Author's Note: I uploaded this chapter before but I deleted it because I was fixing typos. Here it is again.

The thing about flying that no-one ever thinks about is how loud it is. Sure, there are less things around to make noise, but the constant rushing of wind over your ears makes it nearly impossible to hear anything else. For instance, as a purely hypothetical example, if there was a pre-teen Viking only a few feet away from you screaming his lungs out as he's being carted through the sky, you'd be nearly unable to hear him at all.

Nearly.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" screamed Hiccup, a pre-teen Viking currently occupied with screaming his lungs out as he was carted through the sky.

"Shut UP!"

Azula swung around like a pendulum, hanging on for dear life. She was trying to stay poised and princess-like, but she was, in her defense, very high up, clinging from a rope hanging from a branch in the talons of some flying nightmare creature of myth and legend. She'd actually like to scream some herself if she was being honest, but her breath was having a hard time finding it's way out of her lungs at the moment.

A glance downward-bad idea! The ground was so very, very far away. Stoick, Astrid, and the assembled Vikings were being left behind, their best efforts to run after them meaningless in the face of a dragon's flight. Azula quickly turned her gaze up, not that the view was much better in that direction either. There was just a screaming Viking doing his best to cling to both the branch and the dragon's talons, and of course, the dragon itself. She'd much rather not look at the dragon.

Whoom.

The dragon beat its wings, causing it to lurch in the air. The rope jerked, sliding an inch upwards through Azula's hands before white-hot adrenaline caused her to clench even tighter. Frantic panic gradually gave way to rational thought, and she started to pull herself back up, hand over hand-but the rope was slick with rain, and her progress was minuscule.

"Listen, peasant boy," she said, and she hated how small her voice sounded, almost trembling. A princess should command, not beg. "I'm slipping."

Hey, remember that thing about flying and how loud it is?

Whoom.

Another beat. Another inch. Azula tried to grasp onto the rope with her feet, but she was dangling over open air with nothing to leverage herself against. And it wasn't exactly like she'd practiced with a lot of ropes in her short (brilliant, incredible, prodigious) life. She'd practiced some acrobatics with Ty Lee, but nothing like this. A thought, a very real, very unwelcome thought, came to her that she might die like this, a victim of her own brilliant plan. Father would never have tolerated this, and that thought was almost more terrifying.

"HICCUP!" she called again, voice shrill and high.

This time the boy actually heard her, ceasing his terrified screaming long enough to look down at her. He yelled "Wahahoooo ahoo" which was probably actually "What do I do?" but it was very windy.

"I need you to pull me up." Whoom. "QUICKLY!"

"Uhhhhhhh," Hiccup stammered, gripping the rope with one hand-he didn't have the balance to pull with both hands without falling off. But what he actually accomplished from that position was just a feeble wiggling of the rope, far from enough strength to actually pull Azula to the incredibly tenuous safety of the dragon's talon. In fact, his wiggling was actually dislodging Azula's grip. A horrible sinking feeling leadened Azula's gut.

He can't pull me up. He's not strong enough.

"I can't pull you up! I'm not strong enough!" Hiccup confirmed helpfully, face drawn tight with worry. "H-hold on!"

"PULL HARDER!" she yelled, now fully unable to keep the crawling fear out of her voice. She risked a quick glance down, finding that they were flying over forested ground, the village had disappeared behind a hill. Rain spattered across her face and steamed on contact, evidence of her tense emotional state. Her hands hurt, the rope between her fingers digging a channel through her delicate hands.

"Hold...on!"

Hiccup's voice yanked her attention up. He was now gripping the rope with both hands, pulling up and by some miracle not falling off. He pulled-and this time, the rope lifted. An entire foot, and no further. Even in this position, he still didn't have enough leverage. Azula grit her teeth. Why did she have to be stuck up here with the one Viking on berk who couldn't pull her up? This was entirely unfair. Wasn't she supposed to be lucky? Father had said she was lucky, but-

"SHHHKRAAAAAAAAAAAA!" The dragon suddenly interjected, tired of playing carrier pigeon to the swingiest prey it had ever grabbed.

With a heart-dropping lurch, it banked steeply in the air. The motion forced Azula to hang on for dear life, and whipped poor Hiccup straight from his perch, sending him sliding down the rope at an alarming speed. Azula had never felt so helpless, watching him slide down until he crashed into her.

