The disappearance of the knight's dragon caused a lot of confusion in Berk the following morning. The knight kept on repeating how everything seemed fine in the afternoon, and there had been no signs of his dragon wanting to leave. Nobody appeared to be understanding how she had managed to get out of her stall and the stable building.

The knight had been upset, but once Stoick promised him a new dragon, his spirits seemed to have risen up drastically. Perhaps it helped that he hadn't been able to be close to the dragon for many weeks? Hiccup didn't know, but he was extremely glad that his assumptions had been correct and nobody seemed to suspect anything – everyone just agreed that the dragon had had enough and left for good.

On top of that, the prince couldn't remember the last time he had been this excited about something. His desire to learn more about dragons was growing bigger by the minute, and he just couldn't understand how he hadn't taken interest in them earlier. He wanted to think it was because he was too busy doing other things, but it wasn't that. He just didn't use to care.

But somehow the encounter with the wounded dragon the previous night had changed everything for him. He really wanted to help the poor creature, and realising that just how big of an advantage it would be to know how to deal with any type of dragon made him so eager to go to Berk's dragon trainers right that instant. However, that wasn't possible because they were busy in the mornings as that was when they always did most of the training. And even though Hiccup was curious to see how they did it, he was wise enough to not disturb them.

So, what he did in the morning instead was trying to figure out what type of a dragon it was in the woods. Although he rarely visited the Royal Library, he knew that there were books about dragons and that one of them was about different dragon species. Berk's dragon trainers wrote down all the information they collected in that book, and it was kept in the Royal Library to avoid just anybody getting their hands on it.

The library was always extremely deserted and it looked extremely dull. Some of the books were hundreds of years old, dating back to the 10th century, and the ancient pieces of parchment gave the place a nasty stench. If the sun shone through the window, it revealed the dust that was everywhere.

There was a very old librarian with a grey beard long enough to reach the floor and he was always sitting by his desk, either reading a book or writing on a long piece of parchment. He was wearing dusty, black robes that made him look like a priest. Hiccup never saw him, but he did know of his existence.

The librarian surely wasn't expecting to see the prince walk in. When he heard approaching footsteps, he reluctantly raised his head up from the book he was skimming through, but once he realised who was coming, he slammed the book shut, causing a cloud of dust to rise from between the pages.

"Prince Hiccup," he said in a croaked voice that he hadn't probably been using for a while. He stood up as quickly as he could, but the prince gestured him to sit down again.

"Good morning," he replied and smiled friendly. "I'm looking for a book."

"What is its name, My Lord?" the librarian asked curiously, his hand ghosting on the drawers for whatever reason. He then pulled out a long piece of parchment where he apparently kept a list of all the books that there were in the Royal Library.

"The Book of Dragons," Hiccup said and watched the old man's gaze shoot up from the list to him. "The one that the dragon trainers update often."

"You can find it two shelves to the right," the man said and pointed at the exact shelf. Hiccup followed the man's finger with his eyes and they fixed upon a shelf with a large D painted at the end of it.

"I didn't know we have a sorting system in this library," Hiccup mumbled mostly to himself, but apparently the librarian heard him.

"I'm always looking for ways to improve this fine library, and I figured it would be useful to have all the books sorted by what they're about, My Lord," he replied excitedly.

The prince just smiled at him and thanked him for his help before he disappeared behind the massive shelf of books. As he scanned through the titles, he could easily tell which books were more popular than the others, for some of them had worn-out covers meanwhile some other books looked like nobody had touched them since they had found their place on that shelf. That might have also had something to do with the fact that the Royal Library was rarely visited by anybody, for everyone with access to it didn't have a lot of time to spare for a visit.

Once Hiccup found the book, he sat down by an old, wooden table to spread it open. Since it had been really dark when they found the dragon, he hadn't been able to see it very clearly so all the memories he had of it were blurry. Finding the dragon from the book turned out to be a lot more challenging than he had imagined. The prince knew that its winds were big and its body slim, but those details fit to awfully many of the dragon species that the trainers had written down on that book. He read through the descriptions of all the possible options and he tried to stretch his memory to see if there had been the smallest of detail that would've solved it all. The drawings of the dragon species weren't much help either – it seemed as though the trainers had found the person with the artistic skills of a toad to do the illustrations.

Hiccup realised that he needed to have another look at the dragon before he could figure out what it was. Next time he would need to pay more attention to details such as how it defended itself and what its roars sounded like, because apparently that was important in identifying the species from one another.

