Chapter 5: Friendship, Discoveries and Apologies

Hanna stormed through the woods towards the cove, shaking with rage at what had happened in the Kill Ring. 'I don't believe it. I cannot believe what that jerk did to me. I cannot believe that I used to like him. I cannot believe that anybody likes him. I never imagined he would ever stoop so low as to grope me like that!'

She was heading back into the woods, back to the cove, so then she could spend more time with the Night Fury.

But this time, things were going to be totally different. This time, Hanna had taken a shield with her. Okay, she may or may not have taken the shield out from the armoury and a raw fish. She'd made a quick stopover at the fish storage, and taken it away with her. Once she got to the cove, she didn't see a sign of the Night Fury anywhere.

At first, Hanna had wondered if the dragon had flown away. Nobody had ever seen a Night Fury before, and since the Vikings were not exactly the most…intellectual of people, they hadn't bothered to properly observe, and study the dragons, so the possibilities it could heal itself to the point it could restore a tail-fin given enough time and peace to do it was not beyond the realm of possibility.

The thought that the dragon she had become fascinated with had flown off was upsetting, but Hanna decided to have a look, and so she had gone down to the cove, taking shield and fish with her while she nervously looked around - until she knew for sure, this was still dragon country, and the chances she was wrong were still high.

Unfortunately, the shield got stuck between two rocks, and Hanna was unable to get it out again. Irritated by her bad luck, Hanna, once realising she couldn't get it out, just crawled under the shield, and entered the cove with no protection at all. Unbeknownst to Hanna, the Night Fury was on a high rock, ready to pounce on her. When Hanna saw it, which was extremely quickly as she was looking all around herself, the Night Fury slowly walked down, still ready to pounce on me.

Hanna stopped, paralysed with terror, marvelling at the agility of the dragon as it just walked down the rock, leaping down at last until it was right in front of her. Judging from its stance, and the way it was looking at her with its ear plates swept back…the Night Fury was not happy.

But as she observed the dragon, Hanna quickly spotted the single tail-fin.

Ah, so they couldn't heal that.

Swallowing her fear, Hanna offered the fish to the dragon.

What happened next surprised her, although not by much; it became less aggressive and seemed to relax and it approached her cautiously, eyeing the fish hungrily. Hanna's hearts went out to the dragon, realising that by crippling it, she had starved it. Poor thing.

The growls from the dragon snapped her back into focus; she saw it had become aggressive again when it saw something on her, and as it was looking at her belt…quickly she followed the line of its sight, and it was aimed right at….

Oh yeah, right, her dagger. Slowly, Hanna started to pull it out of her belt, but the dragon growled. Swallowing down her fear again, Hanna pulled it out and dropped it. The dragon didn't seem satisfied so she picked it up with her foot and threw it into the lake.

The dragon instantly became docile and cute, even. Shaking that off for the time being, Hanna offered the fish again, this time the dragon came without any hint of aggression.

But then Hanna saw something that surprised her.

This was the second time today that Hanna noticed something she truly didn't expect, the dragon had no teeth, only harmless gums.

"Huh, toothless," she commented before she tilted her head; she was sure the Night Fury had teeth, she was sure she had seen them up close and personal when it pounced on her. "I could have sworn you had-," Hanna didn't get to finish my sentence because teeth suddenly popped out of the gums and the dragon ate the fish whole. "Teeth…," she finished lamely as the dragon loomed over her.

The dragon came closer to her, crooning, causing Hanna to back off and trip, and she crawled backwards until she hit a rock. "Uh, no. No, I don't have anymore."

The Night Fury was silent, regarding her quietly.

Hanna gasped, there it was again; she had seen it before, in the eyes of not only the Night Fury, she realised, but also the eyes of the Gronckle, and the Deadly Nadder.

They were intelligent.

But then something happened.

What the dragon did was rather unexpected, it regurgitated half of the fish onto Hanna's lap. Hanna made a face of disgust as she stared at the half-eaten fish, drenched and soaked with dragon saliva.

Why would it do that?

Hanna looked back up into the dragon's eyes. It moved back, and it sat on its haunches, just…staring at her, not making any hostile moves whatsoever.

After a few moments of staring, the dragon gestured to the fish.

