Chapter Nine: It's me.

"Hiccup, before you go, wait a moment. I'd like to say thank you for coming to the council meeting, it means a lot to me and to the others that Berk's future chief is taking a role in the matters of state."

"No problem St-dad"

"I also wanted to ask how you've done so well in the ring. No other Viking has ever tamed a Zippleback like what Gobber described or bought down a Nadder by stroking its cheek. It's amazing and I wish for you to perform like that later, both to show your prowess and that others of us can learn to take down dragons without effort."

"It's a little more complicated than that, Dad. I figured that since dragons never eat eels they may be averse to them, and the Nadder was just good guess work I suppose"

"That's good, really good, Hiccup. Thinking out of the box has always been, well, something you have done since childhood. Always tinkering and everything and now everyone will realise they're in good hands."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes, you'll be moving into your new role after training is finished regardless of what happens. Actually everyone in your little class has been allocated a spot in some organisation or another"

"What about Astrid?"

"Astrid? The Hofferson girl? Her parents want her to be married off but we came to an agreement that she'll be placed into a small scale leadership role for a year or two"

"Am I going to be married off, Dad?"

"No"
~~~~~~

"I'd like to ask you something Dad, if that's okay"

"Go for it, its only fair."

"The crisis with the dragons, what's it really like?"

"What do you mean by that, Hiccup?"

"We've been slowly losing food and fisheries year by year, an entire new fleet is being constructed, and yet we're still holding onto Berk; are we losing Dad?"

"Are you sure you want the answer to that?"

"I do"

"I'm going to be straight with you Hiccup, we're losing. Badly."

"Then why are we still here?"

"Eh?"

"I mean on this rock, on Berk, wouldn't it be better for everyone if we just moved?"

"I'm tempted to agree with you; getting off this godsforsaken island with the dragons raiding and burning our warehouses and crops while devouring the fisheries was a pipe dream of your grandfather."

"Tempted?"

"Show me one person here that wouldn't fight for the bitter end to protect their home, their family and their food, its been drilled into everyone's heads that fighting trumps running away, even if running means living another day"

"So we're just gonna sit here and stubborn ourselves to death?"

"Unless there's another way out, basically yes."

"I-I think, I think there might be another way."

"Oh?"

"It doesn't make sense..."

"What doesn't?"

"The dragons, they don't eat our sheep , chickens, or yaks, or even us. They only eat fish."

"Maybe they just carry them away to eat later? A whole yak is a big meal, even for a dragon."

"No Dad, Gobber confirmed it, captured dragons don't eat yak - whole or in chunks."

"I see, but where are you going with this?"

"I think the dragons are..."

"Hiccup?"

"I think we may be misunderstanding their intentions. If they only eat fish then why are they carrying away our livestock?"

"Maybe it's to starve us out, they could be intelligent enough to do that."

"Dad, if they're intelligent enough to starve us out, then we could reason with them."

"Are you seriously suggesting that?"

"Dad, you're the one who suggested they were intelligent."

"I suppose so, look but if they were reasonable then why not just talk to us?"

"You said it yourself, Berkians would rather die than leave. Maybe the dragons think we're not capable of being reasoned with."

"Hiccup, you're the smartest person on this island. Theories are not helpful. But if you can find a way to get them off us or come up with a way to do something, then do it. I'm facing a political shitstorm and the clans are trying to extract more and more money for the loss of the ships and crews."

"I'll try, Dad."

~~~~~

Hiccup steeled herself; it had taken hours to find a piece of the island that featured a track long enough and bare enough for a run up to the cliff edge that wasn't populated or watched. Even at night, Berkians patrolled the edges of the village and so she had to go as deep as possible into the forest to get far away from prying eyes. Even then she had to go to the opposite side of the island so the wind was blowing over from the cliffs rather than in from the sea, she knew that was critical to her plan.

The sun's reflection at dusk glinted off the cold water and from a good angle and far away from the cliff edge, it looked like she was going to fly into it's red disk. Hiccup's body trembled with anxiety, the prospect of the support structure around Toothless's wing failing, being discovered, and the like all piling together into her thoughts.

Toothless made a "mrrrm" noise behind and she smiled. Funny that she could communicate better with a dragon than her own father, like she and Toothless didn't even need to speak with each other. He could tell that she was anxious and she knew from his constant twitching in those massive main wings that the Nightfury was going to bound off those cliffs with or without her, probably in some adorably cute way that would put a newborn kitten to shame.

