If there was ever one thing Hope should have known by the time she'd turned seventeen, it was that Hairy Hooligans never went easy on you, no matter what. Not Derek Venturi, Hope's boyfriend. Not Treetrunks Ingerman, the slip of a thing that she still has a hard time believing is Fishlegs' daughter. Not Snublout Jorgenson, Snotlout's son who really lives up to the family legacy. Not Freya or Darren Thorston, Tuffnut's twins. Especially not her little brother. Ever since he was eight, that little terror had been ravaging the village with his attitude. Hiccup told Hope that sometime he was worse than Snotlout ever was. Hope didn't know whether it was because he was the chief's son or because he was the hard-headed Viking everyone likes for some reason, but he was the reason she liked to spend so much time with her Gran, a.k.a Valka.

Anyways, back to Dragon Training. Hope woke up that morning, the sun was shining, Terrible Terrors were singing on the rooftops, and the day was looking fairly promising. She groggily sat up and rubbed her eyes, looking around the room. She could hear the clatter of her mother and brother downstairs. Mingled in with their voices was one that she had been looking forward to for a few days now. Hiccup was home. She leapt out of bed, dirty blonde hair unkempt, still in my thin nightdress, and all but flew down the stairs. He was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, facing away from her. In one motion, she jumped up and clung to him with her arms and legs, almost dragging him down on top of her.

"Whoa!" he exclaimed with a grunt, bracing himself against the sudden weight. Hope laughed and slid down onto the floor. He turned around and placed a hand on her shoulder, shaking his head. "What am I gonna do with you, clinging to me like a spider monkey just because you're glad I'm home. Speaking of monkeys, guess what you and I are gonna bake for dessert."

"Um, gee let me think," she replied, mocking a pensive pose. She broke character and placed an excited kiss on his cheek. "Banana bread! Honestly, you're the best dad ever!"

"I'm glad you still think that," said Hiccup, smiling in a way that told her that the compliment was not lost on him. "They told me you would think I was the worst from ages twelve to twenty-five. Magnus sure does."

"Huh?" asked Magnus, looking up from sharpening his dagger with a sandstone. His blue-grey eyes indicated that he had no idea what they were talking about. His voice returned to its normal sarcasm as he refocused his attentions on the dagger. "Sure. Whatever you say, Chief."

"See what I mean?" said Hiccup, gesturing at Magnus. Hope laughed and Hiccup pulled a pouch out of his Swiss army knife suit, as everyone but Hiccup liked to call it. He placed it in her hands. "Get dressed, brush your hair, and then bring that to Gran. She wanted me to get that for her."

"Sure thing, Daddy-o," Hope replied. She started for the stairs, and then she turned back to him. "And wish me luck with the dragon training finals today!"

"You know I do," said Hiccup. She was half-way up the stairs when he called after me. "Make sure you remember to re-string your bow before you go!"

Hope called back that she would remember and returned to her bedroom. It was next door to the nursery, where both Magnus and Hope had spent the first three years of their lives, and across the hall from Magnus's. The whole of the house was painted in rich shades of red, green, and brown. Hiccup told Hope it was because he was eating cherries the day they asked him how he wanted the house painted, and he replied with, "Like a cherry tree." Hope personally would've gone with dawn or sunset, because she loved the colors of those times, all orange and pink and purple. But her hand-down favourite color was indigo. She had loved that purplish blue color ever since Hiccup had shown her what it looked like when she was six. It was the color of most of her shirts, thanks to Astrid, who had really taken up a fascination with knitting, sewing, dyeing, and anything related to making clothing. It would be one of the colors of the face-paint she'd sport today, showing that she was in the senior class of the dragon academy. She swapped her nightgown for comfy brown trousers and an indigo tunic with long, tight sleeves. She slipped on her leather cuffs and matching boots, slung her quiver and bow over her shoulder, and rushed down the stairs again.

