Hello everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter, and most of February to go along with it. This chapter is, admittedly shorter that the first, but It'll hopefully be more monumental in the long run. Anyways, I hope that you all

One more thing: I Digress. A lot. I'm trying to work on it, but it's difficult not to think about things that will be happening much later in the story. Thanks!
How to Train Your Dragon is property of Dreamworks Animation SKG Inc., and Cressida Cowell.

As many times as Astrid would come to look back at that day, at those few, unbelievably impactful moments in time, she could never quite say exactly what happened, though she did her best to tell the tale later on, when all was said and done.

The first thing she could remember was pain. A burning liquid hotter than dragonfire had spilled on top of her, and the only description for it she could think of was that it was eating her, gnawing away at any surface on her body that it touched. Luckily, the majority of the liquid had missed her head, but was quickly chewing through her shoulder protectors, which weren't designed with acid-spilling buckets in mind. She was vaguely aware of something flying towards Toothless, (who was already quite frantic at the time) before he was torn out of her line of sight. As she desperately ripped at her armor in an attempt to prevent the acid from touching the parts of her body that had been untouched by the liquid, a single drop from the vase (which was still somehow balanced in the tree) fell onto her arm… Right next to her ugly, puss-filled scar, still concealed under the now rotted, crumbling bandage.

HEAT. It had to have been at least double the intensity of the original dose that had landed on her revealed skin, as though the bitterness of the flesh wound and the potency of the liquefied mixture had combined to create the most disgusting, agonizing itch she had ever experienced in her entire life.

But then… it changed.

First, a resurgence of pain exploded from the wound, the weakened bandage finally collapsing under the pressure of her scar, revealing a smokey-gray, plated surface surrounding the scratch. Later on she realized that it must have started to rain around that point, but it had been impossible to focus on anything - her vision had gone red and fuzzy a long time before that.

Next came a resurgence of the eating. But… It was almost the opposite. Rather than the acid biting into her flesh, it felt almost as though something had come crawling out of her skin on her legs, arms and face, quickly taking away the pain from the acid, before spreading out over the rest of her flesh, the liquid no longer the issue. With a scream, Astrid had fallen to the ground, only to find little pain there, as the virus had by then covered the majority of her backside.

Yet another strange sound came from her mouth as she felt her muscles expand and contract in ways she didn't think were possible. Another wave of pain washed over her, this time originating from her hands and feet.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME? The thought pushed to the surface through the turmoil of change sweeping over her body. "AM I BEING PUNISHED?" She yelled into the dark, cloudy sky above her, her voice cracking as tears rolled down her cheeks. They answered only with a distant rumble of thunder, but Astrid took it as the worst possible omen.

Oh please gods let me go to Valhalla I know I've made some mistakes but I am a warrior I can't die like this I can't lose Hiccup I can't…

She looked down at her hands again, which were at that point completely covered in the… scales. They were definitely scales. As a matter of fact, they almost seemed familiar…

A crazy idea entered her mind. It was ridiculous and insane, and went against everything she had grown up believing… but it explained the things that were happening to her… Though not WHY.

She was able to spare a moment to glance over at Toothless, who still seemed to be grappling with the... bola, which was trapping his wings and rear feet. He looked more or less unharmed, but was still struggling to crawl towards her, without much luck.

She looked back at her hands. Yes, she had definitely seen these scales before, touched them, but they were a different color this time…

The change was happening at a much quicker pace by then, and Astrid could feel the energy being sapped out of her body as the last of the scales finished covering her face, more or less bringing some relief to the crawling sensation on her skin. Desperate to know if she was right, hoping even more so that she wasn't, she tried walking towards a small puddle that had been created by the then steady pour of rain descending from the heavens.

Astrid's clothes were all but completely torn off, as several horribly sharp talons began to extend from her hands, which could barely even be considered those anymore. The webbing between her fingers had extended and thickened, until there was barely any separation between them aside from small nubs.

Astrid collapsed to the ground again as her arms and legs thickened and thinned, grew and shrunk, curved into positions they were never meant to be in. Astrid screamed as she tried to stand once again, only to fall onto her new, fully transmogrified legs. The puddle in front of her had grown larger and deeper as the rain came down harder, and it was by then only a few feet away.
She was briefly aware of lightning flashing overhead, with a resounding BOOM of thunder to match, before her face began to change as well.

She felt her eyes grow to at least twice their normal size, and her vision began to fluctuate, changing between an extremely bright, drained, black and white hue, and her normal, color-filled vision. Her pupils felt as though they were on fire.

Another lightning strike flashed above as Astrid reached the one of now many small pools of water in the clearing. Something was on fire in the forest, and she could faintly hear Toothless's screams becoming more and more desperate somewhere behind her.

