If Ruffnut doesn't say "You Know Nothing" to Eret at the beginning of How to Train Your Dragon 3, I'm going to be severely disappointed.
So, first off, yes - this chapter is incredibly late. But it is also incredibly LONG. That's right, at a total of over 13 thousand, 9 hundred words, this is the longest chapter I've written yet. I've been waiting to write this for weeks, and so when my last deadline came and it wasn't on time, I panicked and decided to 'extend' my time limit to another week. I am very sorry, but I believe I've made up for it, as well. Thanks to all of you that followed and favorited the story over the last few weeks, and a special thanks to those of you who commented - you keep this story going. Anyways, I wanted to say a lot more about this chapter, given that it's likely one of the most important yet, but instead I'm just going to say that I hope you enjoy this story as much as I love writing it. Kind of like that child you have that's a bit of a brat, but you really love anyways, because you can't wait to see what they're going to grow into. Me and my weird analogies.
Be sure to review and comment!
How to Train Your Dragon is property of Dreamworks Animation SKG, Inc.
Once Hiccup left, it took only the better half of two minutes for Astrid to experience her next crisis.
Toothless had wandered off into the woods for a moment on the premise that he needed to go find something before he asked her whatever he was going to ask her about, and that was when it happened.
"TOOTHLESS!" She sent the message out in the direction she had seen him coming from, hoping that he was still close enough to hear it. Sure enough, moments later, the Night Fury came bursting out of the forest, crushing several small trees under his feet as he ran over to her.
His thoughts were panicky and garbled, and she was only able to make out a few clear thoughts in the midst of his random, worried projection. "Astrid! What's wrong?! Are you hurt? Did someone attack you? Did someone attack Hiccup?!"
"Toothless…" Her eyes bulged, and she felt as though her world was falling apart around her, this new development only a small part in the hundreds of occurrences soon to come into play. "Toothless, I…" She slowly turned around to look at him, her face worrisome and her mouth agape. "WHERE DID MY TEETH GO?!" She asked frantically.
The Night Fury stared at her for a moment, catching his breath. "Your…" He stared into her terrified eyes for a moment, before they moved down to her mouth, which was devoid of all the pearly whites she was used to, only the pink gums and her tongue visible. After a moment, taking his time doing so, he proceeded to close his own mouth, sit down on his haunches, and quite unsympathetically burst out laughing. He fell down on the ground after a moment, letting out his average, deep-throated laugh combined with a hearty, all-too Hiccup-like one sent out to Astrid's mind. She did not join in.
"Toothless!" She tried to make the thought sound as much like a yell as she could, but it didn't seem to work, given that he continued to roll around on the ground laughing like a child. "This is not a JOKE! I was just sitting here, thinking about… Well, I don't know! And suddenly they just slid up into my mouth! How… How does that happen?! Why do they even do that?!"
After a moment, the dragon's laughing died down enough for him to send a message across, and he grinned at her stupidly.
"I don't know, Astrid," - he slid his teeth in and out of his mouth several times, mockingly, "Why DO they do that?"
"This isn't funny!"
She spread her lips a bit wider, and tried to bare her teeth at him as she had done plenty of times in the past, only to feel her tongue flop uselessly out of her mouth and hang there, stupidly. When Toothless saw this, his laughing fit returned twice as strong, but this time she at least gave him a moment to recover, glaring at him the whole time.
"I'm… Sorry, Astrid. But you have to admit, that is really… What do you say? Funny. If my kin in the old nest could see you…" He shook his head, still chuckling to himself, before trying to become more serious.
She looked up at him, her glare turning more into fear. "How do I… Make them come back?"
He thought for a moment. "You don't feel any control over them?" He asked.
She pulled her tongue back into her mouth, then shook her head and turned away from him, not meeting his gaze.
He narrowed his eyes. "You can, can't you? But you just don't want to, because it's too different. You're fighting it."
She didn't look back at him.
He sighed. "Astrid. I think I should tell you why I think you were able to run across the beach earlier, but can't now." He walked a few feet away, before adding, "And before I do, I need you to promise me that you won't run away when I tell you."
She narrowed her eyes at him.
"Toothless, if this is-"
"Just... Trust me, Astrid. I need to show you."
After a moment, she nodded, but still remained wary, ready to run OR attack if the situation required her to.
"I need you to say it, Astrid."
She raised her head up, letting her inner pride shine through. "I… Promise that I won't run away. On my honor as a warrior, and as your friend."
He seemed surprised for a moment, as if he hadn't expected her to respond that way, but he still nodded back and breathed out a huff of air through his nose that glistened like steam for a moment in the cold, early-autumn air, which dissipated not a moment later. Astrid didn't feel cold at all - likely the result of one of her newfound abilities. She would take three winters of freezing ice and snow just to get out of the mess she was in, though.
"Instinct," He began, startling her some. "That's what you call it, right? When there's something you don't really have control over, that's just part of how your body works?"
She nodded slowly, narrowing her eyes at him again. "Yeah, that's right… Toothless... where are you going with this?"
He didn't look at her. "Well, my kin and I obviously have… Instincts, too. And I think that when you woke up this morning, when you ran out of the cave and jumped on top of me," - She cringed as he said it - "I think you were just going by instinct… Dragon instinct."
She stared at him, the meaning of his words dawning on her. Her next message came out shaky, weak. "T-Toothless… You're not saying that I'm... Becoming-"
"Now, just listen to what I'm saying," He replied quickly. "It's not like you think. I… I don't think you're just… Turning into one of us, like that. If you were, I don't think it would be that quick, anyways. So, here's what I believe is happening," His thoughts were as reassuring and comforting as they could be, but she still felt on edge, unstable - ready to run at any moment.
"Like I said," he continued, "I've seen you in battle plenty of times in the past, many of those times alongside Hiccup. Up until he shot me down, I did not think that humans were this way as we are, but as I learned more about him, I realized that we are more alike than I thought. Than any of us thought. " He extended a talon out of his right front foot, then slowly brought it up to his face and examined it. "The Queen once told us that when in battle, the Gods will sometimes take over our bodies to prevent us from dooming ourselves, for they are better in skill and combat than we will ever be. I didn't believe her at first, before I began participating in the… Raids, as you call them. Up until then, I didn't think that the Gods could have such a direct impact on our lives. One day, the Queen declared that my training was complete. She sent me out to a nest far from here, and then it just… Happened. It seemed so quick and sudden that I didn't realize it had happened until it was over. My purpose was to take down the tall spires - towers, as you call them - in your nest. But once I did that, I wasn't sure what to do, so I landed on the ground a few feet away, thinking I would be safe there.
"Well, a human ran towards me out of nowhere, swinging his axe. I didn't know what to do, and for a moment I thought that that was it, that it would all end there. But then all of a sudden it was like my body took over. Then, I…" He cast his eyes downward, ashamed, and his thought trailed off. After a moment, he looked back up at her. "The point is, I've seen you and Hiccup do the same thing, in different ways. I've seen you both throw yourselves in front of each other - in front of me and Stormfly - just to protect us, to keep us safe. There's no excuse you can make for that - it's crazy and you know it'll probably get you killed, but you still do it."
"I'm not dead yet…" Astrid murmured back. The Night Fury sighed.