No.

No, it couldn't be…

It was.

Hanna suddenly realised what the dragon wanted her to do. It wanted her to eat the fish, and she didn't like it at all. She looked down at the fish. She knew it was possible to eat uncooked fish, but it was truly unpleasant. And besides, she didn't know what swallowing a fish marinaded with dragon saliva would do to her.

But Hanna looked up at the dragon, knowing she was going to do this; the Night Fury was the coolest thing she had ever encountered, and she wanted to know more about it, and the only way to do that was to try to get closer. Hanna closed her eyes, mustering her courage as she tried to get on its good side, she did what it wanted.

Hanna picked up the fish and she took a bite out of the fish. She gagged a little, tasting the saliva; the fish itself wasn't bad, but the saliva left a rather unpleasant taste in her mouth. As she chewed the fish, she made a few encouraging noises, hoping to find some way of spitting it out without the Night Fury seeing it.

Didn't work.

The dragon didn't seem satisfied and mimed a swallow. Hanna groaned, and she gave it an 'Are you kidding?' look, but she swallowed the fish anyway, nearly puking in the process.

The sensation of the raw fish passing through her throat wasn't that bad, but the sensation of the saliva passing with it was. "Ugh, that was gross…," she shuddered.

Hanna looked up at the dragon, but this time, the dragon seemed satisfied. She studied it for a moment, before she gave it, no - him, although she was unsure where she got the idea that it was a guy anyway, an awkward smile. To her surprise, the dragon started to smile to, albeit with his teeth retracted.

Seeing that as a chance to get closer to the Night Fury, Hanna tried to reach out to him, but he hissed and awkwardly flew to the other side of the cove, heating the ground below him with a minor burst of his fire, and started to sleep.

Hanna followed him, and just as she was almost there, she saw something that broke her hearts; after he heard a bird chirping, he looked up. He looked at a bird's nest and saw a bird fly away with a longing look in his eyes. She felt her hearts break even more, and she felt nothing but shame and disgust towards herself for tearing the dragon's flight from him, all because she wanted glory. She sat down near him, and then his eyes fell on her, revealing to him that she sat a few feet away from him.

Hanna hesitantly waved to him, but all he did was lay his head down again and cover his face with his tail fin.

Hanna bit her lip, wondering if she was pushing her luck, and asked if she should take everything she had done today as a victory, but she decided to stay here longer and try to become friendly with the Night Fury.

She knew she would need to be careful; just because she had given it a fish, eaten a part of said fish, swallowed the part of said fish, and smiled at the dragon, it was still wild, and still capable of tearing her to pieces.

Hanna decided to take a chance, and she gently scooted closer and tried to reach out to him again, only for him to pull his tail away from her while he caught her. Deciding not to push her luck on that for the time being, Hanna quickly sat up and walked away from him, noticing that he walked away from her as well.

Later that day, in the evening, Hanna was still in the cove as the dragon slept like a bat in a tree. She kept watch over him, fascinated that he was capable of hanging upside down like that, as well as lying on the ground. She had spent the last few hours watching the Night Fury from the distance, making notes as she did, but she had grown bored with that.

She spent time occupying herself with drawing the Night Fury with a stick in the dirt, there were other sketches nearby, but this one was the biggest. Hanna was so immersed in what she was doing she didn't even notice it when the dragon woke up, watched her when it/he realised she was still in the cove and curiously came over to investigate what it was she was doing, until it was looming behind her, and she kept sketching without getting startled.

The dragon crooned a little bit, watching her drawing curiously, and a few seconds later, he walked away, and Hanna's eyes widened in surprise when she saw him rip a branch from a tree and started drawing with it too.

'Incredible,' she thought to herself, 'highly intelligent, emotional, aware of life and death, sensitive if what I saw him do when I had him at my mercy with the dagger is anything to go by, now I find out he's an artist as well! What's next, he can talk?'

Hanna watched as the Night Fury excitedly rushed around the cove, using the branch to draw with it; she truly had no idea what he was drawing, but he managed to hit her head with the branch once, but Hanna was surprised when he actually stopped and looked at her to make sure she was okay, stunning her even more, and then proceeded to draw once more.

