How to Train Your Dragon was based off a book series by Cressida Cowell, featuring a smaller Hiccup who taught himself to speak to dragons. He doesn't stutter as he does here, and he's quite a hero, but he would have ended events in the movie differently . . .

Astrid had faced many things, but the chief's disapproval was not one of them.

"I don't understand," Stoick said, angry and shocked. He had been drinking a tankard of mead in celebration, and several drops fell from his beard. "How did this happen?"

She didn't look at the chief, who stood at the smithy entrance. She didn't look at the Village Elder, who leaned on her cane. She looked at the book in Gobber's arms, the one she had taken forcibly from the chief's son.

Few in the village had thought little Hiccup would have amounted to anything. He wasn't even the firstborn; Stoick had lost his eldest son, who was also a runt, at birth, and his wife had been in a coma for months. She had given him a second baby four years later, at the same time Astrid had started swinging her first ax, and then took off questing.

People had expected the little runt to cause trouble, and he did. Just not the kind of trouble that burned villages down, as a few had predicted. Hiccup was quiet, and he tended to watch others. His eyes held intelligence and restraint, sometimes even warmth. He listened to his father, stayed in the smithy and helped Gobber, and NEVER left the buildings during a dragon raid. No, Hiccup's trouble was that he had never made a name for himself. He just was the chief's son, quiet and obedient. He was plain boring.

The boring Hiccup hadn't frustrated Astrid. No, what had frustrated her was his adoration of her. Oh, he had never talked. The one time he had tried, she had told him to shut up. That had been when he was a toddler. He hadn't spoken to her since, though the adoration in his eyes had remained. He had imitated her swagger, had tried to swing axes the way she had. She had kept telling him to bugger off.

Dragon Training had ended that. He was four years younger than the rest of the class, but Stoick had insisted on his son joining. The chief had planned one last search for the Nest, and he had worried when Hiccup had begged him not to leave, had wanted to come on the journey.

Astrid had learned several things that day. One was that she sucked at somersault dives. Two, that Hiccup was speedy for his size. He had managed to hold out against the Gronckle as long as she had, dodging and rolling away his shield so that it wouldn't get blasted. Gobber had yelled at Hiccup for not using the shield to protect himself, even though technically he had tied with Astrid.

The next few classes had gone downhill from there. Astrid had beaten the Nadder, true, but Hiccup and Fishlegs had teamed up to take down the Zippleback, Fishlegs tossing Hiccup and the bucket so that the water had hit the head with the spark. Fishlegs had given all the credit for Hiccup thinking of it. Astrid had glared at them the whole evening after.

Hiccup had then started hanging out with the dragons after classes, ostensibly to observe them, take notes, and even converse. At least, that's what Astrid had noticed during the few times she had noticed him straggling behind. She had even heard him mimicking their hisses.

For all that observation, she hadn't figured out how the dragons got tamer. The Gronckle had refused to fire at the small child after he had tossed her a large cod, and the same happened with the Nadder. Gods, that had been embarrassing, what with Hiccup offering peace instead of violence with his hands. The Terrible Terror had even crawled up his arm and tickled him with its tongue. He had spoken to it with hisses, stroking its wings.

Stoick had returned and had expressed his pride, and Hiccup had been chosen to slay the Nightmare. It hadn't been Hiccup's fault; he had been hiding behind a wood barrier, ready to let Astrid charge the Gronckle. But it had found him and started snuggling up; he had never looked more apologetic as she had thrown a tantrum in the Kill Ring.

Something had snapped in her, and she had sought him out. He had been having a panic attack soon after by the dragon cages, hissing frantically to the Terrible Terror. First, it was out of its cage. Second, it wasn't listening, the way it was preening its wings. He occasionally broke into stammering English, trying to practice something, only to crumple into a heap.

He would have run if she had screamed his name. So instead, she had approached from the exit and blocked it.

"Hiccup."

He had looked up, jumped to his feet and tried to dust himself off. The Terror fluttered to the ground and crouched, ready to spring.

"You've been keeping secrets," she said, and her words sounded like hisses now. "I want to know what's going on."

His mouth opened. No sound came out as he started to back toward the nearest closed cage. The Terror growled at her as Hiccup retreated.

"Are you training with someone?" she asked.

Hiccup was cornered against the cage bars. There was a sound of shifting paper. His hand dug into his vest, where a book was. The same book he had been using to take notes. That's when she knew.

"Give it to me." She came closer, axe at the ready.

