Okay, so I know I took a week longer again and I will change the schedule to a chapter every two weeks again, but I really love this story and don't want to rush anything. Over than that, the rest will be said after the main story, so enjoy.
Chapter 15
Hiccup and Astrid sat up in the blink of an eye, all thoughts of the previous conversation or the scenery quickly forgotten.
"What's going on?" Toothless asked, standing up at the urgency of their behaviors.
Hiccup already climbed on top of him, not forgoing his usual gesture of holding his hand out to her, even in these situations. "Dragons are coming to raid us." He explained, already taking off.
Now with eyes open and full attention on the ride, Toothless could afford to fly faster and subsequently did so.
Instead of the few minutes of flight they had taken to get there, they were back to the village in about ten seconds. "Can you get their attention?" Hiccup asked and his Dragon gave a short nod.
Only a second later, they both had to hold hands over their ears when Toothless gave one of the loudest screeches she's ever heard, maybe even rivaling a Thunderdrum.
The people flooded out of their houses or looked up towards the sky. Hiccup hoped they were all close enough, since they didn't have to time to arrange a full meeting in the great hall, the raiding party already a lot closer.
"Listen. There is a raid approaching. Saddle your Dragons and defend the food as well as the houses." He shouted and if Toothless hadn't made her half-deaf, or at least something close to that, she would have to put her hands on her ears again. "I wish we didn't have to, but if things get dangerous, protect your and other lives at all cost. We may live with Dragons, but if they attack, we defend."
With that, most followed the advice, quickly saddling their Dragons. Hiccup took it upon himself to make everyone at least one to go with their bonded Dragon. Those who didn't like to fly, namely Heather's parents as well as Arne, rather stayed near their homes and made sure everything was safe and secure.
Astrid looked around frantically. She knew why these Dragons raided. They are forced by the queen, but they still don't really have any idea on how she does that. What if she can control even their Dragons. Toothless seems fine and the others also haven't acted out, but the raid is yet to come and every second the Dragons are getting closer.
"What is going on? I heard there is a raid coming?" She heard a voice from behind and grew a smile before even turning around.
Sure enough, she was greeted by her golden and sky-blue companion. "Stormfly." She greeted. She patted Toothless side and he understood immediately, flying closer to Stormfly and a bit over her. Astrid stood up to jump on her back, a maneuver they repeated more than Hiccup liked. She patted her side, way more comfortable now that her Dragon was by her side and not having to fret over the possibility of losing her to the tyrannic thing they had seen in the nest. Speaking of the queen. "Do you think you can resist the queen when they attack?"
"As far as I can remember, the queen only controls them to the point of keeping them attacking for her. She does not actively try to recruit Dragons in raids, so there should not be any danger of us falling under her control." She explained. Astrid released the breath she didn't realize she's been holding since asking her question. She looked towards Hiccup, who had also been listening to them and was grateful for the relieved smile he had.
"But I don't think there is any way to get them out of her control other than grounding them by gravely wounding them, in which case she deems them as unimportant and doomed and lets them out of her control." Toothless continued knowing Hiccup already considered that option in his head.
Hiccup took a second to digest the new information. "Okay. I don't want anyone gravely injured, so freeing them from the control is no option." He talked, mainly to himself. "But were also not at threat of our own Dragons going over to her." He pondered over the options for a few moments, before looking at her instead of the vast ocean. "The queen wants food and nothing else. Our best bet is to stop her from getting that and scare off the Dragons."
Astrid nodded and took off, flying over to the edge of the Island, looking to where the raiding party was only a minute or so away. She flew back to their public feeding stations and Stormfly perched on its side.
She watched below her as everyone stared out to the raid with her and approximating how long they have.
She could definitely understand all of the anxiety that came with being attacked. One of the two big reasons she left was because she wouldn't want to fight Dragons after learning about their predicament and why they attacked, so fighting them now, after two years of living with them is most definitely not an easy task to even think about.