And then the branch, the cursed branch that was both their tormentor and their life-line, decided enough was enough. Caught between the centrifugal motions of two youths and the unrelenting claws of a dragon, it gave out faster than Uncle Iroh's resolve at the siege of Ba Sing Se. It snapped with a horrendous crunch, sending a spray of wood into the air–and leaving Azula and Hiccup to plummet to their collective dooms.

Or rather, they plummetted into a nearby tree, where the rope tangled in branches as they fell through, slowing their fall enough so that when Hiccup finally hit the ground, instead of feeling the sweet release of death, he only felt agonizing pain akin to being crushed beneath a falling yak. Hiccup would know, he had been crushed between a falling yak before. (Thanks, Ruffnut.)

Delightful.

He lay on his face a few minutes, head spinning. After the rushing wind, the forest floor was incredibly quiet, almost peaceful, and Hiccup found he wouldn't mind just lying here forever. He'd think about the fact that there was still a Deadly Nadder around later. The fact he was basically alone in a forest? Later. The fact that he and Azula would have to walk all the way back? Later.

Well actually, he realized, he'd kind of lost sight of Azula after the branch had snapped. Maybe she was dead. That would be a shame–

Something pointed and indignant kicked him in the back. Not dead then.

With a groan, he rolled over. Azula was standing over him, hair full of displaced leaves and face arrayed with scratches. She started back at his movement, as if she'd expected him to be dead. For a moment he just stared at her, watching her regain her composure while his ears stopped ringing. It was a solid minute later that he felt the time was right to say what needed to be said.

"At least my knot held."

Azula just stared at him with those angry gold eyes of hers, making no movement to help him up as he struggled to his feet. Actually, he felt rather good; aside from some bruises and a lot of mud, no-one could have told that he'd just fallen from a dragon. Oh, this would actually be a pretty sweet story to tell the others once he got back. Sure, he hadn't slain a dragon, but surviving one was almost as good, right? Nevermind that it had all been purely by chance.

"Alright, you're up," Azula's voice interrupted his daydreaming. Thor, he could barely hear her, his ears were still ringing painfully.

Hiccup rolled his shoulders, flashing her a lopsided grin. "Yeah, it takes more than that to get rid of all this Viking. Can't get rid of me that easily." The effect was somewhat ruined by a large drop of water falling on his nose. Oh right, yes, it was still raining. Thank you so much, Thor.

"Ahem," Azula interjected yet again, drawing her hand up to the side of her face. An orange flame blossomed above her palm, where it hovered like a torch but without the wood and cloth and oil. Probably a good idea, it was actually getting dark. But his...friend? Housemate? Whatever she was, it seemed she wasn't finished quite yet.

"I'm sure that we could hash out who was responsible for this little predicament we're in," she said, softly.

Huh.

"And I'm sure you've realized that revealing my part in this could be disastrous for me," she continued.

Huh?

"Before you get too ahead of yourself though, consider this. Just now, I could have just killed you to keep you quiet. It would have been very easy to blame on the dragon, no-one would have questioned it."

WHAT?

"But, in an act of mercy, I decided against that course of action. You might think that you can leverage the fact that you're the only one who knows the way out–you're probably thinking you could just leave me here. Well, rest assured, I can get that information out of you if I need to, though I'd much rather it not come to that. Therefore, I think it's reasonable to consider a settlement be made before we return to the village. I won't hurt you, and you won't reveal that I was behind that whole disaster with the tree. "

"Uhhhhhh," Hiccup stared, blinking rapidly. He'd vastly underestimated the severity of the situation.

He raised a hand, acutely aware of Azula's wary eyes following the motion.

Then he cupped his ear, apologetically.

"I'm sorry, could you–could you repeat that?"

Azula's fire sputtered flat.

"Yeah," Hiccup continued, flashing her another grin. He hoped she hadn't said anything important. "My ears are really ringing. Anyway, uh, we should probably find our way out of this forest before that Nadder comes back. Fortunately, I've been all over these woods. You can just follow me."

"WAIT!"

That finally broke through the ringing, as it was yelled with the force of an angry Thunderdrum. Hiccup sent a glance over his shoulder, just in time to see Azula spring into motion. She leaped up with a burst of flame, kicked off a tree and skidded down to a stop in front of Hiccup, flames flickering about her feet. Hiccup drew back, eyes wide, as she advanced on him.

"I KNOW you're blaming me for all this!"

Nope. Nopenopenopenope.

Hiccup, with his senses finely tuned for detecting when someone was about to beat him up, did what he'd found to be the best solution all around. Namely, he drew on his experience, turned on his heel, and ran.

"ADMIT IT!" the shriek was accompanied by heat. Where had this all come from? What had he missed?

