This has to be the longest chapter I've ever written, no joke 13 pages on word size 11 writing.
Hope you enjoy
"I swear to God Jack if you knock into me one more time, I'll castrate you in your sleep." Lizzy shouted as once again Whiplash steered into Precious's flight path. Jack just laughed but then looked at Lizzy's completely serious face and suddenly gulped in fear.
"You wouldn't really do that," Jack said more confidently then he felt. "Would you?"
"Are you willing to take that chance?" Lizzy questioned, pulling one of her knifes out of her robes and twirling it oh so innocently. Jack simply steered Whiplash away from Precious and Lizzy giving them a wide berth.
"You're a cruel women Elizabeth" Jack grumbled.
"You love me, really." She said in jest, but the atmosphere between them instantly changed. There was an awkward silence between them, neither sure what to say.
"If you too are done planning your date, maybe we should hurry back to camp it will be dark soon." Matt interrupted, who had been flying a bit ahead of Lizzy and Jack, laughing to himself at the oblivious couple.
"Um yeah, ok." Lizzy replied holding her hood down to hide even more of her face. Jack desperately trying to get rid of the awkwardness between them shouted. "Hey Lizzy, I'll race you. Ready,... Go!" Jack and Whiplash then sped off back to camp.
"Jack get back here, you cheater! You didn't say get set." Lizzy shouted hot and his heels. Matt and Chaka shared a knowing glance before speeding of after them, thanking the ancestors that they were too high in the sky for any of the islands inhabitants to hear them.
xXx
Just as the three of them were approaching the cove, Jack and Lizzy were too absorbed in their race to notice, but Matt saw Snotlout, Tuffnut, Fishlegs and Ruffnut running towards camp. He thought it was odd that they would risk coming to them with the sky darkening rapidly. Jack and Lizzy had reached camp and were now arguing over who had won, Jack saying that he had reached the cove first but Lizzy claiming that she landed first. The two of them were so wrapped up in their argument that they didn't realise that they were literally standing only centimeters apart. Matt went over to stand next to Hiccup, who was watching Jack and Lizzy with an amused expression on his face.
"You know if they don't together soon, they'll end up killing each other before they realise they love each other." Hiccup whispered to Matt who nodded his head in agreement before saying, "Now I'm usually against messing with fate, I leave that in the hands of the ancestors, but I think in this case fate could use a little push, don't you agree."
"Oh definitely." Hiccup nodded before nodding his head at Toothless who took position behind Jack. "Wait for it..." Hiccup whispered waiting for just the right moment in Jack and Lizzy's argument. Jack and Lizzy still hadn't reached a conclusion about who had won, but by this point Hiccup doubted either of them cared. They both paused for breath while still glaring at each other, at this point Hiccup nodded at Toothless who using his head pushed Jack forward causing their lips to collide.
Jack stared wide eyed at Lizzy who stared wide eyed back. Neither had any idea how long they stayed that like that in probably the world's most awkward kiss, but eventually Jack decided to take action and closed his eyes and took control on the kiss and leaned closer into Lizzy, who realising what Jack was doing copied his movements. And just like that the world's most awkward kiss became the best one either of them had ever had. The kiss grew longer and longer, so long in fact that Hiccup and Matt were forced to give the two of them privacy and retreat back to the fire to sit.
After what felt like an eternity to them, was actually only about a minute, the kiss came to a natural end with both parties breaking away for air. And just like that the awkwardness came flying back to hit them both in the face. They jumped about a foot apart and refused to look at each other.
"Um... I've got to…go…over there." Jack said not moving his gaze away from a stone on the floor that he suddenly found very interesting.
"Yeah... And I need to sharpen Precious's claws." Lizzy said in a rush before walking off towards precious. Jack watched her leave with a sad look on his face before turning around, as he turned he caught Matt and Hiccup watching him with barely suppressed smiles and he blushed bright red before running over to Whiplash.
"Well that went better than I expected." Matt laughed, "I thought it would last four seconds before Lizzy slapped him."
"No she wants him, just as much as he wants her." Hiccup said in a mock wise voice. They laughed before falling into a comfortable silence both staring ahead of them. Matt glanced over at Astrid who was still lying off to the side of the fire with Etana wrapped around her. He glanced back at Hiccup and noticed that he seemed much more relaxed then when he had left him earlier.
"How is she?" Matt asked.
