A Deadly Nadder and a Night Fury flew together, high above dozens of other dragons and the ocean. The two were more or less alone, and the sun on their scales was warm despite the frigid chill in the air. It could have been a calm, relaxing flight, an opportunity to think. To mourn.
It would have been all of those things if Astrid was flying alone.
"I have another question," the Nadder from the arena said eagerly. "What do Flightless do for fun?"
Astrid groaned, utterly aggravated by the sporadic questioning she was forced to endure. "A lot of things." She knew that wasn't going to cut it, and she also knew the Nadder wasn't going to give up. It was easier just to answer her questions and hope she ran out... though that had yet to happen.
"Like what?" was the inevitable follow-up.
"Fight," Astrid answered absently. "Spar. Tell stories. Drink ale and see who can hold it better."
"What is ale?" the Nadder asked, repeating out the word with a confused warble. "And what did you like to do?" She seemed entirely oblivious as to how questioning Astrid about the life that had been taken from her might be offensive or depressing. Luckily, Astrid was too worried about where they were going, and what she was going to do once they were there, to really care. The questions were also at least somewhat distracting, which made the worry less agonizing.
"Ale is like water, but it messes with your head," Astrid explained shortly. "I don't like it. And I didn't really care about having fun. I cared about training." That sounded pitiful, said aloud, but it was the truth.
"What did the others who were in the arena do for fun?" the Nadder asked after a moment's thought. "They seemed less serious."
Astrid had to laugh at that, if only because it was so obvious even the dragon they had been attacking could see it. "Fishlegs likes to learn things. The twins destroy stuff and pull pranks. Snotlout shows off and practices being insufferable." She didn't care enough to describe the teens instead of just listing their names, but by this point the Nadder knew enough to distinguish between the names anyway.
"And the other one? The dead one?" the Nadder chirped innocently, still entirely tactless.
"Making things, and then breaking other things with them. And never what he intended to break." As far as Astrid could tell, anything and everything that crossed the Nadder's mind subsequently came out of her beak. 'Chatty' as a description did not do her constant nattering justice.
Astrid might have been feeling less than charitable, but that was the Nadder's fault too.
"Interesting." The Nadder fell blessedly silent for a few moments, which usually signaled a change in topic. "How old are you?"
That was a question with an easy answer, at least. "Fifteen." She felt older now, and she wasn't even at all sure how old her dragon body was, come to think of it, but she had been inarguably fifteen as of a few weeks ago.
"Wow, you're old," the Nadder exclaimed. "I'm not even ten yet!"
That came as absolutely no surprise, though Astrid was under the impression that dragons grew to adulthood in at most a few years, so the Nadder was technically an adult even if she was less than ten years old. It was only a coincidence that she reminded Astrid of a chatty toddler.
"Also," the Nadder added, "You're the same age as the male Bolt, and I think that's about the age of your body now. So that has not changed, at least."
Astrid didn't really want to be told she shared anything with that Night Fury, not even something as unimportant as age. "I don't care."
"I know, but it's a nice coincidence." The Nadder looked back at her. They were flying together in theory, but in practice Astrid had managed to silently convey that she wished to fly a little behind the Nadder. This way, she did not feel like she was being chased, and the Nadder had to strain to hear her. Petty, but that was all she had.
"What?" Astrid asked sharply, glaring at the staring irritant flying in front of her. Despite her resolution to be on good terms with her guard, the Nadder really was getting on her nerves.
"You seem stressed. Is it because you will have to fight in the raid? Do not worry, I will make sure you're safe." She flexed her tail spines. "You might have been training against me, but I got better too."
If the Nadder thought fighting Snotlout and the others meant she was a good fighter, she was in for quite the nasty shock. Aside from Astrid herself, none of the teens had been at all good in the arena. It would be ironic for the Nadder to get caught or killed in this raid, mere days after being broken out...
But if the Nadder planned on sticking by Astrid as ordered, she'd be far from the fighting. Astrid was going to take up the traditional role of the Night Fury, with one difference.
