Happy Thursday, as always! Some elements from the television series are included; if there are references you don't understand, message me and I'll let you know what's up!

Chapter Twelve: Dreams

"Come on, bud, don't be shy. Try again."

Hiccup, his legs crossed on a boulder near his house, stared intensely at Toothless. The Night Fury cooed and kept his head down. His ears were pressed against his head and his wide eyes didn't make eye contact. He was embarrassed.

"…A…Ast…"

Toothless growled and stomped. Hiccup raised his hands and leapt off the boulder. He rested a hand on Toothless' head and smiled. "It's okay. Only I can hear you. It's not like anyone is going to make fun of you."

Toothless looked up and huffed. "Hard. Much hard."

"Very hard," Hiccup corrected.

"Very hard," Toothless repeated. He perked up when Hiccup nodded and sat up straight. "Ast… Astrii…"

Hiccup urged him to keep trying, keeping a hand on Toothless' snout.

"Astriii… Astrid… Astrid!"

"You did it!" Hiccup cried as Toothless bounced up and down.

"Success," Toothless quipped.

Hiccup squinted and stared at Toothless, a smile on his lips. "Can you hear my thoughts, too?"

"Bond?" Toothless asked silently. "Very new. Very strange. Much time."

Hiccup licked his lips and scooted closer. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but Astrid rounded the boulder and laughed. Toothless perked up and repeated her name over and over, giving Hiccup a massive headache immediately. Astrid stared, lips parted, as Hiccup calmed Toothless, laughing painfully.

Astrid smiled and watched Hiccup in trousers and a fur vest – a difference to his riding suit, and a gentle reminder of his younger years – jump around, waving his arms madly. She leaned back on the rock while Hiccup motioned to the village. "Go have some fun, bud."

Toothless' shoulders seemed to sag, but Astrid grinned and rested a hand on his snout. "It's alright, you can have him back in a while."

The Night Fury trotted off, supposedly heading to the river or perhaps the Academy. Astrid slowly turned to Hiccup and her smile wavered. Hiccup looked at her up and down, noticing her plain clothes and her furry blanket pulled from their bed. Her hair was in its thick braid. He shifted from foot to metal spring, the squeak of his prosthetic leg breaking the silence.

"Hiccup, I don't know about this."

Hiccup groaned. "Astrid, it's just a little practice!"

"No, Hiccup, it's more than that," Astrid pressed. "Aren't you thinking about what happened?"

Hiccup shrugged guiltily and looked up. "I'm working with what I have."

Astrid neared him and grabbed his face. She kissed him and pulled away, keeping her warm hands on his cheeks. "But what you have was cursed upon you by some girl who came from gods know where and after almost killing you on our wedding night, and gave you… this trick of hearing Toothless?"

"It's not a trick, it's real," Hiccup replied. "And I don't know why Rose did it, or why she didn't warn me, but I have no other option than to begin living with it."

Astrid frowned. "You still don't remember anything?"

Hiccup raised his arms and rested them on hers. "She was a harmless girl."

"You weren't exactly in the right mind to remember what I had to see," Astrid muttered. "And she said things about her home that made my skin crawl. Things about people getting hurt and dragons being food for other dragons."

Hiccup swallowed and looked over the valley before looking back. "We've been at peace for years. The dragons are free for us to train, no one has attacked us after the Outcasts fled…"

"So then where did Rose come from?" Astrid asked firmly. "If she comes from a place as dark as she described, wouldn't you be worried? What if she's an enemy?"

"An enemy wouldn't have done this to me," Hiccup defended. "She gave me a gift that I can use! Talking to Toothless connects us more, either as a weapon – which will never happen – or as a defense. My enemy would have killed me with poison, not make me better than I already am."

Astrid looked away and rubbed her forehead. She was pained, troubled. She stepped away and walked back into the house, leaving Hiccup behind to look over the ocean. He wanted to tell her he wasn't sure about the situation, but at this time, nothing told him something was amiss.

Training Toothless took more than three months of hard determination. Hiccup spent his weeks scouting the island as usual, teaching Toothless how to speak in short sentences, and loving Astrid in the comfort of their own home. They had arguments about Toothless, but eventually, the hubbub died down. But no one else knew about the development; only Astrid, Hiccup, and Toothless knew about Rose's strange gift.

They were lying in their bed, months after their wedding day, the chaos calm and quiet, when Hiccup groaned quietly in his sleep.

He was flying, but not as a rider, a dragon. It was cloudy. Rumbles shook his bones. His wings were tired. His body hurt. Something stung his back. Slashes, bruises. He wanted to go home. Where was home? But if he didn't fly, he would die. Why would he die? He dove through the clouds. His target was below. Berk. Flashes of lightning streaked the air, danced on his body, filled his mouth. He didn't want to. He had to. Why? The arena, the place smelled faintly of blood and death. A scream, a tiny girl screaming. A man, another dragon. Night Fury? The Dragon Saviour? Is that him? No, I have a mission, a mission, if I don't, I will die. Kill the Saviour. Must I? No. Kin. Bond. She said don't. She is kind. But I will die, the others will kill me. He is running, the Saviour, I must kill him. I swipe, my wings are sharp and true. I don't want to. I hit him, I smell his blood. But he protects the child. Saviour, true and kind, like her, he saves her. I must leave. I must go. I will die. Saviour lives. But I will not tell. I will say he died. I will lie. I must lie. I will die. I will die. I will die.

