Well I'm not sure how my other chapter faired but I'm glad for this chapter because Toothless is back! :D He's my favorite HTTYD character.


Hiccup and Astrid were very deep in Berk's woodland area. Astrid was feeling a bit nervous about how to approach this situation.

'Should I tell him that I know about Toothless? But that brings up the whole stalker issue...Then again if I play dumb and Toothless recognizes me, he'll know something is up...Well that sack of scales barely acknowledged me before so maybe the whole playing dumb thing will work. Ugh, now I know why most Vikings attack than think. Making a strategy is seriously hard work. At least normally it's just people's movements, but here I have to guess how Hiccup will rea-'

A loud crash echoed through the trees.

"Ow..." Astrid had been so caught up in her thoughts that she tripped over a stump. Hiccup immediately ran to her aid.

"A-are you ok?" He held out his hand in assistance. She scowled and slapped it away. Astrid didn't need anyone's pity.

'Maybe certain Vikings would do well to do the same as me.'

Hiccup looked unsettled as Astrid began to glare and mutter something about not needing to grope whatever showed any sympathy to anyone.

"What was that, Astrid?"

Astrid snapped herself out of her slight rant and gave an embarrassed smile.

"Nothing!"

She quickly picked up whatever the leather thing was and took off ahead. Hiccup yelped and ran after her.


They were very close to the crater-like area now. Astrid sucked in a breath and blurted out, "So you never really explained what this thing was for."

The boy, who was struggling with his papers And giant saddle, gave her a sideways glance and replied, "I told you, it's to help a friend. Now you have to promise not to freak out."

"Well why would I-" Astrid started.

"Promise."

Hiccup's usual friendly face turned unbelievable serious. His deep green eyes felt like they were staring right through to Astrid's core. He really needed to know if he could trust her. Although the chieftain's son didn't know, Astrid was well aware of the dangers that this secret could create. Having a dragon in such close proximity to the village was definitely dangerous. Now the Night Fury seemed to be a bit more lax than other dragons but she didn't know enough about it to be sure.

"I promise I won't freak out. Well I'll try not to." Hiccup's gaze softened. "But it'd be easier to prevent said freak out if you would just explain!" She emphasized the last two words.

Immediately Hiccup started back on the rocky path. As he turned his back to her, he had a solemn look on his face.

"If I told you, you wouldn't believe me." Astrid looked on is astonishment. When he was far enough that he became lost in the foliage, he yelled out, "But showing you will definitely make you believe!"

Astrid shook her head in pure disbelief. Didn't he know that if she were anyone else in the world seeing a dragon would send her running to the Chief and rat them out? Why place such blind faith? In the end all she could muster was a, "Wait up!" and follow him.

She approached the lake just quick enough to see the teen at the bottom of the bowl.

"How'd you got down there so fast?"

She had to yell, but he heard her all the same. He pointed to a tree with a pile of dirt in the front of it.

"Through there!"

Astrid walked up to the tree in confusion.

'Through whe-'

The ground caved in beneath her as she was thrown around a narrow tunnel. Screaming, she slid down and eventually hit a patch of grass. Bemoaning the bruises that were sure to appear soon, she saw Hiccup beside a shield smiling at her and motioning for her to come over.

"Kind of a hard fall the first time huh."

"I may have eaten a bit of the leather, but I'll survive."

Hiccup chuckled. He put a finger to his lips and slowly ducked under the shield. Astrid followed suit. As the two teens walked slowly in, it seemed eerily quiet.

Hiccup looked around and took a few quick steps. Seeming satisfied, he grabbed the contraption from Astrid and shrugged.

"Guess he's sleeping."

Astrid looked around the area. It looked as though nothing had changed from her last visit, although it had already been almost two weeks. She gave a quick glance at Hiccup before hearing a stern yell from the boy.

"Toothless, no!"

Astrid found herself thrown violently to the ground. She struggled as something heavy was impeding her movement. Grunting as she tried to free herself, she heard her assailant shriek. Jerking her head up to look at the source of the noise, her mouth was agape.

"Night Fury!"


The dragon had its arms and legs on top of Astrid's essentially trapping her. It growled menacingly and snapped at her face. Astrid shut her eyes and tried shoving it away, but it was too heavy.

"HELP! Get this damn beast off of me!" Astrid has had a close encounter with other dragons, but this one was literally an inch away from tearing out her throat.

'I knew it, I knew it! All dragons are the same, no way around it. All the stupid beasts want to do is destroy!'

Opening her eyes, she gave the Night Fury a defiant glare while tears were stinging at her eyes. "No!"

"Toothless get off now!"

This angry command caused the dragon to flinch and reluctantly pulled itself off of the trembling girl. Before walking away however, Astrid saw that it's pupils were as wide as she remembered them.

Toothless curled around Hiccup and gave Astrid a snort before closing it's eyes and laying down. The boy quickly ran and grabbed Astrid by her shoulders, inspecting every inch of her.