"A-Astrid. A-Astrid." How long it had been since he had talked to her. "Please. It's- you said I couldn't talk to you."

"That was ten years ago!" she snapped. "I'm ordering you to talk to me now. Give me that book!"

Obedience almost won out; he reached in to remove it from his vest. The Terror's growl made him stop.

"Why?"

"I want to read it. I want to know what you've learned."

The Terror kept growling, almost giving words. Hiccup listened but remained frozen in place.

"No."

"No?" Astrid raised her axe. The Terror gave a screech that made the other dragons' cages rattle. "Why not?"

"Not finished. Y-you'd l-laugh. I was - was going to show Dad when there was more proof."

"More proof of what?"

"The dragons. Can be trained." This was barely a whisper. "I n-n-need time. NO one can read."

She kept coming closer. He didn't move an inch. Astrid was blocking his exit route, and she could see him imagining what she was going to do with her axe. He could either give her the book or attempt a sprint.

He was a smart boy, Astrid have to give him that. But he wasn't being smart at the moment. He wasn't taking out the book.

The Terror made the decision for him. It leaped in front of him and growled at Astrid protectively. Hiccup hissed at it, but it didn't listen.

"Astrid, please." It was barely a whisper. "It's n-n-not ready. I'm not ready. I was going to talk to Dad, and Gothi."

"About what?" she asked sharply.

"To let you kill . . ." his voice trailed off. "I d-didn't mean to . . . you deserve it. The Nightmare. Gothi will listen. She will."

"You think . . ." Her tone became infuriated. "You think you can just HAND me the honor? To keep me quiet about your little secret?"

"No!" The shout was a pathetic cry. "No, no."

There was a foot of space between them. The Terror's eyes were on her axe blade. She could handle it.

Hiccup started hissing at the Terror again. He was giving it an order, perhaps to run. His hisses sounded fearful.

The dragon didn't listen.

Why WOULD it listen to a runt like him? Astrid thought. Dragons never obeyed the small and weak. They only obeyed the call of violence.

It attacked when she attempted to grab for Hiccup's hair. One calculated fireball, at her axe hand. She swore and rolled away.

"Toothless, no!" Hiccup cried, but it was too late. The Terror flew to bite her weapon arm, and she recovered. The blunt end caught the dragon in the stomach; she sent it flying into the wall. The other caged beasts started to shriek.

Hiccup ran for the dragon, but Astrid caught him first. She tackled him to the ground, dropping her axe. He gave a grunt as his knees hit the rock floor. One hand twisted his arm behind his back, his left arm, and the other was searching.

"Stop," he was whispering. "Don't."

Too late. She the book in her hands. It was cool to the touch, smeared with charcoal. She let him go then, left him splayed on the grounds. She flipped through it, saw his careful handwriting.

Hiccup's face broke. He looked betrayed, hurt, violated as she read his notes on Dragonese. But he didn't fight her for it. His eyes turned to the limp Terror, which squeaked faintly. Then he crawled toward it, one hand at a time.

"What's going on?" Gobber came in. "What happened between you two?"

"Ask her." Hiccup's voice attempted to be cold, but it cracked instead as he took off his vest and wrapped the Terror in it. Then, using the wall as a support, he made himself stand up. He wobbled and winced. Gobber adopted a concerned look.

"Hiccup, you look like you sprained your ankle. You shouldn't be putting weight on it."

"I'm fine," Hiccup said with gritted teeth. He was biting his lips against the pain, pressing his fingers to the Terror's chest. Slowly, he started making his way outside the Ring. "I'm always fine."

Astrid looked up from the book, from the incomplete notes. Something had changed in Hiccup; it wasn't just the limping. He seemed to have aged years in mere moments. His normally large, curious eyes narrowed.

"Hiccup, your ankle-" Gobber started to say again.

"Hang my ankle!" Hiccup shouted. "Hang everything!"

That made Gobber stop, and that was when Astrid realized that things were wrong. Really, really wrong. Hiccup had NEVER shouted during his brief life on Berk.

"Hiccup-" She started.

"Don't." He cut her off. "Don't. Talk. To. Me"

She had hurt him, and that bothered her. Astrid wasn't a mean Viking who enjoyed pain for the fun of it.

She came towards him, more slowly. He shifted the Terror's weight to one arm and kept backing away, only with more purpose. His free hand reached into his vest again.

"You have the book," he said, voice still cracking. "You got what you wanted. Like you always do."

