CH 2: Wasted Time

Should have mentioned this last chapter so here it is I do not own How to Train your Dragon or their characters. That's probably a good thing too.

As Astrid walked thru the forest, ax in her hand and a keen focused rage which is currently being restrained so she doesn't needlessly start lashing out all around her.

She keeps calling out to the object of her newly found and the deepest burning fury of her life "Hiccup! Where the hell are you! I swear by the gods when I find you!"

I probably would have been able to track him to wherever he goes every afternoon if someone! (Snotlout you Mung sucker!) hadn't stopped me to try another one of his 'flirting with his girl" nonsense.

Thinking about it just adds more fuel to my fire. Fire I can direct at Hiccup as soon as I find the little cheater.

How is it that nobody else can see what I see. He's not fighting, he's barely touching the dragons. Let alone in any offensive way. Besides he's Hiccup the Useless we don't call him that just because he can plant a garden. I don't even know if he can do that without impossibly destroying half the village. I'm surprised we didn't call him Hiccup the Village-Calamity or something like that.

Then again it not like I've ever called him anything. That all Snotlout and Tuffnut. Before Dragon Training started I could probably count off the number of words I ever said to him in the last Seven years off one hand.

My memories of the time before seven years ago slowly resurface and gradually begin to quell my anger. All us teens back then used to be really close, even Snotlout. And then we started helping the village against the dragons and we all began to drift apart. The worst and most outstanding reason was Hiccups inventions and how they failed because…

The moment 'failed' crossed my mind all my anger came back in full force.

Seriously, his inability to fight and everything else isn't something that's going to disappear just like that. The fact that he's doing something not destructive is enough to at least raise some eyebrows. But no, everyone just think he has awakened some sort of hidden power deep within himself. What, did he just become some Super Berkian? Super Viking? Super Hiccup? Or maybe like Fishlegs said 'He finally ascended to Super Hiccup level 4!' I should have beat his face into the back of his skull along with Snotlouts and Tuffnuts.

I know he's working with someone and it shouldn't matter to me but "Ugh, why doesn't anybody see something's wrong with him?" I mutter to myself thinking about how even more distant he has become lately.

"Probably because they like this new 'ascended' Hiccup more than the one that did more damage to Viking kind than dragon kind. Duh." A voice respond.

Trees don't respond. Especially with a duh.

Spinning around I come face to face with the two people I least expected to find together. "Gobber? Ruffnut? What are you doing here? Are you following me?"

"We're followen you hopin ya knew wher Hicup's been. But m guess'n you ain't got his trail ither." Gobber answers. (A/N warning. I hate doing accents in writing. Seriously does that even make sense to anybody? Write an accent. I don't know if this is one accent or if I threw a bunch together and called it Gobber. So my solution: make it up as I go and let the rest sort itself out. Seriously!)

"Couldn't you have confronted him yourself? He is your apprentice after all." I ask him. I'm really not enjoying the thought of too many people finding out Hiccups secret.

"Ohh las, I ain't thout tha lad my apprentice fer years now. I believed hes been his own man fer a while now even fore da Dragon Training. He jus needed to grow inta it. What bout ye?" Gobber responds now asking Ruff. (A/N ACCENTS!)

"Oh I'm just here to make sure Astrid doesn't kill Hiccup." She quickly responds.

"What do you mean 'So she doesn't kill him' Huh? Do I look like the kinda person who would do that!?"

"Uh Astrid when was the last time you look at yourself?"

"Ay. Ruff has a poit. You look more deranged den Dagur. An he's insane!"

"I am not insane and I am not DERANGED!"

After pouncing on his human, Toothless notices that he wasn't moving.

His chest was still rising and falling with air, and I could feel his heart pound in his center body. I must have knocked him out. I let out a worried whine as I sniff him for other hurts. Smelling no blood leaking and seeing not strange colors on him, I decide to just let him rest.

When he first came here this day I expected we were just going to keep working on flying together but he came today stressed and worried. I just wanted to play a prank on him to make him more joyful but I forgot how weak human forms were, especially Hiccups. But I did forget and I went and hurt my friend.

My human. My friend. Since when have these been terms that I could use so casually and so naturally?

It not like me. Before there were only those trying to kill me and those that would ignore me. That was it.

Always one eye forward to what I was shooting and one eye behind me to make sure no one was shooting me.

Yeah and despite everything I did to try and help everyone, somehow both sides became my enemy because of it. And all because I tried to limit the deaths of humans and dragons.

To the human all dragons are the enemy, especially me. They call me the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. HAH where in all the vast skys and unreachable lights did they come up with that? They see me as different and more dangerous than other dragons so they have more reason to hunt me.

I don't even know why the humans think all dragons attack in raids together, we don't. At least I don't. I try to support both sides.

By distracting the humans , the raiding dragons can get their offerings to the Queen and not get themselves eaten. And I help the humans by keeping them away from the worst parts of the raid by shooting them with suppression fire so the Vikings don't head to the largest mobs of dragons.

Not that it really helps. They still die no matter what I do.

I'm an outcast to the dragons. Because I am the only one of my kind around here. Or maybe everywhere. And of course not serving the Queen doesn't help my reputation either. She figures I'm a nuisance, bad influence and a traitor. Why? Because I live by the oldest and truest dragon way: free. So what does she do? She put a bounty on my tail: 'capture this traitor and you won't ever be eaten.'

I doubt she would keep her word, but it defiantly got the other dragons to come after me. That damn bounty has made me fight against my own kind just to survive.

Cursed by humans and hated by dragons.

Until Hiccup.

In a short time, the one who robed me of my flight and who I should despise the most has become my best friend.

No this human is more than just a friend or a way to still fly; he is my precious freedom, the killer of my long and torturing loneliness, and my strongest reason to keep fighting and living. Not for me and not for him but for both of us.

I need him, and I know he needs me. I've listened to his stories and how he too is unaccepted by his kind.

We need each other. If either of us wants to really live and not just scrap by surviving like we have, we need to hold each other up and protect each other from everyone and everything that's rejected us.

This I know is the meaning of our brotherhood and the reason for our friendship.

So as I lay down and try to comfort the strongest bond I've ever had, I start thinking about my own situation and how he is now a part of it.

I worry.

I worry about what I might have dragged him into. About the pain that would follow if the dragons target him for helping me. And that I may not be strong enough to protect him from the danger.

I've seen what happens to other dragons who defy the Queen. Eaten alive, whole, and spending gods know how long in the dark of her belly. Who knows what you would die of first in such a unsurvivable place? Suffocation by lack of air or breathing her toxic air? slowly digested by horrible acids that melt all the flash on ones bones? crushed, smashed, or broken by whatever else she has eaten? or maybe just die without hope in paralyzing fear of knowing where you are, a dark and disgusting hell with no way out.

Looking at him and watching his chest fight against the false skins that cling to him tightly, I realize that I can never let any of that happen to him. Even if I must

My plans are interrupted when I begin to pick up noise's coming from the forest. Human noises. They are calling for him. And here he is sleeping in the wings of their enemy.