Astrid:

They were riding through the streets mostly om silence. Only the occasional question about his whereabouts for the past week – doing work for Drago, it turned out – or her father's trading business breaking it.

Hiccup learned that her mother had died about a year ago, from an illness, leaving Astrid and her father in grief. "Dad was devastated, you know," she told him. "He'd gone on a fishing trip and everything had still been mostly good. When he came back two weeks later, though, she was already gone." Her voice quivered for a moment, but she caught herself and straightened her back, not allowing herself to crumble in front of Hiccup, even if her expression stayed glum. "He couldn't stand living in the house she had died in anymore and decided to go on a trading journey. Knowing my father, I accompanied him to make sure he wouldn't loose all our money because he had no idea whatsoever of trading business. And because he has a gods-damned gambling problem. But… you know just how well that worked out in the end."

They fell silent again. Neither of them made any attempts at discussing the one consequence in particular that affected them both. By now, there was too much left unsaid from his side to even consider engaging in this sort of messed up conversation. He was hiding things, and Astrid could only hope he was clearing things up for her faster than Drago would organize a ceremony for them. She really loathed the idea of getting married to a stranger when there was the possibility for her to marry a long lost childhood friend instead. Although, both concepts didn't sound too rosy for her liking.

Hiccup:

They reached the western gate that lead to the few properties of the wealthier people of the town, including the mansion of Drago, situated just on top of a rather big hill so that the mad-man could still watch over his precious town even when he wasn't there. That was, should he decide to come there for the few nights he didn't spend in his city house near the harbor. Drago did come almost every day, though, to at least quickly check up on things. And them.

Since the day Drago had taken Valka as his wife, and thus become Hiccup's stepfather, which was practically the day Drago had brought them to his city, he had been living there. Despite hating the city – its buzzing busyness and neverending cacophony, he'd grown rather fond of the manor even if his favourite place still was by far in the skies with Toothless. But at the manor was his mother, the woman he'd missed for over fourteen years of life, and now enjoyed every second he could spend with her. For most of his life Hiccup had asked himself why he'd never seemed to be able to relate to his father. Well, it tunred out he simply had been a mummy's boy with the problem of his mother being absent. There had been some difficulies at the beginning, of course, but they had been able to get over them. Then Drago had come and destroyed his new found happyness.

They passed the road leading towards the manor houses and instead followed the path to the close by woods.

"All right," Astrid said when they entered the forest spreading out in front of them, froming a thick rampart before the little mountain range begant that separated this land from that of the christians.

"Where are you leading me to?"

"The mountains," he answered truthfully.

"So, whoever you need me to meet lives in the mountains?"

"Yeah, it's better for him there than in the city."

The forest was grown lightly, creating natural paths their horses could use without much effort. At first they stayed on a man-made path, though. The ground was divided by the tracks of endless carts and carriages travelling this very road to the next village.

"Why is that?" Astrid asked, the curiosity blankly written on her face. "Did he anger Drago and had to go into hiding?"

"You are awefully curious, you know that?" Hiccup said in a light tone. He wouldn't tell her yet that this 'him' he was talking about wasn't a human being but a dragon. He'd have one Hel of a time explaining to her later, and they still had a bit of a journey ahead of them. Hiccup deemed it needless to spend their entire ride justifying himself and his decicions when he still could avoid to do so for a little longer.

Astrid shot him a look. "Well, if you would just tell me some things…" She let the end of the sentence hang freely in the air, waiting for him to pick it up and take the invitation. But he didn't. Not yet, he told himself, not yet.

He shook his head, a small smile playing around his lips. "Have patience, would you?"

Astrid sighed, "I think I've had enough patience this past week, don't you think?" She shifted in her saddle, rearranging her skirts on the horse's back. It still didn't look much more comfortable than it did before. "Damned dress, I should have gotten changed before we went." She muttered just loud enough for him to hear. That sparked a thought in him.

"Why are you wearing a dress, anyway? I can't recall you ever wearing one back on Berk." There had been one incident where her mother had tried to put Astrid in a dress, but the defiant little girl had ravaged until she was allowed to put her leggings and skirt back on, claiming the dreaded garment would hinder her while fighting.

