10. Making Contact And Plans

Story Start: Dragon Nest

The trip to the dragon's nest had been silent, at least to Astrid's ears. For all she knew though Hiccup and Toothless had spent the whole flight going over 'floor plans' of the nest they were headed for, profiles on all of the important dragons, what they planned to eat for lunch once the visit was done, or even a whole combination of the three. (They weren't in fact discussing anything besides when Toothless occasionally gave a mental call for an adjustment to the tail flap.) Finally though they shot out of the fog bank surrounding the island that housed the nest and not even bothering with slowing down, went vertical and shot up even higher up the tall mountain before Toothless began slowing and came to a stop at a cave that was fifty feet from the top. Toothless gave a growl to the flight of Terrible Terrors inside that caused the tiny dragons to let out startled yelps as they scrambled away from what looked to be Toothless' favorite resting place of black sand near a steam vent. Another series of growls had them scampering out and a moment later, Hiccup said "Toothless says the dragon elders will be here soon and to make yourself at home."

As Toothless settled himself onto his favorite spot with the sigh of one who hadn't been in his own bed for a long time, Astrid pointedly looked around the cave and said "I don't see any chairs here Hiccup." Hiccup let out a chuckle as he settled himself on a rock that was at knee height and showed the signs that Toothless had used his flame to heat it numerous times in the past. He pat his side in invitation and Astrid let out a huff and settled next to him, blinking in surprise from the low residual heat in the stone that did wonders for her slightly sore legs that came from riding dragon back for the first time. Hiccup seeing the blink made a downward gesture to the bottom of the mountain they were currently in as he said "There's a semi dormant lava pit at the base of the mountain that keeps the stones slightly warm even this far up."

"You mean we're currently sitting on top of a volcano?" Astrid asked with a small bit of trepidation.

Toothless gave a negligent wave from his position and Hiccup said "Toothless says the lava hasn't gone past its current level in fifty generations so we're perfectly safe here."

Astrid's response was prevented from being heard as the sound of multiple types of wings flapping filled the air and five dragons joined them, an older looking Terror riding an equally old looking Gronkle that came in before a Nadder and a Nightmare. A Zippleback snaked one head into the now much more tightly packed cave and Toothless stood up and gave a dragon bow to the elders, a mental nudge having Hiccup doing the same and Astrid quickly copying him.

The elders each gave a nod before they studied the humans present with calculating eyes. The Nightmare growled out a question and Toothless answered. All of the dragons gave him a look asking if he was crazy. In response, Toothless held up his tail showing the artificial tail fin and barked something. The Terror flew over and examined the fin and the saddle. The terror looked towards Hiccup and flew over to the two humans, Astrid stiffening slightly as the Terror smelled the two, putting more emphasis on Hiccup then her. After a moment of inspection, the Terror nodded and barked something that started a whole new conversation between the present dragons.

As this went on, Astrid leaned closer to Hiccup and whispered "Am I the only one feeling left out in all of this?"

"No, I don't know what they're saying either, Toothless is being a bit quite on the mental front." Hiccup whispered back.

For the next ten minutes the two humans watched the six dragons converse with themselves before seeming to come to an agreement. The Nightmare, Zippleback, and Nadder quickly left leaving only the Gronkle and Terror with them. Toothless finally filled Hiccup in as he sent 'The Elder Council has agreed to aid us. As soon as we have a plan they will mobilize the others.'

"Then I guess we better come up with a plan quickly before another raid is made." Hiccup said and cocked his head as he said "Can you show me any and all memories you have of this mountain? This will go a lot quicker if I have a map of the cave systems."

Toothless nodded and images began rapidly flitting in front of Hiccup's eyes, a spinning image of the mountain also forming and filling in with yellow lines and dots of various sizes as Toothless' memories began filling in all of the details. Two minutes in, Toothless barked something at Astrid and she frowned as she asked "What did he just say?"

Hiccup blushed slightly when Toothless supplied a translation even as his mind's eye image continued updating itself and said "He said that you would be rather unwise to let me out of your grasp. Apparently, he thinks that we're courting each other, or at the very least have already been on a date."

Astrid let out a small blush of her own before she huffed and muttered under her breath "Stupid lizard." Apparently Toothless heard her because he gained a smug grin and started laughing which caused Astrid to continue muttering unpleasant things under her breath causing Toothless to laugh even more until he was literally rolling on the floor. Luckily Hiccup's map was already complete and so he ignored the two as the mountain broke apart into several pieces that grew revealing the caverns and tunnels in full if miniature detail to him. After a minute of inspection of the 'structural support walls' of the cave system, Hiccup said "We're going to have to drop the mountain on the Green Death if we want to be able to get the dragons to Berk long enough to coordinate an attack without it immediately following us."

Both Toothless and Astrid immediately stilled at his statement and Astrid gaped at him as she said "Drop the mountain?! Are you insane? We can't drop a mountain, it's an Odin-damned MOUNTAIN!" Toothless' wide eyed look turned calculating as he saw what Hiccup was currently seeing, which happened to be an image of several detonations at key points triggering a cascade collapse of the mountain, starting from the center to the exterior of the massive mound of stone and dirt.

'Child, you scare me sometimes, you really do.' The Night Fury said with a hint of awe in his mental voice causing Hiccup to smirk for a moment before he addressed Astrid's statement as he said "Enough explosions will level this place. We just need to properly rig the place to blow and we're good to go."

"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?!" Astrid asked, still a little hysterical at the thought of Hiccup actually causing a mountain to collapse on itself. Forget exaggerated Viking stories, that was right up there with the tale of Thor's hammer being made from a dying star by dwarves.

"Oiled rope for the fuse lines and Hideous Zippleback gas for the fuel of the explosions at key points throughout the cavern system." Hiccup said calmly and Astrid's teeth clicked as she closed her slightly hanging jaw and a moment later she admitted "That might work."

The Gronkle and Terror, who before this point had been watching the antics of Toothless and Astrid with amusement, now made distressed sounds at the plan to destroy the dragons' home. Toothless barked a question at them and a moment later, the two hung their heads dejectedly when they answered. There was conversation between the three dragons for another minute before the two left and Toothless sent a message to Hiccup that he said out loud for Astrid's benefit "They'll have everyone ready when it is time to start preparing the explosions."

Hiccup nodded at that and said "Seems we're done here for now. Now we just have to get the rest of Berk on board."

"That should be fun." Astrid muttered to herself even as she mounted Toothless behind Hiccup and hooked herself in before Toothless shout out of the cave and back towards Berk.

Author's Notes: I think I actually like this better than what I had before almost all of my documents were lost. In that one, Toothless and the humans were led through the caves by a Zippleback elder and when they reached the Green Death cavern Hiccup had the dragons blast the walls at key points to bury said monster in rubble. This version is more like what engineers would actually do if they had to destroy a large amount of mountain area with a good map of any cave systems in it. On another note, I'm glad I decided to write ahead because at the time of posting this, I lost an entire week of writing so now instead of being three stories ahead of schedule I'm at two.