When the Night Fury was finished, he dropped the branch and looked down at the ground, purring happily, and chirping as well.

Hanna looked around at the loopy lines, and she started walking. She wanted to find a rock she could hopefully stand on, just so she could see what the dragon had drawn, but then she heard the dragon growling. Hanna stopped, staring at the dragon in fear, wondering why it was growling; she didn't know why, so I looked down. She gasped, of course…she had just stepped on one of the lines the dragon had drawn.

Hanna stepped off of the drawing and the dragon purred once again, looking friendly. Its transformation was astounding. Wanting to try a dangerous little experiment, Hanna put her foot down and he started growling again. She repeated the process a few times and getting the same result until she stepped over the line, preventing anymore growling from the Night Fury. Gently and making sure she was keeping watch over where she was going, Hanna deftly stepped over another line and another and continued until she found herself only a few inches away from the dragon with her back turned to him.

Hanna turned around and saw him standing there, looking calm, docile, and seemingly friendly. Hanna decided to take the chance, and reached out for him once again, resulting in him growling again. Hanna mentally sighed, wondering what it was that stopped her from making the bond. She needed to make sure that the dragon trusted her completely.

But what could she do?

How could she make the dragon trust her…? Hanna killed the thought, and the questions with it, and she considered what she knew about dragons, about this Night Fury. She thought back to how they had met, how terrified they were of each other.

Fear, was that it?

Hanna turned her head around, looking away from him, and reached out once more. After a few seconds, she gasped when she actually felt the Night Fury's scales in the palm of my hand. But that's not all she felt. She felt something that only Gobber and her mother had ever given her in the past, nobody else; not even her own father had done this, never formed a bond with her. Hanna felt love, trust, and a bond with the dragon.

As she stared at the Night Fury in awe and delight, she had another shock as the third unexpected thing happened today.

She heard a deep male voice in her head.

'I have decided to trust you, human.'

Hanna gasped, so shocked that she heard him - the Night Fury spoke clearly in her head. She remembered how she had noticed all the times she had discovered something about dragons, especially this one, and she had sarcastically wondered if the next thing was proving this dragon could speak. She was so shocked that she could barely process what she had just heard, she just smiled back at the dragon shakily, and she pulled away and then turned and left the cove.

-8-

The Night Fury watched her leave with interest, seeing that she was visibly shaken and startled that he had spoken to her in her mind. He had befriended the 'human' today and tried to talk to her, experimenting if she could understand him. The Night Fury had known it was a long shot; in the past, no dragon had managed to successfully speak to the humans.

And they had tried without success. It had started in the first days of the war when the humans had first encountered the dragons, and then they started their endless campaign of genocide. So many dragons tried to plead with the humans to stop, but the humans didn't listen to them. No dragon bothered nowadays; the humans were too savage, and thanks to the Queen in the nest, sending the dragons out to steal their food, the humans were unlikely to listen anyway.

But this human was different. He had sensed that the moment he had seen her, took in her scent. She was vastly different from all humans he had encountered over the years, and he also realised her mind was different from other humans so there would be a possibility that she could hear dragons, unlike any other human.

When she had held out her hand, and he had pressed his forehead into it, the Night Fury had felt a bond with her unlike anything he had ever felt before when he befriended her, and he decided to try to talk to her. It worked! Unfortunately, she was so shocked by it that she ran out of the cove before the dragon could talk to her again.

But truthfully he couldn't really blame her though, as he was just as shocked by this as she was. But the Night Fury wished she had stayed as he found he enjoyed her company.

-8-

Austen Hofferson was not a Viking prone to panic, but he had been searching for Hanna all day, and he hadn't seen her since training, and he quickly learnt that nobody else had either. But where would she have gone? At first, Austen had planned to only search for her to try and apologise to her, but Gobber told all of the trainees in the Ring that if they found her, then they should tell her about the plan to have a bonfire in the abandoned catapult tower.

Austen had been one of the few who actually bothered to find Hanna. And he hadn't had much luck, and he had searched and searched everywhere in the village but he couldn't find her. But he searched as if his life depended on it, which it probably did, considering what he had done in the Kill Ring, and he didn't want the chief to kill him for touching his daughter like that.

