Today was going to be a good day.

SLAM!

Hiccup jumped as Azula rushed into the house at about a million miles an hour. She looked around the room hurriedly till she spotted him, scribbling away at a parchment at the table. He hurriedly covered the parchment with his skinny arms. Gods, that barely helped anything.
"A-Azula! Azula..." he drawled, looking around at nothing in particular. "Can I help you with anything...at all?"

"Yes, actually," Azula replied. She sounded out of breath for some reason. "I need to confirm something...tell me a lie."

"Saywhat?" Hiccup said, eyes widening. "Our talks are getting stranger and–"

"Any lie at all. Now."

Hiccup stumbled mentally, drawing a complete blank. "Er, uh, well, a lie...?" Come on brain, think of something! "Uhhhh...you look...great this morning?" He grinned awkwardly, showing his crooked teeth.

Azula blinked. "That's your lie?"

"Er, no, wait, let me try again–"

"No, no need, that answered my question," Azula said, huffing. She looked a little annoyed. "I suppose I'll have to keep this to myself."

And then there was silence. Hiccup nodded awkwardly, adjusting himself in his seat. Did he look casual? No. He sat straighter than he had in his life, arms folded protectively over his piece of parchment. Don't ask don't ask don't–

"What are you drawing?" Azula said abruptly. She leaned forwards in an attempt to peer over his arms.

Gods, cut me a break..."Ahhh, nothing, it's nothing, don't worry about it," he said, grabbing the paper and stuffing it under the table. "It's just...something stupid."

"Then you shouldn't mind showing me!" she replied, his efforts to hide the parchment only spurring on her attempts to see it.

"No!"

"Yes!" Finally(she was a lot stronger than she looked, Hiccup realized) Azula wrested it out from beneath the table and yanked it away with one hand. Then she proceeded, to Hiccup's chagrin, to use her other arm to hold back his attempts at recovering his possession while she scanned it over. Hiccup fell silent, his face reddening.

"What is it?" Azula said, turning back to face him. She proffered the parchment back to him. On it was scribbled a bunch of lines and angles, that, while crude, was clearly meant to be a diagram of some kind.

"I-it's nothing..." Hiccup said, taking it back, and setting it face down on the table. "It's just–you said earlier, I needed a heroic moment. Well, I'm...I'm not exactly the picture of a big, heroic viking, you may have noticed...so I thought, maybe I could build something that would let me do what everyone else can. B-but better. Gods, it was just an idea..."

Azula narrowed her eyes at him, stepping away and sitting on the table. "Can you? Build things like that?"

"I don't know-maybe?" Hiccup shrugged. "I've been pretty good with my hands–I mean, I built a boat even though I've never seen a diagram before or anything, and I had to do the work of two people. Gobber's mentioned taking me on as his apprentice, so...I don't know. Like I said, it was just an idea."

"And here I thought you were just drawing some girl," she replied with a pointed grin, tilting her head. "If you fail, you know you're only going to be a bigger laughingstock. It's a gamble."

Hiccup was silent, but he could feel the air leaking out of him.

But then Azula looked off to the side, at the wall for some reason. "I believe in taking risks. You should try. Use whatever you can, however you can. That's how I got better than my brother at firebending." She crossed her arms and nodded, evidently proud of that fact.

Hiccup thought about it half-heartedly. He still didn't know how she could do that crazy fire thing, and wasn't sure how to ask. But hey, it was nice to have her...confidence? Approval? Whatever.

"Anyway," she continued, scooting off the table. "I must be going. I have work to do." Then she turned, and ran off as fast as she'd come in, SLAMMING the door behind her. What a strange girl.

Azula ran down the hill from Stoick's house, in a rush. She needed to catch her prey(Snotlout) before he left the docks. After that, things would just get too complicated for her to pull off what she needed to. So Azula needed to hurry.

She began to slow as she took note of a tall, dead tree growing beside the docks. Azula had noticed it earlier, when they had been heading to the shore to build those idiotic boats. She'd thought it looked like a hazard then, tall and unsteady, with dry branches just waiting to break. Now, while those qualities had in no way diminished, she saw this tree as an ally.