"But you could be. In battle, too, it's like you're a whole different being. You turn into a fierce warrior, an invincible leader who could convince anyone to fight by your side. And the ground-fighting I've seen you do - it's too fast. There's no way that you think about every move, every jump, punch, and swing of your axe before you do it. It's an incredible honor for one of the blood to be able to achieve that, and, well, that's what I think has happened to you." He paused for a moment, then continued, "I don't think that you're just turning into a dragon. I think that your instincts as a human in battle have simply been… Translated, over to your new body. When you woke up, your instinct was to run, and though I'm not sure why, your body simply obeyed your commands, without you even thinking about it. But here, when you aren't scared or angry anymore, you focus too much on walking, on what's happened to you. So... I don't think you're turning into one of us. You're just… Adapting."
Astrid sat for a moment, pondering his words and marveling at all she had learned about dragon's culture in the few hours she had been talking to one. She knew that Hiccup would want her to tell him everything when he turned her back - when he came back from the trap site, even - but she doubted that she could even remember everything he had told her about - memory had never been her strong point. She wasn't all that interested in it, either. At least, not as much as Hiccup would be. She had never quite had the urge to push questions that he had, but she had some things she wanted to clear up with the dragon, anyways. Besides… If he were there, Hiccup would want her to find out as much as she could about Toothless.
"Adrenaline."
"What?"
"Adrenaline," She replied. " I think that's what you're talking about."
She sat there and thought for a moment, then continued, "It's something that we all have - every creature, according to Hiccup. I don't know a lot about it, but apparently it's something that happens to us when we're under a lot of stress - that fighting or flying thing you were talking about earlier. It gives us extra power to do things that we usually can't, and kind of… Pushes us, to make a decision. I get what you're saying, and I'd like to believe you, but the other stuff - the stuff like what happened when Hiccup and I… Bonded - that…" - she shook her head - "That just isn't normal. I don't know what's going on, whether it's the Gods or a witch or some other dark magic at play… But there's something else here. Something... magical,. I mean, look what happened to me - this doesn't exactly happen every day. You don't know, or at least you're telling me that, and Hiccup doesn't seem to either. It's just… Too much to deal with right now. I just… I just want to go home." She felt ready to cry again, but knew from past experience that she probably couldn't even if she wanted to. It was something she'd never thought about before, something that, for once, she pitied dragons for - they couldn't cry.
"Thanks for that, Toothless," She looked down at the ground. "I… I guess that helps some. I needed it. I just hope that you're right."
She looked back up, and saw that he was staring at her.
Toothless's eyes were unreadable, and his gaze was more pointed at her than it was directed, as he pondered the new word she had taught him. After a moment, he narrowed his eyes at her, suddenly in focus, and startled her.
"Though maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you ARE just turning into a dragon without even realizing it. Honestly, I think I'M the victim here. I never liked you, not since I met you and you tried to attack me, and ESPECIALLY not considering that YOU'RE the one that makes Hiccup's life miserable every day. Really, all of the options in this world and they stick me with YOU as a mate? A weak, little human hatchling turned into something much more noble than she'll ever be able to live up to? Pathetic. Embarrassing, really. You're not even an attractive dragon - I've seen thousand-moon gronckles more appealing than you. I guess that's just my luck, tho-"
He never got to finish the thought. Astrid leapt on top of him, kicking and screaming curses in dragon-tongue, but this time he was ready. As soon as she was on his back, he reared his head and upper body as far as he could, sending her flying into the ground, shoving dirt into her mouth. He started to chuckle, but a moment later she had recovered, her body already adapting to the new fighting technique. After lifting herself back up, she swiveled back around, trying to flip her hair out of her face and reach for her axe, before remembering that she had neither. Nevertheless, she hissed and charged straight at him. He grinned in response. Her wings folded neatly onto her back, but she didn't notice. This time, he reared up his front paws just before she got to him, and so she locked onto them with her own talons as she jumped, locking them together and sending them rolling over each other a few times before coming to a stop, with Astrid glowering down menacingly at the no longer amused and now slightly frightened Toothless. Grunting, she brought her hind feet down to the ground, and wrestled her own talons out of his, bringing them out to sink into the soft dirt on either side of his head. She sneered at him, and growled, "How DARE you! I swear to THOR your cold, lifeless heart will be roasted on a stick and eaten in Asgard for saying that! I should have known never to trust a dragon - especially not a Night Fury that can talk to me! I swear you are TEN TIMES WORSE than Hiccup! Gods, you haven't been any good for him at all! But that stuff about me? As your MATE?! You're not that… Feral. You're not that LOW. You care about me, don't you? I can tell! You don't mean ANY of that - and you and I know it."
"Maybe not," Toothless replied, as a sly grin crept onto his face, "But it got your teeth back out."
Syl rarely prayed.
She had always thought the action was, quite frankly, stupid. She believed in the Gods, of course - there was proof of their existence - she had seen it with her own eyes, and if they weren't there, then what else was? Yet still, ever since she was little she believed that they would never want to help her, that she was under some terrible curse to never have anyone she could trust - and thus far, it had proven to be true.
But it wasn't only that - when she was younger - much younger - and her brother was still alive, he taught her to believe in the Gods more than anyone else in her village. He told her that they were always watching her, protecting her, and that they would one day save her, and then she would understand why he prayed to them. But she knew she would never need convincing from anyone but him. Every night, just before she fell asleep, her brother would tell her stories of Thor and Odin and Freya and Loki, of all of their great battles, their victories and defeats. He would make her feel safe, each and every night - and no matter how powerful or caring he made them sound, she knew no one could have as much love for her as her brother. Then, the next morning, she would run into the town and retell all of the other kids her age the stories she had heard from her brother, but they would mock her, telling her that those were baby's stories that they had heard hundreds of times in the past. But she didn't care - her brother always told them in a way that brought her to another world, to a place where there were no rules, where there was plenty of food, homes without falling-in ceilings or collapsing beams, and no nightly beatings or tantrums from her father… He made her love the Gods without force, without hatred, and she worshiped them and prayed to them each and every day, just before the sun went down. Until one day…
It had been just before sunset when it started. She had been out behind the house, drawing on some rolls of paper she had gotten for Snoggletog the year before, and watching the sun dye the water orange as it fell beyond the horizon. Most of the girls her age were drawing flowers or cutting them into the shapes of snowflakes, and the boys, well, the boys were never interested in drawing - by that age most of them were already getting into fights with one another, some of them even getting basic training from their parents. She knew that other Tribes tended to wait until their children were older to start training them, but her village was one of the smallest in the archipelago, and so most of the parents would stick an axe in their child's hands as soon as they could walk. Syl was an exception.
Sitting in front of her was a detailed map of the village, with three new squares placed strategically on the east, North and south-west ends of the village. Each represented a new raid tower that could be built for the village, made of rocks chiseled into bricks that would be incredibly difficult to dismantle, could take a beating from even the most direct dragon fire, and would hold up long enough to last at least several years - much longer than the temporary ones that they had built in the past. If constructed, she knew they would greatly help the few archers and crossbowmen the Village had, and thought they could likely turn the entire course of their war against the dragons.
When her brother had found out, rather than telling her to stop, and use the paper for something more useful like her parents might've done, he had encouraged her, and helped her map the village out every day after he got back from the village. They were planning on presenting it to the Chief, her father, that night. She had turned five years old just a week before.
