Thanks to those of you who commented on the first chapter. ^^ It really means a lot to me when I see that my story has gotten a new review.


Chapter Two

Hiccup's eyes fluttered open the next morning when a stream of brightness slid through a crack in the roof and hit him right on the face. He blinked a couple of times, sitting up on his bed to get away from the ribbon of brightness. He looked up and saw the small hole in the roof where the sunlight was cracking in. He would have to remind himself to tell his father about that; it wouldn't be very convenient in a rainstorm.

When Hiccup swung his legs over the side of the bed, he found himself surprised that he didn't accidentally kick another sleeping body. He observed the entire room, but didn't see Toothless anywhere. He shrugged it off, guessing that the dragon had just gone outside a little earlier. Toothless knew how to open and close their front door, which wasn't a very rare thing throughout the village. All the doors on the buildings weren't that hard to operate; simple push or pull.

The teenager descended the stairwell, letting a large yawn escape. He saw Stoick sitting in front of the fire downstairs, slowly rotating a piece of chicken on a sharp metal rod. Hiccup reached the bottom of the stairs and walked over to sit across the fire from his dad, stabbing a fish with another metal rod before holding it out over the flames. The two Vikings sat in silence while they watched their food slowly cook. After a few minutes, Hiccup decided to break it.

"I could take you to get a dragon today, if you'd like," he offered, throwing Stoick a small grin. The chief didn't return it. Hiccup groaned. "Come on, Dad; don't say that you don't want one. Even if you don't want to fly, you could get a Terrible Terror! I've heard that they make great pets and provide plenty of company if you're ever alone." Stoick grunted, ripping off a piece of his chicken with his teeth.

"Don't need one," he muttered through the meat. Hiccup rolled his eyes, pulling his fish out of the fire. He hesitantly poked the dead animal with his fingers, and then sucked a sharp breath of air through his teeth and started frantically shaking his hand. After the burn subsided, he carefully tore off a very small bite of skin. He immediately spit it back out again when it burned his mouth.

"You say that now," Hiccup continued, setting his fish down to cool off. "If you actually got one, though, I'm sure you'd like it. You never know until you try, right?" Stoick didn't answer, continuing to chew on his chicken silently. Hiccup decided to give up. "Whatever, Dad. By the look of the position of the sun, I'm guessing I didn't wake up too early. Astrid and I are meeting up to hang out today, so I'll see you later."

"Are you going flying?"

"No. We're just taking a walk."

"Don't go too far."

"No need to worry."

Chomping down the whole of his fish in merely four large bites, Hiccup hung his metal rod up on one of the hooks on the wall. He grabbed the metal handle on the front door, pulled it open, and welcomed the cool breeze that blew into his face. He opened his mouth, letting the coldness of the wind cool it down a bit.

"Don't be gone too long, either," Stoick called after him. Hiccup turned back to face his dad.

"Okay… Is something happening today that I don't know about?" Stoick's eyes were full of confusion, but then he simply grinned and took another bite of his chicken.

"No, no. If it's not to be known by you, then I won't tell." Hiccup's eyebrows narrowed, but he decided not to press the subject. He was excited to go see Astrid again. With a quick wave to his dad, he stepped out into the wind, letting the heavy wooden door swing closed behind him. He began hobbling down the hill towards the rest of the active village.

Seeing all of the other Vikings already bustling around and most of the dragons already taking up the skies, Hiccup was positive that he had overslept. He found this fact strange, since he had gone to bed rather early the night before. Well… early for him.

He found Astrid in Reia's barn just on the side of their house; Astrid's mom still wasn't too comfortable with having a Deadly Nadder sleep inside. Of course, their little Terror was allowed inside whenever he so pleased.

"Hey," Hiccup greeted, walking over to her. She looked up from raking out the straw and grass, giving Hiccup a grin.

"Hey," she repeated, continuing to brush out the contents on the floor of the barn.

"Uhhh…" Hiccup chuckled, eyeing her little project. She threw him a playful punch on his arm.

"I woke up and came out here to find Reia gone," she explained, continuing her work. "So, I decided to take advantage of it and clean out her stall. I haven't cleaned it in a while… I've been pretty preoccupied by some chief's son."

"Hey, now!" Hiccup laughed. Astrid chuckled with him. "Don't use me as an excuse to get out of work."

"Okay, okay, whatever," Astrid said, still chuckling. She raked out the last of stall's contents onto a large, spread-out tarp. She leaned the rake up against the side of the barn before kneeling down next to one of the corners of the tarp. She looked up at Hiccup almost expectantly. "You mind helping…?" she asked gently, giving him another smile. He couldn't deny that beautiful face.

