Training commences on an understandably stiffer note than last time. It's misted over from rain, dew on the grass outside the arena and the stone slick on the inside. Gobber put up walls before the storm really set in with the help of some other men, walls tall enough that I don't think even a Hideous Zippleback could look over them without tippy-toeing. Everyone's buzzing with energy, a night filled with rain instead of dragons always well-spent by sleeping soundly.

Unless you're me.

I'm the last one to get there today. A thumb-sized shadow hangs under my eye. I receive awkward glances from Fishlegs as I mumble in a poor excuse for a greeting, his eyes flitting between me and Snotlout. Snotlout's sporting dark eyes himself, though one of them seems to a shiner, and is as far removed from the group as physically possible, leaning against a wall with arms folded and scowling at nothing in particular. Like a gate, the twins are placed firmly between him and the rest of us, groggy as they are.

Astrid is on the other side of that human gate, jaw sharp and eyes set in a glare, running her hand along her axe. She affords me a short nod while Fishlegs and the twins give their own form of greetings. Snotlout, notably, stays silent.

Nothing else is said.

But I'm too busy worrying about the night before to worry about the tension that suddenly hangs over the others.

It's watching me, I worry my bottom lip, gnawing relentlessly. It's already been thoroughly abused to the point of beading with blood from last night but I've obviously had worse pains. Why?

The fear in me resents drawing its gaze. The vengeful part of me only croons, Finally.

Gobber calls for our attention. I only spare him a glance while picking up a new shield, wielding the blooded spear from before. I glare at the ground in thought as I consider the concept of the Night Fury hunting me. I mean, I didn't get a good look, but I was pretty sure, and I can't think of any other dragon that would have a potential vendetta against me so great as to seek me outside of battle.

Would anyone believe me? I wonder. It's not like I can say, Hey, Dad, I think the Night Fury is out to get me now! I see it outside my window at night plotting my very gruesome and painful demise!

I'm so lost in my head that I only react when Astrid yanks me by the arm, causing me to stumble. "Hiccup!"

I turn to her sharply. "What—?"

The sound of something loudly chipping at the floor has me look back. "Oh," I comment dumbly, staring at the bony needles that decorate the ground where I once stood.

Nadder spines.

Astrid sends me a warning look before releasing me. "Pay attention, Hiccup. Don't make me regret rethinking my opinion of you," she says lowly as she goes, making my heart twitch in a funny way.

"Head in the game, Hiccup!" Gobber calls as a Deadly Nadder flares its crown of spines at me, shrieking.

How did I miss that thing coming out?! I bolt for cover, scanning the arena. The Nadder moves to pursue me. But—wait—doesn't it kind of look—?

The turquoise body, the gold splattering of accent scales and the pattern of them reminds me of the very same Nadder from within my dream.

But it can't be. That's too much of a coincidence. It was just a dream.

Stupid, I scold myself, pacing myself as I jog around corners, bouncing on my heels as I wait for openings to find new spots to hide. There are hundreds of Nadders out there that look exactly the same. This one isn't special.

I round another corner. Just as quickly, I backtrack as a stream of fire rushes down the path I meant to take. It's so hot I gasp, scars reacting in a vivid reminder of what fire can do.

Gobber cheerily gives me a belated warning. "Watch out, lass! Deadly Nadders have one of the hottest fires of all time. That fiery peacock there will turn you to right ash in minutes!"

"Nice to know," I choke as I hug the wall, sweating as the fire reduces into wisps. I hear the Deadly Nadder chitter, talons scraping the floor, and I book it before it can snap me up. I pass Fishlegs, who sees me running and is smart enough to do the same. Someone screams in the distance. Tuffnut, probably. The cackling that follows is probably Ruffnut.

"Get in its blind spot!" Gobber advises to someone I can't see.

Snotlout's voice echoes unpleasantly. "And where's that?!"

"You tell me. This is a class for a reason!"

