Hiccup hummed as she made her way through the forest. It was still early, early enough for only a few people to be awake, and fortunately for her, those awake had chores they couldn't put off so they left her alone. Her new-found fame irked her. She hadn't thought that the tribe she had grown up in would be so… shallow. They hadn't cared out her before she had taken first place in dragon training, she knew they would forget her when she inevitably failed to keep her tricks up.
She knew she would fade eventually and her success would become a passing joke.
"Remember when we liked her?" They would ask, and laugh at their own stupidity.
Hiccup reached the cove and quickly spotted Toothless. The Night Fury didn't move from his curled up position, he watched as she approached with a lazy gaze. Hiccup sat down next to Toothless and he lifted his wing, inviting her to lay down next to him and join him in his nap, she did so with a small smile. The fact that she hadn't slept well that night was a big part of the reason why she was up so early.
When Arne had almost caught her with Toothless in the forge she had been shaken up and couldn't calm down enough to sleep. She spent most of the night fearing that Arne had seen Toothless and would come to her house with a mob of angry vikings. Hiccup knew that Arne held himself to high standards, treason was an unforgiveable offence in his eyes.
She managed to nap for a few hours, waking up when Toothless accidently nudged her by getting up. He looked at her as she let out a yawn and purred in apology.
"Don't worry," Hiccup told him with a pet on his snout, "We have stuff to do, I can't sleep the day away."
The Night Fury went over to the pond to drink while Hiccup woke up fully. She stretched and went to take her gear she had stanched behind some rocks near one of the cove walls. Hiccup put on her harness as Toothless approached her, she took his fake tailfin she had taken off the night before and went to put it on the dragon.
"Today is the day," she thought out loud, "We're finally going to fly, bud."
Toothless looked at her and let out a questioning warble, she laughed as she fastened the saddle.
"Yeah, we're flying for real," she took out the cheat sheet she had in her pocket and showed it to the dragon, "I have this, I'm ready."
-o-
"I was not ready," Hiccup laughed in shock.
Toothless had caught some fish and touched down on the nearest island after they got out of the sea stack maze. He nudged Hiccup out of her shocked state and motioned towards the fish, she looked at the fish and knew that she couldn't keep anything down at that point, but Toothless was insistent and didn't let up until she gathered some stray wood and let him ignite it for her to cook some fish on.
She skewered a fish and held in above the fire to cook it, Toothless had curled up behind her and had finally stopped watching her after offering her a regurgitated head of a fish, she, of course, declined. Toothless went back to eating so she had some time to think about everything.
She had almost died. She had almost died and that should have made her averse to flying, but she craved more. Flying made her feel free and let her forget her other worries, she felt like she was truly herself when she was on the back of Toothless.
A group of Terrible Terrors landed near her, startling her out of her deep thoughts. Toothless growled and hugged his pile of fish closer to himself, Hiccup sat up and prepared to run if things went south. Ultimately, the Terrors were harmless, she gave one the fish she had been cooking and hadn't wanted to eat.
One of the Terrors tried to steal a fish from Toothless' pile, the Night Fury took the fish back and swallowed it, letting out a dragonish laugh as the Terror tried to intimidate him. The smaller dragon had started charging up a shot, but Toothless let out a small plasma blast into the Terror's mouth, making the dragon crash in a daze.
"Not so fireproof on the inside, are you?" she laughed and tossed a small fish from Toothless' pile to the dragon, "There you go."
She sat back down, content to ignore the small dragons now that it was clear they meant no harm. The Terror didn't leave her alone though, he cautiously approached her and snuggled up to her with a purr. Hiccup hesitantly placed her palm on the small dragon's scaly back.
"Everything we know about you guys is wrong..." she said to herself.
-o-
"I'm sorry, what?" Ruffnut demanded in shock.
Hiccup laughed as she braided her hair. On the way back to Berk Toothless decided that it would be fun to take a couple of dives into the ocean, Hiccup had been soaking wet when they reached the cove, but she was happy, the smile not leaving her face for a second. By the time Ruffnut had made her way to the cove Hiccup was almost completely dry, only her hair, which she had let loose of her braid, was still damp.
Hiccup told the female twin what had happened as she braided her hair back and was now enjoying the girl's shocked face.
"I got unclipped from Toothless and almost died," Hiccup repeated again, "Then we had to go through the sea stack maze and almost crashed while going at Toothless' top speed."
"You're crazy!" Ruffnut exclaimed throwing her hands up in the air.
"You like that," Hiccup reminded her with a smile.
"Yeah I do," Ruffnut mumbled as she slouched, "Tuff's been annoying me again."
"What about?"
"You. He refuses to come to you himself because he thinks that would make you think he's a wimp. Which, let's be clear, he is," Ruffnut laughed, "In his own words: 'She's cool now and she deserves cool friends. I don't know why she hasn't dropped you yet.'"
"Tell him: 'Hiccup already thinks you're a wimp.'"
"I did!" Ruffnut yelled in annoyance, "He's convinced you're dying to be his friend because he's 'so awesome'. He didn't believe me when I told him you don't, and tried to follow me today! "
"That's not good," Hiccup said, her face falling into a frown.