Just before she got to the small pool, she shrieked once again as the bones in her face rearranged themselves for what seemed to be an eternity. Her ears elongated, and several flaps of skin with the slightest bit of muscle in them formed between them. The sound of the rain was suddenly amplified tenfold, and Toothless's desperate screaming even more so.

Her nose receded into her face, as her mouth ripped open across her now large, disc-like countenance. With a single whiff of air, Astrid could smell the raindrops glistening on the leaves in the trees, the stagnant fragrance of maple somewhere in the woods, the crisp burning of lightning in the air… and she hated it.

There was a final flash of lightning and a godlike crash of thunder in the air above Astrid as she finally reached the puddle. It was brief, but the reflection in the in the small pool illuminated by the lightning was unmistakable.

Staring back at Astrid was the terrified blue-eyed face of a dragon.

Of a Night Fury.

Before she could react, there was an eruption of agony from Astrid's back and hind quarters, and she doubled over in pain again. Before she blacked out, she almost thought she could remember something running towards her…

Syl was screwed.

Sure, galavanting through a clearing in the woods she might have been able to forgive herself for; she had literally just been disowned by her entire tribe and sent into exile on an enemy island - even she could be a bit distracted by something like that.

But of course, the one idiot she had made it her personal goal to take out, and his stupidly admirable counterpart, just had to fly over that exact clearing at that very moment. That was just her clumsy, rotten, no-good luck.

She was more than lucky to dodge those spikes 'Astrid' had gotten her dragon to launch in front of Syl, though she did have the advantage of preparation on her side.

She had been fortunate enough to see 'Astrid' and that dragon of hers (seriously, how did they train those beasts?) practicing the maneuver earlier that day in the island's old killing ring.

Of course, she'd had more than enough experience with dragons, as well…

The getaway after that was more or less quite easy. She'd known from the start that the boy was rather dependent upon the dragon, but stopping the chase after a measly crash? That was just ridiculous, even with only one proper leg.

The girl, on the other hand… She was living up to her reputation of the annoyance Syl figured she would be. She had already seen her fly over her hiding spot a few times on that stupid Night Fury, but it would be impossible to find Syl. If nothing else, She was a master of camouflage. She prided herself on her ability to hide anywhere, at any time. Granted, this hadn't helped her make any friends, and judging by what Bjarke had said earlier, it wasn't exactly her most admirable trait in the village, either.

Still, it had proven more than useful on several occasions, and could easily be turned to when all other options failed.

Granted, she hadn't exactly been doing it since she was little. Ages ago, she had been just like any other kid. Hell, she even got along with others her age then. She wasn't much for a warrior at first, (then again, none of the girls or guys at that age were into fighting that much. Even then, the worst that could happen was a small brawl over stuffed animals, and the like) but ever since the incident, ever since she'd lost him… she had just grown more and more distant from other people in the tribe.

Her mother had recovered all-too quickly for Syl. She had told her to just get over it, that that sort of thing happened all too often in raids… But it hadn't been a raid.

But her mother was right. If it wasn't then, it would have been a few years later. A nadder might have killed him, perhaps a fishing trip would've gone wrong. Either way, it didn't matter. He was gone.

After a few hours, the girl and the dragon were no longer a problem. They'd given up on the chase for whatever reason - something Syl had been counting on. She only could have waited there for a day or so, at best.

After she was certain the two had given up on the chase, she slowly moved out of her hiding spot. She had been more than lucky in finding a small patch of brush a few miles away from where she had landed, practically impossible to see from the air. It wasn't ideal, but at the time, she had been so scared that she would've taken a haunted shed if it meant a hiding place from her hunters. Alone, she could've taken at least one, if not both of them out. But both of them, on those damned dragons… She was less than prey.

Judging based on the friendliness of the tribe, they wouldn't kill her if she was captured. No, instead they would torture for hours with the worst weapons in the world: questions. Despite the fact that she was great at every other aspect of espionage missions, she had never been properly interrogated before. Sure, she'd been caught back on the island a few times, after some of her personal missions didn't go exactly as planned, but even then she was just dragged back to her mother, to which she eventually broke and told everything to, despite her personally built-up self resolve.

She had thought that this mission was too good to be true from the beginning. Her mother had practically forgotten everything Syl had ever done wrong at the time, convincing her that if she pulled this off, she would finally be accepted in the tribe. Of course, those hadn't been the exact words she had used, but still…

After running a few miles away from her hiding spot, she stopped and took note of her surroundings. It had started to rain again, the shower she had encountered in the cove obviously making its way over the island.