"She's going to make it." Hiccup said not even looking up but a smile growing on his face. Matt didn't want to say anything that might upset Hiccup, especially when he was doing a lot better than the day before, but he was worried that Hiccup may have gone a bit hysterical and convinced himself that she would survive, Matt hated to even imagine what the result would be if she did die.
"Not that I'm doubting you or anything," Matt said carefully, "But how do you know?"
"Relax Matt, I know you're worried that I've gone off the deep end but it's ok, just trust me that she's going to survive." Hiccup said turning to him and smiling reassuringly. Matt wanted to question Hiccup further in his sudden confidence in Astrid's survival but he heard Chaka start growling and he remembered that he'd seen the Vikings heading in their direction.
"Listen Hiccup we've got a bit of a problem, your Viking friends are on their way here and they might not be happy that we've put one of their friends in a coma." Matt said hurriedly to Hiccup, who began to look slightly worried as he gazed at Astrid.
"Can we just say she's sleeping?" Hiccup said, for lack of a better idea.
"And what if they say that she needs to go back to the village?" Matt asked, Hiccup looked thoughtful for a moment before shaking his head in defeat.
"We will just have to tell them the truth." Hiccups friends look briefly outranged at the thought of sharing their brotherhoods secret before Hiccup spoke again. "That it is a secret we are not at liberty to tell them."
"You really think they will be alright with an answer that vague?" Jack asked.
"Even if they aren't, there isn't anything they can do about it. I mean it's not like they can wake her up." Lizzy said.
"Unless anyone else has a better idea?" Matt asked, to which he received silence, "Then that's what we are saying." The four of them turned to the entrance of the cove and saw the Vikings walking over to them.
"Hey," Snotlout said in greating. "Where's Astrid? There's something we've all got to talk about."
Jack pushed Hiccup forward slightly a sign that he wanted Hiccup to explain the excuse for why Astrid was unconscious. "Astrid is…indisposed at the moment." Hiccup said, however he just received four blank looks in return. "She's in a coma."
"What?!" The four Vikings all shouted at once. "Why?" Fishlegs asked, "what happened to her?"
"I can't tell you." Hiccup replied and straight away he could see that they were not happy with his answer.
"Hiccup you can't just tell us that Astrid's in coma and not explain how or why." Ruffnut said.
"I'm sorry guys, but I can't tell you. Just know that it was something she chose and that she will be fine." The Viking's looked at each other, all unsure of what to make of the situation. Eventually Snotlout spoke up. "How long will she be out?"
"A couple of days." Matt replied. "Maybe less, maybe more."
"What?!" The Vikings shouted. "Her fiancé arrives tomorrow!" Snotlout said. "She's to be presented to him the moment he arrives."
"Well unfortunately she's not going to make it." Hiccup replied in a cold voice as he glared at Snotlout.
"I'm sorry Hiccup, I know it's not fair and I will do everything in my power to convince Stoick that he doesn't need the marriage to get the other clans support but if she's not there then people are going to come looking for her." Snotlout said.
"Wait..." Hiccup said, "My father is forcing Astrid into marrying this person? Not her parents?"
"Well no, her mother wasn't that pleased with it when she found out but Stoick didn't really give her much of a choice." Hiccup was silent for a moment as he processed this information; his father was always against arranged marriages believing that if a married couple didn't love each other then they wouldn't have strong children. Although that theory was flawed as Hiccup knew that his father loved his mother more than anything but Hiccup had never been strong enough for him. But Hiccup couldn't imagine his father being so desperate for help against the dragons that he would go back on his beliefs. Unless his leaving affected him more than he thought. Hiccup always believed that after he left his father would eventually forget about him, it's not like they had a particularly close relationship to start with but after what Hiccup did, he just assumed that Stoick would just one day forget him.
"It doesn't matter," Hiccup finally replied. "We can't wake her up."
Tuffnut looked like he didn't believe him and was going to argue, but Ruffnut interrupted him. "We can worry about that later, we actually had a reason for coming."
"Yeah," Snotlout said. "We need to rescue some dragons." That caught all the rider's attention.
"Why, what's the situation?" Hiccup said, his face setting into a stern expression.
"Well," Snotlout said, a bit taken aback by the arubt change in atmosphere. "... a Gronkle, a Hideous Zippleback and a Monstrous Nightmare were captured this morning, and tomorrow Stoick's planning on honoring the arrival of the other clan by having a show of some of the fighters against the dragons."
"Where are they being held?" Hiccup demanded.