"He's so bad at it, it would be hilarious if it wasn't annoying," Ruffnut groaned.
"He has been sneaking around as much as you, and you got very close before I noticed you," Hiccup pointed out.
"I know! But he makes it so obvious!"
"Means he won't reach the cove," Hiccup shrugged, "I see no problem with it."
"Trust me Hiccup," Ruffnut sighed, "You'll wish he was sneakier soon enough."
-o-
Training had been canceled today. Gobber said that the only thing left to do was the final fight for the 'honor' to kill the Nightmare. Hiccup was devastated that she had failed to get rid of her fame before this point and now the only thing she could do was fail terribly at the final fight.
She was distracted, lost in thought, as she made her way to the cove without even thinking of where she was going. Even in her distracted state she knew she was being followed. Whoever was following her was bad at it, she had stopped walking multiple times and had heard footsteps even when she stood still, at one point she had even heard a yelp when she turned to look behind her.
Hiccup sighed and changed her path to one that led away from the cove, the footsteps followed. She reached a small clearing and stopped dead in her tracks. She stood still and waited, the footsteps where finally close enough that she knew the person had reached the tree line. She quickly spun around and Tuffnut froze in place.
"Go home Tuffnut," she told him.
The boy didn't move even an inch, maybe he believed she would continue on her way with him following or simply thought she couldn't see him if he didn't move.
"Go home," she told him again, "I can see you and you suck at following people."
Hiccup saw him sigh and turn around. He looked around and took started walking into the trees. Hiccup face-palmed and groaned.
"That's the wrong way!" she yelled at him, he corrected his course and started heading the right way.
-o-
Ruffnut was right, Hiccup could admit that. It had been three days and every time she entered the forest Tuffnut tried to follow her. Ruffnut had the same problem as her brother didn't give up no matter how many times he was caught.
Ruff was on the end of her patience, and so was Hiccup. Tuffnut had changed his thought process, according to Ruffnut, now he was adamant that the girls were hiding something cool in the woods and didn't want anyone to know. His opinion on Hiccup had fallen back to the old version and what he wanted the most was to find out why his sister had been spending even more time with Hiccup than usual. He was right to an extent, Toothless was cool and they were hiding him from everyone, but it wasn't necessarily because they didn't want anyone to know.
In Hiccup's case it was completely the opposite, she wanted people to know how wrong their opinion on dragons was, that dragons weren't just blood thirsty monsters people believed they were. True, Hiccup had no idea what caused them to raid islands, but she knew that dragons were mostly just misunderstood.
She wasn't keen on shouting the fact in the middle of the village. Hiccup knew, and Ruffnut agreed, that vikings weren't people who liked change, uprooting their beliefs would only lead to bad things. Also, neither girl was aching to be caught doing treason.
Tuffnut was making this hard. He didn't get better at following them, not even a little bit, he was still annoyingly bad at it. Ruffnut had yelled at him to stop a few times, even offered to show him how to do it better, he refused of course.
Hiccup would have liked to stay in the woods from dawn till nightfall, but with her new found fame that wasn't possible. People noticed when she didn't come back the whole day, so she made sure to come back during lunch and show herself in the Meade hall, she also left as soon as she could, more often than not with Ruffnut by her side.
Hiccup's mornings were spent with Toothless alone on the cove, Ruffnut had chores she had to do in the mornings so the girl joined her after lunch most days. Hiccup had found out something about the twins' household: while Ruff had chores in the mornings, the rest of her day rarely contained any chores for her to do, Tuffnut, on the other hand, had most of his chores a bit after lunch and before the evening, leaving the rest of his day as free as Ruffnut's, that meant that Tuffnut had the time to dedicate to following them.
Hiccup had been going out earlier and Tuffnut was always there. His dedication was surprising, but overall maddening. Hiccup couldn't even go to the cove without walking around in random directions first, because sooner or later Tuffnut would appear. One of the days Hiccup hadn't even gone to sleep and had left her home before anyone else, that was a day Tuffnut hadn't followed her, but he did follow Ruffnut.
The male twin had even tried to get the other boys to join in, which was funny when they had come to Ruffnut to tell her to tell Tuffnut to stop. Snotlout was whole heartedly believing Ruff's story that the girls were just training, Fishlegs didn't have it in him to do something like following the girls and Arne was completely set on training the whole day and nothing else. Tuffnut still tried though, no matter how many times the boys told him to stop.
The girls were making their way to the cove at the moment and Tuffnut was following them as usual at this point. Hiccup was normally a very patient person, she knew that she sometimes talked about things that other people had no interest in and how bad it felt when they didn't even try to be polite and dismissed her from the get go, so she tried to be polite and nice to other people no matter what, being patient and listening to them was the least she could do.
She still had limits and she had just reached them. She didn't try to throw Tuffnut of their trail as she had done before and Ruffnut kept sending her confused glances. Hiccup was angry and her face reflected that, she was practically stomping through the woods, her face pulled into a scowl.
