The weather in Berk has turned for the worst and the dragon riders are all in the great hall with most people of Berk.
"Come on tell us how you trained a thunderdrum." Hiccup asks Hak for the fourth time since they are stuck in the hall.
"Yeah, what's with the secrecy?" Snotlout comments, glaring at the tallest teen of the group.
"Fine. There isn't that much to tell though." Hak says giving in.
"So what happened?" Astrid asks, stopping staring at Hak's damaged sash and the needle and thread she's using to try and fix it, some of the rips being covered in crude stitches.
"Well after setting sail I drifted around going to a few other islands, all uninhabited but at least I found some proviant on a few of them. Anyways after nearly a week I was drifting by this huge mountain in the ocean, no real land around it to dock at. Well and the stream was too strong, my boat got sucked in and smashed against the mountain, luckily I managed to get to a ledge and save my weapon." Hak tells them.
"A mountain in the water hmm." Fishlegs murmurs thoughtfully, trying to figure out where their friend was exactly.
"Yeah, anyways the ledge actually lead into a huge cave system where a couple of thunderdrums were at. I tried to approach them but with the cave enhancing their soundwaves I had to leave quick or they would have killed me." Hak says.
"Interesting." Fishlegs comments, writing something down in a book.
"With nowhere else to go I spend over a day climbing the mountain and when I reached the top made camp there, luckily there was a bit of vegetation and I was working on building a raft when 3 days later I saw the dragons come back from a hunting trip and Rampage got cut off from his pack by a swarm of eels. He fled out of the water and landed on the mountain." Hak informs them.
"So you did the hand thing?" Tuffnut shouts.
"No I did nothing. We just ignored each other's presence for the most part, but after two days the eels were still circling around the cave entrance and his pack was trapped inside." Hak tells them.
"He tried to blast a way through the mountain with no success when I decided to help them. I climbed down to the entrance and jumped in the water to kill a bunch of the eels, but by the time they retreated I got shocked so often I was floating in the water helplessly, sinking slowly when Rampage flew down and rescued me." Hak says.
"And he decided to stay with me from that point on." Hak finishes.
"And why did you make such a deal out of telling us?" Ruffnut questions.
"I didn't want Astrid to think less of me. I stranded myself again and the dragon chose me. I didn't train it." Hak says, looking at his girlfriend worried.
"I think you got it wrong. When you rescued his friends and risked your life, you showed him he can trust you, so you did train him in a way." Hiccup tells Hak.
"I agree." Fishlegs chimes in, nodding.
"Even if you didn't. I don't care if you have a dragon or not." Astrid tells him, until seeing the taunting looks from the twins and Snotlout.
"Just don't be so helpless next time dope." She adds, trying to preserve her image, since her friends haven't seen her kind side before, with Hak and Astrid keeping their relationship relatively private.
"Sure." He sighs, dropping his head on the table defeated while the twins and Snotlout snicker.
|the next day|
The Vikings exit the great hall after the storm passed and head to their houses, most having to do some minor repairs.
"Hey Rampage, good to see you made it through alright." Hak greets his dragon who is lying under his porch on some straw, Spitwing jumping off the glaive wielder's shoulder to the other dragon, sniffing on his wide snout.
"Looks like we don't have to repair much boys. It would've sucked, if I had to rebuild everything again just after having finished." Hak says, throwing away some branches scattered on the porch and peeks inside the house, which looks fine other than the small hole in the roof where an arm sized branch pierced through the straw roofing.
Hak climbs ontop of the house and yanks out the branch, tossing it into the forest area behind his home.
"Hey Rampage, can you fly the straw up for me?" Hak asks, looking at the hole and a few moments later a bunch of straw is peeking over his shoulder which he accepts.
"I'm sorry." Astrid says, revealing her presence and surprising him, having handed him the straw.
"What are you doing here?" He asks, busying himself with fixing his roof.
"I'm here to apologize. I shouldn't have put you down yesterday. I just reacted. I couldn't let the others see how much you affect me. They would treat me differently and look down on me." Astrid apologizes, sitting down next to him, facing the other way and looks at his focused face.
"I get it. You're a badass and want to keep that reputation." Hak says, looking over to her while preparing the straw in tightly packed form.
"So you aren't mad?" She asks leaning back to look at him better.
"A bit maybe. I mean you putting me down in front of the others hurt, but I knew what I was getting into with you beforehand." He says, squeezing her hand quickly before going back to fixing his roof.
"What you were getting into?" She asks, giving him the stink eye.
"You know what I mean." Hak says.
"Do I?" She asks challengingly.
"I meant that you are headstrong, independent and don't show weakness to anyone." He says, brushing up her arm gently.
"Nice safe." She says, patting his cheek, afterwards giving it a quick peck.
"So we're OK?" She asks, twirling with the bang covering her eye nervously.
"Yes." He replies, finishing up the roof and lifts her up, jumping off the roof and setting her down in front of his wide snouted dragon.
"Rampage, this is Astrid. The special girl I kept talking about." Hak introduces Astrid formally, who rubs over the dragon's snout with it looking at her curiously.
"Hak, I've almost fimished your sash." Astrid then tells him, showing him the blue cloth with crude stitches all over it.
"I told you you don't need to do that. I've gotten used to belts." Hak says, rubbing over her forearm.
"I know, but I want to." She says.
"Thank you. So how did your place survive the storm?" Hak asks his girlfriend, entering his hut with her while Spitwing jumps on top of Rampage.