She was going to miss. Over and over again, by a lot, if she even fired at all. She knew Inferna had ordered her to participate, but there was no way she was going to kill Berkians, and nobody could blame her for not knowing how to aim – or how to use her fire in the first place – if this was her first time firing intentionally. Inferna might insist she practice to rectify that failing, but for this raid at the very least, Astrid was covered. She would cause no death or even destruction, and in the process, she was going to ruin the Night Fury's reputation. That was some small revenge.
She still held a grudge against the Night Fury. He had turned her into this, and what was more, he had brought her and Hiccup to the nest to start with. He was directly responsible for several deaths and what in her mind amounted to a maiming and imprisonment, at the very least. He needed to suffer for that...
Though he was already suffering to some extent. She had barely seen him in the last week; he was stuck at the nest, living off of the fish Blazes brought for him, and drinking dirty water. Grounded, unable to even stretch his wings and fly, a pastime as integral to dragons as walking was for humans. By all she knew, there was absolutely nothing more to his life than that. Skulking around an island he physically could not leave, stuck with a horribly boring, substandard existence, and his own thoughts. The Night Fury was trapped in its own personal Hel, unable to leave or even hope for anything more.
She could not see that as anything but fair punishment, far more so than killing him would be.
"What do Flightless eat?" the Nadder asked, breaking the all too brief silence.
Astrid sighed. This was going to be a long flight.
~O~o~O~
Berk, laid out below her, had never looked so vulnerable. Astrid moaned quietly at the sight of a blackened, charred heap where her home had once stood. It was so destroyed that the village hadn't even been able to get rid of it yet, a pile of ash and burnt-out wood that probably collapsed at a touch. They would need shovels to make a dent in that pile, not just people to remove rubble.
Her parents were gone. It struck her at odd times, though she had expected this one. She had already resigned herself to never speaking to or even seeing them again; her whole situation precluded it. But knowing they no longer lived was so much worse. Like losing something she had given up but never really forgotten and always harbored the faint, impossible hope of reclaiming one day. Even the fantasy of seeing them again was dead now.
"We want food, and Inferna did not specify what kind," Mentor called out, lacking some of his usual confidence, his voice low and solemn. "Take any prey you can find and try to avoid being cornered. They will be wary after what we did here, and more vicious than usual." He looked over at Astrid. "Female Bolt, Inferna ordered you to participate. What would you do?"
"Fire from above. I will die if I try to raid and fight like the rest of you." That was probably just as true for the actual Night Fury, were he able to be here. Nobody would know what she was at first, were they to see her, but the moment she roared or fired every Viking in the village would be willing to sacrifice themselves to kill her and earn untold glory. She would never survive such a frenzied onslaught, especially with seasoned warriors such as Chief Stoick and Gobber thrown into the mix. Berk was good at fighting dragons, and far, far better at it than she was at being a dragon.
"Acceptable," Mentor agreed. "My mate, you will call it for us?"
Mentor's mate growled lightly. "Yes, I will. Watch out for the big one. He took our son. He is dangerous." She looked over at her son, who was flying nearby, staring nervously down at Berk. "You will stay with me. I must begin teaching you to do what I do."
"Dam, I can fight," he objected.
"So can I, but I can do more good up here with my judgment," she said firmly. "I want you close. You will stay with me and observe."
The flock once again split up, several different groups each following a Nightmare down. One group went to the fields, while the others approached the village from several angles. Unlike on Outcast island, the Vikings of Berk were far too numerous and close to the fields to ignore; this fight would last as long as the villagers could be kept away from the fields, and no longer. Once they got there, Mentor's mate would call it, because Astrid knew well that the fields were where most dragons died in any given raid. They were grouped up and vulnerable there, and Berk had the numbers to exploit that.
Mentor's mate might also call out targets for Astrid if she flew close enough to hear her. She didn't want that to happen, so she glided away while Mentor's mate was busy explaining her role in the fight to her son.
The Nadder, of course, trailed her, thankfully silent so as to not call attention to them. Said Nadder's decidedly bright body coloration would draw attention anyway once Astrid began to fire, but she was fine with that. The mystery and dreadful reputation surrounding Night Furies were inevitably going to take some hits as she was one of them and nothing like the legends. That might as well start now.
