How Valka knew this dragon, I did not know; but she must have seen it, or at least heard enough about it to make an accurate depiction of it in a stuffed dragon.

My breath huffed as I raced back through the trees, dodging brush and trees. A few branches snagged at my clothes, and whipped my face. I could hear the dragon let out an unmistakable howl behind me, that clung to my bones and shook me from the inside. It was the biggest dragon I had ever seen. Even the Sun Swallower was not that massive.

I stumbled over a rock as I cleared the last of the trees, but I kept running despite the shooting pain in my ankle. In seconds I was at Hiccup's door, panting to catch my breath. Looks like I was getting out of shape. I knocked quickly- if anyone knew what to do about a massive dragon, I'm sure it was him. It never even occurred to me that he might still be at the party. I knocked louder, "Hiccup!"

I must look horrifying. I could tell my hair was flying in different directions, my clothes had some new holes in them, dirt smudged my cheek and mixed with a streak of blood from a branch, and my ankle throbbed.

The adrenaline coursed through me, and I couldn't stand still. My hands shook and I tried to wipe the dirt from my face, but I'm sure the jittering only smeared it more. My heart beat a thousand times per minute! I was about to knock again, when the door swung open. It was definitely Hiccup, but he looked, well... odd. He was shirtless, and his hair was an utter mess. It's not like I hadn't seen him like that before, but this time I didn't care- there were more important things to think about. His eyes sagged, and he swayed back and forth ever so slightly.

"Hiccup, there's a dragon!" I gasped out quickly.

"There you arreeee," he slurred and grabbed my arm, pulling me through the door.

"What?" I looked at him confused as he shut the door behind me. "This is serious! There's a dragon and its the one that's been stealing the sheep and…"

He pressed a dirty finger to my lips lazily and I froze, confused. Usually he would be half way to the river by now if I had mentioned a monstrous dragon that could destroy the town.

"Don't worry… nothing can hurt you." He sloppily moved away from me.

I frowned at him as he staggered over to his chair once again and flopped onto it. He was staring at me with a sideways glance, since it looked like he didn't even notice that his entire head was resting on his right shoulder.

"I think you had too much of that mead. I know, my uncle used to give us that look."

He didn't answer, just stared.

"Hic. That thing's out there, and if it came to town we wouldn't last very long." I walked over, trying to plead with him. "Please Hic!"

"What'd it look like?"

"Does that matter?

"Yes."

"It was blue, and it looked a lot like your stuffed dragon," I pointed to the toy only a short distance away.

"That's silly… it's not a real dragon. I think you must have fallen asleep and had a bad dream."

"Hiccup!" I yelled, throwing my hands in the air. "I wasn't dreaming!"

"You should go back to the party. People were looking for you. It's your party after all." He made an odd swirling motion in the air with his finger, "wouldn't want to disappoint them."

"I don't want to go back to the party…"

I stumbled backwards a step as he stood up slowly and wobbled closer again. I could already smell the foul liquid on his breath; it wasn't nearly as strong as some of the other Vikings I had met, but I knew he had had enough. He was thin enough that his body type would react quickly to the fiery liquid. I furrowed my brow as he staggered closer. I was still standing by the door, waiting for him to snap out of his trance and rush to be the dragon hero again.

"What'd you do to your face?" He reached up and ran a finger over my cheek, smearing the small amount of blood.

"Got hit by a branch."

His face lingered ever so close to mine. "I wonder what you did to that poor branch." His eyes stared lazily down at me, and his smirk could kill.

"You…"

"Shhh," he silenced, but kept his hand against my cheek.

I was frozen, my heart seemed to stop. What on Earth was he doing? He pulled himself closer to me again and tucked a stray strand of hair out of my face.

"Meyla..." he said so quietly I had to turn my head to hear him. "Warrior. Dragon. Viking…"

"What are you doing? I was confused, the way he looked at me, it wasn't him. Well, not normally him.

"You should be more careful when knocking on a Viking's door late at night."

"W-what?"

His face inched closer and my eyes widened. Was he doing what I think he was doing? I mean, we had kissed before, but those were different times. My heart screamed and jumped, but my head was on lockdown, and my overt defences kicked in. I stepped back until I hit the door quickly out of his close embrace. He stumbled forwards a bit and watched me confused. He had expected me to give in. I held out a hand, signalling for him to not come any closer.

"Don't be like that…"

"Hiccup, you're not you right now. I don't want you to make any mistakes you'll regret. I'm going to come back tomorrow."

"Meyla," he practically whined.

"Hiccup you're with Astrid."

"Astrid."

"Yeah Astrid. You can't love me. We already talked about that."

He stared at me with a blank expression.

"Sure, I loved you okay… but I can't anymore. I realize that now. You may not even remember this in the morning, but that's okay too." I said firmly, but I realized that I was just reassuring myself of the matter. I would not like him any more, I couldn't. And even if my heart desperately wanted it, I know that it could never be.

He just watched me with forlorn eyes. I'm sure he barely understood what was going on at the moment, but this was for both our own good.

"Goodnight." I had to look away as I left, unable to meet his gaze. And with that I left the room, shutting the door behind me and walking quickly around the back of the house to my own room. It was dark and cold since I had been vacant for many hours. The lonely space only brought tears to my eyes. As soon the door was shut behind me I slid down the wood of the door that creaked under my weight. Sobs wracked my body, and I hugged my knees close, wishing that all of it would just go away.

I had confessed I loved him; and then accepted the fact that I will never be able to love him. All of this because I just had to go and see him after…

I stopped.

I raised my head and wiped the tears. The dragon! I had to stop it. It might end up crushing the town or something even more horrid- killing the only family I had left.