Snow Story

by Crownflame

When Hiccup and Astrid find themselves stuck in a snowstorm, their dragons resort to unorthodox methods to prevent them from freezing to death. (Contains Soft Safe Vore)

Snow.

The world was blanketed in thick, fluffy dunes of frost and ice, so smooth and flat that it would almost seem a shame to defile it with footsteps.

Not to this pair of Vikings, both bundled in thick fur coats and remorselessly plunging through the wilderness. They hadn't been alive long, but they'd already starved and frozen and shivered and soaked through fifteen or sixteen harsh Archipelago winters (far more than any human ought to), and by now the romance of the season was rather lost on them. The elements were just another of the many beasts in their wild world that could strip you to the bone if you weren't strong enough to take it.

At least this year they wouldn't have to go it alone. Trudging through the snow was infinitely easier if you happened to be on the back of a dragon. Their travels were not only much faster— sitting atop the fire-breathing animals, they were much warmer, too.

Now that the snow had started coming down harder, heat was becoming more and more of an asset. They had been forced to abandon flying long ago, when the dragons had started complaining of freezing wings, and the world was getting dark grey as the sun threatened to sink and drag the last dregs of her warmth down with her.

"I think we're lost," pointed out Hiccup, the Viking in back, raising his voice up over the roaring wind, the snow stinging his face. He shivered, stubbornly resisting the urge to wrap his smallish frail self around the warm neck of his panther-like Night Fury as he tried to keep track of the spiny tip of the Deadly Nadder's tail bobbing in front of him.

"We're NOT lost," insisted the fierce-looking girl perched up on top of the blue, birdlike Nadder. She was standing in her saddle as if impervious to the biting wind, shading her eyes as she tried to blaze a trail through the heavy snowfall. "We're west of Raven Point. We can beat the storm if we hurry up."

"Astrid, the ocean was on our LEFT, the last time I could see it…" Hiccup called out.

"What?" Astrid yelled out, unable to hear him.

Hiccup swallowed hard and tried again. "We're GOING THE WRONG WAY."

"— What?" She glared down at him over her shoulder.

"We've been VEERING NORTH," he called, the wind trying to scream over him. "We're off course."

Astrid squeezed up her knees, pulling the Deadly Nadder to a stop, and turning the dragon to get a better vantage point of the little black Night Fury and its even littler rider. "Don't you think you should TELL me something like that?" she yelled fiercely.

"I tried! Remember all those times you told me to shut up?"

Astrid sighed.

Hiccup gave her a pointed look. "You said you knew where we were going."

Astrid looked around for a moment, trying to pick out landmarks, and finally sank heavily back into her saddle. The Nadder clucked uncomfortably, dancing from one clawed foot to the other as she stood in the snow. "Well, I did," she grumbled. "It's just impossible to see in this snowfall."

Hiccup nodded, biting his lip. "I think we're going to have to wait it out, now."

"Camp?! In this mess?" Astrid's eyes narrowed exasperatedly.

"Well, we could wander aimlessly in circles for a few more hours, freezing to death…" Hiccup muttered, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his thick winter coat.

Astrid sighed. "Fine." It would be much easier to navigate once the snow let up, and the poor dragons were probably getting tired by now. She knew she was sore from riding so long. But it seemed like they were so close…

Oh well. It'd probably be best. She was worried about Hiccup, too. He'd always had a horrible tendency to get fevers in the winter, and if this little endeavor ended up making him sick again…

She nudged her dragon onward. "Let's go."

And so the heavy-footed beasts trudged on through the thickening snow, their tails twitching irritably. Hiccup smiled bleakly, feeling Toothless' neck swell with a sigh released in a thick puff of steam. It had become so cold lately, even Toothless hadn't wanted to get up and go at dawn— and Toothless would usually try to tear the roof open over Hiccup's head early each morning for a chance to stretch his wings.

It had kind of set off a foreboding in Hiccup's chest right from the get-go. If the weather was so awful that even the sky-lovingest dragon on windy, wild Berk was reluctant to confront it, it probably wasn't the time to be traipsing all over the Archipelago, scoping out Snowpecker populations for rest of the winter's hunt.

But Viking obligation, as always, overrode dragon intuition. It amazed Hiccup sometimes how much more common sense a fish-vomiting animal could have than the village adults.

Right now, Toothless was irritably putting up with being a rather bizarre experiment. Today, he was a beast of burden, though he carried no satchels on his back. Instead, the sizable space of his first stomach was swollen with curious leather-wrapped bundles, which Hiccup had stowed inside him and told him sternly not to pass along into his second-belly, where they would be digested.

To be truthful, Toothless had strongly considered passing them along anyway, knowing full-well that several of the bundles happened to contain fresh fish. But there had also been some bundles of blankets and things, too— and though Hiccup had been careful not to put anything in that could hurt his innards, Toothless didn't think blankets and things would be very yummy. Since his kneading crop couldn't tell the lumpy bundles apart, he had let them be.

They felt quite cozy in there, really… though he wished he could eat them. He was very hungry— the humans hadn't been able to feed the dragons much aside from scraps for the entire day.

At least he wasn't completely empty. It felt good to have a nice full crop. It was better to have a full first-tummy and an empty belly than no full tummy at all. It still felt like food to the dragon, since his crop was for storing food first.

But poor Hiccup didn't have any room in his little body to store extra food and things, so today he was using Toothless' food-storing-place. Toothless thought that was weird, but he liked helping Hiccup.

Hiccup scratched his dragon's ears thoughtfully. Now that they were stopping for the night, he'd get a chance to have Toothless give him back the bundles so he could see how they'd fared in travel.

He'd wrapped each one tightly and securely in a couple of layers of leather, the idea being to keep the contents inside dry and clean. If the experiment had worked as he'd hoped, they wouldn't have to thaw out their fish for dinner tonight, they'd have some warm clean water, and their blankets would at least start out nice and hot, all from Toothless' body heat.

All this in combination with a good fire and the dragons to sleep by, and they'd hopefully be quite cozy despite the snow.

He wasn't sure Astrid would be all that thrilled about it, of course. Especially if everything ended up reeking of fish.

He shivered. He himself would happily put up with crop-smell (he was used to it) if it meant curling up with something warm soon.

It had been such a long, COLD expedition.

Happily, it wasn't much farther of a trudge before they happened upon a decent enough place to camp, sheltered somewhat from the elements by a jumble of fallen boulders. The Vikings quickly set to work, having their dragons torch up a good-sized, dry, warm patch of ground, before finally, carefully dismounting.

Astrid stumbled, slightly less accustomed to the aches involved in all-day riding, and Hiccup hid a smile under the pretense of adjusting Toothless' saddle. The Nadder took a few mouthfuls of snow and immediately settled, nesting deep into the powder, clearly not planning to move again for quite a while.

Separated from Toothless' heat, the wind was shocking as it cut through Hiccup. He grimaced, balancing carefully on the hardened, already-snow-dusted ground, shifting his tired weight from clumsy organic foot to clumsy metal one and kneading his fingers through his gloves. Ever-doting, Toothless still stood, his hot snout puffing nearby at shoulder level.

Briefly, Hiccup and Astrid cast their gazes upward. The snow did not appear to be letting up; on the contrary, it seemed like it was coming down even harder than before.

Hiccup stepped toward the forest, gesturing. "Firewood."

Astrid quickly strode after him, "You stay here. I'll get it."

"We can both get it— "

She grabbed his shoulder and gently pushed him aside as she walked past. "It's fine. Stay here."

Hiccup scowled. "Just give me two seconds to get the snowshoe— "

Astrid glared back over her shoulder. "I've got it, Hiccup."

Hiccup creaked a step forward, offended. He knew this was about his stupid leg. Most of the time, Vikings didn't have much pity. It wasn't exactly uncommon to be an amputee on Berk, after all. But Astrid... now that the weather had gotten kind of harsh again, she'd been treating him a little oddly- and it was getting on his nerves. "Look," he said stiffly. "Just because I— doesn't mean— "

Astrid grabbed his shoulders. "You stay here and set up camp. I'll get it."

He tried to twist from her grip. "Just give me a minute and— "

"Stay here," she snarled, giving him a stubborn shove backward— he gasped as he stumbled and fell hard, Toothless growling deep in his throat as he ducked in after.

By the time the dragon had helped Hiccup to his feet, Astrid had already swept away, her powerful lithe silhouette barely visible now beyond the thickening curtain of snow. Toothless bared a few teeth at her shadow as it finally disappeared.

Hiccup groaned, wiping his nose bitterly. "I'm not actually useless," he said blankly, to nobody. His dragon puffed reassuringly at his side, making a soft noise before lowering himself into the snow.

Hiccup blinked. The entire space they had melted away for their campground was already covered with a thin dusting of snow again. That wasn't good— it was really coming down fast now.

Astrid had told him to set up camp. He made a few aimless movements, hesitant. He didn't know how long it would take her to get back. If he told the dragons to refire the area, it might be all snowy again before she returned, and if he asked Toothless to hack up their equipment, then it might end up all frozen over instead of toasty (and thus, impressive). He sighed, gently cupping Toothless' nose and lower jaw together, squeezing a little. "Just keep those in there for me for a little bit longer, all right, Bud?"

Toothless made an agreeable murmur, licking sensitively at his snout. Hiccup smiled grimly, hesitated, and finally lowered himself to sit against his dragon's side, shivering. He was tired, and quite cold in spite of the furs he wore.

He waited for what seemed to be a very long time, watching the sky darken and the snow thicken again in the spot they had cleared until he was sitting in a good couple inches of it and the Nadder resting a few feet across from him was nearly blotted from sight as it fell harder and harder.

He wanted to be worried about Astrid. He really did. Surely she should've returned by now? It was coming down so heavily now, it would be so easy for her to have lost her way…

But before he had even seen it coming, the cold had wrapped its icy wings around him, and now it was all he could think about. His face stung, his nose was numb— his fingers and toes were achy and frigid no matter how much he sat there kneading them. He found himself huddling closer and closer to Toothless, until the dragon, worried, murmured and actually wrapped the boy close in his forepaws and wings.

But even then, he couldn't seem to stop shivering.

He grit his teeth, pressing himself flat against Toothless' warm scales, entertaining the idea of retrieving just one of the nice, thick blankets from inside that beating black chest underneath his cheek.

But Astrid would return soon, and he wasn't really that cold yet.

The wind seemed to find every gap in Toothless' wings, weaseling in to find Hiccup and soak in straight to his bones. Toothless began to shiver and twitch, uncomfortable, as the thin, blood-filled membranes began to chill and freeze.

It wasn't long before the dragon made an apologetic moan, and momentarily released Hiccup in order to torch another patch of ground. Hiccup found himself half-nudged, half-dragged onto the piping hot spot, and then Toothless more or less lay down on top of him, holding his wings and fins tightly shut.

This worked for a while— Hiccup's shivers lessened, and he began to be able to smell the dragon's hot mustiness. It wasn't long at all, however, before the chill reclaimed the ground, and even the hot spots trapped beneath them drained away.

Hiccup's teeth chattered, and he squirmed, struggling under the dragon to try to curl himself up. Toothless murmured worriedly, and suddenly the boy felt the shockingly, almost painfully hot flickers of a dragon tongue prodding at his face and shoulders.

Hiccup squirmed some more. Getting wet didn't seem like it would help, but he knew what Toothless was thinking.

The dragon wanted to eat him.

It seemed odd; but Toothless had done it before, other times, when he had wanted to keep or protect Hiccup. In fact, this was how Hiccup had originally discovered the curiously safe, if smelly, conditions inside of the dragon's first stomach. Toothless even seemed to rather enjoy it (he liked having a nice full crop), but, while Hiccup had been through it enough to build up a kind of tolerance, he had never been much of a fan— the whole process of being squished and squeezed and swallowed up was really quite uncomfortable, and once there, it would be very wet and dark inside Toothless' rather oppressively snug belly-basket— though it would also be, undeniably, very, very warm.

Hiccup pushed on the beast's snout. "D-don't..." What if Astrid came back and couldn't find him?

He stiffened, hearing a low sloshing noise deep in Toothless' throat— the dragon was thinking about discarding the bundles to make space for him inside.

Hiccup deflected the creature's musing nose and pushed his hand firmly into the soft surface of the scaled throat. "D-don't spit th-those out. We-we'll need them."

The dragon grumbled, giving him a look, but his innards seemed to settle.

Hiccup squinted up at him, burying his hands in his armpits and vibrating with shivers. "Just d-don't. She-she'll be b-back soon, and w-we can m-make a fire, and-d…"

Toothless mumbled dismally, cushioning Hiccup's head with his paws. His pupils subtly changed sizes as he contemplated for a long moment, and, evidently satisfied, he ducked in and licked Hiccup's face again.

Hiccup winced as the wind bit at his wet nose. "S-stoppit…"

The dragon raised his hot head up, and glanced toward the Deadly Nadder, who appeared to be napping. His body jerked as he barked at her.

No response.

He barked again. She twitched.

Finally he drew in a quick breath and sent a bolt of energy sailing over her horns.

Hiccup couldn't see her too well through the snow, but her glistening yellow eye suddenly appeared in the dusky grey, accompanied by her curious, gurgly inquisitions.

It was all Hiccup could do to keep from wailing with longing as Toothless shuffled to his feet, dragging the only heat Hiccup had away from him. Immediately he shut his eyes, stiff and shaky with shivers.

What was that dragon doing?

Momentarily, he felt the hot, gentle gums take him by the scruff of the coat and lift him up, suspending him in the chilly air. Hiccup made a small noise of disapproval, unable to do much else as Toothless lifted him over and set him down in front of the Deadly Nadder.

She blinked sleepily, turning her head from side to side as she peered at him, gurgling curiously.

Toothless rumbled, his tongue swiping his snout. He ducked, licking a couple times at the back of Hiccup's head and nudging him forward, before gazing again into the eyes of the Nadder.

The Nadder squawked suddenly, rattling her wings as she stiffened and straightened, giving Toothless an odd look.

Hiccup huddled in the snow, hugging himself, and he swallowed hard. "T-t-toothless… W-what…?"

Toothless nudged at him again before lifting his head and baring a few-odd teeth at the other dragon. The Nadder gave a strange shake, and then brought her head down closer to Hiccup, her tongue sloshing oddly in her mouth as she examined him pointedly, making soft gentle gurgles.

Hiccup stiffened, feeling Toothless' heat withdraw from behind him as the dragon left him to the Nadder.

Oh.

His heart sank. He fumbled backward clumsily, flailing for his dragon. "N-no, Bud! C-come on! S-she has t-t-teeth!"

Since Toothless didn't have room in his own hot crop to warm poor Hiccup up inside, he was simply going to make the Nadder swallow him down instead.

Toothless grabbed Hiccup by the collar and dragged him closer again with a stern gollop. He positioned Hiccup carefully in the snow again, then tenderly licked at his shoulders, making soft rumbles. Hiccup knew the dragon was trying to reassure him, but that wet tongue left icy trails on his back that he could feel like huge tears through his thick coat, and his body was stiff with shivering, burning cold.