The horn was the first thing she heard. It was a deep, ominous sound that always sent Syl's heart to the pit of her stomach. For hundreds of years, the horn had been the primary way of signaling a raid in the village, as it could be heard throughout the entire town, and well into the forest as well. When they heard it, all able-bodied Vikings were expected to drop whatever they were doing to take up an axe or sword and join in the fight.
She knew all too well what to do when she heard it. Quickly gathering up her papers, she had run back into the house behind her, seeing her brother run out the front with a sword in hand, throwing on his helmet as he left. He'd placed second in Dragon Training, his graduation just a year before. For that reason, he was expected to fight, though he oftentimes acted as though he didn't care for violence as much as he did writing or reading. His parents let him practice these arts, but their true pride in him was in his prowess on the battlefield. It was the one thing her father had admired about him.
For a moment, she watched him and a few others, children and adults alike, run into the then-burning village - some of them grabbing buckets of water from doorsteps along the way - before stepping inside the house.
The Village did not have a Great Hall, or any official houses of authority, to be truthful. Despite her father being the Chief, it meant little besides the fact that he served as head Diplomat on trips to other Tribe meetings, which rarely went well, anyways. Therefore, her house was just as unstable and precariously built as any of the others on the island, if not more so. Her father had never made any attempt to rebuild it, as it was far away enough from the rest of the Village that it survived most of the fire from the raids. If it ever did catch fire, however, Syl was the one responsible for running to the cove just below the village to fill up some buckets with water and back up to the house to put them out. She had learned from an early age how angry her father would be if he came home after a raid to find the roof still on fire, and the negative repercussions on her, as well. As hard as she tried, the house still had a plethora of dents and holes in it's roof, many of them her fault. Nonetheless, it was her home, and she loved it.
Hiding was the worst part. She would always run into the lowest part of the house, which was just the ground floor, and stay there with her hands over her head for however long the raid was - sometimes it was over in less than an hour, sometimes it took an entire night and day. Every time, she would start there, hiding next to the fireplace, until she slowly worked up the courage to go to the window and watch. This time was like a raid no one had ever seen before.
The sky itself seemed to be lit on fire, a smoky red and green-mixed haze concealing the dramatic battle she could hear raging in the town all the way from her house. She remembered seeing explosions here and there throughout the village, each seeming larger than the last. With each one she winced and wondered, Could that be my family? Could that be my mother or brother dying in the streets out there, while I sit here in this house, useless? But her young mind told her that they were like Gods, invincible, and would never be slain or even harmed in battle. Alas, it was not to be.
Only her mother came back that night. She remembered running out to greet her and the rest of the family, as she had after every raid before then, only to find her mother standing there, tired and afraid, her axe barely grasped in her fingers. Syl didn't understand - they always came back after a raid. Sometimes her father and mother would seem happy, if only for a moment - they came back laughing about their victories and asking each other about kills, and for those few moments, seemed truly happy. Her brother would walk up just behind them, blood splattered on his sword, and Syl would tell him that he must have fought like a warrior from the old stories, and he would reply that she would be one too, someday. Truthfully, she didn't want to fight dragons, but she never told him that.
This time, however, there was no father, and no sign of her brother, either. Timid and confused, she had asked her mother where they were and, tearing up, something she had never seen her mother do, she told Syl that her brother, along with a few others, had gone missing during the battle, and her father had organized a search party to find him, as nobody had seen him being carried off after the dragons left, though it was still a possibility.
This left Syl even more confused. Her brother? Missing? That couldn't be possible. He was a mighty warrior, like in the stories she had read. How could he be gone?
She asked her mother, but she told her that was all she had. Two hours later, her father returned home, still with no sign of her brother. He told them that Bjarke was continuing the search in the woods, but the town had much larger problems to deal with - it had been the most deadly raid they had seen in months. He told her to get to bed, not even asking about the integrity of the house. Reluctantly, she complied. The next morning she woke up to the door slamming shut downstairs. After getting dressed, she had run to town as fast as she could, seeing a crowd in the Village center. When she got there, she was greeted by a solemn sight, but not an uncommon one. A large, white sheet was draped over a small but strongly-developed body on a cot in the center of the square, concealing its features. Resting atop it was a horned helmet. She didn't have to ask. She already knew that helmet's shapes and dents, and its owner - she would recognize it anywhere.
The last sight she had seen before she ran back to her house and hid in the loft, was her father staring back at her, just as much so in tears as she was.
The Gods would never mean anything to her ever again, for they never meant to help her in the first place.
So as she sat there worrying, in the stupid, dimly-lit hole the dragon conqueror was slowly digging her out of, she prayed to the Gods for the first time in many years. Prayed that she could somehow find a way out of that predicament, prayed that she wouldn't be taken captive, and that perhaps her mother would be willing to forgive her and take her back, even after all of the things she had done.
She also made a decision. After a long night of arguing with herself, she had finally come to the conclusion that her brother, her ignorant, sweet brother, wasn't to blame for leaving her. He was stupid, sure, and completely and totally annoying at times, but she loved him more than anything else in the world, and always would. Despite all of the scenarios she imagined, the ways she might've been able to help, there was probably no way that he could have avoided what happened... Or at least that's what she told herself. Fate, she had decided, was a very strange and incredibly useless thing. Maybe, just maybe, her brother was always meant to die that night - after all, he was the one who had always said that the Gods knew where they wanted people to go in life, but only humans got to choose the path we took to get there. She didn't want to believe it, and yet it somehow made it easier for her to handle.
The boy's voice was muffled, but still understandable through the rocks. Every now and then a sentence would be cut off by the sound of a rock thudding onto the ground, and the whole wall would shiver, shaking dust down onto the floor, and making Syl fear that the whole wall would collapse on top of her. Luckily, it didn't, and the dragon conqueror kept murmuring reassuring words to her as he worked. "Isn't it a miracle that I found you? Honestly, I was just going to investigate this trap I found in the woods, because Astrid, wait, do you know Astrid? Ah, it doesn't matter. Anyways, my… Girlfriend, has become… Well, you wouldn't believe me, actually… Anyways, I think I can see a break here in the wall. It might collapse at any moment, so I need you to back away from the wall for me, okay? Can you even hear me?" She didn't respond.
A few minutes later, the mound of rocks shifted and one fell into the cave, sending a large shaft of light streaming directly onto Syl's face, and making her slink back even farther than she already was. Not only had the light burned her eyes, but she was afraid that he had been able to see it from outside. Of course, that wouldn't matter, would it? They had never met before, so he would have no idea who she was.
A moment later, a grinning face popped into the hole, haloed by the light around it, and spoke rather excitedly, "See? I told you! Just gimme a second more and you'll be out of here." Sure enough, the hole began to widen, eventually becoming big enough for her to crawl out of.
The idea popped into her mind her mind like a candle flickering to life. He didn't know who she was - that was her one advantage in the situation, but it opened up a whole list of possibilities. Of course, she couldn't pretend to be anyone from his village - it was likely that he already knew everyone his age there. She could pose as a merchant's or fisher's daughter, but that still wouldn't explain why she was stuck in a cave miles away from the ocean.
