The arena the following day was certainly different. Instead of just a plain flat concrete base, it had several large wooden walls arranged in some sort of maze. If it wasn't for the dome of the place, I wouldn't have thought it was the same arena we trained in the day before.

"Hey, Signe," I came up to her. "Was the arena set up like this when you were a trainee?"

"Let me think." She closed her eyes and thought for a moment, "Yeah, there was, but I assume that the maze is arranged differently. One of us almost got killed a couple of times here on their first try."

"Really? Wow, that person must have been as dumb as Snotlout for that to happen" I laughed.

"Hey!" Shouted Snotlout, "I heard that!"

I simply ignored him.

"Well, I wouldn't say she was that bad, but she was a little rough around the edges." She chuckled.

"Mornin' Arne," Greeted Hiccup. "How about that storm last night? Pretty crazy, huh? You would have thought there was a dragon raid last night."

"Hey, Hiccup. Yeah, no, that storm was pretty loud. I'm surprised I got any sleep. Thor must have been fighting quite a few frost giants. Either that or Loki stole his hammer and decided to mess around with us."

Signe chimed in, "He is the god of mischief, though I don't think killing his own brother was a good prank or a prank at all."

"Yeah, I don't think killing the god of light was such a good idea, though that makes me wonder: if Balder was killed, why is there still any light?" I questioned.

"Maybe one of the other gods took care of it?" Suggested Hiccup as he shrugged.

"Anyway, you got any tips for us newbies?" I asked Signe.

"Hmm… Always stay alert and stay mobile. If you stand still too long, you might end up with a few poisonous spikes lodged into your stomach."

"Wait, Spines?" Asked Hiccup, "Wouldn't that be a D-"

The peg-legged viking walked out of the maze. "What are you all doing out here? Come in. Training's already started." He ushered us in, though strangely enough, Gobber didn't come back in with us. Instead, he walked up the stone stairs to where the viewers sat and watched what was going on.

"I think I might just stick with you Signe, you're the most experienced, and I don't feel like becoming a pin cushion any time soon." I requested.

"That's fine with me." She smiled and walked on.

As we walked through the maze, we heard certain noises, it's hard to describe. Like some sort of bird with a throat problem, the next thing I saw was that a deadly nadder was looking down at me from the wooden wall.

"Holy-!" I uttered before being taken by Signe's hand and led off into the maze until I could get my own footing. "Geez, that thing came out of nowhere!"

"They're called "Deadly Nadders" for a reason! They tend to sneak around quietly, sometimes when you do find them, it's too late to escape." She informed.

I looked back and saw that there was no one else. Hiccup was gone! As we were running, I heard Hiccup talking to Gobber, something about the book of dragons not having a Night Fury on it. His talking stopped until I heard a blast and an exclamation from Hiccup.

"Focus, Hiccup!" Yelled Gobber. "You're not even trying!"

Well, at least I knew Hiccup was safe… somewhat.

"Today is all about attack! Nadders are quick and light on their feet! Your job is to be quicker and lighter!"

As we turned a corner, we saw Fishlegs almost getting shot by the nadder, which could have permanently put him out of training. Fortunately, he managed to block the spines while also exclaiming that he was beginning to question his teaching methods. I was too, I can't believe Signe willingly went through that a second time!

"Look for its blind spot! Every dragon has one! Find it, hide in it, and strike!"

"Blindspot?" I wondered, "Wouldn't that be like its underbelly or behind it?"

"I don't know, maybe." She said as we ran.

"Come on! You should know, you've been through this! You can tell me!"

"If I tell you, then that would ruin the experience of finding it out for yourself."

"Well, I would prefer that instead of getting a face full of spikes or being blasted by the nadder!." I soon found myself running ahead of Signe and, for a split second, saw a magnesium stream flying through the gap we were heading towards.

"Whoa! Hold it!" I stopped as I raised my sword arm to halt Signe.

"Huh. Good job… Arne, was it?"

"Oh, uh, yeah, thanks." I blushed but put my eyes forward, trying not to let Signe see it.

"Let's go this way!" She took my hand, ran again, and turned to the next left.

"We're trying to take down the nadder, right?"

"Yeah, something wrong?"

"No, I'm just wondering why we're heading in a different direction of the dragon instead of confronting it head-on."

"That's too risky! We need to make use of that blind spot that Gobber was talking about or find another way that doesn't put us in too much danger."

"Ah, I get it. If we can move around this maze quickly enough, we could catch it off guard and strike, right?"

