A thunderous boom echoed through the night sky as Astrid collapsed another tower with a bolt of blue plasma. She was followed out of the dive by the screams of the dying, crushed and broken by the falling masonry. She broke through the clouds with the last of her momentum, hanging for a second in front of the pale moon before she plunged back down for another attack.

This time, the Great Hall. The other dragons didn't normally bother with attacking this building. It was too solidly built, and the only food they kept inside was burned beyond recognition, to be eaten by the Vikings later. She, on the other hand, knew of something else that was stored within the thick, stone walls.

Pulling out of the dive, she flew parallel to the ground, below the level of the tallest buildings. Flying straight at the entrance, she could still see Vikings rushing out, desperate to arm themselves against the coming threat. She grinned, a high pitch scream causing those nearby to flee in blind panic as a fire ball built up deep within her throat. There was no escaping what was coming.

At the last second she fired the blast straight through the entrance, and pulled up hard, just scraping the tiles on the roof, and smashing through an ornate stone dragon that stood atop the building. A streak of lightning hissed through the hall, passing over the heads of those unfortunate enough to still be inside.

All were incinerated as the hall disappeared with a blinding light could be seen for miles. It stung her sensitive eyes, but Astrid forced herself to watch as the wooden roof of structure slowly collapsed into the hall below. Plumes of flame forced their way out of every window, and the enormous oak doors were blown off their hinges as the oldest and strongest building in the village became its latest funeral pyre.

Her shot had been spot on. It had exploded in the storeroom that, only weeks before the midsummer's festival, had been filled to the brim with alcohol. Wine, ale, mead, it did not matter. The Vikings enjoyed it because it was inebriating and delicious. She enjoyed it because it was highly flammable.

Her night vision had been ruined, but it didn't matter. From now on, she would be fighting up close and personal. She circled the village, scanning carefully for a worthy target. A group of Vikings were clustered round a large redhead near one of the towers she had destroyed earlier. It was giving orders - clearly in charge, and it made killing that one a priority.

She landed heavily on its shoulders, screeching with delight as she felt its spine snap. Putting all of her weight on one foot, she crushed the rib cage for good measure. She slowly turned to see a small army of battle-hardened Viking warriors, frozen in shock and fear. She smiled. This was turning out to be a good raid after all.

"Who's first…?"

The Vikings roared and charged her, but she was too quick. She jumped onto a nearby Viking and clamped down on its head and chest. She let out a small jet of flame that burned through its upper body. Her next victim. She swiped with her left paw and it dodged underneath, but it didn't see her right paw until it had cut deep into the flesh. Her claws caught on its armour, and she had to shake the body loose.

Tossing it aside into a burning building, she leapt out of the way of another attack. The warrior stood up tall and shouted at her, an enormous bloodied hammer in its hands. She laughed at its attempt to intimidate her. Her tail shot out and knocked it to the ground.

She trotted over and bit into its throat, warm blood coating her muzzle. The other Vikings were all running now. Soon, she was left alone with the corpses of her victims, and she continued to chew on the tendons in the neck. Dawn was approaching, and the raid was coming to an end.

"…COME…"

She felt the pull of the Mother, they all did. She took off and lazily circled around, riding on the thermals from the fires. She was looking for something to take back to the nest, to satisfy its insatiable appetite. It wasn't really her job to collect the food, but she plucked an oblivious sheep from a nearby field, just so she didn't return empty handed.

The world seemed to melt away and reform in front of her eyes, and she suddenly found herself flying through thick clouds with the rest of the flock. She idly licked at the blood on her front paws. It was dry and sticky, but it was still full of flavour.

They were close to the nest now, and she began to feel uneasy. For some reason she always hated coming home. Perhaps it was overpowering smell of fear from hundreds of trapped dragons, packed far too tightly into the hellish mountain. She couldn't leave, none of them could. She could feel the presence of the mother. It permeated throughout her body, and she could feel it crawling through her head. It was nothing like she had ever felt in her life, a sense of complete and utter hopelessness that gripped the heart of every dragon that fell under her control. She felt violated as it flicked through her memories, her most private thoughts and feelings. She was powerless to stop it.

