Chapter 4
HTTYD's 12th anniversary, and already the one-year anniversary of this fanfiction. I should be updating more often, I know. I can fix that.
Hiccup has an army of dragons!
That singular thought circled, unceasing, through Astrid's head like a confused Gronckle, driving her to run faster. She smacked ferns and bushes and branches out of her way, too hyped on adrenaline to feel them scratching her exposed skin. Trees and rocks passed by in a blur without her ever seeing them, her eyes trained on the distant light where she knew the forest ended and the village began.
She needed to find Stoick. Or Gobber. Or her parents. Anyone who would take her seriously. But what would she say? They might not believe her. She barely believed it herself. But if she got her story straight, she could convince them, right?
She had to. There was a pack of dragons on the loose - Night Furies, her brain screamed at her, and she believed it. What else could it be? Hiccup had said he'd shot one down weeks ago, and, as ludicrous as it sounded, it made so much sense right now.
What if they were coming? What if Hiccup told the pack to hunt her down? She shot a fearful glance behind her, seeing nothing. Somehow, that didn't comfort her in the slightest, and she only ran faster, more determined than ever to reach home. Wasn't that what the Dragon Manual said about the Night Fury? Hide and pray it does not find you.
She was starting to get impatient to reach the safety of home. A fallen log lay across the path. She leapt on top without effort, propelling herself off and back toward solid ground.
A set of talons seized her shoulder.
Astrid let out a yelp as she was yanked away from her promised landing. Before her horrified eyes, the ground shrank beneath her, smaller and smaller with every beat of the wings that now thundered around her. Her other arm reached out and grabbed the paw that held her for dear life. She'd never left the safety of the ground before, and now she was at the mercy of the sky.
Never before had the mighty Astrid Hofferson been so genuinely terrified. Fear coursed through her veins, flooding every inch of her body.
"Oh, great Odin's ghost! Oh, this is it!" She screamed longer and louder than she ever had before. Even as her breath gave out and her scream dwindled to a silent gasp, the flight began to slow, and the tallest tree in the entire forest appeared beneath them.
Toothless released her, then she struck an adequately thick branch that flexed slightly under her weight, and she clasped it with both hands like a lifeline. Which, at that point, it was. The Night Fury landed right above her, causing the entire top of the tree to lean towards the ground under his mass. The rest of the Furies circled from above like vultures, awaiting their leader's command.
Now that her life wasn't in immediate danger anymore, Astrid's anger blazed back through the fog of fear that had once suppressed it. She slowly started shuffling hand over hand toward the tree's trunk, glaring daggers at her rival sitting all high-and-mighty atop one of his giant pets - specifically the Night Fury that was sitting on the tree branch above her.
"Hiccup!" she demanded. "Get me down from here!"
She wasn't in the best position to be giving him commands, but it just came naturally.
"You have to give me a chance to explain!" Hiccup pleaded.
How could he have the audacity to patronize her?! She was dangling who knows how many feet above the forest floor on a flimsy branch, being lectured by some scrawny little failure who was good for nothing except mending weapons, all because he had somehow tamed a dragon and then used it to kidnap her!
"I am not listening to anything you have to say!" Astrid snarled.
"Then I won't speak," Hiccup answered. "Just let me show you."
She stared up at him and his outstretched hand; neither his eyes nor his voice implied he was lying. She lowered her head and, approximating the distance between her and the ground, made herself reconsider her original plan. She could take a tedious, painful, and possibly fatal journey down the tree, or she could take Hiccup up on his offer.
When she didn't answer, he pleaded, "Please, Astrid?"
Setting her mouth in a hard line, Astrid made her decision. With a flex of her arms, she pulled herself up until she could get her knees onto the tree branch. She got to her feet, balancing precariously, and placed one hand on the lead Fury's saddle, hesitating for a moment when the dragon growled at her. She smacked away the hand that Hiccup offered her and hoisted herself up onto dragonback in one smooth movement.
Gods above, she was sitting on a dragon! It was such a weird sensation that she almost wished she was back in the tree. She raised her arms, unsure of what to hold on to and uncomfortable with every one of the possibilities.
"Now get me down," she said, not quite as firmly as she intended.
Nodding, Hiccup patted his Night Fury mount on the head and ordered, "Toothless, down. Gently."
The lead Fury, seemingly, obeyed, his wings spreading out at a length larger than Astrid had expected. He didn't take off right away - he simply sat there, as if taking in the breeze and was starting to pick up.