"Erm… sure," he responded, carefully kneeling down to another of the corners. They worked together to take all of the corners and fold them up to make the tarp into a large bag. Astrid tied the ropes hanging from all four corners tightly together, keeping the straw and grass and other contents in the bag. When she was satisfied, she carefully moved the bag back into the stall, along with the rake.

"I'll take that down to the Burn Yard later," she murmured, exiting the stall. "We were going to do something today…?" Hiccup beamed as Astrid grinned yet again.

"Yes we were," Hiccup stated brightly. "Let's go." They started off towards the edge of the village, in the direction of the woods. They kept a hesitant space between themselves while in view of the buildings, but as soon as they were in the deep army of trees, Astrid slid her hand into Hiccup's. Hiccup couldn't stop the blood from rushing to his face.

"I wonder where Reia went off to," Astrid wondered aloud while they walked.

"I wouldn't worry about it," Hiccup replied. "I woke up this morning to find Toothless gone, too. Maybe they're off doing something together." He chuckled at the thought.

"Toothless hardly ever leaves your side," Astrid pointed out, sneaking a quick glance down at the Viking's prosthetic left foot. Hiccup silently rolled his eyes.

"He's very capable of taking care of himself. And he knows that I am, too. I'm perfectly fine with him going off to have some alone time if he needs it." Astrid sighed, letting the conversation come to an end. She kept her eyes on the ground, watching her own feet take each step through the forest. Taking her sudden silence as something it wasn't, Hiccup turned his head to look at her.

"Hey… are you okay?" he asked tentatively, gently squeezing her hand. She looked up to meet his worried gaze.

"I'm fine, Hiccup," she answered, puzzled by his sudden question. "Why do you ask?"

"I don't know. You just… you seem down."

"It's nothing to worry about, really," she assured him, giving him a small grin. Not fully convinced, Hiccup decided not to bug her about it. He returned the grin as they continued walking.

After a good hour of walking and quiet conversation, they came to a large tree that was broken near the base, leaning over against one of its sisters. They stood at the top of a hill, where a large rut began. The rut ran down the hill and then went up again over the top of a small bump in the ground. Hiccup immediately recognized this place.

"Whoa," Astrid breathed, taking it in. "What do you suppose happened here?"

"This is where Toothless fell when I shot him down," Hiccup muttered. After a second of silence, confusion swept over him. "Wait… how have you not seen this before? You've been to the canyon before…"

"I went another way," she answered, still observing the broken tree. "I completely skipped past this."

"How did you find your way there, then? I thought you had just followed me, and I always went by this area."

"I did follow you… from a distance. I kept a large amount of distance between us when I followed you, to make sure that you wouldn't see me. I completely missed this cracked tree and this crash site."

"…clever."

Astrid took the first step into the rut, helping Hiccup carefully along it. He mentally cursed his prosthetic. It had been much too easy to get down this rut when had had both of his feet. It was embarrassing needing Astrid's help now… though, he couldn't deny that he liked the way her arm wrapped around his waist.

Hiccup sighed and closed his eyes when they reached the little clearing where Toothless had landed over a month ago. The cut bolas still rested on the ground, since Hiccup had never bothered to pick them up. The image of Toothless all tied up and vulnerable entered Hiccup's mind, and he tried to shake it out. He hated remembering what he had done to his best friend. The look of fear in the dragon's wide, green eyes when the Viking had held the knife up above him, mirroring the same fear that the teenager had felt. He slowly trailed his hand along the side of the large rock that he had hidden behind… and had been slammed back into. Remembrance of the pain that had shot through his head when the Night Fury had pinned him by his neck suddenly came back to him. He subconsciously rubbed the back of his head, groaning quietly in discomfort.

"And no one believed you…" Astrid murmured, touching the bolas on the ground. Hiccup turned his gaze over to her.

"Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure everyone believes me now," he replied, slipping some sarcasm into his voice. Astrid threw him a quick smirk.

They continued through the woods in the direction that Hiccup remembered the canyon was in. He hadn't been there in almost a month… but, since he had snuck there every day when he had been hiding Toothless, the path there was etched permanently into his mind. The sunlight filtered through the trees as they walked, which meant that it would be bright in the canyon. Hiccup wondered to himself why there was so much nice weather, with winter right around the corner.

The young Viking couldn't stop the smile from spreading across his face when they finally arrived at the canyon. The sun glistened off the small body of water, and a hazed rainbow was visible near the bottom of the small waterfall. This was what it had looked like the first day Hiccup had come here and found Toothless trying to escape. The canyon almost looked empty without the large, black dragon there, waiting for the Viking to arrive.

"And here we are," Hiccup whispered, realizing in that moment just how much he had missed coming to visit the canyon every day. He smiled at the sun that warmed his face as Astrid gently squeezed his hand.

"It's as beautiful as I remember it being," she murmured, a smile on her face as well. They walked down to the canyon's ground level and knelt down, taking turns crawling under the Viking shield that Hiccup had wedged in between two large rocks on his second visit to the canyon. He hadn't felt the need to remove it, and so there it stayed.

