"I don't see how this is going to work when your dragon seems to trust me even less than what you do," Hiccup said as they entered the arena. The comfortable weight of his axe rested in the middle of his back, placed away as promised when Stormfly seemed to have a negative reaction to it. Indeed, Stormfly seemed to be giving him the evil eye from behind her rider as Astrid came to stand in the middle of the rink, hands on her hips as she waited for him to catch up.
"That's because trust is an important thing to dragons," the viking girl said, lifting a hand to brush some hair away from her face. "Stormfly trusts nobody but me, and it's rare that she'll even let someone else onto her back. Luckily for you, there's plenty of dragons around here that are riderless."
There certainly seemed to be plenty of Terrible Terrors slipping through the bars around the arena that used to make sure dragons didn't get out. Hiccup watched a tiny green one scramble up and along one of the bars, its claws clinging to the metal before he lowered his gaze to the dragon conqueror. "Pity for them I'm only interested in one dragon."
Astrid's brow drew together before she raised an eyebrow. "If you're thinking about training that Night Fury, you better have your wits about you. From what we've seen of it, it trusts humans even less than it trusts other dragons. It's been on its own for so long that it will probably attack first before you can even knock it down enough to catch it."
"A second's all the time I need." He waved a hand nonchalantly, grinning wickedly. "How else do you think I got the dragon teeth around my neck?"
She made a face of disgust before she walked over to one of the cells, pulling the lever to open it. Something in the cell moved its head back, and it took Hiccup a moment to realize it was another Deadly Nadder, green in colour. It seemed a bit skittish but Astrid held her hand out palm first, her expression turning soft. "Shhh, it's okay, it's okay. We're not going to hurt you." As Stormfly squawked her affirmation for the other Nadder, Astrid turned her attention back to Hiccup. "This one was found injured in the woods. Usually we'd leave her to heal naturally but she was being chased around by boars and dire wolves."
"And thus the hunter became the hunted," Hiccup drawled, watching curiously as the Nadder pressed her muzzle hesitantly to Astrid's hand. So that was how they tamed them.
Astrid rolled her eyes at his statement. "Actually, dragons only eat fish. Most species won't eat eel though for some reason. We found that out after Stormfly and I took care of the queen. They had no reason to attack our livestock anymore." Shifting a little, she held her hand out, gesturing for him to come closer, which he did after a moment's hesitation. She wrapped her hand around his wrist once he was close enough for her to grab it, pulling him over a bit more. The Nadder watched, its tail moving around and Hiccup subconsciously held his breath as his hand replaced Astrid's on its muzzle.
He'd never felt dragon skin when it was breathing before, always only after it was dead and unmoving. The scales underneath his fingers seemed to ripple as the Nadder matched her breathing to his, looking up at him with interested but suspicious golden eyes. Astrid moved her hand away from his wrist but he didn't feel it, instead looking down at the Nadder.
"The last time I was this close to a Nadder was when I was eight." He was talking before he realized it, voice unnaturally soft as Astrid looked at him, carefully watching for any sudden movement from the dragon. "It nearly took my head off with its tail spikes. I earned my name from the way I killed it."
"How did you kill it?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper. She shouldn't be asking such a thing, but she was genuinely curious.
"Slit its throat, down to the stomach where I spilled its guts. Not before I hacked off its wings and dug its spikes out from its tail, ripped my axe under the flesh where they grew so that they wouldn't grow back." At the sick expression on her face, he turned his head to look at her with a raised eyebrow in a 'you wanted to know' look. " 'A downed dragon is a dead dragon'. Once it lost its wings and spikes, it was defenseless. It left me with this." He used his free hand to point to the scar curved under his chin and up his right cheek. "So don't feel bad for it."