"The arena." Snotlout replied obediently. Hiccup turned to Matt, Jack and Lizzy.
"We leave the moment, the last ray of day light fades. Lizzy you will head in first with Jack and take out any guards. Once there dealt with, Matt and Chaka will get the door open, try and keep it quiet to avoid attracting more guards. Toothless and I will head into the arena and calm the dragons and handle any injuries. We will then direct them to Lizzy and Precious who will guide them into the forest, try and stop them from flying off as they may try to attack the village. Jack, Whiplash, Matt and Chaka will make sure there's no trace of us being there."
The four of them split up, Matt grabbed his great sword from where he had embedded it in the ground and began to strap it to his back. Jack fastened an extra hidden blade to his left wrist and then flexed both to make sure that the blades were working properly. Lizzy began sliding throwing knives into the various different slots within the robes she wore checking to make sure that each was sharp enough to slice through skin. And finally Hiccup picked up his twin swords from where he had left them by the fire and slid them into their slots on his back. After each of them had checked their weapons they made their way to their dragons and began packing different strange equipment in to the saddles as well as extra weapons. The four of them pulled up their hoods, completely obscuring their faces and made to mount their dragons.
"Woah guys, hold your horses…er dragons." Snotlout announced.
"What?" Matt asked.
"You guys look like you're armed for war; you're not actually going to hurt anybody are you?" Fishlegs asked worriedly.
"Of course not." Lizzy replied slowly as if she was talking to a toddler.
"Oh thank Thor" Fishlegs sighed.
"If we come across anybody, we'll kill them." Lizzy said simply.
"What? No, you can't do that." Ruffnut shouted, "Those are our friends, you can't kill."
"Those dragons are our family and will not let them be harmed." Jack said his statement made scarier by the fact that you couldn't see his expression.
"Wait. I've got an idea that involves no killing and still saves the dragons." Tuffnut said, he stared at the hood Hiccup hid under hoping that they would hear him out. There was a tense moment where nobody moved or even breathed as they waited for Hiccups decision.
Hiccup slowly brought one of his hands up and pushed his hood off. "Make it quick we don't have much time." Hiccup finally said.
"Well there'll only have one or two guards stationed at the arena, plus the odd village patrol who will walk past every hour or so. When he comes by at the beginning of his patrol, its Maandaag so Asmund will be patrolling, Ruffnut will ask to accompany him on his patrol, he'll say yes because he loves to bore people to death with stories of his past glories. Fishlegs, Snotlout and I will dismiss the guards saying that we are the next shift to keep guard, there'll believe us if Snotlout says it. Snotlout will then become look out at the end of the bridge that leads to the arena, he is to distract anyone who wants to go to the arena, again they'll listen to him as he's future chief. You four will then go in and get the dragons, deal with injury's, calm them down and lead them away. You'll have about fifty or so minutes to do this before the night patrol completes his circuit. When they are near the bridge Snotlout will run down to us so we know the patrols coming. It will be Ruffnut's job to slow him down if we're not done, but you should have enough time. When the patrol gets to the arena Ruffnut will then tell Asmund she's tired and head home. He will then continue to repeat his patrol but by then we'll be gone. See no killing necessary, what do you think?" Tuffnut finished and anxiously awaited a reply.
"Wow" Ruffnut said, "I guess we know who got the brains out of the two of us." She laughed. Hiccup, Matt, Jack and Lizzy all exchanged glances, having their own private conversation without actually saying anything. The plan had a lot of external variables that they didn't like, such as having to rely on the guards believing Snotlout about the change in guard schedule, but they would prefer to kill as little people as possible and if the plan worked then they wouldn't kill any. And even if something did go wrong then Hiccup was sure they could handle it, so he didn't see a problem with trying to do it Tuffnut's way.
"Very well," Hiccup replied, "We will do it your way. But we need to hurry up. Fishlegs you can ride with me, Ruffnut with Matt, Tuffnut with Lizzy and Snotlout with Jack. Is that okay with everyone?" Everyone nodded in agreement and began to mount the dragons, the Vikings needing to be carefully instructed on what to do and how to sit by the riders. While the others were doing that Hiccup walked over to where Astrid still lay completely motionless, but he knew that as the tug on his heart lessoned she getting closer and closer to coming back to him. He bent down and kissed her softly and patted Etana's snout.
"Look after her girl." Hiccup whispered and Etana purred in response.
