At seventeen, Aeri had become remarkably more graceful, and was almost as tall as her father at six feet exactly. Her mother had trained her well, and she showed advanced proficiency when wielding weapons of all kinds, although she seemed to prefer the spear her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday. The tip of it was Gronckle iron, and the shaft was a dense, polished wood that fit perfectly in her palm. The leather securing the head was the same color as the wood, a rich brown, and two small white feathers hung from the ties.

The village loved her, and she had no shortage of admirers among the Vikings her age, who she did her best to ignore. All of Hiccup and Astrid's friends had children of their own, not to mention the other young Vikings in the village, who were all awed by her skill and her Night Fury partner. She was a perfect combination of her mother and father, strong and thoughtful, although she possessed much of their stubbornness. Which, unfortunately, still got her into trouble, as did her distaste for responsibility and her somewhat reckless nature.

"Aeri! You need to control your temper!" Hiccup was on the verge of shouting in the downstairs living room of their constantly-expanding home, but he restrained himself. "If you don't like someone, be polite and stay away from them!"

"I tried that, Dad, but he kept following me around, giving me creepy looks!"

"That doesn't make it acceptable to set your dragon on him in the dead of night, especially when that dragon happens to be a Night Fury!"

"I didn't do that until he put his arm around me! He smelled awful, and he was leaning in my face trying to kiss me and-"

"And breaking his nose, punching him in the gut, and kneeing him... you know, there- weren't enough?"

"Let me think about that," she said sarcastically. "NO!"

"If something like that happens, you know to come straight to me or your mother. You aren't to dispense your own justice! Now I have to stop the Meatheads from declaring war because your dragon hung their Chief's son upside-down by his underwear on the doors of the Great Hall! He could have been seriously hurt!"

"I wish he was," Aeri grumbled.

"That's not funny! You know I dislike the Meatheads as much as the next Hooligan," her father lowered his voice, looking around to make sure they weren't overhead, even though they were inside their own house. "But the fact is, we can't afford to start a war right now. Not when we have so many traders scheduled to arrive in the next month."

"Why aren't you more upset about this?" she cried out. "He would have done a lot more than kiss me if I hadn't taken things into my own hands!"

"You think I don't know that?" her father asked her incredulously. "If it would help things I would kill the idiot myself. But I know you're safe, even without Shade to protect you. Your mother trained you well. Even ten Meathead boys couldn't hope to take you on."

She started to protest, but he held up a hand, silencing her. "Aeri. I'm probably more upset by this than you are, and not because of your actions. I'm sorry I shouted. I'm going to tell the Meathead Chief that if his son or any other person in his tribe steps out of line in Hooligan territory again, they'll be the ones facing a war." He paused, looking thoughtful. "He's not such a bad guy. Smelly? Yes. Hairy? Definitely. But he doesn't have a bad heart, which means he can be reasoned with."

Her father leaned in and hugged her. For a moment she stood stiffly, trying to resist, but finally put her arms around him, allowing him to comfort her. Stepping back, he cupped her chin with one hand and rested the other one on her shoulder. "I'm glad you're safe." Releasing her, he opened the front door and strode out. "Toothless!" Within moments the flapping of wings could be heard, and Aeri could hear her father's voice. "Time for a little diplomacy, bud."

Aeri barely contained her frustration. Her father was right, as usual, but it didn't make her life any easier.

"Why was there yelling?" a small voice carried across the room and Aeri looked up to see her five-year-old sister Wren standing at the top of the stairs, rubbing her eyes with a small fist. Their arguing must have woken her from her nap.

"Oh, no reason. I did something stupid again," she said, smiling as she walked over to the bottom of the stairs, holding out her arms. Wren willingly tottered down each step, followed closely by the rapidly-growing Skali, who offered Aeri a toothless grin before jumping off the edge to come around behind her.

Now holding her sister, Aeri turned and addressed Wren's dragon. "I bet Shade doesn't get yelled at nearly as much as I do," she said. But Skali just smiled again, shrugging. Who knows?

"Holly, Svar and Palo arrived this morning."

