16.
"You can do whatever you want." Hiccup finally said. She had explained everything to the best of her abilities, with the help of the others, but now the situation was out of her hands. "I won't stop you."
"You can go back to the village, back to the Chief, and ruin our lives," Arne said. He had moved away from the entrance and was standing next to the shorter girl.
"You can stay here, admit that dragons are actually cool, and join our friend group again." Ruffnut suggested half-heartedly.
"You could also ask Hiccup for a dragon of your own," Tuffnut said and the two girls and Arne turned to glare at him. He shrunk back and shrugged. "I'm just saying…"
"Say less." Hiccup grumbled and turned back to the two on the ground. "Make your choice."
"Dragons…" Fishlegs mumbled to himself. "I choose dragons."
"Are you crazy?" Snotlout jumped up with a shout. "They're the enemy!"
"They're not," Hiccup said loudly to gain their attention again. "Fishlegs made his choice, Snotlout. You're the one who hasn't."
"My choice should be clear!" The short male yelled.
"It isn't." Hiccup shook her head. "You haven't given us a definitive answer."
"I just don't understand how you could do this!"
"Easily," Hiccup chuckled, "From the very start Toothless treated me like an actual person and not like I was just the mistakes I had made during my life." She explained. "For the first time in a long while, this dragon showed me what it was like to be accepted…" she trailed off and swallowed around the clog in her throat.
"You can go back to the village, tell everyone what you saw… But there's no guarantee that they'll believe you." Ruffnut spoke up. "You're stupid, rash and infuriating, but you were our friend, Snotlout. We don't want you to ruin your life because you were being more stupid than usual."
Snotlout looked at the others one by one. They didn't look panicked at the possibility of being found out. What shocked him the most was that Hiccup was the calmest of them all. She was the one who started all of this, this mess they were standing in, yet she wasn't bothered at all. His eyes stalled on his cousin.
"I have nothing to lose," she said when she noticed him staring, "No matter what you choose."
-o-
"What I'm saying is that we all need dragons if we're going to help you," Ruffnut said as she followed her best friend.
Hiccup tried her best to block out the female twin's voice. They have been at this for a while, almost from the moment Snotlout had chosen to keep quiet and join their friend group again. Hiccup continued to silently curse Tuffnut, she had already cursed at him out loud, after all he was the one who got the idea of getting Fishlegs and Snotlout dragons out in the open.
She was not going to do that, at least not this soon. Hiccup had told them that, but they still continued to pester her, until Toothless had started snarling at them for even opening their mouths. Ruffnut was exempt from the Fury's hostility, as she was the only person who Hiccup hadn't complained to Toothless about.
"Hiccupppp," Ruffnut whined again, the smaller girl stopped in her place.
Hiccup took a deep breath and slowly turned around to look at Ruffnut.
"What part of: 'It's too dangerous to give them dragons right now,' do you not understand?"
"The 'Too dangerous' part?" Ruffnut smiled. "Hiccup, you promised!"
"I promised nothing!" Hiccup exclaimed, she was angry that her friend seemed to not be listening. "Training dragons is not my responsibility! And why, for Odin's sake, would I let them near dragons when they're still terrified of Toothless?!"
Ruffnut blinked a couple times without moving a muscle. Having Hiccup blow up like this was rare and even her good reputation with Toothless was running out. The Fury came to sit next to his rider, eyes narrowed at the female twin.
"Okay," Ruffnut said after a moment of silence, "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, yeah," Hiccup sighed and rubbed her forehead, "Just drop it, for now at least."
Thankfully Ruffnut did drop the subject, and so did the others. Still, every moment Hiccup spent with the gang started to grind on her nerves. She liked having friends, but she wasn't used to it. Them being friendly with her and wanting to talk to her was something new. Until that point her only friend had been Ruffnut, and even with how energetic the girl was, she hadn't taken up as much space as was being taken up now.
-o-
Hiccup was laying on the ground further away from everyone. Toothless had curled around the girl a few minutes ago. The other had ran out of things to talk about and she was thankful for the silence that had covered the cove.
Hiccup could practically feel the stares Fishlegs and Snotlout were throwing her way. She had stayed back and let Ruffnut explain most of what had happened concerning her and Toothless, which meant that some questions had gone unanswered, and they wouldn't be answered as long as Hiccup wasn't in the mood for it.
The fact that she was friendly with a dragon was a part of why they were staring at her. A couple of hours was not enough time to completely get your mind around the fact that most of what you believed in was a lie. She didn't feel bad about staying quiet and letting them get used to being in the presence of a dragon, after all that was how she got over her fears.
The sun was starting to set and soon the twins, Arne and her would need to sneak into the academy to feed the dragons. They would feed even the ones who they weren't training, Hiccup didn't want them to go without the same friendliness they offered the others.
Hiccup sat up with a sigh. Arne was sharpening his axe, Toothless had gotten comfortable with having weapons near when he figured out they weren't there to cause harm. The twins were half asleep as they leaned on each other for support. Fishlegs was casting anxious glances at the Night Fury every half a second, like the dragon would lunge at him at any second. Snotlout had decided that glaring at the ground was an interesting thing to do.
"When will we need to head out?" Arne broke the silence without looking up from what he was doing.
"When the sun sets," Hiccup answered with a shrug, "Cover of darkness and all that."
"Where are we headed?" Snotlout looked up from the ground as soon as Arne had spoken and was interested in what the conversation was about, as were the others.
"The only place you and Fishlegs will be heading is the village," Hiccup told him.
"Wha-why?" Fishlegs stuttered out in confusion.
"We have stuff to take care of, stuff concerning dragons."
"And you're still scared shitless of them," Ruffnut chuckled after she caught on what Hiccup and Arne were talking about.
"Plus, all of us being gone would be suspicious after you hadn't been spending time with us," Hiccup added like Ruffnut hadn't basically called the two boys cowards.
-o-
With Hiccup knowing how to show the dragons that they meant no harm, training them, even after months in captivity was easy. Giving them food, catering to their hygienic needs and just being friendly was enough to gain their trust. Hiccup had also spent time with the twins and Arne just hammering in the fact that they needed to keep the trust no matter what.
Four days, more than half of the time until her final exam was what it took to build that trust. Time was running out and she still didn't know what to do about the monster residing at the heart of the nest. Every plan she made just wasn't enough, when she thought she had something the image of that thing appeared when she closed her eyes.
It was becoming more and more clear that she could not do this alone. Even having the gang to help wasn't enough. She needed an army, an army she didn't have, an army her father did have.
Her father didn't have just an army, he had a lot of hatred for dragons too. If Hiccup even mentioned the nest he would go crazy. Finding the nest was something he wanted to do for so long he had instilled the same wish in her heart too, for a while at least.
Tonight, Fishlegs and Snotlout will join them in the academy. The two boys were still skittish around dragons, but the dragons in the academy were used to friendly people by this point, so introducing them would be quite easy.