Once more a reminder that this story is rated T
Jogging into the clearing to find it empty, devoid of both Nadder and troublesome teenagers, Hiccup starts to pace back and forth.
"Oh goodie, they've been eaten. Now how can I explain that?" He says sarcastically.
"Where are they?" He mutters to himself before whistling a quick shrill note.
Toothless comes bounding over and Hiccup hops onto his back, "We'll check over at Berk if you tw-three want to check round here?"
"Uhhhh-" Fishlegs starts.
"Sure, good luck", Astrid interjects.
"Uhhm, did he say "three"?" Fishlegs asks as Toothless flies off.
"Yeah..." Astrid replies, confused at Fishlegs seeming inability to count.
Fishlegs gulps, "Do I have to... ride Meatlug?" He says nervously.
"Of course", Astrid laughs, to which he slowly starts to back away.
Noticing his retreat, Astrid says "Oh come on, it'll be fine!"
Reassured partially, he slowly edges closer and Astrid rolls her eyes.
When he gets close enough to touch Meatlug she turns to face him, tongue out panting, sending him tripping over himself backwards in fear.
"Oh for the love of Thor Fishlegs", Astrid exclaims, walking over to the large boy and lifting him with relative ease and slinging him onto the dragon's back.
She hops up behind him, indicating where to hold on and put his feet. She gave him a brief rundown on the basics until he was somewhat ready and sat waiting for take-off.
After waiting a solid 30 seconds she patted Fishlegs on the helmet, "Hey, umm, what are you waiting for?"
Fishlegs jumps out of his fear-induced standstill and jerks on Meatlug's small, wing-like horns that protrude from the top of her head, sending her flying straight upwards at speed.
"Let go! Let go!" Astrid yells at Fishlegs, but he doesn't hear. Her axe drops from her hand as she scrabbles to hold onto Meatlug's thick, scaly hide.
Their vertical climb eventually slows to a halt hundreds of feet up in the air, nearly at the clouds, and Fishlegs is clinging onto the Gronckle for dear life.
"We aren't gonna see them from up here Fishy, go down a bit".
"Down... down.. yeah, down is good".
Fishlegs mutters, peeking over the Gronckle to the forest below, thick coniferous trees mere bristles on a scrubbing brush below them.
Astrid grabs Fishlegs' forearms from her place behind him on the dragon and makes the dragon descend slowly.
Feeling her chest pressing against his back, Fishlegs blushes and tries to focus on how to control the dragon. Once they get to just above the treeline Fishlegs gently urges Meatlug onwards and they start scouring the area.
Meanwhile, Hiccup is fearlessly gliding over Berk upside down on Toothless. The blood rushing to his head, Hiccup spots a flash of a Nadder's magnesium burst. Originating... from his house.
"Oh god not again", Hiccup says exasperatedly, urging Toothless to dive in and land before their home. Opening the door, Hiccup is greeted by a flying tail spike whizzing over his head, and the commotion inside dies down.
"Anything on fire?" He asks, walking straight past the Nadder with Ruff and Tuff in each claw.
Gasping for air, Snotlout's head and shoulders appear from beneath the bulk of the dragon "I'- I'm alive!" He pants.
"Good, because no one asked", Ruff bites back from her position a few feet away, tightly clasped in Stormfly's left foot.
Hiccup finishes his checks and other than some scorching on a support column, no damage to the house was sustained.
"Thank Thor. I've been here a few days and already nearly destroyed this house." Hiccup as the Dragon Master mutters to himself before turning on the teens,
still in the Nadder's grasp. Wriggling and straining was doing them no good at escaping Stormfly's clutch, and Snot had already given up, planting his head face first on the floor. The twins stopped struggling when they noticed the Dragon Master's pointed glare. Stormfly also looks up intently at the Dragon Master, curious.