Astrid scoffed, still tugging at the fabric. "Because apparently, outside the archipelago it's indecent for a woman to wear anything shorter than ankle-length. I don't give a fuck what is considered decent and what not when I need to be able to move, but sadly, people won't make good deals with you if you don't seem professional in their eyes. And wearing a nice leather skirt with spikes and skulls won't help coming along as professional. So," she gave one final tug and the long skirt of her dress was gathered up at her knees and spread out on the back of the horse so that she could move her legs as she liked. "A dress is what I'm wearing." Underneath her dress she wore leggings and shin high boots to keep of the cold the season brought along with it. It wasn't quite winter and the leaves on the trees were just starting to turn into various shades between red and yellow, some having a bit of a brownish hue to them, but the wind was already stining naked skin depending on the direction it came from.

"But just for your information," she added, "I do like dresses. I just do not need to be wearing them all the time."

Hiccup was genuinely surprised by this. Never would he have thought the mighty Astrid Hofferson, whom he always remembered as a girl that rather got her hands dirty than dressing up in fancy clothes, would like dresses.

The path soon seperated from the direction Hiccup needed them to take. So he waited for an opening in the forest the horses would be comfortable with, and went off-road. It wasn't unusual to find new routes for travellers when the current one just wasn't efficient enough. The ride through wilderness was always his favourite part of the way to the caverns Toothless was hiding in. The fields were beautiful to look at in summer, the mountains always an obstacle he liked to take, but the forst, especially when everything would be green and humming with life in the warmer seasons, was where he was able to breath freely without having to worry someone might see him in such an unusual part of the land Drago owned. Though sadly, this part, away from the paths and eyes of passerbys, always felt like the shortest.

Soon the trees lightened up, the terrain got steeper, and the rocky surface of the mountains showed through the soft earth of the forest.

Hiccup lead them along the foot of the first mountain, which he considered only a rather big hill, until they reached a small, from afar unseen, break that formed a valley between the little mountain and it's bigger brother. From experience he knew the horses would dismay passing through it, so he dismounted and lead his stallion to a grassy patch hidden by a bunch of tumbled down boulders, Astrid with her mare right behind him. She'd been so quiet the past few minutes he'd almost forgotten she was even there wouldn't it have been for the ruffling of her skirts in the wind.

"We are gonna leave the horses here and walk the rest," he informed her while tying the horses together to a tree so they wouldn't be able to get away on their own. "It's not far anyomore, though."

Astrid made a humming sound. When he looked over his shoulder he saw her seizing up the mountain rage rising up almost directly in front of her nose, her eyes locked on the very peak and chewing on her lip. She looked kind of troubled.

Raising an eyebrow he asked, "You okay?"

"Hmm?" Her head whipped to him. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just…" Her gaze locked back on the top of the mountain. "We are not gonna climb all the way up there, are we?"

Hiccup had to laugh at that. "No, we are not."

Once the horse's halters were tied securely to the trees, they began to make their way through the valley that didn't even measure ten feet in broadth. The way curved not too far after the entrance, and opened the sight to a stray boulder that had locked inself between the rock walls, blocking the way for everything bigger than a child. Or so it seemed. But Hiccup knew the terrain better than everyone else and thus had long ago learned that you just had to be slim enough to fit through the narrow gap between rock and mountain. A bit of crawling was also involved but other than that the way was easily accessable for him. Discovering this had been the first time he'd actually thanked the gods for not giving him a bulky, burly body like the usual Vikings had. Now, leading Astrid towards the last big obstacle between them and their destination, he was also glad that she wasn't build like the typical Viking woman either. Though for her part that didn't equal being weak; Hiccup knew just fine how strong the young woman next to him was. He had no doubt that she could very well kill him with one hand behind her back; which didn't particularly help him feel too confident about introducing her to Toothless. For the most part he was concerned about the presence of her axe; she wouldn't have left it behind, and would he have asked she'd just gotten more wary than she already was. But he needed her to trust him, needed her to listen to what he had to say before judging him, and especially needed her to kill neither Toothless nor him.