She said a rushed good-bye to her family, grabbed a banana because she knew they weren't going to last very long, and headed out the door. Hiccup called from the open doorway that they'd be in the stands at noon. Hope smiled in response and ran to her dragon, Sugar, a light purple colored Deadly Nadder. Sugar perked up upon seeing her rider and squawked a greeting. Hope stroked Sugar's nose and climbed up onto the waiting saddle. After hooking her feet into the stirrups and stuffing the banana into one of the saddle bags, Hope and Sugar took to the skies. Hope supposed the air must have been cold, but she was so used to the morning's chill that it no longer bothered her. From the sky, Hope could see the whole of the island. There was her house, nestled at the very edge of the cliffs. There was the DragonAcademy, the second-largest building on Berk. There was the town hall, where she had been forced to sit through many boring speeches and treaty-signings. She was a bit relieved that it was Magnus that was going to be chief instead of her, but then she shook her head. Why was she glad about that? Magnus would make a horrible chief if he didn't learn the error of his ways, and soon. Her murky green eyes finally found the house she was looking for, the one that housed Hiccup's parents. Well, sometimes it was parents, but more often than not, it was parent. Stoick rarely left the village after Hiccup had been passed the torch of chiefdom. Valka had spent so long being isolated from humans that often times she preferred to be alone with her dragons. She only returned to Berk because of her family. She felt obligated to come back, because she'd missed out on so much of their lives already. It took her a while to come around, but eventually she showed Hope the way she saw things. Hope could understand why she preferred the dragon valley of Itchy Armpit (the unfortunate name Hiccup had chosen to give to the breath-taking, foggy, birch tree covered area where Valka had been hiding out). Sometime Valka liked to visit DragonIsland, too, but that was less often. Hope prayed that Valka was at the house, because if she had to fly all the way to Itchy Armpit to deliver the pouch, she'd be late for the final exams. With just the right amount of luck, Valka was the one that answered the door after Hope had barely knocked.

"I was just about to head back to the valley," said Valka after a grandmotherly hug. "You're lucky you caught me. A few more minutes and you would've been in trouble."

"I know, Gran," replied Hope. Valka smiled and hope handed her the leather pouch. Once Valka opened it, a rich pungent smell wafted out from it. Hope recognized the smell as dried Knot Blossom. It was used for a lot of things, cooking, medicine, perfume, cleaning. Valka sealed the pouch again and hooked it onto her belt. "Are you going to leave right now, Gran? I'd appreciate it if you came to my final exams."

"Gods above, that's today?" asked Valka, a look of genuine surprise coming to her face. "I thought it was next week. Wow, am I getting old. No, Valkyrie, I guess I won't be leaving right now. Come in, I'll braid your hair and we can paint your face up so they know it's you out there."

Hope smiled when Valka called her by her middle name instead of Hope. She liked to be thought of as a fearsome warrior rather than a delicate little baby who needed a name to hold on to this side of the ground. Valka knew that. Hope never complained about it to Hiccup, because Hiccup was still traumatized at the thought of losing his children. He'd been scared beyond belief when Hope was born, and he hadn't been able to get over it for Magnus either. She let him believe that Hope was the perfect name for her.

Once inside, Hope could hear the rumbles of Stoick's snores through the ceiling. Hope pointed up at the ceiling and raised an eyebrow. Valka sighed and shrugged as if to say, "What can you do?" Hope laughed and sat down in one of the wooden chairs. Valka pulled a comb from one of the chests in the living room and set to work on Hope's hair, teasing it this way and that. Hope flinched and winced over and over. When Valka was finished, she handed Hope a hand mirror. Hope smiled when she saw what Valka had done with her hair. Her hair was now braided in two places from the top of her head all the way to the tips of her hair, coming together and forming one thick braid that barely passed Hope's shoulders.

"I love it!" exclaimed Hope, whirling around and hugging Valka again. Valka laughed in an understanding way and patted Hope's back. When Hope, let go, she practically dragged Valka out into the living room, pulling the paint pots out from under the sofa. "Now, let's get Sugar and I all painted up for the exams."

"If I know you as well as I ought to, I'd say you want to start with this one," said Valka, holding up the scuffed and dingy clay pot labelled 'Indigo'. Hope smiled and took the paint pot. "Since you have that color, why not stick with different shades of purple. Just make sure you have a bright purple so they know it's you."

Fingers were dipped in and out of paint pots, creating multicoloured purple swirls over Hope's cheeks and forehead. Hope overdid it a little and painted over her upper eyelids, too. Valka insisted that she looked like she had two black eyes. Hope didn't think it was that bad. Getting Sugar painted wasn't as easy, so Valka and Hope agreed on just three stripes, one on her snout and one on each wing. Sugar was fine to be painted that way, which was good for everyone involved. Hope even painted the feathers on her arrows purple, so that everyone would know they were hers. There were only a few people taking the exam that day that were going to be archers, but Hope liked to be dramatic.