A bird chirped before taking flight out of the branches of one of the many trees. It turned down, flew down to the water, and stole a small fish with its beak before disappearing into the tree again. Hiccup chuckled.

The two Vikings walked, hand in hand, around the pond and over towards a coincidentally placed crescent made of large rocks, all the same size as the rock back at Toothless' crash site. Hiccup grinned as they walked by the large lines drawn through the dirt. Through all the constant rain that Berk received, Hiccup was surprised that Toothless' attempt at drawing a picture in the dirt still remained. The two sat down in the middle of the crescent rocks, hands still intertwined.

"This is nice," Astrid stated, observing the canyon some more. Hiccup leaned his head back against the rock behind him, closing his eyes.

"Mhmm," he mumbled. It felt nice to be sitting next to Astrid, their hands held together, the sun warming their faces. A slight breeze blew off the cool water, causing Astrid to shiver very slightly. Hiccup felt her shiver and immediately began slipping his fur vest off of himself.

"Hiccup, you don't have to…" Astrid began.

"I want to," Hiccup pressed, flashing her a grin. She returned a soft smile as Hiccup wrapped his vest around her shoulders. Astrid welcomed the warmth against her bare arms, wearing the vest more like a cape than a vest.

"Thanks," she murmured as Hiccup rested back against the rock.

"No problem," he replied. They were quiet again, listening to all the different birds singing around them.

"Astrid, I have a question for you," Hiccup said, breaking their silence. Astrid looked over at him, seeing that his head was back against the rock and his eyes closed again.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Why do we hide… us?" Astrid's eyebrows rose as her eyes widened; she hadn't been expecting a question like that. Hiccup opened the eyes nearest to Astrid, wondering why she was hesitating so much to answer him. "Astrid?" he said, opening his other eye and raising his head away from the rock.

"Sorry, I just… wasn't expecting that," she said quietly, looking away from Hiccup. "Do you not like hiding us?"

"No, no! It's fine! I'm just curious as to why we do." Astrid sighed.

"I don't know, Hiccup, I guess it just seems king of strange. You're the chief's son and I'm just another Viking. It's weird to show how I feel about a boy who's going to lead the village one day."

"Then… what persuaded you to kiss me in front of most of the village when I woke up after defeating the Red Death?"

"I wanted to show people that I do care for you. I just feel a little awkward doing it every day in front of the entire village. Besides… we can do more in private." Hiccup felt his face heat up.

"I, erm… I suppose so," Hiccup stuttered. "If we, um… If we stay like the way we are, do you think we'll ever show… us?"

"I think so. Couples can't hide forever. Especially a couple including the chief's only son." Hiccup smiled at the sound of the word "couple". After all the years of him wishing that he and Astrid would become a couple, he was ecstatic that it was finally happening. He began leaning in towards Astrid without thinking.

"Don't worry about it," he said quietly to her. He gently took her chin in his hand and turned her head to face him. "We can hide for however long we want to… as long as this never ends." He leaned in, closing his eyes, and softly pressed his lips to hers. He felt her hand snake around to grab the back of his neck, pulling him further into the kiss.

"Never," Astrid whispered when their lips parted for a second. Hiccup had a second of air before Astrid pressed her mouth to his again. After a short moment, Hiccup threw himself harder into the kiss. He began moving himself around to Astrid's front, refusing to break their lip contact. He took her legs in his hands and wrapped them around his waist as he sat right in front of her. He kept his hands on either side of her face as he pressed her back against the rock. Their lips moved furiously against each other, Astrid sliding her hands up into Hiccup's reddish-brown hair.

Their lips ripped apart with both of them screaming at a loud horn that echoed off the trees. Hiccup gasped for breath, trying to slow his heart rate down. Astrid did the same.

"That's the village," Hiccup stated, unwinding Astrid's legs from his waist. "We'd better get back."

"Right," Astrid agreed, clearing her throat quietly. Hiccup got to his feet and then offered Astrid his hand. She gratefully took it and let Hiccup pull her into a tight embrace. He pecked her on the lips once more when they pulled apart, giving her a toothy grin. She giggled.

"Come on," Hiccup chuckled, taking her hand in his again. They began back to the village and, by the time they were re-entering the forest, Astrid's nerves were taking over. Hiccup was too full of bliss to notice her hand shaking in his as they walked.


I know we're not really gettin' anywhere with the plot quite yet. I'm just trying to set everything into motion with these first couple chapters. The next chapter will be kicked up a notch with the plot-building, I promise you. This chapter is basically surrounded by AstridxHiccup fluff and more of Stoick's reluctance to own a dragon of his own.

Please review! Feedback is what keeps an author going, peoples, it really is!

~ Taylor