Hello lovelies! sorry for the long wait, but I have a life LOL Don't take that negatively, I merely meant that I do have real life obligations and responsibilities that have priority over fanfictions. But that doesn't mean I'll stop forever!
Review Replies:
Ravenclaw: thanks! Glad you like it!
Daku: yeah, I found a couple gender swap fics that also have Snotlout as a girl, but I thought that Snotlout sucking up to male Astrid would be good too with the whole idolization thing lol. And thanks, I loved that scene too
Axel: thanks, I like them too
Kishin: thanks and hmm...I never intended for any other couples in the fic because I didn't want it to be too pairing central. If you really want Snotlout and Ruffnut to be a couple, why don't you write a fic for it? I didn't intend that to be in a bad tone, more of a suggestion tone. I have to say what context I mean things because it's hard to determine context on the internet
angel: thanks and as for the leg...I'm not sure. I kinda want to, but because she's also a girl, I kinda want to tone it down but still do some serious/permanent damage to her. I have an idea for it but don't want to give it away yet. What do you think?
Romance: yeah totally. I read a couple gender swap fics where it's a female Snotlout crushing on male Astrid, but I thought it would be more effective and less couples if it was just a admiration relationship.
I do not own How To Train Your Dragon, only Ayden and Ash.
I didn't feel like editing/revising this chapter so sorry if there's any errors and such. Enjoy!
Normal POV
'Ash's axe was already sharpened when he brought it to me yesterday…then why did he even bring it to me?'
Ayden was plagued with these thoughts of Ash's visit to the smith earlier. She put these thoughts out of her head and returned to the tasks that had demanded her full attention and effort of late.
She returned to Toothless the next morning before dragon training with her new belt. They did another test flight out of the canyon. This time, Ayden held her hands firmly on the saddle while trying to operate the tail with the string tied around her foot, which proved to be just as disastrous as the previous time.
They crashed into a field of tall grass, thankfully the grass was soft and it cushioned their fall. Ayden rushed through the fields so she could stand up properly and began looking for Toothless. She heard him behind her and turned around...quite surprised by what she saw.
Toothless lay on his back but then turned to his side, sniffing the grass while swimming in it. He seemed so hypnotized by the scent. Ayden picked a reed and sniffed it. It smelled sweet but it must have had a more powerful effect on dragons than it did humans.
Ayden took a few strands of the grass before she headed off to dragon training. The Gronckle was their opponent today, which brought back bad memories of their first class to Ayden. Snotlout charged at the Gronckle, who just knocked him back with a head butt. He turned and set his sights on Ayden and began flying over to her.
Ayden quickly pulled out the grass and stuck her arm out, closing her eyes for fear of what might happen if Toothless was the only one who liked the grass. The Gronckle came to a halt and fell to the ground right in front of her, it's pupils big and round, hypnotized by the scent of the grass. Ayden opened her eyes and saw this before rubbing the grass against the Gronckle's nose, causing him to fall to the ground and pass out in pure ecstasy.
"Aw, there you go."
A crowd had begun gathering around the arena while the village elder, Gothi, examined Ayden. As she left the arena, the classmates that had once made fun of her now vied for her attention.
"How did you do that?" asked Ruffnut, pushing her brother aside.
"Yeah, I have never seen a Gronckle do that," Snotlout added.
"Oh, I left my axe back in the ring. You all go ahead. I'll catch up." She backtracked across the bridge and almost ran into Ash, who suspiciously eyed Ayden as she disappeared.
To say that he was jealous of all the attention she was getting would be an understatement. He was usually the one everyone went to to ask how to beat a dragon, but now everyone was going to Ayden, who barely lifted a finger!
Not only that, but Snotlout, Tuffnut and Fishlegs were giving her far more attention than ever...and, well, Ash couldn't stand it. Ayden was, no, is very beautiful, for a Viking, and after all these years of being ignored, it was starting to catch up to her.
Was he jealous?
'Me? Jealous? Of her? Impossible!' he thought furiously.
But of course, she didn't catch up with the others. Instead she went to see Toothless again. When she arrived, she saw him trying to scratch the back of his head, but his arms couldn't reach.
"Aw, hey what's the matter?" Toothless gave her a little sad look. "Oh are you itchy? Let me get that." She began scratching his neck. Toothless immediately purred and pushed his body closer to her as she began scratching with both hands. "Oh, you like that? Ok." She began scratching more furiously as one of Toothless' eyes closed. She moved one of her hands to his chin. She scratched and he immediately fell to the ground, eyes closed and purring as he promptly fell asleep.
Since Toothless was fast asleep after the scratching, Ayden decided there wasn't much to do and let him sleep.
The next day at dragon training, Ash threw his two handed axe at the Nadder, but it bounced off the Nadder's front horn. Ash jumped to the side to avoid the charging Nadder who turned its attention to Ayden.
Ayden back up nervously, dropping her mace. This confused the Nadder. Why didn't she attack him like the other humans? Ash saw Ayden's distress and grabbed his axe and rushed to her rescue with a battle cry.
This alerted the Nadder, who turned its head to face Ash, exposing its neck to Ayden. She quickly reached out and began scratching the Nadder's neck, whose eyes began closing in pleasure. She moved her hand to its chin and scratched, causing it to fall to the ground.
Ash came to a halt just as the Nadder fell, looking at Ayden confused while she just waved at him nervously.
Later that evening, Ayden entered the mess hall and passed by her classmates' table, taking her usually place at an empty table. All of a sudden her classmates and the other adults flooded in from everywhere, inquiring questions or offering praise to Ayden. Ash saw all the attention she was getting and angrily set his drink on the table, nearly spilling it in the process.
The next morning, Ayden managed to sneak out of the village without alerting any of her new fans. After feeding Toothless, she was idly playing around with her hammer.