"Exactly!"

As we kept running, I heard the nadder make its sound and soon heard Hiccup yelp.

Hiccup! I screamed in my mind, "We have to find him!"

"Find who?"

"Hiccup! I just heard him scream!"

She nodded as she then began to follow me as I headed toward where I thought his yelp came from. I looked up and saw the slightest glimpse of the nadders tail as it jumped over us. Estimating where it landed, I followed it and soon found the nadder. I was planning to take a stab at its tail until I heard Snotlout say something.

"Watch out, babe, I'll take care of this!" And then saw a spiked mace flying into one of the walls and the nadder responding with what I could only describe as a laugh.

What kind of a mutton-head would throw away his weapon!... Oh wait, it's Snotlout… I thought as I stopped for a moment to contemplate how much of an idiot he was.

"Keep moving!" I heard Signe say behind me.

"Uh, right!" I saw the nadder rear up for another magnesium shot. Just as I could slice the under part of its tail, it ran, pursuing Snotlout and Astrid. We began to run after it, but soon enough, the whole maze started to fall in on itself. As we dodged some of the walls that fell our way, I stopped as I saw Hiccup, healthy and well, just trying to talk to Gobber.

So I worried over him for nothing!? I sighed.

"Hiccup!" I heard Astrid shout as she hopped on the wall that we were right next to. As it tilted toward us, Signe tried to get out of the way, but she tripped over herself and fell. Without thinking of my own safety, I shouted, "Watch out!". I threw myself onto her, landing over her as a sort of human table to take the blow as it landed on me.

The wall was so heavy that it almost flattened me onto Signe… not gonna lie; that wouldn't have been so bad… but I managed to hold on. Unfortunately, I gained a bump on my head that took a while to heal. As if I hadn't had been hurt enough!

"L-let me, why don't you-" I heard Hiccup try to negotiate, didn't know to who, but as soon as I heard Astrid's grunts, I knew something was going on.

"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!" I heard him shout; thinking he was in trouble, I desperately tried to push the heavy wall off of me.

A few seconds later, I heard a loud thump with shards of wood falling where we were, followed by a small gobble by the nadder.

"Is this some kind of a joke to you?" I heard Astrid ask in an exasperated tone, "Our parents' war is about to become ours. Figure out which side you're on."

Finally, I angled myself and managed to slide the piece of the wall off of me. It landed with a loud thump beside Signe and me. Panting, I gazed into Signe's beautiful honey-colored eyes for what felt like hours. In reality, it was probably a few seconds and most likely a little awkward for her as well. As soon as I realized what I was doing, I snapped out of it, stood up, and cleared my throat as I offered my hand. She slowly reached out and took it, but I felt a little awkward tension between us. I felt a tad sheepish as I blushed and looked away. As I turned around, I saw what remained of the arena for the day and a gobbling nadder looking down as it shook its head and walked into its cell. It seemed to have definitely been in pain.

I then looked down to Hiccup, lying on the floor with his thinking face on.

"Hey," I said as I reached my hand down, "What did I miss?"

As we left the arena and arrived at his house, Hiccup filled me in on what happened according to his side. He was asking Gobber quite a few things about Night Furies, where he didn't get much of an answer.

"Oh yeah, you wanted to tell me about that one night fury we shot a few nights ago yesterday, didn't you?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm also sorry for leaving so abruptly yesterday. I had a few things running through my mind."

"Does it have to do with the Night Fury?"

He nodded and then told me what had happened. After his dad scolded him in front of the entire village, he left to find the dragon in the forest.

"You could have at least told me. Believe me, it would have me saved a lot of trouble," I suggested.

"I would have, but I couldn't find you, and when I knocked on your door, you didn't answer, so I just thought you were out fishing."

Oh, I was, and you wouldn't believe what I "caught," I thought.

After about an hour of looking for it with no success, he finally found what looked like a path caused by a falling night fury. It was a massive dead tree that led right to it.

"Seriously!? Was it still alive?" I asked.

"I was getting to that, be patient."

He thought it was dead as he approached it, but as soon as he put his boot on it, the dragon recoiled, which made Hiccup cower back a bit. He contemplated driving his small knife into its belly and carving out its heart. He didn't dare to; as soon as he looked into its eyes, he just couldn't bring himself to kill it.

"Holy yak dung, that was just like me…." I thought out loud.

"What?"

"Uh… nothing, go on."

