Astrid looks like she's still queasy from all the anger she's pent up over these past two weeks. I mean, she nearly took off Hiccup's head earlier, but I assumed she was over it.

But she looks sick now. Happy, but sick.

"Astrid. Psssst. Astrid." I'm crouched on a little ledge under Tuffnut's window, waiting for the opportunity to sneak my hand inside and pull him out by his hair. Looks like that dream is gone, baby. Astrid's in big trouble, and needs me to sort it out for her.

I sigh. Girls.

"Ruffnut. Get down." She sounds almost dreamy, but airy, and scared, and unsure, nothing like her usual snappy, feministic self. I wonder what happened to her.

I jump down, and the two of us sit. I brace myself up against the wooden wall of the side of my house, and Astrid curls up, resting her chin on her knees, staring dolefully at me.

"I need to talk to you," she says softly, a faraway look in her eyes. Then her hardness comes back, just for a second. "But only if you swear on Tuffnut's life you'll never, ever tell anyone or do anything about what I'm about to say."

She's never asked me to swear on Tuffnut's life before. I guess this is really, really important, then. She's only ever asked me to swear on my life. To swear on my twin brother… I hope I don't have to tell this secret, because I know she'll kill him.

"Okay."

"Swear it." Astrid looks austerely, coldly at me, and I say, clearly, "I swear on Tuffnut's life I won't tell anyone whatever you're about to tell me. Satisfied?"

"Very." I raise my eyebrows. I'm waiting. "Well?"

Even though all of Berk is asleep, Astrid looks a little panicky at the thought of saying her secret out loud. Then she leans in real close to me. She smells different, strange, not cinnamon like her perfume. She smells like the wind. Where has she been? She whispers in my ear something very softly. I can't hear her. She leans back, then bursts out, "Hiccup has a dragon!"

"WHAT!"

I'm on my feet already, and Astrid jumps up, looking murderous. I don't know where her axe is, but she wants it desperately. "Ruffnut!"

"Oh. Sorry." I plop down on the ground, my limbs feeling like grass. Hiccup has a dragon? "You're actually serious?" I prod, staring at her.

Then she starts to tell me a story that will be burned into my memory forevermore, and I know she could never think of something so complicated without it being true and being able to spout it out in a minute.

"This afternoon I cornered Hiccup before the Elder decided. I was threatening him because he was late for something he wouldn't say. There was nothing to be late for. Everyone was here. When I stomped off, I went to the woods. A few days ago I ran into Hiccup in there, he was wearing a harness and carrying something. But when I tried to follow him, he was gone.

"So I went back to that general area, and I found an entrance to a cove with a lake. It was beautiful, and I wondered if he was going there to get away from everyone because he's so popular now. But I had run, so I was waiting for him. I sat on a big rock and was sharpening my axe to scare him when he came blundering in, talking to someone about leaving forever, wearing the same harness and everything. He was just under my rock when he opened a basket, beginning to take things out, when I dropped the rock and jumped down, twirling my axe-"

I snort. I can't help it. I can't see Astrid twirling an axe, but I stuff my fist in my mouth and gesture for her to go on.

"And he kept making up excuses, but I wanted so badly to know what was going on, because he was beating me. He even admitted that 'this' looks really bad, and tried to get me to drag him back to the village. I twisted his arm and threw him on the ground, and dropped my axe on him, saying that was for the lies, and that for everything else.

"Then we heard a noise on the far end of the cove, and suddenly Hiccup was standing beside me, and I screamed at him to get down, because a Night Fury was jumping toward us, and I swung my axe but he leapt up and tackled me, swung my axe away, and spread his arms between us, soothing it, and saying to me it was okay, I just scared him.

"I asked, 'Who is him?' and he introduced me to 'Toothless' who very clearly had many, many spear-sharp teeth. Then I shook my head and ran away.

"I was running back to the village without my axe, very vulnerable, and to tell Stoick, and just as I was looking behind me, I leapt over a log, but then I was soaring, screaming and holding onto the dragon's front leg that had grabbed me."

"They landed on the top of a pine tree and it bent in half. I was hanging by my hands, and we were arguing, and I was demanding for Hiccup to get me down, but the dragon didn't want to. Finally he wanted to show me and I had no choice, I climbed up behind him.

"This dragon was really nice to Hiccup, and they weren't fighting, but it hated me because I tried to kill it and, I guess, hurt Hiccup. He even made a saddle for it, and half of a tail. This Night Fury was the one that Hiccup shot down during the last raid. No one even believed him, but it was true! It was all true, it was on Raven Point, but it lost half its tail and it couldn't fly. And Hiccup has a steering thing for it…"

Astrid stopped a little, looking dreamy. By now, my mouth is open, gaping, completely astonished. Hiccup built a tail for a dragon?