Stopping beneath it, Azula looked around hurriedly. Once she was satisfied that no-one was paying attention, Azula gripped the lowermost branches, and began to climb. The tree was unsteady. In fact, she could feel it rock beneath her feet, almost enough to dissuade her from her mission. But she was light, her grip was firm, and so she carried on. Hand over hand, branch over branch, till the ground was an unsteady, nauseating distance beneath her.

This should be high enough.

She stopped, and climbed out on a branch-as far as she dared. It creaked uncertainly, but its base was thick enough to support her weight and then some. Azula then sat up, unbuttoned the (borrowed) fur jacket she was wearing...and hooked it firmly around the branches. This accomplished, she shimmed back to the base of the branch.

Hmm. Azula eyed the branch directly beneath her. It was a convenient little staircase of branches, making climbing up easy enough, if one could stomach the height So she kicked the branch repeatedly until it broke off. Then...she slipped off the branch, and fell into the open air.

At the last second, only feet from a nasty landing, Azula flared her chi. Flames exploded from her feet and palms, powerful enough that the knockback slowed her fall. She still landed heavily, one hand touching the ground. But it would have been much worse for anyone else.

Azula stood up quickly, brushed herself off, then...sat down.

And waited.

Snotlout was still cavorting his way down the dock. Slung over his shoulder was a burlap sack, containing the results of his shopping–a few rocks of interesting colors, and a new pair of shoes–and it was starting to feel heavy. Good thing he was heading home.

But, what should he see as he journeyed back to his humble abode? Why nothing, nothing but a MAIDEN IN NEED OF SERVICE! Azula, the strange-yet-fairly-cute person that had appeared out of nowhere a while back, sat forlornly beneath that old eyesore of a tree. She looked up at him, hope beaming in her eyes. That was a I-like-you-but-I-don't-want-to-admit-it look if he'd ever seen one. It was really odd how commonly he saw that expression of the girls of Berk.

Comes with the territory of being The Snotmeister, he thought to himself.

Swaggering forward, he leaned casually against the selfsame tree. Azula looked him up and down, no doubt taking in his rugged good looks, chiseled features, and sensitive yet passionate eyes. He winked. "Now don't call me an expert, but you look like you could use some Snot in your life."

Azula stared at him, blank faced for a bare second. Then her expression shifted to one of helpless frustration, her entire demeanour seeming to shift. That was a bit weird, but Snotlout had a weird effect on girls.

"It's my coat," she said, in that strange voice of hers. "The wind..." she gestured around, vaguely pointing at the air around her. Snotlout knew what she meant. It was a very windy day. But for the wind to take her coat up so high...wow.

"Looks like quite a climb," he remarked, looking up at the old tree.

Azula looked away, eyes full of bashful shame. "I'm...I'm afraid of heights."

Snotlout nodded, bringing his gaze down to look her over. "Ahahaha, I see what's going on here. I knew you could use the assistance of the pinnacle of modern man. Fortunately–" he spread his arms out, displaying his godly form "–he. Has. Arrived."

"Truly?" Azula breathed back at him. Wow, he was on his game today. She was practically hanging off his arm! And not in the "I'm about to throw you" way that Astrid did!

"Yep," he said, cracking his knuckles. "I'm pretty much the best at everything around here. Hold up, I'll have your jacket down before you can say...a word." With that, he set down his sack, gripped the lowermost branches, and began to shimmy up the tree. Whoa, that wasn't good. The tree rocked way more than he thought it would. But, a glance down at Azula steeled his resolve. Nerves steadied, he pushed himself higher.

"Careful," Azula said from behind him. "It's very...unsteady."

Azula watched him climb, doing her best to hold back her smirk. That had gone perfectly, so perfectly that she should probably double-check her scenario. But the ego boost was appreciated; at least this proved she still had her manipulative ability. Above her, Snotlout climbed. He was already getting high up, but he was slowing now, apparently having difficulty finding handholds.

Almost as if someone had climbed up ahead of time and broken off the branches herself.

"Uhhhh," Snotlout called down. His voice was already distant. "Getting a little difficult–WHOA!" The "whoa" was caused by a gust of the ever-present wind, rocking the tree. At the base of the tree, that rock would have been worrying. At Snotlout's height, it was downright nauseating.

"I-I might have to come down!" Snotlout said.