He swallowed hard. He felt like he could barely breathe as Toothless slipped away behind him again.

The gentle Nadder brought her great snout in close to him, gurgling softly and puffing him with the loveliest hot sulfuric breaths, which dissolved so quickly in the frigid wind. Hiccup's heart fluttered as he watched her thick tongue slop around in her mouth as she contemplated Toothless' request. Was she wondering what he would taste like? Or what he would feel like, a frozen little Haddock sliding easily down her throat?

Hiccup winced. He didn't want to be eaten by the Nadder. What if she didn't know to keep him in her crop, and instead boiled him down for her dinner soup in her belly? And her massive teeth could easily tear him to pieces if she wasn't careful. And… Astrid…

He wanted badly to get up and try to move away, but he was curled around what seemed like the last dregs of his inner warmth, and he REALLY didn't want to let it escape. So he moaned helplessly, trying to relax as she snuffled at him, starting to prod him curiously with her tongue. She puffed for a moment, then raised her head and made a low skeptical noise at Toothless.

Toothless barked at her sternly, and with a submissive noise she hesitantly ducked back in, nipping gingerly at his coat, probably trying to figure out how to pick him up.

Hiccup's heart fluttered nervously. "T-t-toothless… s-she's not g-going to hurt m-me, right?"

Toothless paced closer, rumbling with one of his most pleasant sounds, a sort of optimistic purr.

Hiccup had to give the poor Nadder credit. She seemed quite baffled by the task set before her, and she handled him very, very gently, as if afraid she would break him. Then again, Hiccup supposed she knew if she were to hurt him, she'd suddenly have one mad Night Fury to contend with.

It took the poor beast a long while of puffing at him, turning her head, touching him with her teeth or tongue, and getting snarled at periodically by Toothless, before she finally just opened her jaws as wide as she could, and hesitantly, carefully (Hiccup swore he saw her eyes shut in concentration), positioned her mouth around him, her beak to the ground in front and in back of him, leaving him in a dark little cave.

Hiccup gasped immediately, gagging as he felt the hot, salty, sulfury moist air flow into his frigid lungs, shocking him with the strangely acidic chemically-fish smell of her breath. He started coughing hard, feeling like he was at the edge of throwing up, but the breath felt so unbelievably, wonderfully warm…

He yelped as he felt the incredibly hot tongue slide down his back and bury itself roughly under his backside— he felt the breaths of the dragon puffing awkwardly over him as she made small pouty sounds, carefully trying to scoop him into her jaws, in over her terrible teeth. Her tongue rippled and adjusted gingerly against his back, and then with a quick upward jerk of her head, he was shoveled into her mouth.

The moment his full weight hit her tongue, he gasped in pain, his lips locked in a breathy, agonized "O"— the full heat of her mouth against his stiff half-frozen body hurt, as if he had been flopped into a sizzling frying pan, but he was so weak now with cold that could barely react to it.

He was distantly aware of the poor Nadder's tongue shifting and adjusting underneath him, scooping in his feet to make him a nice tight curled-up mouthful of Viking, carefully lapping and rippling in its alien way as she tried to make sure every bit of him was there and unharmed as she heard his small distressed sounds.

Hiccup winced, squinting blankly out at the pale snow there beyond the jagged teeth. He'd never been a mouthful before; Toothless' maw wasn't near big enough to hold all of him like this. It was a curious feeling, being cradled completely on top of big, shifting dragon tongue- though right now, his frigid bones could barely register it, too shocked with the utter heat of the Nadder's saliva.

"Ow-ow-ow…" Hiccup whimpered, able to breathe in only stiff short gasps.

Toothless' eyes appeared outside the Nadder's mouth, peering in at him cautiously. The sleek dragon made a low noise.

"It-it's okay, Bud. I'm all r-right… She's got me…"A dismal feeling spread through Hiccup's chest. He knew he was about to be swallowed down alive, and there was nothing he could do about it. And he was worried. As the Nadder's tongue apologetically began to move and shift underneath him, getting him wet so he would be easy to gulp down, he fumbled clumsily in the mouth so he could look out at Toothless.

"Toothless— " Hiccup managed, hissing through his teeth in discomfort. "You n-need to find Astrid. G-go find Astrid."

The dragon's eyes focused hard on Hiccup's, and his head bobbed as he rumbled a solemn affirmative.

Hiccup reached weakly out through the Nadder's teeth and touched his dragon's nose. "T-thanks, Bud."

Toothless gurgled softly, licking gently at Hiccup's glove before nuzzling the boy's hand gingerly back into the cage of the teeth. Hiccup would be warm and safe inside the Nadder, even if he didn't like it very much. The Nadder was smart and knew how to keep her babies safe inside of her crop. She was a good dragon.

Toothless would've preferred to have done it himself, but Hiccup had given him special jobs to do. So this was okay.

The Night Fury nudged the Deadly Nadder on the chin, and with a reluctant gurgle, her jaws eased shut, sealing Hiccup inside.

The air inside seemed like it was SEARING hot, like an oven— Hiccup found himself wheezing and tearing up as the heat attacked his numb limbs, gnawing and sizzling like acid over his icy skin and aching into his bones. He lay limply as the tongue awkwardly shifted and moved him within the tiny space, scrubbing him abrasively with thick slime. If he weren't so weak and chilled through, he might've struggled or screamed (though of course, if he had been warm in the first place, it wouldn't have been nearly as agonizing), but now he could only moan, letting the poor Nadder do what she needed to do.

She was probably saving his life, after all.

The Nadder felt awkward, struggling to keep her mouth shut around the Viking boy. Outside, he looked tiny, but with all of him in her jaws she felt gluttonous, like she was trying to gobble up a whole skinny deer without biting it into easy pieces first.

That's right. No biting.

And the little Viking boy was so alive, and he was cold (especially the metal bit of him), and he moved on her tongue and made tiny unhappy noises. The sounds he made reminded her of a little Nadderling, and made a strange sort of motherly warmth spread through her chest. The poor thing was tiny and adorable and she wanted to hold him close and wrap him up tight and keep him safe. He was icy-cold, but she would tuck him deep down inside, where not a scrap of chill could reach him.

She gurgled gently, trying to comfort the poor thing. He wasn't happy.

Toothless bobbed his head, urging her to hurry up. The Night Fury was dancing in the snow nervously, looking over his shoulder in the direction Astrid had left in.

The Deadly Nadder shut her eyes, reluctantly trying to position the little Viking so that a skinny end of him was toward her throat. She'd never eaten a human before. Not even a little tiny one. He was so cold he almost seemed flavorless, though she could taste deer hide. He wasn't big, but he was big enough that she wasn't sure she could actually get him down.

But the Night Fury was smaller than her, and if he could swallow a human boy whole and alive without hurting him, why couldn't she?

She felt the creature's little fuzzy head nestled at the back of her tongue, and her throat wavered, ticklish. She sighed deeply. The Night Fury wouldn't leave her alone until his poor Viking boy was tucked safe and warm in her tummy.

She twitched her wings, clucking nervously, and finally pitched her head back and swallowed him up quickly, before she could change her mind.

The little Viking disappeared surprisingly easily in one strong gulp, his long body so skinny and wriggly and chilly on her insides as he slid down her trembling throat. She sat there, wide-eyed with the bizarre sensation, and squawked with shock as she felt him flop, heavy and cold, into her waiting belly-basket.

Toothless blinked at her chest as it wobbled gently. It was agonizing, in a way, to watch another dragon eat his Hiccup. Toothless knew what it was like to have poor Hiccup moving inside, pushing with his little feet, asking to be let go— but he'd never realized what it looked like from the outside. He wanted to hurry up and go get Astrid, but for now curiosity got the better of him, and he stepped hesitantly closer, purring inquisitively.

If the Nadder's tongue had been like a frying pan, and her mouth like an oven, her steamy, bubbly wet first-stomach was like a big boiling stew pot, and Hiccup a blue ocean-fresh lobster dumped into it to hiss and writhe until he was turned docile and red. Hiccup found himself half-drowning in a deep dark sloshy pit, submerged in liquid so hot it made his eyes tear up. He struggled in pain for a long moment as the boiling heat gobbled him up, searing his cheeks and burying itself in his belly, and then finally he melted like snow on a hearth as his blood finally began to warm up again, spilling back into every corner of his chilled flesh.

Soon he just lay back and panted, his heartbeat slowing as he began to relax, feeling himself coming back to life. His surroundings were dark and squashy and fishy-smelling, everything from the wet slippery walls to the thick heavy air itself just wonderfully, deliciously warm. The Nadder's pulsing innards cradled him loosely, her first-tummy big and roomy and so soft it was as if it was barely there, like a pile of new feather pillows.

The Nadder gurgled, her pupils rapidly changing sizes as she contemplated her chest, filled with wriggly-twitchy young human. She was shocked and intrigued by the peculiar sensation, not sure what to think of it. He was big, big as a young deer, and she could feel his tiny hands and feet pushing inside as he floundered about aimlessly, feel his slight heaviness stretching her innards, feel his coldness dissolving away.

He felt weird. And good.

She gurgled gently, feeling him beginning to settle inside of her, and cupping him gingerly in the clumsy folds of her voluntary first-stomach, she tenderly began to knead at him, wanting to help wring every drop of cold from his tiny body.

She blinked at the Night Fury as he neared her curiously. He stood a ways off, and hesitantly reached with his snout to prod at the soft place where her neck entered her chest.

Toothless murmured softly. His Hiccup was in there. The Nadder clucked at him, self-consciously shuffling her wings and feet where she sat. Gently, he inched closer and pressed his forehead into her, his ears outstretched and trembling as they reached for vibrations.

Swimming in the delicious heat and darkness inside, relaxing sleepily into the gentleness of the Nadder's hot, rhythmic caresses over his sore muscles, Hiccup gradually realized there was something prodding at him from outside— and finally heard his dragon's curious, questioning little yawp float in to him through the thick hide.

Hiccup fumbled, pushing against whatever was pushing at him. "Bud," he whined. "I'm all right. It's pretty… hot in here— I'll be okay now, but…" He pressed more insistently, "Astrid's lost— you need to go find her, okay? Go find Astrid."

He heard a soft grunt, which had a note of worry in it. Hiccup was helplessly sleepy, now, as the Nadder massaged him and cradled him gently, but he smiled, yawning, "Toothless, I'll be okay. I'm going to sleep, now. You go get Astrid. Make sure she's okay, all right?"

There was a soft affirmative, if reluctant, grunt, and the lump that was Toothless disappeared from Hiccup's dark little world. Hiccup sighed, his now-hot blood gushing through him, making his flesh tingle numbingly. His body was sore and exhausted from the long ride in the cold. Now he was wonderfully, deliciously warm, his aches pulsing away with every beat of the Nadder's heart, every tender caress of her impossibly soft insides. He curled up tight, and panting contentedly, his body, shocked from going so rapidly from nearly-frozen to bubbly-hot, quickly and quietly shut down, dragging him helplessly into a deep, unshakeable red sleep.

The Nadder crooned gently. This was so extraordinary. She felt a motherly thrill, feeling his tiny breaths puffing ticklishly against her wet inner walls as he snoozed, all cuddled up nice and cozy in the pit of her belly, too small and adorable to be her supper. He was like a tiny pile of limp fishes. Did he like it inside of her? Didn't he miss his own dragon?

The Night Fury gave her a look, and a weak snarl, warning her not to hurt the little Viking boy. He backed away, staring in longing toward her chest, and finally spun away into the blizzardy grey, quickly disappearing beyond the curtain of snow.

The Nadder made low, worried noises to herself, hugging herself tight with her wings and feet. She was all alone now with the little Viking boy in her tummy, and it was her job to keep him safe no matter what. She wondered where her little Viking girl was. Wouldn't she be awfully cold, too? She wasn't quite as small and weak as the Night Fury's Viking, but she was still quite small and weak.

The Night Fury could smell a warm animal even in the snow— he could smell hot blood over the clean rainy smell of ice, and feel the heat of a mammalian heartbeat in the hollows of his head. The girl-Viking's footprints had long since vanished, and her scent had been blown all over by the wind, but he could still find patches of air where her essence had hung like a thick mist.

These he breathed and sipped on, trying to find that whisper of heat that would tell him she was near.

It was a long way out. She had become lost quickly and wandered aimlessly through the woods, looping back on herself, hesitating, falling in the deep snow, getting back up again. Toothless was worried she might've hurt herself, but he would've smelled that.

Finally he felt mammalian heat against his temples, smelling wet dead-deer hide and pine branches and tasting that subtly-more-acerbic-than-Hiccup female-human essence at the top of his panting mouth.

She was a little lump of human with an odd bunch of sticks piled up in a strap on her back, huddled up against a tree and trembling, her arms wrapped around herself. Toothless paced up to her with a small, inquisitive gurgle.

She hadn't gotten quite as cold as Hiccup had yet. She was still vital and awake, though her teeth were bared in the chill. Her eyes brightened as she noticed Toothless, and she got to her feet with a grudging scowl, dusting off her jacket before shoving her hands back into her armpits and clumsily bounding toward him.

"I w-was only r-r-resting," she grumbled.

Toothless licked her face politely. She was icy-cold.

She hissed and spat. "St-stupid dragon…"

Toothless let it slide this time. He lowered his head and paced around her, nudging her to entice her to climb onto his neck.

She tried. She really did. He felt her claws fumble ticklishly, trembling to grab onto his saddle, tugging weakly as she tried to heft herself up. Toothless finally ducked his head low for her, pushing himself underneath her and scooping her up.

She gasped, his neck hot and firm under her stomach. Toothless waited patiently as she clumsily flopped, finally getting her leg over to straddle him. She did not bother to sit up— she simply lay on her belly, wrapping her arms and legs tightly around and clinging to his throat.

Toothless swallowed uncomfortably, but he knew she was drinking in his hot. He just hoped she didn't freeze in place like that. Even her tummy felt chilly.

It was a good thing he had found her quickly.

Toothless opened his senses to find traces of Hiccup and the Nadder, now, and whirled back into the woods, bounding as quickly as he could, but being careful not to shake the poor girl-human off.

Sometimes she would squeal as she slipped a little, and he'd have to stop and tilt his head to try to shake her back on. But mostly he went fast, his feet pounding quickly through the snow. It was so chilly that even his hot scale-wrapped dragon paws were beginning to burn now. He couldn't wait to help the girl-human build her fire-keeper, so they could all be toasty.

It was so dark and snowy now that Toothless couldn't use his eyes very well, and the snow was so dense and sound-absorbing that he couldn't see with his ears very well either. He was used to navigating in pitch darkness, but he couldn't remember ever moving around in a world quite this… DENSE. Luckily he had other senses to see with- but the little human must've been practically blind.

No wonder she had gotten lost.