'God's how did it happen? How did it turn out so wrong?' Austen beat himself up over it for hours. 'I never meant to, or did I?'

He had fantasised about her for a long time, and he had watched her grow older, and becoming more mature. But he had put distance between them because he had wanted to concentrate on his training as a Viking warrior before he made his move, but he hadn't stopped occasionally glancing at her when she was distracted.

Had he genuinely touched her chest because he wanted to see if it was as…soft as it appeared?

The idea both excited and worried him at the same time.

Austen couldn't understand what had happened, and worse he had no idea if he had meant to grope Hanna's…chest like that. He had asked everywhere to everybody, but they all had the same excuses.

"No idea."

"Don't care where the freak is."

"As if I would waste my time searching for that freak."

Okay, admittedly…Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to ask Snotlout and the twins. Those muttonheads didn't know anything, let alone where Hanna was, but what he couldn't grasp was what could have happened to her, and where she might have gone.

Austen refused to give up even as the sun began to set, and he decided to try her home once again, thinking that she may have returned there. But as he approached the chief's house, Austen stopped, and could hardly believe his luck when he saw her, admiring the beautiful brunette in question before she went inside.

-8-

If Austen had noticed Hanna's expression, he would have been surprised because Hanna was shell-shocked and tired. It had taken her a while to get back to the village, but that was deliberate as she had needed some time away from the dragon to collect her thoughts, which she had largely gotten over the worst of her shock.

So…by the time she had gotten back to the village, Hanna had had the time to recover from her shock, and she had begun to accept the truth.

The Night Fury had spoken to her.

He had spoken to her, and she understood him.

He had spoken to her in her mind.

And on top of that, she had learnt more about the Night Fury; he was highly intelligent, he was like a bat and a cat in some ways while not exhibiting a typical dragon behaviour and yet did at the same time, he was sensitive, he was capable of drawing!

And now he was capable of speech.

Okay, granted, she could only hear him in her mind, but she wasn't sure if it was an illusion since it was so easy to believe it was, but she was positive it wasn't.

But if she had heard him in her mind, what did that mean? Could she understand what every dragon said now? Could they even do the same?

Hanna was tempted to go to the Kill Ring and find out if the dragons there could do the same thing, but she talked herself out of it. Even if she got to the Kill Ring without any problems, who was to say something would not go wrong?

After returning home, Hanna still could not believe what happened and what she had experienced, but she had begun to accept the truth. The dragon just spoke to her. How was that even possible? Maybe it's something that only Night Furies could do or something. That was a possibility she could not ignore as she had never heard of it from the Vikings in the tribe or during her own encounters with dragons, and she would return to the Night Fury soon to get some answers.

But if dragons were telepathic, as she knew it was in her mind she had heard the Night Fury's voice, Hanna wondered why she could hear it, but why she even had the ability to hear him in the first place.

Was it something that was related to her own abilities? Hanna knew she had total recall and remembered everything she went through, how she could slow and even accelerate time, and even how she was able to breathe completely normally like she had when the house had been set on fire during a raid when she was younger while other Vikings choked and spluttered.

Did her powers give her the ability to hear and communicate with dragons, too?

But right now, she needed to get something to eat, either here or at the Great Hall before getting to bed since Hanna was feeling tired, but any hope of peace was stopped by somebody knocking on the door.

Hanna groaned. "Oh, please," she muttered to herself. All she wanted was to be left alone and just get some rest. She needed some peace and quiet and perhaps make notes in one of her journals so she could come up with a decent plan with what she needed to know about the Night Fury. It was weird, in the past the villagers went out of their way to leave her alone, now she knew where she stood, they were suddenly intent on driving her mad! "Who is it?" She called.

"It's me, Austen."

Now Hanna scowled and groaned under her breath, closing her eyes and pinching the bridge of her nose. 'Oh great, now this jerk comes to my house too? Just my luck. What does he want?'

Hanna just stared at the door for a second, before she shrugged and she opened the door and glared at him. "What is it, Austen? I am really not in the mood to talk to you or anyone else right now."

He seemed a little bit uneasy, and that made her blink a little, intrigued; Austen usually kept himself to himself, but he did have feelings and emotions, but now he seemed unsettled.