"See?" Hiccup said to her. "Nothing to be afraid of."
The gods must have been waiting for him to say that, because that's when things started to go wrong.
When Toothless sprang off the tree and into the air as though he'd been launched by a ballista, Hiccup mentally kicked himself for having not seen it coming. Or, he would have, if he wasn't busy trying not to die. Toothless's climb was nearly vertical, threatening to rip him and Astrid straight off the saddle. Between Astrid's loud, fearful screaming and the many wingbeats of the other Night Furies catching up from below, poor Hiccup could barely think straight.
"Toothless! What are you doing?!" Hiccup shouted over the wind. "Bad dragon!"
As he spoke, Toothless leveled out and slowed to cruising speed, allowing Hiccup to get his bearings. As he did, fingers clutched urgently at his face, the nails digging into the skin like it was a lifeline. Hiccup's heart skipped a few beats at the realization that those were Astrid's hands, grasping at his face!
All too soon, Astrid relinquished her grip and instead wrapped her arms around his torso, which, honestly, was a thousand times better. Well, to Hiccup, at least.
"He's not usually like this," Hiccup tried to explain.
Then Toothless folded his wings.
"Oh, no," Hiccup added, bracing himself for the drop.
The fall was as stomach-dropping as he anticipated, but it was nothing compared to the stinging shock of hitting the ocean with the force of a falling star. One instant there was wind, and the next an impact that rendered the whole nervous system numb. After that came the crippling chill of fresh air as Toothless re-emerged, leaving Hiccup feeling as though he'd just rolled around in a snowbank.
"Toothless, what are you doing?" he shouted as Toothless dunked himself again in the ice-cold brine. "We need her to like us!"
But the lead Fury either didn't hear him, or chose not to listen, and Hiccup was ninety-six percent sure it was the latter. Toothless skimmed the ocean surface at a breakneck pace that dried them off almost instantly, then swerved upwards in another vertical climb, flying right through his pack and scattering them like a flock of birds.
With an apparent desire to one-up himself, though, the lead Fury added some creative flare in the form of a dizzying series of rolls. The sky, sea, earth, and six other Night Furies all melded together into a single blurred image.
"And now the spinning," Hiccup drawled to no one. He officially had no control over his dragon, only able to wait and make sarcastic observations until Toothless was done with his little temper tantrum. If the lead Night Fury was trying to send a message, then this was way over the top.
Toothless stopped as suddenly as he'd begun, and Hiccup used the brief lull in ludicrous activity to make yet another sarcastic observation. "Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile," he managed to say, just as the useless reptile in question initiated another freefall...
...with more midair rolls. And just when Hiccup's vision had just stopped spinning, too.
All the while, Astrid's terrified screams had served as a constant background noise for Toothless's unwarranted stunts. As they whirled on another collision course with the frigid sea, she quite suddenly went silent, her face buried into his shoulder. As surreal as it was to believe, the fearless Hofferson had stopped fighting. Her only hope was to cling to her only ally like a lifeline and pray that he would somehow save her from this madness.
And, in a plaintive voice Hiccup had to strain to hear over the rushing wind, she pleaded with all her might, "Okay, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Just get me off of this thing...!"
That was what Toothless had been waiting for. His stony, draconic glare faded into oblivion and he threw his wings open.
Everything stopped.
At first, Astrid wasn't even aware they had stopped. The dragon's flight had been so chaotic that her stomach was in knots. Once her insides caught up with her outsides, however, it dawned on her.
Everything was still.
There was no more biting cold wind or water. No more chaotic twirling across the sky. Everything had died down; the wind was now the softest of tickles, dancing over her skin. The contrast was so great that she almost believed they had landed. Is it over? she dared to think.
Curiosity implored her to open her eyes, just a crack.
What met her eyes was, to put it simply, the most incredible sight of her life.
The sky was a brilliant orange blaze, the clouds great formless masses of orange and yellow, like the crowns of trees caught in a forest fire. All was set aflame by the sun that hung just above the sparkling sea, its midday glow diminished so that it appeared as a round disc of red fire perched atop the horizon. Its remaining light spilled all over the surface of the ocean, scattering glittery white stars onto a sea of glowing crimson. Astrid hadn't even realized how close it was to sundown, which made the awe-inspiring spectacle that much more so.