Toothless moved a bit more slowly now, sniffing carefully, his auricles flared. He didn't want to bump into trees.

It took him a bit longer coming back than it had going out, but soon he could smell sour sulfur in the air, and hear the Nadder make a low, soft sound in greeting.

Toothless' heart twinged. She was being quiet because his Hiccup was fast asleep inside. Hiccup was being good, then, and not trying to hurt the Nadder, asking to be out.

He took a deep breath and gasped on a patch of snow near the Nadder, melting it down with careful fire. It took a few breaths, now that the snow was so deep, but soon he had made a decent-sized dry spot for the fire-keeper to go.

Toothless lowered his head and tipped the girl-human off his neck, nudging her impatiently. He knew she was cold, but if she built the fire-keeper quickly, none of them would be cold anymore. He wanted her to build it before the snow piled up again.

She was slow. For a while she only laid there and whined at him, swiping weakly at his nose. But finally, she sat up, and dropped her sticks, and began to lay the wood together with shaky hands. Toothless purred, watching interestedly. She was a good girl. It was weird how a human knew how to capture fire like that, even though they couldn't breathe it.

She shivered and went at it quietly for a while. Sometimes Toothless would try to help, picking up a stick, but she would scold him every time. He was a dragon and he wasn't clever enough to know where all the pieces went right. The contraption was very neat and got bigger and bigger, and soon enough Toothless just watched her intently with his large eyes, waiting for her to tell him it was time to set it alight.

Suddenly, she stopped mid-motion and stiffened.

"W-wait…W-w-where's Hiccup?"

She turned quickly to Toothless, just as he hastily looked away, ashamed.

"W-what-?" Astrid turned quickly to look at her own dragon. It's difficult to tell exactly where a Deadly Nadder is staring, but she seemed quite stiff, her head quite upright and her eyes wide in an unsettling, vague, walleyed gaze.

"Hiccup— ?" Astrid called hopefully into the snowy waste around them. "H-Hiccup-? A-re you… t-there?"

No answer. Just the soft shhhh of thousands and thousands of snowflakes falling in an empty forest.

Astrid stiffened.

"HIC-CUP— !" she wailed a bit louder, her voice taking on a shrill, anxious note.

No response at all.

Astrid realized that she was so cold she could barely stand to move, but she made to crawl toward Toothless. "W-where is h-he?" she asked again, more insistently.

Toothless would not answer her. Not looking her in the eye, he hesitated, then made a soft dismissive gurgle and nudged a stick next to her hand, urging her to continue building the fire.

She pushed it away impatiently. "W-why w-on't y-you tell me? W-where on e-earth is H-HICCUP? Y-your rider— ?" She struggled to crouch in the snow, thinking about standing, though the thought of this wind whipping through her again was almost unbearable now.

Toothless wouldn't look at her. Neither would the Nadder.

"I-I'm not s-stupid!" she snarled, staring from dragon to dragon. "T-there's something V-VERY w-wrong here." She glared at Toothless. "H-he d-doesn't j-just VANISH b-by turning sideways! S-spit it out right N-NOW!"

Toothless and the Nadder looked at each other nervously, the Night Fury defensively edging closer to his charge. The Nadder adjusted her tongue, shuffling her feet a bit closer to her chest. She didn't want to spit the boy-thing out. It would wake him up, and he would quickly become cold and sick again. It was good and warm for him to stay inside right now. She shut her mouth tight and made a low gurgle.

Astrid's eyes narrowed. There was something strange about the way the Nadder was sitting. Her feet were cupped oddly around her chest.

Astrid jerked to her feet, almost overbalancing on stiff cold legs, and stumbled toward her dragon to get a closer look. Toothless squawked in surprise, and the Nadder started, blinking down toward her chest, and then pleadingly back up at the Night Fury.

Toothless' ears drooped helplessly, hesitating. What was he supposed to do? If he grabbed the girl-human and tried to drag her away, she would get angry. The girl-human would never finish building the fire-catcher for them if she was angry.

The Nadder, however, was more concerned with being found out, and waking the poor boy-Viking up. She didn't want the girl to be mad at her and not like her anymore, but it was also important to keep the Night Fury's boy safe and not startle him.

She didn't want the girl to get too close to her chest. She twitched nervously as the girl-thing stumbled nearer and nearer. Soon she came up so close that the Nadder couldn't stand it anymore— with a low hiss of warning, she raised one of her big feet.

"Stormfly— w-what— ?" Astrid put her hand gently on the big foot and made to push past. There was something different about the Nadder, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it…

The Nadder clucked in surprise as the girl-human tried to push through, and with a thick growl, she gently but firmly squooshed the girl into the snow underneath her massive paw. She would not let the girl-thing come any closer.

The little female squealed unhappily, wriggling in the snow, trapped under that big heavy foot. Toothless edged closer, licking at her to try to calm her, but she only flung her tiny fists at his face.

Astrid struggled. Something was DEFINITELY wrong here. Really, really wrong. The Nadder didn't want her near because— because— ?

It was her chest. That big paw cupped protectively around it, the wings pulled in nice and tight— Astrid could see that it seemed to be ever-so-slightly swollen in an odd sort of way…

The Deadly Nadder's belly was full.

But what could she possibly have found to eat, here in this sort of weather…?

Astrid instantly became nauseous.

No...!

"…Y-y-you A-ATE HIM? Y-you ATE H-HICCUP?"

The Nadder's pupils narrowed nervously, and she stiffened, her tongue shifting in her mouth, making a low noise. Toothless darted in, pushing tenderly at Astrid's cheeks with his snout, hastily trying to comfort her.

He let out a strangled snarl as she grabbed on to one of the sensors on his jaw and tugged.

"H-how c-could y-ou— ?!" Astrid howled, utterly horrified. "H-how could y-you let th-this happen?! Y-you're supposed to p-protect him— you let h-her EA-EAT HIM?"

Why wasn't Toothless concerned about this? Toothless had risked his own safety over and over to protect Hiccup before— why would he just let a hungry little Nadder kill his best friend now?

Toothless winced at the pain, but shook his head, staring with big eyes. She didn't understand. The Nadder hadn't torn poor Hiccup into pieces first. He hadn't become her supper. She had gently and carefully swallowed him all in one bite, and lowered him down into her soft warm pillowy first- stomach, where it was good and safe and warm for him, and he was cozy and happy and sleeping, very much not-dead.

The little female didn't understand that Toothless WAS protecting Hiccup this way, because it had been too cold for him outside.

"How— c-could you— ?" she screeched, as the thought that Hiccup was gone forever began to sink in. "No— ! H-how could y-you— ! No, no-n-no…!"

Toothless gurgled worriedly as her grip on his sensor loosened and dropped free. Immediately he ducked in again, nudging and licking gently at her face and shoulders, making soft rumbles in his throat in a desperate effort to console her.

But she wouldn't be consoled. She howled and cried and wriggled helplessly under the Nadder's foot, trying to claw at Toothless' face and eyes.

Astrid's body felt frozen, but she still fought to get free of the Nadder's grip. Some impulsive, illogical part of her longed to press herself flat against the beast's chest, to try to hack and claw her way through, to worry over the bony lump inside and listen, in hopes of feeling one twitch, hearing just one single bleat of frightened but intact life— not the quiet contented sloshings of successful, efficient, deadly digestion… stupid as it was, the idea of approaching a man-eating monster instead of running for the hills— somehow it seemed so important. She couldn't believe it. Her head was empty— all she knew was that surely Hiccup hadn't quite vanished— his corpse was still there, in one form or another, so close, just inside that thickly scaled belly… He was probably only a lump of digesting torn-up meat and broken bones now, but everything he was and had ever been, everything him she had ever sort of cared about, was all buried THERE, jumbled and twisted there in such a terrible, inglorious grave.

Her face was alight with pain, her nose numb, her tears ripping into her cheeks— her entire body was stiff and burning, and though she felt like she was fighting hard, in reality she could manage little more than a weak wiggle, her lungs on fire as she began to pant more than she could cry out. It seemed like the air was too cold for her body to register— it wasn't long before all she could do was gasp and twitch underneath the Nadder's big paw.

Soon Astrid had all but melted, shivering hard and clinging stiffly, unrelentingly, to the powerful talons. "W-what… w-what a-are you going t-to do to M-ME, then?" she croaked, tears frosting painfully on her face.

Toothless murmured, giving the Nadder a look. The girl-human was too cold now. Her strong little body had stopped working so well. They needed her to finish the fire-catcher quickly. Toothless didn't know if she even could anymore, but they would have to try.

The Nadder lifted her foot and watched nervously as the Night Fury took her girl around the waist and picked her up. He turned with her to carry her off toward the fire-catcher.

Astrid yowled, distressed. Toothless' mouth was SO HOT it hurt around her, and he was carrying her off, like a deer corpse.

Carrying her off…to eat her, too.

If the beasts had been desperately hungry enough to butcher Hiccup, who they adored, then she… all she was, was meat.

"N-no—!" she hissed, writhing as violently as she could.

She was so cold and numb— she imagined Toothless swallowing her up in numb, frozen pieces, and the horrible, painful bliss of bubbling down, thawing out, deep within his terrible hot carnivorous belly, tucked under his beautiful, heaving sides…

His firm gums held her fast— she wasn't strong enough to wriggle free. She curved her deadened fingers into claws inside her mittens and desperately raked at his eyes. She did not want to be eaten.

Toothless yelped in shock, and if it hadn't been for a last-second's restraint on his part, his teeth would've slid out and mortally wounded the poor creature. He shut his eyes tight— though his leathery eyelids protected him from her abrasive gloves, the pressure she was applying hurt. He shook his head a little, and finally dropped her heavily onto the ground, close to the fire-catcher, whirling away for a moment to grumble and nurse his eyes.

Astrid put her hands to the ground and pushed as hard as she could, trying to get up. She had to get away. If she didn't get away, she'd be spending the night sheltered inside Toothless' boiling belly and waking up to share a tankard of mead with Hiccup in Valhalla the next morning.

But she was freezing. Her body creaked and screamed, and the pressure was agony on her hands, and every bit of her, even her stomach and sides and inner thighs, was shivering cold. Every breath was ice clinging to her insides, slicing her with blades of frost.

She wheezed in horror as she felt the heat of Toothless' approach, his huge damp snout and hot panting breaths tickling at her fingers. Valiantly, she swung at his head, with all the strength of a newborn lamb.

He didn't seem to notice.

He rumbled softly, a pleading noise, and she felt a stick be nudged under her hand. She fumbled to grab it, wanting to try to whack him again, but her fingers… they couldn't seem to close properly.

She felt him draw near, but her hand was so numb she couldn't really tell what he was doing— just gradually, her hand began to have feeling again…a feeling of heat and horrible pain. She looked up with a start.

He was sucking on her fingers.

She made a shuddery gasp. Why was he starting at her fingers?

She swung her other hand weakly at his head, wriggling to try to drag herself away. "L-leave me al-lone!" she wailed.

She felt like little more than a heavy raindrop, but Toothless snorted, and regretfully let her hand drop into the snow again.

It was no use. The girl-human was too cold and upset to finish the fire-catcher.

He danced nervously in the snow. She needed to be put someplace warm, fast, or she would be sick. But his craw was full, and he wasn't allowed to empty it, and poor Hiccup was sleeping in the Nadder's. …Did the Nadder have room in there for two whole squirmy humans? He didn't think the humans would like being special food together very much, but he didn't know what else to do.

He wished he knew how fire-catchers catched fire so well. He knew the wood-bits would burn, but he didn't know how to keep the fire fed and watered so it would stay as long as they needed it and go away when they didn't, like a human knew. And if a human hadn't finished building something, you weren't supposed to touch it, because dragons are very clumsy and break things, and the human would scold you and have to start all over again.

So Toothless was afraid to touch the fire-catcher, and he let it be, watching wistfully as it became buried in the snow.

Astrid watched the shadowy beast milling around her in the dense storm. What was he doing what was he doing what was he doing— ?

Suddenly he came into focus again above her middle.

She scowled, making a small whimper. This was more like it.

She watched his mouth open, as if in slow motion. His teeth were withdrawn, but she knew they'd come shooting out again. She shut her eyes, her teeth grit and fists uselessly clenched, ready for the horrible pain.

This was it. He was going to be a proper monster and start eating her soft belly first, while her entrails were still warm and steamy inside. He'd bury his snout red in her, pulling her apart, slurping and snapping, and only when he'd finished her sweet juicy insides would he move on to swallow up the rest of her in big clumsy hunks. If her fate was anything similar to Hiccup's, there would be absolutely nothing left of her when Toothless was finished, save maybe a subtle bulge in his trim silhouette.

There was nothing she could do about it now— she tried to move, but she was practically frozen. It was just going to happen, and that's all there was to it. It would hurt, sure, but not for long.

Not for long.

Why would the dragons do this— ? Had Hiccup been wrong about them— ? About everything— ?

She refused to think about it. She choked, tensing up as she felt Toothless' hot tongue touch her, and then his mouth closing—

And his soft gums shutting firmly around her middle, squeezing, and hefting her into the air again.

"W-wha— !?" she wailed, flailing, her eyes flashing open as the breath was squeezed out of her.

Toothless swung his head around heavily and, raising his feet high in the rising snow, carried the girl-thing the few paces back to the Nadder. He puffed a bit of steam, grunting as he raised her up, shaking her a little. What was he doing? It was like he was showing her to her own dragon. Offering her up.

The Nadder's head retreated between her shoulders in shock. She cluck-clucked forlornly, her tongue working in her mouth, and her big yellow eyes blinked down to her swollen chest and then at her poor little girl-Viking, and then at the Night Fury.

He shook the girl a little again, with an insistent nmph.

The Nadder swallowed hard. The little girl Viking was very cold, so the Night Fury thought she ought to go inside, too. But the Nadder already had a sleeping boy-human in her tummy. She didn't know if the girl-human would fit very well in there with him. It would disturb him. She didn't want them to be hurt, or not-cozy…

The Night Fury gave the girl yet another shake, glaring.

The Night Fury was right. They were very very small humans, and her belly-basket would stretch to hold them both. And the human-creatures would like to be together. Human-creatures didn't much like being alone for anything.

That's why the little girl-creature was upset. She was all alone.

The girl-Viking wailed weakly in the Night Fury's mouth, a heart-wrenchingly pathetic little sound. She kept making lots of funny, sweet little sad-human mewls and squeals, and her eyes were leaking freezing liquid and her little body was shaking all over from cold or terror or both.

The little noises the girl-thing made awakened that motherly sense of duty in the Nadder again, and soon she wanted nothing more than to cradle the poor creature in her warmth, and protect her from the cold, lonely world. There was always enough room behind her heart for that.

The Deadly Nadder trilled softly, apologetically, at her young girl-human, and finally bent her head low, opening her jaws wide to let Toothless carefully place the fuzzy little Viking in, safe and sound, over her teeth, onto her tongue.