Hiccup stood up and saw that everyone was ready, he walked over to Toothless and patted the side on his head before climbing on his back and waited for Fishlegs to get on behind him. He then instructed Toothless to be slow and gentle before they all disappeared into the night.
xXx
The dragon riders hovered in the air above the arena and watched the Vikings they had just dropped off get into position. They used their enhanced sight to see that there was in fact three Vikings on guard by the arena instead of the two that Tuffnut had anticipated but they reasoned that it shouldn't make that much of a difference. They watched as the Viking on patrol, Asmund checked in with the arena guards to make sure all was well before heading back down the bridge that connected the arena to the rest of the village. Asmund got to the end of the bridge where Ruffnut 'just happened' to walk by, they conversed for a minute or two.
"Ruffnut is that you?" Asmund called out to the girl ahead of him.
"Yes it's me Asmund, I couldn't sleep so I thought I'd come and accompany you on patrol, must be pretty boring by yourself." Ruffnut replied in a sweet voice.
"Well that's very kind of you but you should be careful sneaking up on me, I could have had your head off. Speaking of which have I ever told you the story of the time I decapitated five men in one swing." Asmund asked, eager to retell one of his slightly edited stories.
"You know I don't think you have, but it sounds fascinating please do tell." Ruffnut gushed.
"Well, there I was…" Asmund trailed off as he and Ruffnut began their patrol, Ruffnut trying her best not look too bored and keep a slow pace.
Next Tuffnut, Fishlegs and Snotlout began to walk down the bridge towards where the three guards sat in the entrance to the arena. The three Vikings Alvi, Herlu and Sigfast who were on guard stood up when they saw the three of them walk up to them. "Hello, we're here to relieve you of guard duty." Snotlout said in his commander voice that he used in village meetings when he was trying so sound like he knew what he was talking about.
"But I thought we weren't to be relieved until another hour and that Asmund was going to pick up the next shift and bring them here on his patrol." Alvi questioned.
"Well Stoick and I as the Chief and future chief," He made sure to exaggerate future chief, "thought that shorter from frequent guard shifts would be more effective so were trialing it out. Is that a problem?" Snotlout demanded.
"Not a problem for me, it means that I can get back to bed sooner." Herlu laughed.
"Yeah," Sigfast laughed, "I'm heading home." The three of them bid goodbye before walking down the bridge and eventually split up heading to their different homes. When they were out of sight, Jack made a whistle noise to signal to Snotlout that it was safe for him to head down to his position as look out. After he was in position the four riders directed their dragons to the arena entrance that Fishlegs and Tuffnut had opened and flew into the arena as Fishlegs and Tuffnut closed the gate behind them to stop the dragons running for it. The riders dismounted their dragons and unloaded all the equipment they thought they might need such as sowing kits strong enough to sow dragon scales back together, bottles of different medicinal salves, some dragon grass to give the dragons to keep them calm and anything else they might need.
"What do you want to do, open them all at once which will be faster but could make them panic or open each pen one by one, which would be safer but will take longer. Remember we've got a time limit which at this moment is...53 minutes." Matt asked Hiccup.
"We'll do them individually, it may take longer but I don't want to risk attracting the entire village down here. And if we run out of time we go back to the original plan." They all nodded in agreement and made their way to the first pen. Hiccup directed the dragons to stand in front of the door but not too close as to make the other dragon think they were ganging up on it. Hiccup pulled the leaver to the pen and the door slowly opened to reveal a Gronkle lying in the corner. At the sound of the door opening it turned its head and looked towards the door. Upon seeing the other dragons, it stood up and lazily flew over towards them to discover what was happening. As it reached the doorway it spotted the four humans and began growling and retreating back into the pen. Toothless started to growl in the native dragon language of dragoneese, the Gronkle growled back but eventually came out of the pen entirely. Hiccup stood next to Toothless, removed his hood and slowly approached. The other dragons offered words of encouragement as the Gronkle allowed Hiccup closer. Hiccup examined the Gronkle and found that apart from a few minor sword and axe scratches that would scale over naturally the Gronkle was perfectly fine and went and sat to one side to wait for the other dragons to be rescued.
"Time check" Hiccup whispered to Matt.
"42 minutes."
