A/N: I didn't expect to go this long between updates, but life has been life. Trying to run a business is really hard and really exhausting.

More things were going to happen in this chapter, but this part took longer than I thought, and I'm kinda stuck on the next part, so have this update in the meantime. Also, to the anon from a while back, no, Snotlout is not dead in this story. You're thinking of another sacrifice AU. I'm never abandoning this story. Stop sending me messages asking if I have.


Chapter 30: Plan A

"On a scale of one to ten, with ten being 'total success where we save the day and everyone lives happily ever after', and one being 'certain, instant, painful death', how likely would you say this plan is to work?"

Hiccup didn't answer immediately. He swallowed and finally said, "On a scale of one to ten how much do you really want my answer to that question?"

Astrid's arms tightened around his waist. "This is stupid."

Hiccup's hand closed over one of hers. "I tend to do pretty well with stupid." He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "It's the best plan I've got right now, and you're the one who keeps telling me to do something."

"I know, but..." Astrid trailed off, biting her lip as she looked down the mouth of the volcano below them. Hiccup squeezed her hand again.

"With as many raids as have happened recently she should be full and happy and not attempt to eat me on sight." Below them Toothless rumbled uneasily. Hiccup released her hand to pat the dragon's neck. "Easy, bud. The calmer we stay, the better our chances." Hiccup twisted and Astrid had to loosen her hold so he could face her in the saddle. Despite his calm tone and reassurances there was obvious apprehension on his face.

"Astrid," he began, "Look, if this...goes wrong-"

"Don't," she interrupted, closing her eyes and shaking her head. "Please, don't-"

"Astrid, there are things I need to tell you-"

"No, just stop." She gave him an imploring look. "Don't talk like you've already failed."

"But Astrid, if this goes wrong I just want you to know-"

She shut him up with a kiss, her neck craned at an awkward angle to capture his mouth, but when she pulled away he made no more effort to speak. "I already know whatever you could tell me," she whispered. "And anything else can wait until we get out of here."

Hiccup gave her a long look. He kissed her again, briefly, pressed a kiss to her forehead then pulled her ear to his mouth and whispered, "Far left worktable. Second drawer from the top, the wooden box wrapped in linen." Astrid frowned but didn't have a chance to ask. Hiccup had released her and turned back around in the saddle. His foot adjusted the pedal and Astrid wrapped her arms around him again before they shifted into a dive.

They entered the mountain through one of many winding cave passageways, and after a few minutes of shifting darkness and red glowing light, they emerged into the center cavern. As before, they were surrounded by nervous looking dragons skittering along ledges and cowering behind rock formations. They landed behind one such formation near the mouth of another passage, a position that gave plenty of defendable protection and an easy, nearby escape. Once they'd landed Hiccup slid off Toothless's back and rubbed his dragon's head.

Astrid scooted forward to take a flight position in the saddle. Hiccup unloaded a few bags of fish from the saddlebags and Toothless shifted, adjusting to the change of weight. Hiccup took a deep breath, resting his hands against Toothless's side. He glanced at Astrid and gave her a weak smile which she did her best effort to return. He scratched behind Toothless's ears and whispered, "No matter what happens, you keep her safe." Toothless's low trill followed Hiccup as he dragged the heavy bags of fish around the edge of the rock formation. He opened the big bags so as to access the smaller bags inside, reached for one, and with a grunt tossed it over the edge into the mist below. After a moment a deep rumble echoed up from the depths of the mountain. Astrid held her breath, peaking around the stalagmite. An enormous head emerged from the mist, and six eyes as big as her whole body fixed on Hiccup.

Her knuckles went white on the reigns. Hiccup reached for another bag of fish and threw it to the dragon queen, who opened her jaws and snatched the bag from midair. She watched Hiccup with eagerness, her eyes following him as he picked up another bag of fish and hurled it into her waiting maw. Around the cave the other dragons had gone silent. They all watched this strange tiny human feed fish to the queen a thousand times his size.

After Hiccup had fed the queen all of one bag of fish, he reached down, his hands threading through the loops on the legs of his pants, and stood up, his arms pulling loose leather wings that hung at his sides. The Dragon Queen's eyes widened and she leaned her head closer to inspect him. Hiccup reached for another bag of fish and tossed them to the queen, who snapped them up.

Hiccup stepped closer to the edge and reached out a hand towards the enormous dragon. The queen watched him for a moment, then started growling, her eyes flicking towards the bags of fish.

Hiccup lowered his hand and grabbed more bags of fish and tossed them to her until she had consumed all of the fish he had to offer. When at last all of the fish, nearly 200 pounds in total, had been fed to the beast, Hiccup stepped back. He took his sword from its holster on his leg and opened and ignited the blade. The Queen's many eyes widened. Hiccup held the flaming sword aloft and waved it slowly over his head. All six eyes followed the motion of the blade but the queen did not otherwise move.