Cinder's stomach did a little flip when he thought of the forest-eyed female, and he scowled down at it, willing it to sit still. It was long past time for him to formally address their courtship, but for some reason he couldn't shake the fear that she might not want to become his mate. That's ridiculous, he thought. I'm twenty-seven years old, and she's thirty-one! If we weren't serious, we wouldn't still be in this situation.

For it was something of a difficult situation. Holly lived on the island with the other Night Furies, and Cinder lived on Berk. They saw each other about once a month, alternating which one of them would make the long journey to the other. Oftentimes the trips were made as diplomatic excursions, but everyone involved knew that there was more to it concerning the two of them. The challenge of asking her to become his mate lay in convincing her to live on Berk permanently, to leave behind the rest of her family and the life she knew.

"Cinder?"

"Sorry," he looked apologetically at Toothless, who had one eyebrow raised.

"Anyways. The most recent-" the sound of flapping wings interrupted him, and with a frown, he waited for whoever it was to arrive.

"Hey Dad, hey Cinder, hey Cloudjumper," Shade said breathlessly as he skidded to a stop in the sun next to their shady spot underneath the trees high up on the mountain.

"Where have you been?" Toothless demanded.

"I was just fishing with Soturi and Alyka-"

"No, I meant for the last two nights."

"Oh. I, uh... was with Aeri."

Toothless gestured to Cinder and Cloudjumper that they could leave. Once they were gone, he turned back to look at his son, who was wearing his saddle and innocently focusing on a speck on the ground. What am I going to do with him? Shade was almost as large as he was, which he was inexplicably proud of, but he also had the same hard head he did, which Toothless was less happy about.

"With Aeri? And what were you two up to?" he asked, piercing him with his green gaze.

"We, ah... we were just hanging out around the village."

"Hanging out, huh? You want to know who else was hanging out?"

Shade tried not to wince. He knew what was coming. "What were you thinking, hanging the Meathead Chief's son from the doors of the Great Hall? He could have been seriously hurt, or worse! Are you trying to get Hiccup in trouble?"

"No..." Shade mumbled. "He was bothering Aeri..."

"And you don't think that the humans could have handled that on their own?"

"What do you want me to say, Dad?" Shade was growing frustrated. "She was upset! Okay, so we didn't really think it through, but that dumb human deserved much worse than what I did to him," he finished darkly.

Toothless sighed. "How is it that you two always manage to end up in some kind of trouble?"

"Well, I for one get pretty bored! Why can't you give me more important things to do?"

"Because you obviously aren't mature enough to handle them!"

"You haven't given me the chance to prove that I am!"

"The proof is in your actions, Shade. When you misbehave and I'm forced to cover for you, or when you put Hiccup in a tight spot like you did with the Meathead boy. When you can't be trusted to follow through with the simplest requests, like delivering a basket of fish or showing up to help the humans work on their fields."

"That's because those things aren't important!"

"Everything we do is important, Shade," Toothless growled.

"No, everything you do is important!" he yelled at his father. "If I'm supposed to be Alpha someday, why can't you just give me something bigger to do?"

"Because," Toothless said slowly, "being Alpha means that you are a leader in everything you do. From the smallest task to the grandest undertaking, you must give the same amount of your energy and focus."

"I do that!"

"No, you don't!" Toothless finally lost his temper. "You run off with Aeri and leave everyone else to do the work you deem unimportant. You're distracted when you actually do show up to help, and you're just so damn impatient!"

"You've never been impatient before?"

"Not when it counts. And when you're the Alpha, it always counts. That's why you don't get to do the more important things. Because you don't have any respect for anyone or anything besides yourself. That's why you aren't the Alpha, and you aren't ever going to be, unless you can manage to learn some humility and responsibility!" he finished with a shout, glowering at his son.

Shade felt like he had been kicked. Rather than embarrass himself by answering, he turned around and took off into the sky, flying over the forest to be by himself.

On the mountain, Toothless wrestled with remorse, before sighing. He knew he shouldn't be so hard on Shade, but how could he not be when his son was so damn irresponsible? He wanted to be Alpha, but Toothless worried that he would never be ready. With that depressing thought, he spread his wings and soared back down to the village, seeking out his mate.