"Are you ok? I really didn't mean for that to happen, oh gods! Please don't tell anyone, he's usually not like this! Dammit! You are such a useless reptile, Toothless! You hear me?" He gave a glare at the dragon, which earned him an eye roll.

Astrid heart was beating erratically. She had almost gotten killed!

'But wait...that dragon's eyes...'

Suddenly she pushed Hiccup away and stood indignantly at her feet. Stomping towards Toothless, she pointed an accusatory finger while growling, "You bastard little sack of scales! You were just screwing around with me weren't you?"

Hiccup looked absolutely flabbergasted. "Wha...?"

Toothless looked at Astrid for a moment, and then proceeded to piss her off even more. He, or it(she would have to clarify that later) gave her an absolutely cocky smirk. This made Astrid go a deep shade of crimson as she began to shout obscenities at the dragon. She came over to Toothless and slapped him (she would now refer to him as such) on the forehead.

"Who the hel do you think you are! No one screws around with Astrid Hofferson you understand me?"

Hiccup's eyes went as round as dinner plates. He immediately ran between the two.

"Hey! Can't we just get along?"

Toothless snarled at the girl and towered over her. But Astrid showed the dragon that she would not be toyed with. Then, in exasperation, Toothless stalked off towards the barren tree.

Hiccup's gaze lingered a bit on the dragon, but then focused on the seething girl beside him.

"What was that about? Huh?"

"That dragon was just toying with me! His eyes weren't like before!"

"Before what?"

"Before when I saw him with you!" She slapped her hands over her mouth.

'Oh for the love of- Why did I just say that? Now he's gonna ask when Toothless attacked me, which means 'll have to say I was following him, which will freak him out and we can't be friends! And we have to be friends!'

"Astrid!" He was waving a hand in front of her face. "Are you listening?"

Blue eyes looked away ashamedly. Hiccup grabbed her wrist and gave her a purely worried look.

"What happened?"

The words were soft and simple. Any other boy would've growled and demanded she say something, but Hiccup was giving her a choice. It was something unfamiliar to her. Normally she would have to beat her way to a position where she was respected and not treated like a girl, but now that she was being talked to like an equal without any prompting...it felt weird.

"Listen..." she sighed."I really haven't been honest with you. This isn't the first time I've met..."

"Toothless." He finished.

"Yeah, Toothless. I actually saw him attack you a while after the recent dragon raid."

Hiccup was dumbstruck. "Y-You knew?"

"And believe it or not, I was going to rat you out to the whole village; To tell them that Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III had brought down a dragon and didn't kill it."

"And did you?"

"Yep. I told anyone who would listen. All I got was skepticism and a few laughs."

Hiccup chuckled bitterly. "Well it is me, right? It's not as if I could bring down a bird, much less a dragon."

"But you did." A quiet moment passed as they stared at each other. Astrid coughed and continued. "So I decided that I would prove to people that I wasn't lying. And so I decided to discreetly follow you."

"You mean stalk me?"

Astrid punched him square in the shoulder.

"Ow!"

"Not stalking!"

"Jeez, sorry. So how long were you stalking me?"

She gave him a glare that made him put up his hands as a peace offering.

"Well, I saw how that dragon hasn't killed you. I saw when you fed it a fish and tried to talk to it. Then I saw how it threw up a fish head and made you eat it. My sympathies."

Hiccup grimaced at the memory. "The thing was coated in saliva..."

The girl put up a hand. "I already saw it, I don't need to reminisce."

"Then when I saw Toothless smile..." Astrid had a faraway look in her eyes. "it was like a wake up call. These dragons could be happy. They could feel like we can. They weren't all savages. But that wasn't what sold me on the idea of Toothless not being bad."

Hiccup raised an eyebrow. "Then what did?"

"…the fact that you were able to touch it and not get your hand eaten."

A small smile appeared. "Yeah, that felt pretty amazing."

"Listen Hiccup, I still promise to keep your secret."

Uneasiness ran through the boy's mind, and Astrid could sense it. "Oh yeah? Why?"

"I have no idea." Hiccup frowned in confusion. "Yeah, I don't get it either."

She shrugged, "I just want to."

"Well, I really don't want to lose a friend so quickly, so you won't see me complaining. But how do I know you just won't kill Toothless now?"

Astrid lifted up her arms and moved her clothes around, much to an embarrassed Hiccup's dismay. She showed him that there were no weapons anywhere on her person.

"Proof enough?"

Hiccup tapped his chin thoughtfully. He took her wrist and led her to the tree where Toothless was hanging from his tail.

"Toothless!"

A warble was heard as the dragon unwrapped a wing from around his body. He gave a disinterested look at the two teens.

"This is Astrid. Astrid is a friend."

Giving a loud sigh, Toothless descended from the tree and approached Astrid slowly. He stopped about 3 feet away from her. They had an intense stare off that lasted a few minutes. Greenish gold eyes faced icy blue and neither budged an inch. Finally, Astrid held out her palm in a similar fashion as Hiccup had done previously. Hiccup ducked his head. She took this as a cue to do the same.