All over the cave other dragons watched as well, some of them even creeping out of their hiding spots for a better view.

Hiccup extinguished the blade and returned it to his holster. The Queen leaned closer, her snout almost level with the ledge on which Hiccup stood. Astrid held her breath, and beneath her Toothless had lowered into a crouch, ready to leap into action if needed. Hiccup stepped close, still standing tall and steady even though Astrid could see his chest moving quickly with nervous breaths. Hiccup stepped almost to the cliff's edge, so close to the enormous dragon that he might have been able to reach out and touch it, and Astrid realized with sudden horror that that was exactly what he intended to do.

Hiccup's hand rose and stretched towards the Queen's snout. She watched the hand extending towards her, and for a split second Astrid thought this whole crazy plan might actually work. A low growl that still managed to rumble the entire mountain was the only warning before the dragon reared back and lunged forward, jaws wide. Astrid screamed, and Hiccup only barely managed to dive out of the way before the Queen's teeth gouged a chunk out of the ledge where he had just been standing.

Toothless roared and leapt, and Astrid was jerked back, nearly losing her hold on the saddle. The Dragon Queen was howling, all six pupils narrowed to slits and fixed on the tiny human pushing to his feet. She opened her mouth, gas bubbling at the back of her throat. Astrid started to scream again. They were too far away and Hiccup would not be able to get clear of her fire in time.

Toothless fired a blast at the Queen's face, the purple light exploding against her cheek and throwing off her shot. Thin streams of fire leaked out between the Queen's teeth, but no more than that. Hiccup was on his feet now but there was not enough ledge left for him to cross to them, and the Queen was quickly recovering, shaking her head and coughing away the smoke.

"Hiccup!" Astrid shouted to him. He met her eyes for a moment, and then looked down, sharing a brief look with Toothless. Hiccup nodded, then threw himself off the side of the ledge. "No!"

Toothless followed, and Astrid flattened herself against the dragon. Toothless had acted too quickly; Astrid couldn't remember which position to change the tailfin to, and Hiccup had left it locked in a gliding position. They pitched over the side of the ledge, and Astrid spotted Hiccup, leather wings held open, gliding around the open cavern, trying to stay clear of the thrashing Queen. Toothless flapped his wings and managed just enough of a burst of speed to put himself under Hiccup. There was a whoosh of air, a thump, and Hiccup had landed behind her. His foot kicked hers out of the way, his hands closed over hers on the handlebars, and Toothless pulled into a sharp turn.

The whole world was spinning. The Queen was trying to find them, snatch them out of the air, but she was too big, the space was too small, and they were too fast. Before Astrid could quite grasp what had happened they had flown into a tunnel and taken a turn, finding an offshoot in which to hide. They watched as other dragons skittered or flew past, screeching out into the night as they retreated from the enraged queen. Every now and then one would stop to look curiously at them.

They could not see the queen from where they were hiding but they could hear her. She was howling, furious, her roars echoing through the mountain and shaking the walls. After a moment that felt like hours she quieted, and Toothless crept forward enough that they could see down the tunnel they'd come into the main cavern, in time to watch the queen's snout withdraw into the depths of the mountain.

"Hiccup," Astrid whispered, gripping his arm. "We need to get out of here."

"Just a minute," Hiccup replied, craning his neck to try to see more of the cavern from where they hid. "Maybe she'll have gotten the fury out of her system. Maybe if I go back in there-"

"No!" Astrid hissed, louder than she felt comfortable. The Queen couldn't reach them down this way, but she could probably tear the mountain apart trying. "Hiccup we need to get out of here, now. If you go back in there she'll eat you or roast you or-"

"I just want to get one last look, maybe I can-"

"Hiccup!" He must have picked up on the shrill note of panic in her voice because he shut up and didn't push the issue further. His hands rubbed over hers.

"Okay," he said softly. "Let's get out of here."

Xx

The turning gears in Hiccup's head were almost audible. They didn't discuss what had happened on the flight back, but Astrid intended to the moment they touched down at home. She was sure it would take until then for her heart to stop pounding. Her ribs ached from the jerky rescue maneuvering, but not enough for her to worry there had been further damage. She was healing on schedule, but it was still taking far too long for her liking.

True to his word, Hiccup had snuck into Berk to check on Stormfly, and as he'd expected, they were holding her in the arena. They weren't feeding her enough, but she was otherwise unharmed. A perilous day-long stake-out in a cave above the village, unreachable except by dragon, had revealed that Berkians had indeed attempted to use her to train Berk's younger warriors, but it didn't seem to be going well. For the teenagers, at least. Stormfly was extremely hesitant to attack anyone, and even her attempts to defend herself were relatively half-hearted compared to what she was really capable of.

