This is edited version for better language. Updated 22.10.2017. Unfortunately my original comments on reviews did not copy here.
Original version was beta-/proofread by 3DPhantom.
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Hiccup's eyes flashed open. Cold sweat flowed on his forehead and he could practically feel a physical pressure on his chest. His eyes darted around the dark room: There was nothing. Hiccup got up, sitting on the bedside, searching for the cause of his uneasiness, this time with his thoughts. His ability to sense things with his mind was definitely the reason for the uneasy feeling… There was something, some massive and evil presence. Hiccup could feel it approaching. With little effort he could even tell the direction it was coming from. That was the last hint he needed.
He couldn't wait and do nothing. He quickly got his boots and bearskin vest and ran down the stairs. For an instant he was unsure of what to do, but he quickly decided that he couldn't just let people get hurt if he could prevent it in any way.
"Dad! Dad wake up!"
"Wha… Hiccup? Why in Thor's name are you shouting?"
"Dragons! There's a raid coming!"
"Get my helmet!" Stoick bolted up from his bed, reaching towards his axe hung on the wall. He took the helmet from Hiccup's hands when they were already half way to the door. It flew open upon coming in contact with Stoick's hand, revealing the dark, quiet village sleeping peacefully. Even the guard towers were quiet, even the night guards didn't know what was coming yet.
"Hiccup? I am not seeing any dragons…"
"They haven't started attacking yet."
"Yet? What makes you think they are going to?"
"I just know they're coming!"
"Hiccup you… I'm going back to sleep. We will talk in the morning."
"But dad, they are going to attack, at any moment now!"
"Enough! Go back to…" Stoic shut up when a dragon roar pierced the silence of the night. It was already close... Both Stoick and Hiccup were silent for few seconds until they heard a second roar. It was nothing compared to what Stoick managed right next to Hiccup.
"DRAGONS! Everyone get up and defend your village!" Stoick turned around. "Hiccup get ins…" Stoick looked his son directly into his eyes for a second and grabbed Hiccup's shoulder. "Come on."
Stoick dragged Hiccup across the village that had its rest so suddenly disturbed as the guards were alerting those that somehow slept through Stoick's roar. The chief unceremoniously pushed his son inside the forge.
"Stay here and help Gobber. Gobber!"
"Coming." The one-legged blacksmith wobbled downstairs, attaching his hammer prosthesis while running. "You came here quickly!"
"Look after Hiccup." Stoick ignored Gobber's question and rushed out, axe ready.
"So, where are the dragons?" A flash of fire illuminated the village outside.
"FIRE!"
"Oh, there they are. Well, let's get to work."
Hiccup helped bring out new weapons and then ended up sharpening used ones. Dragon scales dulled the blades really quickly. He tried to not look at the blood when cleaning the blades. It made him feel sick. Rather than focus on his work. He kept peeking outside. An unfinished building was ablaze next to the forge. The house hadn't even been rebuilt yet since it had been burned in previous raid. The other teens were hard at work trying to put out the fire while the battle was raging around them. Astrid couldn't resist her urge to fight and soon ran away from her peers, axe swinging.
Now that the dragons were in the village, the Queen's presence was overwhelming. All of the dragons carried part of her mind in them and Hiccup could sense every piece. With some concentration he could even feel the individual dragons, or at least the Queen in them. With Gobber distracted, Hiccup stepped out, reaching out with his thoughts, trying to reach the dragons around him. He walked briskly away from the forge, only sidestepping to avoid a Gronckle that tried to ram him from behind.
"Who let Hiccup out?"
"Get inside!"
Hiccup ignored people shouting at him and only stopped as a Nadder scorched ground in front of him. He could feel the dragons around him, but every time Hiccup tried to extend his thoughts towards them, the tendrils of his mind were deflected. The control that the Queen held over these dragons was even greater than it had been with Hookfang. A familiar scream reached Hiccup's ears. Astrid was running after a Nadder that was carrying a sheep away from the village behind Hiccup's house. Unfortunately she was about to have a much bigger problem and hadn't even realized it yet. A Monstrous Nightmare had just landed behind her.
She turned around to face the dragon that had gotten way too close. Hiccup knew very well what it was like to be in that situation, but Astrid's reaction was nothing like his. Rather than run away, which might have been the smartest choice, she raised her axe and charged. The dragon wasn't having any of that and reacted quickly. A wave of flames blocked Astrid from sight. Hiccup's heart skipped a beat.
The liquid flame fell on the ground a fraction of a second later, revealing Astrid laying on the edge of torched grass. She wasn't ready for this. Astrid got up and tried to move, but only had time to jump aside again, barely dodging another burst of dragon flame. She gained some distance, rolling down on the grass, but the dragon followed, crawling after her, ready to pounce. Hiccup was already on the move. He couldn't just let Astrid die, even if she hated him.
Astrid had failed. She had been too focused on that Nadder and now she was going to pay for it! The Nightmare's fire had burned her right arm and rolling downhill hurt on every rotation. The dragon was still after her. Shamefully she had dropped her axe when she got burned so she had no way of defending herself. She came to a stop against a rock and the dragon was looming above her. The beast pushed her down with its claws. Some warrior she turned out to be! She was a total failure. Any second now the beast would bite her to death. She could smell the foul stench of dragon breath. It was about to end, but Astrid refused to let go of what remained of her pride and met her fate head-on, looking straight at the dragon's empty eyes. Just looking at them proved that the beast was just that, a mindless beast that only knew how to kill and destroy.
Suddenly she could no longer see the eyes. There was someone standing over her, between her and the dragon's teeth. The small frame of that person was lit by the burning buildings.
"Hiccup, what in…?"
"Not now Astrid. Just stay quiet and don't move."