All of a sudden, Toothless raced across the canyon, chasing something. Ayden sat up to see what he was running after and saw it was a little light on the ground. She looked at the hammer in her hand and saw that it was reflecting the sunlight to the ground.
Ayden smiled. She leaned against a rock and held the hammer in both hands, strategically aiming the light all across the canyon as Toothless raced to catch it with his paws. It had to be the cutest thing she'd ever seen.
"Meet the Terrible Terror." Gobber introduced a little green dragon with buts of orange and red. It was about the size of a badger. The Terror looked at the teens that crowded around it while licking its eye.
Tuffnut pointed and laughed at the little creature's size. "Ha! It's like the size of my- Ahh!" With incredible speed, the Terror jumped onto Tuffnut's face, knocking him to the ground and began biting his nose, turning it red.
Before anyone could even react to the Terror, it saw a beam of light on its face move to the ground and began chasing it. Ayden used the metal on her shield to reflect the sunlight to the Terror's door as he scrambled back into the cage to chase the light. Once the Terror was inside, Ayden held the door shut with her foot while meekly smiling at the others.
"Wow, she's better than you ever were," Tuffnut said, holding his nose. Ash glared at Tuffnut before staring at Ayden, wondering how she had gotten the best of the dragon with little to no effort.
Later that afternoon, Ash ventured into the forest, practicing throwing his axe into tree trunks. He reached and grabbed his axe out of the trunk, did a somersault and was prepared to throw it again when something stopped him.
Ayden was right in front of him. If he had thrown the axe, he would've killed her..."What are you doing here?" he asked her.
"What are you doing here?" she asked in return.
"I asked you first," he said, advancing on her.
"Oh, would you look at the time! I-I really have to go!"
"Ayden wait!"
"Ash…"
"Ayden, I'm sorry about before."
"And I told you that it was nothing."
"No, it wasn't nothing. Please, there must be something I can do to make it up to you."
"Well, if it's that important to you, you can not follow me and go back to the village."
"Is that it? Come on, there must be something more I can do."
"If you do that, I'll forgive you."
"Ok…" He picked up his axe and returned to the village. He looked back one last time to see if Ayden was still there, but she was long gone.
Why did she want him not to follow her? Was she meeting someone? A boy? Ash instantly felt anger well up within him at the thought of Ayden in another boy's arms. He considered breaking the agreement and following her but…he wanted her forgiveness…and he could always follow her another day.
Ayden's POV
Man that was close. I was hiding behind a really thick tree, waiting for Ash to disappear completely. I peeked out behind the tree and saw him trek back to the village.
Phew. I let out a breath I was holding. If he found out what I was doing...I don't even want to think about what would happen.
I continued my way to Toothless' canyon, where he greeted my with his usual smile. I set my basket of fish down and turned it over for him as he greedily dug in. I took this time to strap the saddle on him with my new foot holsters while connecting a string form them to the tail.
Toothless and I made our way up to a windy cliff where a tree stump stood. I tied a string from the tree stump to saddle strap around Toothless' belly and got on. The strong winds there were perfect to test out the final version of the saddle.
Toothless opened his wings and glided against the wind. I moved my left foot in the holster and the tail opened. Just as the wind stopped, Toothless gracefully landed on the ground while I made note of the position of the tail.
Toothless looked up at me happily. I pat his head and scratched it. "Great job sweetie."
All of a sudden, a powerful gust of wind blew us right into the trees as the string snapped. Toothless landed on the ground and I fell out of the saddle. I felt him get up when I was suddenly pulled up as well. I looked up and tried to unclip my belt from the saddle, but saw that the hook had followed over.
"Oh perfect." I groaned. How was I going to get out of this? I could pry it off, but all my tools were back in the forge...there was only one thing to do...
I waited until nightfall to ride Toothless back to the village, that way, he couldn't be seen. I saw the torch light of a night patrolman and quickly, but casually took a spot by the corner of a house while Toothless stayed in the shadows.
"Ayden…" he said, acknowledging. I casually waved and once he was out of sight, Toothless walked out with me. We had to get in and out fast! Toothless immediately got distracted and was ready to follow the patrol man so I pulled on the cord to get him to follow me.
We finally made it to the forge. Toothless stuck his head into a bucket and knocked it across the forge. "Shh!" I quickly responded to him. I found a tool and began trying to unbend the metal hook.
"Ayden? Are you in there?" I heard a familiar voice. 'Ash!' I quickly put on an apron and jumped out the windows, holding them closed with my hands so he couldn't see Toothless.
"Ash! Hi! Hi. Hi Ash. Hi, nice night for a walk huh?"
"Look Ayden, I don't normally care what you're doing but you've been acting really weird lately and I can't help but keep noticing you." He said, pointing his finger at me.
I couldn't help but blush. "You've been noticing me?"
"It's kind of hard not to, especially since you're suddenly so good at dragon training, and I don't like it one bit." My smile faded. "The point is, you've been acting strange." I suddenly felt Toothless move, pulling me towards the window. "Well… stranger."
I felt him pull harder and I was floating in the air. I laughed nervously…trying to ease the tension in the air when I was suddenly pulled into the shop. I wasted no time as I mounted Toothless and snuck out the back door as Ash opened the window. We easily escaped using the cover of nightfall.
It wasn't until this chapter where I realized that I've got Ash going back and forth from crushing on Ayden to also resenting her for being so good at dragon training. Sorry if he's too back and forth but I feel like it adds to his inner conflict on how he feels about her.
Hope you enjoyed!
Next Chapter: Stoick returns and learns of Ayden's sudden success. Speaking of which, Ayden puts everything she's been working on towards her first flight with Toothless.
Review
~ZP