Head in the game, Hiccup, I echo Gobber's words, braid a streaking tail behind me. Deadly Nadder spines are filled with a paralyzing poison—in other words, getting poked is very bad. It has a spined tail, so I obviously don't want to get close to that. Sharp, bird-like talons, of which I definitely don't want to get snagged by. My best chance is the head, but that breathes fire. Very, very hot fire. But fire burns either way, and I'm in the entirely wrong profession if I'm scared to get a little singed.

(In all actuality, I'm terrified, but who has to know?)

What do I do?

Astrid's signature battle cry reaches me, and it's close. I hear the sound of wood crashing—it's collapsing around us!—and struggle to avoid being crushed under the walls. Fishlegs and I avoid it by a narrow margin, him more so than me solely due to the fact that I had a head start and he didn't.

But—Astrid is struggling, splintering shield decorated in spines and axe being tugged out of her hand by the Nadder's beak.

I don't think. I know as soon as that axe is tossed aside, Astrid is toast.

My legs start moving on their own. I make an inhuman sound, sprinting forward—and the Nadder's headspines perk up as it pauses in its deadly tug-of-war with Astrid. When the Nadder spots me rapidly approaching it abruptly lets go of the axe, sending Astrid falling back. She yelps as she goes but the Nadder doesn't react to her further. Instead, the entirety of its attention is now honed in on me. The Deadly Nadder screams, giving a short hop in my direction before beginning a bull-like charge.

I instinctively recalculate as it approaches. I duck under and to the side as it charges past, using my scrawny but agile body to my advantage all the while thanking Snotlout for the rigorous workouts he put me through during our childhood games of tag, which went more along the lines of "if I catch you, I'm punching the crap out of you."

The Deadly Nadder hits the wall behind me with an unsettling hiss, Fishlegs narrowly jumping out of the way with a squeak.

When it turns around, I'm already helping Astrid up.

"Consider the favor returned," I tell her breathlessly, and she lets out a surprised laugh as she grabs my hand, allowing me the illusion of hauling her up (in reality, she does most of the work).

"It's not over yet," Astrid replies.

The Deadly Nadder thrashes its head angrily, but when it settles those reptilian slits are still narrowed in on me.

There's a pause.

The Nadder hisses, something angry, something that almost has me growling back just from the distinct impression I get that makes me think it just insulted me, and shakes its tail.

Astrid and I tuck ourselves behind yet another wall, of which the Nadder uses as pseudo-dartboard. I catch the frustration in the reedy exhale it gives, audible despite the distance, and then the click of its talons resounds.

Bad egg.

My eyes flicker, lost as to what I just heard, not registering Astrid trying to get my attention. The image of a cracked egg shell invades my mind, leaking viscous fluids through the gaps. It's so vivid that I can smell the rot, and I cringe while trying to refocus, though I'm nearly swept up in a sense of disgust that I'm not quite entirely sure is my own.

The Deadly Nadder continues to approach.

Survived.

Another image. Me, in the wreckage, from a bird's eye view. A shadow hangs aloft in the corner of this mental picture. Eyes like grass moons peer down at me, eclipsing with not-quite-remorse, but close.

I grit my teeth, grinding the palm of my hand against my forehead as Astrid leans closer to me, mouth moving, though I can't hear her over the noise in my head, less words and more intent, more images and ideas than anything my tongue can reproduce.

Then I choke. Something hostile force itself into me, a sense of bloodlust and anger that matches mine, threatening to overfill me.

Another vision. A different viewpoint. Peering through a crack. A flash of a Gronckle, the smell of it, blood. My spear, dipped red.

Me, overlayed in scarlet, spacing right before Astrid pushes me out of the way from a spray of Nadder spines.

The world rushes back in. Astrid's pulling me up, away. Everything's gone mute even as the wall comes down in a wreckage of planks and broken boards.

I understand now.

I've gone mad.

Or . . . or more damningly, I can see through the eyes of the dragons.