"HICCUP!"

Hiccup gasped, his eyes snapped open. Astrid was on top of him, her strong arms holding him down. He tried to get a breath down and sucked in the air as Astrid gave him another shake. Hiccup sat up and clutched Astrid's body to his, burying his face in her chest, gasping her name over and over.

"Hiccup, gods, what is going on?" Astrid asked breathlessly. Hiccup squeezed tighter, trying to breathe.

"The Skrill!" Hiccup cried. "The Skrill!"

Astrid ran her hands through his hair as his body broke into shivers. She rocked him back and forth, staring at the wall behind him.

"I saw him, I saw me, how he hurt me, gods, he said he was going to die, I was in so much pain –"

"Shh," Astrid whispered. "Shh, my love. The Skrill is gone. You are safe with me. I won't let anything hurt you. No pain."

Hiccup held her tighter than he ever had, letting her coax him back to sleep, his body covered in sweat. Toothless, meanwhile, was outside, staring over the waves of the ocean, his eyes in slits and his teeth bared. He knew something was wrong. Something was shifting. Something was starting.

Tired and shaken, Hiccup and Astrid marched over to the Great Hall, knowing Stoick and Gobber would be there breaking their fast. They walked without words; Hiccup had been thinking of the nightmare in detail while Astrid swallowed a wave a nausea down. She had a hope from the feeling, but pushed it aside.

They entered the hall and met Stoick at his table with Spitelout. Stoick noticed them and grinned.

"Ah, morning my son!"

"We need to talk," Hiccup said sternly. The tone was unfriendly and his eyes were serious. Stoick blinked and raised his shoulders. Spitelout shot a glare to Stoick, and Astrid cringed; no one talked to the chief like that. No one.

"Aye, speak."

Hiccup took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes, unsure of where to start. The other villagers saw the interaction and began to move away while Gobber approached. Vikings knew when they were needed and unneeded.

"During our wedding celebrations," Hiccup began shakily, "one of the guests did something to me."

Stoick and Gobber looked at each other and looked back, unsure of how to respond. "That was as vague as you could make it, boy," Stoick grumbled. "I'm going to need more than that."

"That's all we can tell you," Astrid replied. "We don't know what she did besides poison him."

Stoick's eyebrows raised sharply. He looked at Hiccup up and down before Hiccup raised his hands. Hiccup continued.

"She inflicted this… capability upon me. I grew ill, I went faint, and then I woke up. Astrid told me what happened, and when I woke up, Toothless…"

He was silent until Stoick motioned for him to continue. Toothless bumped against Hiccup's legs to urge him to keep talking.

"I woke up and I could hear Toothless," Hiccup said painfully.

Stoick furrowed his brows, truly confused. "What are you saying, lad?"

"He's saying that Toothless can talk to him," Astrid explained. "Their minds are connected through what Toothless calls 'a bond' that this guest created between them through what I think was poison."

Gobber scoffed. "That's… not possible."

"Apparently, it is," Hiccup groaned, "but that's not the important part; I can explain that later. Since this happened, I have been having dreams, dreams where I can see from the eyes of Toothless usually."

Stoick sighed loudly, trying to understand. "Usually?"

"Last night, I had a dream of the Skrill," Hiccup muttered. "The Skrill that attacked me."

Stoick gritted his teeth and Gobber squinted.

"It's never happened before, I have always dreamt of Toothless, but this dream was back when I was hurt, and I think the Skrill wasn't working alone."

Gobber leaned in, his interchangeable hand – now a mug – hit the table. "You mean there are more Skrills lurking about yearning to get a piece of you or something?"

"No, I mean I think he was sent," Hiccup replied.

There was another look between the two men and Toothless perked up to see their reactions. They were speechless for a time until Stoick looked down at his plate, thinking.

"Son, this doesn't make much sense."

"We know," Astrid replied. "We weren't going to say anything so long as it stayed peaceful, but the dreams have never been wrong. Because they're not fake, they're actual perspectives."

"Even if the Skrill was sent, who would do that? We've been at peace for years!" Gobber exclaimed.

"Years ago, we found a Skrill in a block of ice, remember that?" Hiccup asked hurriedly.

It was true. Just months after learning how to walk again, Hiccup and Astrid found an iceblock with a Skrill frozen within. They excavated it carefully and brought it to Berk to make sure it was in fact a Skrill when the twins – who else? – freed it, where it wreaked havoc upon the village and dragons.

"And after it got out, we had to pursue it to freeze it again because we couldn't train it. But there was also another party there trying to break it out."

"The Berserkers," Stoick growled.