Tonight, Berk would not only see a Night Fury miss, they'd be able to see where she was by following the Nadder. They wouldn't be able to strike back, she was far too high up for that, but she would be seen. That was more than anyone had managed in centuries.
"So... do you have friends?" the Nadder asked, out of the blue. "Anyone you want to avoid blasting? I can help you spot them."
Astrid gritted her needle-like teeth and told a mixture of lies and truth, fully aware of the hidden triggers she had to step around, lest she call down death on someone else. She had thoroughly learned that lesson. "I have no friends down there," which was technically true, as even Ruffnut was an acquaintance at best, "and I don't care who my shots hit." That was a misdirection, because she did care if her shots hit people, if not who. "I already lost the only thing I care about here."
That was actually pretty close to the truth too, but Astrid knew better than to elaborate. She would hate to see Gobber go, for instance, even if she was not friends with her old teacher, but if she said that the Nadder might be triggered by Inferna's command on the subject and do her best to find and kill Gobber.
No, that was not happening. As far as any dragon was concerned, the only individuals Astrid cared about in the human world were dead. End of story.
The fight below was… going. She could not root for either side, and thus could not say whether it was going well or poorly. As far as she was concerned, they were all victims playing out Inferna's little game. Inferna was like a conceited Viking playing both sides of a Maces and Talons game, and using living, feeling pieces to play. Cruel, in control, and sure she was going to win.
Astrid might have continued that metaphor, and maybe placed herself against Inferna, but that was not who she was. She was just another piece on the board, not a player. A piece that would rebel if the chance arose, but still just a piece. One that hated the player and the game.
She had waited long enough. It was time to start taking and missing her shots, so she could say she tried. Astrid inhaled… and remembered that she hadn't yet figured out her own fire. She had fired once, right here on Berk, but not since then and certainly not consciously.
Thinking back to that horrible moment, she could remember using both sets of muscles in her chest. If it was anything like flying, she needed to want to do it and then let her instincts take over. She decided that she would shoot at an entirely empty hillside too rocky to use for anything, near to but not in the village, and concentrated on her ears. Focus on something else, know what needed to be done...
Her body reacted for her, inhaling, cutting off air, letting out that noxious gas, and then coughing, pushing out and sparking it somehow. A blast of blue fire rocketed into the rocks and exploded.
Now she knew how to fire. It was a three-step process, though one she could do in a heartbeat if she needed to. Breathe in, cut off air and let out gas, cough to spark and propel it forward. There was probably a lot more to it than just that, ways to control speed, accuracy, or maybe even the size of the blast, but she didn't care. Inferna would force her to learn soon enough, and for now she was going to exploit her lack of knowledge, not correct it.
"That was pretty close," the Nadder said encouragingly. "You were aiming for the wooden thing on top of the hill, right? Try again!"
Astrid did exactly that, missing her 'target' of a hut on the outskirts of the village by an even wider margin, again hitting the same worthless, rocky skree. She didn't know what her shot limit was, but she intended to find out. The sooner she was out of fire, the sooner she was done pretending to participate.
"Maybe just shoot at the center of their nest," the Nadder suggested. "You're bound to hit something." It seemed even her boundless optimism was failing to counter just how bad Astrid was at this.
It would be extremely suspicious if she disagreed, so Astrid muttered a low "okay" and turned toward the center of the village. Specifically, she aimed for the plaza at the base of the steps to the Great Hall, where absolutely nobody was at the moment. They were all off fighting dragons and making their way to the fields. She fired, more accurately than last time, and blew a large hole in the dirt, doing absolutely no real damage.
"Oh..." The Nadder looked over at her. "How can you be that bad at this?" she asked bluntly. "You missed all of those wooden things and every single Flightless down there!"
"I just learned to fire with that first shot, of course I am no good at it," Astrid explained. "I am trying." And succeeding, at least at her own personal goal.
"Maybe having you up here isn't going to be much help tonight," the Nadder said sadly. "But you can get better, right? With practice."