The Nadder nudged under his arm and drew itself up, seeking more attention and making him stumble back a bit, the peace broken as he nearly went for his axe before Astrid stopped his other hand. "She just wants attention," she snapped, and he lowered his hand from where it had been halfway to his back. He was so skittish around dragons without something sharp in his hand, she realized as she moved to show him where a Nadder's sweet spot was, moving his hand from the muzzle to where her own was and showing him how to move it. The Nadder trilled in response, eyes fluttering closed as she rubbed her head against his fingers.
He gave a small snort as the Nadder nuzzled into his hand, continuing to scratch its scales as Astrid pulled her hand away again. "I was killing a Nadder naught but last week. Now look at me."
"I guess things on Berk and things on Outcast Island are vastly different. Maybe more than what I imagined," she said, hearing a purr start to rumble in the dragon's throat.
"You have no idea. Back home..." He frowned. "Er, on Outcast Island, the only reason you'd be in the kill ring is if you were having your exam, or you were being fed to the dragons for treason against the chief. Or for his amusement, whichever suited him at the time."
Astrid pursed her lips together upon hearing that. "Sounds like banishment was mild compared to what he could have put you through."
"He knows I can handle myself against dragons. Fath...Alvin would've found more amusement in watching me drift out to sea than watching me kill his captive dragons." The Nadder startled him all of a sudden when it pushed against him, nuzzling his chest, but the alarm quickly dissipated from his face. "It's not the first time I've been banished or disowned anyway."
She opened her mouth to speak before the Nadder gave a squawk, its wings spreading out from her sides before she drew them back in, and she clapped her hands softly so not to startle the dragon. "Looks like she's ready to let you onto her back! Stormfly usually does that to me when she wants to go flying. Guess it must be a universal Nadder thing." She gave a bit of a nervous chuckle before she started maneuvering Hiccup with a bit of protest from the Outcast. The Nadder leaned the top half of its body down, tilting its head with a small trill, the boy giving it a look before he reluctantly got onto the dragon's back with a fluid movement Astrid hadn't seen in many of her friends. She moved back over to Stormfly, shifting her foot into the stirrup and hefting herself on as Hiccup's Nadder wavered back and forth on its legs, talons digging into the stone floor of the arena.
In his head, Hiccup was reeling back a bit in disgust as his fingers dug into the Nadder's green scales, keeping his expression schooled as well as he could. Here he was, the first Outcast on a dragon. If his father could just see him now...
"What're you gonna name her?"
The question snapped him out of his reverie, looking at Astrid as she sidled Stormfly up next to them. At the look she got, she gave a shrug. "Giving a dragon a name is an important decision, and a sign of trust. If she answers to it, then she'll be loyal to you."
A dragon, loyal to him? He tilted his head, looking down at the Nadder where she turned her head to look up at him with curious golden eyes. "Fenrir," he decided, leaning down to knead the spot between her wings with deft fingers.
"As in Fenrir, one of Loki's children? The giant wolf that will eat the moon to herald the beginning of Ragnarok?"
"You don't have to put it like that, princess. Besides, she seems to like it, don't you, Fenrir?" Perhaps it was a bit of a hint to his plans, but he didn't expect her to catch onto it as he ran his fingers along the Nadder's neck, earning a trill in response. Hiccup sat back up, looking at her to catch a glimpse of acknowledgement but he was met with blankness as she shrugged. A name was a name she guessed.
"Ready for your first flight?"
"There you are!" He was about to respond before Hookfang and Snotlout came crashing into the arena, the Monstrous Nightmare coming to a screeching halt dead center of the floor with his rider practically clinging to his neck with a shrill scream. Fenrir reared back, her wings spreading as she skittered back with Hiccup on her, the movement causing him to nearly fall off had he not grabbed onto her wings. Astrid gave a long-suffering sigh as she pinched her nose, rolling her eyes.
"What now, Snotlout?"
The viking boy picked himself up and dusted himself off, giving his dragon a scowl who gave him a look in response that was just like 'what're you going to do about it?' before he turned his attention back to them. Or, more specifically, to Hiccup. Oh no, Astrid thought to herself with a roll of her eyes. She knew that look on Snotlout's face.
