Surprisingly, Hiccup recovered only three days later of staying inside and having Astrid to nurse him by his father's orders. This was also the day his bed got moved back up into his room. After spending so much time together with Astrid, they made a few plans on training their dragons in the cove since there were no other places to do so. They had set up a schedule of exercises every day for a week, and with Snoggletog coming up they decided to take it easy and begin with baby steps.
First exercise was about trust. Both set it up without hesitation, and thought it was a good exercise to see if the riders trusted their dragons as much as the dragons trusted them. Of course, they had no problem on doing so and most likely Snotlout wouldn't mind since he always tried to man up for Astrid, but thinking of Fishlegs and the twins, they weren't so sure what their reaction would end up being. Hiccup and Astrid waited in the cove for the four to arrive on their dragons, and only minutes later they finally came.
"Okay gang, today there will be a trust exercise above ground," Hiccup explained before flying off into the morning daylight and high up into the clouds. "You will be jumping off your dragon and just before you hit the water your dragon will catch you. It's a trust exercise, like this," He unstrapped his leg and safety harness then jumped off of Toothless, and dived down to the sharp rocks sticking out of the surface of the ocean.
"Why does he always have to do that?" Fishlegs asked nervously, struggling to keep floating above ground. Astrid just laughed, looking back down at Hiccup as they flew back up to them.
"Who's next?" Hiccup asked as if nothing had happened. To their surprise Snotlout had already slide off Hookfang's back and fell fast down to the ocean.
"NOT FEELING THE TRUST! HOOKFANG!" Snotlout yelled, spinning around. Hookfang snapped out of his thoughts, panicking as he saw his rider fall down to the ocean. He flew at high speed, trying to reach him but noticed he was to slow to catch him in time. Hiccup and Toothless noticed as well and dove down to get him. The due flew past Hookfang in full speed, catching Snotlout just in time before he hit the surface. They flew back to the rest, ignoring the angry shouts from Snotlout to his dragon that fired up his body, almost setting Snotlout on fire, again.
"Need to work more on that one. Ruff, Tuff, you're up," The twins nodded, sliding off their dragon in two different directions. Barf and Tuffnut's dragon head, flew in different direction trying to get to their riders but crashed into the closest sea stack. Astrid rushed down to catch Ruffnut while Hiccup took care of Tuffnut just before they hit the ocean. Barf flew up, steading itself and picked up both the riders who almost fainted from shock.
"We almost died," Ruffnut groaned, leaning her weight on the dragons head.
"We did? Barf! Do it again!" Tuffnut said happily, straightening up in his seat as if nothing happened before.
"Next one, Fishlegs?" Hiccup asked, looking around for him.
"I'd like to do the trusting on the ground, thank you very much. After all, it didn't end very well in our best trick competition a few days back," Fishlegs explained, feeling the thought of falling towards frozen water in rapid speed was a think you only did once in a life time.
"Okay, I'm not going to make you do it if you don't want to, Astrid?" Hiccup gave Fishlegs a warm smile before turning to see Astrid and Stormfly gone.
"Already ahead of you!" She screamed, diving alongside Stormfly like Hiccup did with Toothless only minutes ago. They did a perfect trusting exercise before flying back up to the others.
"Great job guys, that's it for today and we'll meet again tomorrow in the-," Fishlegs cut him off.
"What is that ship doing so close to Berk?" He asked, pointing to a small ship on the horizon.
"I don't know, let's check it out guys," They flew down towards the ship in a line, hoping the ship wasn't hostile and to their surprise it was the old grumpy man of the village returning from his fishing trip. "Afternoon Mildew, need some help?" Hiccup offered, landing on deck. Mildew was taken by surprise, thinking it was a dragon attack but the familiar voice proved him wrong.
"W-what?!" He shrieked, jumping back in surprise as he put his staff up in defense. The dragons growled at his staff, mostly because it had dragon teeth attached to it, but also finding it as a threat. Without Mildew having a say in it, the dragons grabbed ropes that were attached to the ship, and flew up in the air, bringing the ship back to Berk.