It still worried Astrid. Stormfly did not want to harm anyone if she did not have to, but she might still be seriously injured, or worse, if she came to believe she'd been abandoned, she might stop pulling her proverbial punches.

Berk had not been attacked since the night they'd confronted Stoick, but other villages had been. Astrid hadn't realized just how much of a difference her help had made until she again had to see an exhausted Hiccup and Toothless return from protecting a village on their own. And of course, she dreaded the night the Dragon Queen might again turn her sights on Berk.

Hiccup would go back; of course he would. There was no question about it. He would not leave Berk undefended, no matter what he'd said in a moment of anger. If he didn't go, and something happened, if someone died...it might convince the village of how much good he'd really been doing, but Hiccup would never forgive himself for it.

They landed in their room back in their mountain and Hiccup slid off the saddle first, then turned to help Astrid down. He looked disappointed, his brow furrowed and eyes downcast. Astrid's stomach started twisting itself into a knot as Hiccup stepped away and started ripping at his armor.

"Hiccup," she began, "Don't do this, don't you start up the self-pity party again. Just because one plan failed-"

"I know, Astrid," he groaned, tossing his chest piece to the side and plopping down on the bed to start pulling off his boots. "I'm not throwing a pity party." He yanked off his boots and ran his hands through his hair, sighing. "I just...kinda hoped that would work better than it did."

"You were trying to tame a thousand ton beast of a dragon with some fish and fake wings. It's kind of a miracle it didn't work worse."

Hiccup glared at her. "Oh now you tell me you think it wouldn't work? You weren't this worried when I first told you what the plan was."

Astrid shrugged and came to sit down beside him. "To be honest I kinda thought there was more to it than what you were telling me. And besides," she said before he could give voice to that angry expression, "It wasn't a terrible plan in theory. That kind of thing would have worked pretty well with most dragons."

Hiccup heaved a sigh, anger fading. "Then why didn't it work on her?" Toothless had lit the main fire and then grumpily gone to bed, his back to them. Clearly his opinion on the plan was less than positive. Hiccup frowned at the fire. "Maybe I need to just work on her more. Keep coming back, bring her more food, show her I'm friendly. She probably hasn't left that mountain in years, centuries maybe. She may not even have seen a person before, or at least not in any positive context."

"Hiccup."

He was on his feet and pacing. "Maybe if I up the disguise bit, show myself to her more as a dragon, then slowly reign it back, so by the time she's facing me fully as a human, she sees me as one of the dragons, so to speak."

"Hiccup."

"I could bring her a bigger tribute, too. The fish worked because it was a little at a time, but she may have viewed that as too small of a tribute. Maybe if I brought her something bigger, like a wild boar, or maybe-"

"Hiccup!" He turned and looked at her, mildly surprised at her raised voice.

"What?"

Astrid sighed and patted the bed beside her. Her ribs did not like the idea of getting back up to chase Hiccup across the room. "I'm not sure your plan is really going to work the way you want it to."

Hiccup frowned. "I know we had a rough start, but given enough time and enough repeat visits, I really think I can make the Dragon Queen see me as one of her own."

"Say you can," Astrid said, leaning back on her hands, since Hiccup was refusing to stop pacing in front of the fire. "Then what? She sees you as one of her dragon minions. She expects you to show up with a tribute every time you show up. One day you don't bring food, and chomp chomp, Hiccup sandwich."

"No," Hiccup says, frowning at her. "I gain her trust; I make her see me as one of her own, and then I get her to see me as someone she'll listen to. Someone she'll even take commands from, in the simplest of terms. Like Mom and the Bewilderbeast. If it worked on the Bewilderbeast, it should work on the Red Death."

"Except the Red Death isn't the Bewilderbeast," Astrid pressed. "Your Mom works well with the Bewilderbeast because he actually cares about the dragons under his command. He protects and provides for them. The Dragon Queen doesn't care about the dragons under her command. She sends them out to hunt food for her, and doesn't care if they die doing it. And let's not forget that she'll straight up eat any dragon that doesn't bring back a suitable offering." She shook her head. "A dragon like that is not going to listen to some puny human-all humans are puny to her, don't give me that look-especially one that is trying to get her to stop sending her subjects to their deaths for the sake of her dinner."

"You're making her sound evil," Hiccup said, frowning.

Astrid shrugged. "Isn't she?"