Getting up from crawling and brushing the dirt from their clothes, Hiccup quickly checked the perimeter for anything that was different from how he'd last seen the path before them leading farther around the mountain but couldn't spot anything beside the dampness of the environment due to the rainfall of last night.

Three bends of the path and a few slopes later and the path ended abruptly at the sudden drop of the ground. The view opened up to a large crater of what must have once been the center of a now long dormant volcano. But instead of dull heaps of solid lava, the area was covered in rich gass and undergrowth of all kinds and trees with extraordinarily tall trunks. Everything was painted in goldeb hues with spots of red and the ocassional green defying fall with a stubbornness that could compete with that of a Viking. A river was weaving its way across the length of the crater, forming a small pond that and disappearing into a submerged cavern on the far side of the crater. The peak on which they stood was directly in the course of the winds whistling softly through the rage of mountains. It was a sight that made Hiccup feel free and like he would be able to take on the world if he had to, especially with the knowledge that his dragon companion would be waiting for him just short of hundred feet below.

Hiccup watched as Astrid took in the view in front of her. There was wonder in her eyes and the faintest hint of a smile following the slight gape from her mouth. The wind was blowing strands of her flaxen hair into her face, making his finger itch in a unreasonable desire to tug them back behind her ear. He quickly looked away befor she could catch him staring at her, his cheeks flaming up with that stupid crush that had flared up again after all those years of distancing himself as much as possible from his past.

Despit looking at every stone and sunlit spot in the crater, Hiccup couldn't find the familiar night-black shadow he had expected to be laying around lazily on an unusually bright day such as this. He suspected the dragon was curled up in one of the many caverns or hanging upside down from a tree and dozing the day away in the shadows.

The very last obstacle was the path down; rocky and not man-made, just the nature leaving just enough space as not to stumble over one owns feet. For an untrained eye the spacing between the undergrowth would seem random at most, but Hiccup would know the hidden way in his sleep anytime. The foot of the mountain blended in with the ground almost seamlessly and before they knew it they were already on their way across the crater.

"Almost there," he told Astrid when they reached one of the river's many bends. If he had to guess Toothless would soon enough sense their presence and come looking. And Hiccup definitely needed to prepare the young woman at his side before that happened and she might attack the dragon. That certainly wouldn't end well with her axe and all. So when she moved to continue on, just muttering a short 'All right', he grabbed her elbow to hold her back. "Wait a moment."

"What is it? If it isn't far why don't we just go on?" The suspicion was right back without missing a beat.

"Because," he chewed on the words for a moment, the threw all cautions to the wind. "there are a few things you need to know, first." He glanced at her axe, cringing internally. "And it'd be great if maybe you would not kill me before I'm done."

Astrid raised an eyebrow. "You better not make me regret coming with you, Haddock." She looked pointedly at her elbow where his hand still rested at its crook. He pulled it back as fast as though he'd just burned himself on the fabric of her dress.

He turned to face the river-side, thinking it might be easier not having to look her straight in the eyes while judgement would most certainly fill them, but having her staring at his unprotected back made the hairs at the nape of his neck stand up. So he turned back again, looking anywhere but at her directly. "The day I...disappeared, I wasn't kidnapped. I left by myself." He glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. He felt the urge to slouch forward, to make himself smaller than he really was like he'd done so many times when he'd been younger; but that would indicate weakness not only of the body but also of the mind. So he drew up his imaginary wards and steeled himself mentally for the rest, for the hardest part still lay before him.

He expected her to be shocked, confused at least, but she merely raised an eyebrow at him. "I kind of figured that by now."

Hiccup would have tripped over his feet weren't he standing still. So instead he snapped his head towards her. "You did?"

"Your lie about being abducted really wasn't that convincing." She shrugged and beckoned for him to go on with his confession.

Hiccup scratched at the nape of his neck. He needed to work on his lying-game if it was so easy to read through his lies. "Um, all right. Remember the last raid before dragon training started?"

"The one where you claimed to have shot down a Night Fury and destroyed half of the docks? Yes, quite vividly so."

"I actually did shoot down a Night Fury." There it was. Part one was out.

This time the anticipated reaction did come as Astrid's face fell. "You gotta be fucking kidding me." She uttered, her mouth still hanging open slightly afterwards. Hiccup couldn't resist a small smirk at his irrelevant victory of rendering her speechless for the moment. But he couldn't relish it as much as he would have liked to do.