'Well if the next two go just as well then we'll be out of here in plenty of time" Hiccup thought. One down, two to go.
xXx
"-so then this damsel is screaming save me Asmund, save me. So of course me being the extremely heroic man that I am, I ran up to the beast and with my hammer wracked it across the face. It howled in pain under the power of my swing, but then charge at me. I threw down my hammer and grabbed it by the teeth and then using my awesome strength threw it off the cliff. Definitely one of my finer battles, single handedly taking down two Monstrous Nightmares and a Gronkle with a broken leg, don't you think?" Asmund asked.
"Amazing..." Ruffnut drawled not even bothering to hide the boredom in her voice anymore, Asmund was so far up himself he didn't even notice.
"After that the damsel was very grateful, if you get what I mean. Very grateful..." Asmund trailed off into his memories.
xXx
Hiccup used the same tactic of placing the dragons in front of the pen when it first opened as it worked well with the Gronkle. Jacked pulled down the leaver and the moment the doors started to open a thick green fog began to flow out.
'Guess this one's the Zippleback.' Hiccup thought. They all waited anxiously for the second head to set fire to the gas, but as seconds ticked by nothing happened and eventually the gas cleared away to reveal the Zippleback. Straight away you could see something was wrong, one head stood tall hissing at the intruders whereas the other lay flat on the ground clearly in pain. Hiccup figure out what the problem was right away; its right shoulder was dislocated and was pressed against the scales in an odd shape resulting in it not being able to take the weight of the right head and neck. Hiccup knew they were going to have to start working fast if they were going to make their time limit.
"Matt you come with me, were going to pop the shoulder back in. Jack, grab some dragon grass and block of wood to put in its mouth to stop it biting its tongue and try and get it to relax. Lizzy same tactic grab some grass and keep the left head occupied." Hiccup ordered. Jack and Lizzy grabbed the correct gear and slowly approached the Zippleback holding the dragon grass in front of them. Some time after the dragon was suitably drugged and the wood placed in it mouth. Hiccup and Matt got to work straight away. Matt used his knees to trap its front right claw down to stop it moving and grabbed the dragons Clavicle and braced it. Hiccup then grabbed hold of the shoulder bone and in one smooth motion pushed it back into the joint. The only sound was of the wood snapping as the dragon bit it in two on reflex, but apart from that it was silent.
"Matt, I think you and Chaka should take this dragon now as it won't do the joint any good if we force it to run with us after we free the last dragon. You should take it now where we still have a lot of time before the patrol gets back." Hiccup said.
"Are you sure you don't need me to stay? Chaka can take the dragon." Matt asked.
"No you should go with them back to camp and do your best to ease the pain when the dragon grass wears off." Hiccup reasoned.
"Ok then." Matt replied. With that Toothless and Precious helped to get the drugged dragon to lay its right side on Chaka's back and then the two of them limped out with Matt following after them.
"Time check." Hiccup asked.
"20 minutes."
xXx
Fishlegs and Tuffnut stood nervously in the entrance to the arena, both thinking about what they would do if Snotlout let someone past.
"Umm...Tuffnut?" Fishlegs whispered.
"What?" Tuffnut replied not taking his eyes of the bridge ahead.
"Do...um you...that is to say...um...do you really think that Hiccup would have let Jack and Lizzy kill his fellow Vikings?"
"There not his fellow Vikings anymore though are they? Hiccup left because he didn't want to be a Vikings so why should he feel any kinship towards them? And besides a lot of the Vikings he knew aren't even alive anymore because of Stoicks mad obsession."
"Yeah but there still people and he shouldn't just kill them, its barbaric."
"And we shouldn't just kill dragons but we do, is that any less barbaric?"
"But they're animals, not people." Fishlegs urged, not understanding why Tuffnut was justifying what Hiccup was going to do.
"But I don't think Hiccup sees the difference anymore and to tell you the truth the line between man and dragon is becoming a bit blurry to me as well. I mean when you watch Hiccup and Toothless, when they just stare at each other you can just tell that there having a conversation without even speaking and to me that shows more intelligence than any human."
"But-"
"Listen I'm not saying that it's okay to go round killing people, especially my tribe. Come on I'm the one who came up with the plan to stop them from killing anyone, but if dragons were holding your friend's hostage and planning to kill them for entertainment wouldn't you do whatever was necessary to save them?" Tuffnut said in a strangely thoughtful voice.
