"And this is my room, and Toothless's bed is right there. This is where you'll be staying until you get better." Hiccup said as he showed Sigrid the lay of the land in his room. "You'll sleep in the bed and I can move a mat downstairs for now." Sigrid laughed.
"There's no need for you to move anywhere Hiccup. I've never slept in a bed in my life and I doubt I'll start now. A mat on the floor next to Eerikki—I mean Toothless will do me just fine. Actually I don't even need the mat." Hiccup cocked his head at her, befuddled.
"But you're injured. You should rest here." Sigrid shrugged.
"I've been through worse than this and made out just fine on a bed of grass or granite. You can move downstairs if you're uncomfortable but your bed will be empty." Hiccup didn't quite know what to say. Sigrid sat down on Toothless's rock slab of a bed and the dragon eagerly breathed fire onto the stone then laid down, curling himself around her body. Sigrid sighed, a small smile on her face as she leaned back into the Night Fury. It was obvious the two shared a deep bond. "Thank you for your hospitality Hiccup. And your dad's as well. Thor knows he didn't have to take in a complete stranger." Hiccup chuckled.
"It wouldn't be the first time, and probably not the last. Besides, as the chief's son I kind of had a duty to offer the house to you as a sign of good intentions." Sigrid smirked.
"Ah, so its a mere formality. I understand." Hiccup was about to correct her when she winked and he relaxed, knowing it was a joke.
"Is she ready yet!?" An anxious voice called up from downstairs. Hiccup rolled his eyes.
"We're all very interested to hear about your past with Toothless. Especially Fishlegs." Sigrid smiled.
"You can come on up everyone!" She called. Within seconds the dragon riders had charged up the narrow steps into the Haddock loft and were seated with bated breath, staring at Sigrid with wide eyes. Astrid came to stand by Hiccup, her arms crossed. After the whole Heather incident, Astrid was more cautious and skeptical than ever about Sigrid's presence. She couldn't deny her wounds however, or her connection to Toothless. Sigrid looked at them all with a rather amused expression.
"Well I suppose I should start from the beginning. Or at least, as far back as I can recall." She shifted so she was sitting up a bit more and Toothless rested his head under her arm. "I don't know where I come from, what my tribe is if I even had one, or who my parents are or were. I have absolutely no idea where I was born. All I've known, from as far back as I can remember, are dragons. You see...," She paused and looked down at Toothless with a sorrowful expression. "Eerikki and I are siblings because his mom raised us both." Everyone gasped.
"So, you were raised by Night Furies? You're not just feeding us yak dung are you?" Snotlout asked. Sigrid arched a brow.
"You may believe whatever you like, since there is no way for me to prove that I am telling the truth. But I would love to hear your explanation of our relationship if I weren't raised by them." Snotlout turned red and grumbled a bit but shut up. "I don't know why or how she ended up with me. I think she rescued me from a fire when I was a baby, but I'm not sure. Anyway, I called her Birget because she protected me. Not long before she ended up with me, she had two eggs hatch. One, Eerikki, survived. The other died immediately. I have a hunch that the reason I ended up with her was because when she found me she was grieving for her dead baby, and human babies are roughly the same size as a newborn night fury."
"She raised me and Eerikki as siblings. I learned to forage and hunt and fight same as he did, the only differences were that I didn't have wings and my skin was much less impervious to cold." Sigrid chuckled at the memory. "Birget had to keep me very secluded for a long time until I got old enough to make clothes out of the molted scales. Those kept me warm. I was probably about 2 at that time, and that's also when Eerikki and I started flying together." She smiled at Toothless and he purred into her, closing his eyes contentedly. "We got into all sorts of mischief, but had so much fun." Her lighthearted expression suddenly turned dark and cold. "But then we grew up much too quickly. There weren't many Night Furies on our island but it didn't matter. An evil hunter named Grimmel had only one mission in life: to wipe Night Furies from the face of the earth."
"I was maybe 6 when he came. I don't know, I never kept track of time very well. We fought him to the best of our ability but he had dragons that were made to follow his every command and an army bigger than 10 Night Furies and one little girl could handle. Birget forced Eerikki and I to leave, despite our wish to remain and fight. But it was unanimous. We would survive. Because we were the youngest, we were easily driven off the island by the older Night Furies. We tried to turn back to fight but by the time we managed to even get close we saw it was too late." Sigrid shut her eyes tight against the memory.
"I wasn't going to let Eerikki be killed. With that madman on the rampage we had no idea of knowing how many of his kind were left. We searched and searched and searched for months, years! It was as if they had all vanished within the span of just a few months. Grimmel had slaughtered them all." She took a deep breath and caught Hiccup's eye. He was horrified. They all were. They had all assumed that Night Furies had once been an abundant dragon; no one really believed that Toothless was one of a kind but to hear that they were truly all gone, and that they'd been hunted to near extinction put it all in a different light.