And if what I'm seeing is true, this Nadder is out to get me because I hurt that Gronkle.

I'm struggling to breathe, and it's not just because of the sudden uptick in exercise as I'm forced along solely by the ironclad grip of Astrid's fingers around my wrist, a bruising hold to prevent me from being lost in her mad retreat.

The Nadder is right behind us.

Never should have hatched, I swear it says, cold-blooded but boiling in its hatred for me.

"Snap out of it!" Astrid commands when I stumble. A yank has me back on track, but my messed-up state of mind is only slowing us down. The Nadder is so close I can feel the air rush backwards with the force of its inhale. I shake my head furiously. Survival mode kicks in, my brain putting itself back together for the sole sake of staying alive long enough to murder this awful lizard the second I get the chance.

We're so close to a turn—but we're not going to make it.

"Let the men handle this!"

Snotlout is charging out from that so-close-yet-faraway corner, hammer poised to throw. The Nadder is startled into shutting its jaws as it jumps backwards. A spine inserts itself squarely into Snotlout's shoulder, though he still manages the hurl with a high-pitched scream. I imagine if the spine hadn't hit him, he would have actually missed. As it is, his hammer actually smacks it on the nasal horn.

Which, honestly, doesn't do much.

"You sacrificed your weapon for that?" Gobber asks from above, aghast at the shortsightedness while Astrid and I take the opportunity for what it is to find cover.

"H-hey, Hiccup gave up her s-shield!" Snotlout manages to reply, mouth sounding as though it's full of cotton. The Nadder ignores him as he stumbles, thankfully for Snotlout's sake, and unlucky for me, still intent on tearing me a new one. "How is me throwing my weapon any d-different?"

Astrid and I skulk around the walls, Snotlout's voice growing fainter.

"In her case, it actually worked!" Gobber retaliates. "What's your excuse?"

Snotlout can be heard keeling over with a beleaguered moan.

"Thor, almighty. Snotlout, out. Lads! You can't ever forget the poisonous spines. You won't be able to move for hours after getting poked with even one of those."

I would think that Snotlout ending up paralyzed would be enough to call the training off, but Gobber shouts nothing further. I'm dismayed but make no mention of it to Astrid. The Nadder is audible through the walls, snorting loudly. Smelling us, probably.

We hurry to another section of the ring. The Nadder follows.

"Is it just me—" Astrid pants next to me, voice cracking and too exhausted to give me attitude for my multiple slip-ups. We're both damp with sweat. "Or is it, like, targeting us?"

My lungs burn, my body is aching, and my brain is mush. It takes a moment to even remember to reply. "I think it is." I don't offer up my theory. I don't want to sound crazy in front of my crush. Whether I am or not is actually still up in the air.

How else can I explain the stuff going on in my head?

The sound of a dragon throat igniting has us drop to the ground purely on instinct. Over our heads a plume of near-white fire swirls and my heart pounds over the roar of it. When it stops, I roll my head to the side to meet Astrid's wide-eyed gaze.

We almost died, is our terrified collective thought, so strong we can feel it pass between us.

Then Astrid gasps, jumping up.

"Hiccup, your hair—!"

"What—oh, crap—!"

"Here, let me—!"

Astrid's struggling to put out the fire eating at the tip of my braid when the vengeful Nadder reminds us of our situation. I grab her hands, urging her forward. "It's not important right now!" Thankfully, I put it out on my own with another clumsy roll when the Nadder swings at us with its tail, sending another wall crumbling.

But wherever we run to, whatever cover we crouch behind, the Nadder is always right behind us. It's scarily relentless. Every time I have the opportunity to take a breath, it's like the Deadly Nadder is trying to steal it from me. My body is beginning to drag, and the space between Astrid and I begins to grow as we struggle to stick together.

Finally, it takes us staring at each other with the Deadly Nadder placed firmly in between us to realize we've been separated, and I'm the one backed into a corner. It turns to me, tail thrashing to keep Astrid back.

