14.

When Hiccup woke up the looming feeling of dread hung above her head like a veil. Yesterday was amazing. The flight with Arne, the discovery of the nest and the evening she spent with her friends was amazing. The good feeling she had went to bed with was gone. She knew she had a week to figure something out or everything would come crashing down around her.

Her father was gone when she went downstairs, a small fortune in her favor. Hiccup immediately left her home. A lot less people than normal were outside, yesterday's celebration leaving most of them still drunk even with the dawn of the next day. Even with the small number of people she felt their eyes on her, the vikings cheerily greeted her and threw out some congratulations on winning the final exam.

Every smile thrown her way, every cheerful yell hammered at her head. She made friends with the vikings' enemy, she committed treason right under their noses and them being happy to see her was like the universe showing what her lies would ruin. She hoped, oh how she hoped, that everything will turn out okay, but even she couldn't fool herself for long enough.

Hiccup made her way to the forest, she headed to the cove. Halfway there she ran into Arne, already out and about with his axe. Seeing him already awake came as a surprise, after all they had gone to bed late and only her troubled sleeping had managed to wake her this early.

She looked at Arne for a while, the boy still hadn't noticed her and was going through his regular routine. Hiccup could only watch as he expertly preformed maneuvers that others would fail at, he really was the one who should have won the 'honor' of killing the Nightmare. Every move he made was of someone ready for battle, ready to see death up close.

Hiccup had taken the 'honor' from Arne. She could never kill a dragon, and he had trained all his life to do so. Still, she couldn't find it in herself to feel guilty. She had taken his opportunity to kill a dragon, but she had given him the truth in return. Even if everything came crashing down, she knew that he would go down in history as the man who discovered the nest. If everything came down, she knew her name would be erased, she would be forgotten while her friends would have a chance to distance themselves from everything and still be able to live their lives, even if hers became ruined.

"Good morning," she greeted the boy as he came to a stop.

Arne quickly looked up, a small smile breaking across his face as he saw her.

"Morning," he nodded in acknowledgment as he came to stand in front of her.

"Why are you up so early?" she questioned with genuine interest.

"Habit," he laughed, "I'm so tired, but I couldn't get myself to fall asleep once I woke up."

"Unfortunate," she said with a chuckle. She turned and gestured towards the direction of the cove. "Join me?"

The boy nodded and fell into step next to her. They reached the cove in comfortable silence. Once inside they looked around for Toothless, only to find the Night Fury still sleeping. The pair looked at each other and laughed because the most dangerous dragon they knew was completely ignoring their existence to sleep longer.

Arne leaned his axe on a nearby boulder and cautiously joined Hiccup where she had sat down next to her dragon. Even after the flight he had reservations about being this close to a dragon, years of hearing horror stories not letting him completely relax. They sat there in silence, both consumed by different but ever pressing thoughts.

Hiccup leaned back on Toothless, the dragon grumbling in his sleep. Arne soon followed her movements. Bit by bit, without neither noticing, Hiccup's head came to lean on Arne's shoulder, his own came to a rest atop of hers. They fell asleep soon after, the early morning sun warming the air around them.

-o-

When Hiccup woke up again it was not as peaceful as before. Her heart was almost beating out of her chest as she jumped up from sleep. She frantically looked around and cursed when she saw the twins laughing at her and Arne's panic. Even Toothless had woken up and the dragon wasn't amused, a well-placed plasma blast broke the twins out of their laughter and made them freeze. The Night Fury let out a dragonish laugh and Hiccup and Arne joined him.

Now that they were awake and the twins were there that meant they could do something or start thinking of ways to help Hiccup with her dilemma. The group had sat down in a circle, silence shrouding them. No one knew what they could do, the only thing that could have the best outcome would be showing everyone the truth, but they didn't know how they could do that.

"We could put on a show!" Tuffnut eagerly suggested.

"Yeah!" his sister agreed. "You help us train dragons and we show them what they can do!"

"That would get us all killed," Hiccup deadpanned with a shake of her head.

"How?" Ruffnut demanded.

"The viking way involves acting first and asking questions later," she stated, "Meaning, they would take to their weapons the moment they saw dragons, no matter if we were on them or not."

"That would be a problem," Tuffnut mussed.

"But that's not a completely stupid plan," Arne pointed out and was met with confusion from the others. "Think about it. Us –" he gestured to himself and the twins, "- having dragons would be beneficial."

"How would that be beneficial?" Hiccup asked, her eyebrows drawn together, a frown on her face.

"If we have dragons that would show them that it's not only you who believes that dragons are good," he fixed his gaze only on her, "More people would make them think. One person going crazy and committing treason? Possible. Four people doing the same thing? Something is up."

"No." Hiccup immediately disagreed. "I'm not pulling you further into this."

"You're not pulling," Ruffnut quickly said, "We're following. Willingly."

"No." Hiccup stated, shaking her head frantically, "Right now, you can still remain far away that if everything goes down, you remain unscathed. If I help you train dragons that would not be possible, you would not have a chance to deny your involvement."

"Hiccup," Ruffnut crossed her arms and looked at her best friend in disappointment, "We don't want to deny anything. We're already in this mess and if we didn't want to be here, we wouldn't."

"Things might not go well, Ruffnut," Hiccup mirrored her friend's position, an angry look in her eyes, "This might crash and burn and then you'll be traitors like me."

"So?"

"So!? Your lives will be ruined!"

"They already are!"

Hiccup froze at Ruffnut's words.

"What?" she softly asked, previous anger gone completely.

"Do you think that now that we know the truth we could go back to mindlessly killing dragons?" Ruffnut asked, Hiccup shook her head and her friend sighed, "We're already in this mess."

"And we want to go deeper," Tuffnut agreed with his sister.

"We want to do this with you," Arne added.

Hiccup looked around at her friends, their genuine support and the trust they put in her made her eyes water. Toothless came up behind her and nudged her head with a concerned croon, she laughed. Hiccup wasn't used to this, she had only had Ruffnut before as a friend. This was different, this wasn't a prank that would earn them a few weeks of manual labor at the docks. This was bigger and scarier, something that would not be forgotten no matter how it went. This time she had more than Ruffnut to lean on and that was something she hadn't experienced before.

"Okay," she let out a wet laugh and quickly wiped her eyes before her tears had a chance to fall, "We'll train you some dragons."