Yeah, sorry about this slow update. This and my other new chapter for The Power Of Two were on my mobile, but they got deleted, so here I am starting again. Sucks. :| but alas I start again for you faithful readers whom I love so much.

Astrid loved playing with the boys. Being she was a girl and her body developing less massive muscles than boys, she was very agile while still having good strength. Almost immediately, every snot nosed boy knew that she was the Viking-to-be not to mess with. She could outrun most other Vikings with enough willpower. However that was mere child's play compared to the situation at hand. Her target was quicker than anyone in the village and very hard to get a grip on. Eyes of a trickster stared her down and foiled her time and again.

It seemed simple enough. Catch the Night Fury and just keep him immobilized for long enough until Hiccup could tie on the saddle. She was THE Astrid Hofferson right? Nothing was too tough with enough determination and an axe. But seeing as she had to defeat this adversary without a weapon, her pure determination was her only available choice. Sure the first or second time she attempted to tackle Toothless were unsuccessful, but she couldn't give up. Unfortunately for Astrid, Toothless had the same mindset. Just because she didn't catch him that time, it doesn't mean she won't next time.

And so the hunt continued.

"You overgrown salamander! You're gonna pay for this!"

This was the third time that Astrid had been tricked into falling into the lake. And each dunk into the frigid water was followed by a rumble of laughter from the entertained dragon.

'I will not make a pair of shoes out of him. I will not make a pair of shoes out of him.' She slammed into a boulder. 'Maybe just one wouldn't be so terrible. I mean does he really need scales?'

Muttering darkly, she watched as Hiccup stayed at least 3 feet beside her. He was ready for when (and if) Astrid managed to bring the beast the dirt off of herself, she charged again. She tried zipping in different directions to try to confuse her prey, but Toothless jumped over her with ease every time. Despite being unable to fly and having his fake tail fin removed, he was quite the escape artist. No matter where Astrid had him cornered, he always managed to one-up her.

'Night Fury? Please, more like Night Infuriating.' Astrid did not enjoy losing, and especially if they were just toying with her. Toothless was an evil genius, of that she was sure. He managed to elude her yet again. He disappeared from sight and then reappeared behind astrid as she was looking around. Toothless gleefully swept his tail under Astrid's feet, causing her to come tumbling down with plenty of rage. Hiccup was particularly shocked to find out about Astrid's extensive vocabulary.

"NIGHT FURY!"

After another unsuccessful attempt, he fell to the ground and laid down with his arm covering his eyes.

"You just love making everything infinitely more complicated than it needs to be, don't you bud?"

Extremely pleased with the game they were playing; Toothless gave his signature grin and hopped atop his tree. He closed his eyes and wrapped his tail around the lone branch as he swung down. He assumed his sleeping position.

'My chance! He's finally tired!'

Chuckling darkly, she crept over to his spot and prepared to pounce. Before she got at least 30 feet away, Toothless shot out a blue fireball that landed inches away from the girl. Growling, he covered himself with his wings again.

"Fine! We'll have a time out then. I'm gonna let you rest then you giant sack of scales." Toothless snarled at the last comment, but Astrid paid him no mind. She made her way towards an obviously frustrated Hiccup and laid down next to him.

"I just had to pick the most stubborn dragon to shoot down didn't I?"

Astrid sighed. "Look at your past experience. You could barely lift an axe, why did you think befriending a dragon would be easier?"

Hiccup opened his mouth, but quickly shut it. "Good point."

"Why can't you just ask Toothless to let you put the saddle on him?"

Hiccup groaned, "I've tried to do that with other versions of it, but I guess he just likes to make me sweat."

Astrid looked up at the sky. The sun was already starting to set. They had to attach that saddle quick, that dragon is already quick enough, and they don't need pure darkness to add to its advantages too.

"I'm really sorry."

Astrid turned her head towards Hiccup in confusion. "For what, Hiccup?"

"That I can't catch Toothless." He sat up. "I mean, I'm pretty fast, but I don't have the strength to do it. If it was just a footrace I could catch him, but he's really strong too. I almost caught his leg, but I got knocked back."

"Wait, what? How'd you touch his leg?" She took a stick and made lines in the dirt. "Every time I catch up, he jumps into the air."

"Well, I kind of caught him off guard. I sneezed mid-run and he sort of skidded across the dirt."

