"Why did I do that?" Hiccup asked herself, her hands gripping her head, "Why did I do that?"
She kept repeating the question to herself as she paced inside the forge. She had been hiding inside the building since training ended with her driving the Zippleback back into his cage with only an eel. She didn't understand why she had did that. She didn't want to fight dragons anymore, she didn't want to draw attention to herself either. Bringing attention to herself and then failing later on would only bring her more scrutiny.
She knew she needed to go and get the eel from the dragon's cage. She had seen the look of terror in his eyes and the Zippleback's shriek of terror still rang in her head. Hiccup didn't want to see or heard that kind of terror on any dragon's face again. She would never use an eel against a dragon again.
She had been biding her time, waiting for the village to calm down so she could leave the forge. She successfully did just that, leaving the forge in the late evening when not a lot of people were outside. Most were in the Meade hall, eating their last meal for the day, those people included the guards that normally patrolled the village and guarded the academy.
She had managed to get to the academy without problem. She stood in the middle of the killing ring, trying to build up the courage to get into the Zippleback's cage. Finally, after taking a deep breath, she approached the cage, her eyes immediately falling to the feeding hatch. Hiccup was small enough to fit through it, she wasn't stupid enough to open the cage and let the dragon escape. Even if she had wanted to do that, she liked her head on her shoulders and would not free the dragon when she was the best suspect.
Hiccup crawled through the hatch and her ears were immediately filled with the scared whimpers of the dragon. She was filled with guilt and quickly ran to the eel, snatching it up from the ground and throwing it through the open hatch.
She was about to crawl out when the dragon started purring, her gaze landed on the Zippleback and that seemed like the permission the dragon needed to get near her. The two heads snuggled up to her frozen body, but as she saw that the dragon wasn't hostile, she relaxed.
"Okay, okay," she giggled and pushed the heads away, "I'm sorry I put it here in the first place."
The dragons started purring again, it seemed to her that he accepted her apology. Her accepted apology warmed her heart. With a final pat on the heads, she left the cage. She skipped back to the forge, she felt happier and her good mood gave her good ideas. A saddle. A saddle would answer her worry of how to get the prosthetic tail to work, if she was controlling the tail it would mean that she got Toothless in the air faster. Her flying with him? An unexpected benefit to the situation.
"Toothless!" Hiccup yelled as she waded through the tall grass.
They had crashed. She had been too confident in her ability to control the tail with rope, she had pulled too hard and they ended up crashing in a field of tall grass. The grass field was on a cliff and she was worried that Toothless had fallen off as she could not see the dragon anywhere. She pushed her way through the grass, calling the dragon repeatedly.
"Tooth – " she cut herself off as she stumbled upon the Night Fury rolling around in the grass.
Hiccup stared at the sight, trying to figure out what he was doing. It looked like he was playing, and Hiccup wanted to figure out why. After all, they had just crashed and even with her limited knowledge, she knew his behavior was strange. While she was thinking, something tickled her neck, she picked a blade of grass out of her hair and stared at it.
"Wow," she gasped as it hit her.
The grass was some kind of… dragon nip, making the reptiles docile and happy. She picked up a handful of the grass so she could give it to Toothless later.
"'I left my axe back in the ring.' That was really smart, Hiccup," she berated herself as she stomped through the forest, "You didn't bring an axe! They'll figure it out and then you'll have to explain yourself!"
She continued talking to herself as she made her way to the cove. Hiccup had knocked the Gronckle out with a wave of her hand in front of everyone! She knew she was smart, but at the moment she felt like the most stupid person in the world. She had seen the suspicious look on Arne's face.
"They are bound to find out!" she told herself again before stopping in her tracks.
She thought about it again. She didn't hide the grass and had taken down the Gronckle with a wave of her hand. The others didn't question how she, arguably the worst viking in history, had managed that.
"I'm giving them too much credit," she calmly told herself, pinching the bridge of her nose, "How are they still alive?" she asked herself, sighing at their obliviousness.
She continued her stride, now feeling better. She really didn't need to worry, after all, who would even believe that she had taken down a Gronckle with a handful of grass?
In her relief she failed to look out for anyone else, so she missed the footsteps following in her path. The others were oblivious, but Hiccup failed to remember that someone knew her very well.
Someone who would notice her disappearing day after day, someone who would want to figure out what was up with her. Someone who knew how to sneak around and go unnoticed. Someone who had absolutely no self-preservation and knew that she had no axe with her that day.