A/N thank you guys so much for reading! I really like the direction this is going :D I haven't done an author's note in a while, but hey, enough of me talking. Now, me talking to your reviews!

Calvin: It was Meatlug, the gronckle. The scene in the movie shows a deadly nadder, but this is the day after that but the day before the zippleback so I had to put something here. The twins try to use the same blindspot tho that they noticed when up against Stormfly.

Toothlessgolfer: Au where dragon wrangling is the thing instead of dragon training. And with this chapter, butterfly effect and changing things up is really going for it

: man i have some fun plans for the revelations ^-^

Canon Archives: Thank you so much! Unfortunately, I do plan to mess with things quite a bit here :P I hope you still like what I go with though.

Horrendous managed to find enough time alone after the Dragon Training incident to finish up his project. He left the terrible terrors in Stoick's room, already having the measurements he needed from them and not wanting an incident like last managed to avoid any distractions. Gobber was too busy seeing to some problems of the citizens to stop by, and Hiccup was busy with his first attempt at getting Toothless off the ground.

He'd get to training the terrible terrors with it tonight, praying that it wouldn't take too long for them to get the hang of it and that he could get off of Berk and find a better dragon for traveling long distances. But it would have to wait. He had promised the teens he'd talk to them about his amazing 'dragon killing' skills.

Which is how Horrendous found himself the center of attention during dinner. Even Hiccup was there, apparently just as curious as everybody else to hear what about Horrendous's supposed adventures.

"So, how many dragons have you killed?"

Astrid was the first to ask a question. Well, okay, that was a lie, but Horrendous didn't count the 'are you married' and 'can I feel your muscles' from Ruffnut.

"Oh, well, I've lost count?" Horrendous scratched the back of his head, avoiding their eyes. "You know, being on the sea and travelling, it's not a status thing, it's, uh, a survival thing." He shrugged. He looked back at the kids. Most of them seemed to buy it, even Astrid gave a nod like it made sense. Hiccup still looked suspicious though.

"You said you took Dragon Training." Hiccup said, looking incredibly confident in himself considering where the kid was in his time of life. "But you keep saying you're a traveler."

"My parents were afraid of having me on the sea when I was young. They left me in a village, and I became the apprentice of the blacksmith there as well as taking dragon training." Horrendous answered easily, proud of himself for having thought about how to combat this question when it inevitably came up again. Hiccup didn't look convinced, but didn't say anything about it.

"How did you do that with the gronckle, where you just made it totally stop flying?" Tuffnut asked, bobbing excitedly in his seat. "Did you snap its wings while we weren't looking?"

"No. That was, um…" Horrendous's eyes darted over to Hiccup. He probably hadn't learned about this yet, but Horrendous could think of no clear and easy lie to tell. "It's like a pressure point that, kind of paralyzes? The dragon?"

"Why didn't you just kill the dragon if you're such a skilled guy?" Snotlout sniffed, clearly trying to look like he didn't also find Horrendous to be really cool.

"Do you guys want to go through the trouble of catching another gronckle?" Horrendous, asked. "I was just trying to make sure Hiccup didn't get killed."

"Pfft, like anybody would've cared." Snotlout snorted and Horrendous clenched his hands into fists. Hiccup didn't look terribly bothered by the statement, all too used to such things being said about him. But for Horrendous, it been a while since his cousin had said those kinds of things to him and they kindled a bit of anger he had hardly known he'd fostered over the years.

"He's my nephew, so I would've cared." Horrendous said perhaps a bit too sharply and enjoyed the looks of surprise that crossed all of their faces. Tuffnut even did a spit take.

"Wait, you're saying this," Ruffnut pointed at Horrendous, "Is related to that?!"

"You do look kind of like Stoick, like your eyes and your nose." Fishlegs observed.

"I'm actually Hiccup's mom's cousin absolutely no relation to Stoick whatsoever." Horrendous said a little too quickly.

"I thought you looked like Valka."

Horrendous jumped, not having heard Gobber walk up.

"Yep, that's why I look like her, same grandparents." Horrendous nodded, so glad that this seemed to be working.

"Horrendous, if you've killed a lot of dragons, have you seen a boneknapper before?" Fishlegs looked excited to have finally found a point in the conversation to ask his questions, and Horrendous was more than happy to talk about one of his favorite topics.

"Yeah, I have actually. They look like they're made out of dragon bones. Gave me a Hel of a time trying to kill it." Horrendous said and winced at the high pitched squeal of delight from Fishlegs.

"What about a night fury?"

"Nobody's seen a night fury before." Gobber automatically said, taking a gulp of meade form his tankard.

"I have. I saw the one that bit my shoulder, and it was a night fury that took my leg." Horrendous nodded down to his leg. Gobber gave an impressed nod

"He must've gotten a taste for ya and spread the news around. I have the same problem with monstrous nightmares." Gobber tapped his tankard hand.

"What did it look like? How big are they actually? Did you find out how many shots it can fire at a time? What about how tough it's scales are?" Fishlegs cut back into the conversation.

