Chapter Eleven: Dragon's Den

"So what happens now?" Hiccup asked. Astrid's smile faded. "Astrid – your final exam is tomorrow! You know you're gonna have to kill a..." Hiccup cut himself off before whispering in Astrid's ear. "...kill a dragon." Astrid grimaced.

"Don't remind me," she moaned. Suddenly, Toothless jerked and flew further into a wall of fog that Astrid had failed to notice. "Toothless, what's happening?" Astrid yelped. They nearly flew into a Monstrous Nightmare. "Get down," she hissed, dropping as low as she could on Toothless' back. More dragons surround them and Hiccup was getting increasingly worried.

"What's going on?" he whispered.

"I don't know," Astrid replied. "Toothless, boy, you've gotta get us outta here..." Toothless just shook of his rider's hand. Astrid's gaze was diverted to a dragon carrying a large animal - she couldn't tell what it was. "It looks like they're hauling in their kill." Hiccup gulped.

"Um...what does that make us?" he grimaced. He winced when Astrid elbowed him sharply in the chest - she knew that Toothless would never do that to her and a friend of hers. Apparently Hiccup was still too much in the dragon-vs-Viking mindset to realise that.

Toothless and the other dragons flew through as series of rocks and outcrops, eventually leading to what looked like a volcano. Entering it, a cavern filled with more dragons than Astrid could count greeted them. The Dragon's Nest.

"What your dad wouldn't give to find this," she muttered to Hiccup who actually had to manually shut his mouth when it dropped onto Astrid's shoulder. The dragons came in their hundreds but not a single one took food up to a roost. Instead, they dropped it all into a smoke-filled canyon.

"Well, it's satisfying to know that all our food is being dumped down a hole," she smirked.

"They're not eating any of it," Hiccup frowned. A lone Gronkle was the last to fly in. At first he didn't appear to have brought any food but he soon regurgitated a whole...small fish. A roar shook the cavern and Astrid knew something bad would happen.

And it did. A large head appeared from the smoke and clamped its jaws around the Gronkle. Astrid and Hiccup froze. Whatever it was, it was clearly a dragon but at the same time it wasn't. This was much worse...it was a monster.

"What is that?" Hiccup trembled. The head was about to descend into the fog again but stopped, catching the smell of something foreign in its hideaway...the smell of human teenage Vikings.

"Okay, Toothless, you need to get us out of here," Astrid muttered. The head came in their direction. "NOW!"

Toothless didn't need telling twice. He leapt of the ledge just as the monster snapped exactly where they had been hiding. The other dragons in the nest swarmed to create a protective vortex around the Night Fury and Hiccup could see out of the corner of his eye a Hideous Zippleback fly into the way of the beast's jaws, saving them but sacrificing itself in turn. There was only one thing he could call it – Red Death.

Later, when the three arrived back at the cove, Hiccup had everything sussed out.

"No, it totally makes sense!" he exclaimed as Toothless landed. "It's like a giant beehive. They're the workers and that's their queen – it controls them!" he explained, leaping off the Night Fury's back. "C'mon. Let's go find Dad."

"No!" Astrid cried, stopping her friend in his tracks before he could run off to the village. "No, Hiccup. They'll kill Toothless. No, we have to think this through carefully..." She walked off to think. Hiccup couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Astrid, we just discovered the Dragon's Nest," he pointed out. "The very thing we've been searching for since Vikings first sailed here and you want to keep it a secret? To protect your pet dragon? Are you serious?"

"Yes," Astrid said simply, not turning around.

"What about your family's reputation?" Hiccup pushed further. He still couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Astrid – you've got a chance to make things right for yourself here! You won't be known just as the girl who was married off to save her family name – you could be..."

"You really think I care about that anymore?" Astrid snapped, turning to face the boy, her face showing an expression of determination and defiance that Hiccup had never seen before. Taken aback by her response, Hiccup staggered backwards a few steps. "You think I care that my uncle froze in front of a dragon? Well, I don't! Not anymore."

"Astrid..." Hiccup began but he couldn't finish whatever sentence he'd started. The first time in his life when he wanted to say something and words failed him entirely.

"What happened to my uncle wasn't my fault," Astrid continued, echoing her parents' words from years ago. "So what if Fearless Finn Hofferson froze in fright? I've done something no Viking has done before. I've looked past what we think about dragons. And I'm not going to send the only friend I've ever had to his death just so that your father can find the Nest."

Her answer was final and by the look on her face Hiccup knew there was no point arguing with her.

"Okay," he shrugged, almost sheepishly. "So...what do we do now?"

"Just...give me until tomorrow," Astrid sighed. She'd abandoned all plans to run away now. "I'll think of something." Hiccup nodded before punching Astrid's arm. "Ah!"

"That's for kidnapping me," he glowered. Astrid glared at him properly for the first time and turned to Toothless who was by the lake taking a drink. His shrug was easily understandable.

"You're on your own," he seemed to say. Astrid sagged and turned away – things weren't fair now her best friend liked Hiccup. Hiccup rubbed his neck as if uncertain about something before grabbing Astrid's harness and pecking her on the check.

"That's for..." he began. What had he done that for? Showing him what dragons were really like? Showing him who she really was? Making him realise what she'd been through? "...everything else," he finished. Astrid blinked in amazement and froze on the spot as Hiccup's lean frame vanished from the cove and into the trees. A grin slowly crept onto her face and she raised the hand which had been clutching her bruised arm to stroke her check. She would never wash that spot again. It was only when she heard a small purr that she realised who was behind her.

"Wha... what are you looking at?" she snapped at Toothless.

AN: Sorry it's been a while...ah, well. At least Astrid finally gave Hiccup a piece of her mind.

Quick Reply:

Hiccstrid Lover - thanks for the review! I'm planning to see if I can do something like this for HTTYD 2 when it comes out (in fact, I've got some ideas but I'm staying quiet for now) but it may wait until after the film comes out of the cinemas to avoid spoiling it for everyone else. As for the TV series, I am in the process of writing adaptations for some of the episodes but it may take a long time to do an adaptation for all of them so I'll see what I can do.