"With practice," Astrid agreed, turning back to the rocky slopes from before. "I'll keep aiming for that one hut. I need a consistent target." She also needed a good, open place to waste her shots, and that spot was perfect.
"Good idea," the Nadder conceded. "There's a Flightless there now too, so you might get it by accident."
Astrid flew a little lower, staring at the idiot perched atop a boulder near the bottom of the hillside, hiding like a coward from the fight raging near the fields.
Or maybe he was investigating where she had shot. That actually wasn't a terrible idea; if she was shooting at a specific place with nothing of any apparent value, there had to be something she saw worth shooting. No Viking would ever guess she saw the field itself as a good target, so it stood to reason from their perspective that there might be something there they didn't know about. Night Furies didn't miss.
Of course, the Viking in question was now finding out there really wasn't anything to protect or investigate. He looked around wildly, his sword out and ready for the attack that wasn't coming.
His flailing was familiar, a combination of authoritative and hesitant as he tried desperately to look confident while figuring out what was expected of him before anyone watching realized he was clueless... She recognized Snotlout's stupid sword and the way he walked, even from this distance.
Astrid cast a covert glance at her guard. A lone Viking she could fairly accurately predict offered possibilities. She could go down there, bringing the Nadder along, and let Snotlout do what he did best: mindlessly attack the nearest dragon. He might take the Nadder down and rid Astrid of her annoying presence.
No, that was a bad idea. The Nadder didn't deserve to die just because she was annoying, and there was the chance she would kill Snotlout instead, who also did not deserve to die for the same offense.
Then, a different, crazier idea occurred to Astrid. She needed a way to pass on some of the things she had learned, and would learn in the future. A messenger. Here was someone she knew, and someone who wasn't that good at fighting yet. Someone who wouldn't run away screaming, like Fishlegs, or try and use her to pull pranks, like the twins. Someone whose ambition she could use to hold his silence. He was just sly enough to consider keeping her a secret on the promise of being the one to 'realize' everything she learned.
Of course, all of that was meant to justify trusting Snotlout with her life's only remaining purpose. If he messed it up, she could die. He could die, for that matter, though that was really another point in favor of her using him as her go-between; if her messenger was going to be at risk, it might as well be Snotlout, since she didn't like him that much. She wouldn't deliberately put him in danger, but if he was willing to risk it she wouldn't stand in his way.
He would do, if she could get him to understand. If she could corner him, alone, somewhere private without anyone else on Berk noticing. For that, she'd never get a more perfect opening.
But she needed a cover story. A way to get the Nadder off of her back, so she could do what needed to be done. This would never work if a watchful dragon was breathing down her neck the whole time.
She needed to think of an excuse the Nadder would understand and believe… One that got rid of her for a bit, and did so in a way that would make her think she knew what was going on. One that didn't remind the Nadder of her promise to keep an eye on Astrid, though said promise never said she had to do so at all times.
A plan formed in Astrid's mind. A sneaky, manipulative one she would have expected of the twins. She knew what the Nadder knew, and she knew what the Nadder didn't know, at least about one particular subject.
"I think I know him," Astrid snarled, letting rage drip from her words to prevent Inferna's command from triggering before the Nadder heard the rest of her story. "Death by fire is too good for him."
"Who is it?" the Nadder asked curiously, looking down. "My eyesight is not as good as yours. I can see it, but just barely. You recognize it from this far away?"
"It would take too long to explain," Astrid improvised. "Just know that this is one… Flightless… I will enjoy killing, slowly and painfully. And I need your help to do it."
"Got it!" The Nadder chirped happily. "What do you need?"
Inferna had made a mistake in letting the Nadder be Astrid's guard. This particular Nadder was gullible and enthusiastic, a dangerous combination. "I need you to get down there and watch the other Flightless. If any enter the woods, come tell me." None would, because there would be no reason to, but the Nadder didn't know that. "This is very important. Do not let any slip by without you noticing, but also do not be seen by them."
"What will you be doing?" the Nadder chirped curiously.
Astrid did not hold back a happy warble. She was glad the Nadder was going along with this, not anticipating bloody vengeance, but the Nadder wouldn't know the difference. "I am going to pick him up, fly him out into the forest, and enjoy my revenge. I will rejoin the others when they leave."