"Stormfly, a little light?" The boy - Hiccup, she remembered - was talking to someone outside. A moment later, there was a flash of light outside, followed by a yelp. "Ow! Why would you do that?! I said a little! Though… You are a dragon, so, I guess I could've thought that through a bit more…"
She groaned - if he was with a dragon, especially that Night Fury, there was no way that she would be able to get out of there alive - she had seen that thing fly before.
Then she came to another realization - If the Dragon Conqueror was there, alive, and knew about that trap, that meant that not only had she been disowned by her mother… But she had been right to do so. She had truly never accomplished anything in life. Her soul quest to kill the Dragon Conqueror had failed. And now, here he was, likely only rescuing her in order to taunt her after finding out she was the one who set it.
Nonetheless, he didn't seem to be gloating just yet. After another moment passed, a torch was thrust into the small hole, illuminating the tiny room for the first time. For a moment, she had a glimmer of hope - he wouldn't recognize her, so he would probably just let her out, right? She would thank him and get him to leave, and then-
"Hey, wait a second," he peered at her through the now-large hole with a confused expression, then snapped his fingers as though suddenly remembering something. "I know you! From the diplomatic missions after the war. You're… Uh… Siri, right? No, no, that's not it," he shook his head quickly.
"Syl…" She muttered under her breath, but he still heard her.
"That's right! Syl, from the, uh... Veiklaðar… Tribe…" His eyes widened, then he slapped his forehead with his palm, groaning, as the realization hit him like a brick. "I… Am the worst idiot to ever live on this island." She stared at the ground and didn't respond. So maybe he hadn't known. Either way, he knew who she was, and he was going to take her in, away from the now safe-seeming cavern. She had failed her mother, herself, and most importantly, her brother.
He narrowed his eyes at her. "But… That makes no sense. You're an heir to your tribe - why would she send you? You must be invaluable to them. Why would your mother put you at risk?" For a moment, she considered telling him. After all, she knew she was going to be taken in and broken down for answers, anyways. Why not start then, get it over with?
But something inside her told her to stop. There was no use in telling him she had been exiled. She knew that their stupid tribe was probably above killing her, but even so, her value could still be key to staying alive. Would she be used as a ransom? Definitely. It would probably come as even more of a surprise for the Berk Chief to find out that her mother didn't want her back once she asked, but by then she would hopefully had bought enough time to figure something else out. She had been picking locks since her brother locked her out of the house as a joke when she was five - she could get out of any jail cell. The only problem would be the guards…
He gasped, and his eyes widened again. "Did you set that trap? I swear, if you're responsible for… Dear Gods, it doesn't even matter…" He shook his head, then raised his arms up peacefully a moment later. "Listen," he told her in a reassuring tone, "I'm not going to hurt you. I know who you are, and I know that you were spying on Astrid and I earlier. If you did set that trap, which you must have… I just… I need you not to run away, okay? No matter what you think, I'm not going to turn you over to my Dad, or our village, alright? I… I know this sounds weird, but I need you to trust me." After a moment of thought, she nodded reluctantly, trying to act as scared as possible. "Okay…" He replied slowly, lowering his arms.
He held out a hand to help her out, and she took it. As soon as she had clambered out onto the ground, she shoved against him as hard as she could, then dashed off as quickly as she could into the forest, not even turning back to see. She caught a glimpse of something large and blue far behind him, which instinct told her was a nadder, but she didn't stop to check. The sudden light from the sun had initially blinded her, but her eyes had adjusted quickly, a small blessing for her. As she ran away, she briefly made out the sound of him muttering something ending in, "... Worse than Astrid," Which she assumed must have been about herself. She didn't care. She was free, she had gotten away from her captor, and that was all that mattered.
As fast as she was, she knew there was no way that she could run away from him forever, never mind a dragon, and so she made a sharp turn left a few hundred feet into the forest she had ducked into, diving into a few comfortably green and thick bushes that blended in with her clothes. As soon as she did, she dropped to her knees and waited there quietly, praying that he hadn't seen where she went.
A minute later, she felt her nerves tense as she heard him crunching through the leaves and vines, cursing as he approached her hiding spot. Luckily, she didn't think he saw her, but he spoke out anyways.
"I know you're still here! You're not going to gain anything from staying here, you know." She held as still as she possibly could. He sighed. "Listen… I'm going to be honest with you… If you did set that trap, I'm... really not going to take you back to the village, because I can't. They're going to lock you up in the ring and put guards on patrol to make sure nobody gets in OR out, I'm sure you know that already. I… I just need to know what you did. As much as I hate you right now for what you did to Astrid, I need to know how to change her back, then you can leave. I never want to see you again. I just… I just want everything to go back to normal. Just as much as I'm sure you do, too, no matter why you're here." His voice sounded almost shaky towards the end, but she had no idea why. After he finished, he paused for a moment. The dragon he was with seemed to have stayed back near the cliff wall, for some reason, which relieved her slightly. Although, it was possible he had told it to stay there, in order to lure her out and capture her. Still… She couldn't help but wonder if he was telling the truth…
Still, she didn't say anything. "Listen," he told her, "You… You can stay out here if you want. Maybe your purpose is complete, or something, and you just want to go back to your mother to tell her everything you learned about our defenses, our warriors, our… Dragons…" His voice trailed off, but she kept listening, oddly intrigued. She realized that he was telling the truth - but why would he just let her go like that? And what the hell was he talking about with her "mission succeeding", and all? He was living proof that she had failed. Of course, he might not have known about her true intentions…
Yet still, she didn't dare to move or talk and give away her hiding spot. She waited for him to continue, and he did. "You know… You kind of owe me this. I mean, come on, I just saved your life after you… You changed her into… Anyways, especially given how much you've screwed up Astrid's life already - which I have a feeling you did, since you're not responding - I think you should at least tell me what the hell you used, whatever… Witchcraft or sorcery it was, if not how to… Fix her. I just…" He sighed again.
She considered his request carefully. From what she could gather, his girlfriend - that 'Astrid' girl, she presumed - had accidentally set off the trap, which by all means should have killed her. But, obviously, it hadn't. This meant that, not only had she failed to get the dragon conqueror to notice it - but the trap was faulty, as well - it hadn't worked. Even if 'Hiccup' had found the trap, even if she hadn't been exiled to an enemy island and gotten herself trapped under a landslide, she still would have failed, without even knowing it. If she could have just talked to her mother one last time, then maybe, just maybe, she would have been given another chance.
Something in the very back of her mind told her that this was fate working again. Could it be a mere coincidence that she had been stuck here, failed to kill the dragon conqueror, had been rescued by him, and now wanted her help?! It didn't seem likely. Maybe… She was meant to work with the enemy, just this once, to take revenge on her mother for casting her out all of her life. Maybe it was the Gods themselves, guiding her down the path they thought was best, for once. Maybe it was her brother, looking down from the great feast above…
But that's not what she chose to believe. Instead, she made it her sole purpose to complete her mission. No matter what, it was her goal. When the time was nigh, she would take him out, end it once and for all. So what if there hadn't been any dragon raids since he made 'peace' with them? That hadn't helped her at all.
Before the raids ended, she had been able to get away with anything. With her mother acting as Chief in the village, Syl had gone unnoticed, stealing whatever small and light valuables she could find from the unlocked, unattended houses during the raids, stashing them under the floorboards of her house. Originally, she had hated herself for doing it, knowing she was shaming her brother, but it oftentimes helped her to get extra food during the raids. Their island had never had a surplus of food, as it had few enough livestock and no fields with soft enough soil to grow crops in. She knew her brother would be ashamed, and an image of him, the last time she had seen him before that night, appeared inside her mind every time she did it. Eventually, though, she learned to ignore him, to focus on the task at hand, as hard as it may have been.
