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Chapter Text

Hiccup shut the door of the house with force. Every time! Every time she made a mistake her father humiliated her. He thought he was just raising her with ‘the Viking way’, but she knew he could do that in the privacy of their home and not outside for the whole village to see! He just didn’t… he didn’t know how to raise a daughter.

She understood that. She accepted that. But she wasn’t lying! Hiccup had really shot down a Night Fury! Well if no one believed her, she would go out on her own. Nobody cared enough to stop her. She would show them that she wasn’t lying, that she was capable of being a viking as much as they were.

Hiccup left the house using the back door, to avoid any of the taunts she would undoubtedly receive. She knew the woods of the island like the back of her hand, she spent a lot of time there. It was like a second home to her and even with the setting sun and darkness approaching she didn’t fear getting lost.

Being in the woods helped her relax and get away from… everything. From her father, from the bullies, from the scrutiny of the tribe. Her only friends were Gobber and Ruffnut, as sad as that sounded, she didn’t mind. The other teens her age weren’t that kind to her. Her cousin made fun of her constantly, the twins always joined in, but Ruffnut always did so in a teasing way, not like the cruel way the two boys did.

Fishlegs was her friend once, but ultimately he succumbed to the pressure of being one of the ‘cool’ vikings. And Arne… Arne was indifferent mostly, he didn’t make fun of her, he even helped her at some points in her life, but he wasn’t friendly either. He strived for greatness and was Stoick’s favorite without really trying.

Stoick always talked about Arne, how great the boy was, how he will grow up to be a great viking, how the boy would make a great Chief. Like Hiccup didn’t know these things, the crush she had on the boy was enough proof that she did. She hid the crush as best as she could, not because she cared what others thought, no. She hid her crush because her disinterest in the subject was the only thing keeping Stoick away from arranging a marriage with the boy’s father.

She walked through the forest with confidence, she had drawn a map in her notebook just to keep track of the places she had been already. Hiccup crossed out another place on the map, no Night Fury there. This was getting irritating. She knew that the God’s had it out for her, it was already obvious at that point! So why, oh why, couldn’t they give her a break?

“Oh, the gods hate me. Some people lose their knife or their mug. No, not me. I manage to lose an ENTIRE DRAGON?!” She exclaimed, airing her frustrations to the sky as she shut her notebook forcefully.

She slapped a branch out of her way, but it came back and caught her eye in its way. Hiccup glared at the branch with hatred, but something got her attention. The branch was snapped – scratch that – the whole tree was snapped in half. The only thing that could’ve done that would be… the Night Fury!

Hiccup followed the ditch that had been carved out by the falling dragon. She didn’t care about the dirt she got on herself as she ran forwards, twisting her ankle a bit, she didn’t feel the sting, she was too excited. As she reached a small hill peering over it, she was it. The Night Fury was there! Bound and helpless, easy to kill.

She approached the dragon carefully. It seemed to be dead already, that didn’t diminish her spirits, all she needed was a part of it to show to her father and then… then he would leave her alone, she would show what she could do and he would finally be proud of her.

“Oh, wow. I did it. Oh, I did it!” she could help but exclaim, “This fixes everything! Yes! I have brought down this mighty beast!” she boasted as she put her leg on the body.

The body under her foot moved, startling her quite a bit, she took out her dagger with shaking hands. The dragon was alive, that changed things.

“I'm going to kill you, dragon. I'm going to cut out your heart and take it to my father.” Her voice trembled, but she kept trying to reassure herself, “I'm a Viking. I am a VIKING!”

Hiccup looked over the dragon, from its bound tail to his open – oh Thor it was open – eye. She tried to steady herself, but her eyes kept going back to the frightened eyes of the dragon. Those eyes were so… human. The Night Fury was as scared as she was.

“I did this,” she whispered to herself, her voice filled with remorse.

She lowered her dagger as she started to feel guilt overwhelm her. She did this. She had taken this beast and shot it out of the sky for her own gain. Hiccup didn’t have the guts to go through with it, she didn’t have what it takes to take a life for her own temporary gain. Because with her track record, it would be only temporary.

She looked down at the dragon, the dragon had accepted his fate, but Hiccup had other plans. No one believed her, no one would know that she let the dragon go. She kneeled next to the beast, taking the bolas rope and pulling it away from the body, cutting every rope one by one. With the last rope the dragon shot up, pining Hiccup under its claws.

This was it, Hiccup hadn’t thought things through, had she? Of course the dragon would be mad! Well, with the hot breath of the dragon fanning her face, she accepted her fate. What a way to go! The tribe’s disappointment killed by a dragon, how ironic in a way.

But she wasn’t dead. The dragon had leaned in and when she thought it was all over, the Night Fury just roared in her face and flew off. She was alive! She pulled all of her strength and stood up to head back, she didn’t make it far as her vision went black.

When she woke up, it was already dark. Oh Thor, her father was probably back home and he was wondering where she was. She did not want to deal with him tonight! But she still made her way home, her bed sounding way better than the cold forest floor.

As she made her way inside, her heart fell when she saw her father still up. She sighed to herself as she tried to get pass him, she didn’t succeed.

“Hiccup.” Her father’s voice stopped her halfway up the stairs.

“Dad,” she greeted him back.

“I have to talk to you,” Stoick turned to her, his eyes widening at her dirty appearance.

“I have to talk to you too,” Hiccup agreed, she would have to tell him that she was giving up on dragons sooner or later, but sooner was better.

“I've decided I don't want to fight dragons anymore.”

“I think it's time you learn to fight dragons.”

They said at the same time, then again they spoke simultaneously.

“What?”

“You go first,” Stoick told her.

“No, no, you go first,” she insisted, buttering him up might stop him from getting angry after she told him that she didn’t want anything to do with dragons.

“Alright. You get your wish. Dragon Training. You start in the morning.” Stoick said in conclusion, without even asking her what she wanted.

“Oh, man, I should've gone first!” Hiccup was panicking, this wasn’t the plan, “Uh, 'cause I was thinking, you know, we have a surplus of dragon-fighting Vikings, but do we have enough... bread-making Vikings, or small home repair Vikings--?”

“You'll need this,” he said as he pushed an axe that he got from the wall into her hands.

“I don't want to fight dragons,” she disagreed trying to push the axe away from herself.

“Come on. Yes, you do,” Stoick laughed her statement off.

“Let me rephrase: Dad, I can't kill dragons,” she pleadingly told him.

“But you will kill dragons.”

“No, I'm really very extra sure that I won't.”

“It's time, Hiccup.” Stoick forcefully said to her.

“Can you not hear me?!” she exclaimed in frustration.

“This is serious, Hiccup!” Stoick yelped, “When you carry this axe, you carry all of us with you. Which means you walk like us. You talk like us. You think like us. No more of... this.” He explained gesturing to her.

“You just gestured to all of me,” she rebutted in offence.

“Deal?” he asked her.

“This conversation is feeling very one-sided,” She complained with a frown.

“DEAL?!” he basically shouted as he pushed the axe to her once again.

“Deal,” she sighed as she took the axe, seeing the conversation going nowhere.

“Good,” he said satisfied, “Train hard. I'll be back. Probably.” He told her as he picked up his things and left the house.

“And I'll be here. Maybe,” she whispered to herself, she looked down at the axe she could barely hold up, determination filled her, she knew what to do. “But you won’t like what I’m going to be,” she said to the empty house with a smirk.

‘I wonder what Ruff is up to?’ she thought to herself as she let the axe drop from her grasp.

Chapter Text

“Hiccup!” Ruffnut called as soon as Hiccup left her home the next morning.

Hiccup smiled even as she watched Ruffnut say something that sounded like ‘Shut up troll’ to her brother as she left him on his own. Ruffnut ran to her, throwing her arms on her in a hug which Hiccup reciprocated with gusto. Hiccup watched as Tuffnut rolled his eyes and ran to Snotlout who was up ahead.

“Ruff,” Hiccup greeted, “What’s new?”

“I’m planning a prank,” Ruffnut seriously said as she pulled away from the smaller girl, “And I need your help.”

“Oh? Who’s the victim?” she asked with interest as she started walking towards the academy. Ruffnut fell into step next to her and delved into her plans to make Tuffnut take a bath in manure. Hiccup’s face was between interest and disgust as the girl finished telling her the plan.

“Oh!” Ruffnut exclaimed after they were almost at the academy, “Isn’t your father going to have your head if he sees us together?” she asked as she looked around for any sight of the man.

“He could try,” Hiccup rolled her eyes, “Don’t worry. He left last night with the others.”

“Left where?” Ruffnut asked tilting her head.

“To ‘look for the nest’,” Hiccup answered, mimicking the voice of her father making Ruffnut laugh, “After he told me I have no choice but to join Dragon Training.”

“Didn’t you want that?”

“What I wanted was for him to leave me alone,” Hiccup explained as she came to a stop far from the gates to the academy and far away from the boys who were waiting there, “It’s not like I’m going to be chief.”

“You don’t know that,” Ruff tried to comfort her, she pointed at the group of boys, “They’re not better than you.”

“In my father’s eyes? Everyone is better than me,” Hiccup told her and lowered the girl’s extended finger, but it didn’t matter because the boy’s had noticed and were now looking at the two girls.

“Even Snotlout?” Ruff whispered in disbelief.

“Even Snotlout,” Hiccup agreed, “And especially Arne.”

“Of course he likes golden boy,” Ruffnut rolled her eyes, “Even you like him.”

“Who I like and who I don’t doesn’t matter,” Hiccup hissed as she punched Ruffnut’s shoulder, the female twin only laughed, “If you don’t shut up about that I’ll tell dad that you helped with the yak tipping.”

“Hey, hey,” Ruff raised her hands in surrender, “Don’t ruin a girl’s life because of a joke.”

Hiccup glared at the girl with narrowed eyes before she burst out laughing. Ruffnut knew almost everything about her, so this kind of teasing was a staple in their friendship. Ruffnut knew about Hiccup’s crush, she knew about her ‘secret’ mischief streak, and about her want for her father to just be proud of her.

Hiccup stopped laughing and the girls stood there in comfortable silence. Gobber was late, which was to be expected from the smith. He never hurried anywhere, he believed that if people wanted something they would wait. Ruffnut put her arm around Hiccup’s shoulder and leaned on her as they both observed the boys.

Fishlegs was nose deep in what, Hiccup knew, was a copy of The Dragon Manual he had made himself. Fishlegs believed that knowing everything about a dragon would help him defeat the beast. He was foolish in that way, because now, Hiccup knew that what had happened to her was not written in any book and she couldn’t have prepared for it by reading.

Snotlout was currently roughhousing with Tuffnut. It was hard to Hiccup to believe that the boy was next in line to be chief. It wasn’t official yet, but Hiccup knew she was not going to be able to keep her place as heir, unless she managed to find someone to marry before the tribe decided to take away her title. And that was not going to happen. Hiccup wished someone else would be the first choice after her, but family was important to vikings, so her idiotic cousin was next.

Tuffnut was an interesting case. His sister was Hiccup’s best friend, but he still held on to the idea that she was not worthy of Ruff’s friendship. The male twin kind of despised Hiccup for ‘Taking his sister from him’ even though Hiccup wasn’t the one who started their friendship. One day Ruffnut just walked up to her, took her hand and pulled her into the forest to a clearing. When a very panicked Hiccup had asked what she was doing, Ruffnut just said they were having a ‘girl’s night’. From then on they were friends, much to Tuff’s and the Chief’s discomfort.

Next to the two fighting boys sat Arne. He was sharpening his axe with a rock he found on the ground. Hiccup cringed at that, sharpening the axe with a simple rock was a temporary fix and could damage the weapon. She should tell him that when she had the chance, even if then that would mean the boy would visit the forge less often for repairs.

Of course, only if he listened to her. Arne was the ‘golden boy’ of Berk as Ruff had said. He was perfect, at least that was what her father kept saying any time she messed up.

‘Just look at Arne.’

‘Why can’t you be like Arne.’

‘Arne would make such a great chief.’

She was sick of hearing that. Arne was an exceptional fighter, but sometimes he was so stand-offish that Hiccup wasn’t sure he knew how to talk to other people. He strived for greatness, but that meant stepping over people. He was dedicated and Hiccup appreciated that, but she despised the fact that he could be who he wanted to be and still be accepted. Hiccup’s crush didn’t change the fact that she had those feeling towards the boy and those feelings didn’t change the fact that she had the crush.

Gobber’s uneven steps caught Hiccup’s attention. The smith was leisurely walking towards the academy. He nodded at the girl’s in greeting as he passed them. The greeting he gave the boys was completely different as he pushed Tuffnut out of his way to open the gates, the girls were the last ones to enter.

 “Welcome to Dragon Training!” Gobber said as they looked around the academy in wonder.

Hiccup wasn’t impressed though, she had been in the academy a lot of times, it was part of her apprenticeship with Gobber. She helped him clean the academy when he didn’t want to, even if she didn’t like it she had to, otherwise her father would pull her from the forge for life, as he never wanted her to take the apprenticeship in the first place.

“No turning back,” she heard Arne say.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she mumbled to herself, making Ruff snort next to her.

“I hope I get some serious burns!” Tuff said to him.

“I'm hoping for some mauling, like on my shoulder or lower back,” Ruffnut pipped up next to her while gesturing to her shoulder.

“Yeah, it's only fun if you get a scar out of it,” Arne absent-mindedly agreed with a shrug.

“Yeah, no kidding, right? Pain. Love it,” Hiccup said, sarcasm dripping from her voice making the others turn to look at her.

“Oh, great. Who let her in?” Tuffnut asked, even though he had seen her waiting with Ruff.

“My father,” Hiccup answered with a shrug, “If you have any complains take it up with him.”

Tuffnut bristled at her words and turned back to look at Gobber. The other did too, but Hiccup knew, this was going to be a long day.

Chapter Text

Hiccup had been right. It was a long day. She was awful at fighting dragons, and almost getting killed the second day in a row really made her very uncomfortable. She couldn’t help but marvel at her own stupidity as she went back to the place where she had met the Night Fury. Stupidity or curiosity, it didn’t matter at this point.

“Remember: a dragon will always – always – go for the kill,” Gobber had said.

His words rang in her head as she found the bolas she had cut when freeing the dragon. She crouched down and picked one them up.

“So, why didn't you?” she couldn’t help but ask herself.

She put the bola down and started walking towards the direction the dragon had flown to. Hiccup didn’t know what she would find, but her gut told her she would find something. So she walked until she stumbled upon a cove. She had forgotten this was here.

“Well, this was stupid,” she finally admitted to herself as she took in the empty cove.

This would be the best place for a dragon to rest, after this cove there were no other naturally formed places like the cove, and it would be dangerous for a dragon to stay somewhere else. She sighed and was about to head back, when something caught her eye.

On the ground laid something that looked like a small rock, she crouched and picked one up. It was a scale! That meant that the Night Fury had been here, but the empty cove meant that it was long gone by now.

‘The scales could make a nice accessory,’ she thought, she never knew what to get Ruffnut for the girl’s birthday, the scales could make a nice necklace and Ruffnut was unlikely to ask questions.

She was startled when something fell from the entrance to the cove she had found. It wasn’t something, it was someone. The Night Fury. It had tried to get out of the cove, but hadn’t managed to reach its top and had to fly back to the ground.

Hiccup quickly jumped lower and hid behind a rock, out of the dragon’s sight. She watched as the Night Fury huffed and tried to fly up again, only to fail and try to settle back down in the cove.

Hiccup quickly pulled out a notebook she kept on her person at any given time. She could not miss the opportunity to document the dragon, even if she couldn’t show it to anyone. She had to do so for herself, because years after this, she would need proof to know that this was real and not a delusion. She drew the dragons quickly and efficiently.

“Why don't you just... fly away?” she asked out loud as she watched the dragon struggle.

The Night Fury blasted the ground in frustration and its tail caught her eye. She corrected her drawing, erasing one tail fin when she saw that the dragon had only one. The dragon tried to fly out again, only to crash near a pond in the cove. The Night Fury shook off the crash and tried to catch a fish, only to fail once again.

Hiccup leaned over the rock to get a better look at the annoyed dragon. Her charcoal fell, she tried to catch it, but it tumbled down, catching the attention of the dragon. The Night Fury looked up directly at Hiccup. She froze. The dragon’s eyes were looking into her own, she felt like they were looking into her soul.

Hiccup let out a shaky breath. She looked at the dragon for a moment longer before she fled. The way it looked at her was so… human. It recognized her and didn’t do anything but stare. A shiver went down her back as she mindlessly wandered around the forest. She didn’t want to go back to the village just yet.

She should have gone back right away. She should have, but she didn’t, and now she was outside in the pouring rain. Hiccup hadn’t even noticed the sun go down, but there she was. Soaking wet, trekking through the forest she felt miserable, especially when she remembered she had to go to the Meade hall.

She pushed the buildings doors open and ignored Gobber’s glare at her direction. He was mad that she was late, but he knew her and she didn’t know what he expected. It was not like she wanted to sit there and suffer the mocking she would receive from her cousin.

“Alright. Where did Arne go wrong in the ring today?” Gobber asked, continuing his lesson.

Hiccup went over to their table and grabbed the food that was left for her, she rolled her eyes when her cousin moved to block her from sitting next to him, like she would do that. She grabbed a drink and moved to a different table with her food, only so that Gobber wouldn’t lecture her later for not eating.

“I mistimed my somersault dive. It was sloppy. It threw off my reverse tumble,” Arne criticized himself.

“Yeah, we noticed,” Hiccup heard Ruffnut say and she couldn’t help but agree, smiling a little to herself.

“No, no, you were great. That was so ‘Arne’,” Snotlout praised and Hiccup silently groaned to herself. Her cousin tried so hard to be liked by Arne, but the ‘golden boy’ saw right through Snotlout’s boot licking.

“He's right, you have to be tough on yourselves,” Gobber agreed and looked at Hiccup, “Where did Hiccup go wrong?” he prompted and Hiccup just knew she would hide all of his spare legs for this.

“Uh, she showed up?” Ruffnut prompted and Hiccup nodded to herself, after all she had complained to the female twin that she didn’t even want to be in training.

“She didn't get eaten,” Tuffnut mockingly suggested. Hiccup raised her eyebrows, she hadn’t expected that.

“She's never where she should be,” Arne said in conclusion. Hiccup blinked and turned to look at him, but he was looking at the table in front of himself. He was right, she wasn’t where she should be, but his tone kind of hurt.

“Thank you, Arne,” Gobber said, interrupting anymore potential mocking she would receive, “You need to live and breathe this stuff. The Dragon Manual. Everything we know about every dragon we know of.”

Gobber took the manual from a nearby table and set it down on the table in front of the others. Hiccup glanced at the book, she had read it once, but a refresher wouldn’t hurt. She shrugged to herself, her wet clothes started to feel weird against her skin, but she pushed through it, leaving now would only earn her more of Gobber’s ire. The rain hadn’t stopped yet, so there was no point in trying to go change her clothes, only to get wet again while going back to the hall. Thunder roared outside the building, gaining Gobber’s attention.

“No attacks tonight. Study up,” the smith decided and left them on their own.

“Wait, you mean, read?” Tuffnut exclaimed in disbelief.

“While we're still alive?” Ruffnut added, much to Hiccup’s amusement. She knew that Ruffnut actually liked reading, but preferred that people believed she didn’t, something about keeping her image pure.

“Why read words when you can just kill the stuff the words tell you stuff about?” her cousin said, and Hiccup knew that she would need to speak to her father and ask him if they were really related, because she had doubts.

“Oh! I've read it like, seven times,” Fishlegs excitedly started, “There's this water dragon that sprays boiling water at your face. And-And there's this other one that buries itself for like a week-“

“Yeah, that sounds great,” Tuffnut interrupted him, “See, there was a chance I was going to read that...”

“...But, now...” Ruffnut let the sentence hang in the air, making it clear that she was not in the mood to read the book.

“You guys read, I'll go kill stuff,” Snotlout told them and left the table.

“Oh, and there's this other one that has these spines that look like trees...” Hiccup heard Fishlegs continue his ramblings, she turned to look at the retreating group and caught Ruffnut’s eye. The twin gave her a small wave goodbye, which Hiccup returned.

Hiccup looked back at their table where Arne still sat. She had hoped he would leave with the others, her embarrassment from earlier in the day when she made a fool of herself hit her full force. She got up from the table and made her way to his, she looked at the book.

“So I guess we'll share?” she weakly offered.