"I suppose... I never really thought of it that way before." Fishlegs collapsed into silence contemplating what Tuffnut had said. A couple of minutes later they heard a commotion at the door, they opened it and saw Matt's dragon Chaka with a Zippleback limping at its side. Matt walked up to them and explained what was happening. "This dragon had dislocated its shoulder and so Hiccup thought it best to help it leave now instead of waiting and risking it slow us down. Hiccup and the rest and dealing with the last dragon, which hopefully won't take too long but be ready in case time runs out. The Gronkle seems to be okay so it should just be the Nightmare left and they are slow to trust, so be careful when it out try to stay where it can see you." Chaka, supporting the majority of the Zippleback's weight guided it to the forest, with Matt following closely behind. Tuffnut felt horrible for the Zippleback, he assumed that if it wasn't really drugged which he figured out by the dazed look on its faces, it would be screaming in pain. It almost felt like Tuffnut could physically feel the dragon's pain.
"20 minutes left, I hope Ruffnut can slow Asmund down." Fishlegs whispered.
xXx
"In the last pen should be the Nightmare, this will probably be the hardest, as Nightmares are very distrustful even of other dragons, so be ready make sure there's nothing in your hands and hold them out." Hiccup then pulled the lever, the moment the locks moved the doors burst open and the Nightmares head flew out, mouth ready to breathe fire at the intruders. But the moment the Nightmare saw what was outside the door it stopped, closed its mouth and bowed its head.
Hiccup was very confused by this behavior as it wasn't normal for a Nightmare. He slowly approached the dragon and it made no aggressive noises and change to an aggressive stance. It just watched Hiccup approach, completely at ease with Hiccup being close to it. A theory suddenly struck Hiccup but he found it very unbelievable. To test his theory, he held out one of his hands palm face down just above the dragon's nose, as if it knew what Hiccup was trying to figure out it lifted its head slightly so Hiccups hand was resting on its nose.
"No way." Hiccup laughed.
"What is it?" Lizzy asked, unsure of what was going on.
"This is the same Nightmare I was supposed to kill as reward for placing first in dragon training, the same Nightmare who I tried to use to show Berk that dragons didn't need to be feared. This is amazing." Hiccup laughed stroking the dragon.
"Come on let's pack up and get going so were long gone by the time the patrol gets here. It took them a few more minutes to pack up all the equipment and to guide the dragons towards the exit.
"Time check." Hiccup asked.
"10 minutes until the patrol completes its circuit." Jack said as everyone started making their way out of the arena, just as they saw two people running down the bridge.
xXx
'Oh Thor this is nerve wracking.' Snotlout thought to himself. He had been incredibly jittery for the past 40 minutes or so and he hadn't even seen anyone. He didn't even expect to see anyone; he was only there to get rid of that 'what if someone else comes to the arena?' But no expected anyone to, but you can't be too careful. Just as Snotlout as starting to except the fact that he wasn't going to see anyone and was finally managing to calm down, he saw a figure coming from the opposite direction of where the patrol should come from and plus it was only one person.
"Snotlout, is that you?" A voice he knew all too well purred out.
"Laufiea? What are you doing out so late? And where have you been, you live at the top of the village not the bottom?" Which was the direction she had come from.
"Never mind little old me," She deflected, "Why are you stood here at this time of night?" After 40 or so minutes of planning what to say if someone asked him that, he couldn't think of a single reason.
"I...um...well..." Snotlout stammered.
"Oh I don't care, I feel like I haven't seen you in ages." She said as she wrapped her arms around Snotlout's neck and weaved her hands into his hair. "I've missed you." She whispered into his ear, before trailing kisses down his cheek.
'Keep a lookout!' Snotlout repeated to himself over and over again as Laufiea get placing light kisses over his face.
"Snotlout, are you there?" A quite voice said from the direction blocked by Laufiea's head, Snotlout pulled away from her and looked at where the voice had come from.
"Rowanna?" Snotlout rushed over to her. The girl Snotlout had called to was positively tiny by Viking standards, only just reaching Snotlout's shoulders. However, the enormous mop of frizzy red hair that tumbled down her back gave the illusion that she was larger than she was. Snotlout grabbed her by the shoulders, tucked a strand of her frizzy red hair behind her ear and looked down at her.
"What are you doing out? Does my mother know? She should be taking care of you." Snotlout said, shaking her slightly.
"Your mother doesn't know I'm out, she thinks I'm in bed. And I was worried when you didn't come home, so I thought I'd come look for you, but your... um busy. So I'll go." Before Snotlout had a chance to respond Laufiea beat him to it.