"Okay!" The Nadder flew down and out, away from the village, off to begin her pointless patrol, happy with her task.
Astrid's own task would be far more eventful and difficult. She swooped down, flying low and silently, and took in her target as she approached.
Snotlout was bent over, looking at one of the small craters she had left earlier. His sword was in his hand, but she knew how to handle that. He always dropped it when surprised, a terrible habit for a warrior that had not yet been beaten out of him. Something to exploit.
Her body handled the rest for her. She swooped down, grabbed his shoulders with both of her back paws, and used her momentum to dart back up into the air, flying as fast as she could without risking dropping him. The distinct clang of metal on stone rang out as she grabbed him, easing her worries on the possibility of being stabbed.
Besides, judging by the decidedly unmanly screaming he was doing, fighting back wasn't on his mind at the moment. It would be suicidal to try and hurt her now anyway. The smart move would be to get his own grip on her so she couldn't just drop him, and wait to be brought back to solid ground before attacking. Not that he was smart, but that was common sense. She wondered how long it would take him to come to the obvious conclusion.
Astrid counted her own heartbeats as she flew over the forest, out to sea. One, two, three...
She made it up to thirty-eight before she felt him twisting in her grip and grabbing the wrist of her right paw, gripping for dear life, still screaming all the while. She was unimpressed; more than thirty heartbeats was quite a while to take to come to one's senses. She would have done it within ten.
Not that it mattered. Snotlout didn't know it, and neither did the Nadder, but there would be no bloody demise coming his way. Probably a few cuts and bruises, and a very bruised ego, along with a shattered view of what was possible in this world, but no death.
Astrid swooped low, passing over Berk's cliffs and out into the air above the ocean, and quickly chose a sea stack. Too high to safely jump from, too far from Berk to swim, but close enough that she could bring him back to Berk under the guise of just circling around to follow the other dragons as they left.
Then she was over the sea stack, but she couldn't just drop him, that was asking for him to do something stupid. Instead, she flapped her wings forward, slowing herself dramatically, and landed on her front paws, kicking out with her back ones and quickly dislodging Snotlout. He hit the stone with a startled 'oof' and was silent. The wind must have been knocked out of him.
Astrid spun and reared above him, glaring down at his tauntingly human form. Seeing him like this, so small before her, was a shock. She was used to him being bulkier and the same height, not towering above him and being able to literally crush him if she wanted to.
The abject fear in his eyes was new too. She liked that; it was much better than the overconfident, vaguely lustful way he used to look at her. He wouldn't be making any advances now.
Now, to get down to business. She didn't have a lot of time. She dropped down onto all fours and pinned Snotlout to the stone with her left paw on his chest, pushing down just hard enough that he would be concentrating on breathing above fighting or screaming.
"Hah..." he panted, futilely pushing at her paw, "I win. First... Berkian to see... a Night Fury."
She was mildly impressed despite herself. He had managed to regain his cocky attitude even in the face of imminent death. She had been expecting him to cry or beg for mercy, or maybe just faint once he knew how dead he was.
No matter. So much the better if he was coherent. She stuck out her other paw, right by his head, and unsheathed her claws, before painstakingly sheathing all but one. That was oddly difficult, but thankfully possible.
He stared at the wickedly sharp claw by his head, true fear in his eyes, but bravado in his voice. "Gonna need... a bigger claw... to kill... a Jorgenson!"
Astrid sighed and shook her head. She set the claw down on the stone by his head, and quickly scratched out a single word formed in runes all Vikings were forced to learn. Even Snotlout, stupid as he was, could read.
'Third.'
It felt right that she would make contact by correcting his bragging.
Snotlout was still watching her paw, but he didn't seem to understand what she had done. "Now it's blunt," he panted, still unable to fully catch his breath thanks to her paw on his chest. "Stupid..."
It was the angle. He needed to see it from above, not from the side.
