New chapter! And this one's actually kind of long, I'm proud of myself~!

Sorry this one's a little late, I only got it up today because I did some work on my final study guides and studied a little bit earlier. But, after next week, updates will probably become more frequent because I'll be officially done with school after then. That's something to look forward to, right?

Thanks so much again for all of the reviews and follows/favorites. And thank you to the people that gave me their opinions about my characterizations of Hiccup and Dagur. I'm REALLY trying to keep them both as in character as possible. So, if there's ever an instance where they seem really OOC, let me know in a review so I can fix it, please? I'd appreciate it. (But I hope I helped that problem in this chapter...)

Also, I'd like to say happy late birthday to LaurenJr. Sorry I didn't have the time to post this update on your birthday; I hope this is good enough. :/

Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. I'm actually kind of proud of this one. :)

Oh, Thor, it was Stoick. Of course, the two of them were finally on good terms with each other and the moment just had to be ruined.

"Oh, the gods hate me…" Hiccup sighed under her breath. If her father caught the two of them the way that they were, anything but peace could come from it. Her mind raced with the worst thoughts of an argument between the three Vikings in the forest, of said fight getting physical, even to the death, and Berk and Berserk ending their fifty years of peace and waging into war over the proposed death of a chief (or one to be), all because Berserk's chief was caught in a bad spot at the wrong time with Berk's young heir to the throne.

Maybe she was blowing it all out of proportion a little, but there was no doubt that Stoick would be beyond angry if he came across the scene. How many options could there possibly be when it came to reasons for the basic situation to occur: a boy and a girl out in the middle of the woods. Alone. At near dusk? Not many situations existed there and nearly all of them lead to some reason for Stoick to unleash every bit of his immense strength on both of them.

Somehow, Hiccup calmed her mind enough to ponder their position carefully and come up with the best escape route for them both. Running wouldn't work at all; running is only for the guilty. Fighting was completely un-called for and there was no doubt that any excuse she came up with would be ruined by none other than she, herself; Hiccup was never the best at lying, especially to her father. She recalled the event when she tried to hide the fact that she was training Toothless and barely got away from the awkward conversation, because of Stoick mistaking her nerves for those of placing first in dragon training.

Then, something dawned on her. She gripped Dagur's wrist, claiming his attention. "Go hide in the bushes." She whispered with haste.

"What?" Dagur scoffed "I'm not scared of him."

"You will be if he sees us and gets the wrong idea." Hiccup stated. "Trust me; the man beheaded a dragon at the shoulders when he was a baby."

"Lots of Vikings have done that." Dagur protested "Let's just go. If you're any good at stealth, he'll never see us." He then started slinking through the brush that had been masking them at the moment.

Hiccup smacked her palm to her forehead and slid it down her face. Does he want us to get spotted or something? She mentally grumbled.

Stoick's calls for her rang louder as he enclosed on them. Without much thought, Hiccup darted through the brush, as quietly as she could, and caught up to her companion, who she began to question in strategizing escape plans. The glow of her father's torch grew larger and Hiccup began to make out Stoick's features as his silhouette took a bolder form in the dimmed light. In a slight panic, Hiccup seized Dagur's lack of attention on her as a chance to throw him off balance with a swift kick to his knees and pushed him into the nearby brush.

It was then that their cover was basically blown. Dagur's weight hitting the ground was quite loud, despite most of him being sent into the mud. Part of it might have had to do with the weapons that he had on him impacting with branches and the ground on his way down. And, if the fall didn't cause Stoick to turn around, it was his annoyed grumbling before Hiccup hastily shh'd him. The flickering torch was waved about by Berk's chief, in an effort to find the source of the sounds he had just heard.

It was then that Hiccup casually walked into the illumination casted in front of their hiding place. "Hey, dad. What are you doing all the way out here?"

"I've been looking for you." The large man responded. "We have an issue with the dragons by the cove. Astrid and Fishlegs can't seem to calm them."

"Did something spook them?" Hiccup inquired.

"I have no idea. They'll need your help to get them to settle down or the Berserkers could find them."

Hiccup rubbed her neck nervously. Well, there's no chance of total shock from them… she thought as she turned her gaze from her father's face. She glanced swiftly back at the bushes where she had pushed Dagur out of sight. To her relief, it looked like he hadn't moved. At least, she didn't see him rising from the mud or vanishing into the very faint sunlight while she was distracting Stoick. "No problem." She stated when her eyes focused back on him.

"Good." Stoick smiled and turned towards the village. "Oh, and Hiccup…" He turned his head back to his daughter "What were you doing out here so late? You're usually back by sunset."