“Read it,” he shortly answered and pushed the book in her direction, getting up from the table and leaving her alone.

“All mine then. Wow, okay. So, I'll see you, uh...” the doors shut behind him and she winced, “tomorrow,” she sighed and put her head in her hands, “Why am I like this?” she asked herself.

Hiccup shook her head and left the book on the table. She grabbed her food and removed her fur vest, she went over to the fire that was in the middle of the building. She hung her vest over the stones next to the fire pit and sat down next to the fire so her clothes could dry a bit. Hiccup ate her food slowly, in the time it took her to eat and dry herself, the other people who had been in the building left, leaving her completely alone.

Hiccup got up from the ground and took her dry vest with her. She put away her plate and went over to get some candles, the dying fire didn’t provide enough light anymore and she wanted to skim the book before she went to sleep.

She put the candle on the table next to the book and flipped it open, starting to read to herself.

“Dragon classifications. Strike Class, Fear Class, Mystery Class,” she flipped the page, “Thunderdrum: This reclusive dragon inhabits sea caves and dark tide pools. When startled, the Thunderdrum produces a concussive sound that can kill a man at close range. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight,” another page, “Timberjack: This gigantic creature has razor sharp wings that can slice through full grown trees. Extremely dangerous, kill on sight,” and another, “Scauldron: Sprays scalding water at its victim. Extremely dangerous. Changewing: Even newly hatched dragons can spray acid. Kill on sight,” she didn’t even bother reading the whole entries at this point, “Gronckle, Zippleback, The Skrill, Boneknapper, Whispering Death.”

A crack of thunder startled her, Hiccup let out a breath and looked back at the book. She remembered these dragons. It was hard to forget with the colorful descriptions they had. There was a reason why vikings rarely read this book more than once, the words stuck with you no matter what.  

“Burns its victims, buries its victims, chokes its victims, turns its victims inside-out,” she continued reading out loud, “Extremely dangerous, extremely dangerous, kill on sight, kill on sight, kill on sight...”

She reached one of the last pages of the book and paused, it was the page about the Night Fury, it had little information. There was no picture, no size or wingspan.

“Night Fury: Speed, unknown. Size, unknown,” her voice dropped to a whisper, “The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. Never engage this dragon. Your only chance: Hide and pray it does not find you.”

Hiccup pulled out her notebook and laid it over the book. It would be so easy to re-draw the picture she had into the manual, but she knew it would raise more questions than she could answer. She picked up her notebook and closed the manual with a sigh.

Nobody could know what she had done. She would become more of an outcast if anyone knew and she didn’t want that. Hiccup knew she couldn’t kill dragons, she knew that the village would find out soon enough, but they couldn’t know that she let a dragon go. They could never know, under no circumstances or it would be her head on the chopping block.  

Chapter Text

“Is this some kind of a joke to you?! Our parents' war is about to become ours! Figure out which side you're on.”

Hiccup’s head rang with Arne’s words.

“Figure out which side you're on.”

She didn’t know which side she was on! The side that always left her alone or the side that haunted her nightmares more often than not. Dragons or vikings. It should be clear to her which side she was on, but it wasn’t. The fact that she was even thinking about this was treason!

Hiccup left her home during lunch, when most of the people would be inside the Meade hall. The less people saw her, the better. She ran to the academy, she needed a shield and a fish of some kind. Those things would give her the best chance to get out of the cove with her life intact.

Yes, she was going to go to the cove and try to get close to the Night Fury. Was it a stupid idea? Yes, it was. Was she still going to do it? Of course. She needed to find out if dragons were really as dangerous as vikings made them out to be, or if the vikings were just projecting themselves onto the overgrown reptiles.

She reached the academy and went over to the shield rack. As she was looking for one she could take without it being noticed, Hiccup could hear the caged dragons rattling inside their cages. She couldn’t blame them, being in an enclosed space, not really being able to move and the darkness could drive anyone insane.

“Hiccup!”

The call of her name startled her, she snapped her head up to see who had called her. Luckily it was only Ruffnut, she could deal with Ruffnut. That did confuse Hiccup though. What was Ruffnut doing here?

“Hey,” Hiccup said and looked back at the rack.

“If you’re planning what I think you’re planning, let me get Tuffnut down here,” Ruffnut laughed, “I want to see him get shredded by the dragons first!”

“What are you talking about?” Hiccup asked with a tilt of her head.

“Aren’t you planning to try fighting the dragons on your own?” the twin asked as she came to stand by Hiccup.

“…no,” she answered after a moment, “I’m just seeing if any of the shields need repair.”

“Ah,” Ruffnut nodded then gave her a suspicious stare, “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes, why wouldn’t I be?” Hiccup asked, irritation bleeding into her tone. Ruffnut raised her hands in surrender.

“Hey, after training you were acting weird, you can’t fault me for thinking the worst.”

“Oh, it’s not like I almost died,” Hiccup said, sarcasm dripping from her tone, “And then got yelled at by someone for ‘not being where I should be’.”

“Yeah, Arne was an asshole,” Ruffnut agreed, “My brother was an asshole too, sorry about him.”

“Again, while I don’t support his behavior, he did almost die, so I understand somewhat,” Hiccup shrugged, “If I was in his position I would’ve probably done the same.”

“Still, I meant what I said,” Ruffnut turned to Hiccup and threw an arm over her shoulder, “You can do better.”

“I doubt that,” Hiccup stepped from the girl’s hold and took a beat up shield that was on its way to falling apart, “I’m going to go take care of this thing, bye!”

Hiccup left Ruffnut in the academy and made her way home. She had some fish there, so there was no need to go anywhere else. She grabbed the first fish she saw and left through the back door.

Getting back to the cove was easier now that she knew where it was located. She found an entrance at a lower point of the cove, but entering the cove itself through there came with some problems. Mostly the problem of her shield getting stuck on the rocks that lined its entrance.

Hiccup didn’t let that deter her and threw the fish inside the cove as she stayed behind the shield. She waited a few moments and nothing happened. The cove seemed empty once again, but she knew better. Cautiously, she ducked under the stuck shield and entered the cove.

Hiccup grabbed the fish from the ground and looked around, trying to spot the dragon. She finally did, jumping back when she noticed the dragon was behind her, perching atop a rock. Hiccup shakily held out the fish she had in her hand. The dragon curiously approached her, almost taking the fish out of her hands, but it jumped back and bared its teeth.

Hiccup jumped back at the abrupt change of behavior. She started at the dragon for a moment and noticed its eyes were directed at her waist. She looked down and saw that her knife was on full display, she slowly touched it only for the Night Fury to let out a threatening growl. Hiccup quickly moved her hand away, letting the beast calm down, before she quickly removed her knife from her belt.

Even with the knife on the ground the dragon didn’t let up. In a move that weirded Hiccup out, the dragon gestured for her to kick the knife to the pond, she did so without question, not wanting to displease the dragon further. With the knife gone, the disposition of the dragon changed drastically. Gone was the threatening beast, in its place was a docile, friendly dragon, which was weird for Hiccup to think about.

Hiccup held out the fish again and this time the dragon opened its toothless mouth and waited for her to let go of the fish.

“Huh. Toothless. I could've sworn you had...” Hiccup jumped back when the dragon grabbed the fish out of her hands with its, suddenly, tooth-full mouth, the dragon chomped the fish in half and licked its jaws, “...teeth.”

The Night Fury sniffed at Hiccup as she back away. She tripped on her own legs, crawling back from the curious dragon.

“Uh, uh, no, no, no. I-I don't have any more,” she tried to tell the dragon as she backed herself against a rock.

She could hear her heartbeat in her ears when the dragon sat down in front of her. She kept looking at him as he regurgitated half of the fish onto her lap. Hiccup looked at her lap in shock, she quickly looked up at the Night Fury. It caught her eye and looked back at the half eaten fish in her lap a few times, it dawned on Hiccup. She sighed and brought the fish up to her mouth and took a bite of it, she stopped from herself from spitting out the offending bite. She hummed as if she enjoyed the taste, and held out the fish in hopes that the dragon will take it back, but when the Night Fury showed that it wanted Hiccup to swallow, she lost all hope.

Hiccup swallowed the slimy fish and almost puked when she felt it slide down her throat. She gave the dragon a weak smile, hoping that it was over. The Night Fury narrowed its eyes at her expression then slowly lifted its own mouth into a smile. Hiccup couldn’t help her amazement at the human like expression on the dragon’s face.

Hiccup slowly extended her hand, her amazement overtaking her fear. Before her hand could make contact with its snout, the dragon snarled and flew away from the girl. Hiccup followed the dragon where it scorched the ground and laid down.

She watched as the dragon covered its face with its tail. Curiosity overtook her and she tried to touch the strange appendage. Hiccup didn’t manage to do so as the dragon noticed her attempt and growled at her before stacking off. The Night Fury used its tail to hang upside down on a branch, clearly set on ignoring the girl.

Hiccup sighed and looked up. There was some light still left so she could stay here for longer. She took out her notebook and decided to sketch the sleeping dragon. Hiccup got every little detail she noticed, but by the time she was done the Night Fury was still ignoring her.

Staring at the dragon got old and Hiccup moved to sit on a nearby rock. She picked up a stick and started drawing on the ground. All the staring she had done was stuck in her mind, without thinking the shape she was drawing started to become the Night Fury’s head.

A breath of warm air on her neck made her pause for a moment, but she continued her sketch, not wanting to startle the dragon away. Hiccup followed the dragon with her eyes when it moved away. She watched with confusion as it pulled a tree branch from a nearby tree and dragged it back to where she was.

The Night Fury danced around her, letting the branch drag on the ground. The dragon kept looking back at her and it didn’t even flinch as Hiccup let out a yelp when the branch hit her head. With a final dot, the dragon seemed to be done with its drawing and sat down, looking expectantly at the girl.

Hiccup got up from the rock and looked around the dragon’s drawing with interest. She wanted to get a better look at it from the direction the Night Fury was looking at it, because it didn’t look like much from where she was standing. Hiccup took a step and was stopped by a growl.

Hiccup lifted her leg and the growling stopped. She put her foot down again and the dragon growled when her foot touched a line in its drawing. When she stepped over the line, the dragon didn’t react and gave her an interested look, Hiccup smiled and started to dance around the lines.

Eventually she got out of the lines, backing herself into the sitting dragon. Its breath fanned her neck. She slowly turned around and tried to touch the dragon again. The Night Fury let out a growl and Hiccup thought for a moment. The dragon got defensive at the mere sight of her knife, it didn’t trust vikings, it didn’t trust her.

Hiccup could understand that. If she wanted to earn its trust, Hiccup had to show that she trusted it. She glanced at its eyes one more time, before she closed her own and let her head hang. She left her hand in the air and didn’t try to move it any closer to the dragon, letting it decide for itself if she was worthy.

She gasped as the cold scales made contact with her hand. Hiccup slowly opened her eyes and looked at her hand in disbelief. She was touching a dragon. She was touching a dragon! And it hadn’t bitten her hand off!

Even as the Night Fury opened its eyes and left with a snort the wonder she felt stayed. Hiccup looked down at her hand, slowly closing it to a fist.

“Figure out which side you're on.”

She knew which side she was on, and it wasn’t the vikings’.

Chapter Text

Hiccup has never been more thankful that she learned how to sew. In earlier years she despised anything that was considered a woman’s job. Her father’s constant praise of Arne, his constant deflection when it came to talking about her or her mother, really, the man couldn’t even hold a decent conversation with her. He always wanted to talk about things that did not apply to her, it was clear that her father had wanted a son. So she had tried to be that for a while, but the need to know things outweighed the need to be what her father wanted.

So she learned how to sew and she was happy she had, otherwise, making the tail for the dragon would have been very difficult. Gobber’s words hit something, a piece of information she had forgotten about.

“A downed dragon is a dead dragon.”

Hiccup didn’t know why she had forgotten about that tidbit of information. She had heard Gobber’s stories time and time again, the time she spent at the forge gave him the time to do so. Gobber was like her father in a way, he didn’t really know how to connect with her, but he at least tried. She had heard his stories about losing his limbs a lot of times, and the stories kept changing.

But if Gobber had one thing going for him, it was that he did not care who you were or what you did, he would teach you what he knew all the same. Hiccup was on her way to becoming a master smith thanks to Gobber.

She had drawn out her blueprints for the tail and couldn’t help but wonder what he would think. She was using the skill he thought her to help a dragon, something he killed when given the chance. Maybe he would be confused, angry, maybe he would give up on her like so many others already have.

The thought made her pause, she had the leather pulled halfway up the metal skeleton of the tail. She looked down at her piece of work. It was an amazing accomplishment, Hiccup liked to think that Gobber would be proud, but at the end it didn’t matter. She chose a side and she was keeping to it.

Hiccup pulled the leather the rest of the way up after a minute of pause. She spread out the tail and compared it to her drawing, it was almost identical. She collapsed the tail and sighed. No turning back now.

-o- 

“Hey, Toothless,” Hiccup called as she entered the cove, she let the heavy sack of fish fall from her shoulder, “I hope you're hungry.”

She pushed the sack over, making the fish spill on the ground. Getting the fish was easy, she had gotten up before anyone else and had snuck into the docks where the fresh fish was kept, and she had borrowed a sack of the fish.

“Okay, that's disgusting,” she said to herself, “Uh... we've got some salmon, some nice Icelandic cod, and a whole smoked eel,” she told the dragon as he nosed at the slimy fish.

When he smelled the eel Toothless roared in fear and jumped back from the pile of fish. Hiccup startled at the change of mood from the Night Fury, she almost dropped the prosthetic tail she was holding. She quickly figured out what was wrong and took the smoked eel out of the pile.

“No, no, no, no! It's okay,” she reassured him as she threw the eel aside, “Yeah, I don't really like eel much either," she mumbled and wiped the slime off of her fingers.

Toothless dug into the fish after the eel was gone. Hiccup took the moment and snuck around the dragon to his tail. She kneeled next to his tail and laid the prosthetic next to his tail.

“Okay. That's it. That's it, just stick with good stuff. And don't you mind me. I'll just be back here... minding my own business,” she mumbled.

When the tail moved exactly out of her way, she thought the Night Fury had noticed what she was trying to do. But the dragon was still unaware, the tail moving out of her way was just a coincidence. A coincidence that annoyed her enough for her to sit on the offending limb.

That was a mistake on her part. She had turned her back to Toothless and didn’t see him start spreading his wings, reading for take-off.

“It's okay. Okay... okay... There. That's not too bad. It works,” Hiccup mumbled to herself as she looked at the spread out tail. Her made prosthetic was almost perfect, it was smaller than the flesh one, but considering she had made it out of memory it was as good as it could be.

Hiccup lurched forward as Toothless took off into the air. She clutched the dragon’s tail with her legs and arms, holding on for dear life.

“Whoa! No! No! No!” she yelled in fear.

Hiccup quickly glanced at the dragon’s head and saw that they were heading towards the rock wall. She leaned to the side, changing their flight path. She manually opened the prosthetic tail and managed to save them from crashing to the ground.

“OH, MY-- IT'S WORKING! YES! YES, I DID IT!” Hiccup cheered.

Her voice gained Toothless’ attention. The Nigh Fury threw the girl off of his tail, into the water below. Hiccup shouted as she reached the water, a moment of panic passed as she figured out what happened. After that it didn’t take long for her to reach the surface.

“Yeah!” she cheered as she got out of the water.

She laughed as she saw the Nigh Fury in the water next to her. The dragon sneezed and splashed her for laughing, only making her laugh harder. She was soaking wet, out of breath but happier than she had been in a long time.

‘I chose well,’ Hiccup thought to herself.

She waded through the water onto the shore, Toothless following her. She took off her vest and laid it on the ground, sitting next to it. Hiccup motioned for the dragon to approach her.

“This is a prosthetic,” she explained when the dragon laid his tail in her lap without being asked.

Toothless sniffed at the contraption and then looked at the girl with curiosity. The dragon crooned as she removed the fake fin from his tail. She laid the tail next to her vest so it could dry as well, she sighed and laid on the ground, enjoying the warm sun.

Chapter Text

“Why did I do that?” Hiccup asked herself, her hands gripping her head, “Why did I do that?”

She kept repeating the question to herself as she paced inside the forge. She had been hiding inside the building since training ended with her driving the Zippleback back into his cage with only an eel. She didn’t understand why she had did that. She didn’t want to fight dragons anymore, she didn’t want to draw attention to herself either. Bringing attention to herself and then failing later on would only bring her more scrutiny.

She knew she needed to go and get the eel from the dragon’s cage. She had seen the look of terror in his eyes and the Zippleback’s fearful shriek still rang in her head. Hiccup didn’t want to see or heard that kind of terror on any dragon’s face again. She would never use an eel against a dragon again.

She had been biding her time, waiting for the village to calm down so she could leave the forge. She successfully did just that, leaving the forge in the late evening when not a lot of people were outside. Most were in the Meade hall, eating their last meal for the day, those people included the guards that normally patrolled the village and guarded the academy.

She had managed to get to the academy without problem. She stood in the middle of the killing ring, trying to build up the courage to get into the Zippleback’s cage. Finally, after taking a deep breath, she approached the cage, her eyes immediately falling to the feeding hatch. Hiccup was small enough to fit through it, she wasn’t stupid enough to open the cage and let the dragon escape. Even if she had wanted to do that, she liked her head on her shoulders and would not free the dragon when she was the best suspect.

Hiccup crawled through the hatch and her ears were immediately filled with the scared whimpers of the dragon. She was filled with guilt and quickly ran to the eel, snatching it up from the ground and throwing it through the open hatch.

She was about to crawl out when the dragon started purring, her gaze landed on the Zippleback and that seemed like the permission the dragon needed to get near her. The two heads snuggled up to her frozen body, but as she saw that the dragon wasn’t hostile, she relaxed.

“Okay, okay,” she giggled and pushed the heads away, “I’m sorry I put it here in the first place.”

The dragons started purring again, it seemed to her that he accepted her apology. Her accepted apology warmed her heart. With a final pat on the heads, she left the cage. She skipped back to the forge, she felt happier and her good mood gave her good ideas. A saddle. A saddle would answer her worry of how to get the prosthetic tail to work, if she was controlling the tail it would mean that she got Toothless in the air faster. Her flying with him? An unexpected benefit to the situation.

-o-

“Toothless!” Hiccup yelled as she waded through the tall grass.

They had crashed. She had been too confident in her ability to control the tail with rope, she had pulled too hard and they ended up crashing in a field of tall grass. The grass field was on a cliff and she was worried that Toothless had fallen off as she could not see the dragon anywhere. She pushed her way through the grass, calling the dragon repeatedly.

“Tooth – “ she cut herself off as she stumbled upon the Night Fury rolling around in the grass.

Hiccup stared at the sight, trying to figure out what he was doing. It looked like he was playing, and Hiccup wanted to figure out why. After all, they had just crashed and even with her limited knowledge, she knew his behavior was strange. While she was thinking, something tickled her neck, she picked a blade of grass out of her hair and stared at it.

“Wow,” she gasped as it hit her.

The grass was some kind of… dragon nip, making the reptiles docile and happy. She picked up a handful of the grass so she could give it to Toothless later.

-o-

“’I left my axe back in the ring.’ That was really smart, Hiccup,” she berated herself as she stomped through the forest, “You didn’t bring an axe! They’ll figure it out and then you’ll have to explain yourself!”

She continued talking to herself as she made her way to the cove. Hiccup had knocked the Gronckle out with a wave of her hand in front of everyone! She knew she was smart, but at the moment she felt like the most stupid person in the world. She had seen the suspicious look on Arne’s face.

“They are bound to find out!” she told herself again before stopping in her tracks.

She thought about it again. She didn’t hide the grass and had taken down the Gronckle with a wave of her hand. The others didn’t question how she, arguably the worst viking in history, had managed that.

“I’m giving them too much credit,” she calmly told herself, pinching the bridge of her nose, “How are they still alive?” she asked herself, sighing at their obliviousness.

She continued her stride, now feeling better. She really didn’t need to worry, after all, who would even believe that she had taken down a Gronckle with a handful of grass?

In her relief she failed to look out for anyone else, so she missed the footsteps following in her path. The others were oblivious, but Hiccup failed to remember that someone knew her very well.

Someone who would notice her disappearing day after day, someone who would want to figure out what was up with her. Someone who knew how to sneak around and go unnoticed. Someone who had absolutely no self-preservation and knew that she had no axe with her that day.