"Y'know, Stormfly here needs feeding" The Dragon Master states matter-o'-factly. He draws a sword from a rack on the wall of his house, and at the sound of drawing steel, Snotlout looks up. The blade was 80cm long with a perfectly centred fuller running down most it's length, a finely crafted Viking one-hander. A tidy black leather wrap on the handle lead down to the unusually shaped pommel. It wasn't the chunky almost crown shape as normal, but a sturdy pair of Night Fury tail fins.
And he points the end of his sword towards Tuffnut, "Eenie".
He swings it down to Snotlout, "Meenie".
And up to Ruffnut, "Minie".
All three look quizzically up at him, but before they can ask more, the Dragon Master continues. "Moe." Taking breaks between each word as he points to the next person in turn, he repeats around the triple, "Which, Burdensome, Viking, Has, To, Go?"
The tip of the sword ends mere millimetres from Tuffnut's neck, and the meaning of his little game becomes rapidly apparent.
"Uhhhhhh. Now Mr Dragon Master" Tuff chuckles, "Seeing as all your other words had only one or two syllables apiece, shouldn't 'Burdensome', be ah, split in two?"
"Heyyyyyyy!" Ruff interjects.
"Shut up you! Tuff bites back, "It would be Snotty that gets fed to the Nadder not you!"
Amid Snotlout's indignant outcry, Ruff concedes his point.
*knock knock knock*
They all go silent, awaiting the knocker to identify themselves. "Hey, umm, Dragon Master, we couldn't find the Nadder or the others", Fishlegs calls in.
"Come on in", Hiccup calls, retracting his blade from Tuffnut's neck and walking over to the door and unbolting it.
"I found them. Where's Astrid?" He asks seeing no sign of her behind Fishlegs in the doorway.
"Oh she went to pick up her axe", Fishlegs says, "She umm, kinda dropped it when I, when I was learning how to control my dragon" he ashamedly admits.
"Wait what?" Snotlout yells from inside.
Tuffnut joins his indignant exclamation, "He gets a Dragon?"
"A Gronckle" Fishlegs says proudly, "I named her Meatlug".
There is a collective pause before a wave of laughter rolls out from the still-captive teens. Ignoring Fishlegs' reply, the Dragon Master walks outside to see Astrid astride Meatlug flying in from the wilderness. When she lands beside his house he rushes over to them but stops short, asking "What were you thinking? What if some villagers saw you? It's broad daylight!"
"And that's worse than them likely having seen a Nadder flying around with three Vikings in it's grasp?" She retorts.
He waits a second, mulling it over before grunting and leading her inside, leaving Meatlug outside, chewing on some rocks.
As soon as Astrid walls into the main room, Stormfly releases Ruff and Tuff, and waddles over to Astrid. Snotlout was left on the floor groaning as he tried to get up while the twins immediately started arguing over something.
Snot finally manages to right himself, and gets to asking Fishlegs, who was now sat down beside him, how come he, *The* Snotlout Jorgenson himself didn't get a dragon.
Astrid calms down the excited Stormfly, and gently gets her to rest at the side of the room with Toothless before re-joining the others.
"I'm just glad I even got Fishlegs onto that dragon to roughly teach him how to ride it" Astrid laughs, "We could've been out there all day and night otherwise".
Fishlegs bows his head in embarrassment, "The ground is so far away when you're flying" he mutters.
The Dragon Master joins in, laughing slightly, "I didn't teach you to ride with my blade at your neck did I? No wonder Fishlegs was scared".
They all chuckle slightly except for Ruffnut who pipes up "No, your 'weapon' was probably down her neck before you taught her how to ride a dragon".
Everyone turns towards her at her inappropriate comment, even Tuff surprised at her outburst.
Astrid angrily gets up and is reaching for her axe before anyone can even say anything.
"Or maybe you rode his 'dragon' to get those lessons" Ruff adds to Astrid as she get up herself and makes a break for the door.
But at a single whistle from Astrid, Stormfly is blocking the doorway and soon after Astrid has Ruff by her hood against the wall, her axe blade tickling the underside of Ruff's chin.
