Hey everybody, here's next chapter :)

Thank you for the views, reviews and votes!

I will try my best to post as frequently as possible, but I am currently battling a depression and that sometimes drain all of my energy and creativity :/

Anyways, I won't keep you from reading, so here's next chapter, have fun!

Love Lennie

"Training a dragon is all about trust, skill is important as well of course, but if there is no trust then it won't work no matter what." Hiccup lectured me, walking around in the Arena. "Owning a dragon can be dangerous, many people are against it and will try to harm both you and your dragon. You will not only have to learn to fly, but to fight as well if you're not already able to do that."

"I am trained in taekwondo, but where I come from, fighting isn't really needed." I said. I was sitting on the back of Stormfly by now, Hiccup deciding that with the bond he could sense between Stormfly and I, we could easily go for a short flight within long.

"What is taekwondo?" I frowned at myself, I had to remember that these people were unaware of most things that was natural to me.

"It's a form of martial art… A form for physical combat." I explained.

"Okay then, that is good, but you will probably still need to learn how to fight with weapons. We will work that out later. Do you feel up for a flight now?"

I was incredibly nervous, yet I nodded anyways and Hiccup smiled widely. He climbed on the back of Toothless and quickly explained to me how to set off. Within moments, we were soaring upwards. I felt ecstatic, it was the most wonderful feeling, with the wind blowing through me and my heart feeling free. I laughed wholeheartedly, taking it all in. Stormfly roared in joy along with me. Beneath us lay Berk, I remember seeing it from the chopper as the expedition flew over it and landed on the beach, then it had looked amazing, forest taking up most of the island, the ruins of the old village barely visible from the air. Now it looked even more magical, the village was full of colour and life and everything seemed so idyllic and happy. Knowing that in a few hundred years the last people would leave this place and the dragons would go extinct made my heart heavy, unfortunately I could not change history even if I wanted to.

Way too soon, Hiccup motioned for us to fly back down again. I wished to spend more time up here but I knew that I would get the chance again so I followed suit without any complaints. We landed in front of the academy and jumped off of our dragons. I went and petted Stormfly again, still feeling high on the experience.

"You did really great Astrid, you can be proud of yourself."

"Thank you Hiccup, it was amazing!" He laughed with me, looking at me with a warm smile.

"I know. Since I became chief, I have been tied down by responsibilities and whatnot all of the time. I never feel quite as free and amazing as I do soaring around up there on the back of Toothless." Hiccup smiled and scratched his dragon who purred in delight under his touch.

"I can imagine it is a lot of work, being chief and all." I studied the young man before me, he could not be more than a few months older than me and yet he was chief. So much responsibility laid on his shoulders and in reality he was barely an adult. I really felt bad for him, but I knew how great he would become, which eased my mind a bit.

"It is. It was never my wish to be chief but I had no choice…" Another sigh escaped him before he gathered himself and smiled once again. "Anyways, let us get going, there is breakfast in the Meade Hall now and I know that some of the others have been looking forward to getting to meet you."

We walked to the Meade Hall in silence, it had been more than an hour since I had thought of getting home. I had almost forgotten that I belonged somewhere else than in this time and that made me feel pretty guilty. I had to keep in mind that I should figure out how to get home, how all of this had even happened in the first place. Reaching the Meade Hall, Hiccup led me over to a table where several people that also looked about our age was already seated.

"Good morning, gang! I want you to meet Astrid Hofferson, the girl I found the other day." Hiccup presented me to the others.

"I see you're feeling better, nice to see you again Astrid," said the raven haired girl from the day before, Heather I recalled.

"You too." I smiled. Hiccup motioned for me to sit down between him and another blonde girl, I followed and sat down, the girl next to me gave an excited smile.

"The clothes I found fit you! Awesome!" The girl exclaimed. She high-fived the boy next to her with a stupid grin before returning her attention to me. "I am Ruffnut, this is my stupid-ass brother Tuffnut." She pointed to the boy whom she had just high-fived. He waved at me and I gave a small wave back.

"Nice to meet you two, and thank you for the clothes" I said with a smile, I was usually pretty confident and outgoing, but in this group everybody was staring at me and that made me a bit uncomfortable.