They broke through the fog to emerge about halfway up a black mountain. She followed as the flock gained altitude together, before plunging into an opening at the top of what was obviously some kind of volcano. The mass of dragons spiralled downward, and it took all her concentration not to collide with any of the other unfortunate slaves. They began to drop their haul into the gaping maw of the mother below them, hidden by a thick layer of smoke.

She was about to drop her kill, but when she looked down, she was no longer carrying a sheep. She was carrying herself. Her human self, and she was still alive, barely. She stared at her body, bloodied and limp, and screamed.

Despite being a dragon, she still screamed with her human voice. Her delicate, light voice that was currently making a piercing scream that hurt her ears. Astrid could not bring herself to drop it into the pit, and she forced her way out of the circling mass.

She collided with several Nadders, getting thrown off balance. She half landed, half crashed on a ledge to the side of the cavern. Dropping her blond haired counterpart on the ground.

She slowly turned to witness the largest creature she had ever seen slowly emerge from below the smoke. Its head alone filled up most of the empty space, as the cavern was now empty. Dragons sheltered in caves and behind rocks, none of them wanting to attract the attention of the monster that regularly dined on anyone who displeased her.

Multiple eyes cracked open and focused in on her. She felt like they were boring through her flesh, her very being.

It spoke softly, one word, in Hiccup's voice.

"Astrid…?"

Suddenly, its head shot forward, engulfing the human Astrid who was laying in front of it. She barely had enough time to leap away and get airborne.

"Astrid?"

She joined the mass of dragons that were desperately trying to escape the Mother's wrath. She flapped as a hard as she could, her head spinning and lungs burning. She could sense its head approaching from below.

"Astrid?"

Its jaws met around her tail, ripping through the scales as it pulled her down.

"ASTRID"

She screamed in pain, as the bones in her tail were crushed under the force of the impossibly large teeth.

"ASTRID!"

The world darkened as she plummeted through the smoke and into oblivion…

"Astrid, wake up"

The Dragon had been thrashing around for the last few minutes, twitching occasionally, as if she was in intense pain. Hiccup could sympathise with her, he'd had more than his fair share of nightmares when he was younger. Sometimes it was his Father, his Mother, the dragons, Astrid. It was funny, he'd actually had a nightmare about her turning into a dragon before; except in the dream she'd killed him in front of the village because he had tried to steal her teeth to sell to Trader Al. Even in his dreams he was an imaginative, paranoid boy.

She had finally stopped moving, and slowly cracked open an eye. She was splayed out on her front, wings outstretched like a huge black sail. It would have been funny if she had not looked so tired and scared.

"Well hello there miserable. Tough night?"

The Night Fury groaned and stood up, giving Hiccup a look of mild annoyance. She stretched out like a cat, and then began to write in the dirt.

JUST GREAT

Apparently she was developing his skill for sarcasm, although Hiccup himself like to call it 'satire'.

BAD DREAMS. THANK YOU FOR STAYING

He hadn't really had a choice, if he could remember correctly. It was either stay the night, or risk upsetting a dragon with the words "Offspring of Death" in its official title. Still, it was nice to be thanked for once. It was a new experience, a strange feeling. He didn't know what to do next.

"…uh, Thanks for not letting me freeze to death?"

She snorted and rolled her eyes. She padded over to the lake and dunked her completely under the water. He couldn't tell if she was drinking or just trying to wake up, probably both.

"Hey, uh, maybe you shouldn't do that. We learned in dragon training that if you get cover the head with water…"

Astrid turned and was giving him the look of death. Clearly she was not very impressed with apparent expertise when it came to dragons

"Alright, point taken…"

She returned her head to the water. He almost laughed; it took turning into a dragon for Astrid to finally notice him, but he was still completely hopeless when it came to talking to members of the opposite sex.

But Astrid had never really been that kind of girl anyway. She had never shown any interest in any of her would-be suitors before, and he was pretty certain that now, most of them would run away screaming before they had even tried a first date. Growing scales was one of the fastest ways to become a social reject. That and being a Hiccup, of course.

