To Guest- Thank you! :D I've seen both the movies too, obviously; saw the second one for the second time last night! Love that film so much, but the feels! D: And I was going to add Toothless in on the last chapter, but decided for a bit of Hiccstrid instead. He'll be in this one though! :D

To a random person- It's OK! Read whenever you want, it's cool :P Hiccstrid marriage! Yay! I've got to do a Viking wedding ceremony, yay me. I know nothing about them, must Google it…

I'm sorry for not updating this one lately, I've not had a lot of inspiration for it until last night- after watching the second one again :D


"Hiccup!" Astrid scolded. "You're supposed to be resting!"

"I will." He assured, awkwardly climbing down the stairs. He was crouching, one hand on the step above him and one hand on the wall to keep himself steady. "By the fire." He looked in no condition to move anywhere, having been cured for less than a week. But he was as stubborn as they come, so if he wanted to come downstairs, he was going to come downstairs.

Toothless rambled over and rested his front paws on the steps. Hiccup leant towards him and the dragon helped him down, escorting him over to a seat by the fire. "There." He declared proudly. "I'm resting." Astrid rolled her eyes at him. His jade eyes danced cheekily in the amber glow of the flames, but she did her best to ignore the fact that he had very nice eyes indeed.

She was drawn back to him as his dragon started choking. "Oh no…" He mumbled, a half-eaten fish plopping into his lap. Toothless sat back happily and stared at his master pointedly. "Uh, thanks, Toothless." The Night Fury continued to watch Hiccup unblinkingly. Hiccup looked to Astrid, help flashing across his features.

Astrid smiled sweetly.

"He's your dragon and, therefore, your problem."

"You're a cold-hearted woman."

"Thank you." Astrid would have given anything to be able to watch this moment over and over again for the rest of her life. Under Toothless's insistence, Hiccup had to take a disgustingly big bite of regurgitated fish. And then he had to swallow it.

He retched on the raw, saliva-coated fish. Toothless watched him carefully, his head tilted to the side.

By the time he had managed to ingest the gruesome snack, Astrid was in hysterics. She had never laughed so much; she wasn't even sure if she was laughing too much at this, but it was priceless! She had heard many a tale of Toothless's little 'presents', but she had never seen Hiccup eat it before.

The laughter only stopped when something cold, slimy and heavy bopped her on the head and landed in her lap.

"Aha!" Hiccup grinned a very evil grin for Hiccup. Toothless's vibrant green eyes were trained on her now, looking at the fish every few seconds. "Your turn!"

"No!" The dragon whined. "Absolutely not." Toothless turned to his best friend. Hiccup petted Toothless's muzzle reassuringly. He had the smirk that she knew meant trouble.

"So says your chief."

"No!"

"Treason!" He shot back instantly.

"It's not!"

"You're going against your chief!"

"I'm going against you."

"I'm your chief." She threw the fish back.

"And I'm your girlfriend, so I'd be very careful if I was you." Hiccup glanced at his dragon. Toothless cooed and pawed at Hiccup.

"I have a Night Fury."

"Yes, I know. It caused a lot of trouble a few years ago." He smiled mischievously. "You may be stupid enough to eat a dragon's old lunch, but I'm not."

"Oh, so treason and assault, is it?" He tutted, wagging his finger at her as though she caused the most trouble. Ha! She thought, that'd be the day!

"That wasn't assault!" She reached over and smacked him in the arm. "That is!"

"You know there's only one way out of all this trouble you're going to land yourself in."

"Really now?" Toothless gurgled and bounced around the room, knocking aside chairs and his basket of fish. "What's he doing?" Hiccup shrugged and tossed the half-eaten fish onto the fire. "You haven't told me this one way out thing."

"What one way out thing?" He asked calmly, stoking the fire. Another burn seeped across him, her glare. "I've no idea what you're talking about." He said, not looking round and making sure enough humour slipped into his voice that informed her he knew full well what she was on about. "You're going mad, Astrid. We'll have to ship you off." She scoffed.

"I'd like to see you try, Hiccup."

"Why do you use my name as a weapon?"

"I could use other weapons." She drew a knife from the holster in her boot and angelically started cleaning her fingernails. He watched her carefully for a moment. "Going to tell me this one way out thing."

"I thought you liked trouble."

"Yes, but I also like having plans to fall back on."

"Well, my lips are sealed." Toothless mewled and skirted away from the spilled fish. Hiccup made to get up, but his arms trembled trying to push himself up. Astrid almost took pity on him.

"Tell me or Toothless will panic and burn the house down."

"I can't tell you until the end of the month."

"You said the end of this week!"

"Change of plans."

"Why can't you tell me?" He started humming, acting oblivious to her. "And you call me cold-hearted."

"Oh, this isn't cold-hearted, milady. This is aggravating."

"Damn right it is." She muttered, getting up to console Toothless before he went on a rampage. Some idiot had put an eel in his food basket. "It's alright, Toothless." She bravely picked the slimy eel up and chucked it towards Hiccup, ignoring his wordless protests. Toothless relaxed and purred, nudging her gratefully. "Yeah, yeah, you're welcome." She scratched him under the chin, earning another content growl from the stupid reptile.

"Thanks." Hiccup said once she was seated.

"What's the matter?"

"I hate feeling all… weak and useless. And you shush."