"That's not called for," she said sharply, walking closer. "You were withholding information-"

He pulled out his hunting knife, with his left hand. She stopped, having never seen him draw it before. He had a firm grip on it, fingers all in the right place, and ready to throw it.

"Just leave me alone!" he shouted. "G-go kill the Nightmare! R-r-r-read th-that blasted notebook! Do what you want!"

The knife sailed from his hands. It missed Astrid's left ear by an inch and crashed against the rock wall. Then it sank to the ground. Gods, he had AIM.

When she recovered from the near-knifing, Hiccup took the opportunity to sprint. His gasps of pain faded, as did his grunts when managing the injured Terror. Gobber with his one leg couldn't have caught him, and Astrid would have if Gobber hadn't grabbed her with his hook hand. He must not have been worried about Hiccup going too far, because Hiccup wasn't stupid. He wouldn't travel somewhere deserted because of his sprained ankle.

So that was how she had ended up in front of the chief, trying to explain how she had scared his son off after taking his book from him. Gobber had the little journal now, tucked into his belt. He had chewed the end of his beard with unmistakable disapproval.

Stoick's expression was frozen anger, a mask for his fear. He only asked one cold question.

"If you had a problem with Hiccup's progress in Dragon Training, why didn't you come to me? Or to Gothi? Why confront him?"

Because I accept the chief's word as law.

Stoick moved on from her. He called to Spitelout, to arrange for a search party. Hiccup was a smart boy, but he wouldn't get far on an injured leg. He'd be an easy target for a raiding dragon.

"We don't know why he took the Terrible Terror with him, but we can ask him when we find him," he said. "Before moonrise."

Through these orders, the chief didn't make eye contact with Astrid. He treated the space that she occupied as if it held something repulsive.

"Lass, I don't think you understand," Gobber said. He was never one to mince words. "Hiccup's mother gave him that book when she was here last. One of the few gifts from her travels."

He opened to the first page, which had a flowing inscription. Val's handwriting was elegant for a questing Viking. She had written a message that Hiccup must have taken to heart.

Observe everything. Question everything. Find the beauty in every answer.

Astrid swallowed. Her fingers were covered in charcoal. Gobber turned the pages to find non-dragon observations. There were short thoughts, drawings of bones and Berk, even a sketch of Astrid. It wasn't proportionally correct, given the book's size, but it showed her arm making a perfect arc when swinging an axe. He had captured the way sunlight rippled across her face, using rough charcoal to shade. On the page adjacent to Astrid's likeness, there were notes in list form.

1. Do not talk to her.

2. Sharpen her axe when it needs repairs. Favors her right side in hand-to-hand combat, so account for weight differences.

3. Stay out of the fire brigade's way. They need to put out the flames, speedily.

4. Keep her happy. Give her what she wants.

5. Don't talk to her. Aim to please.

"He was careful with what he noted down," Gobber remarked. "Been three years since Val last landed on Berk, and the book's only three-quarters full. He must had recorded only what he considered important."

Astrid hid her feelings. Part of her felt creeped out that Hiccup had taken notes on her, as if she were one of the dragons he was studying. Another part twinged, thinking of how betrayed he had looked when she had taken the book.

Give her what she wants.

Stoick came back from the search party that evening, practically chewing his beard off. They hadn't found Hiccup, not even any trace of his dragging footprints after he had entered the woods. Hiccup was apparently good at hiding himself, or getting ridiculously lost in Berk's forests.

Some villagers voiced hopes that the runt would perish. Astrid found herself hoping he was hiding. She didn't know why, or why mentioning Hiccup's name made her stomach twinge.

The chief postponed the Monstrous Nightmare's date with death. He went into his house, came out with an armful maps and headed to the mead hall with Spitelout and Gobber. Astrid noticed him unrolling one for the three of them to ponder.

"He'll survive the night, Stoick," Gobber said. "If he can hide from us, then he can hide from dragons."

"But his ankle, Gobber, if it's sprained-"

"He'll be putting weight on it, yes. But there's nothing we can do. We can only hope he's fashioned a splint and cane for himself, and that he's found a place to prop it. But not like he's bleeding his guts out."

Astrid busied herself with wiping her axe. The other teens came around her, asking why Hiccup had gone missing. They didn't criticize her decision, though Snotlout laughed at the idea of Hiccup getting knocked down so easily. The twins didn't care about Hiccup's position one way or the other, only in the sizzling details. Fishlegs looked concerned.