Slightly frustrated by the wasted time, Hiccup got up from the chair that created an echoing sound around the walls as it slid across the stony floor of the library. He returned the Book of Dragons on the spot where he got it from and to get out of the library, he walked behind the shelves so that he didn't have to go past the librarian. The old man saw him only when the prince was about to exit the room, so Hiccup turned around to thank him for his help once again before finally entering the corridor.

"So, you want to learn how to train dragons?" one of the dragon trainers asked with a raised eyebrow. "May I ask why, Sir?"

"No, I don't exactly want to know how to train them, just how to– actually, on second thoughts, I do want to learn how to train them. It'll be useful in the future."

"Are you planning to have your sweet revenge on Briral? To return the favour and snatch their dragons from them?"

"What? No," Hiccup replied with a frown. Why did everything always have to be about revenge? "I just want to learn, is all. To get an idea what you're doing and how challenging it is."

The muscular man nodded. "Most certainly, Sir. Each dragon is unique and therefore they must be trained as individuals. We can have two Deadly Nadders–"

"Deadly Nadders?" Hiccup parroted.

"That's a dragon species. The dragon that fled last night was a Deadly Nadder."

The prince nodded in thought. Now he knew what type of a dragon Astrid had and he could learn a bit more about Stormfly.

Hiccup didn't realise his face had split into a smile until the dragon trainer said: "So I take that it's your favourite dragon species? Such majestic creatures they are indeed – hard to train but they're incredibly loyal once you've earned their trust."

They spent several hours going through different training methods and Hiccup tried his best to take in every word. He even made some notes on his notebook, a sight that made the dragon trainer chuckle in amusement. He learned that if the dragon's tail was damaged, it couldn't fly, so the prince made himself a mental note to check the dragon's tail the following day. He also found out that the way he had gained Toothless and Stormfly's trust was a very typical method for befriending dragons. Hearing that was relieving, for it made him much more confident about getting closer to the unfamiliar reptile.

Just as he was about to leave the rink where the dragon trainers spent the majority of their time, he was greeted by a sight of Gothi and Fishlegs. Hiccup looked between the two, and when he saw Gothi's angry and suspicious glare, his eyes darted up to Fishlegs to get any sort of confirmation whether the court physician was looking like that because of him or somebody else. His friend looked as puzzled as he felt, and Hiccup realised it was most likely because Fishlegs didn't ever spend time around Gothi so he didn't understand her weird drawing language if she had even attempted to communicate with him.

"Hey, Gothi," Hiccup greeted cheerfully. "I was actually just thinking of coming over to you."

She narrowed her eyes before taking a better grip of her staff and drawing on the ground. The prince looked around him to see if there was anybody that could understand the drawings nearby. When he concluded that there wasn't, he turned his attention back to Gothi.

"The dragon that escaped last night? You think I have something to do with that? I've no clue what you're talking about," he said and let out an awkward laugh. When the physician raised her head from the ground, her facial expression didn't leave any doubts about whether she believed him. She clearly didn't.

Fishlegs stared at the ground that was now filled with drawings that made no sense to him. He was clearly trying to figure out how Hiccup knew that the combination of them all meant that Gothi was suspecting the prince – he looked like he had just swallowed a very sour lemon.

"I swear I didn't have anything to do with it," he lied. "The dragon was just able to fly off after it was cured, that's my theory."

Gothi stared at him with a piercing look, and although it was hard, Hiccup stared back at her. After a while she seemed to give up as she just rolled her eyes in frustration and made her way towards the training rink.

"Hey, Gothi, I will come to your hut later today because I need to learn something about curing wounds," Hiccup shouted after the physician.

She stopped walking and looked at him over her shoulder. She simply nodded, not bothering to do anything else and she was off again.

"What are you up to?" his friend asked him once Gothi was out of earshot.

"There is a wounded dragon in the woods, I need to help it. She will be there as well."

Hiccup didn't need to mention Astrid's name for Fishlegs to realise who he was talking about.

"Are you absolutely certain you know what you're doing?" Fishlegs asked slowly. "The court physician doesn't believe a word you're saying, and you pretty much confirmed her suspicions by telling her you need help to cure wounds. I mean, can you even make it more obvious? It won't take long that others will smell something fishy as well."

"Come on, Fishlegs. It will be fine, nobody will realise anything. I know how to be sneaky, I'm not a first-timer."

"But this is a completely different thing from sneaking out for a couple of hours at night. I'm just scared you'll be caught and get in trouble."

Hiccup smiled at his friend. "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

The prince patted Fishlegs on the shoulder before he walked away from the training rink.

