The next weeks went by really quick. Time here passed flying, and we spent most of time with Toothless fixing and improving the tail. Since that day, everything here changed. I could tell as if they had a bond, a real and strong bonding between them. But it was more like a brother-bonding.

After we returned to the ring to pick up the eel from the Zippleback's cage, Hiccup stated that we need to make a harness for him and Toothless. I looked at him in disbelief, but he seemed to be exited about the idea of going flying. Me on the other side, got a sick feeling when he mentioned it.

There was something I hadn't told him, but he didn't need to know. It was nothing important, and besides he was the one that wanted to go flying, not me. He was the one that bonded with the dragon, not me.

But anyway I helped him. We spent all the afternoon working on something special, a saddle. Hiccup and I worked on the saddle for Toothless very hard, but I was still thinking of a way to improve the fin that didn't involved Hiccup holding on the tail for dear life.

And then I knew that everything is easier said than done.

When we showed Toothless the saddle, he ran off and we chased him for almost two hours, but we did it. Hiccup then offered me to mount Toothless with him since we both worked hard at night, but I suggested to stay on land so I could have a better look.

I saw Hiccup mount Toothless for the first time, he was exited, like a kid receiving a toy. He attached a rope to the fin so he could operate it, but I barely could see that would work. And I was right. They didn't last fifteen seconds in the air when Hiccup pulled the rope and both were thrown to the water, in different directions. I laughed at them, mostly at Hiccup.

"Hey Hiccup, how was it?" I teased him.

He groaned trying to get the water off his face and clothes.

"That was... Good at some point and..." Just when he opened an eye to look at me, I responded by splashing more water in his face. Toothless made a dragon laugh of his own and I chuckled. "Ohhh, I see how it is..."

While I turned at Toothless, Hiccup splashed water at me and I gasped. It was cold! "Hey, no fair!"

"Oh, sorry m'lady. I didn't know you were there." Then he splashed again. "Or there." He said with a smile.

"IT'S ON!" I yelled and we played on the water for a while. We continued like that until both of us were soaked to the bone, and I was sure all my clothing was wet. Hiccup then began to take off his vest and then his shirt and I could see his body. He was scrawny, and although he had no muscle at all he looked good.

Then I took my shirt off, but I was lucky to have a black blouse with suspenders under that one. I lay down on the grass and he did the same. Then we waited until our clothes were dry enough before putting them on again and I commented that at some point I'll need other clothes. I mean, there was nothing wrong with them, but he was a guy, I was a girl. I said before I hadn't any problem at all, I just now realized that like every girl I needed to wear clothes for me.

On the afternoon, I worked on something so Hiccup won't have to use a rope while he added some clips on his belt from the harness to the saddle so he'll reduce the probabilities of falling off. I added pedals and seemed very useful.

I said that seemed useful, not that it was useful from falling off.

I was again watching from the ground, for me it was safer. They were doing fine until Hiccup made a wrong command and he lost control of Toothless, crashing on an open field. I ran to them and Hiccup was just fine, but we both found Toothless rolling on the tall grass like a cat. I grabbed some of it and sniffed it. I recognized it.

"Eureka!" I exclaimed. "This is just like some kind of grass back at home we call cat-nip. This could be dragon-nip."

Hiccup grabbed an amount on his hand and seemed to analyze it. "Are you thinking the same thing I'm thinking?" I eye widened and then smiled.

At the arena...

We decided to try our theory with the gronkle. If Toothless reacted that way to the grass all dragons should too, right?

While Hiccup prepared himself, I caught the attention of the gronkle for the second time. I noticed that unlike other times, there was people on the upper part of the ring. Why was that? Did we do something wrong? If somebody did I was sure it wasn't me.

In my distraction the gronkle flew straight towards Hiccup, and when I noticed it was too late. But to my surprise, the gronkle suddenly fell to its side and its longue was sticking out. I walked aside and from this point of view Hiccup was controlling the dragon with no more than his arm, but I knew that our theory was right.

It was so right that we actually called attention not only from the adults but also from the gang. When we were doing our way back to the village they were doing Hiccup a lot of questions that I really doubted they would let him alone.

"I've never seen a Gronkle do that before."

"How'd you do that?"

"It was really cool!"

I suddenly made my way between them and made up an excuse to go back to the cove. "Hey Hiccup, we left our stuff back on the ring." I grabbed him from the hand so the lie would be believable.