Meanwhile, Hiccup also looked how far away the attackers were and after seeing Astrid ready to defend one of their feeding stations, he asked Gorm to take a few people to the docks, defending fishing boats. Now he overlooked the city, people sitting on their Dragons, mostly in groups of friends sticking together to defend their homes.
Somehow it felt a bit surreal, seeing everyone ready to defend a few houses on an Island full of Dragons and calling it home, especially when he called himself Chief of this and the reason it exists.
He flew over to another of the feeding stations, ready to defend if he'd be needed to.
The next sixty seconds were the most stressing he ever experienced, even surpassing the stress of sitting in the arena, the entirety of Berk around you in a circle and trying to explain them Dragons aren't evil or the stress of what he wanted to ask Astrid before.
Eventually the Dragons attacked and all hell broke loose. The raid split up, groups of three or fours always together trying to get their share of loot. Hiccup got attacked by two Nightmares, already a sign for the strongest raids he has experienced, and a gronckle as well as Thunderdrum.
Toothless zoomed around shooting the Dragons when they got too close to the fish and dodging the streams of fire and screams thrown their way when the attackers got particularly agitated. Most of the time they didn't need to dodge, since the now enrolling darkness quickly hid them and only their silhouette stood out, blocking the stars from view.
In the corner of his eyes, Hiccup saw Astrid flying around, using her spines to cut Dragons off and lead them to the opposite side of the village.
A few shots later, the gronckle and a Nightmare already retreated, but the other two attackers of the group kept at it. On the Horizon, he could see a few more shapes and strongly hoped it were retreating Dragons filling the darkened ocean with spots instead of reinforcements.
He leans down towards Toothless, not sure if he would be heard in the chaos else. "Let's make them fight each other". Toothless eyes flicker with bewilderment for a second until he understands what Hiccups plan is and sharply turns around, aided by Hiccup switching tail fin positions.
He swirls around the Thunderdrum, making it slightly dizzy with the amount of turning it has to do to hold up with the movements and always stays close enough so that the Nightmare mostly misses directly at the other Dragon.
After a few rounds around the Thunderdrum and more than ten shots from the flaming Dragon, Hiccup doesn't even know when it set itself aflame, probably an outcome of the agitation at the misses, he stops Toothless directly in between the two flailing Dragons, giving the Thunderdrum time to finally catch up with his mouth.
Directly before it screeches and takes their ears with it and the Nightmare grills what remains, Toothless tucks in his wings, leaving their attackers without have any time to redirect before shooting their blasts at each other instead of the Night-black Dragon that was there before.
Seemingly taking this as the last straw to their pride, the two recover from their dazes and fly off, although the Nightmare still can't get his flight straight, mainly from his hearing being damaged.
He makes sure the Dragons really are retreating and turns around to check on the rest of the raid. While Toothless is one of the strongest Dragons on the Island, he also had to deal with the strongest group of attackers, so only a few are actually fighting anymore and getting help from the people around them. Astrid also managed to fight off her fair share and is once again perched on top of the feeding station he had seen her before the raid.
Once everyone is safe and the food as well as the village safe, with only one house on fire, Hiccup and from the looks of it is full of adrenaline and won't get a good sleep for the next few hours.
He and Astrid make sure everyone is fine and reassure them they can go to sleep, meeting up at their house after.
"So." Astrid drawls out, trying to make the situation less awkward, since both stare off into the distance. "That happened."
Hiccup nods, a bit absentmindedly. "Why do you think they raided now?" He eventually asks and Astrid can instantly see where his train of though is going.
"I don't know" She answers honestly and before he can even dare to breath, she continues. "But it's probably nothing you could have changed. You have seen the queen, as well as I have. You know that her needs are unexplainable and unreasonable."
Hiccup turns around from where he stared off and she can't help but see the quilt in those beautiful green irises. She quickly runs over to him and pulls him into a hug, before he starts collapsing on the ground.
"I failed them. I knew about the queen from the start. I should have done something sooner. I should have prevented all this from happening." He sobbed into her shoulder and Astrid nearly cried herself hearing him this broken. "I should have never been made Chief. I should never have formed this tribe."
