Hiccup had been right. It was a long day. She was awful at fighting dragons, and almost getting killed the second day in a row really made her very uncomfortable. She couldn't help but marvel at her own stupidity as she went back to the place where she had met the Night Fury. Stupidity or curiosity, it didn't matter at this point.
"Remember: a dragon will always – always – go for the kill," Gobber had said.
His words rang in her head as she found the bolas she had cut when freeing the dragon. She crouched down and picked one them up.
"So, why didn't you?" she couldn't help but ask herself.
She put the bola down and started walking towards the direction the dragon had flown to. Hiccup didn't know what she would find, but her gut told her she would find something. So she walked until she stumbled upon a cove. She had forgotten this was here.
"Well, this was stupid," she finally admitted to herself as she took in the empty cove.
This would be the best place for a dragon to rest, after this cove there were no other naturally formed places like the cove, and it would be dangerous for a dragon to stay somewhere else. She sighed and was about to head back, when something caught her eye.
On the ground laid something that looked like a small rock, she crouched and picked one up. It was a scale! That meant that the Night Fury had been here, but the empty cove meant that it was long gone by now.
'The scales could make a nice accessory,' she thought, she never knew what to get Ruffnut for the girl's birthday, the scales could make a nice necklace and Ruffnut was unlikely to ask questions.
She was startled when something fell from the entrance to the cove she had found. It wasn't something, it was someone. The Night Fury. It had tried to get out of the cove, but hadn't managed to reach its top and had to fly back to the ground.
Hiccup quickly jumped lower and hid behind a rock, out of the dragon's sight. She watched as the Night Fury huffed and tried to fly up again, only to fail and try to settle back down in the cove.
Hiccup quickly pulled out a notebook she kept on her person at any given time. She could not miss the opportunity to document the dragon, even if she couldn't show it to anyone. She had to do so for herself, because years after this, she would need proof to know that this was real and not a delusion. She drew the dragons quickly and efficiently.
"Why don't you just... fly away?" she asked out loud as she watched the dragon struggle.
The Night Fury blasted the ground in frustration and its tail caught her eye. She corrected her drawing, erasing one tail fin when she saw that the dragon had only one. The dragon tried to fly out again, only to crash near a pond in the cove. The Night Fury shook off the crash and tried to catch a fish, only to fail once again.
Hiccup leaned over the rock to get a better look at the annoyed dragon. Her charcoal fell, she tried to catch it, but it tumbled down, catching the attention of the dragon. The Night Fury looked up directly at Hiccup. She froze. The dragon's eyes were looking into her own, she felt like they were looking into her soul.
Hiccup let out a shaky breath. She looked at the dragon for a moment longer before she fled. The way it looked at her was so… human. It recognized her and didn't do anything but stare. A shiver went down her back as she mindlessly wandered around the forest. She didn't want to go back to the village just yet.
She should have gone back right away. She should have, but she didn't, and now she was outside in the pouring rain. Hiccup hadn't even noticed the sun go down, but there she was. Soaking wet, trekking through the forest she felt miserable, especially when she remembered she had to go to the Meade hall.
She pushed the buildings doors open and ignored Gobber's glare at her direction. He was mad that she was late, but he knew her and she didn't know what he expected. It was not like she wanted to sit there and suffer the mocking she would receive from her cousin.
"Alright. Where did Arne go wrong in the ring today?" Gobber asked, continuing his lesson.
Hiccup went over to their table and grabbed the food that was left for her, she rolled her eyes when her cousin moved to block her from sitting next to him, like she would do that. She grabbed a drink and moved to a different table with her food, only so that Gobber wouldn't lecture her later for not eating.
"I mistimed my somersault dive. It was sloppy. It threw off my reverse tumble," Arne criticized himself.
"Yeah, we noticed," Hiccup heard Ruffnut say and she couldn't help but agree, smiling a little to herself.
"No, no, you were great. That was so 'Arne'," Snotlout praised and Hiccup silently groaned to herself. Her cousin tried so hard to be liked by Arne, but the 'golden boy' saw right through Snotlout's boot licking.
"He's right, you have to be tough on yourselves," Gobber agreed and looked at Hiccup, "Where did Hiccup go wrong?" he prompted and Hiccup just knew she would hide all of his spare legs for this.
"Uh, she showed up?" Ruffnut prompted and Hiccup nodded to herself, after all she had complained to the female twin that she didn't even want to be in training.
"She didn't get eaten," Tuffnut mockingly suggested. Hiccup raised her eyebrows, she hadn't expected that.
"She's never where she should be," Arne said in conclusion. Hiccup blinked and turned to look at him, but he was looking at the table in front of himself. He was right, she wasn't where she should be, but his tone kind of hurt.