Astrid slid her paw off of Snotlout, reared back, and dropped onto his shoulders, both paws gripping. Then she sat up, pulling him with her, and spun him around, grabbing the back of his tunic with her teeth and then her claws. Next, her tail went to the back of his knees, forcing him to kneel.
He was still fighting, however unsuccessfully, thinking this an attack. She held him there, her tail pinning his legs and her claws holding his sturdily-woven tunic. Eventually, he would look down.
She knew the moment it happened. His arms froze mid-swing, then slowly fell until they hung limp at his sides.
"Third?" he muttered in confusion. A simple word, but it meant she had gotten through to him. She let him go and stepped back. Now that he knew her intention, communication, she had to let him go. If only because she could not write and hold him like that at the same time.
He backed up to the edge of the sea stack, his right boot's heel just barely hanging off over the water, and stared at her as if she had... well, done exactly what she did. There was nothing more shocking than being abducted and forced to see that the animal that had done said abducting was anything but.
"Who beat me?" he asked.
If she still had hands, she would have smacked her own forehead with enough strength to bruise. All the questions in the world, and he chose that one! She supposed she should just be thankful he wasn't going to be hysterical or in denial like she had been, but… still.
'Hiccup. Astrid.' she painstakingly scratched out, taking care to make the runes the right side up for him to read. 'Hiccup dead. Astrid here.' Simple, short messages. He was likely not very good at reading, even if he did know how, and the shorter the better for her claw.
"Hiccup and Astrid..." Snotlout groaned angrily. "Of course. They beat me at everything now."
Astrid stamped her paw on the rest of the message impatiently.
"Hiccup is dead, but Astrid's not?" Snotlout looked up at her, coming just short of meeting her gaze. "Then where is she? Are you here to bargain with me for her life?" He puffed his chest out, suddenly growing far more relaxed. "Yes! Finally, a chance to show my worth!"
He took a step forward, his arms wide. "I am Snotlout Jorgenson, son of Spitelout Jorgenson, and I will bargain for my princess's life. Did she ask for me specifically? I bet she did."
So not only was he not bothered by her writing in Norse runes, he was now deluded. Well, if it let her get her messages across, fine. He was about to have a very rude wake-up call, in any case.
It took her a moment to figure out how to give her anwer in a way that would effectively deflate him while not being so absurd as to be unbelievable, and then a while longer to scratch it all out, but he waited as patiently as any Jorgenson was capable of. 'I am right here. Like the stories. Not the kind you are thinking of.'
Snotlout slowly read that aloud, his bravado visibly leaving him as it sunk in. He looked up at her with new eyes. "Not that kind of story..."
Astrid kept expecting it to all fall apart. For him to deny it, or freak out, or just flat-out refuse to read any more. Maybe to attack, or to be sure she was lying. There were a thousand ways he could screw this up, but somehow he was reacting perfectly. Astonished, tentatively believing, and calm.
"Prove it. This could be a trick." He crossed his arms. "Well?"
'You moved into your parents' basement recently,' she wrote. It was the first thing that came to mind that the Nadder wouldn't have known. If a dragon stuck in the arena didn't know it, surely no dragon could know it.
"So?" he retorted. "Everyone on Berk knows that."
She didn't know whether to be frustrated or to concede the point. She settled for asking 'Would a Night Fury know?'
"If you held Astrid prisoner and interrogated her!" he exclaimed. "I bet she said a lot about me!"
'Then there is nothing I can do.' So this was how it fell apart. He wouldn't believe it because she couldn't prove it. That was anticlimactic. She had expected something more dramatic.
Then inspiration struck. 'Except betray the ones who did this to me. That is why I am here.' If he didn't believe she was Astrid, at least he could believe that she was a Night Fury who wanted to betray the dragons.
Snotlout read that neutrally. "Really. That's it? Nothing else you could do? No questions you might ask me?" He met her gaze for the first time, staring right into her eyes with a lopsided scowl.
His anger threw her for a loop, especially as she didn't understand. He was clearly expecting and not getting some crucial thing, something he was sure she would ask about–
'Please,' she wrote, suddenly frantic to know the answer, 'tell me my parents were not home.'