Astrid physically flinched at every accusation he made against himself. "No." She stated firmly and Hiccup gave a dry chuckle at that. She pulled him into their home, not wanting to have this conversation outside. "The queen is giant. You couldn't have done anything alone and if anything, I'm as much to blame, if not more. You already had all the duty's as Chief, which I don't think anyone could do better, while I had much more time on my hands, but rarely even thought about the queen."
Hiccup took the part-scolding part-reassurance in silence, only broken up by a few Hiccups. He opened his mouth several times, but none words came to mind. At the fifth attempt, he could finally find it in himself to speak again. "How can you be so sure about this? Astrid, people could have died." He screamed at her, knowing fully it was unjust for her.
She didn't even blink at his outbreak. She knew he was beating himself up and projecting his anger towards her, for any output. "But they didn't." She explained calmly. "And they didn't because of you. Yes, maybe there was something we could have done to prevent this, but nobody is perfect and our obligation is to make up for past errors. If forgetting about one of the most traumatic thing I've ever seen is one of these errors, what you did was more than enough to make up for it. Because of your quick thinking and advice, nobody cam to harm and they barely did any damage."
Hiccup clinged to her more than ever, sure that if he let go, he would start wallowing in self-deprecation again.
Taking his silence as acceptance of her advice, she wiggled out of the hug, grabbing him by the shoulder and continued on. "Now that you cleared your head a bit, we clearly have a ginormous problem, namely the queen now also using Drakvill as a target for raids and we could really use mister smarts over here to make a plan." She joked, trying to lighten up the mood.
Clearly it worked, since Hiccup gave a snort of amusement and countered with a not so serious whining. "But why? We only got done with this raid."
Astrid laughed at that, glad his usual self was coming back. "Yes, but also your plans rarely fail, so who better should do it and the entire village is waiting for a meeting about this the first thing tomorrow." She explained in a motherly voice as if to say, 'You're going to do this or I'll ground you.'
"Why can't you do the planning for a bit?"
"Because I'll be busy helping you plan."
"Can't you plan and I'll help?"
"Nope."
"Why?"
"I said Nope."
They both soon devolved into giggles and eventually, full on laughter.
They were eventually interrupted by a slap on Hiccup's head and a low but playful growl. "Excuse you, some Dragons in this house actually want to sleep." Toothless said, but his displeasure was more amusing than expected, since he interrupted himself mid-sentence by a yawn.
He went back to his slab, warming it up around him and flopping down on it like an exhausted cat.
"Hey, you know what would be awesome." Hiccup broke the silence from watching the sleek midnight Dragon. "What if we learnt to speak Dragonese."
Astrid looked at him like he had completely lost it. "How did you even get that idea?" She asked, seriously interested how he came to this.
"Well, I thought about what if we learnt some language even the Dragons don't understand, like for some secrets just for us to know. But then I realized we don't actually know any languages except Norse and Dragonese, so then I got thinking about learning to speak Dragonese, so that only a selective few and the Dragons understand us, who couldn't really tell anyone about our secrets, since they only know how to speak Dragonese."
His eyes were so full of hope and excitement, that she seriously doubted that she could ever refuse him anything if he put up that face again.
She had to hide her smile when faking to consider her options. After a few tense moments, she let the smile come to her face. "I don't see why not."
Hiccup practically pounced on her, enveloping her in an embrace, thankfully more joyous than the last time this day.
"Okay, okay." She put her arms around his back, returning the hug and melting in his arms. "But not today." She said and accentuated it with a yawn. "So go to bed. We follow up on that whole planning tomorrow and learning Dragonese can come if we know what to do with our little ginormous Dragon problem." She tried stand up, but Hiccup didn't let go, but rather pulled her down again.
"Sounds good, but please, can we sleep together this night?" He asked, admittedly a little shy. Sure, they had dozed off in the evenings more often and he personally had the best sleeps those Nights, which was the reason he asked in the first place, since else he'd be sure to have Nightmares about what could have been, but none of the two had ever voiced the want to actually have the other stay.