She was still in the forest, but seemed to have gone farther south. A few hundred feet ahead of her, a huge cliff towered into the sky, stretching a half mile in each direction before bending back down to level off with the forest she was already in. The cliff face itself was almost entirely flat, and was made up primarily of weathered, beaten rock that had remained there for hundreds of years. There were a few ledges on the lowest parts of the cliff, but after the first fifty feet, it would've been impossible to climb. Syl had no choice; she would have to go around, which would mean it would be dark before she found somewhere to bunk down for the night, or find some place to make camp where she was.

Of course, what exactly Syl was going to do, she had no idea. She doubted that she would be treated kindly, assuming she could somehow get back to her tribe. Bjarke had made that clear enough. Of course, there were always other places she could go. There were Daggur's Berserkers, who were always taking in new recruits and runaways. But they tended to look for a very specific type of warrior, and the requirements for that certainly did not fit her description. At the best, they might let her do some reconnaissance work in enemy tribes, but she doubted even that would be a possibility. Who knew? They'd probably just end up trying to sell her back to her mother, and that was a situation Syl definitely did not want to deal with...

Then and there, she made a decision. The rain had gotten much worse since she had left her hiding spot, and the clouds looked suspiciously dark enough to turn into a thunderstorm. She wouldn't be travelling very far that night.

Sighing as loud as she dared, Syl began her walk to the cliff.

Upon closer inspection, what had seemed like wet rock and shadows at first actually turned out to be dips and boulders lodged in the cliff. It looked as though a few landslides and storms in the past had made several crevices and hollows within the stone, carving out a natural statue. Turning right, and walking along the side of the face, Syl could see that some of the holes might even have been big enough for her to fit in. When it came to hiding, a fire was a great way to get herself caught or killed, and she didn't know how to make a tent of any kind. Although she hated to think about it, she might have had to settle down in one of the larger crevices for the night.

As she continued walking along the break, she heard the thunder growing closer and closer, and small streams began to run through the natural crevices in the stone. If she didn't want to be completely soaked through, she would have to find somewhere to sleep, fast.

The next thing that occured went far too quickly for Syl to know what was happening. All Syl knew was that it was the perfect way for Loki to cap off what had to be the worst day of her life.

A crack of lightning above her electrified the air around her, and she felt a heat she had never experienced before, in the normally cold and damp Veiklaðar climate. There was a deep, heavy rumbling up above her, and she raised her eyes to the cliff, only to be pelted by several clumps of dirt and pebbles that had slid off of the cliff.

As she raised her arm up to protect her face, her eyes widened as her line of sight reached the top of the cliff.

Several large boulders had broken free of their ancient resting grounds, and were rolling down the hill at a speed Syl less than preferred. A torrent of mud, gravel, and smaller rocks were cascading down just behind them, with a flood turning the dirt to slippery mud just behind that.

It was a proper, harmonious, beautifully chaotic landslide.

Syl didn't waste much time looking. Darting left across the face, she searched for any kind of shelter she could use to protect herself with. Sparing a precious moment, she glanced back up the cliff. The natural stampede was almost halfway down the crag.

Just in time, Syl found what she was looking for. A large indent had been formed in the side of the ridge, almost twice the height of her, and just as deep. It looked stable enough to not collapse under the pressure when the landslide hit, but she couldn't be sure. It was still thirty feet away.

The rocks were well over halfway down the cliff, and had almost reached the point at which the last moss and other frugal plant life still clung on, unknowing of their fate. Syl didn't get a good look, but she figured it must have been at least the same distance she was from the hollow, if not a bit more.

Breaking into an all-out sprint, Syl reached the small cavern and threw herself in, just as the landslide surged over the depression, leaving only a few small holes in the wall of rock and stone that now covered the entrance to see through. A few minutes later, when Syl was sure that the landslide was over, she uncurled herself from the fetal position, and got up.

Though she could still stand, the space seemed to be much smaller than it had been before, with the sheet of rocks having overflowed into it somewhat.

Feeling her way to where the opening had been, Syl pushed against the barrier with all the might she had, praying that it would give way. She tried for several minutes, at different areas along the wall, until she collapsed back down onto the ground in exhaustion. There may have been pressure points, or instabilities in the wall, but in the dark it was impossible to see, and it made no difference, anyways. She was stuck.

Oh, Loki was definitely laughing at her alright. The one time she got a chance at retribution, she was exiled, and trapped to be starved to death, all over the course of a measly few hours. Did she deserve this? Perhaps, given that she had made it her job to appeal to the... less accepted folk in her tribe, and ruin people's lives for a living. Of course, she'd never killed anyone, or any dragons, for that matter, but she had still done some pretty terrible things.

For the second time that day, in full mental and physical weariness, Syl collapsed to the ground and cried.