"And he told the dragon, 'Toothless, down. Gently,' and he made a little noise, and the next thing I knew, I was falling off the back because he was directly vertical in the air, and the big black wings were pumping next to me, and I was sure I was going to die, yelling and screaming the whole time.

"Toothless-"

"He NAMED the dragon?" I can't help it anymore, I've never been able to be quiet. "And you call it by his name? Toothless, you said? A dragon?"

Astrid sniffs a little superiorly, then says, "Toothless' teeth retract."

"Oh, of course. That explains everything." Astrid's smiles are so rare, but she gives me one now, grinning. She must know how lost I am, she's new to this too…

"Well, as I was saying, Toothless stopped for a little bit, and I thought Hiccup got him under control, but I guess the turning was not working for Toothless, because he was doing whatever he wanted – then he folded his wings and fell, and we were plunging in and out of the water, I could hear Hiccup screaming at him, chastisements, like a friend, almost. Then Toothless was spinning completely out of control, and the only thing to do was to stay on was to hold on to Hiccup, and he was holding on to the saddle.

"He was so warm, Ruffnut," Astrid sighs, and I know she's on Toothless again. "He was so strong and sure in the way he was telling the dragon what to do, and even though he wasn't steering he was still helping.

"I was screaming, and almost crying, and I yelled that I was sorry because all I wanted was for this torture to end. And the dragon heard me, Ruffnut! He stopped spinning and evened out and it was amazing…"

She sighs. "I wish you could have seen something like it. We were up in the clouds, and there wasn't a sound – all of them were pink and fluffy from the sunset, they were huge up close. It was so…magical, to be there, with Hiccup in the clouds. I even touched one."

"And I realized that I liked him. He had shown me so much. We don't have to kill them, they don't do anything wrong…"

"What do you mean, we don't have to kill them?" I'm incredulous. This is Astrid, the girl who placed top in Dragon Training only after a misfit, who, it turns out, was hiding his pet dragon in the woods for weeks now. Training to kill dragons. Gladly.

"I'm getting to that," she says quickly. "I brought up the final exam, and how Hiccup would have to kill a dragon. I tried to say it quietly because I didn't want Toothless to start flying like that again – he was flying over Berk, it's so beautiful at night, with all the lights and the mountain – I want to do it again so badly – but Toothless did anyway, he flipped over, and suddenly there were dragons all around us."

This is the part of her story I find least likely. First the romance and adventure – standard, unexpected in form, but usual enough. The peril part is the unusual part, if there's anything dangerous other than the dragon raids on Berk and frostbite, I won't live to see it.

"And we were away from Berk, going through rocks, and then there was a volcano. Helheim's gate."

"We flew inside, it was a pit, and the dragons were throwing all the food inside. They weren't eating any of it! But we found out what it was, because there was a Gronkle that only gave one little fish, and this…"

Astrid breaks off to shudder, and I have fear for the first time. Whatever can make Astrid Hofferson shake like this is something seriously dangerous. She isn't kidding. This is real.

"This… thing comes out of the hole. It was a dragon, Ruffnut, but it was so big, it swallowed the Gronkle whole, easily, and Hiccup had Toothless fly us out, it was like a whirlpool of dragons, there were so many, screaming and shooting up the top of the volcano to escape, but it got a Zippleback, and it swallowed that one, too. It's like Toothless knew if Hiccup had to kill a dragon he should kill that dragon."

"We don't have to kill them, it controls them, if they don't get enough food to it, then they'll be eaten themselves… We need to go there and help them. But after the exam. Anything now will put Hiccup in danger. Because when Stoick and Toothless meet each other, things won't go well."

She seems herself again, planning, sure of herself, a steely look in her eye. I want one more proof, so I ask shrewdly, "How do I know you're not lying? How do I know that this isn't just a joke? Did you get a scar? A burn? Anything?"

She scowls at me, thinking. She looks over her arms, then tightens her fist. "You want me to give you one?"

"Oh, no," I say dramatically, getting up, ready to run off. "I just wanted to be sure I wasn't being played with. So. No proof, huh?"

Her mind is working fervently, the gears are turning, and suddenly, they all click into position as she jumps up, too.

"Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll prove to you that all of this happened." She gestures to the sky. "I swear on your life."

Then she turns tail and runs away.