Chapter Text
“You did awesome!!!” Ruffnut crows with glee as half the village burns.
“Yeah!” Tuff agrees cheerfully, doused and dripping with the water bucket she overturned on his head. And it’s awesome. “You should do it again!”
“I’ve never seen anyone mess up that badly,” Snotlout sasses, apparently misinterpreting Ruffnut’s point. Or maybe he’s trying to be annoying intentionally. With Snotlout, it’s hard to say.
“Guess having a dad for a Chief’s got it’s perks,” Astrid mutters snidely, sharpening that stupid axe of hers.
“Yes, yes, thank you, I was trying,” Hiccup mutters, passing them in sullen silence as Gobber shoos him away, swinging a hook back to bat Snotlout in the chest. He goes down, and Ruff giggles.
Tuff holds his hand out, and Ruff high-fives him for good measure.
“Anyway,” Snotlout continues, flushing and irritated. “My dad’s super proud of me, so…” Spitelout passes, weapon slung over his shoulder, a permanent, dark scowl etched onto his face. “Hey, dad,” Snotlout continues with the rigid, forced cheer he talks in whenever his dad passes. “We were just talking about you.”
“Don’t talk to me in public,” Spitelout snaps back and keeps walking like nothing happened at all. Wow. That is so rude. Ruff is so glad she doesn’t have a dad.
“And this is why we don’t do the dad thing,” Tuffnut announces. “Mom thing, so much cooler.”
“Yeah,” Ruff nods, her twin voicing their words, as always.
“Sounds like we should be going to find this Night Fury,” Astrid remarks, dryness dripping form every syllable. Snotlout and Fishlegs break into laughing. Ruff looks at Tuff and they both shrug.
“We’re back to bed,” Tuffnut announces, waving. “See ya in the morning!”
“Technically, it’s almost sunrise,” Fishlegs protests.
“Yeah, right,” Tuff yells over their shoulders. ‘cuz you can tell the time when the sky is dark.” Ruff snickers and they take off.
“Do you think Hiccup was pulling our leg?” Ruff asks her twin.
“Who knows?” Tuffnut asks, throwing his hands up. “Sleep first. I’m tired.”
“Yeah,” Ruffnut wholeheartedly seconds. “I’m tired. Back to bed. But I need to ask about that dragon. If it exists, we need to see it. I might wanna keep it around for a while, just in case.”
“Good idea,” Tuff nods. “What if we make a dragon pit instead of a boar pit?”
Ruff thinks about it for half a second. “In favor!” she cheers, hand shooting up. “Tomorrow, we dig a dragon pit, bro. We’re gonna have soooo much fun!”
***
“What are you nuts doing?” Astrid asks, leaning over the nice and fancy dragon pit.
Tuffnut grabs the edge of the pit and hops out, bringing another pile of dirt onto Ruff’s head. She jumps back with a yelp and a glare, but he’s already gone. “It’s a dragon pit!” He spreads his arms to gesture dramatically. “It’s a boar pit, but for a dragon. Like it?”
“I’m thinking you guys are completely brainless and moronic,” Astrid replies with an eyeroll. “A dragon pit? As if you two can wrestle a dragon? You can barely wrestle each other. And let me guess, the moment I walk away, you’ll be back to hitting each other.”
“Of course, we can wrestle a dragon!” Ruff argues angrily, counting on her fingers. “Everybody wrestles dragons! Gobber, Stoick, Spitelout – pretty much every Viking has wrestled a dragon! Tuff and I will do too, and we’ll do great!”
“Lucky for you, the Fire Brigade is going into training,” Astrid says, arms crossed over her chest.
Ruff hops out of the pit, coated in dirt and tries to brush the annoying, itchy substance off her skin. She’s throwing Tuff back inside the moment life makes sense again. “We… uh… we’re what?” She is so confused.
Astrid presses her palm to her forehead, face scrunched like something is causing her physical pain. “The Fire Brigade is going into Dragon Training tomorrow.”