"Oh, uh…" Hiccup stared down at her feet for a second and then back up at Stoick "I was with Toothless. I came back here when I left the feast and I've been here ever since." That was technically not a lie, anyway…

"Right, of course." Stoick replied "Get a move on to the cove before anything else happens."

With a nod, Hiccup ran ahead of Stoick and began to make her way to the beach. After a quick check of the scenery, Stoick followed her.

Dagur watched as the torch's gleam faded away and left him in darkness; the sun was but a sliver in the black and purple sky when he finally could pull his face out of the mud and get that annoying branch that was ticking the inside of his armor.

He grumbled "The next time I see that girl, she's going to pay for that…" Dagur spit some mud out of his mouth and dusted off what he could from his clothes and face. "She'd better watch her back; I'm not done here just yet." He growled and stomped out of the brush, with a limp because of Hiccup's surprisingly strong kick, and began his journey back to the Berserk boats in the docks.

Hiccup felt a little guilty abandoning Dagur in the forest. But she thought it better to keep her father oblivious to anything that may or may not have been going on before he went looking for her. Though she knew perfectly well what had happened between her and Dagur, which really wasn't much at all (to her relief), no doubt Stoick would think she was trying to cover up something rather than explain what happened.

She arrived at the cove's on the beach to find Astrid, Snotlout, the twins and Fishlegs all making futile attempts to calm obviously frightened dragons from flying out of the caves they were being hidden inside and spreading out across the sky. She dashed towards her friends and called over to them "What happened?"

"Don't know!" Snotlout shouted.

"They won't calm down!" Ruffnut continued.

"Well, did anything out here scare them?" Hiccup questioned.

"We didn't see anything." Astrid replied as she tried to keep a grip on a terrible terror that was trying desperately to leap out of her arms.

"What about in the cave?" Hiccup stepped closer to the entrance.

"We've tried getting inside." Fishlegs stated "They kicked Snotlout out as soon as he tried to get past them."

"Let me try…" Hiccup muttered. She cautiously outstretched her arm to the snout of a snarling purple Nadder and whispered "It's ok… I want to help you. All of you." She touched the dragon's nose with her palm and it slowly began to soothe itself to a manageable manner. "There, see?" Hiccup asked with a soft voice "Now what's bugging you so much?"

She steadily snuck her way through the masses of dragons inside the cave, maintaining her composure as she practically tip-toed around their agitated forms in near darkness. Suddenly, her metal foot slipped on the surface and she fell onto her back. Moaning, she sat up and set her hands down on the surprisingly wet ground. She rubbed her fingers on it and detected algae was what caused her to collapse. "Hold on…" She murmured "Now I get it…"

Hiccup staggered to her feet, attempting not to land on her back again in the process and carefully maneuvered about the slimy floor. She emerged from the cave moments later, the dragons cowering at her as she passed them and revealed to her friends a dead eel in her hands. "The tide must have gotten into the cave during a storm. The floor's covered in algae and there's a whole bunch of these eels on the ground. They must have noticed them when we put more dragons in there." She tossed the eel on the ground in front of them. "I'm going to need your help getting all of those out.

Her companions nodded in agreement and got to work on removing every last eel from the cavern that they could find. And, much to their relief, not one dragon escaped during their hunt, as the teens took turns monitoring the outside while the others gathered the dreaded fish from the inside. The sun had set before they finished and the dragons were calmed down for the night. After saying their "good nights," the group parted for their homes in the village.

Hiccup's walk home was procrastinated by Astrid's asking if the two could take the hike together. She complied and they set out for home, a torch in the blonde's hand to easier navigate the uneasy terrain.

"Is there something you want to talk to me about?" Hiccup asked.

"Actually, yes." Astrid answered. "It's about Dagur." Hiccup rolled her eyes, unnoticed by her friend "Did you talk at the feast?" Hiccup nodded "How'd it go? Did he ask you about the dragons?"

"He didn't ask, exactly." Hiccup reflected "He more… told me he knew and that he wanted to know how I did it."

"And…"

Hiccup sighed. "And then I told him 'no" and he carried me off into the woods for questioning."

"So you told him?!" Astrid barked.

"No…" Astrid made a small smile "Not until after I had to tame a Whispering Death right in front of him."

"What?!" Astrid shouted "He made you demonstrate?!"

"No, it was a wild one. I was hunting us and he was going to kill it, so I trained it instead. Then… I kind of had to tell him."