"N-no!" Astrid wailed in horror, gasping in pain as the horrible hot tongue of her own dragon began to wrap around her, tugging her deeper inside. She stared in shock at Toothless as he withdrew, gazing at her worriedly from beyond those horrible, dark jaws and slurping to erase the traces of her essence from his mouth. He gestured sternly with his snout.

Go in.

Toothless was… feeding her to her Deadly Nadder.

She choked in despair and revulsion. So she'd be joining whatever was left of Hiccup in the insatiable belly of the blue raptor, then.

"W-why— ?" she howled, clinging feebly to the teeth as she tried to pull herself out of the front of the mouth, reaching with a shaky hand toward Toothless' snout. "W-why are y-you doing this to us— ?"

Why? What horrible dragon-custom was this? She didn't understand. She couldn't understand.

Toothless' ears were bent back with a hint of guilt, and he made an apologetic rumble in his throat. But he shut his eyes, and barked, and with a shuddery sound from the beast around her, the great jaws began to shut.

"N-no!" she yelped, clawing weakly to try to prevent the jaws from closing, tears pouring down her face as the huge tongue wrestled her back. "D-devil!" she snarled at Toothless as she watched him turn away. "Y-you devil! Y-you miserable t-toad-eyed-weasel-t-toothed mountain of p-p-pond SCUM— ! I hope your g-gizzard g-gets gangrene! I h-hope your eyes f-fizzle out of y-your head! B-BOTH of you!" She pounded pointlessly on the Nadder's tongue. "D-die H-HORRIBLY, y-you AWFUL m-miserable M-MONSTERS— !"

Toothless stiffened. She could barely see him now through the gaps in the cage of awful teeth.

"I- I h-hope you're happy, T-Toothless," she spat, her throat constricted with tears as she buried her fingers as deeply into that horrible tongue as she possibly could.

And then there was nothing but darkness, as the monster's beak sealed shut.

This was her dragon's mouth. Her own dragon's mouth. It was boiling hot and she barely fit inside sideways like this and her head and boots were shoved roughly against huge horrible teeth, and that TONGUE! That tongue was wrapping and wrestling her, tasting her, cooking her, and she screamed in pain— it HURT! She could feel its boiling liquid searing through her chilly coat and eating at her flesh. She could feel her tears melting as the horrible hot sulfuric breaths puffed up from the dark void of the throat and wrapped around her, enlivening her doomed fingers, smelling bloody and meaty, ashy and sour as it wafted up from the pit where the hunks of Hiccup's body were being boiled down into bony soup…

The tongue pushed and pulled forcefully at her, and no matter how hard she tried to fight, her cold weakened limbs were useless, alight with agony. She was rolled about and coated in horrible biting slime, and packed into a tiny ball… and then the Nadder paused, the back of her tongue shuddering with Astrid's boots positioned right at the very edge.

Astrid clung longingly to the edges of the tongue, pressing her teary face into the rough slimy surface and shaking her head. "Stormfly, if y-you d-do it, I-I SWEAR I-I'll claw your innards r-raw!" she hissed through grit teeth.

The Deadly Nadder's tongue wriggled gently, and the beast made a soft gurgle.

The head tipped back slowly.

"Don't," growled Astrid. "No. Do NOT. Don't— eat me."

The Deadly Nadder whined forlornly.

The great tongue wavered.

Then she smashed Astrid flat, tipped her head all the way back, and with a bonecrushingly tight squeeze, simply swallowed the girl. Swallowed her alive in one gulp, dragging her down the tight throat by her feet, wrapping her up in an awful slithery blanket of unrelenting muscle and pouring a mouthful of sizzling saliva down along with her.

Astrid curled her fingers into claws and screamed in agony and terror as she was pulled over the back of the tongue, feeling the Nadder's horrible heat wrapping around her frozen body and stealing away her breath.

"I hope y-you die!" Astrid wheezed through angry tears as she squirmed as much as she could, repeatedly squashed and kneaded by the beast's unbearably hot insides. "I h-hope you g-get the w-worst b-bellyache of your life! I hope to Th-THOR y-you get so sick t-that you won't be able t-to keep down anything b-but l-limpets! I hope— !"

Deep down below, nestled into a comfortable curled lump in the sloshy pit of the dragon's first-stomach, Hiccup made a small noise and adjusted himself in his sleep, only very distantly aware of the beast's movements and its responses to the sounds of things happening outside. It was all a natural part of napping in the belly of an animal (which he'd unfortunately done a fair bit of), so he thought little of it.

He smiled a little, snuggling into the slimy wall. There was no reason to feel self-conscious when there was no one around to see you, but his cheeks burned a bit anyway. It just reminded him so much of winters long, long ago, when he had been a very, very small child, and usually very, very sick with a fever or something, and his dad would sometimes bundle him up and carry him everywhere under his coat just to make sure his son was staying warm and not trying to sneak out while he did village things.

Hiccup had always found it a refreshing change from the days of having to stay in his bed, drawing and trying to read and sipping on broth to try to build up an appetite that never came— if your dad was Stoick the Vast, and you were tucked under his coat, you were safe from everything. Death had come quite a few times to steal Hiccup away in those years, but every time, his father had been there to glare it threateningly in the eye and scare it off.

It had always been very cozy and furry and sweaty-smelling under there, and he had been able to hear the weird soothing sounds going on under the stiff muscle, and when his father had talked, the voice had seemed to rumble all over him.

Smothered in this lovely foul-smelling heat, lulled and hypnotized by the pulsing life around him, Hiccup slept, in the belly of a monster, held tight to Dad's side.

There was a murmur of adult voices. Dad was talking tactics with Gobber and Spitelout and the other leaders, his body vigorously vibrating with conversation. Hiccup squirmed, trying to stay comfortable, his tiny already-deft fingers wrapping around handfuls of fur. For a moment he poked his head out and peered across the table, wondering what could be so interesting to all these adults that they'd talk about it for SO LONG.

"So, Stoick," Gobber bantered, catching Hiccup's eye with a good-humored wink. "How much for the li'l lamb under yer coat? I'll be needn' somthin' to bait me dragon traps with."

"N-no— !" Hiccup squealed, as he pulled the edge of the coat over his head and squirmed back underneath to hide.

He felt Dad's hand, huge, heavy and warm, settle over his body as he shook with giggles.

Stoick never saw much humor in the perpetual "dragon bait" jokes.

His ribs shook against Hiccup's ear, filling him with his father's voice. "This li'l lamb is my son, Gobber. And one day, he'll be your Chief."

Hiccup calmed down, snuggling in and basking in the warmth of those words.

"This is my son…"

Hiccup sighed in his sleep, and shifted position, sinking deeper into the pit of the Nadder's tummy, just as a wildly kicking boot swung into the space where his face had been.

Astrid's mouth was filled with rotten slime now, every inch of her icy body being actively attacked by brutal boiling heat— she couldn't breathe… and now the gullet had opened up underneath her, releasing her legs into an oven-like space below…

No! She tried to force her chilled body to move, feeling her toes pushing into loose, squashy boundaries, but there was nothing she could do, no place to go, but down.

All at once she was released, squeezed down into the beast's suddenly snug dark belly, landing on top of something weirdly lumpy that lurched underneath her—

"I'm not dragon bait, Gobber— !" Hiccup yelped impulsively as he was smashed awake.

Astrid reeled, pushing indiscriminately with her feet, slapping around in a panic— "Oh my go- what the— "

"Wha— ?"

"Oh GODS oh my GODS— " Astrid flopped in a terrified frenzy, raking at everything she could find with her mittened hands. "Let me OUT!" she shrieked. "It hurts! Let me out, get me OUT of here! Let me OUT!"

"What the— Astrid?" Hiccup choked in shock, a strangely cold, heavy wriggly weight balancing painfully on his stomach. "Wha— ? Astrid— ?! Why— ?"

"H-Hic— ? Oh holy Thor— " Astrid's hands came into contact with more of that something that was harder and lumpier than the terrible formless ripply walls squeezing her, and she slapped at it frantically, whipping off one of her mittens to feel that she was being squished against a curious lump of wet fur, with skinny appendages of all sorts, and a fuzzy solid bit, and a smooth part that felt curiously like it might have a nose, making noise that sounded an awful lot like—

"Hiccup?!" She nipped off her other mitten and anxiously felt around with both hands.

"Ah, ur andzen mah mouf— "

"Hiccup— ?! You're— you're ALIVE! How— ?"

"Ow— peh— Astrid, why are you— ?!"

"We have to get out— ! We have to get out of here— ! It hurts— !"

Hiccup winced, feeling her knees dig into his ribs as she propped herself up to feel around at the walls for the hole she had come in from. He flailed blindly in the total darkness, trying to grab her.

"Listen, why— ?"

"If we don't get out soon— ! It hurts. It's hurting me— !" Astrid's whole body was screaming in pain, as the terrible Nadder attacked her, wrapped her, cooked her, thawing her painfully down like frozen meat.

Hiccup spat as his face was shoved against the gooey wall and his stomach trodden on, and finding her shoulders, he tried to pull her close to make her hold still. "It's the heat, you'll get used to it— calm down— ow— it's all right— Why the— ?"

"Let go of me!" Astrid yelped as Hiccup pulled her tight to his body, something hard jabbing her in the side. "Ow— what is that?"

"Stop moving— it's all righ— what is wha— ?"

Astrid pushed between his belly and hers, felt frantically around, then unfastened his coat and buried her hands underneath. "This— !"

Hiccup cried out and squirmed at the sudden invasion of her unexpectedly cold fingers, unable to anticipate anything in this confounded darkness. "What are you— ? Don't— "

Her hand traced along his belt and closed around something longish and hard. She grabbed it eagerly. "This— what is this— ?"

Hiccup was finding it hard to breathe. "That's— that's my knife— please don't— "

"Your knife— ?!" Astrid started tugging to pull the weapon free. "Are you stupid? We can use this to get out of here— !"

"What— ?!" Hiccup gasped. "Ohhhh, no— No, no, no— Astrid— !" He squirmed, grabbing her wrist. "Astrid— listen— let… GO!"

She thrashed, fighting him. "Give it to me— ! We're going to die, if— "

"We're going to be all right— everything's going to be all right— just let go— ah, please— !"

She twisted, managing to pull the knife free despite Hiccup's desperate attempts to wrench her arm away, but his grip on her wrist prevented her from pulling it back far enough to let her plunge it into the squashy wall of the slimy Hel. "Hiccup, let go— !" she shrieked, still panicking, worming her other arm free and pushing blindly at his face. "I want out— I want out of here— !"

"Ow— ! Stoppit— !" Hiccup squirmed and twisted, pulling the knife close and rolling in the sloshy pool of slime so that it was underneath him. "Calm down— Don't hurt the dragon— the dragon didn't do anything wrong— don't hurt the dragon— "

"Don't HURT THE DRAGON?" Astrid wailed, proceeding to pound mercilessly on Hiccup's back, trying to twist her arm and the knife free. "Don't hurt the— she ate us! She ATE US! We're in her stomach, we're going to die if— "

"OW— Astrid— would you just— ow— let me explain— !?"

"GIVE ME THAT BLASTED KNIFE OR I SWEAR TO THOR— "

The two dragons both focused with wide, horrified eyes on the Deadly Nadder's violently wobbling chest.

The Nadder clucked in distress, giving the Night Fury a pleading stare. What were they doing in there? The little girl human wasn't falling asleep like the boy had. She was still kicking and squirming, and she had awakened the poor little boy human, and now they both were flopping around over and under each other and squealing and stretching her first-tummy so tightly she thought it might burst.

The Night Fury's ears trembled. He recognized the very familiar sounds of the humans quarreling. The little girl-creature was scared, and she was hurting and bullying his Hiccup, and making him yelp with pain.

A loud snarl rose in Toothless' throat. No one was allowed to hurt his Hiccup. But Hiccup was in another dragon's tummy, and Toothless couldn't reach him in there! Angrily he propped both front paws firmly on the wobbly lump in the Nadder's belly and started barking.

This did nothing to make the humans stop moving. On the contrary, there was a violent shove from within that made the Nadder squawk in discomfort and shocked the Night Fury so much he yelped and leaped away.

Oh, that had felt weird— moving under his paws!

Toothless hastily danced away the weird sensation the movement seemed to have left on his paws, and approached again, this time crouching cautiously, his eyes wide. The humans would not hold still, and their little noises had become even louder.

The Nadder was getting sick. She twitched uncomfortably, her tongue swimming helplessly in her mouth, puffing unsteadily as her lungs were kicked and pounded. She clucked at the Night Fury. She didn't like this. She wanted to vomit the humans out.

Toothless stared back at her. She couldn't do that! It was too cold for them out here, and now they were all soggy-wet. They had no fire-catcher to dry themselves with, so they would freeze ten times as fast.

Toothless blinked. How would he EVER get the humans out?

Would they have to stay inside the Nadder all winter?

He swallowed nervously, but growled at the Nadder. She had to keep the humans safe and warm inside, even if they were being bad. Humans didn't like small spaces very much. They liked to stretch and wiggle, and belly-baskets were too tiny for them.

The Nadder wailed unhappily. Her innards were getting all bruised up! She had been kind and gentle to the little humans, but they weren't being very nice in return! She clenched her claws in the snow, her tummy all nauseous and twisted and hot-feeling. She needed a drink.

The Night Fury scolded her, but she didn't listen. The Deadly Nadder needed a drink, and so she bent her head and ate a few mouthfuls of soothing snow.

Hiccup and Astrid barely noticed the stomach writhing around them, too busy writhing themselves. Hiccup had turned so much to keep Astrid from moving the knife that he was nearly on his back again, Astrid's knife-snatching arm pinned underneath him and her other arm wrapped around his neck. She was choking him and kneeing him repeatedly in the back of the thigh as he thumped the back of his head against her forehead and struggled to tie up her legs with his, his metal foot squealing madly in the damp.

"Give it to me— "

"I'm not giving it to you— "

"Stop squirming— for Thor's sake let me— "

"Ack— you stop— "

Astrid snarled and tried to wrap her arm more tightly around Hiccup's neck, to which he responded by throwing back his elbow and flipping her underneath him.

With a short cry of surprise, Astrid dropped the knife.

Hiccup felt it bounce off of him, and both he and Astrid were about to make a mad grab for it when a sudden, horrible torrent of icy slush gushed down over both of them, freezing them both on the spot.

For what seemed like an eternity, more and more icy slop gushed down from the pulsing gullet above, filling up nearly half of the remaining space in the stomach and burying them completely before the Nadder's heat managed to turn it more liquid than solid, melting into a frigid bath all around them.

Hiccup, who had taken the full brunt of it right over his belly, was completely still and silent for a long moment, his mouth frozen in a gasp, not even noticing how Astrid was writhing underneath him, submerged completely under the liquid.

Soon enough she had shoved Hiccup to the side, just enough to allow her gasping head to surface next to his.