Two days passed. In those two days Stoick's anger had given way to solid fear and confusion. Hiccup was never disobedient, and he never caused trouble. He and Gobber consulted Gothi, who told them through pictures that Hiccup would come back of his own volition, that he hadn't left the island and that he was alive. She wouldn't tell them why he had run off, however.

Astrid and Fishlegs volunteered for the evening search parties, Fishlegs because he seemed to have a soft spot and Astrid because she wanted to get rid of the twinging in her stomach. No success, despite Astrid's quiet footsteps and Fishlegs's obvious concern for the "little guy" as he called Hiccup.

Then he reappeared. Quietly. First, Gobber noticed that the Terror was back in its cage one afternoon, wing healed, and snappy as ever. Like it had never left. Seeing that, he sprinted out, seeing a limping shadow with a wooden stick head towards the chief's house. The shadow's left ankle was swollen and purple, looked twisted at an odd angle. Hiccup had turned, seen Gobber, and tried to demonstrate that he was fine by walking. He had ended up collapsing into the smith's arms, sweating and unable to move further. At least, that's how Gobber described it over a tankard of mead, eyes wide and hook hand gesturing.

Stoick had been out with the recent search party; Gobber had to blow the village horn to bring him back. Astrid had been with the other teens, practicing the little hisses that Hiccup had rendered phonetically in his book. She had leaped to her feet when she heard that Hiccup was back. A crowd had gathered around the chief's house, as Gobber and Stoick argued outside.

"I want to go in and see him!"

"He's fine. A bit feverish and lamed, but he'll recover with some rest. I wouldn't be too hard on him until he's more coherent."

"Wouldn't be too hard on him? Gobber, he's been gone for three days! On purpose! All to hide one dragon!"

"You can't lecture him if he doesn't understand you," Gobber pointed out. "And he came back once the dragon was better."

"Why? Why would he care more about that beast than doing right by the village?"

"Search me. You'll have to ask him when he recovers. Not like he's going to be leaving any time soon."

Hiccup didn't leave the house for days. In time people stopped asking the chief when the Nightmare would be killed, and who would kill it. Rumors passed around that Gobber's care helped quell the fever as well as Stoick's temper, so that Hiccup could explain. That was why when he faced the Nightmare, it was before dawn, without a crowd and Hiccup tamed it with a few choice words. By evening he was riding it, without effort.

Despite that victory, and what it meant for the village, Hiccup had changed when he came out at last, leaning on makeshift crutches. He delivered perfunctory greetings, answered questions, and expressed nothing. His swagger became stiffer and his stutter more pronounced, not helped by his injury. His eyes lost their warmth when they landed on Astrid's curious gaze.

She decided to do something about it. He rarely left the smithy, except to visit the Terror. It became tame enough that it would walk through the village without setting any houses on fire. People were amazed, but he'd only relax around the beast, expressing his fears, joys, and despair in Dragonese. Astrid was the only teen who had mastered the basics, barely, though Fishlegs hissed laboriously.

Early afternoon, Astrid went to the smithy. He was sitting on a stool in the backroom, rubbing his lame foot. His ankle had broken at some point during his forest adventure; he had to use the crutches and a cast. Gobber remarked he was lucky not to have lost his foot. The Terror hopped on the table in front of him, chattering. He responded with sarcasm, kept wincing.

She came in quietly, but Hiccup heard her footsteps. He tried to leap to his feet, but found that he couldn't, not with his leg in a primitive, foul-smelling cast.

"Astrid." His voice held no emotion apart from a twinge as he jostled his foot. "W-what c-c-c-can I do for you?"

The Terror didn't want her there, but it didn't attack. It instead hissed insults from the table, ready to curl into a pounce. Hiccup made a remark for it to calm down, but it didn't listen. Astrid held out her arms, to show she had no weapons.

"We need to talk."

"No." Hiccup's voice was firmer than she had ever heard it. He pushed himself to his feet, grabbed for the wall and his crutches. Astrid went to help him, seeing his arms shake. The Terror leaped between them, crouched and ready to breathe fire.

"Come on!" she cried. "I'm trying to apologize! I'm trying to say sorry."

"Ha!" It was a bitter sound, coming from Hiccup's throat. "S-s-sorry, m-my f-f-f-oot."

The Terror couldn't help but give a dragon-like chuckle through its anger. Astrid hid back her inappropriate laugh.

Hiccup hoisted himself onto his crutches. His stutter became worse, as he wobbled.