"I think you have to give me some more details." Astrid stated.

When Dagur re-entered the village, the moon was raised high in the sky and the stars were its only assistants when it came to illuminating the tiny island. Nearly every building he passed also had little to no light shining inside of it. Passing the blacksmith's, though, he did see lights accompanied by the sounds of metal being wielded and Gobber's singing occasionally overpowering the banging of metal on metal and the roar of the flames in the fire pit. He couldn't help but snicker when he heard the jolly man fail to hit the high note in his little tune, though he'd heard it several times before on previous visits to Berk.

As he exited the square, his boats came into his view. They too were light with the lives taking shelter within them. From the hilltop, he could hear shouts and intermittent crashes inside the ships, most likely from a brawl that had broken out below deck out of sheer boredom (it was also one he intended on joining in on, once he rejoined his people).

"Chief!" Dagur heard a voice beckon behind him. He turned to find two of his guards, spears in hand, drawing near. "We've been searching for you, sir." The taller of the two uttered.

"Where have you been?" The shorter continued.

"It doesn't matter." Dagur shrugged off their concern effortlessly.

"It does matter." The short guard countered "If anything happened to you, we would be lost. There's no one line for the position, should you-"

In one speedy move, much like he had with Hiccup, Dagur tore a knife out of his boot, pinned the guard speaking on the ground with an arm twisted behind his back and held the dagger to the man's throat.

"Now…" he snarled "does it look like I would have been in any danger to you? I am not chief of this tribe for no reason!"

The guard gulped, his bottom lip quivering "O-of course, Dagur, sir…" he stuttered "O-our mistake."

Pleased with his victory, Dagur tucked the knife back into his boot and shoved the guard back into the ground before releasing him from his python-like grip. "Good. Now, for my other piece of business…" he turned to guard still standing "I have found what we came for."

"Haven't you already signed the treaty, sir?" The tall guard questioned.

"I have." Dagur proclaimed "But I came with another task as well. I have discovered who the Dragon Conqueror is."

"Who would it be, sir?" The guard asked, intrigued by his leader's discovery. "Is it Stoick the Vast?"

"Close." Dagur affirmed "It's Stoick's fishbone of a daughter. Who would have thought it to be her with those rumors crossing the seas? Strength of ten men? Yeah, right." He scoffed.

"Shall we go inform the rest of the crew?" The shorter guard shakily asked as he finally rose from the ground, kneading the arm that Dagur had twisted.

"Why not?" The chief shrugged his shoulders. "I was on my way back to the ships anyway."

The trio of Berserkers began their stroll back to their boats casually. But not long after he began walking, a small flicker sparked in the corner of Dagur's apple green irises. Stopping his stride and glancing toward their source, he recognized it as none other than Hiccup and Astrid heading for the brunette's house on the top of the hill. He couldn't read what words their lips were forming from his distance, but he could see that the pair was deeply focused on their conversation whatever it was about. Dagur placed his bet on something meaningless because, after all, even the toughest Viking women seem to like to gossip with people of the same gender. That assumption changed when Hiccup rolled her eyes and shrugged as her friend continued what was starting to look like a lecture about something to her. Something in this piece of the lecture must have amused her, because Hiccup let out a laugh that rang hushed in Dagur's ears. Astrid soon shook her head at her friend's laughter. Now Dagur's mind was set back on the gossip theory.

He watched as they ascended the stairs to the chief's residence and Hiccup slipped inside the dimly light building. The blond soon set out for her own home, the on looking Berserker going completely unnoticed. He stared at the house for a moment and watched as the light on the ground floor died away to become only the faintest light, most likely emitting from the fire pit that was light inside.

"Dagur?" The tall guard faintly called "Are you not coming back to the ships yet?"

His echoing voice caught Dagur's attention and pulled him in its direction. The Berserker stared over his shoulder for a moment as he turned around and vanished with his guards into the shadows of the night, contemplating exactly why he couldn't seem to get the scrawny girl out of his mind. The whole walk back to the boats, he was deeply immersed in these thoughts. He mulled over these feelings that felt so unnatural to him but yet… seemed right, somehow. He thought about the way Hiccup had managed that Whispering Death without a second thought and how her auburn hair and forest green eyes looked in the light of the sunset. In the temple of his mind, Hiccup began to shine brighter than any treasure he had pillaged and became almost as appealing as going into battle against a well-deserving enemy. He felt his cheeks warm as his mind wandered. His boat feet away, he briskly shook the girl from his mind. I've got to do something about this… He mentally noted as he entered his ship for the evening.