Chapter Text

Hiccup was acting weird. Very weird in Ruffnut’s opinion. The girl had been avoiding people for a while now, and while that wasn’t anything new, Hiccup had been avoiding her too. Ruffnut was concerned for her friend. So here she was, following her friend through the forest. Ruffnut was doing her best to be stealthy, but considering Hiccup was rambling to herself, the stealth was an unnecessary addition.

“They are bound to find out!” Ruffnut hear her exclaim.

Find out about what? Now Ruffnut was really curious. Hiccup was someone who didn’t have many secrets, because the girl mostly didn’t care about what others thought about her. If Hiccup was hiding something, it would be something good.

Ruffnut his behind a tree when Hiccup stopped in place. She waited a few moments before sneaking a quick look and cursed when Hiccup was nowhere to be found, still Ruffnut knew where the girl had stopped. She went to that place and looked around to where the shorter girl could have gone, it seemed like she had disappeared, but after looking closer Ruffnut saw a disturbed bush farther away. Ruffnut smiled to herself and headed that way.

Without Hiccup in front, Ruffnut had a harder time knowing where to go, but she managed well enough. Eventually, when she was about to give up and try again another day, Ruffnut stumbled upon a cove. While the place was beautiful, it appeared vacant at first glance.

“Aww, you like that bud?”

Those words made Ruffnut pause, it was unmistakably Hiccup’s voice. The female twin looked down at the cove again, still not seeing anything, until she looked directly down. There was Hiccup, scratching something. Ruffnut leaned to get a closer look, unintentionally shoving some pebbles down. She gasped and hid, pressing her bod down on the ground, hoping Hiccup hadn’t seen her.

Ruffnut couldn’t really believe what she had seen. Hiccup was down there, playing with a dragon, their main enemy. Ruffnut tried to wrap her head around the fact that Hiccup had betrayed their tribe, their way of life, to get friendly with the enemy.

The female twin let out a shaky exhale and raised herself up, cautiously taking another look into the cove. Ruffnut held in a gasp, Hiccup was gone and so was the dragon. Ruffnut frantically looked around the cove, it was empty. She didn’t know what to do, getting back to the village appeared to be the best choice to her. Ruffnut got up from the ground and before she could take a step, she was grabbed and taken down into the cove.

“No no no no no,” Ruffnut yelled as she reached the ground, immediately crawling back from the dragon who she knew had taken her here.

“Stop,” Hiccup’s stern voice reached her.

Ruffnut stopped in her tracks, breathing deeply. She watched as the smaller girl got down from the back of the dragon, the dragon itself was softly growling at her.

“Wha-what is this?” Ruffnut stuttered out, her eyes not leaving the strange dragon.

 “This – “ Hiccup said, her voice calm despite the situation, “ – is Toothless.”

“Why?” Ruffnut asked after Hiccup volunteered no further information.

“The better question is: why did you follow me?”

“Because you were acting weird!” Ruffnut shouted, Toothless growl grew louder, successfully pacifying the anger she had felt, replacing it with panic.

“Toothless,” Hiccup finally said, the dragon gave her a look and stopped growling, huffed and sat down. Hiccup then turned to Ruffnut, “You could’ve asked me.”

“Would you have told me?” she questioned and got up from the ground slowly, keeping an eye on the dragon who was also watching her every move.

“Probably,” Hiccup shrugged and crossed her arms, “You’re my best friend.”

The dragon growled, startling Ruffnut. Hiccup only rolled her eyes, a small smile creeping onto her lips.

“Best human friend,” the girl specified, that seemed to please the dragon as he snorted and laid down, not taking his eyes off of Ruffnut,

“Why?” Ruffnut asked again.

“Why what?”

“Why did you betray everything we stand for?”

Hiccup thought for a moment, she hadn’t really expected Ruffnut to give her a question she hadn’t considered. Hiccup sighed and looked directly at Ruffnut.

“Why does everything we stand for have to be hate?” she questioned back, “Why does a simple act of kindness make me weak in your eyes? Why does Toothless treat me better than almost all of the tribe?”

“That is our enemy – “Ruffnut said as she pointed at the dragon.

“That is my friend!” Hiccup interrupted her, “Yes, I betrayed everything you stand for! Because I can’t keep pretending I fit into that life!”

Hiccup finished yelling, letting her arms fall by her side. Her face was pulled into a frown, eyes full of unshed tears. Ruffnut looked at her friend, thinking about everything she had just said.

“You fit in perfectly,” Ruffnut tried to argue, Hiccup shook her head, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“Don’t lie,” she said, “I’m the most unviking like viking in existence. I’m tired of pretending I want to kill dragons, I’m tired of pretending to be someone I’m not.”

“And this is how you do it?” Ruffnut asked as she gestured to Toothless, Hiccup bit her bottom lip and shrugged.

“Yes.”

They stood in silence for a while. Toothless got up and went to the pond, not seeing a reason to stay now that Ruffnut had calmed down. Ruffnut was lost deep in thought, the fact that she was still alive after expended contact with a dragon hitting her. The girl knew that Hiccup was different and that she suffered for it, considering everything, befriending a dragon was completely a ‘Hiccup’ thing to do.

“What kind of dragon is he?” Ruffnut finally asked breaking the silence.

“Night Fury,” Hiccup answered, her gaze suspicious.

“So that raid – “

“Yes, I did shoot him down,” Hiccup nodded, guilt clear on her face.

“Okay,” Ruffnut finally shrugged, Hiccup stared at her in shock, “What? You’re my best friend.”

“Thank you,” Hiccup whimpered and threw herself onto the twin, enveloping her in a hug.

Ruffnut laughed and hugged the shorter girl back. She pulled herself away from her and looked at Toothless again.

“Tell me about him,” Ruffnut urged, Hiccup’s face lit up.

As Hiccup talked about everything, Ruffnut couldn’t help but think. Ruffnut could get behind this, after all, what could make life more interesting than some treason?

Chapter Text

“Tuffnut’s been asking about where we go,” Ruffnut mentioned as she spun a hammer in her hand.

Hiccup hummed absent-mindedly, but didn’t look up from the saddle she was modifying. Hiccup had gotten Ruffnut to help her bring some tools to the cove, working here was easier in the day-light compared to working in the forge at night. It was easier for her to notice imperfections that she had missed previously.

They had the day off of dragon training. Hiccup had ‘taken down’ the Nadder the day before and Gobber decided to come up with harder tasks for the trainees. For three days Hiccup and Ruffnut had been going to the cove together. Toothless had warmed up to the female twin when he saw that Hiccup trusted her, the Night Fury didn’t blink twice when Ruffnut came with Hiccup to the cove.

“Hiccup,” Ruffnut said again, “He’s suspicious.”

“They all should be,” she calmly answered and took the hammer from Ruffnut, “I would be concerned if they weren’t.”

“Hiccup,” Ruffnut said in a serious tone, “He told me Arne was suspicious too and was considering following us.”

“Ruffnut,” Hiccup sighed and put down the saddle she had been working on, “I’m the best in dragon training, taking down dragons with just a wave of my hand. Of course they’re suspicious that the worst viking is suddenly the best.”

“So we’re not going to do anything?”

“Tell Tuffnut we’re training or something,” Hiccup shrugged, “It’s not like they will believe anything else.”

“What about Arne?” Ruffnut questioned and handed Hiccup a piece of wire as the shorter girl went back to work, “He isn’t going to give up, you have a genuine chance of beating him.”

“I need to get everything back as it was,” Hiccup mumbled and lifter her eyes to meet Ruffnut’s, “He’s going to be suspicious as long as I’m better than him.”

“You’re going to fail on purpose?” Ruffnut looked at her like she was crazy.

“Yes,” Hiccup chuckled, “Then they’ll think it was all a fluke. Either way, I don’t deserve to win.”

“Yes you do,” Ruffnut argued.

Hiccup rolled her eyes and finished up with the saddle. She stood up and called Toothless to her, fitting the saddle back in place on the dragon’s back. With a few pulls and tugs, the saddle was back in place and Hiccup told Toothless to go run around to see if everything was in place.

“I’m a fraud, Ruff,” Hiccup finally explained as she gathered her equipment in a neat pile, “Everything I have achieved was not ‘the viking way’ to do things. I would not be able to complete the final test, no matter how hard I try, I just don’t have it in me.”

“But what if you win regardless?”

Hiccup shrugged and gestured in Toothless’ general direction with the hammer she had in her hand.

“All I need to do now is stay in the air for long enough and I have an escape plan,” she explained, still gesturing with the hammer.

“You would leave?” Ruffnut exclaimed in shock.

“Yes,” Hiccup simply answered, “Without you, there’s nothing really holding me here.”

“What about your dad?” Ruffnut questioned.

“He wouldn’t even notice I saw gone,” Hiccup gave a weak chuckle as Toothless jumped right in front on her, making her yelp in surprise.

“What’s up with your dragon?” Ruffnut wondered as he started looking around the cove.

Hiccup didn’t answer, she looked at Toothless for a moment and started moving her hands again. Toothless started jumping around and Hiccup chuckled. Ruffnut looked at her in question.

“The light,” Hiccup answered and Ruffnut finally noticed that the hammer Hiccup had in her hand managed to reflect a dot of light that had captured the dragon’s attention.

The girls stayed like that for a while, all conversation forgotten. They handed each other the hammer once in a while, laughing at Toothless’ antics, until the dragon figured out where the dot was coming from. Hiccup froze, as the hammer was back in her hands and Toothless slowly approached her. The Night Fury narrowed his eyes and hit the back of her head softly as she laughed.

Things winded down after that. The setting sun making it known that the girls would need to go back to the village soon. Normally, Hiccup would have no problem disappearing for the night, but with her new-found fame it was not an option.

-o-

Ruffnut couldn’t stop laughing as she entered the cove, Hiccup was still hanging attached to Toothless without a chance of getting out on her own. Hiccup rolled her eyes as Ruffnut fell to the ground, clutching her stomach.

“Can you stop?” Hiccup asked and Ruffnut did her best to stop laughing, only stopping completely when an annoyed Toothless shot a small plasma blast next to her.

“What happened to you?” Ruffnut questioned as she stood up and picked out a twig from Hiccup’s hair.

“A malfunction,” Hiccup sighed, “The safety hook bent and now I’m stuck.”

“I could run back to the village and get something from the forge,” Ruffnut offered after a moment.

“That would be too suspicious,” Hiccup sighed, “I saw Arne when I was coming to the cove and he tried to follow me, the fact that he didn’t follow you is fortunate.”

“Oh he would have liked to,” Ruffnut laughed, “I told Tuffnut to go bother him before he could.”

“Smart,” Hiccup chuckled as Toothless laid down, letting Hiccup sit on the ground next to him, “I’ll wait for night and figure something out then.”

Ruffnut shrugged and sat down next to Hiccup. They had a lot more free time as the training was spaced out to happen every three days instead of every day as it had been. Gobber wanted the Chief to be there during the final fight before the final test could happen, and with the ships not getting back for at least two weeks, training had to happen less frequently.

“So what else did I miss?” Ruffnut asked as she leaned back to look at the clouds.

Hiccup told her about the progress she had made with the tail and showed Ruffnut her cheat-sheet. Even when Ruffnut didn’t care about these types of things she did her best to listen, because she knew that Hiccup rarely had the chance to talk to anyone else about these types of things. Gobber was the one who listened to her ramblings in the forge, but she couldn’t talk to him about Toothless, so Ruffnut filled that spot.

Hiccup had tried out every position of the tail and knew what it did, the only thing she needed to do is fix the safety hook and she would be good to fly the next day. She was anxious about that, falling was a real possibility, but getting to see the sky up close won over any fear she had.

After telling Ruffnut everything, Hiccup asked about her day, to which Ruffnut happily told her what she did with her brother. Tuffnut had started to sulk because his sister had been hanging out with Hiccup more and Ruffnut dedicated that day to hand out with him so he would stop complaining and trying to follow Ruffnut when she went to hang out with Hiccup.

They talked about everyday things, Hiccup did her best not to think about the fact that she had, once again, failed to, well, fail. She had managed to get the Terrible Terror inside the cage in minutes and brought even more attention to herself by doing that.

“Tuff’s been asking to hang out with us,” Ruffnut quietly said.

Hiccup let her gaze fall to her friend from the orange sky. She stared at Ruffnut for a moment, confusion evident on her face.

“Tuff doesn’t like me,” Hiccup stated after a moment.

“Yeah,” Ruffnut shrugged, “But you’re cool now, and he wants to get to know you.”

“No,” Hiccup shook her head with a frown, “He didn’t like me before and I don’t want him to like me now. He had the chance to be my friend before and he didn’t take it.”

“Why don’t you want him to be your friend?” Ruffnut asked sadly, she wanted her brother and her best friend to get along.

“Because I’m still the person he made fun of, I just have a few tricks up my sleeve,” Hiccup shrugged, “If he comes to me himself and genuinely tells me he wants to be my friend, I’m not going to stop him. I just don’t want him to be my friend because I’m suddenly not a failure anymore.”

“Okay,” Ruffnut nodded a sad smile on her face, “I’ll let him know.”

“It’s nothing against your brother, Ruffnut,” Hiccup assured, “Fishlegs and Snotlout tried to act like they were my friends too and I didn’t let them.”

“Not Arne?” Ruffnut asked with a tilt of her head.

“He hadn’t tried to, no. He’s been acting weird and… jealous, actually.”

“I never thought I would see a day when Berk’s ‘golden boy’ was jealous of you,” Ruffnut laughed.

Hiccup joined in the laughter. Toothless had fallen asleep and the girls watched the sun set in comfortable silence. As night covered the island, Hiccup gently woke Toothless. The girl had told Ruffnut to go ahead a few minutes ago and Ruffnut had promised to occupy the other teens while Hiccup snuck into the forge.

They got to the village fast, Toothless maneuvered through the forest with no difficulty. Hiccup got off of the dragon when they needed to sneak into the village itself. Getting to the forge was easy, disregarding the moment when Hiccup thought her heart would leap out of her chest when they ran in to a night guard.

She was trying to pry open the safety hook when Toothless threw a bucket through the back door of the forge. Hiccup’s eyes widened as she listened for anyone who could have heard what happened and unfortunately, someone had.

“Hiccup? Are you in there?” came Arne’s voice from the outside.

Hiccup frantically looked around the forge, throwing on her leather apron before she jumped outside through the hatch, closing it behind her. She was greeted with Arne’s suspicious face, she gave him an awkward smile.

“Hi, Arne. Hi,” she quickly greeted him as she stood as close to the forge as possible, the safety cord straining behind her.

“What are you doing?” Arne questioned as he tried to get a glimpse into the forge through the barely opened hatch.

“Some late-night projects,” Hiccup chuckled as Toothless yanked onto the cord hard enough to jostle her.

“You haven’t done that before,” Arne said in an accusing tone.

“I didn’t know you’re an expert on my habits,” Hiccup rolled her eyes as she felt her feet leave the ground, thankfully Arne was looking at her face.

“I’m not an expert, but you’ve been acting weird,” he told her, “And Tuff tells me you have been going to the forest to train?”

“I don’t see how’s that any of your business,” Hiccup said, “What I do doesn’t concern you. So, please, leave me alo– “

She didn’t get to finish her sentence as Toothless finally managed to pull her back into the forge. She managed to push the hatch closed somehow and in seconds she was on Toothless’ back, the wrench she had been using to pry open the hook clutched in her hand.

Hiccup’s heart was beating frantically as Toothless fled back into the cove. Prying the hook open was easy when she calmed down even to do so. She finally got down from the saddle, her legs shacking from the panic that had raced through her body.

“That was fun,” she joked to herself.

Chapter Text

Ruffnut looked around the table she was sitting at. Tuffnut and Snotlout were arm wrestling and Fishlegs was half-asleep on the table. She hadn’t managed to catch Arne in the Meade hall, she had hoped he would be here with the others, but Tuffnut let her know that they haven’t seen the blond boy anywhere as he had been training since the morning and had only showed himself during lunch when he had tried to follow her. Ruffnut hoped that he was already at home and that Hiccup would be free to get to the forge.

Most of the adults were either drunk or already at home, so Ruffnut only had to worry about the other teens because they had more freedom now that they had entered Dragon Training. Ruffnut wasn’t tired yet, she was very worried. Anything could go wrong, especially when Hiccup was involved, the shorter girl had a habit of getting into dangerous situations.

Ruffnut had practically dragged Fishlegs back to the table when she got to the hall. The boy had wanted to go home, but Ruffnut didn’t let him because he had a clear view of the forge from his front door and Ruffnut didn’t know when Hiccup would reach the building.

The Meade hall’s doors opened with a bang and Arne marched in, he was clearly looking for something. His eyes landed on the teens and he huffed while walking towards them. Ruffnut felt panic briefly take hold, but she calmed herself down, if the boy had seen something he would certainly be shouting loud enough to wake everyone and not trying to find them.

“Arne!” Tuffnut greeted him when the blond boy sat at the table, “What’s up, dude?”

Arne ignored Tuffnut and crossed his arms while staring at Ruffnut, the female twin did her best to look bored and stared back at the boy. The staring contest went on for a few minutes until finally Arne blinked.

“Ha! You lost!” Ruffnut laughed, but deep down she was worried.

Arne wasn’t at home and he would have had to go through the village if he was coming back from the forest, that meant that there was a chance he did see something. Ruffnut decided to not think about that and adopted the best indifferent expression she could.

“What’s wrong with Hiccup?” Arne asked and Ruffnut didn’t need to act anymore.

Her eyes widened in shock and her mouth fell open. Nobody had ever asked her about Hiccup, the teens had never wanted to know anything about the shorter girl, Arne’s question was both shocking and suspicious.

“What do you mean?” Ruffnut decided to ask him, “There’s a lot of things that are wrong with Hiccup,” she decided to joke.

“Why is she staying in the forge at night?” the boy clarified and at this point the others at the table were listening to the conversation with interest.

“Because she can?” Ruffnut answered in confusion.

It was clear to her now that Arne hadn’t seen Toothless, but he did see Hiccup and that wasn’t strange in the slightest. Ruffnut had seen her in the forge at night countless of times before and she knew that Hiccup preferred when there were less people to bother her and she could work without interruptions.

“She has never done this befo-“ Arne tried to say.

“Yes she has,” Ruffnut quickly interrupted him, “She does that very often. Why are you even asking me this?”

“Because she’s acting weird!”

“You have no reference on how she acts normally!” Ruffnut exclaimed.

“Tuffnut said that you and her go to train in the woods,” Arne said completely ignoring Ruffnut’s previous words, “You have never done that before.”

“You don’t know what we do,” Ruffnut scoffed and got up from the table, ready to head home now that she knew Hiccup had done what she needed to.

She managed to get outside the hall when Arne caught up to her and stopped her by grabbing her arm.

“Listen,” he said quietly, his face showing nothing but genuine concern, “I’m just worried she’s going to get hurt.”

Ruffnut scoffed and shook of his hand, but stayed standing in her place. She crossed her arms and sighed.

“Arne, she doesn’t need to be coddled or protected,” she told him, “Hiccup is stronger than you or I will ever be.”

“Does she even know how to train properly?” he asked in a defeated tone, Ruffnut sighed.

“Yes she does,” she shrugged, “She’s at the top of the class, you do know that?”

“Yes, I do. But – “

“No ‘but’,” Ruffnut interrupted him again, “To me it seems like you’re just jealous.”

Arne looked at the ground and shrugged, Ruffnut rolled her eyes.

“There’s a lot of things wrong with Hiccup,” she started again, “The biggest one is that she doesn’t see what a great person she is. She doesn’t even want to be the best at dragon training.”

“But she’s the most popular person in the village because of it,” he said with confusion lacing his tone.

“She says that’s not the real her,” Ruffnut shrugged, suddenly very tired, “Listen, if you want to know something, ask her yourself. She won’t appreciate you going through me.”

“I tried,” he sighed, “But she told me to leave her alone.”

“Then try to talk to her in the morning, or do as she said and leave her alone,” Ruffnut told him and walked down the steps, leaving him standing in place.

Ruffnut reached her room and threw herself down on her bed. Hiccup was getting herself into some deep shit, but that was nothing Ruffnut could help her with. Hiccup was Ruffnut’s best friend, as the only girls in their age group that was inevitable.

