Do You Mind? Chapter 9
Hiccup woke up slowly the next morning. Spending the night in a rocky cave, sharing the space with a girl who might still have designs on him, didn't make it easy to get a relaxing night's sleep. She got up first, and left the cave to freshen up; he rolled aside to let her by, then tried to go back to sleep. Normally, Toothless would wake him up with loud, stompy demands to be ridden, but the cave had no roof for him to jump on.
"Do you think you're ready to fly today, bud?"
There was a short delay; Toothless was probably stretching his wing to see how it felt.
"I think I can fly, but I'd rather be certain if I'm carrying two of you. Can we wait until the afternoon?"
"Sure. This must be the first time I wanted to fly more than you did."
"Don't get used to it. Flying is life."
Suddenly he heard Ruff scream. A moment later, he heard a nasty-sounding snarl from the same direction.
"What's happening out there, bud?" he asked as he stumbled to his feet.
"Too many trees – I can't see her."
He scrambled out of the cave and ran in the direction he thought her voice came from. In about ten seconds, he found her.
She was standing with her back against a large tree, pinned there by the head of a huge land-dragon. This was no plant-eater. It reminded him forcefully of the Red Death, although it was about the size of a Deadly Nadder. It was sniffing her, probably deciding whether or not she was good to eat.
"Hiccup… help!" she gasped.
"Chin-rub, Ruff! Rub his chin!" he suggested desperately.
She reached out and rubbed under the huge head. The creature's expression changed; the sniffing stopped.
"It's not working!" she exclaimed, "I'm doing it right, but it's just being happy! It isn't going down!"
"Bud, get your fire ready. This might be a relative of yours, but it's him or us."
Out loud, he said, "Rub him a little more, then break away and run past me, back toward the cave! Toothless will cover us!"
She froze. "Hiccup… I can't…"
"On three, Ruff, before that thing changes its mind! One… two… three!"
She forced herself to sidestep out from between the huge head and the tree, turned, and ran for her life. Hiccup followed right behind her, hoping his metal foot wouldn't slip, zigzagging as he ran so the monster couldn't grab him easily. After a couple of seconds, he heard the creature snap out of its daze and start chasing them. He could hear its heavy footsteps pounding after them, getting closer; he didn't dare look to see how close.
As they burst out of the trees, he heard Toothless launch a firebolt, and the ground blew up under the big land-dragon's feet. It fell hard. When it got back to its feet, Hiccup and Ruff were cowering behind the angry Night Fury that was snarling and pawing the ground. The land-dragon decided this meal wasn't worth fighting for, shook its head, and stomped back into the woods.
"Thanks, bud. That was exactly what we needed."
"You're welcome. I hate shooting at relatives, but every family has a crazy old uncle who needs a little pushback now and then."
Hiccup turned his attention to Ruff. She looked all right, except for a couple of scratches on her arms from running through the woods, but she was pale, breathing hard, and visibly shaking. He rested a hand on her shoulder – and instantly she was clinging to him for dear life.
"It's okay," he whispered. "It's gone now. You're safe."
She didn't answer; she just held him tighter than he'd ever been held before. He could feel her heart pounding in her chest, feel her trembling, feel every hyperventilated breath she took. He just held her until she began to settle down. It took a while.
"I have never... been so scared… in all my life," she finally gasped, "...and don't you dare... tell anyone I said that! Thank you... for helping me out of there."
"That's what friends do for each other," he said quietly. "I promised I'd try to be lucky for you, remember?"
"Yeah," she whispered. Her breathing slowly returned to normal. She pulled away for a second, gazed at him…and impulsively leaned in to kiss him. It was just his bad luck that his resolve faltered at the same time hers did.
She didn't try to dominate him with her kiss, like Astrid usually did. It felt like she was trying to draw strength from him. He wasn't used to feeling stronger than somebody else. He resisted for half a moment, then wrapped his arms around her slender waist and gave in to the feeling. That feeling lasted a lot longer than he was used to.
