I don't own How To Train Your Dragon

I was jostled out of my daydream at the sound of metal grinding against metal, as Gobber lifted up the gates to the Dragon Training Arena.

'Welcome to Dragon Training!' He announced, speaking just loud enough for me to hear.

He held his arms wide as he spun to face the new recruits following him into the arena. I watched in mild interest as they looked around with varying degrees of interest. I watched on with amusement as they tried to hide their nerves. Gobber had asked if I wanted to be down on the arena floor with them, but I decided that I got close enough to dragons during raids. I was still close enough to get to them in case of an emergency.

I frowned when I noticed the teens turn to look towards the entrance, their looks of interest quickly turning to ones of disgust. My eyes widened when the object of their attention walked into the arena behind them, looking as though he'd rather be anywhere else than here right now. What the hell was Hiccup doing here?

I couldn't hear what was being said, but from Hiccup's expression when Gobber threw an arm around his shoulder and started to forcefully guide him towards the retreating teens. Hiccup was forced into line besides Fishlegs as Gobber made his way to the front of the class to begin his lecture.

'Behind these doors,' he started, once again only just loud enough for me hear. 'are just a few of the many species you will learn to fight. And if any of ye'r worried you'll get hurt, our resident doctor in training in nearby to make sure you don't loose ye'r arms.'

I waved awkwardly when Gobber pointed up towards me. The twins and Snotlout glowering at the sight of me. Astrid remained indifferent, but Fishlegs and Hiccup both waved back just as awkwardly.

'Now, here we have the Deadly Nadder.' Gobber called out, regaining the classes attention. He pointed at the locked doors of the Nadders' prison. I flinched when the door's rattled ominously.

'The Hideous Zippleback.' More rattling. 'The Monstrous Nightmare.' This time the doors looked barely able to contain the dragon, as the hinges and locks strained to keep the captive dragon inside. 'The Terrible Terror.' The door's rattled again, followed this time by growling.

I jumped in surprise when Gobber's voice suddenly became louder as he shouted 'Can you stop that!' I looked back at the teens and found Fishlegs quickly looking down in embarrassment.

'And, the Gronckle.' Gobber finished resting his hand on the lever besides the Gronkle's cage.

'Wait!' I managed to hear Snotlout as he called to Gobber in a panic. 'Aren't you gonna teach us first?' I stood straighter, waiting to see what happened. What was Gobber up to?

I didn't hear the reply as Gobber pushed down on lever and released the Gronkle. The dragon burst through the doors, growling in anger before the doors had even completely unlocked. It's wings working quickly as it flew around the arena, watching the panicking teens carefully. I ducked down when it got too close to me, not wanting to become its target.

'Today is about survival. If you get blasted,' Gobber began again as the dragon barrelled through the line of teens, causing them to run off in different directions. 'Well, we'll find out just how quickly Hazel can run. Now what's the first thing you'll need?'

'A shield!' Astrid called out.

All six ran for the wall of shields, grabbing the first one they could get their hands on. I watched in frustration as Hiccup took longer than the others to actually put his shield on. I had to force myself not to call down to him to get a move on, Gobber had to force the shield on him. My frustration quickly turned into exasperation when I realised the twins were fighting over the same shield. I dropped my head onto my hands, not wanting to see what happened. Those two will need to be carried out on a stretcher if they carried on as they did. Whoever thought it was a good idea to put the two in the same class was an idiot.

I only lifted my head when Gobber called out 'Ruffnut! Tuffnut! You're both out.' The two were currently pushing themselves off the ground. 'Your shields can also be used to make noise! Use it to confuse a dragon and throw off its aim.'

They began knocking their various weapons against their shields, making as much noise as possible whilst continually moving around to confuse it. The Gronckle shook his head as it tried to concentrate.

'Every dragon has a limited amount of shots. How many does a Gronckle have?' I shook my head in disbelief as Gobber continued to ask questions. How could any of them concentrate on both the questions Gobber kept throwing out, and the dragon that was doing its absolute best to kill them?

'5?' Snotlout called out, looking around in a panic. Yeah, great dragon killer my butt.

'No, 6!' Fishlegs corrected, lifting his shield in excitement as he realised he got the answer right.

'Correct Fishlegs!' Just as Gobber said that, the Gronckle shot a blast at Fishlegs' shield. 'Fishlegs out!' Fishlegs was more than happy to drop his hammer and run away yelling.

My eyes found Hiccup again as he began creeping out from behind the empty weapons wall, only to dive back behind it at the Gronckle shot a blast at the wall next to him. I groaned and lowered my head again. This was a disaster.

This time however, I didn't lift my head again, not even when I heard Snotlout cry out in pain and Gobber say 'Snotlout! You're done!' That meant there were only two people left in the "game", Astrid and Hiccup. I debated risking a peek, but when I heard another fire blast hit a wall, I decided it was a better idea to look elsewhere.

'Hiccup!' My head shout up at Gobber's panicked cry.