She pulled her head out of the water with a loud gasp, before stepping in and half submerging. She looked quite nice, for a dragon at least. She was longer and sleeker than the others, although the only time he really had a chance to look at them was while they were trying to kill him during training. There were none of the spikes of the Nadder, or the horns and thin neck of the Nightmare. As for the Gronkle, she looked significantly less like a boulder with wings.

She stepped out of the water and shook like a dog, showering Hiccup with big droplets. She trotted up to him with that absurd grin on her face, like she had just won some kind of prize for 'bath of the day'. She lay down in front of him, and started to write in the dirt, her writing was improving.

I CAN HEAR AND SMELL EVERYTHING NOW. YOU SMELL LIKE ME – IN A GOOD WAY

Well that was a really comforting thought. Not only did he have to walk through the village, worried about accidentally causing a disaster wherever he went, but he also had to cope with smelling like a dragon. His week just kept on getting better and better. The thought that Astrid had somehow marked him with her scent wasn't troubling at all.

"It is… nice?"

Again, he failed miserably not to sound like a complete idiot.

SAFE

"Well that makes sense. I'm not going to tell anyone that I've found you here. It can be our little secret. Say, do you want to talk about the dream you just had, you've gone through a lot after all. Maybe I can help?"

Pain briefly flashed across her face. He sensed that these dreams might be a little bit worse than his tooth-stealing/public execution night terrors.

I ATTACKED BERK, KILLED MANY VIKINGS

Hiccup winced, that was bad. She was probably not in control of her actions, even as she attacked the one's she loved. It was only natural. They had all grown up to the sound of that Night Fury attacking Berk, so obviously she would see herself as the attacker, now that she was one.

I KILLED STOICK, LIKED IT, BLOOD…

She was clearly struggling to express what she had seen, what she had done. Dreams cold be so real sometimes that you are convinced the entire time that you are living in the real world. Admittedly, the real world was a lot crazier now, what with Vikings transforming into dragons. He lay a comforting hand on either cheek

"Its okay, I'm sorry, you don't have to…"

She shook her head, dislodging her hands. She was determined to get through this. She always had been determined.

WENT BACK TO THE NEST, EATEN BY MONSTER. SO REAL… TOO REAL.

"That sounds horrible. I'm sorry you had to go through that alone. I'm sorry you have to go through any of this alone."

ALSO, I SAW MYSELF. MY REAL SELF.

So that was it. Astrid must have seen her human form again, and it was getting to her. It would get to anyone, to see the body they were born in, knowing full well that they had turned into some kind of beast on the outside. It was a wonder that Astrid hasn't killed herself. Out of rage, grief or madness. Hiccup recapped what he already knew. He was going to help Astrid return back to her true form, no matter what it took.

"I'm not going to abandon you, you know that right?"

She lifted up her head, looking at Hiccup with her sad, round eyes.

"I'll come back with some food, and we'll find out how to fix you."

She nodded, before warbling and nuzzling his chest. He could feel the vibrations, even through the fabric of his thick jerkin.

"No need to thank me, just doing my job. Friends have to look out for each other after all."

She sat back, looking thoughtful, before writing in the dirt:

FRIENDS?

She awkwardly held out her paw, somewhere between a high-five and a handshake

"Friends" confirmed Hiccup, pressing his hand up against hers. Little did she know, she was essentially his only friend. He smiled, maybe they had more in common than they thought…

"And that's when the murderous beastie, eyes blazing red as a furnace, jumped up and took my leg."

Hiccup sighed, he wasn't really listening to Gobber's. After working as his apprentice for years, he had heard most of his stories, and they all tended to end in the same way. Either a mythical 'Bone-knapper' or some ridiculous hammerhead animal would end up stealing one of his limbs – or save them, he could never remember.

The sun had set hours ago, but they were still training, in a way. Perched atop one of the old towers overlooking the sea, the class had gathered to discuss strategy, or at least the closest thing to strategy that a rabble of untrained youths could handle. Gobber told them the best tactics for dealing with each particular dragon, from bashing on a shield to playing dead and stabbing at its underbelly when it got close.