However, when the raids suddenly ended, she was expected to do things, to get a job as an apprentice in the village, and learn to support and pitch in to the village - true Viking morals. She rebelled and did none of it.
Instead, she continued to lie and steal and cause trouble in the town, but started getting caught more and more often, her "bad habits" suddenly being labeled as "crimes", until her mother had to sit her down one night after she stole Bjarke's lucky mace whilst he was working in town, and tell her that she needed to stop. She didn't, and that led to her mother sending her on the false quest she was stuck in.
So as soon as she got the chance, she would murder this so-called "Dragon Conqueror," as justice for making her suffer for those past few years. Until then…
"So what's wrong with your 'girlfriend'?" She stood up from the bushes as she spoke, revealing her hiding place. His head whipped around, and his expression dropped into one of near complete despair. "You mean… You don't know?"
"Alright, Toothless two, get off of me, I need to show you-"
"Do NOT call me Toothless two!"
"OW! Fine, I'll think of something else, just get off me, please!" Reluctantly, she clambered off of the Night Fury, feeling her claws slide back into her feet somewhat. She relaxed her leg muscles some, and stepped back to give the Night Fury room to get up. Once he did, he started walking into the forest again, stopping a moment later when Astrid didn't follow.
"Toothless… I can't move," She called out desperately to him.
He looked back at her and raised an eyebrow. "You just proved to me that you could."
"Well, that was DIFFERENT. I… Wasn't thinking then."
"Then don't think about it now!"
"I can't do that! Thinking about it is the only thing keeping me human!"
"Human?! Astrid, you're in the body of one of the blood, now! A dragon! I can understand that you don't want to lose yourself, but you can't just fight everything that's happened to you! That means that you're going to walk, whether you like it or NOT!" His last word was projected forcefully into her mind, and was accompanied by a deep, throaty growl that sent shivers down her wings.
After a moment, she quietly asked, "But… What if Hiccup comes back while we're gone?"
His expression softened, and he sighed. "Believe me, Astrid, I want to be away from Hiccup as little if not even less than you do. But we're just going into the forest a few steps, okay? We'll be right back, I promise. Just… Let me show you. Please, Astrid." He stared at her pleadingly.
She waited there in silence for a moment, and didn't look up. Then, after chastising herself for acting so weak, she rose her head up high, huffed out through her nose, and nodded. Toothless purred in response, then turned and started to walk away. After a moment, her eyes grew wide, and she called out after him, "Wait! How do I walk?!"
"Don't think about it!" He replied, before suddenly vanishing into the forest and exiting her mind, his red tailfin flicking once before disappearing behind a tree.
"But I'm a…" She began, then stopped.
And for the first time that day, she admitted that he was right. Terrible as the creature she had been transformed into was, she knew that if she never even moved, she would hate herself after she turned back. She would be a burden to Hiccup and Toothless, and would never be able to live with herself knowing that she had ignored the situation whilst Hiccup scrambled to find a cure in the village. And how was she supposed to defend herself if she didn't even know how to walk? She certainly wasn't learning to breath fire...
She looked at her feet. Despite her revelation, she couldn't bear the thought of suddenly walking like a dragon, though she knew it was necessary, not only to follow Toothless, but likely to fix the entire situation as well. Closing her eyes and letting out a deep breath, she took the dragon's advice, and tried not to think about walking. She took a step forward with her front right… Paw, hesitantly. She couldn't help but find it stupidly ironic - her entire life, moving and fighting had come naturally to her. Since she was young, her mind had always been in perfect sync with her body, her commanding it to do something, and it simply following. They were simply one functioning structure. Until then, she had never even considered them to be separate. And now, as a dragon, she couldn't even take one step unless she was acting on instincts.
Instinct…
She tried to remember what it was like to walk as a human, which was alarmingly more difficult than she thought it would be. She realized that she hadn't ever thought about how her body moved - it was always either the direction or the result that she commanded. As much as she hated it, the instinct that Toothless had explained was the same as it had been when she was human, it was simply… Translated over, as he had put it.
So instead of telling her feet to take steps, she simply commanded her body to move forward, looking straight ahead at the forest, rather than down at her feet. She closed her eyes as she felt her body move forward, expecting to trip over herself or run sideways into a tree. But when she opened them, she found herself moved a few feet ahead, exactly where she had wanted to go. She grinned and kept moving ahead, feeling her legs move under her, but pretending it was natural - before realizing that she didn't have to. It was natural. Almost too natural…
"Great!" Toothless's voice in her mind again startled her, and she nearly fell over, before letting her legs catch her, forcing herself to let her instincts take over. When she recovered, he stepped out from behind some shaded thorns a few feet away. She smiled haughtily at him. "I just told myself to walk, and I did!" She leaped forward towards him, her wings fanning out slightly, and feeling a hearty satisfaction as his eyes widened when she landed nearly nose-to-nose with him. She smirked. "How's that for a newly-turned dragon girl?"
He smiled back at her. "Not bad, though your wings are still out."
Her smirk dropped, and she quickly asked, "Fine. What is it that you wanted to show me?"
He turned around, and replied, "Just follow me." She complied.
They trotted through the forest for a moment, her feet oozing in the mud created by the storm the night before. The dense trees above her had helped keep the ground dry for the morning, but they were slowly beginning to drop their payload on top of her and Toothless, and she couldn't help but shiver every time one of them landed on her wings - which were still extended from when she had nearly jumped on top of Toothless a few moments before - and dragged through the leaves.
A few bends in the forest later, Toothless suddenly cried out, frightening Astrid for a moment before she realized he seemed to be happy about something. "Aha!" He began. "I almost thought I'd lost it."
Stepping aside, he revealed a small brook happily gurgling through the forest, removed from the outside world. The section of it they were looking at was several feet across to the other bank, and was far away from rocks that it offered a wide, flat surface, clear enough to see… Oh, Gods, She thought to herself.
He smiled back sheepishly at her. "I'm not as vain as a Nadder, but I figured you might at least like to see…" He looked back to see her frowning at him.
"You're making it harder for me to believe that you're not trying to turn me full-dragon, you know?"
He rolled his eyes and told her, "Astrid… I don't want you to turn fully into one of us - we've talked about this. So what if I've never seen or mated another one of… Me? You belong to Hiccup, and I respect that. Besides - who knows? This might be your only chance to see what you look like as a dragon before you change back."
Her jaw dropped. "I BELONG to Hiccup? Are you saying that you do want to… To take me as a mate, but the only reason you're not is because you respect him and I?"
"What? No! I never said that! I was just using it as an ex-"
"Unbelievable. Never should have trusted a dragon." She huffed at him. They sat there for a moment, before he sighed, and pointed to the mirror-like water in front of him.
"Do you want to see, or not? Come on, you must be at least a little curious."
"I'm not!" She replied. He raised an eyebrow.
"Fine! But only because you seem to think I need to. Nothing else."
She heard him sigh as she approached the water, and she tried to decide whether it was him or Hiccup that frustrated her more. It was only one of them that she loved - and that would never change. Ever.