Hiccup was busy running away from the Gronkle, now missing his shield, and heading towards the arena wall just opposite me. Realising the problem with his plan, he turned to run a different way, but fell to floor and had to push himself back up against the arena wall when he realised the Gronckle was a lot closer to him than he probably expected.

I was pretty sure my heart had stopped beating. The Gronckle pressed himself closer to my friend. His jaw opening to land the fatal blast.

'Hiccup!' I cried. If he got himself killed, I was going to kill him.

I managed a breath of relief when Gobber managed to get his hook hooked in the Gronkle's mouth. Pulling its head to the side, causing the blast meant for Hiccup to hit the wall just above his head. Hiccup ducked down, covering his head from the falling rocks that had come loose from the blast. My heart restarted itself, beating at a fast pace that I was sure couldn't be healthy, as Gobber dragged the dragon away from Hiccup and back to its prison cell. Only just managing to lock it away, despite clearly having a lot more fight in it.

My shoulders relaxed, and I'm certain that about 5,000 years' worth of stress had just lifted itself off of me.

I ran down to the gate so that when Gobber opened them I could kill Hiccup myself. The moment the gates were opened, I pushed passed the other teens and barrelled into Hiccup. Wrapping my arms around his neck in a tight hug.

'Hazel… can't… breathe.' Hiccup gasped.

'Good!' I cried, pushing him away from me and whacking him on the arm. 'What the hell were you thinking? You were almost killed! Why didn't you do something? Why were you running towards the wall in the first place? Were you born an idiot? Or is that something that only showed up recently?'

'Um… well…. Hazel it really… I didn't mean…' He fumbled over his words, looking up at me like a scared little puppy. Something I was ashamed to admit I was pretty proud of. I raised an eyebrow.

'Well?' He flinched away from me, looking down at me in fear.

'Um… sorry?' I crossed my arms over my chest, tilting my hip out as I looked at him incredulously.

'Is that a question or a statement?' He stammered again.

'Um… uh… i-it was a statement?' Both eyebrows went up this time. 'Statement.' He amended.

'Hiccup lad?' We both turned to see Gobber approaching us. His eyes darting from me to Hiccup cautiously, while a hint of a smile played on his lips. I bristled at the sight. How could he find this funny? 'The rest of us will be going now.' Over Gobber's shoulder I noticed the other teens sniggering to themselves. My eyes narrowed. 'But make sure to come by the Great Hall at dinner time for another lesson.'

'Yeah, sure. No problem. I'll see you there. Can't wait.' Hiccup chuckled awkwardly. Gobber nodded and walked away, ushering the other teens out of the arena. Snoutlout complaining that he wanted to see Useless get beat up by the tribe's freak. I let out a breath of frustration. I was going to kill that kid. 'Oh boy.' Hiccup breathed, once they had gone. Rubbing the back of his neck.

'"Oh boy" is right.' I growled, turning to face him once more. 'Seriously Hiccup, what were you thinking?'

'I was thinking that I didn't want to hurt that dragon!' He cried, waving his arms around like crazy.

'So you decided to get yourself killed instead?' I crossed my arms again.

'Of course not!' He looked horrified that I would even ask that.

'Are you sure? Because it definitely didn't look that way!' He groaned and threw his arms up in exasperation.

'Look, we can continue this later.' He promised, putting his hands on my shoulders crouching down slightly to look me in the eyes. I always thought he had the nicest green eyes I had ever seen. I used to think green eyes looked kinda murky and dull. But Hiccups' were nice. They reminded me of the forest. 'But I've really got to go.'

I snapped out of my admiration of his eyes and frowned, remembering I was supposed to be angry at him.

'You have to go? Where exactly do you have to go?'

'I'll tell you later! But I seriously need to go.' He let go of my shoulders and ran for the open gate. I stood still for a second, trying to register what had just happened, then scowled. I was not going to wait around for him to come back.

'Hiccup Haddock! You wait till I get my hands on you!'

I managed to catch up to him fairly quickly, despite his longer legs, and the two of us ran for the forest together. Trying to stay out of sight of the villagers. Which ended up being a lot harder with Hiccup complaining with every step.

'If you think I'm gonna leave you alone after what I just saw, you're clearly a bigger idiot than I thought.' I final snapped. He shut up after that.

There was absolutely no way I was going to leave him alone today. Especially since I still wanted to know why he was now in Dragon Training.

I followed him deeper into the woods until we came upon a pile of discarded torn ropes, attached to multiple weights. I watched on in confusion as Hiccup knelt to the ground and picked up one of the ropes, looking over it carefully. Had this been where he had found the Night Fury?

'Why didn't he kill me?' He finally asked. Breaking the silence that had fallen over us.

'Excuse me?' I asked, not sure if I heard him right.

'Yesterday, you asked why he didn't kill me.' He answered, looking up at me. 'Today, Gobber said a dragon always goes for the kill. He didn't. But why?' I shrugged, not knowing how to answer him.

'C'mon, let's go see if we can find anything.' Hiccup decided, dropping the rope and getting back onto his feet.