Hiccup's frown edged closer to a glare. "Dragons aren't all-"

"Dragons aren't all bad, yes, I know," she interrupted. "But Hiccup, that doesn't mean they're all good." Hiccup's mouth closed. "People are mostly good, but there are good people and bad people in the world. Why can't there be good dragons and bad dragons too?"

Hiccup thought about that for a moment. "Say you're right," he said quietly, eyes on his feet. "Then what do we do about the Red Death?"

"I don't know, I'm not really the plan person."

"Say you were," Hiccup said, looking at her. "You're not stupid, and you're not half bad at planning in a pinch."

Astrid rolled her eyes. "I'm not really a strategist, Hiccup. I've always been more the 'lop their head off with an axe' kind of girl."

Hiccup smiled. "Well, what does the 'lop off their head with an axe' kind of girl think we should do in this situation?"

Astrid heaved another sigh. "I'm not sure you'd like what my answer would be."

"Tell me anyway."

She thought for a moment, staring at her lap. "We know where the nest is. We know where the queen is. And the dragons are totally docile outside of her control. The only real problem is, well, the queen. Get rid of her, and the war is more or less over."

"I'm not sure I like where you're going with this."

"I told you you wouldn't." She looked up at him. "Something has to be done about the Dragon Queen. And since you can't exactly reason with her-"

"We don't know that-"

"We do know that," Astrid said firmly. "Hiccup, she's not some enemy tribe's chief, she's a dragon. Which means at the end of the day, she's just an animal. That's what they are. Smarter than average animals, yes, but still animals." She shook her head. "You're up against nature here, babe, there's only so much you can do. You can't reason with her. She's running on base instinct. She's greedy; she wants food and her dragon minions are how she gets it. Threaten that, and she's going to lash out to protect her own interests."

"So, what, when negotiations fail we just kill her?"

"That is how war works, babe," she reminded him gently. "And we're not talking about killing an innocent creature here. We're talking about toppling the tyrannical top of the food chain."

"Try saying that five times fast."

"Hiccup."

"I know, I know." He sat down beside her. "You've got a point. It's not like taking down the Queen would be easy, though. There's no way we could do that all on our own."

Astrid chewed her lip. "Well, if you wanted to kill two birds with one stone..."'she trailed off and Hiccup looked at her."Vikings have been searching for the nest ever since we first sailed here; they're ready to go to war against the source of the raids, and we know where it is."

Hiccup was shaking his head before she even finished. "There's no way that'd work. That thing is enormous, and ferocious. It'd take more than even the most battle-ready, blood-thirsty Vikings to take it down. If we sent Berk after the nest, it'd be a massacre."

"Unprepared, maybe. But with a good enough plan, and backup from you and me-"

"It'd still probably be a massacre," Hiccup interrupted. He ran his hands through his hair. "We have to be smarter than this. There's a solution here, I just haven't found it yet. Consider battle Plan C. In the meantime, I try to work out the kinks on plan B."

"And you completely abandon Plan A?" Astrid asked in a warning tone.

Hiccup sighed. "Yes, I'll abandon Plan A." He bumped her shoulder playfully.
"It's almost like you don't want me to get myself killed, or something."

She elbowed his ribs. "How dare I try to keep you safe?" He leaned in to kiss her but a sudden thought stopped her just before their lips met. "What's in the box in your worktable?" Hiccup stopped, his eyes fluttering open.

He swallowed. "Something...something I'd want you to find if I couldn't give to you in person."

Astrid hummed, tilting her head so that Hiccup's lips missed hers again. He made a little noise of frustration. "So since you are here, does that mean I get it now?" Hiccup pulled back, regarding her mischievous little smile with a fond one of his own.

"It means you get to wait until I'm ready to give it to you."

She pouted. "So if you died I'd have gotten a surprise gift, but since you live I don't get anything?"

His arms snaked around her waist and pulled her gently into his lap. "Unfortunately you just get me, milady."

Xx

Warm breath.

That was Astrid's first thought as she woke. She could feel warm breath on her face.

Very warm breath. Hot breath. Very hot breath.

Very stinky, fishy, hot breath.

Astrid blinked open her eyes, and found herself nose to nose with a Monstrous Nightmare.

She shrieked, scrambling backwards and looking around wildly for Hiccup. She heard his laughter and found him standing beside the bed, rubbing the belly of a happily panting Gronkle while the two heads of a Hideous Zippleback took turns licking Toothless, who looked about as amused with the whole situation as she felt. The Monstrous Nightmare at the end of their bed was still watching her curiously, seemingly unperturbed by her screaming. Astrid looked from the dragons to Hiccup and back again.

"Hiccup," she drawled, forcing herself not to be calm. "What's going on?"

Hiccup beamed at her. "Plan B."