"I sure hope you do," Fishlegs mumbled under his breath, but Hiccup didn't hear that.

"What did you find out?" Astrid asked the night after.

They were on their way to the cave. They travelled by foot, with Toothless and Stormfly right in front of them as if to show them the way. It was dead silent around them; nothing was implying that there was a wounded dragon hidden in the woods, which made Hiccup worry that the dragon had left the cave. It would've been such a shame to see all the trouble coming back here and then not be able to help the reptile.

After much difficulty, the prince had managed to gather some herbs and potions from Gothi's cupboards. He had asked her to give him something that would treat bad injuries, and what he was now carrying in his leather pouch that he had attached to his belt, next to the sword that he always carried with him.

Hiccup looked to his right and he met Astrid's curious eyes. "Not as much as I'd have liked. But I do know how to treat the dragon's injuries."

"Good, I also tried to get something out of Briral's dragon trainers, but it was difficult. They don't share what they know willingly and I am the last person they expect to be interested."

The prince didn't know what to say to that, so he just kept moving forward, keeping an eye on Toothless in case the dragon made some drastic turn in another direction.

The silence that had fallen became too bothering for Hiccup so he decided to break it. "Was anybody curious where you got Stormfly back?"

Although the prince wasn't looking at her, he saw from the corner of his eye how Astrid rapidly turned her head to look at him. "You're finally calling her by her name," she stated as if that was the most relevant part of Hiccup's question.

"Your reunion didn't leave much doubt in my mind about her being yours. So yeah," he responded, and their eyes met. Hiccup's thoughts travelled to that moment and remembering the pure joy surrounding the girl and the dragon caused a ghost of a smile to creep on his lips, but he snapped back to the present time once he realised what he was doing.

Astrid was looking at him with an unreadable expression, and Hiccup truly hoped it wasn't because she had seen him smile. Then she finally decided to answer his question: "Those that were aware that she had been gone were surprised and wanted to know how I got her back. But it isn't that unusual for dragons to find their way back home, so people believed me when I told them that Stormfly had just made a magical reappearance in the morning. I actually did let her wander freely on our grounds to make it more believable. My friend, Heather, found her."

That made Hiccup instantly wonder who Heather was and what position she had in Briral. He was pretty sure she wasn't Astrid's servant because the princess had been clearly surprised when Hiccup hadn't let her speak to Fishlegs however she pleased. Perhaps she was the daughter of one of the knights which would explain why they were friends?

It vexed Hiccup how every detail that the princess revealed about herself arose new questions and curiosity within him. And the thing was that his curiosity had nothing to do with Briral – everything he wished to know was about Astrid.

He pushed his thoughts in the back of his mind and focused on what lied ahead of them. It didn't take them long to reach the cave, and to their pleasant surprise, the dragon was still there. It looked weak – weaker than last time. The view made Hiccup reach for his leather pouch and he now rummaged it for the herbs and potions. He placed them all on a rock that was standing by the entrance to the cave. Hiccup approached the dragon slowly and tried to figure out whether it was safe for him to go next to it. The dragon seemed so weak that it didn't appear to care about what was going on around it, so the prince grabbed a random potion and some herbs before he placed himself next to that poor creature. He took a pestle and mortar from the pouch and began grinding the herbs. He felt a pair of eyes on him so he looked up and saw Astrid watch him curiously. She had her head slightly tilted to the side and she didn't tear her eyes off the pestle.

"Are you going to spread that over the wounds?" she asked. "I heard that the healing process is faster if you use the correct herbs."

Hiccup nodded. "Yeah, I was told that as well. Well, not exactly told but anyway…it should help it. I just wish we knew what species it is."

"It's a Timberjack," Astrid stated simply.

"How do you know?" Hiccup asked, completely surprised. He stopped grinding the herbs for a while and just stared at the princess.

"We have a book on dragons, I looked it up," she explained. "Did you know that Timberjacks don't have legs?"

"I didn't," the prince admitted. A part of him sighed in relief because this meant that he didn't have to go to the Royal Library anymore. The dusty air of that room would've probably caused him to pass out so he was more than happy to stay away from it.

Astrid smiled slightly at Hiccup and she crouched down next to him. She took one of the potions and tried to catch the dragon's attention to her so that it would drink the contents of the glass vial. They worked in silence, Hiccup spreading the grinded herbs on the wounds on the dragon's wings and Astrid helping it through the potions. The prince hoped that their treatments would start taking effect soon – of course it was still impossible to say whether they were doing any good to the Timberjack, but he was pretty sure that they at least couldn't make things worse.