"Yeah, right. You guys go on ahead, Annabelle and I'll catch up with you."

"See ya!" I said and we ran away leaving them behind. On the run Hiccup said,

"Thanks for that." I smiled at him.

"No problem."

On the cove...

When we arrived Toothless came running to greet us and I awed at him, he was smiling at us with his gummy smile. I couldn't resist to scratch him on the head, and he seemed to like it. "Hello boy. You were waiting for us? Were you? Oh, you're such a good boy." I said and moved my hand under his head, and suddenly Toothless fell to the ground.

"What happened?" Hiccup asked.

I stared at my hands just like when Hiccup did when he bonded with Toothless. And then at Toothless who purred in response. "I think it was a pressure point." I said grinning. "This is going to be fun."

At the arena...

It didn't go as planned, but it turned out really well.

This time we went again with the Nadder. I suggested Hiccup that I'll be the one to test this new technique. At first the Nadder seemed angrier than before. I could tell because it was attacking everyone at this point, not like in the maze.

One by one, the teens were out. Astrid just threw her axe at the nadder and to our surprise it shook it off. Astrid ran out of the way and then it spotted me. It came directly towards me and I just dropped my weapons. It stared at me confused and I slightly smiled. That's when I heard Astrid's scream. I scratched the nadder on the pressure point sending it to the ground, leaving a shocked Astrid.

When everyone leaved, the nadder got to its feet. I hadn't moved an inch. It was startled to see me but then it calmed. I let out an arm and turned my head away, waiting for it to do the same thing Toothless did with Hiccup. But instead it sniffled me and walked away from me, leaving me confused.

The Great Hall...

Hiccup and I went to sit on our table like usual, when suddenly every viking in the hall came with us to congratulate us how well we were doing on the ring. Of course, from the corner of my eye I noticed that Astrid was left alone, and on the inside I felt a little sorry for her. If she didn't threat so bad Hiccup, then I would go with her and even wish her good luck.

On the cove...

Hiccup brought a little hammer to reinforce the clips, when the sun reflected on it and created a light-patch on the ground. Toothless was immediately attracted to it and it remembered me when I used the same trick with Thomas but with a mirror.

"Who knew dragons could be so cat-like?" I commented. Suddenly I had a flashback. It was about Lucy said something similar to me when we were watching a movie.

"Aww! He's so cute! Look at those big eyes!"

"The dragon? You think it's cute?"

"Dragons are very cat-like you know? They eat fish, they like napping, they like dragon-nip, they chase light spots, and some of them even walk like cats!"

"You mean Toothless, right? Well you're right in that. He's a good dragon."

"All dragons are good."

"How do you know?"

"Dunno. I just believe that. I would love to have a dragon."

"You know what? Me too."

I frowned at the memory. Since when did Lucy and I talked about something and actually agreed? But most importantly, why were we talking about dragons? I even mentioned Toothless, but it couldn't be the same Toothless, could it? There was just one I knew of. Did that mean the movie I watched with Lucy was about Hiccup and him?

At the arena...

It was ironic how could such big cage could be for a tiny dragon the size of a cat.

"Meet tha Terrible Terror!" Goober announced, and I wondered what type of dragon was that. This was our first time with this new dragon. When it came out of his cage...I awed at it. It was a yellow-ish dragon, with four paws, tiny wings and horns over it's head.

"Ha!" Tuffnut scoffed. "It's like the size of my–" before he could finish the Terror flew to his head. He was bitting his nose when the Terror was attracted by a light-patch Hiccup did with his shield. "Oh! I'm hurt! I am very much hurt!"

Hiccup guided the Terror back to its cage. "His better than you ever were, Astrid." Astrid glared at Tuffnut furiously. I looked at her and for a moment, our glares made contact. Then she stormed out of the ring.

At the forest...

Hiccup and I had some more improvements such as wires and harnesses so he could fly better on Toothless. As we were making our way through the woods, we heard loud noises.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

"Ha! Ah! Argh!"

"Do you heard that?"

"I think is Astrid." I said. "She must be practicing. She was really mad this morning, she really wants to be the first in dragon training."

I looked to the direction her voice was coming from and then back at Hiccup. This was a bad idea, but I needed to do it. This had gone too far. "Go." I handled everything to Hiccup and walked away.