Actually, it looked like he had something to say to her, but every time he tried to say it, it wouldn't come out, in the end, he just said, "Gobber told me to tell you we are eating at a bonfire in the abandoned catapult tower," he got out in a rush, but Hanna was smart enough to catch him not looking happy by how he had messed up.

"Hmmm," Hanna mumbled under her breath, inwardly screaming and wondering if the whole stupid Viking race would give her a good night's rest for a change. But there was nothing she could do; if she didn't attend, as it was mandatory then Gobber would get involved, and she did not want that. After giving it a little bit more thought, Hanna decided to try to snatch some food to eat before going to the tower. After giving it some more thought, she felt she was ready before she nodded, "Okay, tell him that I'll be there." Hanna tried to close the door, but he put his foot in the way. Hanna opened the door fully, glaring at him again. "Was there something else on your mind?"

"That's not the only reason I wanted to talk to you Hanna," Austen said uneasily, and that got the girl's interest, slightly. And she shifted her stance, tilting her head questioningly.

"Go on, Austen, what was it you wanted to say?" Hanna asked him, folding her arms and glaring at him probingly. Her unfriendly body language only made him more nervous, and tense. Inwardly she was delighted since Austen Hofferson needed to be humbled.

"I wanted to apologise to you, for the….incident in training today," he said hesitantly.

Hanna was surprised that he had actually apologised. Did he really think that it was going to be so easy?

"Austen, I simply cannot forgive you for this. You really did hurt me in the Ring,"

Then a thought occurred to her while his face fell, and then she saw it at the same time, that he had been pushed into doing this. His lack of conscience sickened her.

"Hold it, is it because of what my father might do to you?" Hanna demanded sharply, and she got her answer when he visibly flinched, and she sighed. "Look, Austen. I may not forgive you for what you did, but I'm not going to tell my father. I don't want to be responsible for whatever may happen to you. And besides, I've worked out recently he doesn't give a damn about me, one way or another. I got that when I overheard him in the Great Hall."

While he looked at her in curiosity about what she'd meant by that, Austen relaxed slightly, but still seemed nervous for some reason. "Hanna, my fear of the chief had nothing to do with it…..okay, maybe it did but-."

Hanna's temper flared at his lack of sincerity, and she made sure he didn't get to finish whatever he was saying because she just slapped him again. "You jerk! An apology doesn't matter if it isn't honest and only came from the fear of my dad!" Fed up with him, Hanna didn't even give him a chance to talk anymore and slammed the door in his 'handsome' face.

-8-

Rubbing his face from where Hanna had just slapped him, Austen sighed. Well….that was a disaster.

The good news was he'd said sorry, but where did he go wrong?

What did he say?

What?

Austen hoped his parents returned from the Hunt soon so he could figure out the answer and get their advice on what to do in order to show Hanna he didn't see her as a freak like so many others did, if they did, and his heart clenched at the thought of losing his family to the dragons.

Austen had been fascinated by Hanna since they were children, and as he walked away, he thought about their childhood friendship, and his heart clenched as he remembered the way she laughed. She'd always had a beautiful laugh.

But his parents had not liked their friendship, mostly because of Hanna's second heart, especially when it became clear she couldn't fight like a Viking; shortly after the loss of his uncle Finn, they had demanded he focuses more on his training as a Viking warrior after Finn's death dishonoured their family although over the years, he had noticed her beauty as she had grown older.

There was something…timeless about her, really, and he was enthralled by her. To find out Hanna had once had a crush on him…..

Austen sighed. He had tried to apologise to her, he really had. Then again, doing what he had done in the Kill Ring would have pissed any woman off and would be really hard to forgive. But when he had admitted that his fear of the chief finding out what he had done to his daughter was partially the reason why I apologised to her was the reason why she was angry, and another slap and the door slamming in my face meant she wasn't going to forgive him any time soon only made it harder.

Austen slowed down.

Was that it?

Was that the reason she had been angry because she thought he was only saying sorry because of the chief? Oooh, Beard of Thor, no wonder she was furious! She didn't think he was being sincere. As he headed for the village, Austen realised he needed help in wooing her, and making her happy, but he was just glad he hadn't messed up in telling her about the bonfire.