She mounted Toothless behind his head, strapping a rope around her legs tight and making sure that she was in a comfortable position. She'd briefly ridden cattle before when Sto-Dad had managed to get her out of the house and adjusting to a dragon wasn't so different.

Manipulating the tail fan and getting Toothless to understand and work with it, and then letting him lead her was the hardest part of the pre-flight checks she had methodically been going through, otherwise it was mostly just making sure that the metal parts worked and the leather didn't have holes.

"Alright bud, get ready!" she spoke half to Toothless and half to herself. It was difficult to get Astrid's reactions out of her head; Astrid seemed to be constantly fluctuating between being completely insane in the arena, quite literally charging dragons head on and being in a complete panic attack that Hiccup had tried to not notice when she spotted Astrid running out of the hall. Was she still attracted to someone that thought of her as a threat? She didn't have an answer to that and anyway, there were more important things to attend to at the moment.

Regardless, the other part of her brain was working on the one thing that she was actually good at:, intimate objects. She'd figured out that she and Toothless could probably get a boost from the wind coming behind them and if that the wind was cold enough at higher elevations such as this cliff edge then it would probably be cold if they managed to get into the air, logically speaking anyway. And that if the wind out at sea was strong enough to push ships around then she should probably also have something to fasten her down, hence the rope.

She opened the tailfin. "Toothless, could you open your wings out, bud?" she asked and he replied, rustling the metal wing and its biological partner and then Toothless's gigantic bat wings opened up and he immediately stumbled forward a bit as the wind found something bigger to hit. That question was answered anyway. If she flew into a wind like that and opened up the fins and wings would it also make Toothless stop? Could she also make projectiles that were light enough to float on the wind? How about something floating that also-

"Mhpffffmm" Toothless made an annoyed noise.
"Sorry, I got carried anyway again." Hiccup apologised with a light blush and settled on being able to actually fly first before thinking of other projects.

Final checks, wind was up, Toothless was braced and she had fastened herself down tight and she had worn an extra layer of clothing too.

Now or never.

"Let's go!" At her command Toothless raced forward like a runner and he approached the edge of the cliff in record time, the wind whistling into her ears even louder and more blustery than before and she had to stop herself from silently screaming as he jumped off the cliff and upwards into the sky. Hiccup had to stop herself from looking down as she adjusted the tailfin to match her dragon's movements. So far so good, and the water was looking lovely tonight as she glanced down.

She shouldn't have looked down.

Toothless was... laughing? While she seemed to be screaming in some dismay and he kept rocking from side to side as she did; clearly the dragon was enjoying this. So she tugged on the fin and made him corkscrew sideways, so he started wailing and it was her turn to she chuckle in response.

"Silly dragon." Hiccup hummed and reset the tailfin to match Toothless's, the pair of them straightened out in flight. Despite the cold nipping at her slightly numb face and hands , being able to look down at everything, even touching the clouds or seeing the setting sun's reflection on the water...

Well, it was beautiful.

And then there was Berk, torches being set up already as night beacons, houses bright even despite being so far away already and she couldn't even see people or animals, just the large objects and the ships, of course.

Berk was quite pretty like this, did the villagers and the dragons really have to fight over it? Couldn't she just fly down and present Toothless to them?

Probably not actually, she'd get locked up and Dad would go nuts. Still, she was probably the first Viking to willingly ride a dragon of its own accord and with the dragon's consent. That in itself was a small victory. She supposed.

"No wonder you wanted to fly again so badly, eh Toothless?" Hiccup murmured and reached forward to give her dragon one of those ear rubs that Toothless loved so much; he warbled in response.

She gave Berk another look, sweeping her vision from the small tip of the island that she kept Toothless secretly isolated in and then to the village, a journey that could take an hour at best running speed between those two points. A dragon could do that in minutes, not to mention they weren't even above Berk right now. They were just orbiting above one of the smaller vassal states in a lazy slow circle. She could see other lights in the distance, other small states or was that even another chiefdom like Berk? Hiccup could ask Toothless right now and go to investigate it and be back within the night.

Was this how dragons felt? Pure freedom? They didn't need to be crawling on the ground like Hiccup; they could just decide to go somewhere on a whim without needing to find a ship and navigate the archipelago's dangerous waters while writing a will. Lucky dragons.

The other question was, how exactly was she going to break the news to the village people? Not only did Hiccup somehow need to show that she could pacify every single dragon tomorrow without hurting them, she'd also need to avoid Astrid's murderous intentions and somehow come out of it all without serious injury while presenting her solutions of a more touch-based approach to dragons rather than the traditional route of catapults, axes, and traps.