Did the useless runt just give her an order? If Hiccup hadn't been about to get eaten, Astrid would have beaten him herself. What an idiot! What did he expect to do to a Monstrous Nightmare!? He was just standing there, holding his arm in some poor defensive posture, as if that would do anything! The idiot didn't even have a weapon, and Astrid was still stuck under the Nightmare's claws. Why didn't it just finish this?
Why didn't it?
The dragon hadn't moved since Hiccup had shown up, but why was it waiting? Hiccup was just standing there with nothing to defend himself, but the dragon simply stared at the runt. Hiccup appeared to do the same. Then he did something even more insane and turned his head. His eyes were closed.
"Hiccup?"
"Shush: Be quiet." Hiccup spoke so softly his words were barely audible over the constant sounds of battle. Even so there was tightness and seriousness that Astrid had never heard from him. "If you want to live, be quiet."
That confirmed it. Hiccup had gone mad. The boy above her shivered a bit. That was when Astrid realized that the dragon had brought its snout to touch Hiccup's hand. Not to bite it off: To touch it. Hiccup had immediately turned his attention back to the dragon, still holding his hand within reach of its teeth. The beast wasn't even growling at him. Then the pressure on Astrid's chest eased as the Nightmare lifted its claws, backing away from her. Hiccup also took steps forward, keeping his hand firmly on the dragon's snout. Astrid's eyes were already searching for her axe behind the beast.
"Get up, but don't make any sudden moves. Whatever you do, don't try to attack her."
"Her?"
"The dragon."
"HICCUP!" The Chief's booming voice cut through the slowly weakening sounds of the battle. He was running from the village with several of Berk's best warriors. "WATCH OUT!"
The warning came too late for Astrid. By the time she'd realized what it meant, a Nadder was already diving towards them, mouth open, ready to burn them. Astrid had barely gotten to her feet before it descended upon them.
She instinctively protected her eyes when the sudden flash of fire erupted. It took her a second to realize that there was no pain, only a deafening roar. When she looked again the Monstrous Nightmare that had almost killed her moments earlier had jumped at the Nadder and was biting its leg. The smaller dragon was struggling against the hold on its leg and hits its assailant's neck with its spiky tail. The Nightmare let go allowing the Nadder to flee, and landed heavily right next to Astrid and Hiccup. It turned quickly to face the approaching warriors. Maybe they would survive this after all...
…Unless the useless runt did something stupid again, like, say, jumping between the Vikings and the dragon! He held his hand in front of the Nightmare again while actually facing the Viking warriors.
"Get out of the way!" Stoick hollered.
"NO!" Hiccup shouted more sternly than Astrid had ever heard him speak before. He turned his head around, a serious look on his face. Astrid might have just been really confused, but she could almost swear that the dragon nodded to Hiccup. Then it turned around, spread its wings, and took off. By the time the Chief pushed past Hiccup, the beast was already gone. The rest of the dragons were doing the same, taking a chunk out of village's food storages as they left. The Chief turned towards his son.
"Hiccup…"
"I know. I was supposed to stay in the forge." The runt was so disrespectful to the Chief, almost condescending… "Shouldn't you worry about people that actually got hurt?" The bastard pointed directly at Astrid, as if he was bragging about being better than her! That small action brought everyone's attention to Astrid and her burns. Hiccup would pay for the shame he had brought to her.
"Astrid, you were supposed to be in the fire squad."
"I wanted to defend the village. That's what we have been training for, isn't it?"
"Yes, you have, and whatever Stoick might think, ye aren't finished yet!" Gobber declared, wobbling through the small group of warriors and to Astrid. He started looking through Astrid's injuries. "Hopefully he'll understand that now. You youngsters aren't ready for a Monstrous Nightmare."
"Most of them at least," one of the warriors blurted out. "Hiccup didn't even get hurt by that Nightmare!"
"That's just because it didn't attack him," Astrid said in an attempt to defend her honour.
"But why didn't it? I saw when it attacked Astrid, but the beast just stopped when Chief's son got there," another villager piped in.
"And it attacked another dragon..."
"I have never seen them do that during a raid! Fight each other like that…"
"So strange…"
"Silence!" No one dared to disobey the Chief's order. "Hiccup, what happened, exactly?"
"The Nightmare caught Astrid by surprise when she was chasing a Nadder and almost killed her."
"And then?"
"I had to do something. So… I stopped the dragon."
"And how exactly did you do that? Even Astrid couldn't defeat that dragon and she's the top of the class!"
"It's not about that dad. Whatever you think, I'm not a fighter. I just study the dragons. I could stop that Nightmare because I have learned things about them… and myself," Hiccup added quietly. "Things that no one else has taken the time to learn," he said more loudly.
"So you used one of those tricks that you got Fishlegs to use?"
"This isn't about tricks Astrid. The dragons are completely different from what we thought, and we have no hope of ending this war until people realize that."
"Aren't ya getting a bit ahead of yourself? You were talking about stopping a Nightmare, not the war," Gobber butted in.
"Those are two parts of the same problem. We are just too stuck on old customs to even study other options."
"Am I missing something here? What trick is Astrid talking about?" Chief clearly wasn't happy about what was going on. Hiccup would get it now, for sure!
"Uh, yes, you remember when I said that Hiccup surprised us during training? I may have left out some things."
"Tell me."
"Well… shouldn't we take care of Astrid first?"
"It seems she can still walk. Go to see the healers in the Great Hall, Astrid."
"Yes Chief. I apologise for my failure to kill the beast," Unlike Hiccup, Astrid showed proper humility as she left.
"Now, what did you not tell me?" It sounded like Gobber too might be in some trouble with the Chief. Astrid quickly looked back at them. The runt had disappeared, and the Chief clearly wasn't happy about it.