"Y-y-you aren't s-s-orry about h-h-h-h-urting T-t-t-toothless. Just f-f-f-feeling g-guilty."

"Hiccup, your dragon attacked me," Astrid pointed out. "I was reacting the way a normal Viking would."

Toothless growled at her. Hiccup's face broke again, and Astrid realized what she had said.

"Y-y-yeah. N-n-n-normal. I w-was t-tr-trying to m-make things right. And y-y-you kn-knocked me to the g-ground!" His eyes seemed full of angry tears, as he tried to talk clearly. "I w-w-was g-going to g-g-give you what you w-w-wanted!"

"You honestly thought that after you earned the honor of killing the Nightmare that I'd accept a handout of the Victory?" Astrid knew she should shut up, but she had to ask. "That's not what Vikings do."

"H-h-how w-w-was I . . ." He swallowed and tried again, speaking the words slowly. "How. Was. I. S-s-supposed. To. Know? There's. No. Viking. E-Etiquette. Manual."

He wasn't sarcastic; Astrid looked into his face to confirm the sincerity. He really hadn't known that Vikings didn't make things right by restoring rewards to people who deserved them. For all his observing, he hadn't seen that.

"So. I'm. Not. A. V-Viking." His voice cracked on the last word. "I. Know. That. Now."

The Terror backed her away from the door with growls. Hiccup used his crutches to limp past her. She would have gone to him, except for the blade hanging from his waist and the Terror threatening to fire.

This was going to take more time than she thought. He didn't trust her. He didn't like her that way anymore, with that admiration.

Part of her wondered if she should bother, if it was worth trying to win his trust back. He wasn't a proper Viking for starters, what with his small stature and polite demeanor. By now Gobber ought to have given back his book, before she had even gotten time to peruse it properly.

The other part chided her for thinking such a thing. She had to get back into the chief's good graces, after all, and while Hiccup had chosen to run off to protect his dragon, she had given him the reason to leave.

She visited the smithy day after day, usually with peace offerings. A set of charcoal pencils she had whittled and charred herself. A basket of mackerel for Toothless. Hiccup thanked her for each gift, but would break down or leave if she tried to talk. Toothless ate the mackerel but still hissed at her.

They had a breakthrough when she brought a plain book for him, her latest apology. Sometimes he'd even write down his thoughts, when his stutter became too strong. He'd write on sheets of parchment, as if using books were too painful. She hadn't seen him open his mother's book in days. His handwriting remained neat, though his words were angry and hurt.

I never meant to upstage you. Dad made me promise to do my best in Dragon Training, after I begged him to let me go with him to find the nest, and I did. I didn't think Gothi would choose the village runt to kill the Monstrous Nightmare.

On another day, when she got up the courage to ask why he had run, he had written the following:

Toothless's wing was broken in one place, and he wasn't stirring. I was scared that Dad or Gobber would kill Toothless, to put him out of his misery, so I took him to the woods. He went into Healing Hibernation, only awakening for the occasional bite of mackerel. Fortunately dragons heal fast, when there's someone to care for them.

Astrid had swallowed on reading this. Hiccup must have developed a strong bond with the Terror, to protect him like that. One off-hand remark about him using sheets of paper led to one painful confession:

I can't write in that notebook anymore. It feels dirty, soiled, now that others have read it and smeared the charcoal. I put three years of my life into that book, and it was out in the open for others to peruse.

This one made Astrid initiate the leaving, walking out of the smithy with heavy steps. She couldn't handle the feelings streaming through her shaking frame. Part of her wanted to strangle Hiccup for his idiotic feelings, and she didn't know if strangling was a wise idea with the progress they had been making.

His ankle healed. Soon he could walk without crutches. During raids he would fly on the Nightmare, talk to the invading dragons. Some he could reason with into leaving the island, into giving away information. The Night Fury proved more elusive, but Toothless distracted it with well-chosen taunts, giving Hiccup time to leap from the Nightmare onto its black back and whisper into its ear. He only needed to hiss in Dragonese, and the beast listened to him. He wrote about it afterward, when Astrid came to see him.

I was scared out of my mind that he was going to throw me off, but the Night Fury is intelligent. He saw that I meant no harm, and he believed me when I said he was free. Dad's wary of the Night Fury, but the dragon is fairly friendly if you speak politely to him. He also likes getting lots of cod and getting scratched under the chin.