Snotlout's face fell. "I guess it really is you," he muttered. "Only Astrid would forget about that because she had something more practical to do. A faker would have started with that."
That stung, but if he believed... Astrid slammed her paw down on the last thing she had written. He needed to tell her. There was a small chance they still lived, one she hadn't even considered until he brought it up. He wouldn't say something like that if–
He shook his head, sending her heart right back to the bottom of her stomach. "They were home. Both of them. We sent a ship full of ash to Valhalla yesterday, just to be sure, but it wasn't the same without anything but ash."
So that was it. She slumped, the hope leaving her as fast as it came.
"What happened? And how do I get you back? And why did you grab me?" Snotlout asked, almost frantically, his hands clenching and unclenching as he spoke, as if seeking a weapon to fondle for comfort. "I mean, I'm obviously the best man for the job, but Fishlegs might actually know something about how to undo this sort of thing. I can ask him!" He turned to jump off of the sea stack and swim back to Berk, before evidently thinking better of it and turning back to her.
Astrid heard a distant roar and knew her time was short. 'I must go,' she quickly scratched out. ' I am loyal to Berk. Tell no one of what happened here. If you keep this secret, I will reward you.' There was more, far more, but all of that was going to have to wait. She didn't have time.
"Reward?" He looked her over, shuddering slightly. "Maybe after I find a way to change you back."
She didn't have time to – no, she did. She slapped him across the face with her tail, and then wrote 'not that kind of reward.'
"So what kind?" he asked, rubbing his cheek, completely unphased. Apparently, any intimidation her new body engendered was blunted now that he knew who she was.
'Glory. Being the one to reveal what I have learned of dragons. Maybe the dead body of a Night Fury.' That would be the end game. Once Inferna was gone, she could put the Night Fury out of his misery, and in doing so kill two Terrors with one stone. The Night Fury's fate and Snotlout's silence.
"Yours?" he asked skeptically. "I mean, I'm going to figure out how to change you back. Not kill you."
'Not mine. The real Night Fury. I must go. Will you stay silent?' She still felt as if something was going to go horribly wrong, despite how well this had turned out. If he wasn't convincing, she would leave him here.
"For a Night Fury, glory, and you owing me a huge favor?" he said slyly. "And one more thing. When I get you back to normal, you have to kiss me in front of the whole village."
If she was ever in a position to seriously consider honoring that promise, then he had earned it. 'Deal.' She offered her tail, lacking any better limb to shake a hand with.
To his credit, Snotlout knew what she meant by that, and tentatively shook her tail by the very tip. "This is so weird. Don't despair, I'll save you, my princess!" he declared confidently.
Astrid grabbed him by the tunic and legs, flew the short distance back to Berk with him dangling under her, and dropped him off on the edge of the cliffs, a short walk away from the village. She left him there and quickly flew up to meet the other dragons, who were just now regrouping to leave.
His parting words stuck in her mind, even as she flew away. As far as she knew, and she knew far more than he did, it could not be done. Dragons had all the magic, and they couldn't do it. Humans surely were no better, having no inherent magic of their own that she knew of. But there was a slim chance Snotlout might actually come up with something. He was certainly motivated to try.
She would not get her hopes up. It almost certainly wasn't happening. Him thinking it might be possible was good, because she suspected that was the biggest reason he had so easily accepted the utter absurdity of the situation so quickly. It fed into his need to be the hero, and the whole situation did resemble the plot of a particularly fanciful story. Girl hates boy, girl is cursed into the body of a dragon, boy turns her back, girl loves boy. Snotlout was certainly hoping for that outcome.
It would never happen. If he somehow turned that Jorgenson stubbornness into a way to do the impossible, she would be immensely grateful, but she would still dislike him as a person. That one promised kiss would be all he ever got.
But she was pretty sure she'd never be able to give it, anyway. She needed him to more effectively spite her enemy, not save her.
Author's Note: I quite enjoyed skipping a lot of the usual 'convincing that she's actually a dragon, and then questioning whether or not to kill her' by making Snotlout eager to be the hero of his own fantasy. If the dragon says he can be that hero, who is he to question it? We shall see how that plays out.