"Be careful!" Azula called back up. "Those branches look pretty weak!"

"They feel pretty weak–Imma keep going up..." he shimmied a little bit higher–and the branch cracked beneath him. "Oh yak-droppings!" Snotlout gripped the trunk of the tree.
"I'm stuck."

Another gust of wind.

"I'M SLIPPING! OKAY I NEED HELP! GRAVITY PLEASE STOP IT RIGHT THIS INSTANT!"

Azula took a step back. "I-I should get help."

"OKAY I HAVE A PLAN," Snotlout called down. "I'M JUST GOING TO JUMP. CATCH ME, OKAY!"

"Uh, excuse me?" Azula said, her eyebrow raising.

"THREE!"

"No!"

"TWO!"

"Snotlout, you will actually die!"

"ONE!"

There was a long pause. Azula was ashamed to admit it, but she actually closed her eyes. She couldn't bear to see all her plans going to waste–she just couldn't watch. But surely she would have heard something by now? She looked up, hesitatingly.

And saw Snotlout still clinging to the tree-trunk. "HAHA, you actually thought I was gonna jump didn't you!" he yelled. "To be very, very clear, I would have jumped, but I didn't think you could catch me!"

"If you say so," Azula replied, breathing out a long sigh of relief. It would have ruined her plans if Snotlout had just died here. "Stay there, Snotlout. I'm going to get help."

Hiccup looked around. In front of him–clustered around the base of that dead tree he'd tried to climb once–was Dad, Spitelout, and Gobber. They were yelling up at...something up there? He caught his breath. About fifty feet up, Snotlout clung to the trunk of the tree, gripping for dear life. Hiccup looked over to his left, at Azula, taking in her flushed face–was that a twig in her hair?

"Uh, what am I doing here?" Hiccup asked, his voice shaking a little bit. Azula had just barged back into the house and yanked him all the way here, ignoring all his protests.

"That," Azula replied. "Will become apparent." She looked at the cluster of adults surrounding the tree, and her face screwed up with annoyance.

"SNOTLOUT," Spitelout called up. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE, YA' FOOL BOYO'?"

"I'M TRYING TO STAY UP HERE, DAD!" Snotlout whined back. "WHY ELSE WOULD–WHOA–WOULD I BE UP HERE?"

Gobber decided to help by giving the tree a shake. "Get down from there!"

"Stop it Gobber," Stoick interjected. "Can't you see he obviously needs help? Someone's going to have to climb up there and get him." That said, the huge man gripped the trunk of the tree, and started to heave himself up.

The wood groaned in protest. The entire tree shook. Poor Snotlout gripped for dear life. Hiccup was no expert, but he was pretty sure the whole thing would break before Dad made it to Snotlout.

"I guess if someone light could get up there?" he said to himself, phrasing it as a question. "If someone had a rope, wrapped it around one of those lower branches, and then gave the end to him, you could...lower him down? Using the branch as an anchor, I mean. I dunno, that's probably stupid..."

Azula looked at him. She looked...strangely cheerful. Oh no. Suddenly Hiccup put the pieces together, the twigs in her hair, the weird conversation this morning...her jacket still attached to a branch way up on the tree–

He pulled away, looking around nervously before leaning in towards her ear. "You did this!" he said, his voice a hushed whisper.

"Yes!" Azula beamed. "It worked perfectly! Now you just need to rescue Snotlout, and your standing will go up by miles! You can thank me whenever."

Hiccup nearly choked. "Why-why would I thank you? Oh gods–I can't rescue him! What were you thinking?"

And of course, she ignored him. "EVERYONE! Someone light needs to go up there with a rope. With clever positioning, we can lower him down." Stoick stopped trying to kick the tree down, and looked over at her. She continued. "I'd like to present...someone small."
With that, she pointed at Hiccup with a flamboyant gesture, backing away as she did so to give him space.

Everyone looked at Hiccup. Hiccup looked at them.

Hiccup gulped.

Today was going to be a bad day.

Author's note: Wow so, my internet has been awful the past week. But regardless, here's a chapter of this...whatever "this" is.
And now, because of my 2-2 schedule, I'll move to writing "The Wind Breathes Fire".
R and R, peeps!