She couldn’t lie and say that the friendship started just because she thought Hiccup was cool or interesting, their friendship started because Hiccup was the only person who was going through the same things as Ruffnut at the same pace. Younger girls didn’t have to go through the same ‘training’ as she and Hiccup did, older girls were already finished with their ‘training’ and would find Ruffnut’s complains laughable.

Ruffnut remembered when she decided that Hiccup was her last option, the shorter girl had been walking from the forge when Ruffnut had intercepted and dragged her into the forest, to a clearing Ruffnut frequented when she wanted some peace and quiet. Despite the clear panic, Hiccup hadn’t run even when Ruffnut let her hand go and only asked why they were there.

“Girl’s night,” Ruffnut had answered because she didn’t know how to explain that Hiccup was her option.

They had sat in the clearing in silence until Ruffnut couldn’t take it and started complaining about the chores her mother had started to push on her. At that point her mother was teaching her the harder parts of cooking and sewing, Tuffnut had only been taught the bare basics so Ruffnut was alone in her ‘suffering’.

Ruffnut had complained and complained. Even back then she knew that knowing these things would be beneficial, but she wanted to let her frustrations be heard. Ruffnut had just finished telling Hiccup how annoying it was that her mother couldn’t show her how to do a stitch every time Ruffnut had a problem with it.

“I could show you how I do it,” Hiccup had whispered when Ruffnut had stopped to take a breath.

Those words hit Ruffnut like a crazy yak. She had spent all of that time complaining about how her mother had expectations and didn’t have enough time to help her. Hiccup had said ‘I could show you how I do it.’ Not ‘How my mother does it.’ No, Hiccup couldn’t say that, because Hiccup didn’t have a mother who taught her these things.

Ruffnut hadn’t understood how she forgot that. Snotlout had been making fun of Hiccup’s badly mended clothes for a while at that point and she never understood that was because Hiccup mended them herself.

“Sure,” Ruffnut had answered after a moment, a plan already forming in her head.

Ruffnut had managed to make Hiccup warm up to her by telling the shorter girl about all of the crazy things she had done with her brother. When night fell they both went back to the village, before they could go on their own way, Ruffnut had stopped Hiccup and had made her promise to ‘help’ Ruffnut on the next day.

The next day after ‘girl’s night’, Ruffnut wasted no time and had talked to her mother. When Ruffnut had asked the woman if Hiccup could join their lessons, her mother had agreed without even thinking about it. It had turned out that the women in the village always thought that someone was teaching the heir how to do the basic things, but none had bothered to make sure.

So Ruffnut had roped Hiccup into her lessons, which turned out to be actually fun, and even managed to get Hiccup to participate in some of the pranks she and her brother set off. That was the main reason Stoick didn’t actually approve of their friendship, the chief had some sort of belief that Ruffnut had corrupted his daughter, when the truth was that Hiccup had come up with a lot of the pranks she participated in.

Ruffnut didn’t know when a friendship of convenience turned into a true friendship, and Hiccup had turned into her best friend. The female twin had told Hiccup the truth eventually, the fact that Ruffnut saw her as a last option hadn’t shocked Hiccup and that made Ruffnut feel even guiltier than before.

Even these days Ruffnut felt that lingering guilt sometimes pop up, but she couldn’t find it in herself to regret the friendship they had built, not when they had so much fun. Even the fact that Hiccup had befriended a dragon, a Night Fury, proved that being friends with Hiccup had been one of the best decisions Ruffnut had made.

Chapter Text

Hiccup hummed as she made her way through the forest. It was still early, early enough for only a few people to be awake, and fortunately for her, those awake had chores they couldn’t put off so they left her alone. Her new-found fame irked her. She hadn’t thought that the tribe she had grown up in would be so… shallow. They hadn’t cared out her before she had taken first place in dragon training, she knew they would forget her when she inevitably failed to keep her tricks up.

She knew she would fade eventually and her success would become a passing joke.

“Remember when we liked her?” They would ask, and laugh at their own stupidity.

Hiccup reached the cove and quickly spotted Toothless. The Night Fury didn’t move from his curled up position, he watched as she approached with a lazy gaze. Hiccup sat down next to Toothless and he lifted his wing, inviting her to lay down next to him and join him in his nap, she did so with a small smile. The fact that she hadn’t slept well that night was a big part of the reason why she was up so early.

When Arne had almost caught her with Toothless in the forge she had been shaken up and couldn’t calm down enough to sleep. She spent most of the night fearing that Arne had seen Toothless and would come to her house with a mob of angry vikings. Hiccup knew that Arne held himself to high standards, treason was an unforgiveable offence in his eyes.

She managed to nap for a few hours, waking up when Toothless accidently nudged her by getting up. He looked at her as she let out a yawn and purred in apology.

“Don’t worry,” Hiccup told him with a pet on his snout, “We have stuff to do, I can’t sleep the day away.”

The Night Fury went over to the pond to drink while Hiccup woke up fully. She stretched and went to take her gear she had stanched behind some rocks near one of the cove walls. Hiccup put on her harness as Toothless approached her, she took his fake tailfin she had taken off the night before and went to put it on the dragon.

“Today is the day,” she thought out loud, “We’re finally going to fly, bud.”

Toothless looked at her and let out a questioning warble, she laughed as she fastened the saddle.

“Yeah, we’re flying for real,” she took out the cheat sheet she had in her pocket and showed it to the dragon, “I have this, I’m ready.”

-o-

“I was not ready,” Hiccup laughed in shock.

Toothless had caught some fish and touched down on the nearest island after they got out of the sea stack maze. He nudged Hiccup out of her shocked state and motioned towards the fish, she looked at the fish and knew that she couldn’t keep anything down at that point, but Toothless was insistent and didn’t let up until she gathered some stray wood and let him ignite it for her to cook some fish on.

She skewered a fish and held in above the fire to cook it, Toothless had curled up behind her and had finally stopped watching her after offering her a regurgitated head of a fish, she, of course, declined. Toothless went back to eating so she had some time to think about everything.

She had almost died. She had almost died and that should have made her averse to flying, but she craved more. Flying made her feel free and let her forget her other worries, she felt like she was truly herself when she was on the back of Toothless.

A group of Terrible Terrors landed near her, startling her out of her deep thoughts. Toothless growled and hugged his pile of fish closer to himself, Hiccup sat up and prepared to run if things went south. Ultimately, the Terrors were harmless, she gave one the fish she had been cooking and hadn’t wanted to eat.

One of the Terrors tried to steal a fish from Toothless’ pile, the Night Fury took the fish back and swallowed it, letting out a dragonish laugh as the Terror tried to intimidate him. The smaller dragon had started charging up a shot, but Toothless let out a small plasma blast into the Terror’s mouth, making the dragon crash in a daze.

“Not so fireproof on the inside, are you?” she laughed and tossed a small fish from Toothless’ pile to the dragon, “There you go.”

She sat back down, content to ignore the small dragons now that it was clear they meant no harm. The Terror didn’t leave her alone though, he cautiously approached her and snuggled up to her with a purr. Hiccup hesitantly placed her palm on the small dragon’s scaly back.

“Everything we know about you guys is wrong...” she said to herself.

-o-

“I’m sorry, what?” Ruffnut demanded in shock.

Hiccup laughed as she braided her hair. On the way back to Berk Toothless decided that it would be fun to take a couple of dives into the ocean, Hiccup had been soaking wet when they reached the cove, but she was happy, the smile not leaving her face for a second. By the time Ruffnut had made her way to the cove Hiccup was almost completely dry, only her hair, which she had let loose of her braid, was still damp.

Hiccup told the female twin what had happened as she braided her hair back and was now enjoying the girl’s shocked face.

“I got unclipped from Toothless and almost died,” Hiccup repeated again, “Then we had to go through the sea stack maze and almost crashed while going at Toothless’ top speed.”

“You’re crazy!” Ruffnut exclaimed throwing her hands up in the air.

“You like that,” Hiccup reminded her with a smile.

“Yeah I do,” Ruffnut mumbled as she slouched, “Tuff’s been annoying me again.”

“What about?”

“You. He refuses to come to you himself because he thinks that would make you think he’s a wimp. Which, let’s be clear, he is,” Ruffnut laughed, “In his own words: ‘She’s cool now and she deserves cool friends. I don’t know why she hasn’t dropped you yet.’”

“Tell him: ‘Hiccup already thinks you’re a wimp.’”

“I did!” Ruffnut yelled in annoyance, “He’s convinced you’re dying to be his friend because he’s ‘so awesome’. He didn’t believe me when I told him you don’t, and tried to follow me today!  ”

“That’s not good,” Hiccup said, her face falling into a frown.

“He’s so bad at it, it would be hilarious if it wasn’t annoying,” Ruffnut groaned.

“He has been sneaking around as much as you, and you got very close before I noticed you,” Hiccup pointed out.

“I know! But he makes it so obvious!”

“Means he won’t reach the cove,” Hiccup shrugged, “I see no problem with it.”

“Trust me Hiccup,” Ruffnut sighed, “You’ll wish he was sneakier soon enough.”

-o-

Training had been canceled today. Gobber said that the only thing left to do was the final fight for the ‘honor’ to kill the Nightmare. Hiccup was devastated that she had failed to get rid of her fame before this point and now the only thing she could do was fail terribly at the final fight.

She was distracted, lost in thought, as she made her way to the cove without even thinking of where she was going. Even in her distracted state she knew she was being followed. Whoever was following her was bad at it, she had stopped walking multiple times and had heard footsteps even when she stood still, at one point she had even heard a yelp when she turned to look behind her.

Hiccup sighed and changed her path to one that led away from the cove, the footsteps followed. She reached a small clearing and stopped dead in her tracks. She stood still and waited, the footsteps where finally close enough that she knew the person had reached the tree line. She quickly spun around and Tuffnut froze in place.

“Go home Tuffnut,” she told him.

The boy didn’t move even an inch, maybe he believed she would continue on her way with him following or simply thought she couldn’t see him if he didn’t move.

“Go home,” she told him again, “I can see you and you suck at following people.”

Hiccup saw him sigh and turn around. He looked around and took started walking into the trees. Hiccup face-palmed and groaned.

“That’s the wrong way!” she yelled at him, he corrected his course and started heading the right way.

-o-

Ruffnut was right, Hiccup could admit that. It had been three days and every time she entered the forest Tuffnut tried to follow her. Ruffnut had the same problem as her brother didn’t give up no matter how many times he was caught.

Ruff was on the end of her patience, and so was Hiccup. Tuffnut had changed his thought process, according to Ruffnut, now he was adamant that the girls were hiding something cool in the woods and didn’t want anyone to know. His opinion on Hiccup had fallen back to the old version and what he wanted the most was to find out why his sister had been spending even more time with Hiccup than usual. He was right to an extent, Toothless was cool and they were hiding him from everyone, but it wasn’t necessarily because they didn’t want anyone to know.

In Hiccup’s case it was completely the opposite, she wanted people to know how wrong their opinion on dragons was, that dragons weren’t just blood thirsty monsters people believed they were. True, Hiccup had no idea what caused them to raid islands, but she knew that dragons were mostly just misunderstood.

She wasn’t keen on shouting the fact in the middle of the village. Hiccup knew, and Ruffnut agreed, that vikings weren’t people who liked change, uprooting their beliefs would only lead to bad things. Also, neither girl was aching to be caught doing treason.

Tuffnut was making this hard. He didn’t get better at following them, not even a little bit, he was still annoyingly bad at it. Ruffnut had yelled at him to stop a few times, even offered to show him how to do it better, he refused of course.

Hiccup would have liked to stay in the woods from dawn till nightfall, but with her new found fame that wasn’t possible. People noticed when she didn’t come back the whole day, so she made sure to come back during lunch and show herself in the Meade hall, she also left as soon as she could, more often than not with Ruffnut by her side.

Hiccup’s mornings were spent with Toothless alone on the cove, Ruffnut had chores she had to do in the mornings so the girl joined her after lunch most days. Hiccup had found out something about the twins’ household: while Ruff had chores in the mornings, the rest of her day rarely contained any chores for her to do, Tuffnut, on the other hand, had most of his chores a bit after lunch and before the evening, leaving the rest of his day as free as Ruffnut’s, that meant that Tuffnut had the time to dedicate to following them.

Hiccup had been going out earlier and Tuffnut was always there. His dedication was surprising, but overall maddening. Hiccup couldn’t even go to the cove without walking around in random directions first, because sooner or later Tuffnut would appear. One of the days Hiccup hadn’t even gone to sleep and had left her home before anyone else, that was a day Tuffnut hadn’t followed her, but he did follow Ruffnut.

The male twin had even tried to get the other boys to join in, which was funny when they had come to Ruffnut to tell her to tell Tuffnut to stop. Snotlout was whole heartedly believing Ruff’s story that the girls were just training, Fishlegs didn’t have it in him to do something like following the girls and Arne was completely set on training the whole day and nothing else. Tuffnut still tried though, no matter how many times the boys told him to stop.

The girls were making their way to the cove at the moment and Tuffnut was following them as usual at this point. Hiccup was normally a very patient person, she knew that she sometimes talked about things that other people had no interest in and how bad it felt when they didn’t even try to be polite and dismissed her from the get go, so she tried to be polite and nice to other people no matter what, being patient and listening to them was the least she could do.

She still had limits and she had just reached them. She didn’t try to throw Tuffnut of their trail as she had done before and Ruffnut kept sending her confused glances. Hiccup was angry and her face reflected that, she was practically stomping through the woods, her face pulled into a scowl.

“Hiccup, what are you doing?” Ruffnut frantically whispered when she saw the familiar edge of the cove come into view.

Hiccup didn’t answer her friend, she came to a stop before the entering the cove and quickly spun around and marched towards Tuffnut. The boy hadn’t ever seen Hiccup look so angry, the surprise at seeing her like that rooting him in place. Ruffnut could only watched as the short girl went over to her brother, twisted his ear with her fingers and pulled him towards the cove.

“You want to know what we’re hiding?” Hiccup growled at him, she ignored his yelps of pain and continued pulling him behind herself, “I’m going to show you.”

“Hiccup – “ Ruffnut started, she wanted to say something to talk some sense into the girl, but the wild look Hiccup sent her way made her shut up immediately.

Ruffnut followed them as Hiccup pulled the boy into the cove, she released him only when they were far from the entrance. Tuffnut rubbed his aching ear, a frown on his face. He watched as Hiccup stood in front of him with an angry frown, he glanced at his sister who was had a clear look of worry on her face, Ruffnut wasn’t meeting his eyes.

“Toothless!” Hiccup suddenly called, Tuffnut snapped his gaze back at her and his eyes widened.

Behind the short girl a dragon was approaching, it looked menacing. Tuffnut took an unconscious step back, his eyes darting to his sister who didn’t seem afraid.

“This – “ Hiccup said as she pointed at the dragon, “ -  is what I’m hiding! Are you happy now?”

“That’s-that’s a dragon,” he stuttered in fear.

“A Night Fury,” his sister quietly said, Toothless came to stand next to Hiccup, his stance hostile.

“I’m going to tell Stoick,” Tuffnut threatened, “This is treason.”

“For the love of – Go, tell everyone!” Hiccup shouted in anger, she took a step towards him, “Do you think I care!?”

“Of course you do,” Tuffnut insisted.

“I don’t,” Hiccup told him with a shake of her head, “I couldn’t care less if I tried. You want to go tell the people who never cared or noticed me that I’m hiding a Night Fury? Go ahead.”

“They do care about you, you’re their favorite person these days!” Tuffnut told her in confusion.

“They care about a dragon killing prodigy, not about me,” Hiccup argued, “They didn’t care before that and they won’t care after I fail. So go! Tell everyone!”

“Be sure to tell them your sister knew about it and told no one,” Ruffnut added, her face was clear of emotion.

Tuffnut shook his head in disbelief and ran from the cove. Hiccup gripped her head and let out a tired sigh.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” she said as she started pacing, Toothless relaxed and crooned in concern.

“Probably,” Ruffnut shrugged, “But it’s done and we can’t change anything now.”

“You didn’t have to put yourself in this mess,” Hiccup told her, Ruffnut laughed.

“I was already in this mess before this,” Ruffnut reminded her, “And I will stand by you until the end.”

Hiccup gave her a grateful smile and dropped to the ground. Toothless went up to her and nudged her side, she lifted her arm and let him lay his head in her lap.

“Do you think he’ll actually tell everyone?” she asked her friend.

“Maybe,” Ruffnut said as she sat down before her, “We’ll wait and see.”

“I guess we will.”

-o-

A couple hours had passed and the girls hadn’t done much. Ruffnut had fallen asleep while leaning on Toothless, the dragon was also sleeping. Hiccup had tried, but couldn’t get her mind to shut up. She came up with a plan instead. If Tuffnut did tell the tribe about Toothless and her and led the vikings to the cove Hiccup would not let them get their hands on the Night Fury, considering she knew how to fly with him, she would take off and leave the island behind if needed. She would also take Ruff with her, after all, her presence here would get her in trouble no matter if Tuffnut said she was involved or not.

Hiccup’s head snapped up when she heard someone enter the cove, Toothless woke up in seconds, he lifted his head with a growl. From the entrance Tuffnut emerged. He was alone and was cautiously walking towards the group. He came to a stop a few steps in front of them.

Ruffnut had woken up from Toothless’ growls and was now watching her brother with interest. She knew him and she could see that he was nervous, the girls waited for him to talk.

“I came to apologize,” he forced out, “I was wrong.”

“About?” his sister prompted.

“Everything,” he shrugged, “I can see why you’re friends with Hiccup and the Night Fury is very cool, actually.”

“He is,” Hiccup agreed with a nod and put a hand on Toothless’ snout, silencing him, “What do you want now?”

“To get in on this,” he laughed, “I want a pet dragon too!”

“Not a pet,” Hiccup corrected him, “A friend.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved her off and dropped to sit next to them, “When am I getting one?”

“Hold on,” Ruffnut yelped as she jumped up, “I have been with her longer and there’s no way you’re getting a dragon before me!”

“There is! I’m cooler and I deserve one!”

“Listen here you piece of yak shit...”

Hiccup tuned out the rest of the twins’ argument, she looked at Toothless with a smile.

“What have I gotten us into?” she asked the dragon.

The Night Fury snorted and got up, he shook the sleep off and left the humans alone. Hiccup laughed and watched as the twins argued with a huge grin. This was the most friends she had ever had and she enjoyed it.

Chapter Text

Hiccup couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. Her father was finally proud of her! He was proud of someone she could never actually be.

Hiccup was sitting in the woods. She wasn’t at the cove, she couldn’t make herself to go there. The helmet her father had given her was resting in her hands, her head full of thoughts about… everything. She was a fraud and a cheat, yet her father was finally proud.

Tears ran down her cheeks uncontrollably as she sobbed. She dropped the helmet on the ground and let her head hang. It was going to hurt when she lost training, it was going to hurt to see the disappointed look on her father’s face, but she wouldn’t lie anymore.

”All those years of the worst Viking Berk has ever seen! Odin, it was rough! I almost gave up on you!”

Her father had said those words with a laugh, like it was funny to tell her that. Like it was funny for her to hear that she was a large enough burden to her father that he almost gave up on her.

“Now you have a chance to beat Arne! No one will question if you become heir now!”

Those words sparked anger inside her. Her father loved the boy more than he loved his own. Arne, the golden child. Arne, the one her father wanted her to marry so she would have a status in the tribe when she grew up. Arne, the one she had a crush on but couldn’t do anything about it, because she didn’t want to give her father the satisfaction and because Arne didn’t even look at her twice.

Arne, who was walking towards her right now.

Hiccup quickly wiped away her tears and did her best to ignore the boy. From the corner of her eye she saw him sit down next to her. She continued staring at the ground in silence, Hiccup didn’t understand what he was doing here this late, but she didn’t dare to speak.

“How are you?”

Hiccup couldn’t help but look up at his question. She hadn’t expected him to talk to her, especially in a friendly tone. She had seen that her success in training made him mad, and by Ruffnut’s insistence, jealous. Hiccup was lost for a moment before she answered.

“I’m fine.”

She didn’t say anything else, because one lie was enough. She was angry, sad and just overall miserable. Hiccup was far from ‘fine’. The girl didn’t voice any of these thoughts. How could she? As far as she knew, Arne had an alternative motive for even being near her. Hiccup wasn’t stupid, she knew her father talked to the boy and his family in regards to setting up a marriage when they were older if both sides wanted to. If Arne really wanted to be the future Chief all he had to do was say yes and play nice with her for a while, enough for her to get comfortable and let down her guard.