We followed an invisible trail as we made our way further into the forest. We pushed through the underbrush, having to stop a few times when our clothes got caught on stray twigs or branches. I followed Hiccup as he made his way between two massive boulders, having to duck down to avoid the large branch that had fallen between the two rocks. He looked behind just as I cleared the branch, and after giving him a short nod, we barrelled on.

We came to a stop just outside the boulders exit and had to look around in both amazement and confusion. Green shrubbery, not unlike the rest of the forest, decorated the small area that surrounded the nearby lake. Natural walls circled the area, protecting it from outsiders. The trees growing above the walls stretched high above us, casting shade down below. And the sun that managed to break through over the trees, created a soft golden glow which, to me at least, seemed to become brighter at the sight of a small flock of birds making their way back to their nests, chirping happily as they went along.

'Did you know about this?' I breathed, not daring to speak louder than a whisper. I mentally scolded myself, it wasn't as though this place would completely disappear if we spoke at normal volume.

'No.' I relaxed slightly when Hiccup spoke in the same tone. Although he seemed to be more confused than amazed.

As I was busy admiring the view, I didn't pay attention to much else. Which was why it took Hiccup nudging my arm (which admittedly made me jump as I had honestly forgotten that he was there), before he crouched down to look at something on the ground. Lowering myself down beside him, I frowned as I finally noticed the black scales which made a trail leading down into the gorge.

'So we've found the scales, but where's the-' the two of us jerk back in surprise, falling onto our backs as a dark shadow shot passed us and lands on the wall directly next to the opening we came from.

We watched in terrified awe as the dragon we had been hunting, struggled to climb up the wall of the gorge. Hiccup quickly pushed himself up too his feet and hurried to get a closer look at the dragon, brushing my hand away when I tried to pull him back. Thankfully, before the dragon even realised we were there, it lost its grip on the rocky wall and fell down to the lake below, only just managing to open its wings to glide, somewhat shakily, to dry land.

'Oh my gods.' I breathed as I finally pushed myself up to come stand beside Hiccup. Looking down at the dragon below us.

Hiccup let out a quiet laugh of both amazement and relief when he realised we had found his dragon, and quickly hopped down onto a lower ledge so that he could get a better view. I hurried after him, getting excited myself at the chance to study a dragon up close. Hiccup fumbled as he pulled his notebook from his vest pocket, almost dropping his charcoal pencil as he flipped to a blank page in his book.

He quickly sketched out the dragon as I continued to watch the strange animal continually try and fail to fly away from the hidden gorge. My concern grew more and more pronounced the longer I watched the pitiful site, not understanding why he couldn't fly away.

'Do you think he's okay?' I whispered, watching as the dragon turned awkwardly mid-flight and dropped to the ground with a painful sounding thump.

'I don't know.' Was the answer I recieved. I looked over his shoulder at the sketch, and frowned.

'He only has one tail fin.' I pointed out. Hiccup looked between the drawing and the real thing before hurrying to rub out his mistake with the side of his hand.

I jumped when the dragon sent a fireball to the ground in front of him, clearly frustrated at his lack of flight.

'Why won't he just fly away?' Hiccup wondered aloud. I shrugged, not too sure how to answer the question.

The dragon didn't seem injured from my point of view; his wings didn't have any visible tears or holes that could have hindered his flight, and he clearly had enough energy to be able to fly away from Berk. So, what could have been the problem?

We watched as the dragon tried to fly away once more, only to turn awkwardly again mid-flight and fall to the ground next to the water's edge. My pity grew when a fish surface for a few seconds, just long enough to grab the dragon's attention, before diving back under the water. The dragon, perking up, stuck his head under the water, thrashed his head around as he tried to catch something, only to resurface with his head bowed in defeat and nothing in his mouth.

'He's starving.' I said aloud. Now I knew something was definitely wrong with the dragon. From what little knowledge I had of dragons, unless they had some sort of competition, or if there was a drastic decrease of their natural food source, they rarely had trouble catching food. Especially when the food was directly in front of them.

Hiccup scooted forward slightly out on the rock, using the hand that held his pencil to help him keep his balance as he moved. Which would have been fine, except he lost his grip on the pencil so it rolled out of his hand, and clattered down to the ground below. Naturally gaining the attention of the dragon.

A/N - Thank you to everyone whose already followed and favourited this story, I'm already having fun with it and have several ideas for what directions I want to take with the characters that I hope you guys would like (fingers crossed). This chapter, and the Sophia Jackson chapter that I'll be posting later tonight, will be the last chapters for the next few weeks due to being bombarded with University work, but I have a couple weeks coming up where I'll get a bit of writing done and hopefully a few chapters will come out of it. No promises though since the new Pokemon game will be coming out around the same time, but I remain hopeful. Anyway, hope you guys like this chapter, and hopefully I'll be able to have the next chapter up soon, if all goes to plan we get to meet Hazel's future dragon. No promises as I'm still not 100% what type I should give her. If anyone has any ideas just let me know!

xxxWelshGirl4Lifexxx