If she could pull that off then Dad would be pleased, then she could figure out how to get Toothless off Berk and then go from there.

Still, that thing, that conversation she had with Gobber and then Stoick, still nagged at her.

If dragons didn't eat sheep, yak or the like - why were they taking them? And what were they doing with them?

Metal gauntlets, shin pads, knee pads. Elbow protection, shields scattered all across the arena and a sharpened axe. She'd stripped down to the bare essentials so she could move faster, roll quicker, and strike harder than before. Sleep wasn't an issue; Astrid would nap when dragon training was done, she couldn't afford to be slow today. It was the last sessionafter all, and she needed to beat Hiccup and prove to everyone in Berk that Astrid Hofferson would not be married off like some fucking farm girl with no prospects in life.

Her skin shone in the morning light as the arena's seating was packed full with the entire village, Stoick himself arrived with the entire council as they took up their high seats. She didn't care though. Astrid was busy focusing on the dragons she'd be up against, making plans to throw the bucket over the Zippleback, take out the Gronckle and either throw or disable the Terrors. The Nadder would be last and most difficult but she was confident that she could take it out as well.

She stretched, ignoring the catcalls from some of the more... annoying… Berkians. She didn't care if her legs, arms, and torso were showing; she needed to be light today.

Gobber slowly started to release the chains to the dragon holding pens and she tuned out the world, remembering where to pick up each and every shield she had placed before, all of the waist-high barriers she could hide behind, sections of the maze where she could ambush dragons and exactly how much ground that Zippleback could cover before she could bucket it.

The only unknown factor was Hiccup. Would Hiccup bring down one or more of the dragons? If so, which one? Would it be the biggest one or most impressive one first? She had no fucking clue.

Stoick stood up, loudly enough that this massive suit of armor caused a ripple in the noise around him. Gobber opened the cage and Astrid just sprinted flat out at the first dragon she saw. Regardless of injuries or consequences.