She peered into the calm water, and saw a huge face staring back at her.
Her face was more or less what she had remembered seeing from the puddle the night before - the same shape and look as Toothless, but with light gray scales, and a more angled snout than his. Her mouth spanned almost her entire face like his, as well, and her ears stuck up like tiny, leathery horns on top of her head, with a smaller pair of flaps in-between, for whatever reason. A small rim of tiny spikes also ran up the center of her nose. But perhaps the most terrifying part of it all was her eyes. Though her pupils were completely black, the outer part surrounding it - which was normally a blank white on her and frosty green on Toothless - had instead retained the lightning blue she had grown up to recognize, something she had never considered before. Lightning blue…
She shook her head after a moment, bringing herself out of her daze, and watched as the reflection did the same. Baffled, she turned the right side of her body to face the river, watching as a tail - HER tail - swished along with it, and flinching as the tip of her wing slowly dipped into the water, sending ripples out over the surface. She stared for a moment, then another. Two years ago, she thought, if I had seen this anywhere, my first thought would've been to take out my axe and kill it. She pulled herself away from the image, and saw Toothless staring into the water as well, a worried expression on his face. It was too much.
Her heartbeat sped up, and she started to pant and gasp, something she definitely was not used to. She began to back up into the forest again, her instincts telling her once again to run, to get as far away from that place as possible, like she had that morning. Toothless glanced up suddenly, likely noticing the fear in her eyes.
"Astrid…"
She jerked her head up to him, terrified. "Toothless, what… What have I become? I… Every step I take I'm dishonoring my tribe, I mean, I'm talking to a dragon for Odin's sake! Like you're just an old friend, or something! A DRAGON!"
"Astrid, please-"
"No, you are NOT going to win me over with calm words here. I'm done listening to your stupid sweet talk - we need to be DOING something about this. No, I need to be doing something about this. I don't want to be talking to a dragon. I don't want a tail or wings. I don't want any of this!"
Toothless growled at her. "Astrid, we ARE doing something about this! That's what I'm trying to do! I swear to the Gods I wish Hiccup had picked ANYONE else as a mate sometimes, but you know what? I've gotten used to you. I'm don't want that to change. I want everything to go back to the way it was as much as you do! But look at you! You're ranting about how much you want this to go back to normal, and yet you can't even look at your own reflection in the pond. Yes, you're a dragon! That's the point - you can still move, still talk, and do much more than you could as a human to help, and yet you sit here so determined to go back that you're trying to pretend it never happened, or something. I don't care if you like hearing this or not - you need to come to terms with what's happened to you, once and for all. I'm not asking you to be happy about it - until Hiccup fixes you, you NEED to… Cope, with this. You can't just sit around doing nothing."
She was still shaking when he looked back up at her. "Toothless, I… How am I supposed to help when everything makes me want to run away into the forest, to run away from Hiccup, the village and Stormfly, my parents… And you?"
Toothless sighed, and his entire body seemed to sag some as his muscles relaxed. He laid down on the ground, and looked up at her. "Alright, Astrid. Why don't we just take it one change at a time? Would that make it easier for you?"
She thought about if for a moment, then decided to give it a chance. She nodded.
"Great," he said cumbersomely, "So what's first?"
She thought about it. In a certain light, it was impossible to narrow it down to one thing, as everything that had happened in the past day had more or less been the result of one event, but she had to try. "Alright…" She began, shaking her head quickly. "I… Am talking to a dragon. To Hiccup's dragon Toothless. Wow." If someone had told her that the day before, she would have told them that they were probably dangerously sick and needed to go see Gothi or one of the town's healers to get a cure before they went completely mad in the head.
"Well," he replied, "If it makes you feel any better, I've been able to understand you this whole time, and I've found ways to talk to you, too. Just think of it as being able to say more things to each other than we already could."
She pondered his words, then realized something she hadn't considered before. "Wait, so… Can all dragons understand human language? I mean, you use a lot of words for yourself that I've never heard of. Like, 'One of the blood'? Is that what you call other dragons? And can I talk to Stormfly, too? How does that work?"
He frowned at her for a moment, then startled her as he suddenly growled something at her in his strange dragon-language. "Could you understand that?" He asked.
"Uh… No?" She replied. "Am I supposed to?"
"No, I guess not."
"Then why the hell did you do that?"
He sighed. "Listen, Astrid. The way of talking that we're using IS strange, even for me. I haven't had to use it since the raids ended."
She was surprised. "Why not? Don't you talk this way to other dragons?"
"Well," he began, "yes and no. The way that we're talking to each other is… Formal, I guess you would say. The method we're using is something called the tala. You see, when we went on the… Raids, as you call them, I was assigned a commander of our corps, as I was a much higher station as a… Night Fury, as you call me, and I was always meant to be a leader of a corps. At least, that's what the Queen told us…"
The dragon's eyes seemed foggy, and far off. After a moment, he shook it off and looked back at her. "Anyways, I found out about this special ability that I, a Night Fury, had that nobody else did. I was able to… Talk, to other dragons through thoughts. When I first find out, I… I was terrified, I think. I had gotten in an argument with a gronckle who hadn't brought back enough food one day, and it got so heated that I eventually… Forced, a thought into his mind. He had started to panic, and I didn't know what was happening, but then… The Queen spoke in my mind. She calmed the Gronckle first, then told me that I had a gift, one much like her's that allowed me to project messages and thoughts into other's minds. I was so scared, I… I thought I had some kind of control over other's minds, and I was afraid I was going to hurt someone… But the queen reassured me. She told me she had been expecting this to happen, and that day she assigned me as commander of a tala…
"There was a feast that night, and I met those I would be commanding. It was so… Odd. So many of them had been my friends up until then, my companions, and all of a sudden they were bowing and wouldn't joke with me anymore… But I'm digressing. The point is, the speech allowed me to communicate with others across long distances in battle, without having to move my mouth. It was hugely helpful, but only I could send the messages - I never got a response, never received a message from anyone else... Until last night."
"So, like I said, this is a speech that we only used to use in combat, not for conversations like we're having right now. It's probably weirder for me than for you."
I'd disagree… She thought to herself sarcastically. "A moment ago, I asked you in the tongue what your name was. You didn't understand it, and since you can't speak it, either, I'd say that you couldn't REALLY talk to Stormfly that well. Though you might be able to send a message to her in your mind."
She narrowed her eyes at him. "And what makes you think I can't speak the dragon language?"
His eyes widened. "Actually," he told her, "that's a good point. Try saying 'hello' like you would as a human. Maybe that translated over, too!"
Excitedly, she tried to say 'hello' as she would as a human, hearing it come out as a weird gargle. Toothless frowned.
"Well," he said quizically, "You just told me to go eat a red bubble, so unless you did that on purpose, I don't think you can speak it."
She slumped, and they both sat there in silence for a moment. "Wait," she started, "Do you know how to speak Norse? I mean, wouldn't you normally be sending me messages in your dragon-language, then? And how did you learn how to understand it, anyways?"