Suddenly a bulb went off in Astrid's head. She ran off and inspected the lake. She saw a boulder with a lot of tall grass. And maybe a few feet next to that was an enormous rock.

'Those spots could be just big enough...'

"Hey Hiccup! I've got an idea! You got any leftover fish?"

"Uh yeah, why?"

"Perfect." Astrid grinned.

"Toothless! Come here buddy!"

The Night Fury unwrapped himself and groggily walked towards the boy. He looked extremely uninterested, until Hiccup took out the fish behind his back. Immediately Toothless bounded towards the boy and licked his face, while trying to gnaw at the fish. Keeping his hand on the very eager dragon's head, Hiccup pushed him away.

"Not so fast there! You gotta earn it!"

Toothless let his pupils go as large as they could, until they were perfect circles. He whined and nuzzled Hiccup's chest for good measure. Hiccup nearly gave in as soon as the Night Fury started to purr. Quickly snapping out of it, he took Toothless' head pushed it away yet again.

Hiccup pointed towards a long stretch of land.

"You beat me in a race to that side, and it's all yours. You in?"

Toothless rolled his eyes, but after stretching his legs he roared excitedly in agreement. Hiccup took a fallen branch from the ground and drew a starting line. Pointing to the edge of the bowl at least a hundred feet ahead, he gave Toothless the rules.

"Alright, if you can beat me to that spot right over there, you win the fish. I mean you have been getting a bit flabby." (This earned him an indignant roar from Toothless)

"Ready..."

Toothless' pupils had shrunk down a bit. A low rumbling was coming from his throat. Hiccup got into running position and flexed his fingers.

"Set..."

Hiccup blew a lock of hair out of his eyes and had a smile on his face, green eyes glowing with anticipation. The look on his face mirrored that of Toothless' but his reasons were entirely different. Toothless positioned his wings so that they were more streamlined. He whipped his tail around, the one tail fin staying as rigid as possible.

"...GO!"

And thus the downfall of a Night Fury, one of the most fearsome creatures, began at the hands of two teenagers. A world gone mad indeed.

Toothless managed to burst out ahead and had several feet on Hiccup. Hiccup ran full speed ahead and managed not to have his natural klutziness mess him up. After some mental cheering, he managed to close the gap between the two. Toothless wasn't having this however and put all his power into his hind legs to propel him forward. Just as victory was in sight for the dragon, a loud clap echoed all around them.

Toothless screeched and tried to come to a sliding halt. But as he tried to, a yellow blur came out from behind a rock and barreled into him. As Toothless tried to squirm away, his assailant kept a strong grip on his legs.

"Hiccup, NOW!"

Hiccup burst out of the same rock that Astrid was in and grabbed the saddle. He quickly maneuvered his way around the flailing limbs and managed to attach the main straps to three of his four legs, but the fourth was proving to be a challenge as Toothless was knocking Astrid around a fair bit.

"Almost there!" Hiccup barely dodged a barrage of black, scaly feet.

Astrid was already bruised up pretty bad, but she wasn't giving up. Strange thing was that she could've sworn she heard laughing. In fact, with every slight touch, Toothless seemed to spasm even more violently.

'Why would...no! The dragon is freaking ticklish?'

An evil grin spread across Astrid's face. She forced herself up towards Toothless' neck. At this, the Night Fury knocked Hiccup away and stood on all legs to pounce on his blonde prey. Their position was reminiscent of how Astrid first met Toothless when he attacked Hiccup. But before Toothless made his move, Astrid scratched under his neck.

'If he's ticklish, then this ought to drive him nuts!'

However the dragon wasn't squirming around like he was before. A glazed look spread across Toothless' face. Rumbling contentedly, he began to sway back and forth. Hiccup looked at the two and took this chance to sneak up behind them.

"Hey, what are you do...OOMPH!"

Toothless toppled over and was now purring contentedly on top of Astrid. She was struggling to get out from under what seemed to be 40 tons of dragon.

"Get off you sack of scales! I'm going to be crushed to death!"

Hiccup ran over to them and secured the final strap. With a satisfying click he wiped his brow in relief.

"I got you Astrid!" He gripped one of her hands that weren't currently being crushed and pulled as hard as he could. Slowly but surely, she slid out from underneath Toothless. She took in a deep breath and coughed loudly.

"Ok, one: Don't ever tell anyone I was almost crushed to death my some marshmallow of a dragon. And two: How much does Toothless weigh? I mean I could almost hear my internal organs crying out something about claustrophobia and being too young to die!"

