Thank you OLionheartO, Angryhenry, June Odyssey, Kuro kaze no aka kira, and Malik The Night Angel, you all get a brownie point for reviewing! AND prompting this chapter to come out sooner.

I hope you all enjoy.

"So who was the All-Eater?" Hiccup had found a seat on a protruding rock. Skoll lay beside him, watching the pond with mild interest.

That creature your father named a bear. He once was the Great-Eater, a knowing spirit who eats only enough for himself. Skoll sighed sadly. But time is repeating itself. This age is coming to an end.

"An end. What does that have to do with the bear going rabid?"

Skoll turned his massive head and looked Hiccup in the eyes. The powerful will survive into the next world. What Great-Eater did not understand was that the power he took, devouring it from his spirit brethren, would drive him mad.

"Turning him into a rabid spirit…" Hiccup murmured to himself. "Wait, what do you mean the powerful will survive?"

It is not important at this time. The end is noticeable, like rain coming in the wind, but it is not here.

"Wh- that doesn't ev-"

"So, you're still talking to them."

Hiccup leaped forwards, spinning to face the voice. He wondered if he had just woken after a dream, and was back, seeing Astrid just sitting on the rock, dragging a stone over her axe.

But she was wearing that hat, and the axe was smaller. Was it a hatchet? "Ah, hi, As- um, hi."

She looked up at him then back to her blade. "Your dad, he was worried about you. Said you had been gone a while."

Hiccup wondered how long the walk had been, if it took longer because he wasn't home, or because of his new foot. Stub.

"He…also said that…that you were confused. That you think it's sometime in the medieval ages or something like that."

"Something like that."

She finally looked him in the eyes. Or just the one eye. "I'm sorry about that. You, I thought you were embarrassed. About us. Me." She looked down again, the shing of the sharpening stone the only noise in the cove.

"What did you mean, still talking to them."

The stone fell from her fingers. She lunged, trying to grab it, but Hiccup had already scooped it up, rolling it between his fingers.

"You, that's what you were doing, the day before the fight." She tapped her fingers on the rock before leaping down. "You really don't remember?" Her blue eyes were looking at him.

"Yeah, really."

She stepped close to him, his heart gave a possibly unhealthy thud, and she reached behind him with the hatchet.

This is it, she's going to behead him, and this is the closest he's ever goi-

The metal made a faint clink as she set it on the rock behind him. "So…you don't remember the kiss." She looked at him through her lashes.

"Kiss?" His voice broke at the single syllable. He was beginning to doubt if had even woken up yet, maybe this was a dream, or maybe he was in Hel's kingdom, being tortured, the pain just about to start with his heart pounding right out of his chest.

"Well, I guess I don't have to worry about that conversation." She whirled around and walked away from him, moving towards the pond, but giving Skoll a wide berth.

Hiccup sighed, a mix of relief and maybe disappointment, and rubbed the back of his neck. "So you're going to avoid the conversation now." He purposefully sat next to Skoll, rubbing the wolf's head in an unconscious gesture. If she was anything like Astrid, the word avoid would-

She turned sharply, pointing a finger at him. "I don't avoid anything."

"I'm pretty sure you are."

"I-" she stopped and gripped the flaps of her hat, pulling it down over her eyes with a frustrated grunt before shoving it back up. "You're supposed to be old fashioned and gentlemanly! But this" she waved her hand in his direction "is the same Henri from before!"

"Technically we're the same person. According to Gothi, that is."

Is this part of the human mating ritual? Skoll asked. This growling and snapping at one another?

"You," Hiccup whipped his head around, seeing the wolf was cocking his head to one side, "shut up, useless canine." He glanced back at the girl in front of him, feeling his face heat. "Did you, um, hear that?"

"No," she snapped at him. "I don't care what your wolf said, or what you said to it." She threw a foot out, connecting it with his knee. The bad one. "All I wanted to do was figure out what was going on, with you, with me, something!" she tugged her hat over her eyes again and missed Hiccup rolling over onto his side. "And here you are being an ass and forgetting and all I want to do is move on and I really don't want to talk about all that again and- what are you-" Her face visibly paled once she could see.

"Why," he gasped out, "would you do that!?" The kick had hit squarely on the metal cup, which was covering his still healing stitches.

"I-oh gods, I'm so sorry, I didn't, I mean, are you-it-"

He rolled his pant leg up and wiggled the cup. He sighed when it didn't cause more pain. He then tugged it off.

Astrid-Anneka-whatever turned away, then straightened her back and curled her hands into fists before facing him again.

Hiccup crossed it over his other knee, peeling away the wool sock covering and looked at it with interest. He had glanced at it when the Gothi stopped by earlier, but hadn't dared be inquisitive in front of his father.

He could admire the dull pink skin, pulled over what he could only assume was bone. The stitches holding it there were thick and black, neat and tidy. The wound under the stitches was more red than pink, with a thin scab between it and creeping around the thread.

Skoll even leaned his head close, giving it sniff and a small lick.

He patted the wolf's head and smirked at the girl. "Has to be the neatest battle wound I've ever seen. Gothi does good work, huh?" He then moved his pant leg up to the angry red line inches above. "This, though, this I can't quite appreciate."

"I said I was sorry," she murmured, eyes focused on the scar. Hiccup moved it noticeably, causing her to look quickly at his face then away. "And you deserved it, anyways. For scaring me."

"Of course I did."

I'm still accepting prompts. I only have one and then maybe a second if I need, but…

I'm not going to focus a whole lot on the stub, especially since no makes it seem like a big deal in the Dreamworks Dragons series. And by no one I mean the animators/producers/characters.

Except for Ruff who thinks it's hilarious and mentions it multiple times.