She needed this win.
~~~~~~~

Having the Zippleback, Gronckle as well as the ridiculous amount of Terrors and that fucking Nadder in the same ring was intially terrifying, considering that they outnumbered Astrid and her entire class.

At first it was hell; she had to dodge and slam herself into that chest-high barricades more times than she could count while the others followed her lead, even Hiccup. Well sort of. The Zippleback avoided that girl like the plague as it awkwardly fumbled around the arena and to everyone's relief, the fog its gas breath normally created was quickly dispersed by all the wing flapping and thrashing about that all the other dragons did.

Ten minutes later and Astrid, pinned down by the Gronckle's vomited lava splurts, had finally had enough; she needed this win and she needed it now. The Zippleback was being harassed by Snotlot and the twins were doing their best to sprint after all the Terrors. And Fishlegs? Well, she could safely count him out.

She simultaneously cared and didn't care what Hiccup was going for. Astrid knew what she wanted to bring down today and cement her reputation so she could go against the Nightmare tomorrow. She wanted the dragon that bought her pain, anger, and a few panic attacks yesterday.

That. Fucking. Nadder.

She scanned for the bright bird-like beast, peeking her head above the barricade, doing her best to drown out the screams of the other students and the roars of the crowd.
"Where are you?" she questioned as she hoisted her axe and lifted her shield, raising herself higher until her midsection was visible above her cover.

She found it: the Nadder was currently engaged in a stare-down with Fishlegs.

She didn't scream a war cry this time, or make any loud noises. Instead, bracing herself and gripping her axe and her shield firmly, making as silent-as-possible footsteps, she dodged in between the Zippleback's legs and underneath the Gronckle's tail as she moved forward.

Astrid crept upon it, remembering the lessons her parents had been taught and the conversations she had overheard. If she was quiet and kept herself close to the ground, then the Nadder's blindspot below its chin would hide her, if she stepped lightly to its rear and close to its spines then it wouldn't be able to pick up the noise of her armor rustling, light and sparse as it was.

Astrid came within spitting distance, no war cries or shouts this time. She steadied her axe arm and aimed a cutting slice at the Nadder's tail; it was still distracted by the goings-on between the Zippleback and the Twins, its beady and disturbing eyes watching the fight like a bird would.

This wasn't a bird though.

Astrid Hofferson's axe flew down and missed as the fucking Nadder idly swiped its tail at the wrong moment and all she succeeded in cutting was one of the spines.

"Shit"

The Nadder schreed in pain and whacked her in the mid section with its tail. Fortunately the deadly tail spines missed and Astrid careened backwards, landing on her kneepads and the toes of her boots, her shield flying away… but her axe remained in her hand.

A gust of flame from the dragon's mouth came quickly but she rolled to her right and near one of the barricades with a stashed shield, the Nadder facing completely towards her as Astrid sprinted towards the wooden safe place to keep from getting burned alive. She reached it in time, pulse quickening but under control.

"Remember Mom and Dad, remember Mom and Dad" she repeated to herself as she poked her head above the barricade and ducked again as she narrowly avoided being singed, her left hand reached without conscious thought for the shield, gripping it.

Footfalls, angry ones, echoed, and an enraged Nadder with a bleeding tail and outstretched wings would greet her the moment she came out of cover. It wouldn't be possible to dodge or roll with her hands full so the only option was to close in and get under the blindspots. The adults had done it, with bigger weapons of course. Stoick had managed to cut off a Nadder's right leg with a massive greataxe. All she really needed to do was injure it and then go for the wings, make the top-heavy Nadder unstable.

Getting to it, well, that would be the second hardest part.

Astrid Hofferson smacked the hilt of her axe onto the wooden barricade and willed herself standing, she greeted the fire breath with an armoured shield and charged forwards, ignoring the small tongues of fire that landed painfully on her bare unprotected skin. Astrid concentrated on the dragon in front of her, every stride bringing her closer and closer, her shield raised and aflame,e but that didn't matter and neither did anyone or anything else right now.

Astrid threw away her flaming shield and ducked under a wing swipe and a mouth full of teeth, her axe slicing a good wound that any Viking would be proud of into the Nadder's upper thigh. It squawked in pain and jumped to the side; she rolled to her left as it let loose with a five-second long gout of flames that set her previous location on fire.

Astrid grunted in response and barreled forwards again, finding her first discarded shield and ducked under it to weather the storm of another flame attack. She then threw that shield at the Nadder's head and forced it to reel backwards. The Nadder let out a loud and disorienting scream that made her stagger, causing her a brief loss of balance.

They locked eyes briefly, the sight of the wounded creature temporarily forced Astrid's bloodlust down but she willed herself on and found her footing again.

She hit it again, a long but shallow cut that trailed into the wing root and this time the Nadder fucking roared in pain. Even Astrid's adrenaline-fueled body and reflexes weren't fast enough to avoid the tail swipe that impacted on her with such force that she outright flew into the wall of the Arena, her limbs flailing and the back of her head smacked into unyielding stone.

She felt blood pooling somewhere, or was it multiple somewheres? Her ears hurt from the Nadder's shrieks and she couldn't hear anything else, or see for a few brief seconds.

There was a ringing sound, and wet blood that touched her neck. Her skin was scraped from the impact and, of course, her dodging and rolling earlier.

Surface wounds, nothing.

Nothing to be worried about.

Astrid's kneecaps felt funny when she walked forward and her shieldless arm felt naked but her axe was still there, gripped in oddly white knuckles.

The Nadder threw its flames at her again and she dodged, dropping to the ground painfully as some blackened blonde hair fell beside her.

It was open ground between Astrid and her wounded quarry; she'd need a shield. A barricade was nearby, but in her lapse of concentration two painful and sharp hits registered, one on her armored elbow pad and the second in the trailing edge of her abdomen. She looked down and couldn't find the words, so she grunted in confused surprise. Her head lolled, adrenaline fighting to keep her nerves from screaming to her brain that she had been struck with two extremely deadly spines from the Nadder.