"Wait, what are you doing?"

"I have to go and clear some things out. Don't wait for me."

"But Annabelle–"

"Astrid?" I called ignoring Hiccup completely. Astrid was about to throw her axe but stopped when she saw me. Not knowing what to start with, I said, "Hey." She groaned and lowered her axe, turning around to hit another tree.

"Ugh. What are you doing here?" She asked. From the corner of my eye I saw Hiccup ran behind me and leave. "Was that Hiccup?" She climbed on top of a boulder, but she couldn't find him, thankfully. I don't want to imagine what would happen if she found out that we were hiding a dragon.

"There's no one else here except you and me." I said and she paused.

"And how are you so sure?" She got down from the boulder and began to walk towards me.

"...I was looking for you. We need to talk."

"I have nothing to talk with you." She snapped and hurled her axe at a target. It was bull's eye.

"You're right, but I need to talk to you." She crossed her arms and looked at me incredously. "I have to know something, what would it mean to you of you had the 'honor' to kill the nightmare?" I put air quotes when I said honor. For me there wasn't any.

"Well, for one," she got the axe out of the crust. "I'll turn into a real viking. I been training all my life for this, so we can finally stop the war. When we finish with the last dragon," thunk! "...finally we'll leave in peace."

"Now, that's an excuse if I ever heard one. You won't stop the war killing, but speaking. If you really want to put an end to this, you have to try and find another way."

She chuckled and shook her head. "As if you had a better way. Do you have any? I'm open."

"I don't. But let me tell you a story... About a girl who wanted to be free and tried to change her fate. She was selfish and caused chaos into the clans of her kingdom. There was a very thin line between peace and war."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"You know what she did to stop the war? She spoke up. Literally. She talked to all the clans and apologized for her actions, and found what she was looking for. I'm not saying that you have to speak literally, just to stand for what is right."

"To search for freedom is easy."

Thunk!

"I wasn't talking about freedom." I said already walking away. She frowned and shook her head not getting it. "Courage. Have courage to fight back, to make a change and stand for what you believe even if under the eyes of others is wrong. Think about all of this, is it really worth it?" Then I leaved her alone so she could think on what I said.

When I arrived to the cove, I heard an "Oh, great." From Hiccup.

"Hiccup?"

"Over here!" I walked through a different path and found them picking themselves up. By his expression it was evident something went wrong. "How did it go?"

"I'll tell you everything later. What happened?"

"Well, for one, I made this." He handled me a piece of paper. On it there were six drawings of the artificial fin.

"Looks good." I praised. Then what was the problem?

"Yeah, but... You're not gonna like what I'm about to tell you." I frowned at him, and when he told me, I certainly didn't like it.

"You've got to be kidding me."

At the village...

I left for less than an hour and what did I find? Hiccup's harness stuck with Toothless' saddle. I shook my head not believing it, pulling with all my strength the harness.

"Toothlesss, what are you waiting for?!" I yelled. It turned out we had to bring Toothless to the village so we could solve this problem. But Toothless paused every ten steps to stare at his surroundings and it was getting harder to pull him like this. At this point it would be dawn by the time we arrived to the forge. And it wasn't 10 feet away.

We stopped by a house and we pretended to be casually standing there. "Kids." A viking greeted us when he passed by. We waved at him and then continued pulling Toothless towards the forge.

'Kids?' I mouthed to myself. Why did everybody kept calling me that? I was not a kid for God's sake!

"I have a bad feeling about this." Hiccup muttered.

We entered the forge without making any noise, it was night time but we still needed to be quiet. Hiccup grabbed a tool and started working. "Why didn't you just took the saddle from Toothless and brought it with you?" I wondered of a sudden. He paused before facepalming. "You didn't thought of that. Did you?" I deadpanned.

Toothless accidentally moved and caused some shields to fall, making a lot of noise. "Toothless!" He scolded.

"Hurry! We have to go before someone–"

"Hiccup?"

We froze. It was Astrid. "Try to shoo her away, I'll try to set you free." Before Hiccup could protest I pushed him through the window and closed it before she could see me.

"Astrid, hey! Hi Astrid! Hi Astrid! Hi Astrid." Hiccup said awkwardly.