"Uh, they're about… nadder size I guess? But more monstrous nightmare in shape, completely black with an extra set of limbs for their wings like a gronckle or zippleback." Horrendous attempted to describe.

"Oh, they sound so cool!" Fishlegs looked like he was about to explode from glee. "What other dragons have you seen? What were they like? How did you kill them?"

Horrendous sighed.

Eventually, he managed to slip away form the Great Hall. Most of the teens had steadily left as it became more and more obvious that the conversation wasn't going to change from talking about dragon statistics and features. He had to slowly edge away from Fishlegs and was only able to get away when he agreed to draw up pictures of some of the dragon he'd seen during his travels.

Hiccup was busy in the forge, working on designing and creating the saddle and rigging to go with the tailfin, and the Haddock house was set out at the edge of the village. Even with both of those things working in his favor, Horrendous was sure that slipping the terrors out of the house and into the woods put a few gray hairs on his head. They were all very clearly sick of being stuck in the house all day, and though they hadn't burnt it down they had been fighting for who claimed possession of the helmet.

They were all so excited to be back out in the woods. Almost as excited as they were over the fish he brought them. Aorta seemed to have claimed the role of head of the thunder, though one of the yellow terrible terrors, Spine, seemed to keep trying to fight her for that title.

Horrendous fit them all with the harnesses and only Blossom and Stormy were bothered by them. Horrendous did his best to reassure them that the leather wasn't some random creature grabbing onto them and please Blossom no, stop trying to tear through the leather, stop it. He let them fly around in them for a while before strapping them to the seat-saddle thing. Terrible terrors naturally flew in a group, but they tugged away form each other at first and were obviously a bit confused about the extra weight they had to carry, especially when Horrendous sat down on it. Despite that, just as he had hoped, they were indeed strong enough to carry the weight.

Getting them to follow directions was another thing.

Most of the time, steering dragons was intuitive, both for the dragon and the rider. You lean or pull one way or the other and that was the way the dragon went. There wasn't the same kind of bond when you weren't even touching the dragon. So instead, the terrible terrors went whatever direction Aorta went.

Horrendous took them out of the harnesses. That was fine. He'd trained plenty of terrors before.

oOo

The cold night air was a relief after the heat of working in the forge, and Hiccup wiped his brow as he left. If he stopped by in the morning, he might be able to finish up the saddle. It was exciting, thinking about what could happen tomorrow. He'd gotten the smallest taste of flying with Toothless today, when the dragon unexpectedly took off while Hiccup put on the the tailfin. While he was most definitely doing this with the main goal being to get the dragon he'd injured back into the air, he couldn't deny that he was excited at the prospect of being up there with him.

And scared.

But when wasn't he scared?

The house was quiet as he entered, and Hiccup looked at the door to his dad's room. He bit his lip, wondering if he should directly confront the man. He just couldn't shake the feeling that there was something off about the man, even after Horrendous had saved him from the gronckle.

His heart sank into his stomach, and Hiccup squirmed as he felt sick. Even his first cousin once removed was a dragon killer. Probably his mom had been too. Every viking didn't hesitate when they came up against the monsters. All of them except for him.

"Hey, Horrendous?" Hiccup gently pushed the door open. The traveler was nowhere to be seen.

There was a knock on the front door and Hiccup whipped around. He approached the door slowly. The energy of the night was weird and he was hoping to Hel it wasn't about to get worse.

"Astrid?" Hiccup stepped back in surprise. Astrid brushed right past him and into the house.

"Is Horrendous here?" Oh, that made a lot more sense.

"No, I don't know where he is." Hiccup sighed.

"Okay good." Astrid folded her arms. "We need to talk."

"W-we?" Hiccup pointed to himself. Astrid huffed and rolled her eyes.

"Yes. You." Astrid leaned up against the wall. "You're the only other one who's noticed that there's something wrong with Horrendous. He even seems to have Gobber fooled."

"Wait, you mean, you-?"

"Yeah, Hiccup, you're not the only one who seems to know that he's clearly putting together his stories on the spot. Clearly he's skilled, but he's also lying about his past. I don't trust him as far as I can throw him. He's got Snotlout and Tuffnut impressed, Fishlegs excited about dragons, and Ruffnut seems to fancy herself the future… he's never mentioned a last name. Well, there's another think added to the list of sketchy things about him." Astrid rattled off. "But you, against all odds, have caught on to him. Which makes you an ally."

"A-an ally?" Hiccup stuttered out. Was this even real.

"You both sleep at the same place and work at the same place. As much as I hate to admit it, but you're our best bet at figuring out what this this man wants out of us." Astrid pushed off of the wall and walked over to him. Her eyes, shards of ice from the middle of winter, strong and sharp, bore into him. She stuck her hand out. "Do we have an alliance here? Are we going to protect our village?"

"Uh, y-yeah, yes, absolutely, of course." Hiccup floundered about for words as he shook her hand.

It was strong and roughly calloused, and Hiccup hoped the dim light of the fire made it hard to see him. He could feel the heat rushing to his face as he realized that he was shaking hands with Astrid Hofferson.

Without another word, she left.

Yep. A weird night.