"I wasn't going to say anything."

"Of course you weren't."


Valka and Astrid seemed to be fattening him up, so Hiccup escaped with his father to the forges. If he had to have another bowl of chicken soup, he was going to go mad.

"I take it you haven't told her yet?" Stoick asked, looking around the workshop.

"No, no. I like having my head on my shoulders." His father turned away, but not before Hiccup had seen him roll his eyes. Then he turned back, opening his mouth to ask something. "Yes, I'm fine. I needed to get out of that house."

"Are you sure?"

"You nag almost as much as Mum."

"Hilarious." Stoick grunted. "Where did you put them?"

"Put what?"

"The weapons!"

"Oh. Oh, they're over there somewhere." Hiccup waved absent-mindedly towards his end of the workshop, concealed by a curtain. He felt his father's wary gaze on him and looked up. "Yes?"

"You definitely want to go through with it?"

"First, stupid question. Second, if I did that, I'd have you and Mum and the Hoffersons to answer to and that's not on my to-do list for today, thank you very much."

"Could you be serious?"

"I am being serious."

"Sounds like it." Stoick paused. "Astrid's coming."

"Oh gods…"

"Hiccup!"

"Yeessss?" She glowered at him and he cleared his throat. "Yes?" He corrected.

"What are you doing?"

"Standing. And breathing. Not necessarily in that order." She sighed. Hiccup knew that sigh- that was the one she did whenever he was being just that teensy bit too annoying. "Anything I can do for you?"

"You just missed all the fun."

"Aw, shame that."

"There was a bit of a mob outside your house just now. They wanted to talk to you." He leant against one of the workbenches, huffing. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Carry on."

"They want their dragons. It's been two weeks."

"And I'm working on it."

"What are you going to do about Drago?"

"I'm working on that too."

"They won't answers, Hiccup, not I'm working on that."

"I know, I know." He slowly edged his way around the table, resting his weight on his hands. Stoick moved forward and got hold of his elbow, steadying the young chief. "I'm OK." Hiccup promised, but he didn't look OK.

"You're missing that chicken soup." Stoick teased, helping Hiccup nestle on a nearby stool.

"No, I think I'm good."

"What's wrong with my soup?!" Astrid demanded.

"Nothing. I just want variety please and thank you."

"Fine." She huffed. "You can have poison instead."

"Sounds lovely, but I just had some of that."

"You're annoying!"

"And you're cute when you're angry." She burned crimson, tried to form a retort for a few, spluttering seconds and then decided he wasn't worth her time right now. "I'm so winning." Hiccup smiled after she had stomped out of earshot.

"Cute, huh?"

"Mm-hm." Hiccup watched her storm back to her house across the plaza. "She knows I'm hiding something. Keeps trying to get me to tell her."

"Tell her then."

"No. I want to see how long I can drag this out."

"You do know you don't have to go from one life or death situation to another, right?" Hiccup gave a mock gasp of surprise.

"Really? That's absolutely fascinating, do tell me more!"

"You really are annoying."

"Thank you."


Astrid returned later that day to find Hiccup was still in the workshop. His dad wasn't with him this time, replaced with Toothless.

"Milady." He gave a half-bow, taking her hand in his and kissing her knuckles.

"You're not getting back in my good books that easily."

"I didn't think I would." He smiled, kissing her cheek instead. "I've got you a present."

"Oh joy." She muttered sarcastically.

"You'll like this one. You could kill me with it."

"Oh joy!"

"I'm worried that you sound much more enthusiastic about that." She gave a sweet smile and followed him to the back of the workshop. She held the curtain aside as he reached for a shiny new double-headed axe in the corner. He had tied a strip of red material around it in a sloppy bow. "I was going to fix your old one up a bit, but then I thought it'd be easier to make you a new one."

"What's with all these weapons?" There were swords, maces with metal spikes protruding from them, knives, single-headed axes and a few spears. They all looked new and untarnished from battle.

"Special requests." He shrugged. "Don't worry about them." His blasé attitude about his creations worried her plenty. What was he hiding?

Before she got to ponder the thought any more, he had knelt, raising her new axe with both hands and presenting it to her as though it were the most valuable thing he could ever bestow upon her. "Milady." He repeated, handing it over. It was perfectly balanced with leather wrapped around the handle for comfort and grip. He removed the red cloth for her and deftly swept it around her braid. "There." He kissed her forehead. "Even cuter."

"You're in a really strange mood today."

"So I've heard." He nodded at the axe. "Do you like it?" She examined it, turning it this way and that. She could sense his eyes on her, gauging her reaction.

"Yes." She kissed him lightly. "Thank you."

"Anything for you, milady." He said it so calmly, but there was so much promise in those four words, it made her heart flutter.

Stop it, Astrid, she mentally scolded herself, you're a tough Viking, not some silly infatuated girl.

But you love him! A small voice shot back in a teasing sing-song tone.

Yes, she did, but you'd never get her to say that out loud.


For this whole Drago-has-the-dragons-oh-no-the-horror thing, I'm stumped. I don't want to write that now, but I have to or it doesn't go with the story. What can I do? ***VERY IMPORTANT***

Some of you may have already noticed, but I've got my Leo's Settled Down rewrite up and running! If you haven't read that yet, could you read it whenever you get a mo and let me know what you think? :D