That was the main reason she hated having a crush on the boy. After all, her reluctance was the only thing stopping her father from going ahead with the marriage plan. At least her father listened to something when it came to her.

“Are you really?”

At this question she raised her eyes and looked at him. She knew it was obvious she had been crying, but she hoped her angry glare made up for that.

“Why do you care?” she hissed.

“I’ve always cared,” he shrugged, “I guess I never made it clear.”

Hiccup snorted when she heard his answer. ‘Always cared’ he said and she didn’t believe him. Arne was someone who looked at himself before he looked at others. He stepped over people to prove he was the best, and sometimes, Hiccup thought he didn’t even notice it.

“Why are you here?” came her whispered question.

He tilted his head and a small smile lit up his face. He wasn’t amused, he looked content. She started at him for a moment before she understood what she was doing and quickly turned her eyes to the ground.

“I came looking for you, actually,” he chuckled, the sound bringing and unwanted smile to Hiccup’s face, “Your father came to talk to me.”

“What did he want?” she groaned and placed her head in her hands, all the things her father could’ve said running through her mind.

“He asked me that I help you train if you beat me in training,” Arne said, keeping any emotion out of his voice.

Hiccup didn’t know what to say to that. Her father had went behind her back and asked someone to train her, even after she had taken first place. She didn’t know if the anger she felt was warranted, after all she didn’t know how to fight dragons for real, she only knew the tricks she had learned from Toothless.

“I don’t need your help,” she finally told him, her gaze fell on the helmet she had dropped, “My father had no reason to go to you.”

“Didn’t he?” Arne channeled, “Ruffnut said you go training every day, but I haven’t seen you do any fighting.”

“Training doesn’t equal fighting, Arne,” she told him as she stood up and picked up the helmet from the ground.

She didn’t put the helmet on, she couldn’t make herself do that. It would feel like she had betrayed her mother is she did. Hiccup’s mother who had been taken by dragons would not want her daughter to be friends with dragons.

“Against a dragon it does,” he argued, “You’re first in training, you should know that.”

“Does anyone on this island care about anything else?” she demanded, her eyebrows pinched in anger, “All everyone talks about is dragon training.”

“I would think you like dragon training. You excel at it, everyone loves you now,” Arne said with confusion.

Hiccup looked at him with disbelief before she let out a humorless laugh. She felt tears gather in her eyes again, but she didn’t care.

“Now,” she repeated and turned to look up at the sky so the boy wouldn’t see when the tears ran down her face, “Everyone loves me now.”

“Yes, they do,” he said slowly, confused at her reaction.

“I haven’t changed, Arne. I’m still the same person as I was before, but suddenly, when they think I can kill dragons, they love me,” Hiccup bit her bottom lip to stop a sob from escaping, “I’m still the same mess up I was before.”

“Hiccup – “

“If I die because I don’t have enough ‘training’ – “ she turned to the boy, tears were running down her checks but she didn’t care, “ – so be it.”

Hiccup didn’t wait for a response, if one was even coming. She turned and walked away, she didn’t need light to know where she was going, her years spent wandering around the woods helping her to know where she was going.

Even when she reached home, Arne’s shocked face hadn’t left her mind. Truth does that to a person she guessed, because what she said was the truth. She didn’t care if she died in training. Toothless would be okay with Ruff and Tuff knowing about him and they could take care of the dragon when he couldn’t take care of himself.

Her father was already asleep so she didn’t get a chance to talk to him, she wanted to tell him to stop going behind her back when things concerned her. Hiccup didn’t believe that additional training was all Stoick had talked about with Arne.

The girl placed the helmet on her workbench and went to sit on her bed. The day had started off so good. She had finally felt free, like herself. And now, now she felt like the biggest failure and fraud. The helmet was like a sign of her lies. Her father was proud of her because of things she didn’t really achieve.

She needed to fail dragon training while she still had the chance, because if she didn’t… she didn’t know what she would do, but killing the Nightmare was never going to be an option.

Chapter Text

Hiccup tried.

She had tried and she failed. The girl cowered behind the obstacles in the ring, she ran away from the Gronckle, she weaved into Arne’s path in hope he would land the hit that knocked the dragon out. She hoped, she tried and she failed.

The Gronckle remembered her as the girl with the nice grass and had taken after her in hope that she had more. As the dragon had cadged Hiccup in against one of the walls, the girl didn’t have a choice but to knock out the dragon using the soft spot only she knew about.

She had won the ‘honor’ of killing the Nightmare.

When Gobber had raised his hook atop her head and when Gothi nodded, she felt like her life was over. She couldn’t kill a dragon, she didn’t even want to try. Hiccup remembered Arne’s furious eyes as she was lifted by a cheering crowd. Fishlegs and Snotlout were the ones who cheered the loudest, the twins were silent, even the crowd’s joyful shouts didn’t sway them to make noise.

They had taken her to the Meade hall for celebration. A week. She had a week to think of something. This celebration was for everyone who survived Dragon Training. All of the teens were in the middle of that celebration. Another celebration is tradition after the slaughtering of the Nightmare, where the recruit that had won that ‘honor’ was the main focus of that celebration.

Hiccup managed to leave the party because she wasn’t the only one who people were congratulating. She had ignored the twin’s concerned glances and just left.

As soon as she left the Meade hall, she started panicking. She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t even entertain the idea of blood on her hands. The girl wasn’t thinking ahead when she went home and packed a bag with supplies and headed to the cove.

“Oh yeah dad, I’m so happy that I won,” she mocked her own words as she entered the cove, “I can’t wait to kill the Nightmare, I am so…” she bit her bottom lip and threw down her bag on the ground, her next words coming out as a frustrated shout, “LEAVING! We’re leaving and never looking back. Looks like we’re taking a little vacation… forever!”

“Leaving?”

Hiccup jumped, a yelp leaving her lips at the new voice. She quickly turned and came face to face with Arne. Fear coursed through her, when she heard the voice she had hope it was Tuffnut and Ruffnut who had managed to beat her to the cove. She stood frozen, scared of what conclusions the boy would come to.

“Hiccup, you’re leaving?” Arne repeated his question again, shock in his eyes.

“Yeah,” she nodded after a moment, seeing no point in hiding anything anymore, “Yeah, I’m leaving… and so are you,” she told him and pointed to the cove’s exit, “You’re leaving now, and going back to the celebration.”

“I’m not leaving until I figure out what’s going on here!” the boy argued, “You left the celebration without even speaking with anyone!”

“I don’t own anyone anything!” Hiccup raised her voice.

“You just won Dragon Training!” he exclaimed, “Do you know what kind of honor that is?”

“Honor? HONOR?” she shouted, “I did not want to win that honor.”

“But you did,” Arne calmly told her.

“And I saw how happy you were that I had,” she let out a humorless chuckle and shook her head, she finally noticed that Toothless had sneaked behind Arne and was observing their argument with interest, “I will leave and you’ll be left as the winner, maybe you can be actually happy about that.”

“I –“ he cut himself off and took a calming breath, “I was angry, I’ll admit, but I wasn’t angry that you won.”

“Yeah, sure,” Hiccup rolled her eyes.

“I was angry at myself, because I lost, not because you won,” he explained in a defeated tone.

“That’s the same thing.”

“It’s not,” he disagreed, he let out a sigh and crossed his arms, “I was angry because I didn’t try hard enough and lost the chance to save my family’s pride.”

“Didn’t try hard enough?” Hiccup’s eyebrows pinched together, disbelief in her eyes, she saw Toothless sit down now when they weren’t shouting at each other anymore, “Arne, you do nothing but try. You’re Berk’s golden boy, everyone is always compared to you.”

“Not anymore,” Arne gave her a tight smile and shook his head, “Now everyone will be compared to you.”

“Not when I leave,” Hiccup whispered.

“Why?” he asked again.

All the anger or frustration they had felt was gone. Now they stood there looking at one another with their feelings on show. Hiccup knew that hiding would do nothing good for her, she had tried to hide the truth and now she had to choose between Berk and her own happiness… she was done hiding.

“I can’t kill a dragon, Arne,” she explained in a whisper, “I can’t kill an innocent creature.”

“Innocent?” he gasped.

“Innocent,” she reiterated, “Dragons are not what you think they are.”

“Dragon’s aren’t innocent, they’re blood –“

“Thirsty creatures?”  she finished for him and shook her head in amusement, “What would you think if I told you that you have been in the presence of a dragon this entire time, and you’re still alive?”

“Hiccup, you’re not making sense,” Arne told her, a concerned frown overtaking his face.

“Aren’t I?” she tilted her head in question, a smug smirk adoring her face.

The Night Fury took that as some kind of signal. Toothless crouched and jumped over Arne to stand next to Hiccup. The boy froze and Toothless growled in greeting before situating himself in front of Hiccup to protect her in case Arne tried something.

“Hiccup…” the boy whispered, he reached back and wanted to grab his axe that he normally had there, only to come to the startling realization that he had left his axe in the academy. Arne gulped and reached out his hands in a calming gesture, “Hiccup, please, get away from the dragon.”

“Why?” she asked with genuine confusion, she took a step forward and placed a hand on Toothless’ neck.

“Please, Hiccup,” the boy practically begged, “It can attack you at any moment. Step away and run.”

“And what about you?” she questioned and leaned on the calm Night Fury.

“I’ll try to hold it off,” the boy gulped, seemingly realizing what he was saying, “Just, please, get to safety.”

“Arne,” Hiccup giggled, “Open your eyes and actually see what you’re looking at.”

That seemed to startle Arne out of his shock. He actually took in the scene in front of him. The Night Fury was calmly watching him and Hiccup… Hiccup was leaning on the dragon with no fear or worry on her face. She actually looked amused. Arne blinked a couple of times and took a step back, not believing his eyes at all.

“Arne, this is Toothless,” Hiccup said as she gestured to them both, “Toothless, Arne.”

The boy let out a shaky breath as he started to inch backwards. Hiccup looked at what he was doing and let out a humorless laugh. She shook her head and crossed her arms, amusement and disappointment clouding her eyes.

“Yeah, run away,” she told him and rolled her eyes, “Go back to the village and tell everyone what ‘Hiccup the Useless’ is hiding. I’m know you’re dying to do that,” she hissed out the last words and turned away from the boy.

The air sat still for a moment, their breathing and the wildlife the only noise that could be heard. Hiccup kept her eyes on the cove’s wall. She heard his footsteps start up again and she thought he was leaving the cove, but the footsteps weren’t fading… they were getting closer.

Hiccup quickly turned to look at Arne, shock clear on her face. The boy had cautiously walked up to Hiccup, still keeping space between himself and the dragon, he kept casting wary looks at the Night Fury but kept most of his attention on the girl. Determination was mixed with the fear in his eyes.

“I’m not going to run away,” he told her, his voice came out shaky.

“But you want to,” Hiccup raised her eyebrow in question.

“I’m not a coward. I want to understand, please,” he said in a pleading tone.

Hiccup almost gasped at his words. He was sincere, and despite his fear he held strong.

“Okay,” she nodded.

Hiccup stepped back from Toothless and Arne followed her lead, taking a couple of quick steps back. The girl smiled and chuckled as she heaved herself onto Toothless’ saddle. She turned to the boy and extended her hand to him.

“Get on.”

“What?”

“Get on,” she laughed and grabbed his hand as he came close enough, she pulled with all her strength and he got the message, sitting behind her, “I’m going to change your world,” she promised.

Chapter Text

Hiccup didn’t fight the smile that made its way on her face. They had been in the air for about an hour now and during that time Hiccup could feel as Arne relaxed.

It happened gradually.

At first, his hands settled on her waist and were gripping tight enough to hurt. She hadn’t said anything because she knew he needed some sort of reassurance he wouldn’t fall off. He had glued himself to her back, the heat radiating from his body had made Hiccup blush.  Never before had she been this close to the boy.

Then, Toothless decided to take them on a dip in the ocean, scaring Arne enough for the boy to hug her close to himself. He only let go after they got higher, the urge to touch the clouds was enough for him to release Hiccup. She understood the wonder that came with being this high up.

After they leveled out, after Hiccup had showed the boy Berk from the sky, Arne’s hands had come back to rest on her waist. This time, the hold was slack and the heat from his body didn’t reach her. It brought her joy knowing that he had relaxed enough to trust both her and Toothless to not let him fall off.

The night was clear and so was her head. She didn’t want to think when she was in the sky, the freedom she felt was immeasurable. That feeling was what helped her decide that no matter what, she would fight for the ability to be able to fly. Hiccup didn’t need to think to come to that decision, she had decided the first time she had rose from the ground on Toothless’ tail.

“Alright, this is pretty cool. It's... amazing,” Hiccup’s smile widened at Arne’s admission, the boy reached around her to pet the Night Fury’s head, Toothless let out an appreciative growl, “He's amazing.”

Hiccup could have left it at that. The fact that she had been right about dragons was enough for her, but Arne couldn’t let things rest.

“So what now? Hiccup, your final exam is soon,” his voice had lost the happy tone, the boy was completely serious now, and that made the girl’s smile fall, “You know you're going to have to kill a...” his voice dropped to a whisper, “Kill a dragon.”

“Don't remind me,” she almost pleaded.

She didn’t want to think about that. Hiccup knew that she could still leave and never look back, but that would mean… that would mean that Arne, as the runner up in training, would have to kill the Nightmare. She didn’t want him to do so, not after he saw how dragons really were.

This flight had also showed her something else that gave her hope. Arne was Berks golden boy, the one that everyone praised, his dedication was legendary, his hatred of dragons even more so. If she could change his opinion she hoped she could change everyone else’s.

She was about to voice her thoughts when Toothless suddenly jerked to the right. Hiccup looked at the Night Fury with confusion and tried to get him to turn around. She had noticed she didn’t really recognize where they were, they were in some sort of fog, and getting back to Berk before light was necessary.

“Toothless, what's happening?” she asked the dragon when he pulled to the right again.

Suddenly, a shadow passed by next to them, the fog not letting her see what was happening. They continued flying forward, further into the fog. Hiccup’s eyes widened as dragons came out of the fog, she heard Arne gasp behind her, but thankfully they managed to stay silent and not bring attention to themselves.

“What is it?” Hiccup asked herself as an island came into view.

Arne didn’t say anything because he clearly didn’t know. Hiccup felt the boy press himself to her again and she couldn’t blame him. This situation they found themselves in was confusing and scary. Hiccup leaned forward in hopes that her voice just had been inaudible to the Night Fury but the dragon’s narrowed pupils made her pause. She had only seen them like that when Toothless was angry.

The Night Fury followed the other dragons inside the island. It was hot and humid, filled with dragons and smelled like death. Toothless seemed to come back to himself and had landed out of view of the other dragons.

“Get down!” Hiccup hissed at Arne as the dragons started flying over the hole in the middle of the giant cave.

“What's going on?” the boy whispered back, Hiccup shook her head.

“I don't know,” she admitted then leaned forward so the Night fury could hear her, “Toothless. You've got to get us out of here, bud.”

Toothless ignored them both as he peaked out behind the rock. His eyes jumped form one dragon to the other, he seemed to shrink back in fear.

“It looks like they're hauling in their kill,” Hiccup pointed out.

“Uh, what does that make us?” she heard Arne ask fearfully.

“What my dad wouldn't give to find this,” Hiccup whispered to herself as she ignored the boy’s question.

Even more dragons flew over the hole, dropping down their findings and kills.

“It's satisfying to know that all of our food has been dumped down a hole,” Hiccup said with sarcasm dripping from her voice.

“They're not eating any of it,” Arne commented with confusion, Hiccup hummed in agreement.

They watched as a lone Gronckle flew over the hole, it hovered as it regurgitated a small fish and let it drop below. The Gronckle started flying away as the island shook, the panic in the dragon’s eyes was clear as day.

“What is that?” Arne asked as something rose out of the hole.

That something was a dragon. A huge dragon that swallowed the Gronckle whole.

“Alright, buddy, we gotta get out of here. Now!” Hiccup yelled as the thing looked in their direction

The terrifying dragon tried to swallow the trio whole but Toothless was faster and managed to dodge the huge dragon. The sent the other dragons into a frenzy.

The dragon all took off at once as they tried to get away from the huge dragon who was snapping its jaws in random directions, trying to get anything into its mouth. The trio flew as fast as they could and they evaded the jaws of the huge dragon, a Zippleback wasn’t as lucky and had fallen victim to the monster that rested in the middle of the island.

Toothless didn’t slow don’t until Berk came into view. Even then, the dragon flew in speeds Hiccup didn’t know the Night Fury was capable of. Arne had clung to Hiccup all the way back, releasing her only when Toothless landed.

Both humans dismounted Toothless on shaky legs. The Night Fury wasn’t as bothered and just sat down next to the pair.

“It makes sense,” Arne mumbled after a moment and Hiccup raised her eyes from the ground to look at him, “It's like a giant beehive. They're the workers, and that's their queen. It controls them,” the boy looked at her with a wild look in his eyes, “Let's find your Dad.”

“No! No,” she shook her head and stopped the boy from taking another step, her hands gripped his bicep and rooted him in place, “Not yet. They'll... kill Toothless. Arne, we have to think this through carefully.”

“Hiccup, we just discovered the Dragons' Nest,” the boy exclaimed as he threw his arms up in frustration,
“The thing we've been after since Vikings first sailed here. And you want to keep it a secret?! To protect your pet dragon?! Are you serious?!”

“Yes,” she stated, no hesitation in her voice, “You go there now –“ she pointed in the direction of the village, “- and you kill Toothless. You kill me.”

Her words hit Arne like a brick to the face. He knew that Hiccup could get in trouble, but getting killed… no, he could see it. Hiccup had betrayed the ‘viking way’ of life and she uncovered truths that had been right under their noses for centuries. Arne watched as Toothless came up to Hiccup and slightly nuzzled her before retreating to take a drink out of the pond. Maybe she wouldn’t be killed by the tribe, but loosing Toothless would kill her all the same.

“Okay,” he gave her a small nod and saw her visibly relax, “Then what do we do?”

“Give me some time, I’ll figure it out,” she promised him.

The boy smiled at her and closed the distance between them, bringing the girl into a hug. He held onto her tight and turned to whisper into her ear.

“Thank you. Thank you for showing me the truth.”

Hiccup didn’t answer him, she just held onto him with all her strength. She couldn’t remember the last time someone held her like that. When Arne pulled back the blush on his face was mirrored by her own. They stared at each other for what seemed like hours and Hiccup could’ve sworn the boy had started leaning…

“There you are!”

The pair jumped back when Ruffnut’s voice rang out. Hiccup clasped her hands behind her back like that would hide the fact that she had been hugging Arne like her life depended on it only a moment before.

“Where the hell were you?” Tuffnut asked from behind his sister, the female twin had gotten her helmet stuck at the entrance of the cove and neither had noticed that Hiccup wasn’t alone.

“We thought you ran away!” Ruffnut exclaimed as her helmet finally got free, the girl looked up and froze as she noticed that Arne was with Hiccup and Toothless wasn’t hiding.

“She planned to do that,” Arne said with a smirk, the twins’ surprised faces making an amusing sight.

“He’s here,” Ruffnut said as she pointed at Arne then at Toothless, “He’s also here.”

“You’re calm,” Tuffnut pointed at Hiccup, like her calm demeanor was something more shocking than Arne being in the same space as a dragon and not doing anything about it.

“Yes,” Hiccup nodded, a smirk sliding onto her lips, she nodded to the Night Fury and Arne, “They’re friends now.”

“What happened?” the twins demanded at the same time.

The amusement left Hiccup’s body in an instant. The twins had turned out to be good friends to her and she knew telling them about the nest was the least she could do.

“Let’s sit down,” Arne spoke up before her, “We need to tell you something.”

The fact that the twins knew about Toothless wasn’t a surprise to the boy. The village knew that Ruff and Hiccup were best friends, and even if half of them didn’t believe it, they both were responsible for a lot of the crazy pranks that were pulled on the villagers. Hiccup had told the twins about the Night Fury before Arne found out and he had no problem with it. After all, he hadn’t really tried to get close to Hiccup so he had no reason to be jealous. He was a bit jealous of course, but he wasn’t going to tell anyone.

Chapter Text

When Hiccup woke up the looming feeling of dread hung above her head like a veil. Yesterday was amazing. The flight with Arne, the discovery of the nest and the evening she spent with her friends was amazing. The good feeling she had went to bed with was gone. She knew she had a week to figure something out or everything would come crashing down around her.