She thought about her father. He had more or less been a peaceful ruler (as peaceful as a Viking could be) but he'd had problems nonetheless. He would oftentimes take his stress of being chief out on others, which did include Syl all too many times. Oftentimes he would come home, throw his helm at the first living thing he saw, and yell and scream at anyone who bothered him for the rest of the day. But on his worst tantrums, he was always there, he would step in and tell Syl to hide upstairs in the cupboards. He had always protected her… Until one day, he couldn't.

When he died, her mother was there to console her, but her father… He lost his sanity. He couldn't bear the thought of him being gone. He had gone on a rampage through the village, marching himself up to the hall and locking himself in for almost a week and a half. Then one day, he came out. After that he ignored Syl as though she didn't even exist. She had asked herself, 'Why? Why do I have to suffer for this?' But she had never been able to bring herself to ask him.

Syl's crying had decreased to a slow, steady whimper. By this time, the space she was curled up in was pitch black, no moonlight being able to shine through the stormclouds, never mind the tiny holes in the stone.

Taking a shaky breath, Syl scooted as far back into the cave as she could go.

She missed her father. He was violent, but she had loved him, anyways.

But she missed her brother even more.

Astrid couldn't remember dreaming about anything. When she tried to recall what happened after she blacked out, she would always get a headache until it hurt too much to even try to remember.

She remembered waking up to something wet. It was the ground, but something about it was definitely off. No, strike that, everything was off. Her arms and legs felt like they must have been broken, but they didn't hurt at all. It felt as though her back was resting on a perfectly sculpted rock, and something was almost certainly wrong with her rear end. She could definitely feel the rain dripping down her skin, (was she naked?) but she didn't feel wet in the slightest. Most notably, however, were four points of pressure on her chest. Something was pinning her down.

Hesitantly, she opened her eyes, only to find two very angry-looking emerald-green ones with slit pupils staring back at her. Instinctively, she tried to move away from the threat, which felt wrong on multiple accounts, but she couldn't. The dragon above her pressed down harder, and suddenly Astrid felt completely exhausted.

Suddenly, she winced as she felt a...presence, in her mind, followed by a single piercing thought, "WHAT DID YOU DO WITH HER?!" It was the most surreal experience she'd ever had in her life, as though someone had directed a thought into her mind. It sounded different from her normal thoughts, as well. It had a sort of tone, like a voice, deep and suspicious, yet somehow relatable. But the tone seemed to encompass an entire personality within itself, like each word explained a new fact about whatever the thing was. How she knew any of that, Astrid had no idea.

Seeing her confused look, Toothless - she could see it was Toothless, now (but why did he seem smaller than normal?) - reared his head back up slightly, but kept his glare settled on her, suspicion in his eyes. Astrid could see that the storm had stopped, but a light shower was still falling from the misty gray sky above her. Then the thing spoke in her mind again.

"The girl! What did you do, kill her? Eat her? We're not at war with the humans anymore!"

At war with the… Oh, gods. Oh, GODS. It all came back to her then. The trap, the Lightning, The acid, whatever the hell happened after the acid, Hiccup… Oh, gods, Hiccup! Where was he? Was he still hurt? And the voice, that must have been...

Groaning, she tried to sit up, to be pushed back down easily by Toothless. Failing that, she tried talking, only to hear a growl come out of her throat. She closed her eyes in shame, then tried again, to no better avail. Finally she tried what she had been afraid to, something she didn't understand. She focused her mind on a single thought, balled it up, then… threw it to the Night Fury pinning her down. Despite the fact that it took all of her energy away, it still seemed to come out incredibly weak. "...Toothless…"

His eyes grew larger as he processed what she had said, and his feet released some of their pressure. "Astrid… It can't… You can't… How... No… NO!" He stood on his hind legs and roared to the sky, "YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO HER! YOU CAN'T…" Astrid thought she heard him say something else, but just then, the last of her energy gave, and she blacked out again.

When she next came to, Astrid could hear more thunder and rain, and a voice. It wasn't Toothless this time, but it was one that she would recognize almost anywhere. She only heard small bits of sentences, but later on she thought she could piece together the message. "My gods, Toothless! Another… Think about what this means… Can you carry… Need to get her under… Where did this storm…" She blacked out again soon after.

When she next woke up, she was in a cave. There was a fire in front of her somewhere which cast strange-looking shadows on the wall. She moved to get up, before her mind was occupied again, "No no no, Astrid. I know you're probably freaking out right now but just, uh, get some rest. Hiccup's okay, and he'll be back soon. Everything's okay. Just go back to sleep."

How could he say that? She had been turned into a… a dragon, for Odin's sake. How was she expected to believe that everything would be fine?

He had been right about one thing - Astrid needed to get back to sleep. She still felt incredibly tired and downright spent. And who knew? Hiccup was smart, he could find a fix for the mess she was in. Until then, she did need to rest. She was just... So.. Tired...