Before Astrid could come to terms with the enchanting sight before her, the dragon – was she still on a dragon? Her mind didn't seem to find that important anymore – turned away from the sun. The sky shifted gradually from the radiant orange of an inferno to the soft pink of cooked salmon. A crisp gust blew past, and rather than cold, Astrid felt nothing but wonder as she floated up until there was no more sea, no more land; nothing but sky. The clouds were bigger up here, less like blazing treetops and more like snowcapped mountains. Great towering mountains that stretched not only up, but sideways and diagonally so that they filled up Astrid's entire world.
It was magical, dream-like. Astrid was hypnotized. Her precious axe, the training arena, Berk itself...none of those existed anymore. A sense of gentle, all-encompassing peace swept everything away and settled its folds over her mind, radiating warmth and comfort throughout her body. Muscles that were used to being worked to their limit relaxed, hands that had once been balled into fists slackened, and eyelids that had just been squeezed shut forgot how to close. Astrid was flying – no, floating up to a whole other world, where earthly rules held no influence.
Astrid's eyes eventually meandered upwards, where another Night Fury was gliding in time with their leader, her ebony scales decorated with white spirals. Some distant part of Astrid's mind told her; why not try to touch it? The spark of curiosity was a pinprick of light shining through the dreamy daze, and Astrid reached out with a tentative hand. Her fingers brushed against smooth scales, and the Fury leaned a little into her touch.
She was touching a dragon!
The smallest Night Fury flew up next to her, chirping playfully. Feeling giddy, she reached up with both hands, patting the dragonet's head and scratching his chin.
She didn't know for how long she was floating through the clouds. All she did know was that, after rising higher and plunging through the mist, it was suddenly nighttime. And, once again, she was spell-bound.
The night sky was all around her, a thick blanket of black pocked with twinkling speckles. The moon cast a soft, silver glow over the clouds she'd just left behind, making it seem as though she were sailing over a sea locked in ice. Just when she didn't it couldn't get any more spectacular, the monochrome palette of black and white was suddenly flooded by bright colors – rippling banners of green and blue, setting the sky alight as surely as the sun.
The clouds fell away, and a vast, dark shape appeared below. A familiar shape, one dotted with tiny flickering lights. If it were possible for Astrid's eyes to widen any further, they would have. For indeed, it was Berk. She was staring down at her home from a bird's eye view, the buildings nothing more than anthills in the dark, lit by torches like tiny red stars.
She must have gasped, or made a noise of some kind, because the lead Fury turned his head to look back at her with iridescent green eyes not unlike Hiccup's. Awkward, sarcastic, wonderful Hiccup, who had reached out his hand and brought her to this enchanting spectacle above the clouds. Had she been angry with him? Suddenly, dragon training didn't seem all that important anymore. She would rather fly all night, into morning, throughout the next day...maybe forever.
Mesmerized by the view, Astrid reached out and resumed her hold on Hiccup's waist, pulling him close so that he was nestled right up against her. A warm, fuzzy contentment crawled up her arms and through her chest to make itself cozy deep within her core. She leaned her head on the boy's shoulder and sighed. She thought she heard his breath hitch and felt his heart skip a beat under her fingers, but she ignored it. She was comfortable, and just wanted to revel in his closeness and snuggle him without shame. After all, it was cold, and he was warm and soft.
Led by Toothless, the Night Furies carved a big turn, away from the village and back over the ocean. The hundreds of thousands of stars glittered on the wide, dark blanket of the sky, their reflection shining upon the surface of the water as though it were a giant mirror.
"Alright, I admit it," Astrid murmured, half to Hiccup and half to herself, as she looked down once more at the tiny village a thousand feet below. "This is pretty cool. It's...amazing. He's amazing." She uttered that last part to herself as she gazed at the person sitting in front of her, the person who had risked all that he had gained to open her eyes to the truth.
When Hiccup turned his head to look at her, Astrid realized that he must have heard. Panicking internally, she leaned down and patted Toothless's flank, to make it seem as though she was talking about the dragon, which wasn't technically a lie, because he was amazing, too.
After a moment, Astrid resumed her hold around Hiccup's torso, reveling in his warmth. In less than a day, he'd managed to change her entire outlook, everything she thought she knew had been swept away like a twig in a tsunami. She'd never be able to look at anything the same way again, especially not him.
He truly was amazing.
But maybe she wouldn't tell him that just yet.
The far-off lights of Berk winked out in the darkness as the Night Furies soared back out to sea, leaving only the stars to light their way. They flew on for a short while, too comfortable amidst the quiet, calm night to want to go back just yet.