Hiccup clutched his sides, laughing uncontrollably. Though Astrid was not amused, it was refreshing seeing him so open. Normally he'd be much more reserved. After wiping his eyes, he managed to wheeze out, "I wouldn't know, he's never fallen on top of me before. How'd you manage to do that?"

"Well first of all, you should know your best friend is freakishly ticklish."

"Really? Dragons are so weird..."

"But I tried to tickle his neck and he collapsed!" She looked over to the happily sleeping dragon. "I guess that's some weird pressure point or something."

"Want to know something even weirder?"

"Hiccup, what could be weirder that that?"

"He hates eels."

"Like to eat?"

"No, like 'You just burned down my village and stole my betrothed' kind of hate."

Astrid's mouth hung open in astonishment.

'Is anything we know about dragons accurate? I mean, I didn't study that manual religiously, but all there was in it were speed, strength and its shot limit. How did we not bother to learn about these tidbits?'

The sun was now well below the horizon. Stars were beginning to appear in the sky. By now Toothless had woken up and was gnawing at the straps of the saddle. After a few minutes of that he left it alone, presumably just not caring. The three of them were sitting around a fire that Toothless helped light. (He was too impatient to wait for Astrid to finish lighting it, and Astrid didn't appreciate having him help her with something so trivial.) Toothless was curled around Hiccup while Astrid sat across from them. They spent the time in silence. However, Astrid was the one to break it.

"Hiccup?"

The boy stopped poking the cinders and looked ahead. "Yeah?"

"I shouldn't be here..." She was now looking directly into the fire. "And neither should you."

"I know."

"We should be bringing this dragon in to your dad, the Chief, and being celebrated as heroes."

"..."

Astrid sighed and took a blade of grass and flicked it into the fire. "I'm aware of this, and you're aware of this...So why aren't we doing it? My mind keeps switching between a Viking mentality to a...well not Viking mentality."

Hiccup looked up thoughtfully. "Maybe, we're just crazy."

'Well that's reassuring...'

"I guess so..."

Toothless warbled in agreement, which made the two teens smile. Hiccup and Astrid accidentally met each other's eyes. As blue stared into green, a silent, mutual agreement was met. They were in way too deep to get out now. This was treading dangerous waters and they knew it. Killing dragons was ingrained into them since birth, but co-existing peacefully with them was completely foreign.

Astrid would never admit to it, but she was glad that Hiccup had trusted her. To allow her into the world that he manage to carve out with the help of Toothless. It wasn't complete however, but Astrid was more than willing to help the two out. However, this made being a loyal Viking infinitely more difficult. But for now, for tonight all there was to think about was the simplicity of the quiet night, and the boy and dragon with the same striking green eyes.

She cleared her throat, careful not to let their eyes meet again. "So what now? I mean now that we put that thing on Toothless?"

"Well I'm going to make a few adjustments to the fin I made." Astrid peered over to where the leather fin was, along with the giant pile of papers. "I need to make sure it's compatible wit the saddle."

"And later what, he'll fly?"

"Well, with my help, I can hope he'll be as good as new." Hiccup scratched between Toothless' eyes, which pleased the dragon immensely. "Either that or we'll crash and die." Giving a sheepish grin, he continued. "But hey, no pressure." As he smiled, Astrid couldn't help but to do the same. Soon another silence followed, but it was a comfortable silence.

Astrid shivered a bit, and tried to curl herself up into a ball. As she felt her eyes slowly closing, she felt something warm press against her shoulder. Hiccup had walked over and sat alongside of her. Ignoring her inner voice telling her that she didn't need any pity, she leaned into his warmth.

Suddenly, she heard a whine behind her. Toothless also came to sleep alongside them. He pressed his body close to Hiccup and Astrid so that way they could have some support. His wings covered the two like a blanket. He settled his head right next to Astrid. Feeling an initial sense of uneasiness, she gradually let herself relax. Soon the sounds of nature were the only things she could hear. The fire had now begun to die down into a small, red ball and then slowly disappear. There were a million ways to fall asleep, and Astrid had to admit:

'This isn't so bad...'

Haha! Finally done! And best of all I'm pretty much done with my latest chapter of my other fic. Sorry for the delay folks. Leave me one and I hope you really enjoyed this. Although I thoroughly apologize for it being shorter than most chapters.