As he cut the ropes that held the Night Fury, the dragon leaped at him and slammed him onto a nearby boulder, ragefully staring at him. The Night Fury rose up, and as soon as Hiccup knew he was a goner, the dragon just screeched at him, so loud that he could feel his hair move. The dragon then decided to get out of the place and run away. As soon as he stood up, he fainted.

"That...that story was almost exactly like mine!"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

I grinned and told him everything that happened to me with the Scauldron, all the fine details.

"So you're the lucky one out of the both of us. I still have my wounds from the scauldron. They might just leave a few scars." I then took off my shirt and exposed my back to him.

"Ow…. Those had to hurt."

"Oh yeah, they did. That's a reason why I collapsed when I came back on the docks. I felt like visiting the scauldron today, but maybe I can save it for another day. I don't think he'll miss me much. I mean, just yesterday, he tried to kill me again… You think we can see your Night Fury today?"

"Sure, but he's not mine. I just found him, but maybe I should try to get him back to better health."

"Yeah, after you brutally shot him down with that catapult of yours."

"Hey! You helped out on that too, you know."

"Did I?" I asked as I jokingly wondered to myself.

"Yes. You did." He said.

"Alright, alright," I laughed. "Maybe I'm partly guilty."

He smiled. "Anyway, do you mind if we grab some of your fish to feed it? I think it should gain our trust first, especially you, since you're a total stranger compared to me."

"Oh, like you're close pals with the thing."

"That's why I said 'compared to me' it knows me just a little better than you. It at least knows I exist."

"Though it probably doesn't care that you do. But yeah, let's get some fish."

As we began to walk to my house, we started talking about our crushes.

"So, are you and Astrid a thing yet?" I quizzically asked.

"No… I don't think it helped that I made Astrid angry today."

"...Probably not."

"Oh, well, thanks for the confidence boost."

I just shrugged and chuckled. "Maybe you should have focused a little more on the training than asking Gobber about the Night Fury."

"You're probably right, but I just wanted to know about it. Maybe I could have learned something new."

"And what did you learn…?"

"...Nothing."

"You've gotta get your priorities straight. When you're in the arena, training is first, and learning about Night Furies is second."

"Easy for you to say, the Book of Dragons actually has information on the Scauldron. I've got nothing but a warning."

"That's fair."

"So, what about you and Signe?"

"Oh, uh…" I blushed at the memory of being on top of her "Things could have gotten… better today."

"What do you mean by that? I saw you guys click pretty nicely together before training."

"Yeah, but at the end of the training, I sort of… went on top of her?"

"Wait, what? Back up, what happened?"

"Well, everything was going fine and dandy until the wooden walls started to fall over. One of them was about to land on top of us, Signe fell, and without much time to think, I threw myself over her and acted as a table so that it wouldn't hit her."

"Ahh, I see. Well, it could have gotten worse. The wall could have been so heavy that it flattened you onto Signe, though you could have snuck in a kiss."

I blushed even harder "Who do you take me for!? Snotlout!?"

Hiccup laughed. "Okay, calm down, calm down. Though you probably thought about it, didn't you?"

I felt a bead of sweat about to form. "Uhh…"

"Yup, your face says it all."

A few minutes later, we were at my house. We grabbed our fish and got on the path to the cove.

"I still can't believe the Night Fury landed in the same cove we were swimming in that day," I said as we walked.

"Yeah, quite the coincidence, huh? Hey, maybe you should bring the Scauldron there."

I thought about it for a minute. "Considering how it almost killed me twice, maybe I should ease him in before just leaving him at the cove there. He might attack the Night Fury."

"You think he just attacked out of self-defense?"

"Self-defense? I wasn't trying to hurt him."

"Yeah, but he probably thought you were."

"Well, maybe the first time, but the last time he almost bit my face off!"

"He probably thought you were an intruder. Kinda like how if some random person just barges into my house."

"I suppose you're right there… Anyway, why are you carrying a shield? Isn't it a little heavy?"

"You're not the only one scared of being attacked."

"If that's the case, shouldn't I have grabbed a shield too? I only have a floppy fish!"

He facepalmed, "I forgot to tell you to bring one…."

"If I get blasted, I'm blaming you for that…." I groaned.

"That's why I'm going to block it with my shield."

Time seemed to fly by as we talked and joked around because the next thing I knew, I was staring right at the crevice to get into the cove.