Her father was gone when she went downstairs, a small fortune in her favor. Hiccup immediately left her home. A lot less people than normal were outside, yesterday’s celebration leaving most of them still drunk even with the dawn of the next day. Even with the small number of people she felt their eyes on her, the vikings cheerily greeted her and threw out some congratulations on winning the final exam.

Every smile thrown her way, every cheerful yell hammered at her head. She made friends with the vikings’ enemy, she committed treason right under their noses and them being happy to see her was like the universe showing what her lies would ruin. She hoped, oh how she hoped, that everything will turn out okay, but even she couldn’t fool herself for long enough.

Hiccup made her way to the forest, she headed to the cove. Halfway there she ran into Arne, already out and about with his axe. Seeing him already awake came as a surprise, after all they had gone to bed late and only her troubled sleeping had managed to wake her this early.

She looked at Arne for a while, the boy still hadn’t noticed her and was going through his regular routine. Hiccup could only watch as he expertly preformed maneuvers that others would fail at, he really was the one who should have won the ‘honor’ of killing the Nightmare. Every move he made was of someone ready for battle, ready to see death up close.

Hiccup had taken the ‘honor’ from Arne. She could never kill a dragon, and he had trained all his life to do so. Still, she couldn’t find it in herself to feel guilty. She had taken his opportunity to kill a dragon, but she had given him the truth in return. Even if everything came crashing down, she knew that he would go down in history as the man who discovered the nest. If everything came down, she knew her name would be erased, she would be forgotten while her friends would have a chance to distance themselves from everything and still be able to live their lives, even if hers became ruined.

“Good morning,” she greeted the boy as he came to a stop.

Arne quickly looked up, a small smile breaking across his face as he saw her.

“Morning,” he nodded in acknowledgment as he came to stand in front of her.

“Why are you up so early?” she questioned with genuine interest.

“Habit,” he laughed, “I’m so tired, but I couldn’t get myself to fall asleep once I woke up.”

“Unfortunate,” she said with a chuckle. She turned and gestured towards the direction of the cove. “Join me?”

The boy nodded and fell into step next to her. They reached the cove in comfortable silence. Once inside they looked around for Toothless, only to find the Night Fury still sleeping. The pair looked at each other and laughed because the most dangerous dragon they knew was completely ignoring their existence to sleep longer.

Arne leaned his axe on a nearby boulder and cautiously joined Hiccup where she had sat down next to her dragon. Even after the flight he had reservations about being this close to a dragon, years of hearing horror stories not letting him completely relax. They sat there in silence, both consumed by different but ever pressing thoughts.

Hiccup leaned back on Toothless, the dragon grumbling in his sleep. Arne soon followed her movements. Bit by bit, without neither noticing, Hiccup’s head came to lean on Arne’s shoulder, his own came to a rest atop of hers. They fell asleep soon after, the early morning sun warming the air around them.

-o-

When Hiccup woke up again it was not as peaceful as before. Her heart was almost beating out of her chest as she jumped up from sleep. She frantically looked around and cursed when she saw the twins laughing at her and Arne’s panic. Even Toothless had woken up and the dragon wasn’t amused, a well-placed plasma blast broke the twins out of their laughter and made them freeze. The Night Fury let out a dragonish laugh and Hiccup and Arne joined him.

Now that they were awake and the twins were there that meant they could do something or start thinking of ways to help Hiccup with her dilemma. The group had sat down in a circle, silence shrouding them. No one knew what they could do, the only thing that could have the best outcome would be showing everyone the truth, but they didn’t know how they could do that.

“We could put on a show!” Tuffnut eagerly suggested.

“Yeah!” his sister agreed. “You help us train dragons and we show them what they can do!”

“That would get us all killed,” Hiccup deadpanned with a shake of her head.

“How?” Ruffnut demanded.

“The viking way involves acting first and asking questions later,” she stated, “Meaning, they would take to their weapons the moment they saw dragons, no matter if we were on them or not.”

“That would be a problem,” Tuffnut mussed.

“But that’s not a completely stupid plan,” Arne pointed out and was met with confusion from the others. “Think about it. Us –“ he gestured to himself and the twins, “- having dragons would be beneficial.”

“How would that be beneficial?” Hiccup asked, her eyebrows drawn together, a frown on her face.

“If we have dragons that would show them that it’s not only you who believes that dragons are good,” he fixed his gaze only on her, “More people would make them think. One person going crazy and committing treason? Possible. Four people doing the same thing? Something is up.”

“No.” Hiccup immediately disagreed. “I’m not pulling you further into this.”

“You’re not pulling,” Ruffnut quickly said, “We’re following. Willingly.”

“No.” Hiccup stated, shaking her head frantically, “Right now, you can still remain far away that if everything goes down, you remain unscathed. If I help you train dragons that would not be possible, you would not have a chance to deny your involvement.”

“Hiccup,” Ruffnut crossed her arms and looked at her best friend in disappointment, “We don’t want to deny anything. We’re already in this mess and if we didn’t want to be here, we wouldn’t.”

“Things might not go well, Ruffnut,” Hiccup mirrored her friend’s position, an angry look in her eyes, “This might crash and burn and then you’ll be traitors like me.”

“So?”

“So!? Your lives will be ruined!”

“They already are!”

Hiccup froze at Ruffnut’s words.

“What?” she softly asked, previous anger gone completely.

“Do you think that now that we know the truth we could go back to mindlessly killing dragons?” Ruffnut asked, Hiccup shook her head and her friend sighed, “We’re already in this mess.”

“And we want to go deeper,” Tuffnut agreed with his sister.

“We want to do this with you,” Arne added.

Hiccup looked around at her friends, their genuine support and the trust they put in her made her eyes water. Toothless came up behind her and nudged her head with a concerned croon, she laughed. Hiccup wasn’t used to this, she had only had Ruffnut before as a friend. This was different, this wasn’t a prank that would earn them a few weeks of manual labor at the docks. This was bigger and scarier, something that would not be forgotten no matter how it went. This time she had more than Ruffnut to lean on and that was something she hadn’t experienced before.

“Okay,” she let out a wet laugh and quickly wiped her eyes before her tears had a chance to fall, “We’ll train you some dragons.”

Chapter Text

Sneaking around the village at night was nothing new to Hiccup. She had done so time and time again before the whole deal with Toothless. Sometimes, night had been the only time she could test her inventions without the scrutiny of others and she used that time wisely. Sneaking around with three other people was surprisingly more difficult than sneaking around while attached to a dragon.

The group made their way to the academy, the paths lit by torches were avoided along with the few guards patrolling the streets. Everything was quiet for the time being, but with four people that could change in an instant. Luckily, it didn’t. The twins were well versed in keeping out of trouble, and Arne had the needed training to keep silent and being quick on his feet.

Their destination was the academy. The only place at the island which had dragon which wouldn’t fly away at the sight of people. When not raiding, dragons normally only passed by Berk on their way somewhere else, and finding a dragon on the island was rare at any normal day.

The academy was unguarded, the tribe knew that the cadges were good enough to hold the dragons and there wasn’t any need for people to guard the enclosure. That made the teens’ work all the easier, the academy was far enough away from the village itself that the group wouldn’t be noticed and if they were they would have time to flee.

“Okay,” Hiccup took a deep breath and shook of any nervousness she felt, “Who wants to start?”

-o-

They didn’t get sleep that night, but the rising sun saw the twins and Arne with the trust of two more dragons. It was an interesting night to say the least. The twins almost woke the whole village and if not for Arne, they would have. Thankfully, the boy managed to cover the twins’ mouths before they let out screams of excitement for all to hear.

Hiccup found it extremely hard to get the Zippleback and Nadder back into the cadges, no because the dragons didn’t want to go. She found it hard because she couldn’t imagine willfully restraining Toothless’ freedom like the others had to do for everyone’s own safety.

They were exhausted, but at the same time happy. Very happy. Hiccup couldn’t remember the last time she saw the twins smile that much without having pulled off a prank beforehand and she couldn’t even say she had seen Arne smile at all, unless the times when they were small children counted, which she didn’t think did.

They all were back at the cove to get away from any prying eyes and questions they would surely receive. Hiccup’s and Arne’s absence wouldn’t really be missed, the excuse of them training would be enough and the twins did have a habit of disappearing at different parts of the day.

-o-

Being found out had not crossed Hiccup’s mind for a long time. A very long time. Fortunately, having friends behind her helped, a lot.

Because of everything that was been happening Snotlout and Fishlegs had been feeling left out. Of course Snotlout has been way more vocal about it, the problem was that no one actually heard him, because the source of his frustrations was never around. Fishlegs listened, the bigger boy had no other choice, but he tried to distance himself from Snotlout the best he could while still remaining friends. Or just not changing their relationship from how it was.

Fishlegs didn’t like being alone, he despised it even. He liked being, at least pretending, he was friends with the other teens. Long ago he had given up the close friendship he had with Hiccup to be friends with the others and now everything was different again. The others, save for Snotlout, were seemingly friends with Hiccup. Ruffnut was Hiccup’s friend for the longest, so Tuffnut following in his sister’s lead was nothing surprising. What was surprising was Arne. He had been hanging out with Hiccup for a while now, this shocked Fishlegs to no end.

The larger boy had seen the jealousy that had been brewing inside Arne. Every victory Hiccup experienced in the ring was like another punch at Arne’s pride, at least that was what Fishlegs thought. Now they were friends and Fishlegs was stuck with Snotlout. Snotlout who couldn’t stop complaining about being left out.

“Where are they?” Snotlout whined as he stomped in place.

Fishlegs sighed and didn’t answer the question. They were sitting near the steps of the Meade hall, a place where they used to meet up with the others most of the time, but now they were alone. It had been days since the others joined the two boys, even Arne, who only joined once in a while, hasn’t show up for longer than expected.

“That’s it!” Snotlout exclaimed after a few more minutes.

Fishlegs lifted his eyes up from the ground where he had been doodling bad images of various dragons. Snotlout seem determined and Fishlegs became a bit scared. Snotlout’s plans rarely played out how he saw them, and the others were often dragged along and later made to take the blame when the plans failed.

“What are you thinking?” Fishlegs cautiously asked.

“We’re going to follow…” Snotlout paused for a moment as he looked around the village, “…HIM!”

Fishlegs followed Snotlout’s finger where it was pointed. At the other end he found Tuffnut, he had a big sack of something on his back and was, very badly, trying to sneak out of the eyes of the village. No one else paid him any mind, they were used to the twins’ antics and dealing with the aftermath was just a usual day. To the two boys it was clear that something was up, and it was not a prank. The twins liked to boast about the pranks they were about to commit and they hadn’t heard anything of a new prank in a while.

Fishlegs actually had no objections. He was curious on how the others became friends with Hiccup, he also wanted to be friends with her again. He had been friends with her a long while ago and he wanted to have that again. If the others were doing it then why couldn’t he?

-o-

It was easy to follow Tuffnut. The male twin has never been good at sneaking around, that part fell on the female part of the pair. Ruffnut was the one who managed to get her brother to take things seriously and not mess up on the simple things.

It took about ten minutes of walking through the woods, getting stuck on tree roots and getting scraped by low branches for Tuffnut to finally stop. Well not stop, just slow down and change his course. The two boys watched as the male twin threw the sack down into the cove that no one had known existed and then he disappeared into a lower entrance to the space.

“I got the stuff!” Fishlegs heard him shout.

“They have to be down there.” Snotlout whispered to the larger boy, Fishlegs hummed in agreement. “Come on.”

“Wait, wait,” Fishlegs stopped him and pulled his hand out of the tight grip the other boy had on him. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Of course it is!” Snotlout whisper-shouted. “I’m done being left out!”

With those words he marched towards the opening they had seen Tuff disappear to, Fishlegs didn’t have a choice but to follow. What greeted them upon entering was shocking, to say the least.

The other teens were there, standing in a circle. They were laughing. It was strange to see Ruff and Tuff laugh at something when violence wasn’t involved and it was even stranger to see Arne laughing at all. Nothing, absolutely nothing could outweigh the strangeness that came with seeing Hiccup, small and unassuming Hiccup, scratching a dragon’s chin with a huge smile on her face.

“What…?” Fishlegs heard himself gasp, a bad idea on his part.

The dragon, who had been previously enjoying the scratches, was now glaring at the two of them. The hate and anger in its eyes was clear as day and Fishlegs almost didn’t hear Hiccup speak with the blood that was rushing past his ears.

“Toothless,” Hiccup said, a warning in her tone.

The dragon snarled and didn’t stop glaring, still on high alert. The other teens weren’t any better, suspicion and anger coloring their gaze.

“What the fuck?” Snotlout finally shouted as he shook of the surprise of the image in front of them.

“What do you want?” Ruffnut was the first to address them, their eyes turned to her.

“We wanted to see where you went!” Snotlout continued shouting. “You have been ditching us for weeks!”

“We haven’t been ditching you,” Ruffnut chuckled, “We just started hanging out with someone way more interesting.”

“And that someone doesn’t blame us when everything goes wrong.” Tuffnut added.

Fishlegs didn’t listen to anything anymore, he eyed the dragon one more time. The dragon was still ready to pounce, but it was looking more at Snotlout than at him. He almost missed the fact that Hiccup was looking directly at him with a raised eyebrow, he almost re-thought his plan.

Fishlegs took a cautious step backwards and when the dragon didn’t notice, he turned around and tried to run away. He really should have spared a glance at the others as he would have seen that Arne was no longer near Hiccup and the dragon, and that Hiccup wasn’t really looking at him, she was looking behind him and her raised eyebrow was directed at Arne. Fishlegs hadn’t given a glance at the others and that meant that he ran straight into Arne.

Fishlegs fell back on the ground with a groan. He looked up at Arne and found the blond looking at him with no discernable emotion. The larger male gulped and started to crawl back, he didn’t think anyone apart from Hiccup noticed the situation as the voices he didn’t pay attention to were still talking.

“Enough!” Hiccup finally yelled and Fishlegs froze.

-o-

Hiccup didn’t know why she bothered. Sure, having friends was nice in theory, but all this drama that came with didn’t seem worth it. Everyone was looking at her now, it made her feel anxious, but it was better than having Fishlegs or Snotlout try to run again before they heard her out.

“What are you doing here?” She asked them.

They didn’t answer. Wide eyes continued staring at her as she sighed. Toothless gently nudged her hand with his snout and she started petting the dragon without second thought.

“We-we followed Tuffnut,” Fishlegs whimpered from the ground.

Hiccup pinched the bridge of her nose and turned to glare at the male twin. Ruffnut smacked her brother on the back of his head with a few choice words aimed his way. Tuffnut’s bad sneaking skills aside, the two boys could be a problem.

“Okay,” Hiccup sighed with a shake of her head, “Fishlegs, Snotlout meet Toothless.”

“Oh you’re in so much trouble,” Snotlout sneered and turned around, ready to run. Except Arne hadn’t moved. He was still standing there with his arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. “Move!”

“No.” Arne simply said.

“Stoick needs to know about this!”

“He doesn’t.” Arne and Hiccup said at the same time.

“Wha-how?” Snotlout mumbled in confusion.

“You –“ Arne pointed at Snotlout, “- Join him –“ he pointed at Fishlegs, “- And sit down.”

Chapter Text

“You can do whatever you want.” Hiccup finally said. She had explained everything to the best of her abilities, with the help of the others, but now the situation was out of her hands. “I won’t stop you.”

“You can go back to the village, back to the Chief, and ruin our lives,” Arne said. He had moved away from the entrance and was standing next to the shorter girl.

“You can stay here, admit that dragons are actually cool, and join our friend group again.” Ruffnut suggested half-heartedly.

“You could also ask Hiccup for a dragon of your own,” Tuffnut said and the two girls and Arne turned to glare at him. He shrunk back and shrugged. “I’m just saying…”

“Say less.” Hiccup grumbled and turned back to the two on the ground. “Make your choice.”

 “Dragons…” Fishlegs mumbled to himself. “I choose dragons.”

“Are you crazy?” Snotlout jumped up with a shout. “They’re the enemy!”

“They’re not,” Hiccup said loudly to gain their attention again. “Fishlegs made his choice, Snotlout. You’re the one who hasn’t.”

“My choice should be clear!” The short male yelled.

“It isn’t.” Hiccup shook her head. “You haven’t given us a definitive answer.”

“I just don’t understand how you could do this!”

“Easily,” Hiccup chuckled, “From the very start Toothless treated me like an actual person and not like I was just the mistakes I had made during my life.” She explained. “For the first time in a long while, this dragon showed me what it was like to be accepted…” she trailed off and swallowed around the clog in her throat.

“You can go back to the village, tell everyone what you saw… But there’s no guarantee that they’ll believe you.” Ruffnut spoke up. “You’re stupid, rash and infuriating, but you were our friend, Snotlout. We don’t want you to ruin your life because you were being more stupid than usual.”

Snotlout looked at the others one by one. They didn’t look panicked at the possibility of being found out. What shocked him the most was that Hiccup was the calmest of them all. She was the one who started all of this, this mess they were standing in, yet she wasn’t bothered at all. His eyes stalled on his cousin.

“I have nothing to lose,” she said when she noticed him staring, “No matter what you choose.”

-o-

“What I’m saying is that we all need dragons if we’re going to help you,” Ruffnut said as she followed her best friend.

Hiccup tried her best to block out the female twin’s voice. They have been at this for a while, almost from the moment Snotlout had chosen to keep quiet and join their friend group again. Hiccup continued to silently curse Tuffnut, she had already cursed at him out loud, after all he was the one who got the idea of getting Fishlegs and Snotlout dragons out in the open.

She was not going to do that, at least not this soon. Hiccup had told them that, but they still continued to pester her, until Toothless had started snarling at them for even opening their mouths. Ruffnut was exempt from the Fury’s hostility, as she was the only person who Hiccup hadn’t complained to Toothless about.

“Hiccupppp,” Ruffnut whined again, the smaller girl stopped in her place.

Hiccup took a deep breath and slowly turned around to look at Ruffnut.

“What part of: ‘It’s too dangerous to give them dragons right now,’ do you not understand?”

“The ‘Too dangerous’ part?” Ruffnut smiled. “Hiccup, you promised!”

“I promised nothing!” Hiccup exclaimed, she was angry that her friend seemed to not be listening. “Training dragons is not my responsibility! And why, for Odin’s sake, would I let them near dragons when they’re still terrified of Toothless?!”

Ruffnut blinked a couple times without moving a muscle. Having Hiccup blow up like this was rare and even her good reputation with Toothless was running out. The Fury came to sit next to his rider, eyes narrowed at the female twin.

“Okay,” Ruffnut said after a moment of silence, “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hiccup sighed and rubbed her forehead, “Just drop it, for now at least.”

Thankfully Ruffnut did drop the subject, and so did the others. Still, every moment Hiccup spent with the gang started to grind on her nerves. She liked having friends, but she wasn’t used to it. Them being friendly with her and wanting to talk to her was something new. Until that point her only friend had been Ruffnut, and even with how energetic the girl was, she hadn’t taken up as much space as was being taken up now.

-o-

Hiccup was laying on the ground further away from everyone. Toothless had curled around the girl a few minutes ago. The other had ran out of things to talk about and she was thankful for the silence that had covered the cove.

Hiccup could practically feel the stares Fishlegs and Snotlout were throwing her way. She had stayed back and let Ruffnut explain most of what had happened concerning her and Toothless, which meant that some questions had gone unanswered, and they wouldn’t be answered as long as Hiccup wasn’t in the mood for it.

The fact that she was friendly with a dragon was a part of why they were staring at her. A couple of hours was not enough time to completely get your mind around the fact that most of what you believed in was a lie. She didn’t feel bad about staying quiet and letting them get used to being in the presence of a dragon, after all that was how she got over her fears.

The sun was starting to set and soon the twins, Arne and her would need to sneak into the academy to feed the dragons. They would feed even the ones who they weren’t training, Hiccup didn’t want them to go without the same friendliness they offered the others.

Hiccup sat up with a sigh. Arne was sharpening his axe, Toothless had gotten comfortable with having weapons near when he figured out they weren’t there to cause harm. The twins were half asleep as they leaned on each other for support. Fishlegs was casting anxious glances at the Night Fury every half a second, like the dragon would lunge at him at any second. Snotlout had decided that glaring at the ground was an interesting thing to do.

“When will we need to head out?” Arne broke the silence without looking up from what he was doing.