-8-

Hanna was sitting in the back on the catapult tower. She did not want to be here, she would rather be back in the house she shared with her father, and writing in her journal the things she had learnt about the Night Fury, and ideas of where to go from here.

It was better than being with the teens, and definitely better than being with Austen. The good news was she was left largely alone and they had forgotten she was even there, but she had noticed the occasional looks she received from Austen…and Ruffnut, although what the female twin was thinking, she didn't know and if she were frank, she didn't care.

Gobber was telling everyone how he lost his arm - Hanna had rolled her eyes at the retelling; the old blacksmith had a habit of telling the same story several times a week to make sure she didn't lose any of her respect for him, but truthfully he didn't need to since she had loved him as a kid and it would take a lot to make her stop.

"…and with one twist, he took my hand and swallowed it whole! And I saw the look on his face, I was delicious! He must have passed the word because it wasn't a month before another one of them took my leg!" Gobber was saying, while Hanna was mouthing off in sync.

"Isn't it weird to think that your hand was inside a dragon? Like, if your mind was still in control of it you could have killed the dragon from the inside, by crushing his heart or something," Fishlegs said.

Hanna sent him a creeped-out look, thinking that was disturbing and gross at the same time. She had always thought Fishlegs to be smarter than that, but while she had seen people losing limbs, they didn't always move.

"I swear, I'm so angry right now!" Snotlout growled, and Hanna rolled her eyes at the way her cousin was cosying up to Gobber. "I'll avenge your beautiful hand and beautiful foot. I'll chop off the legs of every dragon I fight-with my face!"

Hanna sneered at him, thinking at just how…typical it was that Snotlout would simper around the blacksmith, but Gobber seemed impressed.

"Uh-Uh," the old blacksmith said, shaking his head, "It's the wings and tails you really want. If it can't fly, it can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon." Gobbers words made Hanna gasp. He had just made her realise something vital.

The Night Fury would die if he stayed in that cove and it would be all her fault. Hanna….she might not know the dragon well, but he seemed nice enough to her, and she wanted to help him. She owed it to him after what she'd done to him. The seed of an idea came to her mind, what if she restored the dragon's ability to fly?

Hanna bit her lip, struggling to contain the yelp of excitement at the impending project; she had been excited for all of her inventions in the past, but this one…this one felt right to her, somehow, and she had a feeling she was closer to that vision she had seen of herself.

But as she went through the idea, she realised that it would only be an experimental prototype, and not the final version. There was just so much about the Night Fury she didn't know about, and she would need to make continual adjustments until she perfected it. But she had to start from somewhere.

Gobber spoke again, but she only paid him enough attention as she made her plans. "Alright, I'm off to bed. You should be too. Tomorrow we get to the big boys. Slowly, but surely, making our way up to the Monstrous Nightmare. But who will win the honour of killing it?"

Hanna barely paid him much attention, she was too busy making plans, making estimations based on the dragons' size and weight and the tensile strength of leather and iron. Slowly Hanna stood up, making sure nobody was watching her, and she set my fish down - it wasn't cooking anyway - and quickly got up to leave. But while she made a quiet getaway, Hanna thought she saw Austen look at her for a moment, but it must have been her imagination as she hurried down the steps of the catapult tower, and headed into the village.

Hanna quickly went into the forge, putting her notebook down and opened it up to the page with the Night Fury on it. Biting her lip in thought, she added the tail-fin on the drawing once more, and she set to work. Quickly she made some speedy calculations based on guesses of how heavy the dragon was, and how much strain the real tail-fin had taken - she bit her lip, knowing she was only making some guesses here, but she had quickly learnt to live with that.

Hanna took a deep breath, and she determinedly began to work. She sourced the different bits of metal, from the rest of the forge and she also collected the sheets of leather and cut them to size. Hanna worked through the rest of the night, not once slowing, and more than aware she had to work quickly. She was worried Gobber would come into the Forge and see what she was doing. Gobber was a highly experienced veteran dragon killer, and he was a master craftsman, he would know what she was building the moment she saw it.

But her fears were for nought because in the morning she had finished her latest invention; a prosthetic tail-fin!

Now she just had to test it out.