He caught a stray thought from outside his mind – "Well, it's about time, you two. Now get a room."
At last she let him go. She blinked in surprise and pulled away, embarrassed. "Sorry. You kept your promise to me; I guess I broke my promise to you. The one about behaving myself. You must hate me now."
"Ruff…" It took him a second to get his thoughts together, his head was still scrambled by the leftover feelings from the kiss. "I don't hate you. Maybe I'd be mad if this was a normal situation, but this isn't normal. We can't do this again, though. Ever. Okay?"
"Deal," she said, without enthusiasm. She spat in her hand; he was getting used to that, and shook her hand willingly. She continued to hold his hand when the handshake was done.
"Uhh, Ruff?" he asked. She let go reluctantly.
"Where can I find another awesome guy like you?" she asked sadly.
"Did you think I was so awesome a couple of days ago?" he wondered.
"No, not really," she admitted. "What we're going through together… it's kind of opened my eyes."
"Awesome guys are all around you," he said. "You just have to learn how to look for them. We don't all have big muscles and rugged, handsome faces. Some of us are totally average, until the right situation lets you see what we're really like."
"I never thought of that," she nodded, and considered the idea in silence for a minute.
"Can you tell me one thing?" she asked, almost shyly. "Did you like it?"
"I probably shouldn't answer that," he said, and paused. "Yeah. It was nice."
"Just nice?" She sounded hurt.
"Nice, awesome, terrific, mind-blowingly intense… if there was no Astrid, you could rope me in easily with a couple more like that. But like I said, we can't do it again."
She nodded, but she seemed to be trying to hide a smile.
"I need to freshen up," he continued, "and then we'll try again to find something for us to eat." Then he went rigid for a moment. "Toothless says something is coming."
"What kind of something?" she asked, panic rising in her voice.
Toothless looked upward, searching the bottom of the cloud layer for something. Then he launched a plasma bolt straight into the sky; it burst brilliantly at the bottom of the cloud layer. When Hiccup thought his eyes had adjusted from the brightness, he looked up and saw spots. Three of them, with wings, closing in on them fast. Ruff was jumping up and down, waving her arms and woo-hoo'ing at the top of her lungs.
Their friends all landed at once, and the five of them quickly had their own mob scene. Ruff blew right past Snotlout and threw her arms around her brother, who hugged her back hesitantly, while Hiccup gathered Astrid up in his arms and held her a lot tighter than she was used to.
"Does this mean you missed me?" she asked, slightly amused.
"You have no idea," he whispered.
Meanwhile, Ruff had grabbed her brother's shoulders. "Don't ever leave me alone that long again!" she half-demanded, half-sobbed. "Ever!"
He astonished her by resting his hands on her shoulders and saying, "I really missed you too, Ruff."
"Really?"
"Really."
They hugged again. Hiccup still hadn't let Astrid go. Snotlout was standing by himself, trying to figure out what he ought to be doing.
Suddenly, they heard another voice. "There they are!" Meatlug buzzed into their clearing and landed roughly, almost spilling Fishlegs off her back. He dismounted and hugged the only person he saw who wasn't already hugging somebody.
"Okay, Legs, that's good, that's good," Lout protested.
"We were looking for food when we saw Toothless' plasma blast," he explained. "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you guys!"
"Yeah, yeah, the feeling is mutual," Snotlout muttered. "Now either let go of me, or give back your man-card."
It took them a few minutes to sort themselves out and determine that everyone was healthy. Astrid, Snotlout, and Tuffnut shared their food with the other three, who hadn't eaten in a day (two days, in Fishlegs' case). Then they took wing, located the swamp so there would be no trees or spires to catch them in the fog, and rose up out of the valley. They were going home.
Hiccup glanced at Ruff, happily back on her own dragon's neck, then looked away firmly.
"You missed your chance, my friend."
"Some chances aren't worth taking, bud. The price is too high."