"It's fine. There's not much damage. And actually there's something I wanted to ask you..." Astrid says nervously.
"What is it?" He asks, Astrid shutting the door behind them while Hak was trying to light a fire.
"I was wondering if you were serious about me staying over here every now and then?" She asks blushing a lot.
"Are you asking me if you can move in?" He asks teasingly.
"I don't know." She quickly replies and brushes over her braid self-consciously.
"I'd love it if you would stay over however often you like." He says, pulling her into a hug, with Astrid trying to free herself from the affectionate gesture.
"Stop manhandling me." She complains, punching his side.
"Fair enough." He agrees, giving hwr a quick peck before continuing with his attempts to light a fire.
"Give me that. Seriously how can a guy like you struggle so much with lighting a fire?" She chuckles, taking the steel and rock from him, sparks igniting a fire soon after with her smirking triumphantly.
"I don't know. I didn't use to struggle with this." He says, scratching his head confused.
"Well now you have me to take care of you so don't sweat it." Astrid says.
"You'll take care of me huh?" He asks, moving closer and closer to her until she's with her back against one of the wooden walls while he leans against the wall with one arm above her and the other next to her.
"Wha... what are you doing?" Astrid asks nervously.
"I don't know? Nothing." He replies, inching closer to her face with his.
"Stop it. I hate it when you tease me like this." Astrid says, stomping on one of his feet, but Hak continues getting closer until he's kissing the shorter girl, whose body freezes up before giving in and relaxing while replying to the kiss, her arms wrapping around his neck loosely.
"Hey Hak, I think I know where you found your thunderdrum, come look at this." Fishlegs shouts excited, barging in and startles Astrid who freaks and goes from kissing Hak to holding him in a chokehold in a second or less.
"Astrid? What are you doing here?" Fishlegs asks surprised to see the blonde there.
"We're training of course." Astrid bellows with red cheeks.
"Yeah well stop goofing around and look at this." Fishlegs says, the two lovers following him outside where the rest of the dragon riders are standing.
"Oh I wonder what you two were doing..." Hiccup says taunting Astrid.
"Mind your own business one-leg." Hak grumbles, making everyone but the academy leader snicker.
"Shut up all of you. Look this is the spot Hak decribed. This is far wider out than we though dragons resided. This is groundbreaking!" Fishlegs tells them giddily.
"Why? It's just some dragons." Hak asks.
"These dragons couldn't have been part of the red death's minions. The distance is to big. That means that there is a high chance of more dragons out there, ones we've never heard of before." Fishlegs says excited.
"Doesn't that put us at a disadvantage?" Hak asks looking at the bulky teen confused.
"Yeah, but imagine what we could learn." Hiccup says.
"Or we could underestimate them and die." Hak retorts with a raised eyebrow.
"Just trust me alright? This is a good thing." Hiccup says.
"Fine, so what do you want to go around flying over islands to check if there are dragons?" Hak asks him.
"Yes." Hiccup says immediately.
"We're doing what now? I thought we were the dragonriders of berk. Meaning we stay on berk." Snotlout asks annoyed.
"Come on this will be fun I'm sure you can tell your dad some grand tales about our trips." Hiccup tells him.
"Let's go find us some dragons!" Snotlout shouts.
"We're in. We wouldn't pass up a chance to see Snotlout get eaten alive." The twins say and the group turns toward the couple.
"I guess we could try it out." Astrid says indecisively.
"I'm not really a fan of this, but I won't let anyone go towards danger on their own." Hak says sighing.
"Now if that's all I still need to fix up my place after that storm." Hak says, entering the hut again, Astrid following after telling the rest, "I'll talk to him. It'll be fine."
"What do you need to fix in here?" Astrid asks Hak once she's inside his house again.
"Nothing. I was just trying to get us some time away from them." Hak tells Astrid while smirking.
"Guess it worked." Astrid says, going over to him while he takes off his shirt to change it and she spots the scars over his back from the fight with the red death.
The girl rushes over to him and leans into his powerful frame while hugging him from behind.
"What's gotten into you? This not an Astrid like move." Hak says surprised.
"I saw your back and I... I don't know I guess I still feel responsible for you getting hurt so bad." She says tearing up.
"Hey. I'm fine. It's not your fault." Hak says.
"No, it is!" She says loudly, hiding her face in his back.
"Well I for one wouldn't do anything differently that day." Hak tells her, rubbing over her smaller hands with his.
"I'm so sorry. I don't think I ever really apologized for it." She says emotionally.
"You showed me how worried you were. That's worth more than any apology to me." He tells her turning around and caressing her cheek.
"I'm not a good girlfriend am I?" She sighs disappointed, looking down at her feet.
"I think we can both admit that we're not the best when it comes to romance but I'm fine with that as long as we're both trying." He tells her, tilting her head back up and kisses her forehead while taking off her leather headband.
"I really really like you." She says, covering the hand cupping her cheek with hers.
"I know. I love you too." He says, stepping away while holding out a hand for her, which she quickly takes and follows him.
"If you want to, I can have a bed in here for you by the end of the week." Hak tells Astrid, opening the door to one of the small rooms in the hut.
"I think that's a very good idea." She tells him, giving him a peck on his cheek.
"I hate to kiss and run, but I better check in with my parents. They already don't have the best opinion on you after seeing us in a compromising situation and I don't need it to get any worse if they find out I came to you before checking on our house with them." Astrid tells Hak.
"Alright. If you need any help I'm here for you anytime." Hak reminds her, squeezing her hand before she blushes a bit and takes off running towards her home.