"I normally don't care about what people do, but you and Annabelle are acting weird. Well, you weirder than usual." Toothless suddenly moved backwards, causing Hiccup to struggle. I turned confused to noticed Toothless was after a sheep he saw.

"Toothless, not now." I said pulling him from the harness. I wanted to hear their talk.

"What do you mean?"

"I want to know what's going on. No one gets as good as you two do. Especially you. Do you train together?"

"I, ehh... We–"

"What is it that makes her so special?"

"W-what?"

"You two do everything together. Go everywhere together. Live together..." As Astrid said each..."compliment" there was more venom on her voice, more hate, more anger. She sounded like if she was jealous. Of me? "...but why her?" I missed something. What was it?

"She's my friend. And unlike you, she cares about me. I don't have to go through any sort of test so she'll accept me. And I didn't choose her, she chose me. She chose to know me, she opened her heart with me, she gave me a chance to express my feelings with her, what I couldn't do with you guys though I tried."

I smiled. No one ever said such things from me, not even my friends. And he didn't even hesitated when he said all that. Hiccup was a true friend. I wanted to hear more, when I heard a growl. Toothless was reaching slowly the sheep from before.

"No! Toothless, stop!" I don't know if he didn't hear me or if he just ignored me but either way he went after the sheep. Hiccup was pulled backwards and hit me with his foot in the face, making me crash with everything and fall to the ground. "Ow!" Astrid opened the window and saw me on the floor.

"Annabelle? What are you doing here? And where's Hiccup?" She asked walking around and entering the place. I turned around and saw that Hiccup and Toothless were gone and I sighed in relief for them.

"I... Eh... Was looking for something." I picked myself up and carefully placed a hand over my now sore cheek.

"That was you doing all that noise?" She asked incredulously.

"Agh..." I groaned at the pain on my face. "I have to go."

"Wait a second."

"What do you want...?" I asked tired. She opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it again.

"...Never mind."

I stared at her confused until I she was out of sight, and I sighed. What did she wanted to tell me? Did she noticed I was listening to their talk?

I gasped as the wet cloth made contact with my skin. In reflection, I tighten my grip around Hiccup's sleeve.

"Sorry, again."

"It's... not your... fault." I managed to say through the pain. That hurted!

"It is my fault. I should have thought of something, and none of this would've happened. Toothless was almost discovered and you ended hurt for second occasion."

"In none was your fault." He stood quiet. He finished putting me a gauze over my swollen cheek and I thanked him. Hiccup sat besides me.

"...I got something for you..." From his pocket, he took out something that he wrapped his fingers around. He lifted his arm and the object tilted a bit before I could identify it. I gasped, it was a necklace.

The necklace consisted of a snail shell of various shades of blue, from the top a light blue almost white, to the bottom a dark blue almost purple and black. On each side there were two other stones that matched with the shell. The string was thin, and color black, but it seemed very resistant. I was speechless.

"Hiccup..."

He passed the necklace in front of my head and hooked it up from behind my neck. I placed a palm under the shell, it was fragil and very delicate, and so beautiful.

"Annabelle, what I said to Astrid about you... It's true. I didn't need to do anything for you to accept who I am. You care for me, you even call me brother, and you have faith in me. With you I can be myself, and for me you're more than just a girl, you mean more to me than any other person in the world."

A tear ran down my cheek. We hugged. "Hiccup, I don't know what to say, you have no idea how that means to me. You mean so much for me, this..." I grabbed the necklace. "...means so much for me. Thank you."

"Your welcome." We broke the hug, then got on the bed and pulled the blanket over ourselves. He blew the candle. "Night, Anna." I blinked. No one ever called me Anna, and I liked it.

"Night, Hic." I said and we closed our eyes.

We were holding hands when he gave me the necklace, we were holding hands when we broke the hug, and we were still holding hands even though we had fallen asleep.

I'm back.

In my personal opinion, I liked very much the ending. What about you?

I'm so sorry, I usually update on Fridays, but this past weeks life's been complicated. One reason was last week was my b-day and all day I was out. Another reason is I went back to school a day before any other school and got tons of homework DX. But finally I got time to write down something, and it's a long chapter! Yay! XD

...I got exams tomorrow and it's *checks clock* 10:51 p.m. So I'll go to study. Also, unfortunately on Friday all day I'll be out, so I won't be able to update. I'm sorry. But life's unpredictable...

Scout017, out.