The Berserkers were the naval threat to the alliance. Living on a thousand warships manned with deranged and blood-lusty men and women, they used to sail the ocean searching for wild dragons to hunt just outside the borders of the alliance. Hiccup and Dagur had met a few times, on islands in neutral territory, where Dagur would try to kill Toothless for sport, Hiccup getting in the way at the last moment each time.

"Dagur. We haven't seen his awful face in years. Which is why I'm not understanding this clearly. You tell me you can talk to Toothless, that's one thing. But to propose that a long-lost enemy who has been lost to the alliance may have sent it to kill you is another thing in itself."

Gobber slurped his mead and nodded. "The man couldn't do anything with a wild dragon even if we all held his hand and gave him the book."

Hiccup frowned. "The Skrill was trained."

Gobber coughed on his mead and Stoick blinked. The chief stood up and lumbered over Hiccup. "What?"

Astrid, holding onto Hiccup's arm, pulled back her shoulders bravely. "The Skrill was sent by a trainer to kill Hiccup."

Hiccup pressed his palms against the table, hanging his head, trying to stay calm. "This Skrill wasn't trained like we train dragons, when I was dreaming, I felt like I had been beaten, whipped even. And he knew if he didn't kill me, he would die instead."

The men all shuddered uncomfortably at the thought. Dragons had become so embedded in their lives that the thought of hurting them was repulsive.

"Then why didn't he kill you?" Gobber asked. "No offence, but that dragon should have been able to rip you apart more effectively than he did."

"He… he didn't because he called me a Saviour. The Dragon Saviour. And when he saw me protect Snowdrop, he suddenly refused to. He smelled the blood and chose to spare me."

The men were quiet for a time, and even Astrid stared at Hiccup with her lips parted. Hiccup stared into his father's eyes.

"I... will look into it," Stoick sighed. "At least to calm your nerves… I will arrange to send out a party to make a search for the Armada. That is, of course, assuming he even has one. I was hoping that ass-rat was long dead with how quiet he's been."

"Quiet isn't his style," Gobber mused.

Stoick motioned over to Spitelout to give instructions, but paused and looked back.

"Who was that villager that did this to you?" Stoick asked.

Astrid gritted her teeth and spat the words in sudden anger. "Rose. She came without escort or companions and was the first to leave."

Stoick nodded and looked over to Spitelout again while Hiccup looked to his wife, unsure if he was pleased that Stoick knew what Rose had done. Spitelout lumbered up, readjusting his belt. He had gained some weight in the peace-time.

"Spitelout, prepare your boy and the twins to search for the Armada, and Dagur. Just stay away from Outcast Island. I'm not happy with how these strange events are happening again."

Spitelout sighed and nodded. A patrol had not been sent out beyond the island for years and those who would fly out hadn't kept up on their training as per requirements. At least not the elder soldiers.

Hiccup straightened his posture and squared his shoulders. "I'm going with you," he stated.

Stoick turned from Spitelout to stare at his son, giving him a strange look before nodding once. "Very well. You leave tonight at sundown, especially if you want to come back by morning. I don't want you out there longer than that, understood? Just… be careful."

Hiccup nodded and spun around, heading out of the hall and leaving it in a loud commotion as the patrol was chosen and informed. Astrid grabbed Hiccup's arm and kept pace with him.

"I'm coming with you," she said. Hiccup shook his head.

"You can't, Astrid. We'll be flying over water, and Stormfly's wing keeps cramping."

"I'll ride with you, then," Astrid argued.

Nearing their house, Hiccup grabbed her hands and pulled her inside. He looked into her eyes fiercely, his heart twisting. He became enraptured in her icy blue eyes, her pink lips, her large cheeks, her blonde hair that was never perfect or tidy. He kissed her and held her hands to his chest.

"I can't risk that, my love."

Astrid sneered and shoved his hands away. "Don't you 'my love' me, Hiccup Haddock Horrendous! I can handle it!"

Hiccup sighed in frustration. "It's not because I think you can't handle yourself, trust me, I know better than anyone else that you can."

"Just because I married you, sleep with you, doesn't make me soft. I want to come with you," Astrid groaned. Hiccup winced at the comment and Astrid grabbed his face. She glared at him. "I vowed to stay by your side, no matter what."

Hiccup bit his lip and smiled, pressing his forehead to hers and sighing gently.

"If anything looks amiss with Stormfly, I'm sending you home."

"That won't happen," Astrid said, grinning. Hiccup stepped away to retrieve his riding gear but suddenly, he was pressed against the door, his mouth being attacked by hers, hungry and passionate. Hiccup gasped as Astrid moaned against his mouth, and he grabbed her clothes and pulled them off.

In the back of his mind as he and Astrid made love on the floor, he realized that she had been doing this… a lot. They would have a moment alone without Toothless or Stormfly around and she would jump upon him like a wild dragon needing to be tamed. And he obliged with just as much vigor. They moaned together, his knees bruising against the hard floor and sweat beading on their bodies. He kissed her, bit her gently, and she pulled his hair and wrapped her legs around him.

When he seized up and caught his breath, she didn't let go, pulling him deeper into her and tightening around him. He didn't think about it then, but Astrid was, feeling the warmth filling her, giving a small prayer to the gods that that would do the trick.