"So, what now?" Usually, Astrid's silken voice spoken so close to Hiccup's ear would have sent delighted shivers down his spine, but her tone was so concerned that it prompted him to look back.
Gripping him more tightly, she enunciated urgently, "Hiccup, your final exam is tomorrow! You know you're gonna have to kill -"
Astrid suddenly broke eye contact to give Toothless a concerned glance, realizing that this wasn't exactly the best subject to be conversing within earshot of a dragon. If the lead Fury could understand the words 'I'm sorry', as she suspected, chances are he'd be able to understand what she was saying in that moment.
"...kill a dragon," Astrid finished in a low murmur.
"Don't remind me," Hiccup sighed. He felt cold, but not from the wind. It was the image of the training arena flashing through his head, not a memory but a glimpse of the near future. Only a few hours from now, he was destined to stride into that arena with the whole village watching. He wasn't sure what would be better - if he was the one who died or the dragon awaiting him.
He remembered coming to Toothless and the other Night Furies with the intention of flying away from Berk forever, to escape the lie his life had become. It was the only solution he could come up with on the fly.
But had the circumstances changed?
Maybe Astrid was a sign - if one of the most determined warriors in the archipelago could be persuaded of the dragons' true nature, could the rest of Berk? It seemed unlikely, but so long as there was a chance...
A thick blanket or fog rolled up in their path, obstructing their view to only a few feet in every direction. At that moment, the adult Night Furies' jerked their heads up in near-perfect sync and thrust forward and downward, diving into the mist with a new sense of purpose. Hiccup yelped and clutched Toothless's saddle, and felt Astrid grab him more tightly.
"Toothless, what's happening?" he demanded. But the lead Fury did nothing to indicate that he'd heard, he only flew ever more determinedly into the fog, as if following a trail of some kind.
Ominous shadows started to loom out from the otherwise featureless wall of gray, and Hiccup recognized them as sea stacks which Toothless swerved around without issue. Confusion swirled through his mind like the fog that filled his vision, joined by a heavy dread in the pit of his stomach. It occurred to him that they were likely flying over a graveyard of countless Berkian ships, hidden somewhere down below.
Another shadow flashed past on the periphery of Hiccup's vision. He initially thought it was another sea stack, only for a vast winged creature to hurtle out of the mist and almost clip them. The Monstrous Nightmare growled a warning to Toothless before disappearing back into the gray curtain ahead of them, carrying a large fish in its claws.
"Get down!" Hiccup whispered urgently, laying flat against the saddle. Astrid followed suit, pressing her weight down on his back.
Something small and scaly wriggled between the two humans, both of whom fought the powerful urge to scream before realizing that it was Junior. The little Night Fury's eyes were wide with childlike fear as he watched Mama flying in tandem with the pack, her eyes contracted into thin slits.
The sound of steady wingbeats came from their left, and a Deadly Nadder melted into their view. Toothless adjusted his position to steer clear. Then, on their right, came a Gronckle. With each passing second, more and more dragons melted out of the fog around them, until Hiccup and Astrid found themselves in the middle of a flock hundreds strong. Together, the flock flew the exact same course with a single-minded focus comparable to that of an army of ants.
"What's going on?" Astrid breathed.
"I don't know," Hiccup uttered. He leaned forward a little and whispered to their mount, "Toothless, you need to get us out of here, bud." The Night Fury brushed him off and kept flying.
Reeling in confusion, Hiccup's eyes drifted to a Monstrous Nightmare cruising past, a dead boar dangling from its talons.
"It looks like they're hauling in their kill," he whispered.
"What does that make us?" she asked in little more than a squeak. Very unlike the Astrid that Hiccup was used to.
Hiccup couldn't answer, his attention drawn by a Zippleback passing on their left. Its yellow pupils pierced through the darkness to look straight at him, though what the two-headed dragon was thinking, Hiccup could never guess.
Junior whimpered fearfully, and Astrid patted his head as reassuringly as she was able to muster in the current situation.
The flock began a gradual descent downwards, followed seconds later by a sudden drop that prompted a set of quiet screams from Toothless's human riders. They leveled out over dark water; sea stacks started to loom out of the mist one after the other, and Toothless followed the flock's seamless movements through the maze. A faint orange glow was visible up ahead, and the farther the Night Fury flew, the brighter it shone through the fog...
...until the clouds finally lifted, and their destination was revealed. Hiccup found himself craning his neck up to the peak of an enormous conical obelisk, steeped in shadows. Thin streams of molten lava snaked down the dark mountain's craggy sides, wreathing it in an infernal glow.
