to approach her, but she growled louder, so he stopped. There was something very strange in her eyes that gave him pause, a mistrust and readiness to strike that he'd seen many times before, but never directed at him. She actually thought he was going to harm her; this wasn't her joking. What had happened?

Toothless, who'd been watching her, slowly padded over to her, and to Hiccup's surprise, she let him. The Night Fury bumped Astrid's temple, and in return, she rubbed her head against the dragon's neck. A suspicion began forming in Hiccup's mind, for her behaviour reminded him a lot of the way dragons greeted one another, so to test his idea, he did the one thing he knew would show him if his theory was right.

He took a step closer to her, and Astrid turned to him and growled again. This time he held out his hand, then looked away and waited. After a few seconds, he felt soft hair on his hand. Sure enough, when he turned forward again, there she was, still standing on all fours and pressing her head against his hand. He lightly caressed the bangs on her forehead, and she rumbled in the same way Toothless did when he rubbed him.

"Oh gods."

A/N: Sorry, the actual fluff is coming next chapter, which hopefully I'll have posted by Saturday. Thanks for reading!