When the dragon finished the last potion, Astrid stood up and walked towards the clearing that stood at the entrance of the cave. "I will keep watch until you're done," she said.

Hiccup raised his eyebrow. He looked up at the girl's back. "Do you know how to defend yourself if someone comes?" he asked curiously.

Astrid came to a halt, looked over her shoulder, and before Hiccup could even register what was going on, the princess pulled out the sword that was attached to his belt. She moved it smoothly in her hand and the sword made swooshing sounds in the air. Then, all of a sudden, she pointed the sword at Hiccup, the sharp end only half an inch from his throat. Toothless let out an angry growl, ready to attack the princess if need be.

"I have had my practise," she said smugly and withdrew the sword from Hiccup's throat.

The prince breathed heavily. His heart was racing and all he could do was stare at the princess with widened eyes. He was stunned by what just happened and he couldn't find words. He couldn't believe he had let his guard down, but what amazed him even more was how smoothly Astrid had worked with the sword.

"Heather has an endless access to swords and she has taught me how to fight," the princess explained with a satisfied grin when she saw the look on Hiccup's face. He had clearly reacted exactly the way she had hoped. "However, I must confess that I prefer an axe. It does more damage when necessary."

An axe? Was this girl for real?

"I…uh…I'm…" he stammered, unable to form any rational thought.

"What, did I accidentally cut your tongue?" she asked and laughed brightly before dropping the sword to the ground and walking towards the cave entrance.

Hiccup forgot how his brain worked for a moment. He didn't know how to close his mouth as it was now shaped into a perfect O, and he couldn't stop staring at Astrid. He didn't know if it was because he was still shocked by what she did or he was just impressed by what she did. It had been completely unexpected – nothing had ever implied that she knew how to swing a sword. Or an axe.

When his brain finally started functioning again, he retrieved back to treating the dragon's wounds. He glanced in Astrid's direction every once in a while to see what she was doing, but she was always just leaning against a big rock and looking out into the forest. She seemed to be thinking of something.

Once Hiccup had taken care of every single wound he had been able to find, he also got up and walked outside of the cave. Toothless had left his side at some point and the Night Fury was now exploring their surroundings. The Deadly Nadder stood next to the princess, her snout touching the girl's shoulder. Astrid was stroking Stormfly's head absent-mindedly while looking into nothingness.

"What's on your mind?" he asked and the appearance of his voice made Astrid jump. She turned her head in a blur and just looked at him for a couple seconds without saying anything.

"I was just thinking," she began, her voice trailing off. She bit her bottom lip and it seemed as though she was wondering if she should say whatever was on her mind. "My father's planning an attack on Berk."

"He is?" Hiccup asked and received a nod from the princess. He wasn't surprised to hear that, but he was beyond surprised by the fact that Astrid had decided to tell him that as though she truly wanted Berk to be prepared for it. "When?"

"I don't know, he doesn't tell me any details. I just know that he wants to attack Berk soon."

"I see," the prince said and narrowed his eyes in thought. He looked into the distance, thinking about what he had just heard. Hiccup appreciated Astrid's honesty, but he couldn't help but wonder whether the princess realised that by revealing such a relevant piece of news, she put Briralians at an even greater risk. If Berk knew to be prepared, their counterattack would be much more brutal and the knights of Briral stood a higher chance at losing their lives. The prince shifted his gaze from the nothingness and moved it towards Astrid. "Thank you for telling me this."

And he truly meant it.

She bit her lip, looking very troubled still. "I don't know if it was wise for me to tell you that, but it felt wrong to keep it from you since we see each other very often."

"Well, I don't know if it did any good for Briral, but it certainly will help Berk," Hiccup answered honestly and he looked at Toothless that was still exploring the forest and the clearing several feet from them.

Astrid just hummed in response. After that, a short silence fell in between them during which they both just looked around them and listened to the evened breaths of the Timberjack. Maybe it was Hiccup's imagination, but it truly sounded as though the herbs and potions had already started helping the wounded dragon – when it breathed, it didn't sound as heavy and pained as before. The thought of that sent a warming sensation through his body.

So, there was another war coming for Berk, and Hiccup knew that thanks to the last person from whom he'd have expected to hear about it. However, because of Astrid they would be prepared and they wouldn't lose as much in the battle as they usually did.

Was this her way of paying Hiccup back for saving her neck multiple times? If so, the prince was more than happy to accept it.

There's a possibility for me to write two chapters from Astrid's POV towards the end of the story. Would you like for that to happen, or do you want me to stick to Hiccup's POV? :)