First off, I am so sorry it has been so long since the last chapter! I'm was in my last semester at community college, and getting ready to graduate from there and transfer to a university, so my free time had gone down to zilch. I've never lost muse for this story, I just lost the time to actually be able and sit down at work on it. But I wrote a little bit whenever I had the chance. Anyway, huge thanks to everyone that has read, reviewed, added to favorites, or put this story on alert. You guys are awesome!

Fire in the Night

It was several days before I saw Hiccup again, though the next time that I saw him was at night. Well, technically it was probably very early morning, but without a proper clock around I was not really sure what time of day it was anymore. The days since I had run into Hiccup had been quiet, with Halla sending me on errands now and again. The topic of Hiccup seemed to be something that Halla wanted to avoid since the day I had run into him. Perhaps she was taking my words about him to heart, or she was starting to think that I was just as crazy as he was.

We had gone to bed well after dark and the moon hung high in the sky. Sleep had come quickly, for that afternoon we had gone into the forest to pick some herbs and my brain hurt from trying to remember the names of everything she had shown me. But sadly we were not able to sleep through the night. Early in the morning, I was awoken by the sound of yelling in the village and roars echoing through the night air. I lay in bed for a moment, my eyes open as I stared up at the ceiling before it finally clicked; a dragon raid was in progress.

Sure enough, a few moments later I heard noise upstairs and seconds later Halla ran down the stairs, shoving a short horned helmet onto her head. She had thrown some dragon scale armor on over a dark green dress and held a short ax in her free hand. "Up! Up!" she yelled as she reached the bottom of the stairs and rushed over to the bed that had been deemed as mine as I swung my legs over the edge.

"What's going on?" I asked. Yeah, I already knew but I could not let her know that. Too many questions.

"Dragon attack. Get your boots on," she replied, grabbing my boots from the foot of the bed and handing them to me.

"Dragon what?" I took the boots from her slowly.

"Hurry up!" I jumped slightly at her yell, but quickly began to pull on my boots. She kept shifting on her feet and glancing toward the door. "We have dragons here and every so often they attack, destroying homes and stealing food and livestock."

I nodded in understanding as I pulled on my boots. As soon as I was done and on my feet, she was herding me towards the door. "Now, I've got to get out there and help," she told me as we stopped before the door. "Get to the Mead Hall and stay there with the little ones until someone comes for you."

I was being sent to hang out with the little kids. Of course. But I was a foreigner here. Defenseless as a child. I nodded. "Okay."

"Good," she said shortly before opening the door and herding me outside. She pushed me in the direction of the Mead Hall before she ran off with a yell to help.

The tall torches were up in the air and burned brightly in the night sky, illuminating the village. Homes were on fire. People were yelling. Sheep were belting. And flying through the air were dragons, hundreds of dragons. Sure, I knew that one day they would be nice friendly creatures in this village, but at that moment, looking up at them flying through the night sky, I felt fear. They were not nice to the village yet. They pillaged and burned and stole food for the huge dragon on their island, injuring Vikings in the process and destroying homes, possibly even lives.

One flew overhead, roaring and spraying fire just yards before me. I got no problem admitting it. I let out a yelp before turning and running in the direction that I knew would lead me up toward the Mead Hall.

I ran as fast as I could, avoiding Vikings running all over the place with weapons in hand. I started up the wooden walkway up to the next level, panting hard and a stitch twitching painfully in my side. I was on the same level as the blacksmith stall and the long stairs that led up to the Mead Hall. I could see the base of them growing closer with every step I took.

I glanced up when a roar sounded overhead and flat out ran into someone, sending us both flying to the ground. I pushed myself up and spotted Hiccup also on the ground. He had been pushing something that looked similar to what he would use to shoot down Toothless someday in the future. He pushed himself up and then offered a hand to me. "No dragons where you come from?"

I let laugh, which made me sound like I was losing it, as I took his hand. Within seconds I was back on my feet. "That obvious?"