"Hiccup, what are you doing?" Ruffnut frantically whispered when she saw the familiar edge of the cove come into view.
Hiccup didn't answer her friend, she came to a stop before the entering the cove and quickly spun around and marched towards Tuffnut. The boy hadn't ever seen Hiccup look so angry, the surprise at seeing her like that rooting him in place. Ruffnut could only watched as the short girl went over to her brother, twisted his ear with her fingers and pulled him towards the cove.
"You want to know what we're hiding?" Hiccup growled at him, she ignored his yelps of pain and continued pulling him behind herself, "I'm going to show you."
"Hiccup – " Ruffnut started, she wanted to say something to talk some sense into the girl, but the wild look Hiccup sent her way made her shut up immediately.
Ruffnut followed them as Hiccup pulled the boy into the cove, she released him only when they were far from the entrance. Tuffnut rubbed his aching ear, a frown on his face. He watched as Hiccup stood in front of him with an angry frown, he glanced at his sister who was had a clear look of worry on her face, Ruffnut wasn't meeting his eyes.
"Toothless!" Hiccup suddenly called, Tuffnut snapped his gaze back at her and his eyes widened.
Behind the short girl a dragon was approaching, it looked menacing. Tuffnut took an unconscious step back, his eyes darting to his sister who didn't seem afraid.
"This – " Hiccup said as she pointed at the dragon, " - is what I'm hiding! Are you happy now?"
"That's-that's a dragon," he stuttered in fear.
"A Night Fury," his sister quietly said, Toothless came to stand next to Hiccup, his stance hostile.
"I'm going to tell Stoick," Tuffnut threatened, "This is treason."
"For the love of – Go, tell everyone!" Hiccup shouted in anger, she took a step towards him, "Do you think I care!?"
"Of course you do," Tuffnut insisted.
"I don't," Hiccup told him with a shake of her head, "I couldn't care less if I tried. You want to go tell the people who never cared or noticed me that I'm hiding a Night Fury? Go ahead."
"They do care about you, you're their favorite person these days!" Tuffnut told her in confusion.
"They care about a dragon killing prodigy, not about me," Hiccup argued, "They didn't care before that and they won't care after I fail. So go! Tell everyone!"
"Be sure to tell them your sister knew about it and told no one," Ruffnut added, her face was clear of emotion.
Tuffnut shook his head in disbelief and ran from the cove. Hiccup gripped her head and let out a tired sigh.
"I shouldn't have done that," she said as she started pacing, Toothless relaxed and crooned in concern.
"Probably," Ruffnut shrugged, "But it's done and we can't change anything now."
"You didn't have to put yourself in this mess," Hiccup told her, Ruffnut laughed.
"I was already in this mess before this," Ruffnut reminded her, "And I will stand by you until the end."
Hiccup gave her a grateful smile and dropped to the ground. Toothless went up to her and nudged her side, she lifted her arm and let him lay his head in her lap.
"Do you think he'll actually tell everyone?" she asked her friend.
"Maybe," Ruffnut said as she sat down before her, "We'll wait and see."
"I guess we will."
-o-
A couple hours had passed and the girls hadn't done much. Ruffnut had fallen asleep while leaning on Toothless, the dragon was also sleeping. Hiccup had tried, but couldn't get her mind to shut up. She came up with a plan instead. If Tuffnut did tell the tribe about Toothless and her and led the vikings to the cove Hiccup would not let them get their hands on the Night Fury, considering she knew how to fly with him, she would take off and leave the island behind if needed. She would also take Ruff with her, after all, her presence here would get her in trouble no matter if Tuffnut said she was involved or not.
Hiccup's head snapped up when she heard someone enter the cove, Toothless woke up in seconds, he lifted his head with a growl. From the entrance Tuffnut emerged. He was alone and was cautiously walking towards the group. He came to a stop a few steps in front of them.
Ruffnut had woken up from Toothless' growls and was now watching her brother with interest. She knew him and she could see that he was nervous, the girls waited for him to talk.
"I came to apologize," he forced out, "I was wrong."
"About?" his sister prompted.
"Everything," he shrugged, "I can see why you're friends with Hiccup and the Night Fury is very cool, actually."
"He is," Hiccup agreed with a nod and put a hand on Toothless' snout, silencing him, "What do you want now?"
"To get in on this," he laughed, "I want a pet dragon too!"
"Not a pet," Hiccup corrected him, "A friend."
"Yeah, yeah," he waved her off and dropped to sit next to them, "When am I getting one?"
"Hold on," Ruffnut yelped as she jumped up, "I have been with her longer and there's no way you're getting a dragon before me!"
"There is! I'm cooler and I deserve one!"
"Listen here you piece of yak shit!..."
Hiccup tuned out the rest of the twins' argument, she looked at Toothless with a smile.
"What have I gotten us into?" she asked the dragon.
The Night Fury snorted and got up, he shook the sleep off and left the humans alone. Hiccup laughed and watched as the twins argued with a huge grin. This was the most friends she had ever had and she enjoyed it.