Astrid understood pretty quickly, secretly glad Hiccup asked her instead of dealing with things himself. She nodded and followed him into his room.
The first few times she had tried to analyze anything she could see when looking if he was up already or just wanting to speak with him when he got too invested in his new ideas to go outside. While that initial interest had dropped marginally, she still took in the room every once in a while, if only because it was a part of Hiccup not many got to see.
The door opened to a shelf directly right from it, barely enough space to open door and drawers at the same time, mostly used for failed projects he had no intention of using or improving anymore and basic necessities. To the left of her, the wall was practically empty of furniture in favor of lots of paintings Hiccup had done himself. In front of the drawings, made sure it was far enough, lay a stone slab which had a burned top from years of being heated up by Toothless.
The room in itself was fairly small, so between Toothless sleeping space and directly at the footboard of Hiccups bed stood a simple chest, filled with, from what she could remember, different variations of the Night Fury's prosthetic tail.
His bed in itself didn't stand out from most others, but it did differentiate from the Viking standard, since he used a few layers of blankets as a cushion instead of sleeping on the hard wooden structure itself.
Besides the bed's headrest stood a large bedside table or a small closet, however one would like to look at it. On the right of it from the door's perspective, a tilted table sat, littered with multitudes of papers, newly drawn on or blank for future use, and charcoal pencils. Hiccup used nearly all the charcoal from Dragon related accidents for making them, so rarely they had to purchase them at the markets.
The middle had no furniture, making it easy enough for Toothless to walk around without making a mess, which he abused fully by making a few rounds before settling down and it also made the room feel tidier than it most often is.
"You don't have to sleep down here." Astrid said to her Dragon, seeing her huddled up in her place near the hearth.
"I don't mind. Besides, someone has to make sure you two don't get up to any inappropriate business and Toothless most likely wouldn't bother." She explained, adding the teasing comment mostly for fun.
As expected, both the teens turned beet-red and stumbled some incoherent words, the only understandable thing being Toothless laughter in the background.
"You're probably right." He concluded, still lightly giggling, or as close as Dragons can get to that. "But you're at the same time wrong. As if these two would ever get up to anything." He added at Stormfly's smug expression.
"Can we please stop this conversation?" Hiccup pleaded with the Dragons, who only laughed again, but didn't mention it anymore.
Astrids cheeks were still burning, but she managed to get her voice under control. "Way to change up the mood." She chuckled to herself, only light enough so that Hiccup wouldn't hear her and get back to said depressing mood.
Despite the embarrassing implications of Stormfly, Hiccup decided to still let the offer stand, sure that this may be the only time he'd have enough confidence or desperation to ask for this.
Luckily for him, Astrid decided to let the teasing go too and skillfully put off her shoulder blades and various spike accessories without actually revealing anything. She may love him and agreed to sleep with him, but she wasn't quite ready to sleep with him.
He was still in the middle of unstrapping his armor, trying to reach one of the hardest spots directly on his back. She walked over and did it for him, earning a quick thanks before he went back to his arm.
She helped him, having done this probably more than a hundred times. Only a few minutes later they had Hiccup in his normal clothing and a floor full of different armor parts, they were both too tired to tidy up.
They laid down and despite being the one who asked, Hiccup made sure to keep a distance which he deemed appropriate.
Quickly though, the events of today slipped from his mind as the exhaustion took over and he felt himself drifting of to sleep.
Barely before falling asleep, he registered a feeling around him, and sweet nothings in his ear.
He curled up against whatever was embracing him, strangely soothed by it. Even with all his memories going blurry as a blanket got draped over him, he only had one particular moment in mind and felt the weird urge to say something.
Seconds before actually falling to his exhaustion, he only got three simple words out, but those felt more important than ever before.
"I love you."
I know we already had the confession before, but I'd like to ignore that and think this is the real confession, especially since there is more build up and longer pining and everything that a proper confession has to have, so this is like the important one.