Hiccup went upfront with his shield out, and on the other hand, he held his fish by the gills. Reminded me of how you would hold a sword, except that a sword doesn't have gills, and you could potentially cut yourself with the blade if you're not careful. As we began to walk forward, Hiccup tossed the fish into the opening, maybe to lure out the Night Fury. He then accidentally jammed the shield into the crevice. The thing that was supposed to protect someone was pretty much useless unless we wanted to go back.

Excellent job, man… I thought, Now if the dragon decides to blast us, we'll definitely get killed… I sighed as we went under the shield to find an empty cove. Where is he? I wondered as we looked around with nothing but a fish. I then heard a slight growl from behind us. As I turned around, I nearly went to Valhalla.

The night fury was perched on a formation of large boulders. As it climbed down, it let out another growl, keeping his eyes locked on us, though it kind of reminded me of a cat.

Hiccup began to extend his fish hand and held it towards the Night Fury. I did the same. As it began to walk towards us, he leaned his head to the side, about to accept the offering, and I'm not going to lie, it looked a little cute when it wasn't angry. At least I thought it would accept it until it looked at Hiccup and retreated. It was angry again for some reason!

Hiccup drew back his fish and revealed a knife on his belt.

So you're trying to gain his trust, at the same time, you brought both a shield and a knife with you… In hindsight, getting the shield may not have been the best move either. It probably saw that, expecting a fight.

As he touched the knife, the Night Fury growled again; he even bore his teeth that time.

"Easy now…" I whispered, "I don't think you should tick this guy off more than he is already…."

He slowly reached for the knife and dropped it an arm's length away from him. The dragon wasn't impressed and motioned for him to toss it even more. In response, Hiccup kicked the thing into the water and the Night Fury sat down, and it looked as gentle as a puppy dog. Hiccup extended his fish one more and, as it leaned forward, opened his mouth, which revealed a mouth of just gums. How can he eat fish like that? I thought, Well, I suppose he could just slurp it down… I had my answer almost immediately.

As Hiccup was remarking that he was toothless, his teeth popped out and nabbed the cod out of his hands. Slicing it into smaller pieces with every bite, licked his chops after swallowing, and stared at me. Immediately, I kneeled before it, nose to the ground giving it a reason not to kill me, offering it the fish like it was some sort of deity. I tightly shut my eyes and waited for what happened next, but nothing happened. I then opened my eyes and looked up to see the dragon looking at me with a quizzical look, head cocked to the side. It took the cod out of my hands afterward, careful not to take my hands with it.

After that, I stepped a little closer to Hiccup.

"Now what?" I whispered.

Before Hiccup could answer, the Night Fury responded for us by beginning to walk toward our direction, eventually pinning us in between a boulder and him.

"We don't have anymore." Hiccup told the Night Fury.

It then made some sort of purring noise and spit up two pieces of fish, one for each of us. Hiccup got the tail, and I got the head of the cod. It was disturbing with one of the eyes dangling down. The Night Fury sat back down in an almost human-like position and looked at us. It gave a swallowing motion. You can't be serious, I thought and gave a look at Hiccup. We're not actually doing this, are we? I looked back at the dragon. Oh geez, we're actually doing this… I saw Hiccup about to take a massive bite out of slimy, regurgitated codfish in my peripheral vision. Staying away from the dangling eyeball, I took what looked like a colossal bite but was really a small one. It was a good thing, too, because as soon as my tongue touched the dragon spit-covered fish, I almost thought it disintegrated. Eating it raw would have been bad enough; to have it covered in such a vile thing was atrocious! It was tough to swallow; the texture was awful! I think I remember feeling a few bones going down too… While I managed to swallow it down once, Hiccup and to do it twice, the poor guy…

"Very…" Don't say gross, don't say gross "Tasty…." I grumbled. Hiccup just gave a weak toothy smile. The Night Fury was trying to do the same thing. It was trying to make a wide gummy smile, but it looked like Hiccup had overstepped in trying to touch it because it then growled and "flew" away into the other side of the cove.

"Well, at least you didn't manage to kill us."

"Excuse me?"

"That little knife stunt would have sent us to Valhalla real soon. But hey, at least I get to see my parents, so there's a silver lining."

Hiccup grunted and started to walk toward it while the Nightfury was getting ready to take a nap. Before I knew it, I was about ten feet away, while Hiccup was maybe five feet. As soon as the Night Fury looked at Hiccup, he narrowed his eyes and tiredly looked away, covering his face with his remaining tail fin. Hiccup inched a little closer to the thing, almost touching it until the dragon lifted his tail and made a noise as if to say, "What!?". Hiccup immediately stood up and awkwardly walked away. The Night Fury might as well have rolled his eyes and did the same, further from us. Finding a tree, he leaped up and started to sleep upside down, kinda like a bat.