A smug rumble vibrates through it so strongly I see its wings shudder. Caught you, bad egg.

It takes one step.

"Don't leave us out!"

"Yeah, we're just getting started!"

The twins rush in, swinging hatchets wildly and hurling insults by the dozen. Tuffnut is notably singed and Ruffnut's helmet is elsewhere. Their appearance catches the Nadder off-guard unlike with Snotlout. While Ruffnut goes for one wing Tuffnut swerves for the other. They nearly tear at the veiny leather there before the Deadly Nadder whirls, hopping like an oversized bird retreating from a horde of insects.

I take a moment to process before halfway managing a weary grin. "Thanks, guys! You're a lifesaver!"

Ruffnut's hair is flying as she replies, "Don't thank us with cheesy words, thank us by poking this thing full of holes!"

Well, I'm not going to be the one to be told twice.

I join in on hassling the Deadly Nadder. I use the reach of my spear to prod at its defenses, Astrid coming along the other side and trying chop at it with all the focus of a lumberjack preparing for winter. It's clearly not happy, twitching this way and that and trying to stay light enough on its feet to avoid us, but we are many to its one. It can't focus on me when there's three other violent nuisances to worry about.

The next few minutes are an exercise in both athletics and acrobatics—we duck, we lean, we stretch, we jump. Where one of us slips, gets too close to wiping out, the others move in to redirect its attention. We're not the best but now it's quantity over quality and we're wearing it down.

Eventually blood is dotting the stones and it isn't ours. The sight thrills me in a way I can't explain even though my limbs shake like windswept twigs with exhaustion. Sweat lines our brows. A lull in its attacks makes us realize the Nadder is slowing down and it makes us work more fervently.

We're going to take down this Nadder, and when we do I'm going to stab out one of its eyes for all the hell it gave me.

"Time to join your buddy!" I make a fierce stab for the Nadder, spearhead accented sparsely with the dragon's blood.

But I don't make it.

We must have all been too focused on killing it to see its tail winding up for one last swing. Abruptly, in the same instance when I went to thrust my spear, spines end up in all of us, all in less than a blink of an eye. One sticks almost neatly through my hand, spear dropping from my limp grip as my fingers go numb.

The Nadder settles, primly preening at our shocked faces, though its chest is fluttering as fast as a hummingbird's wings. It's beaten us.

I stare at the painful protrusions sticking out of my arms, my chest, my legs. They're wedged in deep and they weep blood around the edges, staining my clothes with rings of red. My face contorts from fear at the same time as the others. When I try to back away, it feels like I'm underwater.

Poison.

We all totter on our feet.

The Deadly Nadder croons, appraising each of us before affixing an eye on me in particular. While it catches its breath Tuffnut goes down, then Ruffnut, and then it's just Astrid and I struggling to stay up.

"Oh, this is bad," Tuffnut says from where his cheek is smushed to the ground.

Ruffnut's voice is even more muffled, as she had the misfortune of falling face-first. "What makes you say that, dingus?"

Needless to say, I'm terrified when my body gives out, sending me crashing along the stone like a ragdoll. I almost have sympathy for Snotlout, but then again he didn't have the Nadder bearing down on him like it is to me.

Like I expected, it completely ignores the others, making a beeline for me with murder in its beady eyes—

I see in its eyes the image of its foot coming down on my head, cracking it like the bad egg it sees me as. I'm trying to be brave, holding in my scream, but inwardly I'm only hoping the Nadder makes it quick.

Before the Nadder makes contact, I hear a yell.

"Blind spot, baby!"

Fishlegs' shoots out from beside me. The Nadder rears back but doesn't quite manage to avoid Fishlegs bashing it in the head. "How do you like that, huh?!" Fishlegs shouts at it, braver than I've ever seen him, and he hits it again. "They're not the only ones you should be worrying about!"

I almost cry from relief.