He shrugged. "I've just always known it, I guess. Though I've learned a lot more from Hiccup. And as far as the message-thing goes… This is a first time for me, too. Like I said, I've never gone back-and-forth with anyone until now. Well, I guess with the queen, but that was… Different. Anyways, I think that's been translated as well. You think in your language, correct?" After a moment, she realized he was correct. She had never thought about it before, but she did think in norse words - it was rarely pictures or places like she knew other people did. She nodded. His confused expression dissapeared, replaced by one of solution - something that Hiccup often did, as well.
"And I think in the tongue. So when I send a message to you, it translates to your language, and when you send a message-"
"-you hear it in the tongue." She finished. "Weird. So I must actually sound like a dragon to you, then."
He shrugged. "I've known this language almost my entire life. Honestly, it's kind of hard to tell the difference, with you."
"Don't say that!" She told him quickly. There was another small pause. "So… If everything you're saying is being translated to me, why are you still trying to come up with words like you don't know them? Like, 'of the blood' and 'raid'? What's with that?"
"Well," he replied, "That's a little more complicated. See, we don't really have a word for us like you do. 'Dragon' is far too precise, too simple to encompass out race. So we say things like 'of the blood' to symbolize what we are as a species - for we are all of the same blood. 'Human' on the other hand, is easy enough to use. For a long time, we thought you were all the same - barbaric monsters who lived for their next kill. But Hiccup, he… He taught us differently. It's said among us oftentimes that he's more 'dragon' than he is human, and some even call him an honorary member of the blood, as he has brought us together like no one else has before."
Astrid shook her head. "Sorry, it's just… 'Of the Blood' sounds so weird, like some kind of… Cult, or something. It's creepy."
The confused expression reappeared on the dragon's face. "What's a cult?"
She frowned. "Well, it's like a religious group that goes and sacrifices animals and stuff, and tries to get people to join them. They're very bad."
"Oh," Toothless replied. "Why are all of your words so terrible?"
Astrid was baffled. "Terrible? What do you mean?"
"Well, in the day that I've known you, I've learned two words from you. One of them was what you called the… Hunts, we went on to your villages. And the second is about groups of humans that go around killing animals without even eating them. Don't you have any NICE words that we don't?"
"Of course we do!" She barked. "We have… Love, and honor, and compassion…"
"I know what those are!"
"You… You do?"
"Yes! Didn't you ever stop for a moment to think that maybe, just maybe, we're as civilized if not MORE SO than you stupid humans are?"
"Uh… Um…" She stuttered.
Toothless mouth dropped open, and he stared at her for a moment, astounded. Then he rolled his eyes as if to say "Humans" and snapped, "Fine. What's next?"
"What?"
"What's next? We're taking your transformation one step at a time, remember?"
"... Oh," she replied after a moment. "I guess the… Physical part of it…"
He let out a deep breath. "Right…"
Slowly, she turned her head to look at herself, and shivered.
If looking at her reflection alone had given her chills, this made her blood run cold. She had seen Toothless plenty of times in the past, but it wasn't enough to prepare her with the sight her eyes were met with.
Her wings, obviously, were the dominating part of her sight. Gray and leathery, they were both terrifying and beautiful at the same time. They were gray, and scaly like the rest of her body, but the bones were visible through it, which was unsettling at best. She had seen Toothless's plenty of times before, and they were all too uncanny of a copy. Her body, she guessed, was a bit smaller than Toothless's, but still much larger than she would have preferred. Her back had tiny spikes running down it, which she knew were there to help control her flight. All four of her feet were near identical copies of each other, and were curved in slightly.
Perhaps the largest difference between her and Toothless was her tail. Where it met with her body were two tiny flaps that extended between her rear end and a few feet down her tail. Oddly, she had never noticed them on Toothless before. As it grew longer behind her it narrowed, and at the end were two mirrored tailfins, both a white-gray to match the rest of her body. Those, she knew from experience, were essential for flight as well.
She turned back to Toothless. He had a rather worried look on his face, likely expecting her to scream or panic like she already had several times that day. But she didn't do either. Instead, one odd, stupid thought pushed to the surface of her mind above all others.
"Why gray?"
There was a moment of silence. "... What?" Toothless asked, suddenly losing his nervous demeanor and raising an eyebrow.
"Why am I gray? I mean, you're black because you need to blend into the night, right? So what am I gray for? I mean, if you're going to turn a girl into a dragon, at least make her useful."
"Uh…" Toothless seemed speechless, as well. "That… Is weird. For blending in with… Clouds, maybe?"
She stared at him. "That is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard."
"Well, do you have any better ideas?"
"I mean, no, but…" She trailed off. Toothless looked at her, still apprehensive. "I'm surprised you're taking this so well. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I'm… I'm fine. I guess I've just… Gotten over the initial shock. Though I swear to Thor if anyone else from the village sees me out here, I'm going to freak out again." She paused for a moment, then looked up at him. "Toothless… Do you think I'm turning into more of a dragon?"
Toothless smiled. "Not at all. You're just… Adapting," he decided. "Come on, let's go back to the clearing."
"Well, it could be a number of different things." Syl told Hiccup. "I need to see her before I can tell you if she can be cured or not."
He raised an eyebrow. "Okay… Well, let's go." He whistled to call Stormfly over.
People tended to tell Hiccup that he was too trusting in people. Maybe it was true, but he liked to think that, while people had betrayed him and looked down on him in the past, all people could also change. This girl was one of them. When he had seen her in that cave, huddling and afraid, he had seen… Something else, as well. Something that made him believe that maybe, just maybe, she wasn't there to kill him.
He was well aware that there were likely lots of people that wanted his and Toothless's heads on spikes, and that they would take great measures to make sure it happened. Luckily, the majority of them had failed. It wasn't the first time they had caught a spy on their island, after all. Many of them, of course, were just Vikings that tried to sail into the Harbor in the middle of the night, were immediately discovered by the patrol groups, and would end up groveling at the Chief's feet, begging for Mercy. Despite his brave and sometimes harsh reputation, Stoick was often kind enough to them, generally jailing them for a few years before sending them back to their villages. He understood that most of them had their own families to feed at home, and were likely only forced into spying on the well-known tribe. After all, it was known throughout the village that Berk was one of the most well-defended and well stocked villages in the archipelago, and very difficult to take by siege.
He remembered one night, when he had been fast asleep, having a very strange dream involving an ancient sorcerer and his apprentice, when suddenly he was shaken away by the sound of Toothless growling at the foot of his bed. When he told the dragon to go back to sleep, he had bounded down the stairs and blown the door of its hinges, pouncing on something just outside. After he woke up his father a few minutes later, they had found the Night Fury outside on top of a viking holding a small pin and a lockpick, his face a very pale white. It was the farthest anyone had ever gotten into the village. After some questioning a few nights later, they found out that the man had been walking on foot for three days from a small cove several miles away, where he had landed a small boat on a rocky beach. The cove happened to be near Thor's rock, a landmark boulder that was so large that a tree had grown off of the moss and soil on top of it, and had been struck by lightning years before Hiccup was born. Some in the village said it had been touched by Thor himself, and thus it was named.
After that night, Hiccup knew that Toothless stayed up for hours after he fell asleep to watch, and though he wished the dragon would get more sleep, he loved him for it.
But this girl… Somehow, she had found a way into the village unseen in broad daylight, had overheard their plans, and had managed to evade capture by Astrid and Toothless for an entire day before being caught under a landslide in one of the worst storms Berk had ever seen. This girl had to be, by any definition, a complete maniac.