Hiccup should have excelled at this academic stuff, but he just didn't have the heart. Every time they faced a dragon in the arena, he couldn't shake the feeling that they might be sentient, intelligent beings that were being hounded to death, just so that some arrogant Viking teenagers could complete their stupid 'dragon training'.

"Wouldn't it be cool, to think that if you could still control your hand, inside the dragon, you could have killed it from the inside, by crushing its heart… or something."

Fishlegs wasn't making any sense as usual. Normally, he might have spoken up, dismissing his theory on the basis of incomplete evidence and common sense, but in the end, he ignored the large boy. Hiccup was too busy thinking about Astrid to pay much attention to anyone.

He had returned to the cove several times over the last few days, bringing her food and company. They talked a lot, and she had told him about the other Night Fury, her brief spell under the control of someone called 'The Mother', and just general information about what it was like to be a dragon. It was amazing, the book of dragons would have to be re-written, with multiple sequels, just with the information he had learned those last few days. She told him about every aspect to her new life, from sleeping to eating to swimming in the lake. Modesty apparently didn't apply when you were a giant, scaled creature of death. She was naked, after all. The tailors in Berk tended not to make dresses for dragons of her size.

Hiccup talked about dragon training, his work in the forge, and news and information from the village. She listened intently, eyes and ears all focused in on the boy. She would never admit it, but she was clearly homesick. Hiccup could see that it was slowly eating her up inside, to be so close to home and yet be trapped in the cove, unable to reach anyone that she loved. She ate up as much information as she could.

He told her about her family, the funeral, and how everyone was missing her. Maybe she didn't realise just how influential she was in the village, but she stared in disbelief when he told her that other teens could sometimes be heard crying at night, their eyes swollen and red in the morning. She had bowed her head in sadness when she heard about her family. They had taken her loss hard. He supposed that years of being the best warrior of her generation had convinced her parents that she was invincible. In a way, now more than ever, she was.

Sometimes he stayed the night, sometimes he didn't, but whenever he did stay, she never had another nightmare. Not like the first night, at least. She had found shelter on the higher ground in the cove, nestled between the rock wall and some old boulders that were covered in moss. Hiccup had actually brought some wooden planks to try and build some kind of house, but in the end they just kept the rain off her head at night. She maintained that her waterproof wings were a far better cover anyway.

Occasionally, they talked about flying, and Astrid would try again to escape, but to no avail. Every time she lost control as her tail failed to give her the direction and stability needed for steady flight. Still, it was as incredible as it was terrifying to see the power in those wings, especially considering that only a few weeks ago, she had been only slightly bigger than Hiccup, although infinitely more skilled.

He hadn't told her directly that he had shot her down, but she was a smart dragon, and he was sure she had figured it out by now. He wasn't going to press the issue either way. Not when, for the first time in his life, he was actually enjoying the company of someone his own age.

He caught her gazing up at the stars a few times. He wondered whether deep down in her dragon instincts she wanted to be up there among them, soaring high above the world, invisible to anyone and everyone. Flying would have been amazing. He had no doubt that it would have made her terrible fate slightly less of a burden on her soul. As it was, she was slowly spiralling into depression.

"… I'll cut off the arms and legs of every dragon I see, with my face!"

Hiccup had tuned out of the conversation for a while, but it was only Snotlout who was speaking, so he hadn't missed much.

"No, it's the wings and tails you want. Get them, and it can't get away. A downed dragon, is a dead dragon..."

Hiccup sat up. His mind forming a shadow of an idea in his head, going into overdrive as it pieced together a plan that would finally solve Astrid's problem with being trapped in the cove. It was stupid, it was crazy, it was insane… but it just might work. Working for years in the forge had honed his talent for creation and invention. When combined with his overactive young mind, it gave him a very unique set of skills.

He slipped quietly away into the night, climbing noiselessly down the wooden ramp of the tower. Nobody noticed that he had left, and nobody came looking for him afterwards. That was good, he needed to do this alone. If his calculations were correct, Astrid's problems could be solved in just a few days.

"Don't worry Astrid, I'll fix you. It's the least I can do for a friend in need."