"Yeah why don't you run along, its adult time." She said in a really patronizing tone. Rowanna just glared back and tried to release herself from Snotlout's grip.
"Don't talk to her like that." Snotlout said with barley suppressed anger in his voice.
"What?" Laufiea said, "I thought we were going to make up for not seeing each other in ages."
"I'm busy." Snotlout replied glaring at her. "So why don't you head home. Now."
"Fine, whatever but don't think I'll wait around for you." Laufiea called as she walked way. There was silence between Snotlout and Rowanna as Snotlout glared at where Laufiea had disappeared into the dark and Rowanna was still trapped by Snotlout's grip on her arm.
"Um... Snotlout are you ok?" She asked in her quite voice. That seemed to shake Snotlout out of his daze and he turned to stare at Rowanna, but he still didn't reply. Rowanna was about to speak up but Snotlout just pulled her into a hug and didn't let go. Rowanna unsure what to do just hugged him back. They stayed like that for a while, before Rowanna noticed a glowing light approaching.
"Um... Snotlout some people are coming." Rowanna said.
"What?" He asked pulling away, blushing slightly. Rowanna just pointed to where the glow of a torch could be seen behind some house.
"Oh shit, he's 10 minutes early." Before Rowanna could ask him what he was talking about, he grabbed her hand and started to run along the bridge towards the arena.
xXx
Hiccup watched as Snotlout and a girl he didn't recognise ran up to them, he made sure to quickly pull his hood up, as did Jack and Lizzy.
"Asmund...10 min...utes...earl...ly" Snotlout panted out of breath, the girl with him equally so but remained quite.
"Oh crap, Tuffnut get down there and stall them, say you're mad at Ruffnut for running off." Hiccup ordered.
"Got it." Tuffnut said before running off.
"Snotlout come grab something." Hiccup directed and walked back into the arena. Rowanna wasn't sure what to do as Snotlout followed the strange man into the arena, so she stayed were she was. But the moment Snotlout emerged, his hand resting on a Monstrous Nightmares nose she promptly fainted.
"Oh crap." Snotlout said as he went to lift Rowanna into his arms. Meanwhile Lizzy, Jack and Fishlegs led the Gronkle, Precious and Whiplash out of the arena and towards the forest. The glow of the torch was now visible on the other side of the bridge but was remaining stationary.
"What do I do? I can't carry her and guide the Nightmare." Snotlout said, starting to panic.
"It's ok, we'll strap her onto Toothless and he'll take her back to camp." Hiccup lead Toothless over to Snotlout who laid Rowanna across the saddle. "Take care of her." Snotlout said to Toothless, before Toothless flew off back towards camp. Snotlout guided the Nightmare into the forest just enough to keep it hidden before running back with Fishlegs to take up their role as guards. They managed to get back into the arena entrance just as the glow of the torch started moving down the bridge towards them. The only problem was that Hiccup was still with them.
"Quick," Snotlout whispered, "get into the arena." Hiccup squeezed through the tiny gap of the door before Fishlegs closed it, just as Asmund and the replacement guards walked in.
"Oh Snotlout, Fishlegs. I thought we were relieving Alvi, Herlu and Sigfast?" One of the replacement guards who Hiccup didn't see asked.
"No, just Fishlegs and I." Snotlout replied. "Anyway we better head off home and get some sleep."
"Yes and take Tuffnut and Ruffnut with you, they are...they were behind me." Asmund said in a confused voice.
"We'll go look for them," Fishlegs said. "Bye." With that Snotlout and Fishlegs ran off before circling back round into the forest to meet up with the dragons and head back to camp. The next moment was silent and Hiccup held his breath hoping that the guards didn't want to check inside, he was doing so well not killing anyone. Time passed and the two guards carried on talking in the entrance. Hiccup relieved moved away from the wall and look around, he remembered the last time he was here like it was yesterday. As her circled round he saw everyone's shocked faces after he denied that he was a Viking, he saw the indent his father's hammer made when he slammed it down on the bars and he saw the repaired hole where Toothless broke in to rescue him. If he closed his eyes he could almost hear his father's voice.
"Well, Well, what do we have here?"
I know, I know another cliff hanger but believe me if I didn't stop it here it would have gone on for another 4000 words, so I thought it better to split it up.
It was a complete coincidence that Rowanna ended up looking like Meridia from Brave, however their personalities are very different.
I have been sat on my laptop for god knows how many hours so please let me know that my hard work was for something by leaving a review PLEASE!