There was a long silence as the two of them sucked hungrily on the hot air.

The Nadder moaned forlornly, her whole belly vibrating with the sound, and the walls squished in tight, leaving them only a small strip of air at the top and leaving them very little room in which to move.

Hiccup choked, feeling Astrid silently, possessively wrapping him up, her arms clutching his shoulders and her legs encircling his thin shuddering belly.

As the hot stomach quickly warmed the edge off of the slush water that submerged them, Hiccup could feel that her strong, slender thighs still retained traces of chill from outside.

Had she been freezing out there, too? Is that why Stormfly had swallowed her in as well?

"Astrid—"

She made a very odd, shrill little sound, and he tensed as he felt her warm face bury into the safe nest between his neck and shoulder, a dab of something hot sizzling against his cheek.

Awkwardly, but gently, he clutched at her forearms. "Astrid…"

She tugged him close, possessively, and to his massive shock, began to weep fiercely into his shoulder, her fingers reaching and clawing and pulling to wrap him up tight with no room for escape.

She was so glad he was still alive. So, so glad.

"Why would she do this—?" she wailed shrilly into Hiccup's ear. "Eat us— bury us in— in snow—"

"Astrid, come on—"

"Like we're N-NOTHING—!"

Hiccup swallowed hard, so wrapped up in Astrid he was surprised she didn't seem to detect the bobbing of his throat. He'd never seen her like this. Hiccup himself had been swallowed by his own dragon so often over the past few months, he'd almost forgotten precisely what it was to feel that unfounded but very real sense of terrible betrayal, eaten by his best friend and trapped within the carnivorous belly of a beast, unknowing what his fate would be.

He remembered that to your average individual, being swallowed alive really did spell out certain death. Astrid was a perfectly bright young thing, and she knew, like every Viking knew, that if she woke up encircled in a cage of ribs with a thumping heart as a pillow, it probably meant she wouldn't be a denizen of Midgard much longer. Her response, her despair, though shrill and rather jarring to him, was nothing but logical. Completely logical.

They had been eaten, so they would die.

Except, Hiccup knew for a fact they wouldn't.

Sighing, Hiccup let himself relax, allowing her to weep onto him for now, aching to wipe the terror from her heart, but not knowing quite how to go about it.

Nose buried in Hiccup's coat for a long while, Astrid could smell the clean fresh scent of the frigid snow outside, the bite of pine, the clinging tang of leather-tinged sweat and cooking smoke... so many fresh things, bright things, clear things that didn't belong in the dark sweltering Hel of her hungry dragon's gnawing belly. Without Hiccup, she would've been lost and alone in here. He was proof that there had been a whole world out there beyond that heartbeat- proof that she had, indeed, existed, once long ago, before she had become a meal to her beloved creature.

And now, if she didn't grab that knife and escape, they would both disappear forever. Soon Stormfly's terrible disgusting belly would indifferently begin to go about its duty, pulverizing the both of them, kneading them and grinding them together into one rich nutritious young-Viking slush, and after the beast was done there'd probably be nothing recognizable left of them but fur and fingernails.

Astrid needed to find that knife.

Her fingers tensed on Hiccup, ready to shove him aside— and yet something made her pause.

Hiccup's body was small and thin, easy to wrap up tightly and completely. She could feel his ribs like a washboard under his coat, swelling with every slow gentle breath he took, and feel his small, unpresumptuous heartbeat fluttering in the offbeat of Stormfly's dominating pulse. His body wasn't wracked with terror like hers was. He no longer resisted as her fingers dug into him.

Hiccup had gone utterly limp.

"— Hiccup!" Astrid wailed in despair, shaking him violently.

"W-what?" Hiccup mumbled immediately, half-yawning.

Astrid shuddered, making him hiss as she dug her nails into him. "Y-you— you were— !"

He blinked, momentarily baffled. "Sorry— I guess I was falling asleep."

He yelped as she gave him another violent shake.

"Don't do that!" she hissed.

"Huh— ?"

"Don't fall asleep!"

Hiccup squinted. "I can't help it— it's stuffy in here."

"That's how they get you!" Astrid snapped. "You fall asleep and stop moving and then you suffocate— !"

"Um, actually, Astrid," Hiccup pointed out softly, "it's much easier to breathe if you're not freaking out and gagging on all the air like— that— "

"I want out of here— !" she bellowed.

Her hand slapped around frantically for his cheek, tightened on his face, and powerfully shoved his head aside, squashing him up against Stormfly's generously gooey, twitching belly wall as she tried frantically to reach past him down into the deep churning hot water to find the knife.

"Ohhh, no— Astrid— come on— " Hiccup quickly wised up to Astrid's game, and braced himself as firmly as he could against poor, scolding, uncomfortable Stormfly. He couldn't do much, but it didn't take much— the dragon was already holding them so tightly together that they could barely move anyway; Astrid's frantic hands had trouble navigating around his body, and the tangle of their feet and legs barricaded her entirely.

It didn't stop her from trying her hardest, though. Hiccup hissed as she mercilessly shoved and elbowed and pounded him. "— Astrid, STOP fighting— ! Do you want Stormfly to drown us in snow again— ?!"

"WHY DO YOU WANT TO DIE— ?!" she screeched. "Why won't you let me— do you SERIOUSLY care more about a DRAGON who ATE US, THAN— "

There was a massive roar from the beast around them,a sound so intense from inside of her belly that the entire world seemed to be shaking with it, leaving the young Vikings once again utterly stunned.

With an apologetic grunt, the slippery stomach closed in even tighter, just short of utterly crushing them, squashing them cheek-to-cheek with only their heads above the water, their knees and feet and elbows smashed painfully into each other.

Clearly, that knife was out of reach.

Hiccup shut his eyes and sighed, his words slightly muffled into the wall. "I told you to hold still," he wheezed uncomfortably. "We keep hurting her."

Astrid sounded blank and wavery, her lips squashed against his cheek. "Why doesn't she just— let us go, then?"

"I don't think... that would be a very good idea."

He felt her eyebrows knit in distress.

He swallowed hard, feeling the bones of her face jarring with his. "There's a blizzard going on out there, and we're soaked now, so..."

He paused, expecting her to interject at some point, but was only answered with a sweet exhalation that warmed his wet cheek and dried the lashes of his right eye.

"We'd freeze up," he elaborated. "And— and Stormfly, she... knows that."

There was a long, awkward silence as this sunk in for a while, the hot water licking their chins, both gasping on thin wisps of gut-smell and each others' breath. Hiccup could feel Astrid trembling, pressed tightly against him. He winced. It really pained him to know she was so frightened.

"Astrid..." he said, finally, "if you REALLY want out— "

"You just said we'd freeze to death anyway!" she cried.

Hiccup swallowed hard. "Yeah— I— uh, know, but, I mean, if there's a fire— there's a fire out there, right?"

Her nose wrinkled up. "No."

"Wha— " Hiccup furrowed his brow. "You didn't... build a fire— ?"

"I built most of one," she said crossly, "but that was before I found out my best friend went and got himself eaten by a dragon!"

Hiccup blinked. "...Ohhh." He blinked again. "So you didn't— That actually... explains a lot."

"Like what?" Astrid snapped.

"Well, I was wondering why Stormfly swallowed you, too," explained Hiccup. "But if you didn't have a fire— "

"What?" she scoffed sarcastically. "So, are you trying to tell me our dragons only eat humans that happen to be freezing to death?!"

Oddly, she could actually feel his cheek begin to burn.

"Well..." stammered Hiccup, "Actually, given the circumstances..."

The only sound for a long while was the gentle sloshing of the warm water as the belly walls pulsed in time with Stormfly's monstrous heart.

Astrid sucked in a long breath. "Thor. You're being serious right now, aren't you?"

Hiccup nodded silently.

Her face contorted oddly against his cheek.

He swallowed hard. "I know this is— ah— kind of weird, but— our dragons are just— " He winced. "While you were gone, that blizzard blew in and— Toothless, he tried everything he could to keep me warm, but.. well... without firewood..."

He trailed off pointedly into a tense silence.

Astrid sighed. "I know— I know I should've— "

Hiccup shook his head the fraction of an inch it could shake, "No, no, it's..." he sighed. "I should've sent him with you— or— well..."

"Look... shut up." She buried her nose firmly into his face, jarring him. "I'm sorry. All right?" she sighed into his ear. "I was just so afraid you would— "

She swallowed the rest of the sentence hastily like half-chewed bread during a riveting discussion, clearing her mouth for a new set of words.

Her eyelashes flicked downward against his temple, painting trails of slime. "Toothless was supposed to protect you. He always does. How was I supposed to know that— "

Hiccup sighed. "Astrid, he DID protect me! That's what I've been trying to say— "

"...By letting you get eaten by— ?!"

"— By getting me somewhere warm before I froze solid," droned Hiccup matter-of-factly. "And it kind of looks like maybe he did the same for you, too." He grunted, trying in vain to untangle his legs, which were going numb in the tightness. "How INCREDIBLY THOUGHTFUL of him."

She gasped oddly for a moment in disbelief. "A— are you CRAZY? Are you seriously saying Toothless shoved me down my own dragon's throat because he thought I was TOO COLD?"

"Uh...Pretty much. That's exactly why he did it to me."

"I don't—!" Astrid sucked in a sharp breath, trying to enunciate, but no words were forming.

"I don't know if you've noticed," Hiccup continued helpfully, prodding the wall gently with his fingertips, "but it IS working. We're not exactly freezing to death anymore, are we?"

She still had to spit a few times to get anything off of her unbelieving tongue— quite a lovely sensation right up against Hiccup's face. "Just— I can't even— how can you— Hiccup— THOR!— That's because it's hotter than Hel here! How is BOILING UP any different!? Either way, we're DEAD— !" She bucked against the walls, setting the pouch that contained them bobbing in a nauseating sort of way, making Stormfly yap uncomfortably. "What do you think this is, the Great Hall? Shelter from the snow— ? We're in the BELLY of a dragon, and pretty soon now we're going to end up a LOT WORSE than frozen solid. How can you be so— !"

"Calm?" completed Hiccup dryly.

"Stupid," she shot back.

"This is her crop, Astrid."

"— What?"

He sighed. "This isn't her stomach. This is her crop. It's like, her built-in fish-basket— this is where she carries food for her babies. And it's safe."

"Safe...? We're trapped— she's crushing us— there's hardly any AIR— !"

"— and aside from that, we're just wet," Hiccup pointed out. "It could really be a LOT worse."

"...Worse?!"

"We could be dead," he suggested. He nudged the bottom of the crop with the tip of his toe. "If we were down there, in her stomach, both of us would be stew right now. Digested."

"— but..."

"And if I was still outside, I'd probably be frozen."

"She SWALLOWED us— !"

"And we're fine! All this is is a living fish-basket," Hiccup persisted. "Stormfly's carrying us in her fish-basket. That's all. A fish-basket. A fish-basket can't hurt you, can it?"

"This isn't a fish-basket. A fish-basket can't CRUSH you," she cried. "She's trying to squeeze us to death!" Hiccup winced as she jammed her cheekbone roughly into his.

"I don't know about that," he observed dryly, brushing the wall weakly with his fingertips. "I think she's just trying to make us hold still."

"—whatever! But—"

" — because every time you move, you manage to pick a fight or something and hurt her insides."

"Good," she spat, sticking out her lip defiantly.

Hiccup sighed. "All right. Then you can't complain if she's trying to protect herself from you. That's what you want, isn't it?"

"I want OUT!" she snapped. "If you want to stay here and be CRUSHED TO DEATH, GREAT, Hiccup— but me, I'm not so, so blasted DRAGON-CRAZY, that I'd just LOVE to— to be—" she spat in a fluster, "DRAGON D-DUNG!"

There was a long, awkward pause.

She felt Hiccup's body tense and tremble.

He started laughing— a gentle, yet unrestrained laugh that seemed so different from the (she now realized) ingenuine nervous titter he always seemed to adopt around her.

This only served to shock, frustrate and dismay poor Astrid, whose eyes immediately flooded with angry tears, her hands curling into fists she couldn't for the life of her move.

"STOP IT!" she wailed, squirming violently. "It's not funny! Why is that funny? Are you completely INSANE? We are GOING TO BE—"

"Astrid- I'm sorry-" Hiccup choked, trying to swallow fountains of his own mirth and not particularly succeeding. "Here, I'll make a deal with you— we stay here — hfmph! — overnight... and if tomorrow morning, my — mff! — wildest dreams come true, and we happen to be— pfph! — DRAGON DUNG—I will personally let you pulverize me every day for a week—!"

"That doesn't even make any sense—!"

"We're NOT GOING TO DIE, Astrid—!" he squealed through a helpless grin. "I keep telling you, but you're not listening. We're SAFE. Stormfly's only doing this to keep us safe— and that's just because my dragon made her. They don't want to kill us. Why would they? Where else would they get their free fish?"

" —Free fish!?"

Hiccup snorted. "I don't think you're understanding how much free fish means to a dragon."

He chuckled off, but she remained in stony silence.

"I'm pretty sure there's— other stuff— they like, too," he managed, smiling thoughtfully. "The point is, we're going to survive this, Astrid. I-I promise you."

She puffed, stiffly. "How do you know?"

"—what?"

She puffed again. "How do you know we'll survive? How can you be so blasted sure?"

"Because—" Hiccup thought a moment. He knew from first-hand experience, regularly forced to sleep inside a playful Night Fury's crop, but he didn't think that would comfort Astrid any. "Because... I've seen dragons do this kind of thing before. They do it all the time — keeping their babies safe in their crops, vomiting 'em up later..."

"I've never seen it," Astrid said flatly.

"Well, I've been... um, watching, longer than you," Hiccup offered.

"Your dragon doesn't even have babies," Astrid pointed out.

"—He, uh, doesn't?" blustered Hiccup.

"Are you saying he does?" Astrid furrowed her brow curiously. "How—"

"No, no, no—" Hiccup babbled. "It's just... he finds... things— to do— with stuff... — look, it's not important how I know. We're just going to be all right— All right?"

"Um..."

"Look, even if I wasn't 100% sure— which I am," Hiccup pointed out, "fighting Stormfly isn't going to help us any. It'll be more pleasant for everybody if we all just relax."

"I can't," snapped Astrid— indeed, stiff and trembling hard. "I don't believe you."

"Astrid..."

"I'm— I'm scared..."

Hiccup raised his eyebrows in semblance of surprise. "I hadn't noticed!"

Astrid squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she had the comfort of being able to smash in his stupid face. How could he be so calm? How could he be laughing and joking at a time like this, crushed into a dragon's belly, their futures uncertain, their only possible escape out into the blizzard air where they just might freeze to death anyway?

It wasn't like Hiccup to be quite this jovial in a time of crisis. In fact, it was rare Astrid had ever seen him in such truly comfortable warm humor.

Did Hiccup... actually know what he was talking about? Even in a situation as bizarre as this? But... how?