“When the sun sets,” Hiccup answered with a shrug, “Cover of darkness and all that.”

“Where are we headed?” Snotlout looked up from the ground as soon as Arne had spoken and was interested in what the conversation was about, as were the others.

“The only place you and Fishlegs will be heading is the village,” Hiccup told him.

“Wha-why?” Fishlegs stuttered out in confusion.

“We have stuff to take care of, stuff concerning dragons.”

“And you’re still scared shitless of them,” Ruffnut chuckled after she caught on what Hiccup and Arne were talking about.

“Plus, all of us being gone would be suspicious after you hadn’t been spending time with us,” Hiccup added like Ruffnut hadn’t basically called the two boys cowards.

-o-

With Hiccup knowing how to show the dragons that they meant no harm, training them, even after months in captivity was easy. Giving them food, catering to their hygienic needs and just being friendly was enough to gain their trust. Hiccup had also spent time with the twins and Arne just hammering in the fact that they needed to keep the trust no matter what.

Four days, more than half of the time until her final exam was what it took to build that trust. Time was running out and she still didn’t know what to do about the monster residing at the heart of the nest. Every plan she made just wasn’t enough, when she thought she had something the image of that thing appeared when she closed her eyes.

It was becoming more and more clear that she could not do this alone. Even having the gang to help wasn’t enough. She needed an army, an army she didn’t have, an army her father did have.

Her father didn’t have just an army, he had a lot of hatred for dragons too. If Hiccup even mentioned the nest he would go crazy. Finding the nest was something he wanted to do for so long he had instilled the same wish in her heart too, for a while at least.

Tonight, Fishlegs and Snotlout will join them in the academy. The two boys were still skittish around dragons, but the dragons in the academy were used to friendly people by this point, so introducing them would be quite easy.

Chapter Text

It was easy.

Easy to get the dragons trust, easy to make the two boys trust the dragons. The only thing none of them, apart from Hiccup, had gone on a flight on their own dragon. Letting the dragons out of their pens was one thing, getting them out from the academy was another. A thing that was not possible without endangering themselves and the dragons alike.

Hiccup felt scared. Terrified even. Sure, the fact that her, newly acquired, friend group had their own dragons was amazing. Even the fact that she had friends would have made her happy.

Two days until her final exam and her nerves were frayed. Everything led back to one thing and one thing only: she couldn’t do this alone. She also couldn’t kill a dragon. She didn’t want to kill a dragon, but it was starting to seem she would have no other choice.

Maybe pretending to be the dragon killing prodigy would be easy.

She didn’t want easy this time.                                            

-o-

 Hiccup finally had a moment alone with Toothless. It started to be rare, the times she had with the first being that had accepted her for who she was from the very beginning. She did have Ruffnut, but the Fury rider knew full well that the female twin started being her friend out of desperation. If it hadn’t been for that Ruffnut wouldn’t have tried talking to her, Hiccup knew this and didn’t blame the blonde girl.

They had just gotten back from a flight, something that Hiccup wouldn’t get tired of no matter what. The wind had made her ponytail come loose and tree leaves and small branches were tangled in her hair – the result from taking off and landing through the small gaps between the trees.

She had gone to the pond to rinse out any dirt that clung to her hair, she let the hair down completely. Her hair reached her shoulders barely, a sign that she would need to shorten it soon. After a few mishaps in the forge when she had started learning blacksmithing she and Gobber had decided that it would be the best for her to keep her hair short, until she gained some height and was farther away from the flames at least.

Hiccup cupped some water and let it wet her hair. The water was cold enough that dunking her head would be a bad idea. Her plans on being careful were ruined when Toothless ran through the water splashing her from head to toe. She gasped as the cold water rained down on her, a smile breaking out on her face a moment later as she gave chase to the chuckling dragon.

That was how the others found them. Hiccup giggling and soaking from head to toe and Toothless playing along with the girl, acting as if she really did have the strength to hold him partially beneath the water. The night Fury noticed the others first, the dragon jumped up and accidently showed Hiccup backwards into the water. The girl got up sputtering from the water.

“Toothless,” she growled half-heartedly as she wiped her hair away from her eyes.

The dragon ignored her and continued staring at the others with wide eyes, like he was caught doing something he was not supposed to do. The teens were not better, frozen in place, still shocked that Hiccup could be this care free. Finally the girl noticed the other teens too.

“Oh, hey guys.” She waved to them, breaking them out if their frozen state.

“Hi,” Ruffnut called back with an amused smile on her face.

The pair made their way out of the water and went separate ways when they reached dry land. Toothless went directly to a sun-lit spot to dry off while Hiccup joined her friends. She decided to dry off before she would bring up the subject of flying. Arne had already flown with her, she wanted to offer the same thing to the others, so they could get a taste of it, if everything went crumbling, at least they would know what pulled at Hiccup all this time.

-o-

Hiccup was alone with Toothless again. The night before was amazing. She got to show her friends what flying felt like, they stayed through the whole night just enjoying themselves and having fun. Because their whole night wasn’t spent on sleeping, none of the gang were awake yet as far as she knew.

Hiccup hadn’t gone to sleep yet, she didn’t feel the need to do so. Plus, tomorrow was the day of her final exam, the day she had to kill a dragon or betray her tribe right in front of them. She had already betrayed them by becoming friends with a dragon, but it was a different thing to show them.

Hiccup didn’t know what to do and she was freaking out. It seemed that that was all she did this past week” freak out, breakdown and argue. She didn’t like it one bit.

The Night Fury sensed her bad mood. From the moment they were left alone the dragon had sat next to her, enjoying her presence, catching up on sleep and keeping her company. Toothless was just as exhausted as she was, probably even more than she was.

The sun rose and Hiccup was still awake. The Night Fury woke up a few hours after sunset and cautiously nudged the girl to get her attention. She gave him a weak smile as she turned to look at him, the dragon gave a pointed look at his stomach and Hiccup chuckled.

Soon they were back in the air. The cool morning air vanished any tiredness the girl felt before. Hiccup took a deep breath of the cool air as Toothless dived for the ocean. She couldn’t’ find it in herself to think of something other than the endless sky.

Maybe she should have pushed herself to think of something else a bit harder.

She didn’t.

Maybe that was just another mistake on her part.

Chapter Text

Stoick was worried.

His daughter had changed. At least he thought she had. Hiccup had used to spend a lot of her time at home or in the forge. And now she spent all of her time outside, in the forest. She wasn’t alone, she had the other young teenagers with her. That confused him even more.

His daughter had always been different from the other kids. She liked reading stories about imagined things when they didn’t offer any advantage in the long run. Made up stories wouldn’t help her with treaty signings or making connections with potential allies. Hiccup didn’t like fighting or most physical things, something that was a glaring difference from other viking children. Those and many more had stopped his daughter from making friends.

His daughter had been friends with Ruffnut at one point and he wouldn’t have had a problem with it if the Thorston girl hadn’t pulled Hiccup down a path of mischief and destruction, destruction of which Hiccup didn’t have a problem creating on her own.

Now his daughter was known for things other than her mistakes. She made friends with the other teens after they saw what she was truly capable of. At the same time, his daughter didn’t spend time at home anymore.

Stoick had stayed up the night before, hoping to catch Hiccup before she went to sleep. He wanted to talk to her as only one day was left until her initiation into true viking-hood. He fell asleep waiting for her, something that had never happened before and when he went to check on her before the day’s tasks pulled him away, her room had been empty.

He wasn’t all that worried, he knew she had been out training and maybe she had just lost track of time and fell asleep somewhere outside. He also knew that Arne had been with her. Arne was someone Stoick respected, the boy was the best fighter in his age group and it had been a shock that he hadn’t won dragon training.

Stoick liked Arne. The boy was shaping up to be everything a Chief needed to be, and Stoick didn’t hide his hope that his daughter would end up with the boy. He wanted his daughter to continue the Haddock Chief line, but as much as he tried he couldn’t see the current girl as Chief. If she ended up with Arne, oh, he could see they would make a great Chieftain pair.

That was why he asked the boy to help his daughter. Stoick trusted Arne. He knew the boy wouldn’t let his daughter to stray from the viking way of life.

-o-

Stoick was a busy man. After being away for the nest hunt and with the preparations for the celebration he was more busy than usual. Still, he found time to sneak away to find his daughter. He was worried that the girl would be scared of facing the dragon in the arena with all of the tribe watching.

He made his way to the forest after making sure his daughter wasn’t in the village. He didn’t know where she could be, but he prided himself on being at least a half-descent tracker, so he knew that finding her wouldn’t be too hard.

-o-

It was hard. Harder than he thought it would be. If he didn’t know any better, he would think Hiccup was hiding from him, but she didn’t have a reason to do so. He was her father, and while he sometimes wasn’t the best at it, he was still her family. He loved her, he believed in her and she had no reason to hide anything from him.

He had sat down for the time being for a moment of peace. It was nice, not being bombarded with voices from every direction. He could understand why his daughter liked the woods.

Suddenly, a shadow passed by above him and Stoick lifted his eyes just in time to catch the end of the creature. The accompanying sound of moving wings was unmistakable. A dragon. A dragon was in these woods. It was where the teens had been hanging out for weeks now, where his daughter spent her free time.

He wanted to go back to the village and gather some men immediately, but he didn’t know where the dragon had gone. He knew that finding at least the general area where the dragon had gone would be beneficial, so he set off in a brisk pace.

He had been walking for about twenty minutes when he ran into someone. Hiccup, he had ran into Hiccup and he felt angry. Stoick looked at his daughter and her wide, confused eyes.

“Go back home.” He ordered immediately, everything else he had wanted to say forgotten for the time being.

“Wha- Da-dad, what are you doing here?” She asked and Stoick ignored the nervous tone of her voice.

“I saw a dragon.” He growled and shoved her in the direction of the village. “It’s not safe here, go home.”

“No!” She shouted.

“Do not shout!” He exclaimed in anger. “You’ll give away our position.”

“Dad, you’re just not making sense.” She reasoned. “I’ve been in these woods for days and I’ve never seen a dragon.”

“Will you just listen to me?” He growled again as he glared at her.

“No, I won’t,” she shook her head and crossed her arms, “You didn’t believe me when I said there was a dragon in these woods and I won’t believe you.”

“When did you- the Night Fury.” He came to the realization and looked down at his daughter in surprise. “You really shot it down…”

“I didn’t.” Hiccup disagreed without missing a beat, panic dancing in her eyes. “I didn’t.” She repeated with more confidence.

“You did,” Stoick nodded to himself. “I’ll find it. Go home.”

“Dad will you just listen to me?” She pleaded. “There is no dragon in these woods!”

“You need to listen to me!” He insisted. “GO HOME!”

“NO!” Hiccup shouted. “I WON’T GO HOME AND I WON’T LET YOU HURT AN INNOCENT CREATURE!”

“Innocent?” He hissed. “Innocent!?”

“Dragons are not the problem! The thing in the nest is!”

Hiccup closed her mouth with a click of her teeth. She knew she had said too much too soon. Hiccup took a cautious step back from her father only igniting his anger more.

“You’ve-you’ve been to the nest?” He asked in disbelief. “You think dragons are innocent?”

“They are.” She insisted with fear in her heart. She knew that there was no going back from this.

Stoick couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His daughter, the only piece he had left of his wife, was spouting off nonsense. Nonsense she truly believed. He looked at her, his anger rising with every second. He didn’t remember his child being this way, all he could remember, from when she started talking she had said she would be the best dragon killer out there. Stoick had hoped she would grow up to be like that, to follow in his footsteps.

He had held onto those hopes for years, but then she started to grow up. No matter what he did, she always strayed from the image he had created in his mind. Stoick had tried his best to be supportive, but then came a time where she had so much of Valka in her, that he couldn’t anymore. Stoick tried to lead Hiccup back by hinting at what a proper viking should be, he brought up Arne as much as he could, because the boy was a perfect example of what a viking’s, a Chief’s, child should be.

Hiccup was not.

Hiccup was everything a viking shouldn’t be, at least that was what it came to. A viking shouldn’t find dragons innocent, not after everything they had destroyed. A sane viking, even Hiccup, wouldn’t change their mind, especially after being at the top of the dragon training class. Unless… unless she had truly betrayed them.

Stoick looked at the child in front of him. He couldn’t see his daughter anymore, he couldn’t see anything through the haze of pure anger he was feeling at that moment.

“THEY’VE KILLED HUNDEREDS OF US!”

“AND WE’VE KILLED THOUSANDS OF THEM!” She screamed as frustrated tears gathered in her eyes.

They stared at each other in silence. Both with anger in their eyes, but only one with tears. This was what she had been afraid of. This moment when everything came crashing down. Stoick took a step closer to her and she tried her best to hide her fear.

“You’ve thrown your lot with them,” he sneered. “You’re not a viking. You’re not my daughter.” He ignored the heartbreak he could see on her face as he got close enough to grip her shoulder. “Where is the Night Fury!?”

“No…” she shook her head and pulled away from his grip. “If I’m not a viking, not your daughter… I owe nothing to you!”

She screamed the last part into his shocked face. Stoick didn’t react fast enough and she took off. He tried following her, but she had a better knowledge of the woods and her small size gave her an advantage. Stoick lost his daughter from his sight in a few moments. He lost his daughter form his life in a few words too.

-o-

He reached his home while ignoring everyone in the village. He sat down at the unlit fire pit and let out a deep sigh. Stoick knew that combing the forest would be fruitless, he needed a group of men to find the dragon… and Hiccup.

Hiccup. He couldn’t understand where he had gone wrong, what did he do wrong… Stoick knew he wasn’t the best father, but with Valka nowhere to be seen, he had done his best. But he still failed. He didn’t know what he would tell the tribe.

‘My daughter, the one who won dragon training, is a traitor to us all.’

He could say that, but it hurt too much. He didn’t know what to do. He just knew there was no going back from what Hiccup had done.

Chapter Text

Hiccup ran as fast as her feet could carry her. Branches and shrubs got in her way, tangling around her legs and scratching her face. She didn’t care, she just kept running. Tears were falling freely down her cheeks, not from the pain of the scrapes, but from the betrayal she felt.

She was sad, angry and disappointed. At herself and her father.

No.

Not her father anymore.

She ran for a while, making a loop around the cove in case Stoick was still on her trail. She stopped when her legs were about to give out and listened. She held her breath, the normal sounds of the forest greeted her. Her lungs begged for air and she finally breathed, the gasp for fresh air mixing with a sob.

She didn’t let herself drown in self-pity and linger in one place for too long. She knew she had to move, away from where she was standing and away from Berk. Hiccup didn’t see another choice. She didn’t have a family anymore, nothing really holding her down. Well, her friends were here, but they would get over her disappearance, after all, they had no problem ignoring her for years until recently.

Hiccup was bitter. And sad. And angry. She knew that her friends weren’t like they were before, but she was allowed to be bitter about the years they had ignored her. About the years she spent trying to be something she was not, about the times she tried her best only to be shot down and ridiculed.

Tears kept running down her face. She furiously wiped them away before they had a chance to fall. The woods had always been the place where she went to relax, to disappear, to be herself. The woods had been her only friend before Ruffnut had decided that Hiccup would be good enough for friendship. The woods wouldn’t be stained by Hiccup’s tears if she had a say in it.

-o-

Hiccup had never been happier by the fact she never brought her stuff back to the house. The sack full of things she might need was still in the cove, she had been spending most of her time there anyway, so bringing the things back had seemed redundant. Now, as she pulled the sack out of the small cave in the rocks, she was relieved that she had something to take with herself.

Toothless was staring at her with worry in his eyes. The Fury was on high alert because of her frazzled state. The dragon watched as she pulled out her notebook from her vest and wrote a quick note in case one of her friends made their way to the cove after she was gone, even if she was mad at the world, she didn’t want to worry the people who had finally started to like her.

Hiccup placed the note in place of her sack of things. The others had seen her take the things from the small cave enough times to know to check it, at least she hoped they would. She never thought her father would disown her, but she had been wrong about that. She didn’t trust her judgement when it came to other people anymore.

But she did trust herself when it came to dragons.

With that in her mind, she started to plan. She was done just sitting around and thinking about what she could do. Hiccup was going to act, finally. The first step of her plan was already underway: get off of Berk.

-o-

Hiccup didn’t know where she was going, she just knew that it wasn’t far from Berk. As luck would have it there were small islands dotted around the ocean just behind the horizon. This was good. It mean no wandering eyes would see suspicious sightings of dragons, no one would try to find out what that was.

She wanted to fly as far away as she could, but something was holding her back.

Hiccup wasn’t the only one who knew about the queen and the nest. Her friends knew about it, Arne had seen it and now she had went and babbled about it to Stoick. It was only a matter of time before Berk’s Chief figured out how to properly find the nest. Despite Stoick being blind when it came to family, he wasn’t stupid, and she knew there wasn’t much time for her to get rid of the queen.

She didn’t want any more dragons to suffer. She didn’t want any vikings to die. She just wanted peace and quiet and for that to become a reality, she was going to cause panic and fear. Hiccup didn’t want to do it, but she saw no other choice. All she had to do now was wait for night and hope Stoick wasn’t about to do something stupid and rash.

-o-

Hiccup stood and watched as the sun sunk into the ocean. She let out a breath and got into Toothless’ saddle. The dragon purred deep within himself and Hiccup let a small smile grace her face, the first one since the argument with Stoick.

“We’re gonna be okay…” she whispered as she placed her hand on the Fury’s head. “We’re going to be just fine…” she bit her lip and did her best to believe what she was saying.

Another deep breath and they were off in the direction of Berk. She had done her best to remove everything that could hinder their speed. Anything that wasn’t vital to flight or their safety was back at the island.

Soon, way too soon, Berk was in reach. Hiccup could see that everything was as it should be. The normal amount of guards at their stations, no people outside if they didn’t need to be. She was thankful for that.

Hiccup steered Toothless towards the academy, shushing the dragon’s worried croons. They needed to do this as fast as they could. Hiccup smirked as she saw the chain dome was lifted and the floor of the building was clean, someone had come and made sure the arena was prepared for the final exam and in turn made freeing the captive dragons easier for her.

Toothless was as stealthy as he could be. With no need for fire power, no noise came from the dragon. Hiccup made the Night Fury land in the middle of the arena and in seconds she was on the ground, running towards the closest enclosure.

The dragons inside sensed that something was happening. The various growls and squawks coming from them was starting to worry Hiccup. Too much noise would attract people too quickly. She cast a desperate glance at Toothless and the dragon let out a growl she could barely hear, but the captive dragons calmed down immediately.

She let out the dragons one by one and to her surprise they didn’t fly away at the first sight of freedom, which made things easier for her once again. When all of the dragons were standing in front of her, she started speaking in a calm voice.

“I need you to do one last thing for me before you fly away,” she said, “Destroy your enclosures, please.”

The dragons looked at her and did nothing. Her heart sank. She nodded to herself in disappointment and got onto Toothless. The dragons either really didn’t understand what she was saying or didn’t want to listen to her. She just hoped they would fly away before hell broke loose.

“Bud,” she sighed and tapped Toothless’ head a two times, “Plasma blast.”

The Fury wasted no time and charged a powerful blast into the doors of the Nightmare’s former enclosure. The sound echoed towards the village and Hiccup urged Toothless to continue, the faster they were done with this the better.

To her surprise the other dragons joined in, and soon enough, the enclosures were just piles of rubble and trash. Hiccup could hear panicked screams coming from the village and they were getting closer by the second.

She hooked herself into the saddle completely and took off, Toothless’ dark scales blending into the sky and keeping them hidden. The other dragons followed, out of reach of the weapons thrown in their direction. The vikings weren’t fast enough.

Hiccup let Toothless steer them in the right direction. The Fury launched them into the sky, above the clouds before anyone could see them. The other dragons thought that was a good idea, and that was how they ended up following her and Toothless to the small island they had made shelter in.

As soon as Toothless stopped on the ground, Hiccup let out a joyous laugh. She couldn’t believe it had worked. Oh how she hoped that vikings didn’t start using their brains now and they would thing the dragons had gotten out themselves.

That had been her plan from the start. After all it served a dual purpose: free the dragons and ruin the cadges so no other could be caught. Sure, she didn’t care if anyone knew that she had freed the dragons, but after what Stoick had said, she wanted to disappear completely from his life.

Hiccup laid on the ground, Toothless curled up snug around her. She looked at the dragon pile the other dragons made and smiled.

Now all she had to do was get rid of the queen in the nest, which was going to be harder than this was.