Hiccup is the next to get to his feet, intent on swiftly resolving this.
"Oh Ruffnut, how wrong you are", he laughs, "In fact, she befriended and learnt to ride Stormfly all by herself, after she got captured by her and taken to her nest."
"You survived getting taken by a Nadder?", Fishlegs asks, awed. Astrid's grip on Ruff's hood lessens slightly, but she keeps the blade against her neck, "Yeah no big deal" she states.
"That is a pretty big deal", Tuff admits, "That Nadder easily incapacitated the 3 of us without much difficulty".
"Speak for yourself Thorston", Snot complains, "I had her right where I wanted her before you charged in yelling".
"Pffft, surrree you did Snotface", Tuff laughs.
Astrid turns to Ruff amidst the two's bickering and whispers something in her ear, to which Ruff pales.
The axe falls from Ruff's neck and she staggers free, grabbing Tuffnut by the back of his coat and tugging him along "Come on, we're going home now" she declares.
"For record Tuff", Astrid calls after them, "'The Nadder' has a name: Stormfly", as Stormfly steps out the way of the door to let them past.
Tuff half salutes in response before he's dragged out.
Seeing Astrid's vexation still plainly written across her face, and realising she now no longer has Ruff to take it out on, both Fish and Snot take their leave and exit. "I'll sort out Meatlug's accommodation tonight Fishlegs, don't worry", Hiccup assures him while seeing them out.
"Well" he says, sighing. "It's just us once again it seems Astrid".
"Nope. Just you" she says, pushing past him out the house. "Wouldn't want Ruff getting any more ideas now would we" she says gruffly, not making eye contact with the mask that she knows hides Hiccup's face.
"What's wrong?", He asks "Ruff never used to get to you this much".
She ignores his question, instead just standing, looking out at the rest of the village. She had by now mostly gotten over her relief of finding Hiccup alive; how angry she is with him for not coming back to her sooner instead taking its place, hitting her abruptly after the other teens had left.
"Good night Hiccup", she says quietly before walking over to her house just next door. Leaving Hiccup pondering on what he did wrong, she walks into her house, greets her parents in the living room area before retreating to her room. Soon after Ingrid brings up a bowl of soup with a chunk of bread and sits at the end of Astrid's bed.
"What's wrong?", She asks, having noticed her daughters temper.
"Uhg, why do people keep asking me that", Astrid throws her head back in annoyance.
Ingrid's expression hardens slightly as her protective side steps forward and asks, "Is the Dragon Master giving you trouble?"
"Uhh, kinda. Yes and no."
"It seems I'll have to show him what happens to those who mistreat women in this village", she says getting up, flexing her large arms.
"Nononononono", Astrid quickly leaps up off of her bed, nearly spilling her soup still in her hands. "Not like that Mum, not like that".
Ingrid looks carefully at her daughter's face, and satisfied sits back down again. "Then like what dear?"
Astrid shifts uneasily, "Umm, well...".
Ingrid suddenly begins to laugh, and Astrid looks up thoroughly confused.
"It's alright dear", Ingrid says, "I know you still like him".
Astrid just stares at her in a shocked silence.
"You forget I was once too a young woman like yourself with my eyes on one man and one man only and didn't stop till he was mine, and I was his. Your father was a sight to behold back in his prime I'm telling you".
"Ew", Astrid winces away from her Mother's grossness, only making Ingrid laugh.
"But wait." Astrid stops, "You said 'still'?" The Dragon Master hasn't been here long".
"Do you think I'm blind? I know who the Dragon Master is", she chuckles.
"You do?" Astrid gasps.
"Yes dear, and if Master Haddock gives you grief, being the Chief's lost son won't save him from me."
A/N:
I am going to be moving from a roughly weekly upload to around once or twice a month to give myself some time to catch up on life. I am very glad to see that some people are seemingly enjoying this, and I hope no one is disappointed with the reduced uploading.
Thanks to all who has read my story so far!