Ruff and Tuff stare blankly.
“Good for the Fire Brigade,” Tuffnut offers.
“Ugh!” Astrid throws her arms up in irritation. “You are part of the Fire Brigade, you muttonheads! You’re going into dragon training tomorrow with Snotlout, Fishlegs, and I! Do I really have to spell it out for you? You should be weapon training, not playing with giant pits! Ugh. Don’t mess this up.” She stalks away.
“Wow.” Tuffnut frowns after the girl’s disappearing form. “What crawled up her yak?”
Ruff shrugs. “She was born really mean.” She throws Tuff back into the pit.
“Yeeouch!” Tuff throws his shovel at the ground Ruff is standing on and she topples inside with a shriek. One more important thing, shovels do very, very good at hitting your stupid brother over the head.
“I just realized something,” she chirps, brandishing her shovel, “Astrid told us to weapon train, and shovels are great weapons!”
“Yeahh!!” Tuffnut yells with glee and they fly at each other again.
“Is someone going to tell me what is happening here?” Snotlout asks one hour later, leaning over the demolished pit.
“Well,” Tuff starts, laying on his back, as dazed as Ruff. She’s seeing stars. Whoaaaa. “We –”
Snotlout throws his hands up. “I don’t want to know.” He turns around and flees.
***
“Ughh,” Ruffnut groans into her hands. “Why does my head hurt, and where is Hiccup?”
“Ughhh, mine too,” Tuffnut groans, face plastered onto their table. “And I don’t know. Maybe he was eaten by his Night Fury.”
“Ohh, that would’ve been cool to watch. I just wish it was you.” She nudges her brother.
Tuff just groans wordlessly. “Let’s just go to bed. I’m sure we’ll feel great in the morning.”
“Uh-huh. I wanna see a Night Fury. That’s not fair. Hiccup gets all the cool stuff.”
“If it’s real,” Tuff argues.
“I don’t feel real!” Ruff moans. She really doesn’t. She hates it when her head hurts this much. What’s that about? Was it the pit? Maybe Astrid yelling at her? That must be it – no, that happens every day.
But making up something like that wasn’t very Hiccup. “I think he was telling the truth,” she announces at last.
“Maybe Loki is sending a immense, complex plot our way,” Tuffnut suggests, limping to his feet and stumbling to their bed, flopping out backwards.
“Maybe,” Ruffnut agrees, sitting beside him and slouching against the bunk bed’s pole. Owww. She will never do whatever she did to make her headache this bad again in her life. She swears. “Maybe we should check the woods, or on Hiccup.”
“We have dragon training tomorrow,” Tuffnut muses. “Is that where we train… to become dragons?” He brightens happily. “Does that mean we could breathe fire?”
She whacks him. “It’s where we learn how to fight dragons! But breathing fire sounds awesome.” Ohhh. Loki would be so proud. Imagine the chaos they could make – it would be amazing. And nobody would know all the fires were her and her brother…. Except they get blamed for everything that goes wrong around town that isn’t Hiccup’s fault. What’s with that?
“Oh.” Tuffnut smacks his hand against his helmet. “Right! Can’t forget that.”
Her brother is so stupid. “Let’s not be late,” she requests. “I actually wanna see this.”
***
“Ruff, Tuff!” Gobber yells, irked. “You kept the whole class up and waiting! Well,” he adds as afterthought and more confused than annoyed. “Almost the whole class.”
“Sorry,” Tuff apologizes. “We had a late appointment with our blankets.”
Headache gone, Ruff nods happily. “Mhm.”
“Let’s not keep the lesson waiting,” Gobber continues, walking into the arena. They’ve all watched dozens of dragon fights in here, and it’s awesome. Ruff can’t wait to do her first. It’s going to be so much fun.