"Hey no worries, now I got to you first so you can look rad instead of stupid like most people do!" I thought to myself that I easily could get along with this girl, just like with Heather, it would be nice to have some sort of friends while I would be forced to be here.

"Hi Astrid, I am Fishlegs, it's nice to-" a larger guy that sat next across from me started.

"And Snotloud to your service," the last guy cut Fishlegs off with a smug smile.

After everybody had introduced themselves, people started asking questions about me. I felt terrible by the web of lies I had to weave around myself but I did not know what else to do. Just as I had told Hiccup, I told them that I was from America and that I had been taken by a dragon.

"Weird," Fishlegs commented, "it is unusual for dragons to act that way." I looked away, fearing that my story would be doubted too much, but they seemed to accept it nonetheless.

"Oh yeah I almost forgot, Astrid needs help to learn how to fight, she has bonded with a nadder and know a bit combat but she has never fought with weapons before." Hiccup said after a while.

"We should be able to figure out some training," Heather smiled at me.

"No, I wouldn't mind teaching a pretty face like yours," Snotloud said with a wink. I rolled my eyes at him and looked to Heather again.

"I would really appreciate that." I said.

After breakfast, Heather and Ruffnut pulled me with them back to the Academy, although this time there were no dragons, instead they pulled out a wagon filled with various weapons. Heather found a double-edged axe and handed it to me, she mentioned that axes were her weapon of choice so that was where we would start.

I was pretty sceptical at first but soon I came to learn why an axe was Heathers weapon of choice, it was amazingly fun to target practise and eventually spare with the two girls. I completely forgot the time passing and suddenly it was beginning to get dark.

"We should go get something to eat, we can train again tomorrow." Heather said.

"Yes finally! I am starving!" Ruff's outburst made us laugh before we gathered the things and walked back to the Meade Hall.

Despite my still present intentions to return back to my own time, I really enjoyed myself. I could not remember the last time I had felt so happy, or actually I could, it was back before my grandfather fell ill. Meanwhile I was trying to figure everything out, parts of me still felt like I was hallucinating, perhaps I was in a coma and this was the alternative dream world that I was imagining. This feeling of everything being too surreal helped calm me down so I could think of other things than the leap back in time I apparently had taken.

The evening turned the day into something even better, after eating everybody just hung out, drank mead and told stories. I heard a lot of the gangs' adventures, from before Hiccup had befriended Toothless at the age of 15 to now 6 years later, how they had met Heather and how they had taken her in a few months ago. The story of Heather gave me hope, perhaps they would take me in if I failed my quest for getting home. Hiccup told me about the dragon sanctuary where his mother had lived for 20 years, in his descriptions it seemed like a magical place where I would have loved to visit. When they told me about Stoic the Vast I could feel the pain not only Hiccup felt from losing his father, but the entire village had lost a great man and leader. I found myself wishing that I could have met him before his death.

It was long past midnight before we went to bed, Fishlegs accompanied me to Gothi's hut, where I still stayed, since he lived near it.

"It's more than a year since I have last seen Hiccup smile like he did today, we all like you Astrid but I have to ask you consider how close you get to him if you're planning to leave. He is fragile after the loss of his father, it might not seem that way but he has already distanced himself a lot over the last year, we don't need a chief who distance himself completely." He smiled sadly, "I hope you enjoyed yourself today, tomorrow I will help you with some dragon theory if you would like, and I am certain that Ruff and Heather would love to train with you again. I would get some sleep if I were you."

"I will, thank you Fishlegs… And I will be cautious with him, thank you for warning me." A small wave and he left, leaving me to my own thoughts.

I went inside and straight to bed. I was really worn out yet I had trouble sleeping. What should I do? I had let the day run off with me, what right did I have befriending them and Stormfly if I was just going to leave them anyways. For the first time since getting here, I did not dream of my childhood, instead I had nightmares of my parents' deaths, my grandfather's death, how everyone I had ever loved had left me too early.

The next morning, I woke up with dried tears on my face and drenched in sweat. I knew with myself now that I should be more careful so I could avoid hurting anybody, especially around Hiccup.