"Thank you, Arne," Gobber said, interrupting anymore potential mocking she would receive, "You need to live and breathe this stuff. The Dragon Manual. Everything we know about every dragon we know of."
Gobber took the manual from a nearby table and set it down on the table in front of the others. Hiccup glanced at the book, she had read it once, but a refresher wouldn't hurt. She shrugged to herself, her wet clothes started to feel weird against her skin, but she pushed through it, leaving now would only earn her more of Gobber's ire. The rain hadn't stopped yet, so there was no point in trying to go change her clothes, only to get wet again while going back to the hall. Thunder roared outside the building, gaining Gobber's attention.
"No attacks tonight. Study up," the smith decided and left them on their own.
"Wait, you mean, read?" Tuffnut exclaimed in disbelief.
"While we're still alive?" Ruffnut added, much to Hiccup's amusement. She knew that Ruffnut actually liked reading, but preferred that people believed she didn't, something about keeping her image pure.
"Why read words when you can just kill the stuff the words tell you stuff about?" her cousin said, and Hiccup knew that she would need to speak to her father and ask him if they were really related, because she had doubts.
"Oh! I've read it like, seven times," Fishlegs excitedly started, "There's this water dragon that sprays boiling water at your face. And-And there's this other one that buries itself for like a week-"
"Yeah, that sounds great," Tuffnut interrupted him, "See, there was a chance I was going to read that..."
"...But, now..." Ruffnut let the sentence hang in the air, making it clear that she was not in the mood to read the book.
"You guys read, I'll go kill stuff," Snotlout told them and left the table.
"Oh, and there's this other one that has these spines that look like trees..." Hiccup heard Fishlegs continue his ramblings, she turned to look at the retreating group and caught Ruffnut's eye. The twin gave her a small wave goodbye, which Hiccup returned.
Hiccup looked back at their table where Arne still sat. She had hoped he would leave with the others, her embarrassment from earlier in the day when she made a fool of herself hit her full force. She got up from the table and made her way to his, she looked at the book.
"So I guess we'll share?" she weakly offered.
"Read it," he shortly answered and pushed the book in her direction, getting up from the table and leaving her alone.
"All mine then. Wow, okay. So, I'll see you, uh..." the doors shut behind him and she winced, "tomorrow," she sighed and put her head in her hands, "Why am I like this?" she asked herself.
Hiccup shook her head and left the book on the table. She grabbed her food and removed her fur vest, she went over to the fire that was in the middle of the building. She hung her vest over the stones next to the fire pit and sat down next to the fire so her clothes could dry a bit. Hiccup ate her food slowly, in the time it took her to eat and dry herself, the other people who had been in the building left, leaving her completely alone.
Hiccup got up from the ground and took her dry vest with her. She put away her plate and went over to get some candles, the dying fire didn't provide enough light anymore and she wanted to skim the book before she went to sleep.
She put the candle on the table next to the book and flipped it open, starting to read to herself.
"Dragon classifications. Strike Class, Fear Class, Mystery Class," she flipped the page, "Thunderdrum: This reclusive dragon inhabits sea caves and dark tide pools. When startled, the Thunderdrum produces a concussive sound that can kill a man at close range. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight," another page, "Timberjack: This gigantic creature has razor sharp wings that can slice through full grown trees. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight," and another, "Scauldron: Sprays scalding water at its victim. Extremely dangerous. Changewing: Even newly hatched dragons can spray acid. Kill on sight," she didn't even bother reading the whole entries at this point, "Gronckle, Zippleback, The Skrill, Boneknapper, Whispering Death."
A crack of thunder startled her, Hiccup let out a breath and looked back at the book. She remembered these dragons. It was hard to forget with the colorful descriptions they had. There was a reason why vikings rarely read this book more than once, the words stuck with you no matter what.
"Burns its victims, buries its victims, chokes its victims, turns its victims inside-out," she continued reading out loud, "Extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous, kill on sight, kill on sight, kill on sight..."
She reached one of the last pages of the book and paused, it was the page about the Night Fury, it had little information. There was no picture, no size or wingspan.
"Night Fury: Speed, unknown. Size, unknown," her voice dropped to a whisper, "The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Never engage this dragon. Your only chance: Hide and pray it does not find you."
Hiccup pulled out her notebook and laid it over the book. It would be so easy to re-draw the picture she had into the manual, but she knew it would raise more questions than she could answer. She picked up her notebook and closed the manual with a sigh.
Nobody could know what she had done. She would become more of an outcast if anyone knew and she didn't want that. Hiccup knew she couldn't kill dragons, she knew that the village would find out soon enough, but they couldn't know that she let a dragon go. They could never know, under no circumstances or it would be her head on the chopping block.