"Nope. It went down near Raven's Point." He mimic his words with a gesture of his hands. "It was hard to find but totally worth the effort." Hiccup recalled the search he had done back then in order to find the downed dragon, how he'd already given up hope to find anything at all in the deepest woods of Berk when he'd finally stumbled across the broken branches and traces of heavy object having hit the ground not too gently.

"Raven's Point..." Astrid mumbled more to herself than to him. Then, suddenly, her eyes widened the slightest bit. "That's where we found black dragon scales! But," she hesitated for a moment, "there weren't any remnants of a dragon other than those. No bones, no teeth, not even footprints."

"I know." He sighed, drawing a hand across his face. "Listen, this dragon, the Night Fury, was the reason why I suddenly got good in the ring. I managed to learn quite a lot from him about dragons and their behaviour, things you usually would not be able to learn. I –" In that moment, when he was just starting to get to the 'I befriended a dragon'-part, a bush next to them rustled and a black shadow leaped out of the undergrowth, growling dangerously. Astrid drew her axe faster than he could follow with his eyes and prepared to attack the intruder.

Astrid:

Astrid stared at the creature growling at her. Its scales were darker than the night sky and its wings were pulled up threateningly. It looked as if it were about to pounce on her any minute now and rip out her throat with the sharp teeth while the menacing talons bore into her guts. But the most surprising, most shocking thing about the whole incident was that Hiccup, former village mess-up, was as calm around the mighty beast as one would around any domesticated animal. He had one hand braced on the breast's snout and was rubbing it in slow circles over the midnight scales. It seemed to Astrid like he didn't even acknowledge the threat coming from the black dragon. Only when her hand shot to the axe at her back did his eyes widen –almost comically were it not for the dangerous situation- in distress. But not over the beast. No, over her.

The dragon noticed her movement as well and let out a warning growl. It tried to advance on her, but Hiccup held it back with his hands.

"Don't." She didn't know whether it was directed at her or at the beast for he shot looks in both their directions. Astrid didn't listen to him though, and pulled her axe forth anyway, making the dragon arch its back in the process. This time Hiccup looked at her directly with worry bright in his green eyes while adressing her. "Astrid, please don't. I promise I will explain, but please, put that axe away." His voice betrayed the calmness his body language suggested; the words rushed out too fast and too desperate to be considered as composed as he tried to come across.

"That is a fucking dragon standing behind you, gods damn it, Hiccup!" Astrid yelled, clutching her weapon even tighter around the hilt. She wouldn't go down without a fight should Hiccup have decided to get rid of his problems by simply getting rid of her. Or should the beast decide she would make for a decent dinner. Either way, she would fight her way out if she so must.

The dragon made a sound in the very back of its throat and it reminded her of something she'd last heared years ago, but still she knew that the dragon was about to shoot her to ashes. Astrid prepared to leap out of the way, careful not to trigger the beast off by accident, when Hiccup abruptly turned and faced the dragon, blocking her fully from its view.

"Knock it off, bud. You are definitely not going to fire at her." His tone was – to her utter surprise- authorative and also kind of irritated. He then looked back at her, a scowl now visible on his features. "In fact, the both of you knock it off already. This is ridiculous."

Then the impossible happened; the dragon seemed to understand him and within a moments notice turned from deadly beast to tame and not so beastly after all. It sat on its hind legs and lifted up the frills at the sides of its head, looking expectantly, and actually kind of innocently, back at Hiccup. The contrast between the two versions of the creature couldn't have been greater.

Astrid stood with her jaw slack and the axe gradually sliding out of her not so firm hold. "You-How-what...?"Astrid stumbled over the words not willing to properly form inside her mouth. She couldn't believe what had just happened in front of her own eyes. Maybe this was just a very weird dream and she would wake up in her bed back on Berk and her world was still intact.

Hiccup's composure eased up and he dropped his hands to his sides, sighing heavily. "You scared him."