"Probably not the wisest decision, dude," I said as he walked towards me.

"You don't say? You know, you're starting to sound a lot like the rest of the people at dragon training."

"I'm just saying it as I see it. Maybe give it some space, and it'll come around… Maybe, unless you really irritated the dragon."

"Thanks for the support…."

"Anyways," I sat down, spreading my knees out and my feet tucked under each other, "What now? Should we just wait around until Gobber's nightly lesson?"

"I don't have anything else to do. Unless you wanna go visit that scauldron now."

I shuttered to think of what it might do to me. "Speaking of- Maybe I should test out the lake, so we can get the sea dragon in here... Make sure it's deep enough and has enough food and such."

"Wait, are you scared?"

"No! Who said that I was scared! I'm not scared; you're scared!"

"Right… Arne, how long have we been friends?"

"I'd say a good while. I can't remember when we were not friends."

"So out of everyone, who would know you the best and see that you're stalling because you're scared of it."

"Hey, this thing nearly killed me twice. I don't want to make it a third time. He doesn't seem as gentle as the Night Fury over there."

"That's fair, but maybe you should keep trying. You said you wanted to help it until it can get back in the water, right?"

"Yeah… I'm a man of my word… Curse my honesty!"

I did check out the waters that day, though it was more of an excuse to go swimming. The lake was actually pretty deep, even though it looked so shallow. Perhaps about thirty feet deep, though it was hard to tell how tall the scauldron was since I only saw it in a barely lit cave. I just hoped it was deep enough. The lake was teeming with all kinds of fish, some small panfish such as bluegill and some larger ones such as trout. The scauldron was probably used to eating sea fish such as cod or salmon, but it should have been okay there.

I invited Hiccup to join in, but he politely turned me down, saying that his dad was pretty mad that he came back soaking wet that night. He didn't want his eardrums blown up again. I felt a little bad at that moment. I didn't mean the chief to get mad at him or anything. I thought to bring something to dry us off the next time we returned.

Eventually, it was almost sunset. As I was getting out of the lake looking extremely wrinkly, Hiccup drew something in the dirt. I was doing my best to dry off, but I saw the Night Fury walking towards Hiccup. It put me a little on edge and made me put my shirt on. The Night Fury just sat next to him and looked at what Hiccup was drawing and cooed in curiosity, moving his head according to Hiccup's strokes. I began to calm down and started to flick some dirt off of me. In a few seconds, the Night Fury walked away and proceeded to bite off half of a small tree, and started to draw random doodles on the ground.

What on earth? I thought as I proceeded to walk to Hiccup, careful not to get in the way of the dragon or step on its drawing in progress. I looked down at what Hiccup drew and was impressed. The Night Fury drawing was a pretty accurate one, too; then again, he was always a good drawer. It looked like the dragon was returning the favor, regularly looking back at him and then drawing some more, accidentally bonking us once with the leafy end. Once it was done, he dropped the piece of tree and admired his work, making some happy purring. If that was Hiccup, it must have been a very… abstract… drawing because I couldn't see anything that resembled him. Unless that's how the Night Fury saw Hiccup, a bunch of random doodles. Hiccup stood up and inspected it, accidentally stepping on his work of art; obviously, the dragon began to growl. I would have been pretty mad, too, if someone stepped on the gift I just gave them, or in this case, drew for them. Hiccup lifted his foot, becoming docile once more; he tested the Night Fury by stepping onto the drawing's lines. Every time he put his foot down, the dragon growled and probably plotted on ripping his head off. However, when he lifted his foot, it probably planned on giving him another fish. He finally stepped away from the line and maneuvered onto the drawing.

I looked at where Hiccup was heading and was about to warn him until he was just a foot away from the dragon. Instead of mauling Hiccup, he just stared at him. Reluctantly, he extended his arm towards the Night Fury. At first, the dragon began to growl, bearing his teeth, which made HIccup retreat his hand a bit. Hiccup began to look down at the ground and slowly extended his arm once more; this time was different. Instead of growling like before, the dragon stared at the hand and pressed his nose against the palm of Hiccup's hand.

That was a little awe-inspiring, I'm not going to lie. Made me wanna try something similar with the Scauldron, so I thought of going to the other cove the next day.

