Sorry for how long this took. My brother came home, stole the computer, and started playing LOTRO. 'Nuff said.

This is another iffy chapter in my opinion. So, please review.

I won't apologise for the cliffy last chapter! That was simply too much fun!

"Ok," I muttered to myself. "There's a dragon in front of me. A great big, deadly dragon. I don't have any weapon. Conclusion: I'm about to die." Hiccup's voice snapped through my thoughts.

"Toothless, calm down. It's ok, she's a friend." And to my complete and utter astonishment, the black dragon flicked it's eyes to Hiccup, and sat back on it's haunches!

"How'd you do that?" I asked, loathing the fear that was easily apparent in my voice. Unbelievably, Hiccup walked around from behind me, stopping right next to the dragon's head!

"Astrid, I know this is wierd-"

"You got that right!" I hissed at him. Not the best idea. The black dragon (Toothless, was it? What an absurd name. He DEFINITELY had teeth!) hissed right back at me, his teeth painfully obvious.

"But please, listen. Remember, you gave your word!"

"Why do you think I'm still here!" I growled. It really was the only reason I was still there. If I hadn't somehow managed to remember my promise to him, I would have bolted out of there like a rabbit. I had to admit though, it was very tempting to break my word. As ashamed as I am to admit it... It really was very tempting.

"Uh- Right. Um... Ok, how about you ask questions or something, 'cause I don't really know where to start."

Typical men...

"For starters, how about what the hell is he!" I yelled, causing quite a few birds nesting in the area to fly away as quickly as they could.

"Toothless? Uh, you're probably not going to believe me... He's a Night Fury."

My heart stopped dead for several heartbeats. When it restarted, it was easily going several times faster than what could possibly be healthy.

"You," I whispered. "You... You actually got it? You really shot it down!"

"Um... Yeah, kinda. Like I said, I really did hit a Night Fury."

"Ok... Second question: what is he doing here?"

"Oh, he- uh, he can't fly." I gave him a dumb look at this.

"Uh, Hiccup? Of course he can FLY! How else would we have not seen him before!"

"No, I mean he can't fly anymore!" That one definitely threw me for a loop.

"What now?" I asked, puzzled.

"He can't fly anymore because his tail fin got torn off when he crashed. I don't know what exactly happened to it, but long story short; Without my help, he's stuck on the ground."

"Why would you help him get off the ground again!"

"He spared my life. And I owe him for grounding him in the first place."

"He spared you? What do you mean?" I asked, thoroughly confused now.

"Well," Hiccup started. "I cut him loose from the ropes, and instead of just killing me on the spot, he let me live."

"Why did you cut him out of the ropes! You didn't think of telling someone!"

"Not... Not really, no." I groaned.

"How can you be this thick!" I yelled, causing Toothless to hunker down and bare his teeth. I quickly backed up, hands in the air. The last thing I wanted to do at the moment was annoy him.

"Easy Toothless," Hiccup said calmly, causing the dragon to become much more placid. He sighed.

"Look, Astrid, here's the deal: I don't think the dragons are actually as bloodthirsty as we all think they are."

"You've got to be kidding me. There's no telling how many hundreds of us have died because of them!"

"There's no telling how many thousands of them have died because of us!" Hiccup yelled right back at me. "Can't you see that? For every one of us that they kill, we must kill at least ten of them!"

"Well what are we supposed to do, let them steal our food!"

"Astrid! Just look at Toothless! Does he look like something that steals food just to feed himself! Most dragons prefer fish! I know that for a fact!" My mouth dropped open at this.

"You've tried feeding them!" I shrieked. "It didn't occur to you that they might decide to just eat you instead!"

"Well, ok, I've really only gotten close to Toothless and a couple of Terrors, but I've left food out for the other dragons in the cage. Nine times out of ten, they'll go for the fish. They don't need to raid us for food Astrid! They can get plenty enough for themselves by fishing!"

It struck me then that he definitely had a point. That was, if dragons really did prefer fish over sheep and such. If they did, then Hiccup had a very good question. Just why were they raiding us, when they could get enough food for themselves easily?

It must have shown on my face that I was giving the idea some thought, because Hiccup continued, "Think, Astrid. They don't need to raid us for food, but they obviously do. Something's not right about it! There's something we don't know, that we don't understand! They're not raiding us for themselves! Something else is making them attack."

"Like what!" I snapped, infuriated that his ideas were beginning to make sense. It was the only thing I could think of that might stop him from planting more ideas in my head. "If something else is responsible, what is it?" His shoulders slumped slightly in defeat.

"I don't know yet," he reluctantly admitted. "That's partially why I'm trying to help Toothless fly again. If he can take me to the nest, I might be able to find out what's wrong with them."

My idea had backfired. He was once again making painful sense.

I sighed reluctantly. I hated, really hated to admit it, but he was right, as far as I could see. If dragons preferred fish, they didn't need to raid us, as there were certainly more than enough fish in the sea for them. But they were coming for the supply of bigger food, us and our sheep.

That didn't mean I could see eye-to-eye with him just yet. The idea of flying a dragon; let alone a Night Fury of all species... Well, it left me a little terrified. Not that I would admit that to him. Or anyone else. EVER.

"Say that you're right," I started. "What do you plan to do about it?" He grinned at me, a rather sheepish, not to mention foolish, looking grin.

"Well," Hiccup said. "I haven't quite managed flying Toothless yet. We're still working on it. I need to get the design right, and then there are a couple of other details, like learning the right fin positions..."

"Hiccup," I interrupted, ignoring how his name felt on my tongue. "I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Oh! Right, sorry about that." He grinned again. I was almost starting to like that grin... Almost. "Well," he continued. "Seeing as Toothless can't fly without his tailfin, I had the crazy idea of making one for him-"

"Yeah, that is just a little crazy," I interrupted, again.

"-And I've kinda been working on it ever since. Not to mention, I've been learning some neat stuff about dragons in general."

"Such as their weak points?" I asked pointedly.

"Yeah, exactly! I mean, you remember how I made the gronckle just keel over?"

"Yes, I've been wondering especially hard how you managed that."

"Well, I just rubbed it's nose with this grass I found. I was trying out another idea for the fin I made Toothless, and we crashed into the grass when I pulled too hard. When I got back to him, he was rolling around like mad in this patch of really tall grass. I decided to see if it'd work on another dragon, and guess what! It did!"

"I see. So what, they like the scent or something?"

"That's my guess."

"So all this time, you've been using trickery and thinking, instead of simply outright trying to whack the dragons to death?"

"Uh, yeah. Basically."

"Well, that makes me feel slightly better," I muttered, unfortunately loud enough for him to hear.

"Jealous over how well I was doing?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye.

My own eyes narrowed rapidly in response, and if it hadn't been for the black figure standing guard right behind him, I'm pretty sure I would have tried to cut his head off.

"You. Cheated." I said through gritted teeth.

"Whatever you say Astrid."

"So after you learn how to fly this devil," A quick snarl from Toothless. "What do you plan to do then?"

"Well... Ok, this is where it gets a little complex..."

"Oh dear Odin," I sighed.

"Maybe not so much complex as... ambitious."

I simply stared at him. "Hiccup," I said bluntly. "You're trying to learn how to fly the most dangerous dragon species known to Viking. WHAT could possibly be more ambitious than that!"

"Persuading more Vikings that we don't need to kill dragons?"

"I take back my last statement," I said weakly.

Well, there you go. Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'll try and make the next one a bit longer, to make up for taking so long. Bear with me though, as I do have a few assignments coming up soon, so I need to keep those in focus. No idea when the next chapter will be.

-Eidorian999