"Hiccup—" Astrid asked, feeling ridiculous. "Please tell me- Have you been— has this... kind of thing happened to you... before—?" The idea was preposterous and she knew it, but at this point, she wasn't sure there could be another explanation.

"Wha— NO —!" he blurted, too loudly. "Ha, no, no, no— errrr whyyy would you— think, uh, that?"

Astrid bit her lip. "You... just seem pretty comfortable, for someone who's just been eaten by a dragon."

"Me—? Comfortable?" he squirmed a little, demonstrating his immobility. "I'm not—"

"You keep telling me to calm down and then trying to fall asleep," Astrid pointed out. "That seems pretty—"

Hiccup choked. "I keep telling you, it's— stuffy — I can't really help it— "

"All right."

" — I really can't see why would you think — Um... What?"

Astrid sighed, shivering. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"It was a stupid question," she murmured, shaking her head. "I— I'm sorry."

For a long moment, they hung there again together, submerged in melted snow and awkward silence, Astrid's heartbeat sharp and distinct as it hammered out over Hiccup's calmer one and Stormfly's thick, dominating, slow one. Hiccup's fingers opened and closed, gently kneading the wall, his cheek smoldering hot enough to rival the near-painful heat of Stormfly's own insides. The young Vikings breathed almost in unison, forced to by the breaths of the dragon herself, which squished them rhythmically as they rode her massive lungs. With every exhalation, their breaths would mix together hotly in the half-inch spaces against the wall, only to be sucked back in again, laced with the sharp foul smells of being breathed over and over. It had been stripped so much by now that it was hardly air at all.

The thin air and the soft lulling of the dragon's hot belly and the gentle sloshing of the water and Astrid's warm— if sharp and bony— body curled around him made it so easy for Hiccup to find himself drifting back to sleep. But he knew he couldn't. Not while Astrid was still so terrified— not while poor Stormfly still had to fight to subdue her.

And Astrid was still going strong, stiff as an axe-handle, occasionally causing waves in the soup with her violent bouts of defiance, and shaking like a Gronckle's wing. It was a definite improvement over her throwing punches at everything in reach, but Hiccup knew that was only because they were squeezed too tightly now inside for her to do anything more. He did feel pretty sorry for her— he knew a lot of her confidence and security was stored in those fists.

Hiccup sighed.

"It's not stupid, Astrid," he murmured.

By now it was so late, Astrid had forgotten the conversation entirely.

"What?" she spat in annoyance.

"Asking why I'm so comfortable in here," he forced himself to insist. "It's not stupid." He sighed. "Asking if I've... done this before."

He winced.

Astrid's entire insides seemed to flutter uncomfortably under her ribs. She paused struggling, her body quaking with disgust.

"What... are you saying, Hiccup?" she prodded.

"Um," he swallowed hard. "I'm saying I... well, I have done this before."

Astrid made an odd, strangled puffing sound, but didn't speak.

Hiccup bit his lip. "I— I'm actually pretty used to this." It felt weird to say this out loud, to feel the sound of it actually vibrating off the close walls and shaking in the thin air around them. "This happens to me a... lot," he carefully enunciated, the sound of a secret uttered out loud making his own eardrums twinge in the close space.

" — this—? " Astrid hissed helplessly.

Hiccup squirmed in discomfort. "Yes, this."

"...this?" she choked again in disbelief.

He sighed. "Toothless. Back when he was stuck in the cove? He would get kind of lonely, and he didn't like it when I left, so sometimes he would... make sure I couldn't leave... and swallow me up and make me stay in here." He sniffed miserably. "Well, not in here. I mean —"

"In his," said Astrid quietly.

He nodded. "In his. In his crop." His fingers curled longingly against the walls.

Astrid thought a moment. Hiccup didn't know how it was possible, given they were already crammed together, but he thought he could feel her intentionally snuggling closer into him. "And you're still alive..." she murmured.

Hiccup puffed sharply through his nose in a weak, cynical sort of substitute for an actual laugh. "Oh, Toothless wouldn't hurt me." He smiled weakly. "I understand how scary it can be though. It was pretty terrifying for me the first seven or eight times he did it—"

He heard Astrid's breath catch in her throat. "Seven or—?"

His face burned. "I told you. He does it a lot."

"I know, but I didn't think—!"

"Anyway—!" he snapped hastily. "I... I'm pretty sure I know what I'm talking about, okay?"

Astrid nodded slowly, her mouth trying to form words, thoughtfully wrapping herself more tightly against Hiccup's small, soft-but-bony frame. He was calm. His little heart fluttered steadily under his spidery ribs, and his whole body swelled with level sighs.

"So... we're safe," she murmured. "The dragons put us in here... to keep us warm. And that's all." Her brow furrowed thoughtfully. "But..." She curled her fingers suddenly into Hiccup's shoulder. "If Toothless likes to- to swallow you so much, why are you in the belly of MY dragon?"

Hiccup bit back a tiny, nervous smile. "Well, Toothless would've HAPPILY done it, but his crop was already full, and I wouldn't let him empty it. So he bullied Stormfly into doing it instead." He wriggled a little, his fingers still clasping at the velvety walls. "It's actually much roomier in here, anyway," he tittered cheerfully.

Astrid jerked, trying to thrust her foot into the wall and unable to get any leverage. It was demonstration enough. "THIS is ROOMY?"

"Well," he flustered, "Not now, but when she's all relaxed. Toothless' crop is... much smaller. Like, the maybe the size of a fish-basket, when it's all stretched — with, um, me. He couldn't hold both of us like this." His cheeks smouldered. "You know..." he fumbled, "We could get her to relax for us now, if you promise not to kick her anymore."

Astrid shivered, clinging to him. "She's really not going to hurt us?"

He shook his head. "The last thing she wants is to hurt you. I promise. She's just afraid you're going to hurt her!" He pushed his fingertips experimentally into the wall. "Can you feel that? She's all tense. All this is probably making her crop ache."

Hesitantly, Astrid turned her fingers to the wall as well, really feeling it for the first time. Hiccup was right- it was hard and trembling, exactly like an exerted muscle— which, she guessed, was exactly what it was. Astrid tensed her belly, pondering what it must be like to crush two little Vikings into place inside, trying not to let them move. For some reason, the idea made her smile shakily in a kind of amused sympathy. It seemed like that really would ache anyone after a while. Poor beast.

She arched her fingers into the shuddering wall, stroking it as best she could. "How do we let her know she can relax, now?"

She could feel Hiccup's hands working the wall too, gently massaging. "You could try asking her," he quipped.

Astrid bit her lip, reluctant. "You really think thatwill work?"

Hiccup shrugged. "It might. If she's listening."

"If she's listening..." Astrid was suddenly struck again with how bizarre all this was. She was hanging suspended in a tiny dark space, smashed uncomfortably close to Hiccup, and all of this was inside— actually INSIDE— the rather mild-mannered beast she had ridden on top of all day today, (and for many days before) and had never had any real problem with. Even more oddly, now, she was about to speak to what was essentially a wall, with the full expectation that said wall would be listening.

She kneaded the wall hopefully. "Um... Stormfly?" she said vaguely toward the ceiling. It seemed like the walls themselves were sucking up her voice into their spongy shuddering sides, swallowing sound so completely that that the word seemed to drop instantly out of the air and back into their ears like something shot with Hiccup's Mangler.

There was no response. Astrid's heart fluttered, but Hiccup nudged her, and she tried again, a bit louder this time.

"Stormfly...?" she called. "Stormfly!"

The dragons at the time had both been concentrating heavily on the Nadder's belly, the poor hostess stiff, wide-eyed and shaking as she contemplated the still-gently-squirming bodies inside of her, and the anxious Night Fury staring hard at the Nadder's pale middle even as he paced relentlessly back and forth in a little trench he had tramped through the snow.

Both stiffened in shock as the tiny sound pierced the silence.

Going completely still, Toothless' auricles outstretched and trembling, the two of them could distinctly hear the little girl-creature calmly but loudly enunciating her little cry for the Nadder.

Stormfly blinked at the Night Fury. The little black dragon yapped insistently, bobbing his head to urge her to respond. This wasn't like the distressed squeaks and squeals the poor thing had been making. The girl creature sounded like she had calmed down, and Stormfly could feel something curious inside— the little humans were still moving, but now it was in a way that didn't hurt so much. In fact, it actually felt rather nice.

Both young Vikings both let out short yelps of surprise as the beast around them tensed even more tightly, raising the water level dangerously high and threatening to snap their bones. For one long moment Astrid panicked, figuring Hiccup must've been wrong, and that this last bit of insolence had been the final straw for the poor distressed beast sick of trying to babysit them. Perhaps they'd be more easily manageable in pulp form, impaled on each other's broken skeletons and churned formless enough to comfortably fill the space instead of pushing out annoyingly against the walls.

But Hiccup firmly clasped her arm, forcing her breath to catch in her throat— a breath finally released in a desperately relieved half-sob as the world all around shook and echoed with Stormfly's gentle, hesitant gurgle.

Stormfly was listening. As easily as that.

Astrid gasped for a moment, too relieved to say anything. Hiccup did know what he was talking about. "Stormfly," she finally panted, the water level so high it was difficult to speak without her tongue being splashed with the diluted taste of sour fish. "You can... let us have some more space now, please."

She winced as the dragon's body echoed with a deep, mournful moan. The belly around them twitched thoughtfully, but tremblingly held in place.

"Let us move! Please?" Astrid said again, her voice shrill.

A deep gurgle, but still no other response.

Hiccup nudged Astrid again. "Well?"

"Well, what?" she snapped, spitting hot water.

"What else?"

"What else is there?!" she hissed. "If you know so much about it, you do it!"

Hiccup bit his lip. "I don't think it'll mean anything to her, coming from me."

Astrid frowned, dismayed at how stiff the walls still were— even more so now that she knew all she would have to do is appeal to the beast to make it stop. But how?

"Stormfly, I—" she faltered. Then she swallowed hard. "I'm sorry I hurt you. All right?" She kneaded pleadingly at the wall. "I'm sorry. I was just... it was scary, and I thought you were going to hurt me and Hiccup."

Stormfly twitched around them, making a gentle scolding rattle.

Astrid blinked. "I know. It was silly. I didn't know you could, um, hold us like this. I thought we were your dinner— that's what usually happens when you get eaten, isn't it? So you can't blame me for being scared, can you?"

The dragon made a hesitant little grunt.

"But... I guess we would be icicles if we weren't in here," Astrid puffed. "You're, you're just— trying to keep us alive. And I know that now. So..." She rubbed firmly at the wall, willing it to soften. "I'm sorry, okay? I won't hurt you anymore. I promise. I— I promise."

The dragon around them shivered and shuddered nervously, the surprisingly expressive crop-muscles rippling in a curious way from their heads to their toes.

Astrid winced, waiting for a response, her joints screaming, Hiccup's metal leg slicing painfully into her calf, a hard object she presumed was Hiccup's knife pressed worryingly tight against her boot.

Stormfly made a shrill, hesitant moan.

And then, finally, as quickly as the squeezing had started, it ended— swiftly and very much without warning, with an incredible (albeit bizarre) sensation, as if the world was melting away into liquid all around them.

The Vikings cried out in surprise as everything softened and loosened, causing them to "fall" a few feet through total darkness, finally sinking into a cloud-like softness like a gigantic pile of pillows. From there, the two of them could only writhe there in shocked relief, choking and gasping gratefully for air and letting the blood flow back into their limbs as the sloshing water gurgled away, down through some invisible tunnel, deeper into Stormfly's mysterious depths.

"And..." coughed Hiccup, "there you go."

Astrid immediately writhed and struggled to shove herself as far away from Hiccup as she possibly could, now that she had the freedom and the option. The crop wasn't exactly large even nice and relaxed like this, and she was still less than a knife's length from Hiccup's side, but compared to their compressed conditions earlier, it felt like an infinite void. It was certainly nice to be able to stretch out her legs even the little more that they could– and did she, wriggling her feet gently but with an insane delight.

She sighed, her chest fluttering hard.

She smiled.

It seemed like she could practically feel every inch of her limp body once again being nourished by blood– feel her lungs finally able to inflate to their greatest capacity, even if it was only with damp, fishy hot air.

She could hear Hiccup, too, gasping in relief off somewhere across that black void, and borderline giddy, she hugged herself. It seemed so strange, so invigorating, that she could hear him breathing without having to feel it– smell it!– too.

It was the most incredible feeling of freedom in the world.

"T-thanks, Stormfly," Astrid finally managed to gasp, the moment she remembered it. "Thanks."

Stormfly purred, and the sumptuously soft walls curled and rippled, creating a little nook in the flesh just for Astrid to sink down into. The sensation was unbelievably ticklish and weird.

Astrid laughed as she was cuddled and stroked all over. "What's she... what's she doing? She's–!"

"Saying hello!" Hiccup exclaimed, squirming amusedly as Stormfly pinned him into his own snug crop-hug. "Probably figuring out which of us is which."

Astrid blinked in wonder. "She can feel that? With her stomach?"

Hiccup shrugged, retrieving his knife and sliding it back into his belt. "She could feel us kicking."

"Telling us apart is– kind of different, though," Astrid mused.

"Oh, I really don't think it's too hard," pointed out Hiccup, gently yet sardonically. "All she has to do is figure out which side of her crop is the most sore."

Astrid rolled right over, gave him a heavy punch in the gut (admirable, really, given how dark it was), and then rolled back, snuggling into Stormfly's embrace.

"C-case in point," Hiccup wheezed.

"Well excuse me for being just a little bit freaked out that we got EATEN, Hiccup," she spat, sulking in the soft, strange little cradle Stormfly had sculpted for her, rubbing hesitantly at the wall beside her even as she muttered sullenly. "Once, that kind of reaction could've saved us both, you know."

Hiccup cradled his head back in his hands thoughtfully, the peaceful lull of the stuff all around him making his eyes narrow, and finally shut. "I guess all this goes to show that we're not in that life anymore," he mused. "Even being eaten by a dragon means something completely different than it did back during the raids."

Astrid sighed, shivering as she tried to let herself relax. "It just seems like a lot to get used to."

Hiccup puffed amusedly. "Well, you will get used to it. Probably sooner than you think, too."

Astrid paused, trying to squint at him in the dark. "What...?"

There was a bizarre, tortured moan, right above their heads, that shocked Astrid so much she jerked in surprise, making Stormfly yap uncomfortably.

"What was THAT?!" she hissed.

"That's Toothless!" Hiccup laughed, the tummy bobbing as he squirmed to push himself up against the front wall. "Hey, Bud!" he said, gently and cheerfully, "Feeling kinda left out, there, huh?"

There was a softer, but dismally mournful whine, and even Astrid thought she could feel an odd prodding from the outside.