The dragons' nest.
Toothless kept as straight as an arrow, heading toward a large crevasse in the mountainside. The Night Fury plunged into the cavern and darkness descended upon them. Blinded by the dark, and deaf by the countless wingbeats echoing off the tunnel walls, Hiccup had only his sense of balance to rely on, learning the tunnel's curvature from the way Toothless turned this way and that.
An ominous glow emanated from the end of the rocky corridor. The tunnel walls gave way to a vast chamber, lit with a fiery red-orange light. Gigantic pillars of stone snaked down into the invisible depths of the volcano, from which a red fog drifted lazily. Nesting against the walls and on the pillar were dragons of all kinds, filling the cavern with their many cries.
"What my dad wouldn't give to find this," Hiccup murmured, eyes wide and nearly unable to blink at the incredible sight before him.
Ahead of them, the Zippleback dipped toward the pit, and Toothless kept on its tail. Hiccup watched, fascinated and bewildered, as the two-headed dragon released the sheep it had been carrying, letting it be engulfed by the fog. It flew away with haste, and the adult Night Furies made a shallow dive before peeling off and making for the upper part of the cave. Hiccup started, tugging hard on the saddle to bring Toothless in for a landing on the nearest pillar. The whole group touched down on the side facing away from the clouded abyss, and Toothless circled around so he and his riders could to peek their heads out and observe.
More dragons were flying in from outside, and Hiccup saw that they, too, each had food. And just like the Zippleback, they hung around only long enough to drop their bounty, their interest in the pit fading completely.
"Well, it's satisfying to know that all of our food has been dumped down a hole," Hiccup remarked, feeling miffed at the injustice.
He'd nearly forgotten that Astrid was there. She grabbed his shoulders to steady herself as she leaned forward for a better look, being careful not to squish Junior between them. "They're not eating any of it..." she muttered, her tone carrying a suspicious edge.
One Gronckle, who looked to be an adolescent, blundered in, later than the others. The young dragon struggled to fly with its not-quite fully grown wings, bringing itself into a hover just above the hole. The two teenagers watched it rear its head and belch a single mackerel out of its mouth.
All but a second had passed when a bellowing roar of rage erupted from below. The Gronckle beat its wings frantically in a sluggish rush for the safety of its roost.
For all of one second, Hiccup racked his brain trying to figure out what could make such a loud noise...
...and found the answer when an enormous gray head surged up from the mist and closed its jaws with a *CRACK* around the Gronckle, swallowing it whole.
"What...is that?" Astrid squeaked fearfully, most unlike herself.
Toothless shivered beneath them and crouched further into the shadows. All around the cavern, dragons either shrank away to hide themselves or wheeled, shrieking, into the air in search of higher perches. Their frightened whimpers and croons were an aria of death that made way for the dragon's rise from the depths.
With a growl of satisfaction, the behemoth lowered itself back into the abyss...only to emerge again a moment later, its large nostrils catching the scent of the humans.
Alarm bells ringing in his head, Hiccup leaned down and patted Toothless's neck. "Toothless, we gotta get out of here," he hissed.
But Toothless didn't move, rigid with fear. And, to Hiccup's horror, the huge dragon's head was turning, its glaring eyes meeting his own.
"NOW!"
The lead Fury sprang, vaulting into the air with a thrust of his wings that nearly sent Hiccup and Astrid flying off the saddle, just barely avoiding the jaws of the giant dragon. The other Night Furies quickly followed their leader's example, firing a few blasts at the giant dragon to slow it down.
All at once, the still cavern was whipped into a frenzy of motion as dragons everywhere raced for freedom, their cries and wingbeats blending into a cacophony. Hiccup gripped the saddle tight, praying to the gods that he and Astrid wouldn't be thrown aside in the chaos. He dared to look back - the creature's jaws were coming for them, but missed, closing on a Zippleback who had been unfortunate enough to fly in its path.
Being no match for the Night Furies' speedy escape, the giant dragon lowered itself back into its lair, leaving the panicked flock to flee into the night.
Hiccup could have fainted when he saw the cove, a circular scar blemishing the otherwise untouched forest. He directed Toothless down, the cliffs rising swiftly around them.
"No, it totally makes sense," Astrid blurted, the first words she'd spoken since escaping certain death minutes ago. "It's like a giant beehive. They're the workers, and that's their queen. It controls them."
Her words were rushed with excitement, and the first thing she did after Toothless landed was to jump out of the saddle and start for the exit. "Let's find your dad."