Astrid stumbled and then flopped into the barricade, smacking her jaw and good shoulder into the wood. She even remembered to tear the spines out of her body and stopped herself from screaming, instead hitting the back of her palm repeatedly into the wood.

Was it anger or rage she felt?

The Nadder hadn't moved; it was barely keeping itself upright.

It would just be a walk to get there and finish it.

She mustered her strength and threw her axe over the barricade and it landed near the Nadder. Astrid's good right hand yanked herself up and she then used it to grab the remaining shield, her left eye was fuzzy and her left arm, her shield arm, dangled uselessly by her side.

So she limped her way to the Nadder, grunting and moaning all the way as it lashed out with one final attack that she barely dodged, throwing herself to the cold stony ground, skin rubbing and tearing itself in the process and she bit down on her lip to avoid showing weakness. Astrid struggled to get up and wavered from side to side when she did.

"Astrid!" Someone shouted; Astrid couldn't place who it was.

"W,w-what?" She groaned, not expecting to find somebody in front of her.

"Do you need help?"

Help? What the fuck was help?

"Fuck off, I'm busy."

"Astrid, you're bleeding and-"

Who the fuck was this asshole? This fight was hers and her alone, she would kill this stupid Nadder and then she would stop herself from getting married off and become the shield maiden that she wanted to be. No one and she meant NO ONE would get in the way.

"What do you want?"

"What?"

That response angered her, made her hand on her bad arm coil into a reddened blood-soaked fist.

"It's mine."

She struggled and choked her next words out.

"IT'S FUCKING MINE!"

Whoever the voice belonged to ran off and Astrid slowly staggered her way to the dragon, shield dragging on the arena floor with a wooden scraping sound that bit into her reduced hearing.

She willed herself again for one last push, one last walk to victory. One where the village would be screaming her name in adoration, a victory that would cement her place in Berk's history and one that she could be proud of.

Her skin felt hot and she tore off the clothing that bristled with heat, her hand burned and its nerves screamed at her to stop but she wouldn't, she couldn't.

The Nadder was so close she could reach out and touch it. The dragon made one last, exhausted attempt to club her with a brutal headbash but even in her strangely detached state Astrid whacked it in the jaw with her shield and let the shield drop. The Nadder collapsed to the ground while Astrid stumbled around looking for her axe to finish the job.

It kept writhing on the ground and she did her best to ignore it as she searched, she couldn't remember dragons making painful cries or begging to not be killed. She found her axe, barely having the strength to hold it upright, so she dragged it over to the where the Nadder lay. The metal blade bit into the stone as she staggered over to the Nadder, and she had to stop and dig it out a few times.

Everything felt heavy. Her legs barely held her up, her arm struggled when she hefted the axe, her body wavered, and she saw two Nadders briefly.

"Astrid!" Someone called out again and she whispered for them to piss off. This was hers. Her deadly dragon to kill. Astrid the Shield Maiden's first kill of a wounded dragon, she'd murder a animal and she.

She would.

She would do this.

"Stand still" She spat out a bloody tooth and almost keeled over when she raised her axe again.

She could.

She could kill this dragon.

She held herself together one last time, trying to ignore the stinging stones that pressed into her body.

The Nadder looked desperate, its starved and thin frame struggled and was unable to get away from her, it closed its eyes and awaited its fate by her hand.

Why was everything quiet?

She tried to kill it, to will herself to bring her axe down and then behead the creature with repeated strokes in a bloody and messy manner like the adults had said they had done but for some weakling reason she couldn't.

In that moment Astrid realised that she couldn't kill this dragon, it was defenceless, and in a way was just protecting itself and its meagre home behind a metal door that she had come to ruin and destroy.

Fuck.

She dropped her axe. The flood of emotions made her chest heave and then she emptied the contents of her stomach with another heave, a smattering of food from the morning painted the floor around her in a sick mess as she struggled to stay upright through the tears and the heaving. People would be looking and staring at her, wondering why she couldnt kill a simple fucking dragon. Her parents. Disappointed. Surely they were going to sign off later that day on her betrothal and she was going to be married to some fuck in a relationship she couldnt say no to because she was throwing up good food in front of a dragon instead of beheading the fucking thing and why the fuck did everything hurt, why she did feel so weak and emotional, and why was she being judged by a thousand or more Vikings who were doubtless staring at her wretched bloody form.

She had to get out of there, away from the dragon, away from Hiccup who probably had won, and away from the village who would probably disown her. She needed to hide and go. She needed to run.

Astrid Hofferson stumbled,ran, no, limped out of the arena, avoiding everyone and everything as every muscle and nerve in her body tightened and she forced herself to not breathe or utter a single word nor make a single sound until she reached the forest.

Then she broke down.

She stumbled into some area nearby with rocks, an area that led down to a pathway but she fell asleep and she probably didn't care that it was there to begin with in her dazed and confused state of mind.

It wasn't until hours or maybe even half the day later that she heard a raised voice and strange sounds, and she moved to investigate as quietly as she could, her axe in hand, never having allowed it to leave her side. Astrid barely avoided hitting the rocks as she stumbled forward in an unsteady gait. She practically fell down in a few places but managed to get up, the dwindling light of the day shining on a passage that guided her path. If her brain had been working correctly, it would have told her that the path was recently disturbed but she didn't have the capacity to listen to it. Eventually she broke through and came to a shining clearing, water glistened and there was equipment somewhere.

There was rustling behind her and she turned around, squinting, and barely spoke aloud a single word.

"Hiccup?"

Thanks to the reviews and everyone staying patient! Its appreciated and I hope y'all have been enjoying it so far :)
Credits to ASATanker and Evi Vix