Chapter Text

The day had been weird to say the least.

First, Hiccup had been nowhere to be found. It was nothing unusual any other day, but Ruffnut had thought that the girl would like to finally talk to them about what she was going to do at the final exam, but she wasn’t there. Ruffnut had disregarded that fact, knowing that Hiccup just needed more time alone.

Second, Stoick had approached them. He had sought them out one by one to ask about his daughter. The Chief had looked concerned when they truthfully told him they hadn’t seen her. His concern was understandable to a point. Hiccup was his only child, but he had never before tried to find her when she wandered off, happy to let her return at her own pace.

Third, Hiccup hadn’t returned, Stoick did. The Chief marched back into the village and had shut himself inside his house for a few minutes, before storming off to the Meade hall. That not only confused Ruffnut, but the other Hooligans as well. Yet the anger was never explained, Stoick just sat there and never said anything, not even to Gobber.

Ruffnut and the others had stayed up as long as they could, but with ‘The big day’ tomorrow, they were shooed to bed way sooner than they had liked. Not one of them had seen Hiccup that day and sleep came hard for them all.

-o-

Ruffnut jumped up in bed, she was awake in a second, her hearth beating at her ribs. She didn’t know what had woken her, but a quick look at Tuffnut’s bed showed her that she wasn’t the only one awake. The twins looked at each other for a confused moment, trying to figure out what had happen when it repeated.

The distinct sound of a dragon blast at metal. They knew that sound very well, years of raids conditioning them to fear it, but they were more confused than afraid. They quickly left their beds and threw on some warmer clothing, running down the steps and outside.

Raids never happened on a schedule. They were unpredictable things for the most part, but the last one had done so much damage, the dragons took so much food… they weren’t supposed to be back yet. The moment they stepped outside, it was clear that there was no raid. No need for them to get to their stations.

The twins weren’t the only ones outside, the raid horn had sounded not long after the second blast, but there were no dragons descending to destroy the village once more. Other people were arming themselves and running around. The twins found the others and Arne was the one who pointed them toward the academy.

No one knew what was happening, but Arne was their fire brigade leader, so he got information faster than any of the rest of them. They hadn’t made it even half way to the academy when the dragons had flown away. The dragons the gang had bonded with – gone.

There was screaming, throwing of weapons and swearing in all directions. Ruffnut didn’t know if the others was it, but she had. Hiccup, she had seen Hiccup leading the dragons from the arena. Well, truthfully, she had seen the silhouette of a Night Fury, and where there was a Night Fury, there was Hiccup.

Before she had the chance to tell the others, Stoick had called all of them back to the plaza. He looked furious and resigned. He waited until the ones checking out the academy were back. After hearing what they said, he sighed and quieted down the concerned and confused sounds of the tribe.

“The dragons in the academy had broken out,” his voice rang out through the open air, “This means there will be no final exam.”

There were a few irritated shouts, but mostly people understood, after all, no dragon meant no one to kill.

“When the next raid comes, we will be taking no prisoners.” Stoick continued. He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “The dragons took Hiccup. We will show them no mercy.”

Things devolved into chaos. People shouting in rage, concern and bloodlust. Despite the numerous shouts at Stoick for an explanation, he didn’t stop, didn’t answer and left the people where they were, retreating to his home.

It felt like hours had passed, but was merely minutes. People cleared out and the gang were the only ones left in the plaza.

“Hiccup’s gone?” Fishlegs fearfully asked.

“No way,” Ruffnut quickly answered. “She’s alive.”

“But she’s gone from Berk.” Arne said as he looked around the night sky. “And so are the dragons from the academy.”

“That’s not a coincidence, is it?” Snotlout asked, his eyes pointed at the destroyed arena, he couldn’t see anything from this far away, but he tried.

“I saw her,” their eyes jumped to her, she quickly went to clarify, “Not her in the flesh, but –“

“You saw Toothless too?” Arne interrupted her and Ruffnut nodded.

“We have to do something,” Tuffnut told them, “Anything.”

“We can’t.” Fishlegs said, sadness in his voice.

“The dragons left with her, she saved them.” Ruffnut agreed.

“We’ll find something,” Arne promised, “She left, but she didn’t abandon us, she wouldn’t. We’ll find a way to make sure she’s safe.”

“How?” Snotlout asked.

“I’ll sail if I have to,” Arne answered with full confidence. “Something happened today in those woods with her father, something that made her leave.”

“We can only hope she found a safe space to sleep.” Ruffnut sighed and ran a hand down her hair.

-o-

With morning came a tense atmosphere. Everyone knew that something wasn’t right and no one wanted to admit it. Stoick had told them Hiccup was gone, but no one asked him what happened, people were too afraid.

They went on with their day as if nothing had happened. Ruffnut and the others had at one point gone to the academy to see what the damage was. The melted and ruined iron doors made it impossible to see from which side the doors were destroyed. There was no sign of Hiccup anywhere in the arena. Whatever her plan had been, it worked.

Ruffnut spent the day helping salvage whatever was left of the destroyed materials, the gang had joined her. Despite them having spent so much time without Hiccup, it was weird not having her with them. The knowledge that she wasn’t at the forge or in the woods laid heavy on their chest.

Ruffnut caught herself and the rest of the gang looking up to the sky at various parts of the day. Like they were saying a short prayer to the Gods, but she knew they were checking for signs of Hiccup. She wouldn’t be back so soon or in the day time, she knew it, they knew it, but they still held onto hope.

Hope was the only thing they had left, for now at least.

Chapter Text

It was awful. It really was. Ruffnut couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that the adults were acting like Hiccup never existed. The talks about the final exam died out after a day. One day. What was worse was that no one talked about Hiccup, the one who was supposed to fight against the dragon, no, they just talked about the event itself.

Ruffnut was angry, she wasn’t the only one. Despite the warnings and bans from Stoick about going into the woods, the teens went there every day. They went to the cove, hoping that Hiccup would be there.

Life went on as usual and Ruffnut hated it. Hiccup was gone for Odin’s sake! And so were the dragons! She had really gotten used to seeing Toothless every day, even the Zippleback in the arena left a hole in her day to day life and she hadn’t even known the dragon for that long.

Ruffnut didn’t like it when people saw her cry, the only people who had had been her family and Hiccup. The girl wasn’t in the mood to be coddled or made fun of, that’s why she was walking around the forest alone, wiping at her eyes every second or so.

She could understand why, even when they became friends, Hiccup liked being in the woods alone. It was nice not to put up a front, just to be who you needed to be in the moment. Ruffnut walked farther and farther into the threes, the setting sun casting a golden glow around her. She just wanted to savor the moments of peace. Ruffnut sat down and leaned against a three, she closed her eyes and rested her head on her bent knees. It had only been four days and things were getting hard, even in their friend group.

Snotlout spent every day trying to figure out what had happened that day with Hiccup and Stoick, and he was being more annoying than usual because of that. Fishlegs was an anxious mess, he was scared that Stoick would ask about Hiccup and he would just blurt out everything, incriminating them all in the process. Arne was more irate than usual, mostly because with Hiccup gone, he was the ‘winner’ of dragon training and had more pressure on his shoulders. Tuffnut was worst of all, he was treating Ruffnut like she would break any second, like she wasn’t the same person just because Hiccup was gone.

Maybe her brother had been right, Ruffnut did break after all. The girl sniffed as another wave of tears forced themselves from her eyes. She didn’t try to wipe them away or hold them back anymore. She was alone here and that knowledge made it safe for her to sob out loud and without repercussions.

She didn’t know how long she had been sitting there when her hair was tugged. At first she thought it had tangled in something, a low hanging branch most likely. She smoothed her hair down and didn’t pay it any mind. Until it happened again, and again, and again.

Ruffnut was angry at that point and looked up to rip the branch of off the three when she came face to face with a dragon. She froze in fear, a scream stuck in her throat. Her eyes frantically jumped across the face of the dragon. The happy face of the dragon, a Zippleback more precisely.

It took her a minute, but it finally clicked in her head. The dragon in front of her was the same one from the arena.

“Oh my Thor…” she whispered and launched herself at the dragon, trapping his neck into a fierce hug.

-o-

“Stop whining!” Ruffnut whisper-shouted.

“You’re scaring me, Ruff!” Tuffnut shot back.

Ruffnut paused and turned to look at her brother with a confused look on her face, the boy shrugged.

“You’ve been down since…” he looked around and leaned closer to the girl, even though they were alone at this time, “Hiccup went missing.” The boy straightened and continued in his normal tone. “And now you’re all smiles as you’re dragging me to the woods. I can be forgiven if I think you’re about to murder me in cold blood.”

Ruffnut blinked a couple of times then ran a hand down her face, letting out an annoyed groan.

“If I murder you, then I murder you,” she shrugged and grabbed his hand again. “Let’s go.”

Tuffnut let out a yelp, but didn’t struggle against her hold. He was actually relieved that his sister was back to her pre-missing Hiccup self. It was a bit weird to him that Ruffnut only wanted him to come with her. With Hiccup their whole friend group had become closer than ever and Ruffnut refusing the other teens’ company was strange.

The boy really started to believe that Ruffnut would murder him when she continued pulling him in the direction of the cove. The one place they had left more or less alone unless they were all together. That was Hiccup’s place, her sanctuary with Toothless and being there alone, with no one else near, was like… breaking some sort of unspoken agreement between them all.

Still, he said nothing.

When they reached the cove, Ruffnut was almost jumping in excitement. Tuffnut wanted to ask her again if he was going to die, but his eyes caught movement. He froze as he saw the Zippleback coming towards the two of them.

The dragon crashed into the twins, wrapping his long necks around the two bodies. Tuffnut let out a happy laugh and hugged the dragon as tight as he could.

“Is this…?” he trailed off.

“Yeah, it is.” His sister confirmed with a huge smile on her face.

Tuffnut returned the smile and went back to hugging the dragon. After a long while they stopped hugging and the twins where let down on the ground once again.

“This is what I wanted to show you!” Ruffnut exclaimed, but Tuffnut wasn’t listening to her.

He hesitantly pointed to the walls of the cove, his mouth agape.

“Is that…?”

Ruffnut followed his finger and froze.

“Yeah.” She whispered.

-o-

Hiccup was really starting to doubt everything. She knew she had to go back to the nest to try to get more information on the Queen, but she was scared. The last time she went there, a dragon was killed because it got in the Queen’s way to get to Toothless.

Hiccup didn’t want that to happen again, but she didn’t have much choice. She and Toothless were alone again, the arena dragons having left. She didn’t know if they would be back, and that hurt a bit. Although she knew they were still animals with their own instincts and a wish for freedom.

The girl sighed as she watched Toothless play on the beach. The dragon kicked up sand as he ran around and Hiccup couldn’t help but notice the tail she had created. Guilt bubbled in her gut. The fake fit was a reminder that she was to blame for taking away the dragon’s flight. She was to blame that her best friend couldn’t life his life as he wanted, she was the reason he was stuck with her.

Hiccup took a deep breath and ran to Toothless, a smile on her face. She had decided. She would free the nest, find a smithy and try her best to give the Night Fury his flight back. After all, the dragons from the arena left.

Who was to say Toothless wanted to stay?

Chapter Text

“Do you think the other dragons will come back too?” Fishlegs didn’t hide the raw hope in his tone.

After making sure that they were not dreaming, the twins had ran back to the village to get the others. The Zippleback being back was like a miracle, none of the teens could really believe that the dragon had come back on its own.

“I hope so,” Snotlout murmured one hand gently stroking the scaly neck of one of the heads.

The twins hadn’t wanted to be separated from their dragon longer than they needed to, as soon as they got back in reaching distance they had thrown themselves upon the dragon and were now hanging off it with all their strength. Snotlout and Fishlegs were around the heads, petting the dragon softly, like they were afraid it would disappear. Arne was standing a bit farther away, still in reaching distance, but he was deep in thought.

Ruffnut noticed that the blond boy had stayed quiet since seeing the dragon. She looked at him from her place hanging upside down from one of the heads and tilted her head to the side, partly in question, partly to ease the feeling of blood flooding her brain.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked, when he didn’t react she jumped down from the dragon, landing on wobbly feet. “Arne!”

“Huh?” He raised his head and saw the others looking at him with concern. Arne shook his head and sighed. “I’m just thinking that this is our way to reach Hiccup.”

“What!?” Tuffnut yelled as his arms gave out and he fell down on the ground hard. He quickly got up and repeated himself in a calmer tone. “What?”

“Well, you have a dragon that trusts you –“ Arne started.

“And you could fly!” Fishlegs quickly understood. He clamped a hand on his mouth and whimpered out an apology for interrupting the other boy.

“Exactly,” Arne agreed, “The best way to reach Hiccup is flight and now… you can do it.”

-o-

Hiccup did her best to breath quietly. She had all but glued herself down on Toothless’ back, her eyes never leaving the crater that the Queen was in.

They were back at the nest, Hiccup knew she had to plan out a way to defeat the giant dragon and while she still didn’t know how, she knew that having escape routes was vital. So here they were, back at the Thor forsaken nest.

A small comfort was that the Queen seemed to be completely oblivious to their presence. There had been no raid and no spoils for the monster to choke down, so it was resting beneath the fog down below.

Despite being here to look for escape routes, the girl couldn’t see many. The nest was really just a huge dormant volcano, and the main escape route was the top. There may as well have been caves leading to the outside, but she couldn’t see them. Flying around to check was too risky in her opinion, after all they never knew what could alert the monster that there were visitors in its nest.

Hiccup took a deep breath and placed a steadying hand on Toothless’ neck.

“Let’s get out of here bud,” She whispered.

The Night Fury didn’t waste a second. He looked around once and then took off without hesitation, they were out of the mountain in seconds, no dragons followed them. Hiccup took a calming breath as they sped off in the direction of their camp.

-o-

“Ok, so the Queen is fireproof,” Hiccup mumbled to herself as she drew out the rough estimate of what the nest looked like, “At least to a degree. It wouldn’t stand being in the carven otherwise, right?”

The girl looked up to Toothless who was looking at her drawing with interest.

“Right.” She said to herself with a nod. “But we also though the academy doors were blast proof for the longest time and the dragons were able to melt them with the combined strength of their fire power…”

She trailed off and crossed her arms letting out a huff of annoyance. She stared at her rough drawing and tried to think of ways she could end the queen as quickly and as safely as possible.

“If we fly here -  no, that won’t work. If we get a few Nadders… but they wouldn’t want to stay or even listen would they? Gronckles have thick skin but they would be in danger of getting swallowed…”

She kept planning. Every plan that she wound a flaw in angering her more and more to the point she was yelling at herself.

“There isn’t enough space to do this!” she screamed and turned to the Fury who was looking at her with wide, concerned eyes.

Hiccup stopped in her tracks, her own eyes widening as she understood how crazy she sounded. She let her hands fall to her sides as tears of frustration welled up in her eyes. She dropped down on the ground and laid her head on her bent knees. Wiping away the gathering tears she looked at Toothless.

“There is no good plan is there?” she whispered in defeat, a new tear escaping. “There is no good plan or good outcome to this…” she sniffled. “Why did I think I could do this?”

Hiccup buried her face in her knees and let herself cry at the hopelessness of the situation. Only when she felt Toothless press up against her did a smile broke out on her face. She lifted her head and hugged the dragon to herself, staying quiet and letting herself calm down.

Moments passed and she stopped crying, she pulled away from Toothless and shushed his concerned croons with a hand on his head.

“I’m not giving up bud,” she smiled, “I’ve come this far, giving up now would be stupid.” She looked down at the rough drawing of her plan. “But I can’t do this alone, can I?”

Chapter Text

Ruffnut really liked to feel the wind in her hair, the freedom, the excitement that came with flying. She could easily see how Hiccup got addicted to the feeling so fast. What she couldn’t understand how the shorter girl functioned after the flights she took.

Ruffnut’s ass was numb and she felt like shit. After spending the night learning how to fly together with Tuffnut, getting only a couple hours of sleep was not ideal, but it was what had to be done. The female twin had held onto the idea that Hiccup was stronger than them for a while, but this just proved it.

“I don’t get how Hiccup did this,” she complained to her brother who was just as exhausted as she was.

“Hiccup’s a witch,” he grumbled and shoved a piece of bread in his mouth, “It’s the only way she could manage to function normally after that.”

Having grabbed some food to eat on the way to save some time, the twins were once again making their way into the woods. The three boys had said they’d be waiting for the two in the cove to talk about the progress the twins made with flying. It had just been a day since they found the Zippleback, now affectionately named Barf and Belch, but time was of the essence. A total of five days since Hiccup had disappeared, but it felt like a lifetime.

They had no idea where Hiccup was or how she was – hurt? Scared? …dead? - and the faster they managed to get in the air for long periods of time, the better.

-o-

“Oh shut up,” Ruffnut sneered at Fishlegs.

The two had just entered the cove and found the three already there. Fishlegs had just perked up and Ruffnut could see he was about to greet them with a big smile and a happy attitude.

She wasn’t having it.

The boy instantly shrunk back, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care. She felt awful, there was no reason for laughs or smiles… Hiccup really was better than her.

“What’s up with you?” Snotlout asked while Arne, the only one with a brain it seemed, stayed silent and not happy.

“We were up all night, learning how to fly,” Tuffnut deadpanned next to her, “And you’re asking what’s up with us?”

Barf and Belch weren’t in the cove at the moment, but it wasn’t a surprise, after all the dragon needed to eat. The dragon’s wing flaps could already be heard, meaning the Zippleback was near the cove. The gang were expecting him to come back, so they didn’t react at the sounds of an approaching dragon.

“It can’t be that hard,” Snotlout waved it off like it was nothing, his eyes not leaving the twins.

Arne rolled his eyes and was about to rightfully call Snotlout an idiot when he froze. Really, they all should have known what multiple flying dragons sounded like by now. Arne smirked and elbowed Snotlout, cutting Ruffnut off before she could yell at the boy.

“Looks like you’re about to find out.”

With those words the others followed the direction he was looking at. They all stood still as four dragons stared back at them.

Barf and Belch had come back as expected, but the Nightmare, Nadder and Gronckle… they were a pleasant surprise.

-o-

“I’m sorry? What was that?” Ruffnut grinned as she leaned in towards Snotlout, he exhaled and repeated.

“I said you were right, this isn’t easy.”

Ruffnut leaned back with a satisfied smile. She looked around the cove, the boys were either sitting or lying down near their dragons. They hadn’t spent as much time trying to find as the twins had the day before. For one, the twins were still sore. For second, the others didn’t want to be sore tomorrow.

The gang had familiarized themselves with their dragons once more before they had left to show themselves in the village for a while, and when night started to fall, they had all met back up in the cove, this time with plans to fly together.

Arne was picking it up faster than Fishlegs and Snotlout, but not as fast as the twins. Ruffnut’s sheer want to find Hiccup and the twins’ natural recklessness transferred well to flying. It wasn’t like the other boys didn’t want to find the missing heir, but they were too cautious in their own right.

Fishlegs was too afraid of making a mistake, which was understandable. After all, they were flying very high up.

Snotlout was too much talk, not enough action. He tried to act like the best, but his actions directly opposed the Nightmares, leading to a few good scares.

Arne had the right warrior mindset and dedication. His reaction time was good, balance unmatched by all but Hiccup, but he still couldn’t let go the mistrust he had of dragons. It was ingrained in his brain like a language, always there, even when he wasn’t thinking about it.

The twins on the other had… they almost fell off a couple of times, they crashed the heads of the dragon together on accident, but they weren’t afraid. They didn’t try to completely control the dragon as they saw fit, because subconsciously they understood that the dragon knew more about flying then they did.

A couple more days at most. That was what they were giving themselves, that was why they all were trying to fly.

They didn’t know what the village will look like in a couple of days. They didn’t know if all of them will be able to disappear again to go looking for Hiccup, that was why they all needed to learn how to fly.

-o-

The salty wind around her brought comfort. The twinkling lights in the windows of the houses was a sight for sore eyes.

Hiccup missed the village, she really did.

She had half a mind to go back, at least to the cove, to leave a message for her friends, but she stopped herself. She wasn’t even sure they noticed she was gone. They had been so long without her, she had no reason to believe she left a hole in their friend group.

The girl leaned against the Night Fury for warmth, the dragon was the only steady thing in her life so far.

“A couple more days,” She whispered to Toothless, “A couple more days to refine the plan and we’re ending something. Whether it be the raids… or my life in battle.”