People spoke in hushed tones afterward how Hiccup had tamed the Unholy Offspring of Lightning and Death with his bare hands. Hiccup blushed at the attention, said that he hadn't done anything special; no one could understand his stutters. Hiccup named the Night Fury Windwalker, after seeing it glide through the clouds. Windwalker and little Toothless didn't get along, but Toothless stopped provoking the larger dragon after receiving a purple fireball to the mouth.

They learned much more from captured dragons, or those who stayed on Berk after talking to Hiccup. The village learned that the dragons were under a thrall, that a queen reptile controlled them with a hypnotic croon. Or at least, the dragons assumed it was a queen. None of them had bothered to check their master's genitals. But in any case, the queen was always hungry, and she demanded food. Several different dragons, including Windwalker, corroborated the story. His handwriting became shaky when noting this:

Perhaps this queen can be reasoned with. I doubt it, given her greed, but if we can keep her contained in the mountain, since she seems to be trapped, then there should be nothing to worry about. In theory.

Hiccup came up with a plan for defeating the queen. It was risky, given it involved making the queen's hypnotized army leave before they killed her, to save as many dragons as possible and to reduce potential casualties with the Vikings. Hiccup would have to serve as the distraction, since he was the only Viking who could carry a conversation in Dragonese.

Astrid spoke up for Hiccup at the council meeting, because he stammered as Spitelout and others asked questions. Mildew was particularly cutting, asking why the village should put their fate in one boy's hands. Stoick objected to Hiccup endangering himself, even if riding Windwalker into the mountain and being able to fly out at the moment's notice.

As Hiccup blushed into silence, unable to handle all these objections, Astrid stepped forward. She swung her axe and lodged it in the middle of the table. That got everyone's attention.

Astrid spoke with crisp, honest rhetoric. She pointed out the practicality of his plan, since dragons were useful allies and Hiccup was the most fluent in Dragonese. The Night Fury was the fastest dragon and therefore the most likely to get a hit on the queen while keeping the chief's son intact. Besides which, Windwalker was loyal to Hiccup and was waiting on the mead hall outside; he could be trusted.

Hiccup watched her with an open mouth, from where he stood by his father. He was wearing a helmet Stoick had given him, an over-sized trinket make from Valhallarama's breast plate. Toothless was taking a nap on his head, filling the gap between the boy's hair and his helmet. A good thing, too, or the metal rim would have gone over his eyes. That's what had happened that day when Gothi had chosen him, as he had curled behind a wooden bench.

She didn't know if her words meant much, but at least they stopped badgering Hiccup. The villagers refrained from arguing amongst themselves. Mildew knew better than to challenge a shield-maiden. The council broke so that everyone could get an early night's sleep, in case they needed strength to fend off another raid.

Hiccup went to Windwalker, trying to not talk to the Vikings eager for him to reiterate his plan. The Night Fury leaped off the mead hall roof and curled around him. Hiccup spoke to the dragon with low, soothing hisses, telling him how the meeting went. Windwalker wasn't stupid, however; he was providing his own commentary on the situation. From the tone of his Dragonese, he sounded dismissive of the other Vikings.

Astrid approached. Hiccup looked up. He didn't look hostile, but he didn't smile either. He looked perplexed.

"I did it because you do have a good plan, if a crazy one," she said. "Because you needed someone to speak for you. If we're going to die facing this queen, we may as well die with our best foot forward."

He now looked skeptical.

"I don't care if it takes years for you to get this," Astrid went on. "We both made mistakes at the beginning. But we're also making amends. I am going to keep making them until you realize that I didn't want that day to happen, that if I could go back and redo it, I would. I would have found a way to make things easier for you, to tell your dad, without hurting your dragons."

Toothless didn't hiss. That was a first. Hiccup relaxed. So did Astrid. Windwalker yawned.

Hiccup took his hands off the Night Fury and pulled out his plain book. Then somehow she was holding it, and he was scurrying off into the night, talking to Toothless. She could have sworn that she heard him mutter his thanks.

Afterward, when trying to recall the battle with the Green Death, when the great dragon had tried to swallow Hiccup and only Toothless and the Windwalker's teamwork had saved the small Viking, Astrid's clearest memory would be those small hands pressing the book into her hands. Not his mother's journal; he would only resume using that after waking up from the battle, learning that they had won and his plan had worked.

Astrid turned to the page. Several runes in the center, a scant paragraph. Words that should have meant nothing, but meant as much as several golden axes.

We need to get you a dragon, for the battle, so that the other teens have an example. A Deadly Nadder will be a good fit.