After a few second, she felt something warm against her skin.

Upon opening her eyes, she saw that Toothless extended his wing as some sort of odd handshake. He looked away and gave a grunt, which Astrid took as a reluctant agreement. Toothless looked at Hiccup as if he were asking for the boy's approval of the girl and Hiccup nodded. After the confirmation, he quickly whipped his wing back toward himself and gave her a look before going away again.

Astrid smiled determinedly and looked at her palm. It was still warm.

'Yeah I know, not yet.'

Hiccup patted Astrid on the back. "Now that I know you guys won't kill each other, let's get to work!"

They both ran to a little pile of medium sized rocks, where Hiccup had placed his contraption and all his papers. They took a seat cross-legged style.

Hiccup cleared his throat. "Ok, so how long ago was your last visit here?"

"It was when you first touched Toothless."

"Ok, good. So you haven't seen what I've done here." He picked up the giant saddle and placed it in front of them. "So a while back I noticed that Toothless had a tail fin missing."

Astrid tapped her fist against her hand. "Oh yeah, I saw that too!"

Hiccup nodded. "Yeah, well it turns out that he needs it to fly. I'm guessing that they stabilize his flight. I see that he can go up into the air, but he has trouble staying airborne. Now I figured I could just replicate the fin my sketching it and just making another one. Wrong move."

"What happened?"

"I strapped the fin I made on and while he finally got airborne, he knocked me off and I ended up in the lake while he fell to the ground."

Astrid winced. "Ouch."

"Eh, I'll live. So anyway, I realized that it was kind of useless since I had to hold the thing out. So then I tried to tie a rope to it and maneuver it while on Toothless' back. Turns out its bad that you can't see forwards, and we hit a tree. Plus his scales were really rough. It nearly tore apart my pants." He held up the saddle and grinned.

"This is gonna solve that problem!"

Astrid leaned forward and took some blades of grass and began to play with them. "But how does that solve the problem of not being able to look forward?"

Hiccup rubbed his neck and laughed nervously. "I'm still working on that."

"Hey Hiccup?"

"Yeah, Astrid?"

"Why are you doing all of this?"

The boy's demeanor turned very serious. His hands balled into fists. "Well it was my fault in the first place. His fin got torn off when I trapped him. I figure it's my duty to repay the debt I owe him. It's my personal vow to him and my burden to bear."

His voice was laced with honesty and didn't falter. He really meant what he said. There was some Viking in him after all.

"Honoring a promise!" She gave him a hard slap on the back. "Well damn Hiccup, I knew you had to have some Viking in you!"

Hiccup scoffed. "What, besides all this raw Vikingness?" He flexed his painfully scrawny arms. "You can't handle my amazing Viking power!"

Astrid giggled at his failing attempt to act macho. Her stomach was turning.

'Since when was he funny? And why is my stomach acting all weird? Oh well, it's just still nice to know that I can stay this close for a little while longer.'

Astrid was enjoying the time that they were spending together, but she knew it couldn't last. Everyone in the village knew that to associate with Hiccup meant being a social outcast. He was only seen with Fishlegs, but even then he was mostly alone. She knew that the other teens would make fun of her and harass him if they were seen together. It was ugly, but the truth. Well Ruffnut might be more angry, but that was really a perk in her mind. Snotlout however...

She smiled sadly at Hiccup. He was so nice and friendly up close. How is it that she had never known this before? Maybe the distance between them all these years was even farther apart than Astrid had realized?

"Astrid, I'm going to need a favor. Now this task is going to be daunting. But I'm going to ask you not to back down."

'Who does this kid think I am?'

"I am Astrid Hofferson, and I never back down from any challenge." She smirked defiantly while Hiccup just sighed and shook his head.

"Don't say I didn't warn ya."

"Well?" She tapped her foot impatiently. "What do I have to do?"

Hiccup threw Astrid the saddle and then coiled some rope he had hidden under the rock around his shoulder.

"It's actually going to be we. And without getting into the whole back story, let's just call it tag."

"Tag?"

"Tag."

"How is that challenging?"

The boy stretched for a bit before walking towards the dragon. "Ever play tag with a Night Fury before?"

"No..."

"Well then good luck to you, because we need to get that saddle onto Toothless."

Astrid scoffed as she blew her bangs out of her eye.

"Piece of cake."

Oh how wrong she was. So very wrong.


Well? D'ya like it? :D If you did or didn't it doesn't matter cause ya read it anyways! So ha! XD Now I said that I wouldn't update until I had updated my other story, but I seriously have severe writer's block. And this story seems to come out naturally. So if I have any readers of The Power Of Two, I apologize. R&R! And to my lovely fans who favorite, add to story alert, review and just plain read it: You are seriously awesome :D Keep it up, cause I only do this for you!