Lightning And Death Itself Chapter 15

"What are you suggesting, Hiccup? A peace treaty between the dragons and the Vikings? Do we tell them that, if they give us half their food, we won't steal the other half? Surely you don't think your father would approve a deal like that?"

"There has to be something we can do, Toothless! What if we quit raiding, and just brought fish for the Mother?"

"There are two problems with that, Hiccup. One, she likes a mixed diet, and dragons get eaten if she doesn't get what she wants. Two, if the fish start schooling elsewhere and we can't find them, we're right back where we started."

Astrid leaned into the discussion. "What if we all just left the nest and moved someplace else?"

"She'd call us back in," Toothless answered. "No one has found a limit on how far away she can control us."

"What, exactly, does she contribute to the nest?" Hiccup asked.

Toothless dropped his voice to a near-whisper. "Nothing. She rules because she can summon and send, and because she can eat anyone she wants. I know what you're thinking, Hiccup, and it can't be done. She's too big, and her skin is too thick, for any combination of dragons to take down."

"Does she ever leave the nest?" Astrid wondered.

"Once or twice a year, she flies up the cone, takes a couple of laps around the island, breathes a little fire, and comes back again." Toothless answered. "No one follows her when she's exercising – we don't want to feel the burn. There's no predicting when she'll do it."

"A few laps around the island sounds like a real good idea right now," Hiccup decided. "I've got more stress than I know what to do with." He was up and out of the nest like an arrow shot from a bow. Astrid moved to follow him; Toothless stepped in front of her.

"I'd let him go," he advised her. "He's had a terrible shock to his mind and his heart. Let him work it out, his way."

"All his life, whenever something went wrong, he had to handle it alone," she replied heatedly. "I was one of the people who stood there and let him go through that! But I'm a dragon now, right? You told him dragons would treat him better than people did. So I'm going to prove it to him." She leaped straight up and left the nest through the crater.

Finding him wasn't hard. He was circling the island just above the fog line, flapping hard for maximum speed, as though he could leave his heartsickness behind if he could only fly fast enough. She spiraled down the mountain, gaining speed in a shallow dive so she could overtake him. He looked at her for a few seconds, then flipped his tail and shot skyward.

There was nothing in his expression that said he wanted to get away from her, so she followed him. It took some doing, but she finally caught up with him just as he entered the clouds. He was hard to see through the murk, but she was just close enough not to lose him.

Suddenly he rolled over, folded his wings, and plunged straight down. Again she followed him. They pulled out just above the waves and glided.

Finally he said, "You're putting a lot of effort into keeping up with me."

"I figured you've gone through enough pain all by yourself."

Wordlessly, he sideslipped until their wingtips barely touched. They glided that way for several minutes. There was something powerful about touching him; she felt like she might be holding him up, emotionally if not physically.

Very gradually, he turned toward the island. She turned with him, keeping that inch of wingtip contact, a feat few other dragons could have matched. Eventually they came to the cone of the volcano; they had to break their wing contact so they could flap to gain altitude. Rather than dive in, Hiccup backwinged and landed on the rim. She joined him there. They sat in silence for a while.

"Astrid, do you like me?"

She wasn't expecting that question. "Well, you're brave, you're clever, you're flexible, you're loyal to your friends..."

"Thanks. I'm also long, dark, and handsome. But do you like me?"

"Where are we going with this?" she asked.

"When we were in Berk, you were the girl I dreamed about. I'd steal moments away from the forge to watch you walk by. The main reason I invented all those dragon-killing devices that failed was so you'd notice me. When we went for that flight on Toothless, I felt like you were warming up to me, and life was going to be amazing. And then we got changed, and everything else changed, and we've hardly had time to do anything together except disagree about how dragonish we should be."

"You were never this up-front with your feelings before," she said quietly.

Hiccup looked at a distant cloud. "If you looked in my eyes for half a second, you'd know all this anyway. I might as well be up-front." He looked back at her. "Toothless was so busy teaching me about flying and fighting and being a role model, he never told me how boy dragons and girl dragons get together. All I know is, you're the only one who can understand the things I'm going through. And even though you don't look like Astrid, or sound like Astrid, you still feel like Astrid. I still get that funny feeling in my stomach when you're close to me. When we were flying wingtip-to-wingtip just now, you made me warm, even though you were two wing-lengths away. You make things better, just by being here. So I need to know: do you like me?"

She half-smiled. "Why don't you look in my eyes and find out?"

He looked. What he saw was utterly different from the first time they'd shared TrueSight. The disgust with her new form was now a mix of acceptance and curiosity. Her feelings for Toothless had changed from mistrust to a comfortable feeling, like that of an adult student with a teacher she enjoys learning from. There was still homesickness, but it occupied a much smaller part of the picture. And for Hiccup, there was some envy, and quite a bit of concern over that last raid, wrapped up in a warm blanket of friendship, with a tiny but hot spark that might mean something more.

She saw much in him, but chose to focus on the raid. She saw pride and pleasure that the two of them had gone into battle together and made a good team. The green Nadder's death was blocked out, as though someone had taken a knife and sliced away the middle of a tapestry. She saw the impossible ambivalence between Stoick, Hiccup's father, and Stoick, the killer of Hiccup's little sister. That could push anyone over the edge. I'm amazed he's taking it as well as he is.

Hiccup blinked. "Wow. Thanks for that. I mean, I know the dragon in you is talking to the dragon in me, but I had to know if the human in you wanted anything to do with the human in me."

She sat closer to him. "I'd have to, even if I didn't want to. Who else could I ever turn to?"

"Well, there's always Toothless," Hiccup suggested.

"Me and him? Ewww!" She slapped him with her tail. "That's for even thinking such a thing."

She slid right up against him and laid her head on his shoulder. "Hiccup, you are a wonderful person who looks like a wonderful dragon. I like all of you." He closed his eyes and wrapped a wing around her. They sat that way, enjoying each other's closeness, for almost half an hour.

At last he withdrew his wing. "We ought to be getting back inside. Thanks for that, Astrid. I needed it."

So did I, she thought.