"We were on our own for many years. Every once in a while someone would spot us and I'd get captured. That's how I learned to speak, from my captors. That's also where I honed my fighting skills, learned to listen, and mastered the fine art of manipulation." She smirked dangerously. "Eventually I let myself be captured to obtain information such as where dragon hunts were taking place and where auctions were being held. Eerikki and I brought down many a organization and saved the lives of thousands of dragons. But with as often as I obtained information and then busted a hunt or auction, we began to pay the price as they began to realize that it was always a single fighter on a dragon that flew and acted suspiciously like a Night Fury. Back then Night Furies were still the mystery of the archipelago, only those who worked directly with Grimmel knew anything about them and I had never even heard a thing about them since they killed our family. But, the hunters still started putting two and two together and I wasn't going to take the chance of word getting to Grimmel or another powerful hunter that there was still one Night Fury left. So, we parted ways." She petted his nose fondly. "We haven't seen each other in probably 6 years or more."
"Didn't Berk start having trouble with a Night Fury about 7 years ago?" Astrid questioned. Hiccup nodded.
"Apparently before we were born they had a lot of trouble with them, and then they vanished like Sigrid said. It must have been due to that hunter. Then suddenly, we got a dragon that never stole food, never showed itself, and never missed a shot." Sigrid chuckled.
"Yup, that was him alright."
"So what have you been doing all these years?" Fishlegs asked Sigrid.
"Same as I did with Eerikki, just with any dragon that was available. I've been rescuing dragons from traps and camps and auctions. That Nightmare I landed with—,"
"More like crashed with." Ruffnut snarked and she and Tuffnut started guffawing. Sigrid shot them a look that could have killed in a very painful way.
"Ahem, he was caught in a trapper's net when I found him. Some trappers and hunters have metal made nets that slice wings and skin to ribbons if a dragon gets caught in it. Luckily I got to him before they got him completely, we were fortunate to get away with only a small tear in his wing and a missing leg." She glanced down at Hiccup and then over to Toothless's tail. "I'm sure you two understand that." Hiccup chuckled.
"Yeah, I shot him down and then fixed what I'd done to him, but then he saved my life by doing this so we're calling it even I think." Sigrid laughed and then caught the look Astrid was giving her.
"Somehow I sense you don't like me being here, do you Astrid?" Astrid stiffened.
"It's not that, I'm just...wary of newcomers to the island."
"Yeah, especially the pretty ones that Hiccup invites to his house." Tuffnut remarked and even Fishlegs and Snotlout started snickering. Sigrid arched a brow and looked to Hiccup.
"I take it that I'm not the first one you've offered to give up your bed for." Hiccup's cheeks were bright red with embarrassment. He scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"Last year we had a similar happenstance with another girl, only she was working for our enemy at the time. She was only doing it to save her parents but it still planted a lot of distrust on Berk." Sigrid smirked and stood.
"Lemme guess, she played the innocent, damsel in distress card and used her looks to charm the boys into thinking that she was harmless." She looked to Astrid. "It's clear you weren't fooled which is good. Those instincts will save your life." Astrid eyed her up and down as did Sigrid. The two girls sized each other up and for a moment the tension in the room was palpable. But then Astrid relaxed and stuck out her hand.
"Welcome to Berk." Sigrid smiled and accepted her handshake then turned to Hiccup.
"As for you, you're clearly a genius so I would advise you not to let a pretty face distract you to the point that it clouds your judgement." She darted a quick glance at Astrid and then smiled again. "Even if you like her." Hiccup froze as did Astrid. Everyone else just stood there, not quite sure what to do. "Now, if its not too much trouble, I would love to wash the blood out of my hair. Where can I do that?" Hiccup motioned to the stairs.
"Just follow me." He darted down them, eager to get away from Astrid and the embarrassment of the situation. He moved to a little corner of the house and drew back a sheet from the ceiling. "Here's the wash basin and there's water heating over the fire." Sigrid gave him a grateful smile.
"Thank you. I really appreciate this." Hiccup took hold of her arm before he left.
"How did you know? About my feelings for-,"
"It was pretty obvious Hiccup, I could tell just by watching the two of you." Hiccup flushed red and was about to make a feeble attempt to backtrack when Sigrid stopped him. "If it's any consolation, she feels the exact same way. And if your body language is any indication, you two have been dancing around with these feelings for years, now haven't you?" Hiccup gaped at her.
"How did you-?"
"I've spent my fair share of time flirting and using my looks to persuade my captors and their bosses into telling me what I want to know. I know romantic intentions when I see them." She smirked and began to pull her hair down from the knot Gothie had tied it in when tending her. "And like this other girl that tricked you, I'm not above using my looks to get what I want. In fact, I figure if I have it I might as well use it." She smiled sweetly. "I just won't be using them on you. At least not on purpose." She turned him around and pushed him towards the stairs. "Now let a girl bathe and you go back and gossip about me and decide if I'm trustworthy. Newsflash, I'm not." She winked and gave him another shove before disappearing behind the curtain.
Hiccup exhaled a breath and started back up the steps. He had no doubt in his mind that she was trustworthy, and not because she was pretty or anything else. It was because Toothless clearly adored her and had a connection to her deeper than he had ever seen even between two dragons. If Toothless trusted her, then Hiccup wasn't going to question it. What he did question however was the connection he felt towards this girl. He couldn't explain it, he'd never felt this way before in his life, for anyone. It was like he'd met her before; she seemed so familiar. It was a strange feeling, and he intended to figure it out.