"Is he–?" She reached out in the dark, found Hiccup's skinny arm, and followed it carefully up to the back of his hand. Lacing her fingers into his, she could feel the incredibly odd sensation of what seemed to be the dragon's snout pushing in on them from the other side of the flesh. Weirded out, she hastily withdrew, shaking slime from her fingers.

"Just checking up on us," Hiccup smiled, pushing teasingly at the lump. A snuffling could be heard on the other side, followed by another short whine.

The Nadder sighed, chopping her jaw irritatedly as the funny Night Fury sat in her personal space, nuzzling her tummy as if she were nothing more than a fish-basket with an enticing tuna inside.

She puffed him with hot air from her nostrils and cackled, scolding him, trying to nudge him away from her belly with her beak. She had JUST managed to get the human-babies to behave, and she didn't want him to bother them and get them all scared again. Already she could feel that he was making her girl nervous, though of course the Night Fury's boy was being quite sweet and gentle, if a bit irritating himself, as he chirruped at his dragon and tried to touch him through her skin.

The Night Fury glared up at her, eyes narrowed threateningly, and with a defiant little grunt, pressed his nose into her swollen tummy again.

Stormfly rattled, miffed, opened her mouth, seized Toothless's small skinny body, and to his great surprise, lifted him away from her chest. Carefully, she wrapped her paws possessively around her belly, and with a curt gollop, placed the little Night Fury off to the side.

Self-satisfied, she snuggled into the snow, nestling her head between her shoulders, and closed her eyes up again.

The Night Fury stumbled, offended, into the snow as she released him, then stared for a long moment at her big dumb shut-eyed head. After a moment, he barked.

No response.

He barked louder, leaping angrily in the snow and tapering off into a threatening snarl.

The Nadder's eyelid flickered, and she smugly snuggled her head deeper between her shoulders.

Toothless grumbled, then stomped right back up to her chest.

Stormfly opened an eye, giving him a challenging gaze, daring him to try something. He snorted a puff of steam and gave her the same.

She raised her foot threateningly, but Toothless only saw it as an opportunity to try to weasel himself in. Stormfly didn't let him get far– she promptly seized him in her talons and pinned him to the ground.

On a good day, the Night Fury was a willful beast and would've been able to easily escape, fighting like hellfire. But today, Stormfly stopped him with a soft scolding and a meaningful gaze. The little humans needed to rest, and he needed to be careful not to bother them, especially her extra-sensitive little girl one.

Toothless went limp and sighed, his ears drooping. He didn't like being so separated from his Hiccup. Dejectedly, he shifted around the heavy bundles that filled up his crop, but they were no substitute for his warm, snuggly, breathing, bony best friend. He stared back at the Nadder plaintively, making a sad, low little sound.

It wasn't fair. He loved the Vikings too. It wasn't his fault that Hiccup had given him special work so that his crop had been all filled up. Toothless mumbled grumpily. The Deadly Nadder hadn't even wanted to help. Toothless would've happily taken care of both of them all by himself if he had been big enough to swallow two young Vikings without his poor crop bursting. But he was only a small dragon. And his chest only had room for one Hiccup inside. And that was when Hiccup hadn't filled him up already with big heavy bundles.

It wasn't Toothless' fault he couldn't help. And now the Nadder wouldn't even let him be near his boy!

It was agony for Toothless. He knew in his heart of hearts that Hiccup was very safe inside Stormfly's belly, but he couldn't help but worry. It was still weird to think his Hiccup had been eaten up by another dragon. He couldn't get comfortable with the idea. Hiccup was so little and sweet-tasting and foodsy and could make a nice dragon-snack, so Toothless was very protective of him. Now Hiccup seemed uncomfortably far away, even though he was only tucked up right there on Stormfly's innards.

Toothless sighed, flaring his nostrils unhappily at the Nadder. He trusted her, but how would he know Hiccup was safe if he couldn't stay close by?

Stormfly blinked, making a low, thoughtful gurgle. Grudgingly, she sighed, raising her Hiccup-side wing. Then she picked Toothless up in her paw.

Toothless squawked in protest, writhing and struggling, making things very difficult. Stormfly yapped and squeezed him tighter, trying to make his many wriggly limbs hold still, and then carefully tucked him in underneath her wing, squeezing him snugly against the side of her belly with her foot.

He struggled, not understanding why Stormfly insisted on restricting him so- until he heard a very tiny, inquisitive Hiccup-chirp burble up from under the taut hide just beneath his cheek.

Toothless blinked in surprise, and looked up, baffled, at Stormfly. She narrowed her eyes at him and made a smiley rumble, then curtly shut her eyes and snuggled him closer, ready to sleep.

Toothless blinked again, then gently touched his snout to Stormfly's heaving side, rumbling gently and softly so as not to disturb her. His Hiccup was in there. Safe in there. Hiccup was wondering what had happened, pressing his little paws eagerly against his nose.

Toothless gurgled possessively, clinging to this part of Stormfly's belly hungrily with his paws as he lay warm and curled against her underneath her wing. Here, he didn't have to worry about his feet freezing off. And he could be as close as possible to his Hiccup!

"What was that about?" murmured Astrid.

The young Vikings had been subjected to an inexplicable, weird cacophony of odd twitches and dragon noise, but now all she could hear was Stormfly's breath, which seemed to be getting slower and slower, and Toothless making odd sounds, sort of soft, charming, conversational jabbers somewhere outside the wall near Hiccup.

Hiccup contentedly kneaded his fingers into the gooey wall. "Working out sleeping arrangements, maybe."

"...Sleeping arrangements?" A chill shook through Astrid's insides. "They're going to... sleep?"

"Well, it'sabout time we all slept, anyway, isn't it?" Hiccup murmured. "It's been a long day. And there's not exactly anything else we can do, is there?"

"No, but... Is it safe? If she's aslee– p?"

She faltered, feeling his warm arm bump unassumingly against hers. Was he trying to-? Nothing. Just lying there. Maybe he'd slipped. Whatever it meant, she let him. This time.

"Incredibly safe," Hiccup assured her confidently. "One of the safest places you could be in the whole Archipelago– probably one of the warmest, too!"

Astrid bit her lip. It was hard to be convinced.

He chuckled dryly. "Trust me. I know a thing or two about dragon sleepovers. The only thing we might have to worry about is breakfast tomorrow."

"Uh... Why?"

He snorted. "It, um, tends to drop in."

"Uuuugh..." She shuddered, leaning her arm slightly closer to his.

It was so hot in here…. Despite her anxiety, she began to understand why Hiccup found it so easy to drift off to sleep here; something about the heat and the stuffiness, the softness and the ambient dragony noises, seemed to melt her stiff, tired flesh– a throbbing, primal hypnosis.

Still, she was having trouble relaxing. It was just too… weird. To her chagrin, she found herself clinging to Hiccup's arm. He didn't seem to mind; he bent his wrist and gave her a gentle, reassuring squeeze.

"I'm probably going to fall asleep again soon," he admitted, his other hand caressing at the Toothless-side wall, met with eerie, distant Night Fury purrs. "I can't help it. It's…. cozy. And I mean… I'm used to it. I just…."

"What?"

"I just want you to know that you're not alone," he managed. "I hate to see you so scared. I mean, I get it! I just– you don't have to sleep if you don't want to. I wouldn't blame you."

"Hiccup…." Astrid gnawed her lip, rather ashamed. "It's okay. You can sleep. I'll be… I mean, I guess we'll be fine, right?"

Hiccup yawned. "Of course! But I mean….if you need me, just wake me up, okay? I'm right here."

Astrid nodded. Where else would he be? It wasn't like there was anywhere else to go– barring some of the very awful, but presumably unlikely possibilities, she supposed. She shivered at the thought. It was bizarre to be so safe, mere inches from danger– but then, she figured, it wasn't unlike being around dragons in general. For all Berkians, but perhaps Hiccup in particular– a small soft thing surrounded by fearsome friends, vicious animals and thunderous family– living on the edge seemed to be a way of life. Hiccup had a rare sense of subtlety that seemed to benefit him in these situations– something which certainly didn't come naturally to her.

She tried shifting position, onto her cheek, and found the slimy feeling of the wet flesh against her cheek to be distasteful, seeping against the corner of her eye and the corner of her mouth. She made a face.

Stormfly– or at least, the natural impulses of her never-sleeping organs, undulated beneath her, caressing the small of her back and forming around her shape in a way that would've, should've been pleasant, if it weren't so unsettling.

She took a shaky breath of resignation, then pointedly flopped over to settle her head on Hiccup's chest, which stiffened slightly at the pain.

It was embarrassing, but it was better. Hiccup was firmer than the shifting walls, his wet fur coat and bony chest things she was familiar with and understood. He even managed to smell better than everything else at this proximity, a bit like rainwater and sweat. When she shut her eyes, it almost seemed halfway NORMAL for once; she could pretend they were lying together on a soft grassy hill in the stuffy sun-warmed air beneath a dragon's wing…

She didn't care what Hiccup thought of the situation, but was curious regardless to feel the funny meter of his breath as it shuddered underneath her, his arms shifting uncertainly underneath him. Nervous? She could tell Hiccup was far more afraid of her than any dragon.

Something about that was comforting.

She let out a long exhale, squeezing her eyes shut determinedly, burying her ear in his fur coat so she could hear his tiny heart fluttering deep inside, pretending that she could feel his body heat as a separate entity from the dragon's around them.

Silly, but surprisingly effective.

She slept.

Hiccup gingerly took another deep breath. She was…. On him. Well, voluntarily, this time. He resisted the urge to whine awkwardly, not sure what to do with his hands; he figured doing nothing was probably least objectionable. He tried to meter his breath, not sure if he should pretend to be asleep, or…. What if he breathed weird? He wriggled his head, trying to get more comfortable, trying to distract himself.

She clearly knew something he didn't, since apparently this is what it took for her to finally relax enough to fall asleep.

He gasped a shaky exhale. It was having rather the opposite effect on him. He knew dragons inside and out, but girls? Astrid? Now that was some scary stuff.

He felt a nose-lump prod against his ear, hearing a curious gurgle from his dragon outside.

"Shh, shhh, shh, Bud!" Hiccup hissed, slightly panicked, feeling Astrid shift slightly on his chest. "She's…. she's finally asleep, Toothless! She's…. sort of got me as a pillow." He inched his hand up next to his head to cup his fingers around the imaginary snout.

Toothless made a softer, happy sound, and Hiccup could hear the comforting, muffled squish of the dragon's big tongue sloshing in his jaw– a familiar friend-noise. Hiccup smiled, sighing.

"How are we getting out of here tomorrow, Bud?" He chewed his lip thoughtfully. The best solution by far would be to send the dragons home and let them out in the warmth of their houses– but to even risk Dad seeing that a dragon had ingested them was a huge nope. Hiccup was sure that wouldn't end well, especially with how tenuous everyone's trust of the dragons still was.

On the other hand, being let out straight into the cold, even assuming that the weather had calmed down a bit, would not only be uncomfortable- it could be deadly.

Why hadn't Astrid built the fire? He supposed it would be rather shocking to come back to find him gone…. She had no way of knowing he was safe. Still, it would have helped a lot…

There was still those bags inside Toothless– though Hiccup found himself becoming less certain of them now… Especially without a fire, wouldn't any heat they'd offer drift away almost instantly?

Thinking about the bags reminded him of something else, too; his stomach growled, much to his embarrassment, causing Astrid to shift in her sleep. They hadn't had anything to eat for hours, and all their food was in the bags too. Hiccup grumbled. He'd been hungry before, but still…. At least he'd be up nice and early to work this all out.

Toothless gurgled, nuzzling at him gently. Hiccup pushed back again, appreciatively.

"Do you miss me, Toothless?" he whispered, leaning his head into the beast's vague shape.

Toothless gurgled, whined, purred, and pressed a longing paw gently against him. He could be quite the chatterbox when he was emotional.

Hiccup smiled. "It's okay, Bud. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" He thought he could feel the rich Night Fury rumbles vibrating up to him from the other side, loosening his tired, sore muscles. He let himself relax again, his body softening under Astrid's head. She didn't seem to mind, her head tipping cozily, her nose puffing him warm with her breath…. His stomach shuddered, his eyes watering even as he shut them decisively.

It didn't take much longer than that for him to drift back to sleep, cozy and certainly not alone.

Toothless woke early to the sound of his stomach growling. He chopped his jaw contemplatively, shifting the sacks around inside his swollen crop, half-surprised to remember that they weren't Hiccup. He'd had such strange dreams last night, visceral ones about the feeling of a human inside the crop, or maybe feeling Hiccup melting away inside Stormfly. Sad. Scary.

He blinked, remembering. Hiccup was INSIDE Stormfly. Still.

Toothless tipped his head, pushing gently into the Nadder's chest. Still felt heavy and lumpy; the humans were probably still sleeping.

He sighed, settling again.

Surely Hiccup didn't like being inside another dragon very much. He was being good and polite, sleeping peacefully, but Toothless knew that Stormfly's crop was too big and squishy and scary for his poor little human to like very much. Hiccup liked Toothless's crop much better, because it was perfectly Hiccup-sized and only Toothless would snuggle him in there.

But... what if Hiccup DID like it more inside Stormfly?

The thought upset Toothless, and he began to worry. He didn't like sharing his Hiccup.

What if Hiccup liked hiding in Stormfly's crop?

Toothless didn't think he'd be able to bear it.

He had to know. He whined softly, nuzzling urgently at Stormfly's chest, trying gently but insistently to wake Hiccup and ask whose crop he liked best.

"What's that?" murmured Astrid, still mostly asleep.

Hiccup woke blearily, nauseously hungry and slicked with a thick, uniform layer of slime, hearing Toothless wheedling and biffing him in the ear. He wondered how he wasn't waking Stormfly, who still breathed slowly and contentedly around them, apparently none too bothered.

Hiccup squinted for a moment at his surroundings, and finding nothing to see, shut his eyes again. "Is it morning, Toothless?" he breathed.

The dragon replied with odd sounds, sort of soft, charming, conversational jabbers somewhere outside the wall. Inconclusive... Hiccup fought the urge to roll over and go back to sleep.

"Are you ready to get up, or do you just miss me?" Hiccup prodded again, turning his head into the squeezy wall to be felt.

"Does he have to be so loud?" Astrid murmured, burying her ear more deeply into his coat.

"Usually," Hiccup snorted. "Can I– just…."

Astrid groaned disapprovingly as Hiccup shifted himself more upright against the wall to be as close as he could to the beast outside. It was like he and his dragon had a sort of magnetic energy between them and it wasn't even a choice; he would always snap back to Toothless, even if he happened to be stewing in another dragon's stomach at the time. "He's lying right out here," Hiccup explained to her, rubbing wearily but affectionately at the wall.

"I know, I can hear him," she grumbled.

Toothless was still making a bizarre, yet soothing clucking sound that Astrid had never heard him make before.

"It sounds like he's talking to you," she mused.

Hiccup sighed. "He knows Stormfly's a good dragon, but I think this whole thing makes him nervous. It's been some… hours, after all. He's probably eager to get us out soon."