A beat. Then another. Astrid waited for some sense to appear in the statement, but it was lost on her. She dropped her axe in incredulity. "I scared him?" Was that stupid boy talking about the dragon? "Who is him?" Astrid silently prayed he was just messing with her. He couldn't really mean the darn dragon, for Thor's sake.

Hiccup stepped aside, giving the dragon and the young woman free sight of one another. Gesturing between them with his hands he awkwardly introduced them; as far as that was even possible between a human and a dragon. "Toothless, Astrid. Astrid, Toothless." The dragon huffed and smoke came out of his nostril. It gave her an indifferent glare.

"This is insane." Astrid mumbled to herself. "This is completely, utterly insane." She backed away slowly, having decided it would be best to get out of there as fast as she could. But when her back didn't hit the nearest tree she had counted on to use as a makeshift barricade between the threat and her escape route, she noticed her mistake. The sounds of their surroundings came back to her, including the splashing of flowing water.

Hiccup noticed the same moment she did and tried to warn her with an outstretched hand and a few steps taken towards her. "Astrid, careful, the river is-" His voice was drowned out by her surprised shriek when the ground gave away and she fell butt first into the water. Thankfully, the river was neither too deep nor too strong and she quickly managed to get to the surface again after having submerged. She gasped for air and tried to make her way back to the rivebank, but her dress, her darn dress, hindered her a great deal with its long skirt and the rather wide sleeves catching on the current and dragging her with it. The heavy, soaked fabrik was also not helpful at all.

"-right behind you." Hiccup finished loud enough for her to hear over the sounds of the water and her poor attempts at half walking, half swimming through the waist-deep river. He knelt down, still on safe ground, and chuckled.

"Don't just sit there and laugh, you yakdung eating mungebucket. Get me out of here!" Astrid yelled and splashed some water on him for good measure, coating him in a layer of droplets. She lost her footing on the slippery ground of the river and had to struggle for balance, just barely catching a hold of the riverbank to steady herself once again. Hiccup, still finding great amusement in her struggles, offered her his hand. Astrid accepted it and let herself be dragged onto solid ground.

Once she managed to get to her feet again - also with the help of Hiccup, to her dismay- she let go of his hand and took quite a few steps away from him and the river.

She shot a look at the dragon sitting a couple of paces away from her. It was watching her with curiosity, the frills around its head raised up and the head cocked sideways. All the wildness seemingly had fallen from it the moment Astrid had made a fool of herself by falling into the stream. But she didn't let the dragon's peculiar behaviour cloud over her knowledge that it still was a vicious beast. Everything inside her screamed for her to run away as fast as she could, get to the mare waiting for her return outside the mountains, and just leave all this behind her. The only thing holding her back from doing so was the fact that there was no way in Hel she would be able to be fast enough in completely soaked clothes; the fabric was even heavier than it had been in the water and clung to her skin, making it almost impossible for her to move properly, let alone run.

Pushing her dripping bangs out of her face and wringing water out of her braid, she huffed. To Hiccup, who was watching her as well as the dragon, she said in a harsh voice "You said you would explain. Now is the time for that." When he took a breath before starting to talk, she quickly added, "And don't even think about leaving out some things. I want to now every little detail."

Hiccup nodded. "That's only fair." He ran a hand through his hair. "I actually was already going to explain everything to you before wer got interrupted. You might want to make yourself comfortable, though. It's a very, very long story."

I am so, so, so very sorry about taking so long to update this story! Life has been a mess for me lately with a thesis I had to write an internternship in London, two phases of exams for school; and additionally to that writer's block has paid me a visit lately (it's hopefully gone now, though). I hope you can forgive me. *makes puppy eyes*

Thank you so much for the reviews and new followers this story gained! You guys have no idea just how happy it makes me every time I get a notification about a review, a follower or even a favourite! They were what kept me going on with this story in the end. :) And don't you worry, everything is going to make sense! The next chapter will clarify a lot and answer some questions you might have; especially about Hiccup and Drago. HOPEFULLY, should life be so gracious, I will be able to update in the near future (aka within the next say 3 months tops ;) ) The release of the third season of RTTE has me really pumped about this again and in less than three weeks I have summer break, so the prospects of me being able to update are pretty good. I won't make myself take on a schedule for updating again, though. So, with that said, see you in the next chapter :)