The thing that truly baffled him was why she had chosen not to run away when he had given her the opportunity. She had already proven that she could evade capture, and likely could have gotten away again, had she wanted to. So why didn't she? He doubted she had had a change of heart - as easy as that would make things, she seemed incredibly shady, and was the daughter of an enemy tribe's leader, something that would set all of the warning bells off in any other Viking's head. But something had told him otherwise. Something had told him that right here, right now, he needed her. For what, he didn't know. It was driven solely by gut instinct, something that had led him in the right direction enough times in the past that he was willing to follow it.
He remembered the last time he had seen her. A few months after the battle with the Green Death, Hiccup's father had set out on diplomatic missions to announce that the war between dragons and humans was over, and that tribes shouldn't attack any dragons that they see in the wilderness. Hiccup's purpose on these missions was to train and calm any of the dragons that were still locked up in the village kill rings, which oftentimes doubled as a demonstration of how they could be domesticated. Many tribes, to Hiccup's delight, received it well, and would oftentimes ask him to teach them individually. Other tribes… Not so much. The Veiklaðar tribe was one such.
Their meeting in particular had been a very harsh and likely unsuccessful one. The Chief of the tribe had died years before then, and Hiccup had heard his heir had as well, and so his wife, Brenna, had taken over in his stead. He vaguely remembered their ships approaching the gray, bleak island of the village to find only a single dock stretching into the water, its boards decaying and crumbling into the ocean. Though Hiccup knew there hadn't been and raids recently, it looked as though they had suffered one just the night before. Many of the houses were crumbling and sagging, if not completely burnt or destroyed beyond repair. The Chief's home itself had even seen better days, with many missing boards and nails, its beams barely holding it up over a cliff below that ran all the way down to the ocean. Sad was the best way to describe the miserable place.
Brenna had greeted their ships on the shore with distaste, asking why they were there, obviously wishing they weren't. When Stoick had described Hiccup's battle with the Green Death, she had only snorted and asked how a scrawny boy like him could have killed a monster of that size. When he had explained how, that he had trained a Night Fury and together they had killed it, her annoyance quickly diluted into something more vengeful. She had ordered them off of their island almost immediately, something that had happened already at several of the islands they had visited. They had complied, but before he left, Hiccup remembered seeing the girl - Syl, he remembered - running down the steps to see her mother, and ask her about something he didn't hear. It was obvious that she was her daughter - she was almost identical to her, if a bit shorter and less… Rounded. But the signature black hair, angled face and crisp green eyes sharply resembled that of her mother. Later on he remembered asking his father who she was, and he had replied that she was Syl, her daughter.
And so, there they were again, each standing in some equally high bushes on Berk, a few miles away from Thor's Rock, each staring at the other warily.
A moment later, Stormfly came pounding through the forest, the Wyvern crushing leaves and thorns under its armored paws as it did. As soon as she saw it, the girl's eyes widened, and she backed up slowly, reaching for a knife under her coat.
"No no no!" Hiccup told her, waving his hands. "She's not going to hurt you. She can take us back to Astrid, so you can-"
"No way!" She yelled at him. "There is no way I am going within ten feet of that beast, never mind riding on it. No, wherever we're going, we're walking, you hear me? And that thing is staying far away from us. Dragon conqueror or not, that thing is wild. Besides, you could end up tricking me into going back to your village, that way."
Hiccup sighed. "Please, just get on. I promise you that she won't hurt you, and I won't take you back to the village, okay?"
She crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly. "Do you want your girlfriend healed, or not?"
Hiccup groaned. "She's not my… Fine, whatever. We'll walk, but it's going to take a while."
And so it did. They walked in silence for an hour or so, Stormfly flying overhead, never more than half a mile away. Eventually, Hiccup started to ask her questions, some of them about Astrid's condition, but most of them involving something along the lines of "Just why the hell are you helping me?", but getting only an angry silence as a response. Eventually, Hiccup stopped, annoyed, and told her, "You know, you're really making it hard to believe that you have any idea how to cure Astrid. Seriously - I know that trap was meant for me; I was the one who was going to circle over Thor's Rock - you knew that. It was an accident that Astrid tripped it, wasn't it? I swear to the Gods, if you don't start answering these questions-"
"You'll what? What other choice do you have? That acid is rare - rarer than anyone else on this island knows about. You're obviously trying to hide whatever's happened to your girlfriend from your village for some reason - whatever it is, who else can you go to about this? Who do you really trust to keep your secret?"
This time, it was Hiccup's turn to not respond.
They continued to walk.
Finally, they approached the site Hiccup had left from. Though the scent was potent enough on the island, the smell of the sea was much stronger than it had been before, and the leaves had dried off almost entirely from the storm the night before. He stopped in front of her, pulling some leaves to conceal the small clearing they were resting in.
"Now, before you go in here, I need you to promise not to freak out when you see… Them. Can you do that?"
She snorted. "Ha! Me? Freak out? I've seen Vikings chopped in half and singed to death by your precious dragons. I think I can handle whatever-"
He pulled back the leaves. As he had hoped, inside were the gray and Black Night Furies laying on the grass looking, quite frankly, bored. Toothless seemed to be picking at something in the grass in front of im, and Astrid was staring up at her ears, seemingly trying to get them to go up and down like Hiccup had seen Toothless do hundreds of times in the past. It was both unsettling and oddly hilarious at the same time.
As soon as Syl saw them, she gasped and pulled out her knife, backing up against a tree behind her. "There's… T… Two…" She stuttered. The knife clattered out of her hand.
"Yes, I know. This is kind of the problem we're having. See… Well, just come over here first. They're both perfectly harmless, okay?" These were words he had told plenty of Vikings in the past, each of them skeptical of dragons, having fought them their entire lives. As it almost always had in the past, it worked. Hesitantly and pale-faced, Syl slowly followed him a few feet into the clearing.
"See? It's fine - you're fine. Now here's the thing - the, uh, gray one is actually- WOAH!" All of a sudden, he was shoved over as Astrid barreled past him and jumped on top of the girl, pinning her to the ground. For a moment, Hiccup couldn't help but feel an odd sense of Deja-Vu, though he wasn't sure why.
The girl was breathing quickly, and she closed her eyes, trying to crawl backwards, before Astrid shoved one of her talons just above her head, making her give out a small yelp of fear.
"Oh, Gods," Hiccup cringed, and started running up to Astrid. She turned her head for a moment, and almost looked ready to thank him for a moment, before he told her, "Astrid… I am so, so sorry. Please don't hate me for doing this."
She looked confused for a moment, before Hiccup quickly slid his hand under her jowl, scratching her quickly in the sensitive spot he had on Toothless dozens of times in the past. Instantly, Astrid's eyes rolled into back into her head, and her body collapsed limply to the side, in a state of total bliss. Hiccup felt terrible, but he hadn't known what else to do.
"Gods… Syl… Meet Astrid and Toothless." The girl was still frozen on the ground, staring up at him in terror. "You really don't know how to fix her, do you?" After a moment, the question registered, and she slowly shook her head back and forth.
He looked back at Toothless, who only rolled his eyes, shrugged, and began licking his paw.
And then, Hiccup had one of the craziest ideas in his entire life. It was stupid, and he knew neither of them would like it, but like all of those he had come up with in the past, it was brilliant, too.