"I mean yes, I do actually blame you for this! I wonder why on earth that could be?"

"And you're going to tell everyone when we get back!"

"I AM SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING IT NOW THAT YOU'VE MENTIONED IT!" Hiccup fired back, demonstrating his incredible ability to dig his own grave.

A wash of flame whirred past him, leaving a trail across the forest floor that quickly petered to smoke, thank Thor. The rain was actually useful for once. However, the wall of smoke and fire did cut off his escape route, forcing him to turn 90 degrees and pic an alternate path, ducking beneath branches and around bushes.

"STOP RUNNING!"

"I'D RATHER NOT!"

Another fireball sailed bast his ear, except this one curved mid-air and crashed into the ground in front of him, sealing off another escape route. Huh. He hadn't known she could do that. Again, that analytical part of his brain piped in with questions. How did she control the fire after she threw it? How did she throw fire at all? Actually, since when could she throw fireballs from her feet, wasn't that a bit much–

That part of his brain was silenced as a heavy weight slammed into his back with a jarring thud, sending him sprawling on his face for the second time today. Already bruised ribs gave painful protests, but at least his fall had been stopped by a convenient amount of mud. Oh goodie.
He tried to struggle to his feet, but Azula was on him, straddling his back and slamming a hand against the back of his neck. Her hand was hot. Very very hot.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" he wailed, wiggling around as best he could.

"I'm–"

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH"

"Listen–" Azula growled, and her hands cooled down somewhat. However, her body weight didn't lessen in the slightest, enough to keep him down no matter how much he struggled. "It was my plan that got us here, and even though there were circumstances beyond my control, and if you hadn't been so utterly inept everything would have gone perfectly, it was still technically my fault. So here's what's going to happen. I am going to apologize, and you are going to forgive me, and then we will never speak of this again." Heat made itself freshly apparent on the back of Hiccup's neck. "Understand?"

"No!" Hiccup wiggled, Viking stubbornness making its way to the fore. "Look, I don't want to tell you how to be insane, but you are clearly really, really bad at apologizing–"

"Forgive. Me." said Azula.

"NO!" said Hiccup.

"YES!" said Azula.

"NO!" said Hiccup.

"SHRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAA!" said the Deadly Nadder.

Both youths stiffened, and their argument was suddenly snuffed out into deathly silence. The Nadder, the selfsame one that had dropped them here in the first place, thudded down into the forest floor a depressingly short distance away. Its nostrils flared, taking in the scents around it, wreathed in the smoke of Azula's fire like a demon from Helheim. Hiccup didn't dare move, and judging by the sudden stillness and lack of heat on his back, Azula was doing the same.

Maybe it won't smell us through all this smoke?

And Hiccup was actually right. The shroud of smoke interfered with the Nadder's sense of smell so much that it didn't have the slightest chance of smelling anything at all, let alone two muddy children clinging to the ground.

It could see them just fine though.

Yellow eyes narrowed, and a shrill, rattling shriek filled the forest.

Stoick overlooked the village. All in all, the attack hadn't been too bad. There were the usual burning houses that would need to be rebuilt AGAIN, stolen sheep and scattered flocks. But no, all things considered, there was nothing new in this attack.
Well, except for one thing. This time, the dragons had made off with his son.

Stoick the Vast wasn't an emotional man. Most people would say he had two settings; "chief," and "wrath of Thor incarnate." But everyone, everyone knew, you did not mess with Stoick's family and live for very much longer.

Which was why, even though it had been a running gag EVERY SINGLE dragon attack that "this will be the time Hiccup buys it," no-one was saying anything.

"He could still be out there, chief," Gobber said, standing at his side. The other man was fiddling with the tip of his hooked hand, clearly wishing he was anywhere else. "You know, stranger things have happened."

Stoick clenched a massive fist at his side. "I wish I could believe that, Gobber."

Author's Note: So, Azula is kind of...hard to make friends with. I don't think it's possible to write a story like this without the fact that she's MESSED UP popping up at least once. In her defence, she's pretty stressed. However unfortunately for her, she has never dealt with Vikings before. Also poor Stoick, first Valka, now Hiccup...
WILL HICCUP SURVIVE? WILL AZULA BE GROUNDED FOR LIFE WHEN SHE RETURNS? WILL HICCUP AND HER EVER BECOME FRIENDS? WHEN STOICK FINDS OUT THAT HICCUP IS ALIVE, WILL IT BE WARM AND FUZZY?

Find out soooooooon™