"Well, we are inside someone else's stomach," she pointed out, rolling up to sit and trying to stretch the kinks out of her legs in the cramped space. "I'm rather eager to be out myself."

Hiccup listened to Toothless' chatters thoughtfully, feeling the great snout prodding with deep yearning through the flesh at him. He could faintly hear the dragon's tongue smacking in its jaws, as if it could barely stand being unable to caress Hiccup's cheeks and ears with warm sticky licks.

"Hey!" Hiccup chattered, pushing back at the dragon lump. "We're just fine, Toothless. You woke us both up. I think it's about time to come out, though."

Toothless seemed particularly pleased to hear this.

"You didn't think I'd want to STAY in here, did you?" Hiccup asked in disbelief.

Toothless hemmed and hawed sheepishly.

"Are you– are you JEALOUS, Bud?" Hiccup chuckled. "You're such a silly dragon. Stormfly didn't choose to eat us, you know."

The stomach around them tensed as Stormfly awakened with a grumpy yawn. Too loud….

"Sorry, Girl…" Astrid sighed, squidging her own fingers into a wall thoughtfully. "Now that she's up, can we just… ask them to let us out?" she asked Hiccup.

Hiccup bit his lip. It usually wasn't that easy, but this was a much different situation than he was used to, and he couldn't imagine that Stormfly had had the most wonderful time with them. Her stomach was gurgling with hunger as it woke up beyond, and while he was very much sure it did not portend danger, it still made him sort of nervous.

"Uhhhhh…." he murmured. "What's it like out there, Bud? Is it still snowing?"

He rather wished he could have a more clear answer, but the gentle slurping outside the wall, the Nadder shivering ticklishly, seemed to be positive news.

"Do you– could you maybe just let us see out?" he inquired.

The Vikings hissed as a few big swallows of slush joined them without warning, Stormfly apparently having her morning drink.

Well, if they weren't awake enough already, they were now.

Chilly and irritated, Hiccup nonetheless took the opportunity to examine the snow's texture as best he could; of course most of it was melted near-immediately by the dragon's vibrant heat, but there were some harder, more prominent ice-balls that he hadn't recalled feeling during last night's deluges. He took this as a hopeful sign; fresh powder would've been liquefied almost immediately. This was likely the more-packable second-day snow, stuff some sun had got to.

Or, at least, that was the best-case scenario. He probably knew snow better than your average boy would, but he wouldn't claim to be an expert.

He bumped Astrid gently, telling her of his findings. "It might actually be okay out there…. I think."

She shivered. "Well, what are you waiting for?" She prodded the floor pointedly with her foot. "Let us out!"

Stormfly gurgled nervously, shifting all around them, just as hesitant about throwing them up as she had been about swallowing them down– maybe moreso!

But Toothless chided her on with gruff barks, pawings and headbutts, and soon everything around them began to heave and twist, weakly at first, then stronger and stronger, pumping them up against gravity.

"Not– not all the WAY out!" Hiccup managed, not long before he was crammed into the gullet alongside Astrid. "Mmmmf, catch us in your mouth, so we don't–!"

He was choked out, but Toothless seemed to either have heard or understood. With a final bone-popping twist, they were ejected out onto the tongue, instantly blinded by snow-bright light flooding into the half-open jaws. Stormfly gurgled, uncomfortable and annoyed, and as Hiccup's eyes came into focus, he could see the black auricles of Toothless just outside beyond the teeth, his snout to the Nadder's lower jaw to keep her from tipping them out onto the snow.

"Ohhh…. Oh gods…." Astrid gasped, shuffling herself up to sit and drinking in the wafts of fresh, clean air, squinting but eager to peer outside as she felt herself over to make sure she was all there. She noticed Hiccup eyeing her, and brusquely, she snagged her gaze away, grabbed a mitten from nearby on the tongue and pocketed it.

Hiccup knew that feeling. The first breath and light after this sort of thing was something special, though also soggy and embarrassing; altogether, almost like a sort of rebirth. He squinted outside between the teeth too, the bright whiteness making his eyes ache. Once he could get a bit more focus he saw that the sky was blue and snow was no longer falling, Toothless' footprints sharp, clear impressions in the hardening snow. It was still cold, but that was to be expected during winter on Berk. It was nothing close to the face-biting weather of last night.

Hiccup exhaled thoughtfully. Their breath was too caught up in Stormfly's to be visible, but he could definitely see it billowing down from the dragon's nostrils. The Nadder's tongue twitched uncomfortably underneath them, a gush of saliva draining back down into the great gullet below.

"So, let's just hop out," suggested Astrid, sliding herself up towards the gap in the teeth.

Hiccup followed cautiously, and poked his head out along with her.

There was an unbearably chill sensation as his wet hair froze practically instantly, his shock doubled by the eager SPLAP of Toothless' tongue across his face as he was greeted enthusiastically by his best friend.

"Hold on, hold on, hold on!" chuckled Hiccup, trying to push the happy beast away. "Still wanna jump out?" he jibed, noticing Astrid's own bangs frozen solid.

She grimaced. "Well, what else can we do?"

Hiccup bit his lip, salty-fishy with mixed dragon juices. "Where did you start building the fire?" he asked, squinting down into the bright snow.

"Ummmm..." she peered down as well. "Obviously it's all covered up, but…. That might be it right there." She gestured to a subtle lump.

Without prompting, Toothless bounded to the heap with a questioning flick of the ears. He lowered his nose curiously, puffed with his snout, and with a gentle swipe of this paw he unearthed a bit of wood.

"Heyyy! Good job, Bud!" Hiccup encouraged from his perch in the Nadder's mouth. "Can you go ahead and try to light it up for us?"

Toothless cocked his head curiously. Humans usually didn't let him touch their things before they were finished. The girl hadn't given him permission last night. Would this be okay? He squinted down at the wood. It was only a stack of wood. Toothless knew how to light that. Or at least, he thought so.

His eyes cautiously on the humans, gauging their reactions, he gently huffed onto the wood. It took a breath or two to dry the wood enough to catch, but his profound inner heat eventually fizzled the moisture to steam and soon a perfectly happy, crackling fire appeared.

Toothless blinked. That wasn't so hard! He slurped thoughtfully at his snout, then looked back up at the humans.

"Good job, Toothless!" Hiccup called.

Toothless gurbled, pleased, and bounded back to peek in at them, snuffling at their hands and faces. The Nadder let out a groan of displeasure, her tongue shifting again underneath them.

"We should get out of here," Astrid pointed out.

Hiccup nodded. "One more thing," he mentioned, tickling under Toothless' chin. "Bud, go ahead and put down those bundles for us, okay?"

"Um," started Astrid, baffled. "What bundles?" She watched intently as Toothless spun back to the fire, then gave Hiccup a sharp look.

"Ah. Hah." Hiccup tried not to let himself wither. Wasn't he used to scrutiny by now? It was harder when it was Astrid…. He cleared his throat. "My saddle bags. I, uh, did an experiment."

He didn't have to explain the details. Toothless was dutifully gagging them up, having chosen a well-calculated position near the fire. Maybe they had some chance of the items being warm enough to use after all!

Astrid gave him such a wrenchingly bewildered look he could've died.

"Don't knock it yet," he managed, weakly. "Trust me."

Gods, this had better work. He swallowed hard.

Already the air near them was warmer from the proximity of the fire. It was amazing the power a little of that had. Toothless raised his wings and walked back towards them, in an effort to waft some heat over.

"Let's go," said Hiccup, giving Astrid a pointed nod.

"Finally," she grumbled.

The Nadder grumbled too, though mostly in relief, finally able to lower the little Vikings off of her sensitive tongue. It withdrew, slurping uncomfortably, back into the depths of her mouth as the humans stumbled clumsily into the snow on legs stiff and weak from a night of squishiness.

She swallowed over and over, unable to shake the feeling of her mouth and throat being full of hair. Blegh. She tipped her head and began to gulp heavy mouthfuls of snow.

Toothless supported Hiccup and Astrid on their surprisingly shaky legs, the humans clinging to his heat as he half dragged them towards the fire. Ohhh the heat felt so good on his wings and head! He wanted to jump right into it and roll around, though he knew from past experience that didn't work so well, especially with a fire this small.

Hiccup managed to shuffle a few steps ahead, making sure he made it to one of the bundles before anyone else. The dark leather was slimy and cooling, but to his delight and relief he could feel a deep, vibrant dragony-heat retained within. Maybe it was because he was breathing fresh air after so long, but to his nose it didn't even smell that bad all things considered– more like wet leather than anything else.

He swallowed hard and began peeling it open.

Inside, there was a warm, soft, almost entirely dry blanket, a pouch of dried fish, and a perfectly preserved loaf of bread, which somehow had stayed totally dry, maintaining its crispy crust and filled with a profound, comforting heat as if fresh out of the oven.

Hiccup pulled the bundle to his chest, careful to keep the leather layer between his wet body and the dry, warm items, and turned excitedly to Astrid.

She eyed him skeptically. "What…. Is all that?"

Hiccup answered by gleefully tossing the blanket over her shoulders and closing the food into her hands. "I had Toothless keep us some things. Had no idea we'd need it this bad though."

Astrid pulled the blanket tighter around, baffled at its profound heat, and even more at its lack of smell (it might've been the smidgest damp, but so was she, so it was hard to tell for sure). "How did it stay so dry?"

Hiccup was covering himself up with a blanket too, though the dragon was sticking so near he almost didn't need it. "I wrapped them up really good," he smiled, stroking the dragon's neck. "And Toothless must've had some self control and not messed with them too much. Huh, Bud?"

The dragon burbled sheepishly, snuffling at Hiccup's neck, giving him loving touches and tastes. He wished he could lick all that Nadder-smell off of his Hiccup…. But that would just make him all wet again. Maybe when they got home… He contented himself with little nibbles of the boy's hair.

Hiccup, very used to this treatment, barely minded it as he settled down close to the fire, already warm enough to part the blanket a bit and let the heat sear through to his chest. Astrid settled beside him, tearing voraciously into the food. Hiccup couldn't blame her. He took a bite of the dried fish and let the smoky flavor spread over his tongue. It was the simple things.

The Nadder, finished with her drinking, took a few paces closer to the fire and reclined again, this time lengthwise, with her nose nearly in Astrid's lap and her wing raised to drink in the heat. She burbled grumpily, giving Astrid a hesitant nudge.

Astrid paused for only a moment before leaning bodily into the beast's face, scratching affectionately at her horn junction. "It's okay, Girl. We appreciate you so much for what you did for us." She gave Hiccup a look. "It was gross though."

Hiccup munched thoughtfully. "You get used to it after a while," he murmured through his food, then swallowed. "You might be lucky and not have to do it again, though."

Astrid gave him a look. "Hiccup!" She shivered. "Gods, don't talk that way. If I never go through that again, it'll be too soon."

"I'm just putting it out there," he shrugged, pulling off a piece of bread. "I mean, my first time was certainly not my last. Toothless LOVES it."

Toothless gurbled, narrowing his eyes. He couldn't help it if Hiccup was DELICIOUS.

She wrinkled her nose, scratching at Stormfly's nostril scales thoughtfully. "Yeah, but I put up wayyyy more of a fight than you. I'm indigestible."

Hiccup smiled. "That's probably true."

Stormfly made a profoundly unwilling sound, nudging pleadingly into Astrid for forgiveness by way of affection. Astrid obliged, slipping her a couple fish that she'd found in another satchel.

"See? She's sensible," she pronounced, satisfied, stroking the dragon's face thoughtfully as she ate. "As for your dragon…."

Hiccup looked up to see her producing another fish, holding it contemplatively for a moment.

Then, with sudden vigor, she whipped it right onto Toothless' head, making him start from nose to tail in such surprise that for a long moment the fish lay flopped across his face uneaten.

"Thanks," Astrid managed, gruffly but haltingly. "I know I didn't– couldn't, appreciate it, but…. Thanks for saving Hiccup. And me. We'd be dead otherwise, so…Good dragon."

Toothless blinked a few more times in surprise tinged with a slight bit of terror, then hesitantly sucked the fish down from his head by its fin, and with a quick, distracted snap and a swish of his tail, it was gone. Hiccup put an arm over the beast's head and held him close, smiling.

"We're so lucky to have you guys," he murmured into Toothless' rainy-smelling warm scales. The dragon huffed happily, nibbling at his hand.

"Just…. don't do that sort of thing again," mused Astrid, swallowing her last bite of food and hefting herself to her feet. "Well…. Unless you really have to."

Stormfly made a face. No one needed to tell her twice. Toothless nuzzled deeper into Hiccup's chest; he'd have preferred to have done it personally anyway.

"Are you…. Ready to go already?" Hiccup asked, watching Astrid dust snow off the back of her blanket, which she was wrapping around herself resolutely in the stead of a second, dry coat. Toothless took this distraction to lick sneakily at some of Hiccup's jerky. Hiccup all-too-willingly relinquished it, and the dragon lifted his head to snap it down, giving Astrid a similar kind of curious look.

Stormfly was reluctantly rising with her, though with little prompting. Astrid made to climb up her side. "I…. am so beyond ready to go. I'm going to have to bathe for a week after this!"

The Nadder gave her a small, affectionate lick, apparently unaware that that wouldn't help much, but Astrid didn't dissuade her. She gave Hiccup a look. "Well? You coming?"

Hiccup sighed, having just got cozy, and fairly certain that Toothless had eaten more of his breakfast than he had.

"Sure," he wheezed decisively, pulling himself up.

"Hey." Astrid's voice floated over, lower, almost secretive, as she flung him what was left of the bundles. "Thanks to you, too, Hiccup."

Hiccup stumbled, partially from shock, partially from the sudden fwap of the heavy leather against him. "T-thanks for what?" he managed in surprise.

Her eyes narrowed, her cheeks sort of flushing. She couldn't look at him. "You know. The blankets, the food, and…. Earlier. The… The comfort." The word was almost foreign on her tongue, like she wasn't sure she liked the way it sounded. She forced herself to look back at him. "Really."

Hiccup blinked, wide eyed, nodding slowly. What should he do with his hands? "Oh it's… It was nothing. Really." He swallowed hard. "Um, any time, Astrid."

Toothless gurgled, butting him with his snout, mercifully breaking the awkward, flustered beat.

That dragon was always ready to fly. He did more of the lifting than Hiccup did to get him up into the saddle, though it took a bit more prompting to get the fire put out and the camp cleaned up.

"Do you think you know where we're headed, then, Astrid?" Hiccup called, as they prepared to take to the air.

Astrid turned in her saddle and gave him a look. "Of course I do."

Hiccup tilted his head from side to side. "Just making sure."

Astrid scoffed, not without humor, and took to the air with such a whip of her dragon's tail that Hiccup and Toothless were sprayed with snow.

Hiccup smiled to himself as they leapt up after her. She was just fine.

–

FIN