"No, no!" All kinds of unpleasant possibilities shot through Hiccup's head, and without thinking, he slid off Toothless's back and raced after her. He caught her at the edge of the lake; she stopped and looked at him, shocked.
"Not now, they'll...kill the Night Furies!" he stammered to object. "Astrid, we have to think this through, carefully."
Astrid turned, disbelief all over her moonlit face. "Hiccup, we just discovered the dragons' nest! The thing we've been after since Vikings first sailed here!" she stressed. To her, it was the most monumental discovery that had ever been made. She asked with a scoff, "And you want to keep it a secret? To protect your pet dragons?! Are you serious?!"
Hiccup looked her right in the eye, maybe for the first time ever, and said just as emphatically, "Yes."
This was more serious than anything he'd ever done. All thoughts of running away and abandoning Berk were gone. If he ran off just to protect himself, the raids would keep coming and everyone he cared about would be in danger. But if he acted on impulse like Astrid wanted to, who knew what would happen?
This wasn't just about him, or the Night Furies - no one was safe as long as that thing was out there. By keeping this secret, he'd be protecting everyone else just a little bit longer.
Astrid stared at him, blue eyes wide, her cool composure lost. It hit Hiccup just then that he'd never seen her look so...vulnerable. Feeling self-conscious, he looked back at the Night Furies.
Junior had leapt off of Toothless's back and had reunited with Mama, who was now acting like her normal self again. The dragonet and his mother were nuzzling each other's snouts, looking relieved that the other was alright.
The Night Furies weren't just a pack - they were a family. More of a family than Hiccup had ever had before. He couldn't just throw them under the sword.
Then, out of the blue, he heard Astrid speak.
"Okay," she relented. "Then what do we do?"
Hiccup forced himself to look at her. "Just give me until tomorrow," he said. "I'll figure something out." I hope.
Unsure of what to do next, he shifted his gaze back to the ground and unconsciously started fiddling with his flight suit. He heard the softest utterance of "Okay" from the blonde girl who, he found surreal to believe, had held her axe to his throat merely a few hours ago.
The moon was high above the treeline and its light streamed unimpeded onto the surface of the lake, turning it into a luminous mirror. Nearby, the Night Furies were all bending to drink at the water's edge, sending ripples that shattered the mirror into countless silver shards. The sight was breathtaking, and that fact that Hiccup was sharing it with Astrid was enough to get him just the tiniest bit excited -
Pain exploded into Hiccup's shoulder, and he whirled around to face Astrid once more, just in time to see her retracting her fist. He clutched his aching appendage and gawked at her as though she had Fireworms parading out of her ears.
"That's for kidnapping me," she stated.
Hiccup regarded Toothless with a gesture towards Astrid - Can you believe her? - to which the dragon tossed his head in a version of a shrug.
He saw Astrid reach out towards him from the corner of his eye and flinched away, expecting another punch. So it was to his complete and total surprise when she grabbed a handful of his shirt and, without any warning sans the tickle of warm breath on his face, pecked his cheek.
It lasted not even a half a second; it was over so fast that anyone else would have sworn they'd imagined it. But Hiccup knew what he'd felt. He turned one last time, regarding an uncharacteristically shy Astrid with undisguised wonder as she shrank back.
"That's for...everything else," she added, stuttering slightly.
Astrid never stuttered.
Just like that, she was gone. She dashed away toward the cove's exit, casting a single brief glance back over her shoulder, her slim, athletic form being swallowed by the shadows as completely as a half-remembered dream. On the moonlit banks of the lake, her forgotten axe lay in the grass where she'd left it an eternity ago.
Hiccup stared at the spot where Astrid had disappeared for long after she had left. A bubble of unadulterated joy welled up from within, pushing away the wonder.
He felt something breathing on the back of his neck, and he turned around to find a squadron of Night Furies sitting behind him, all seven of them, Junior included, wearing matching expressions of curiosity and tenderness.
"What are you guys looking at?" he couldn't help but snap in his embarrassment, and the lead Fury made a sound that could have passed for a chuckle.
Hiccstrid is a go. I repeat, Hiccstrid is a go.
Junior was unaffected by the Red Death's control for the same reason the baby Scuttleclaws weren't obeying the Bad Alpha - he's too young. At least, I think that's the reason.
In other news, I haven't fully determined if Junior is related to Toothless in any way. Probably not his son, but the dragonet could be his nephew or something.
Leave some reviews, please.