The dragon wiggled his nose and retreated, leaving us in silence. As I walked up to Hiccup, careful not to step on the lines, I saw that the Night Fury went back to sleep on his tree, probably to contemplate what just happened.

"We should probably get going, or we'll be late for Gobber's nightly lesson."

"Yeah, you're probably right. Let's head over, but question, where are we meeting again?"

"Uhh… I can't seem to remember."

"What?"

"Wait, why are you asking me? You were asking him questions."

"Yeah, about Night Furies, not when we were meeting next."

I sighed. "Alright, let's just head back to the village. Maybe we'll get the idea there."

As we got back, I was almost dry but also freezing. What I would have done for a friendly warm fire… We still had no idea where we would meet Gobber, so we continued to walk around until I saw Signe.

"H-hey Signe," I shuttered, not because I was talking to her, not most of it anyway, but because I was shivering from the cold. "Where are we supposed to meet again? Hiccup, and I forgot."

"Oh, we're meeting at the watchtower over there." She pointed at the one with a lit fire pit and what looked like Gobber preparing some sticks. "By the way, why are you shivering? It's not that cold outside."

"I decided to take a dip in a lake and came out too late. Didn't have a whole lot of time to dry off with the sun."

"Ah, which one?"

"Which lake? Um, just a random lake around here. I forgot the surroundings already."

"Oh, maybe you'll find it later. It's pretty nice to go swimming after a day of training."

"Yeah, hopefully, or maybe I'll just take a dip in the ocean… then again, I might freeze to death,"

"and you would get attacked by a sea dragon or shark," Hiccup added.

"You know what? Finding a warmer lake would be better than open ocean,"

Signe chuckled and began to walk to the watchtower, turning her head to look at me a few times.

Hiccup chuckled, "I think she likes you, now if only I could get Astrid's attention."

As I was mindlessly staring at Signe, Hiccup snapped me into reality by shaking.

"Come on, we don't wanna be late." He said.

We began to roast our food on the fire as we sat down. It was even better since Signe sat beside me while I was next to Hiccup. Gobber began to tell how he lost his arm and leg to a hideous beast.

As Gobber was at the part where he lost his leg to one of the creatures, Fishlegs began to speak.

"Isn't it weird to think that your hand was inside the dragon like your mind was still in control of it? You could have killed it from the inside by crushing his heart or something,"

I'm pretty sure that's not how the body works, Fishlegs… I thought as I took a bite out of my chicken.

"I swear I'm so angry right now!" Snotlout fumed, "I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot. I'll chop off the legs of every dragon I fight, with my face."

Once again, that's not how the body works. You can't chop off anything with a smooth blunt face.

"Mmm mmm mmm, no." Gobber began to Advise as he was reaching for his chicken's wing, "It's the wings and the tails you really want!" Accentuated his point by ripping it off "If it can't fly. It can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon."

I swallowed. Now we have to help that Night Fury!

Gobber yawned. "Alright, I'm off to bed. And you should be too, tomorrow we get to the big boys. Slowly, but surely, making our way up to the Monstrous Nightmare, but who'll win the honor of killing it?"

As I looked at where Hiccup was, he was gone, leaving his fish that didn't even have a bite taken out. As Tuffnut talked about destiny and stuff, I was looking at where Hiccup might have gone. Astrid stood up and looked down the staircase. I did the same and saw Hiccup making his way down.

I wondered where he was going but didn't follow him. He probably wanted to process how he was going to help his dragon. I just sat back down next to Signe and continued to eat. Once we were all done, we descended the stairs, though Snotlout did bump me on his way down.

"So, how did you like the story?" I asked Signe.

"It was pretty good. I like how Gobber told a different one this time."

"This time?"

"Yeah, he told us a story about an encounter with the Boneknapper and something about a hammerhead yak, though it was pretty hard to believe."

"A hammerhead yak, eh? That does sound pretty out there. Hey, uh, let me walk you home. I'll make sure that nothing happens on your way."

"Oh, I think I'll be good, don't worry about it."

"You sure? The village can be a different place at night."

"I'm sure. But thanks for the offer."

At least I tried. I thought, "If that's the case, I'll see you at training tomorrow then."

"Yup, see ya."

We walked away and began to head to our respective homes. I suppose it was too soon to walk Signe home. Her parents might have freaked if a boy came back with her, even if it was just to make sure she arrived safely.

As I put my head to my pillow, I began to think of what I could do to gain that Scauldron's trust, and before I knew it, I was heading off to dreamland.