Fishlegs buys us valuable time, because as he draws its ire Gobber is making his way towards us. I suck in a sharp breath of relief, because when the Nadder knocks Fishlegs clean out with a headbutt, it's already too late—Gobber is pulling the Nadder away right after.

It struggles fiercely and screams like a pig being devoured alive. Even starved as it is, it's a trial to get it under control. I feel its shrieks like they come from my own throat. Rage, unbridled and unfiltered, only tempered by the depravity the Nadder's handlers forced upon it, echoes all around us in the form of the Deadly Nadder's screech. The whole time its eyes are set on me—bright, venomous, and hungry for revenge.

But Gobber isn't having it.

"You dirty vermin, get your scaly hide back in there before I skin you for boots!"

And in due time, the Deadly Nadder is finally forced into its dark enclosure. Before the door shuts, I see its yellow eyes still boring into me, and it hisses, and I swear, I swear—

Next time, I hear it, vibrating in the air between us with finality before Gobber slams the locks into place.

Only then do I let myself shut my eye, a tear slipping through the crack and cutting a wet path down my dirty face.

Gobber hurries over to me right after, face strained from how he's pushing his weight onto his prosthetic in his rush. "Lass, you alright there?"

I attempt to speak, but nothing coherent comes out. Where it's from the poison or from my own unstable emotions, I have no clue. I just mumble vague sounds.

He pats my head awkwardly. "There, there, lass, you're okay now."

I doubt that.

Gobber appraises me one final time, before sighing and standing to check on the other trainees.

After affirming that we were all physically okay, he leaves to send out another Viking on a mission to round up the parents still on the island. Fishlegs' mother is the first to arrive, then Astrid's mother, the twin's father, and lastly, Snotlout's mom (thankfully not Spitelout who was also away on the hunt).

Fishlegs' mom greets me kindly, and I try to do the same back even in as awkward of a position as I am stacked up against the wall with the other kids. Astrid's mother, I note, is stout, shorter than I am, and just as blonde as her daughter. Astrid sends me a despairing look as her mother dotes on her, lifting her up with ease. I send a grimace of a smile, trying to wiggle my fingers in a wave.

She slowly waves back.

One-by-one my peers are picked up.

But, obviously, no one comes for me.

I send Gobber a questioning look when the last of my peers have been retrieved.

"I got ya," he said. I nod, choosing to remain silent as I stew over the collective failure that today's training turned out to be. How close we all came to actually dying—in training!

Also on my mind is the dream, and the Nadder from the dream, and then the Nadder we faced today, and I had to wonder, as my brain turned the Nadder's calls over and over again in my head, if it was just all in my head, or—

"What's on your mind, lass?"

I blink sluggishly.. We're already outside the arena, making our way through the near-deserted paths to my house.

"Just . . . everything."

Gobber barely jostles me limps up the hill. "Well, it was a lot, wasn't it? Caught me by surprise too. I wonder what got in the birdbrain—Nadders don't typically act like that, if you couldn't tell from how most Vikings come back from fightin' one."

"It was angry," I say immediately.

Chuckling, Gobber replies, "Well, 'course it was. Big thing in a small cage, hungry, and the cage won't let it fly so easy. Why wouldn't it be angry?"

I shake my head. "No, it was angry at me."

"What makes you say that?"

I struggle to shrug. My shoulders barely move. What can I say? A vague portion of the truth, if I take away the mad bits. "I don't know. Maybe it knows I hurt the Gronckle."

"Nah," Gobber says, taking the steps in a way that dips me dangerously low to one side due to his missing foot. "It can't have known, it was in its cage and it's not like they can talk to each other—they're just beasties."

I purse my lips, but don't mention the growing suspicion that, no, dragons aren't just beasts—they're capable of thought, planning, and communication far more than we give them credit for.

But I have no proof, save for what's in my head.

That night, I slip into an uneasy sleep, wary of the nightmare to come.