"I challenge you, Hiccup, to a duel to decide who will take over Berk as chief!"
Hiccup blinked a little before he burst out laughing, his shoulders shaking with mirth. It wasn't the same wicked laughter that Astrid had heard back at the rocks during the Outcasts's last invasion of the island, instead it sounded almost...boyish. Like he genuinely found that hilarious. Of course, that didn't sit well with Snotlout. It just made him angrier.
"What're you laughing at? I'm serious here? You, me, here now. I'll kick your butt!"
"No offense, Snotlout." Hiccup sniggered behind his hand before he leaned forward on Fenrir's neck, leaning against her languidly. "But last time you challenged me as you so eloquently put it, all I needed to do was kick your legs out from under you and you wet yourself like a newborn child." Snotlout's face reddened at that, remembering his humiliation. "Besides, I'm not interested in becoming chief." Not in your conventional way, at least. At the confused look on the other boy's face, he sighed. "In case you haven't noticed, I have not and will never forgive Stoick for what happened fifteen years ago, and I have no intention of taking back the title of heir of Berk." With you in charge, their defenses will be so pathetic it'll be laughable. More than it is right now.
"Snotlout, whatever you've been hearing is just hearsay," Astrid finally said when it didn't seem to be getting through to him. "We might not be notorious gossipers like the Bog Burglars, but that's all it is."
"Oh." Snotlout shuffled his feet a little awkwardly as it dawned on him that maybe he was overreacting. He reached up to scratch the back of his neck before he realized something, looking at his cousin and pointing. "Hey! You're on the back of a dragon!" He paused, looking at Astrid. "Why is he on the back of a dragon?"
"Hiccup decided to put his hand up to take care of our Night Fury problem. Stoick thought he might need to learn how to handle one in a way that didn't involve killing it," she explained, glancing over at the outcast, her brow furrowing together. What he'd told her about his dragon exam still bugged her, and it probably wouldn't stop until she asked him about it, but for now she shook it off, raising an eyebrow at Snotlout. "We were just about to go for his first flight. Want to demonstrate?"
Hiccup watched the other boy's eyes light up at the chance to show off, looking at her with a bit of a smirk as Snotlout wandered back over to where Hookfang was resting on the arena floor. "He's a bit eager to please, isn't he?" he asked in a tone of voice low enough for her to hear, to which she looked at him with a shrug.
"He's been hitting on me since hormones kicked in," she explained in an equally hushed voice. "Any chance to impress me must be taken seriously." At the roll of her eyes, he chuckled. "Watch, they'll fail spectacularly."
"At least I'll have a demonstration of what not to do." As a smile curled on Astrid's mouth at that as she watched Snotlout wake Hookfang from his dozing only to get a roar as the Nightmare burst into flames that sent the other boy running for the nearby water pitcher, Hiccup felt something stir in his stomach. Something that almost made him feel sick but at the same time not.
Author's notes: before I get flames for giving Hiccup a different dragon to start with, let's think about three things
1. He has no idea how to train them. He needs to learn how to do this before he has any hope of taming and training Toothless.
2. Astrid's more knowledgeable about Nadders than any other type of dragon. If you look at it from a specialist perspective, the kids are all experts on their dragons and their kinds. Snotlout knows how to calm Hookfang down and Astrid used it in Heather Report part II to her advantage, so it seems to work for all Nightmares. Universal things like this seem to be a thing among dragonkind. No doubt there's things about Barf and Belch that we don't know, and more about Meatlug other than limestone upsets her stomach.
3. Fenrir is named so for two reasons - Fenrir was the giant wolf of Norse mythology who would swallow the moon at the beginning of Ragnarok and was born from Loki, the God of mischief and lies. Hiccup is giving Astrid a hint to his motives here, with himself playing the part of Loki and the moon is an analogy of Astrid. Indicating swallowing her up in his lies.
thanks for reading :)