"Welcome to Berk," he said in a way that made me unable to tell if he was being serious or sarcastic. I assumed the latter. He moved back to the cart thing that he had been pushing as overhead another dragon roared. A house nearby went up in flames.

Hiccup started to move off, pushing his new invention before him as I stood there surrounded by chaos. I glanced toward the base of the stairs that led up to the Mead. Halla had told me to go up there and stay with the children, because I was as useless in this situation as they were. I looked toward Hiccup. He was running as he pushed the cart thing, heading off past the flaming houses. Almost every Viking he past yelled at him to get back inside.

Oh, Halla was probably going to kill me for this. But instead of going to the Mead Hall like I was supposed to, I instead ran after Hiccup. I dodged Vikings that were yelling and carrying weapons, and a few that had clothing that was smoldering, before I finally caught up to Hiccup.

"What is that thing?" I asked as I started running just alongside him. He jumped, letting go of the handle of the cart thing, which stopped rolling and clunked to the ground. I winced as Hiccup ran into it. "Sorry."

"I'm okay," he said, though it was more of a wheeze than anything. He took a few deep breaths before looking at me. "Uh, what are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going with you," I replied as he grabbed the handle of the cart thing.

He started at me for a moment. "Why?"

I gave a shrug. "I'm curious about what the hell that thing is," I said, gesturing with my head to the cart thing he had been pushing.

Behind us a dragon roared, causing both of us to glance back. Another home went up in flames, but I watched one dragon taken down by a Viking. It never went back up. I turned around to see Hiccup had started moving again, weaving through the Vikings running about around us. I ran and caught up with him. "Well, what does it do?"

He glanced over at me, but did not stop moving. "One of the ways to catch a dragon is to throw a net over it. This thing should do that for us."

"'Should?'" I repeated as we came to a stop on the rise that overlooked a field of grass. The dragons had not made it here yet and the sheep still grazed.

Hiccup opened his mouth to reply, but that was when the dragons found the sheep. He turned to the cart, unfolded several parts and it turned into something that I knew was a predecessor of the creation that he had used in the film to bring down Toothless.

One dragon, a Nadder I believe, landed and started grabbing sheep. I glanced over to see Hiccup adjusting one last thing on his creation. Another landed besides it. In the distance, I heard someone shout, "THEY'VE FOUND THE SHEEP!"

"Hiccup," I said slowly, taking a step back. One Nadder turned toward us, lifting its tail. Oh crap, the spikes. "HIT THE DIRT!"

I pulled Hiccup down, who yelped, just as the Nadder sent it's spikes toward us. I could feel them fly by my hair and heard a 'thunk' as a few imbedded themselves in Hiccups net thrower. One grabbed the edge of my skirt and sunk into the ground. I swallowed heavily as I lifted my head, glancing over at Hiccup. That had been a close one.

His green eyes studied me. "How did you know about the spikes on their tail?"

I opened my mouth to respond, only to be interrupted by the sound of the Nadder taking off, a sheep in its grasp. Hiccup quickly got up and went back to the net thrower, pulling the spikes out of it before he took aim for another Nadder that was getting ready to leave. I pushed myself to my feet just as Hiccup fired. It worked just fine, but instead the net capturing the Nadder, it wrapped around a Viking that had suddenly appeared to take on the Nadder.

Hiccup stood in shock as the Nadder took off, though thankfully without sheep since more Vikings were arriving on the scene. One of the Vikings went to cut whoever had gotten caught in the net free. I looked between Hiccup and the person trapped in the net. "Well, at least it worked."

He turned his shocked, wide eyes toward me. "What? It did. You just…didn't fire it soon enough."

"HICCUP!"

Oh, no. I recognized that voice. Hiccups dad. We both grimaced and looked toward the net to see that the person that had been caught was now free. Yup, of course it had to be his dad that had gotten caught by the net.

"Kendra? I told you to go to the Hall!"

I winced. Oh crap. Halla. Hiccup and I glanced toward each other, our expressions identical. They were expressions that said 'we are so dead.'