After another hug, this time for a good-bye, Hope jumped on the saddle and took to the skies once more. Once in the air, she found that her friends were all heading to AngelPointPark for the 'No hard feelings, but I'm gonna cream you' picnic. It was so that they could maintain their friendship despite how unfair they were going to be to each other later. Treetrunks had a green Gronckle, because that particular dragon type just happened to work well for her family. Snublout was on his blood-orange Monstrous Nightmare. Derek rode a small brown Timber Jack, because he thought it looked cool. Freya and Darren didn't follow in their father and aunt's footsteps; they had their own separate dragons. Freya chose a Scauldron, and Darren a Changewing. No Zippleback for those twins, they liked their freedom too much to be stuck to one another. She caught a glimpse of what she supposed was a wave from Derek and returned it.

AngelPointPark was at the very tip of Berk, about the size of Hope's yard. It was big enough for a few people and a few dragons, but not any more than that or it would begin to feel cramped. Treetrunks had gone ahead and set out the picnic ahead of time, which meant there was likely going to be a lot of food. That little girl could eat, but she stayed the smallest little thing on Berk, somehow. It wasn't an advantage; she was generally cold because of her lack of body fat or muscle. And she was weak as a daisy stem. Luckily, her father had a Gronckle iron sword of her, lighter than the other swords but stronger than them as well.

When Sugar and the other dragons landed down in the park, the children called out to each other, sliding out of their saddles and plunking down on the blanket set out in the middle of the park. The dragons socialized with one another as well, because dragon friendships are real friendships too.

"Well, Hope," said Freya with her gruff voice, one that sounded almost identical to Ruffnut's. "Nice face paint. I especially like that you didn't put a handprint anywhere on your face. And you didn't use any red."

"Oh, give it up, Freya," said Hope, rolling her eyes. "Not everything has to go back to red."

"Nope," said Derek, going around behind Hope and pulling her into a hug. "You think you can handle the competition out there, Valkyrie?"

"I can handle you, if that's what you mean," said Hope, grabbing onto his scarred forearm. He let go and plunked down next to her, giving her the chance to get lost in his midnight blue eyes. He brushed his auburn hair from his eyes and smiled his crooked smile. "What, I can! I could take on any of you! Let's not forget who my dad is, people."

"Um, let's not forget who my dad is. Honestly, you guys can be so thick," said Snublout. He was the spitting image of his father, the same way that his father was the spitting image of his father, and so on and so forth. "My dad is the greatest warrior in Berk's army."

"Oh, please," said Derek, scoffing. Everyone knew that Snotlout was all pomp and no circumstance. "Your dad can barely hit a target with an axe."

"Well, tough guy," said Snublout, taking a leg of chicken from the basket. "At least my dad is alive."

"For the record, Snublout, my dad is alive. My Mom is dead," said Derek, taking some bread and splitting it in half. He offered a half to Hope and she took it with a grateful smile. "It's just a long story as to why he's not around, okay?"

"Can we just… Can we just eat and not make fun of each other. Please?" asked Treetrunks in her gentle little voice. She took a bite from a strawberry and met Hope's eyes with her brown ones. Her blonde bangs fell over her forehead and covered her left eye, completing her 'innocent little lamb' imagery. "I mean, you guys can do that later, if you want."

"Yeah," said Hope. She took a bite from her bread. "So Destiny's staying the week-end. She'll be there for the exams."

"Destiny's gonna be there?!" exclaimed Snublout. He rushed to his feet and jumped back on Fireworm. "It was nice insulting you, as always, Derek. I have to go work on my technique."

"What for?" asked Darren, taking a bite from a chicken leg. "You're never gonna impress her."

"Speak for yourself, Darren," said Snublout. He took to the air. "See you around, suckers."

"Good riddance," said Derek when Snublout was out of earshot. "Well, let's get back to the food."

No one argued with that. The remaining five and their dragons lazed around for two hours, eating, drinking, talking, and laughing until the horn signalling the beginning of the exams blew. It was time to make their families proud.