VI.

"To think that I woke up this morning believing all was right with the world," Hiccup ranted off to Astrid, gesticulating expressively into the air. Astrid sat beside her boyfriend, feet tucked underneath her and resting in the grass, while he recounted the full day's events. Immediately following Stoick's private talk with Hiccup, boyfriend and girlfriend had retreated to a cliff side to speak to one another alone. "I wake up, the sun's shining, Terrible Terrors are singing from the rooftop. I saunter down to breakfast and then I get, 'Son, we need to talk.'"

Interrupting with a nasally voice, Astrid stated, "Not now, Dad, I got a whole day of goofing off to get started on."

Hiccup paused, staring, baffled, at Astrid as she wildly wiggled her shoulders. So much for complaining about his worries. She left him gaping with his mouth wide open and arm half-raised; and then he collapsed his shoulders, laughed at the impression of himself, and commented, "What? Okay… first of all, I – I don't sound like that."

Astrid raised her eyebrows and smirked.

"Who – what is this character? And – and second –" he waved his arm questioning toward Astrid "– what is that thing you're doing with my shoulders?"

Of course as soon as he asked that question, Astrid immediately began exaggeratedly jerking her shoulders up and down again. She moved only slightly less wildly than someone undergoing a seizure.

Hiccup, shaking his head, tried to avoid the distraction and return to the original purpose of their conversation. "Yeah, uh, that's a really flattering impersonation. Anyway." Hiccup squared his shoulders, straightened his back, and pulled his eyebrows down low over his eyes. Marching forward with exaggerated arm swings and a lengthened stride, he said, "He's like, 'You're the pride of Berk, son, and I couldn't be prouder.'"

"Ah, thanks, Dad, I'm pretty impressed with myself, too," Astrid interrupted once more, yet again waving around her arms expressively.

For a second time, her satirizing mimic stopped Hiccup from his narrative. Laughing despite himself, Hiccup exclaimed, "What? When have I ever done that with my hands?"

Astrid pointed to his waving arms and exclaimed, "You just did!"

"Oh," he groaned, and then kneeled down to look Astrid in the eyes and take her shoulders into his hands. He straightened her from her wild movements, exclaiming, "Just – hold – still!" He would never complete his narrative if she continued her teasing. "Very serious." He tried to tighten his face into a serious expression himself, but Astrid's teasing made his lips twitch up a little anyways. Astrid giggled a short time more but then acquiesced, nodding, allowing Hiccup to straighten himself up again and continue speaking. He yet again returned to mimicking Stoick.

"'You're all grown up, and since no chief could ask for a better successor, I have decided' –"

"To make you chief!" Astrid leaped up on her feet. "Oh my gods!" And she immediately punched him right in the gut in congratulations. Hiccup, unprepared for the physical contact, tumbled backward and fell on his rear. His girlfriend appeared not to notice, instead continuing to ramble, "What an honor! I'd be pretty excited!"

Hiccup fidgeted on the ground, focusing on a buckle from his breastplate and adjusting it needlessly. "I…" he fumbled for words. "I'm not like you." He said nothing more. Just continued brooding.

Sensing Hiccup's somberness, Astrid sat lightly beside him and held onto his arm. "That's why you avoided him this morning, isn't it?" she asked.

"Yeah." Both of them knew the answer to the question before Hiccup spoke, yet he provided her that succinct answer, anyhow.

"What did you say to him?"

"Uh, nothing. As soon as he had his back turned, I ran out the door. Have tried to stay out of Berk ever since."

"Until you met those men you were talking about earlier?" Astrid guessed, remembering how quickly Hiccup had flown home to Berk. She could think of no other explanation why Hiccup's actions would so quickly change from avoiding Stoick to seeking out the chief frantically. "I could hardly hear anything you said to your dad about what you saw. What was it you had to tell your dad and fly back to Berk so soon?"

He answered with only two words. "Dragon trappers."

"Oh no."

"Oh, that's not the worst of it," Hiccup answered with a wry grin. "I talked to them, and it sounds like the reason they're trapping dragons is, well, they – they're being attacked."

"Attacked?"

"By a dragon rider leading an entire dragon army against them."

"What?" Astrid launched to her feet for a second time, instantly poised for battle. Thankfully she had left her axe back in Stormfly saddle, else she might have drawn it then and there. "A dragon army?"

"That's what they said. Called this person 'The Vigilante.' The dragon trapper in charge – I think he said his name was Aaron? Eret? – warned us that the Vigilante could attack us, too."

"No wonder you had to talk to your father. What's he going to do about it?"

Hiccup sighed heavily. Looking up at Astrid, he answered, "Both too much and – and too little, if you ask me. He says he's preparing for war, and he's even barricading the village right as we speak, but he's not going to approach the dragon trappers at all. Says he met their chief once, had a bad impression with him, or something like that. I don't know. And he says we can't go after the Vigilante at all."

"Seems a little unlike him," Astrid mused. "He tried so hard to find the Red Death's nest back when the dragons were raiding us. It's hard to imagine your dad just waiting around for an enemy to come to him rather than fighting that enemy off before Berk gets attacked."

"That's what I think, too." Irritated, Hiccup commented, "But that's what he's doing!" He threw his hands up in the air, and in the process whacked Astrid right in the face with his vambrace. Before she could punch him back – he could see her arms tensing, and even had he not, would have predicted such an action from his girlfriend – Hiccup jumped momentarily out of the serious conversation to excuse himself, "Just getting you back for knocking me over earlier."

"It's not my fault you're so imbalanced and always fall over!"

"It wasn't my fault your head was in the way right now!"

"And you really still don't believe me when I say you're always throwing your hands and shoulders everyone?"

"Alright, alright." Hiccup smiled and shook his head. "But in all seriousness" – he turned the conversation back to Stoick – "It might just be me, but I think my dad's hiding something. He told me that the Vigilante attacked a chief meeting years ago and killed most of the men there, but he seems to know… I don't know! Something more about this mysterious dragon rider than he's telling me."

"Maybe," Astrid said. "Though it sounds like he's told you enough about the Vigilante to prove we should stay away. Killed an entire gathering of chieftains? That's all I need to know."

"Not me," Hiccup answered. "Think about it. Another dragon rider, Astrid. Outside of Berk."

She frowned, and with more than a little disapprobation etching her voice's intonation, responded, "Why do I have a bad feeling you're going to go after this dragon rider despite all the bad things you've heard?"

Hiccup once again grabbed both of Astrid's hands. "Here's the thing – I think we should talk to him first. Maybe he can be persuaded. We should at least try, shouldn't we?"

"You're going to do this no matter what I say, aren't you?" Astrid asked skeptically.

"Well…"

"Alright, fine." She clapped him heavily on the shoulder. "I'm in. When do we start flying?"