“No turning back,” Astrid remarks, fruitlessly brushing her hair from her face as she turns around the arena. Just once, Ruffnut thinks everybody is in awe of this place.
“This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” Snotlout sing-songs. “I just gotta pick a spot for my statue.”
“Yeah,” Tuffnut crows with glee. “Then we can watch the dragons burn you every day. Almost as good as the real thing.”
Ruffnut nods with a giggle, and Snotlout throws a glower over his shoulder at them.
“I can’t believe I’m agreeing with the twins on anything, but here I am,” Astrid adds dryly. “
“I hope I get some serious burns,” Tuffnut announces.
“I’m hoping for some mauling,” Ruff replies. “Like my shoulders or lower back, or something.”
“Call me boring,” Fishlegs intervenes, leaning over to them.
“Boring,” Snotlout deadpans from nearby, never sliding on that chance.
“But I’m just excited to see some real, live dragons up-close. I could do without the legendary war wounds, though,” Fishlegs replies.
Tuffnut, for his part, just looks completely confused. “Where’s the fun in that?” he asks, throwing his hands up.
“Yeah, it’s only fun if you get a scar out of it,” Astrid agrees.
“Yeah, no kidding, right?” Hiccup grumbles from behind them, and everybody freezes at the sudden, abrupt sound of his voice. “Paaaaiin. Looove it!”
“Wow,” Ruffnut says flatly, blinking in genuine surprise. She thought nothing could surprise her anymore, but nope. Hiccup’s not part of the Fire Brigade. He’s not supposed to be here. How did he get here? What’s he doing here? Also, he’s alive?? “I thought you got eaten by a Night Fury.”
Snotlout cackles.
“Yeah, who let him in?” Tuffnut whines.
“Nice name by the way,” Snotlout calls cheerily.
“Yours is Snotlout,” he throws back flatly.
“Yeah, exactly.” He puffs up proudly. “It’s a manly Viking name!”
“In your dreams,” Astrid tells him flatly.
“Let’s get started!” Gobber calls sharply, interrupting the chaos. “The recruit who does best will win the honor of killing his first dragon in front of the entire village –”
“Hiccup already killed a Night Fury, so, does that disqualify him, or…?” Snotlout offers.
Gobber ignores him and starts rambling, slinging a hook around Hiccup’s shoulders and pulling him forwards into the line. This is the part of class Ruffnut absolutely hates. She has no idea what the man is babbling about, something about how hard this’ll be, but to her, it just sounds like fun. A lot of fun. Astrid might not think they’re capable, but she doesn’t think anyone’s capable of anything, except herself, and Ruff and Tuff have had their fair share of dealing with fire. Why’s a dragon so bad?
Ruff was basically ignoring him until Gobber goes to yank down the handle and Snotlout yells out a panicked “Whoa, whoa, wait! Aren’t you gonna teach us first?!”
“I believe in learning on the job,” Gobber crows and pulls the lever down, and out buzzes a giant – what was that one again?
“Was that a Gronckle?” Ruff asks panickily, instantly on alert, adrenaline rushing through her veins.
“Uh, think so?” Tuff spreads his hands in confusion.
“Today is about survival,” Gobber continues. “If you get blasted, you're dead! Quick! What’s the first thing you're going to need?”
“A doctor?” Hiccup yells from somewhere.
“Plus five speed?!” Fishlegs suggests.
“A shield!” Astrid yells, and finally the world makes sense. Shields are important. And they’re also very useful for bashing your stupid brother over the head.
Ruff dives for a shield, only for the thing to be yanked backwards. Her head snaps up, startled and irritated to see Tuff yanking on the other end of her shield.
“Get your hands off my shield!” Tuffnut has the audacity to yell.
“There’s like a million shields!” Ruffnut shouts back, irate.
“Take that one,” Tuff suggests, smirking, nodding towards a nearby shield lying uselessly on the ground. “It has flowers on it. Girls like flowers.”
With a surge of fury, she wrenches the shield away and bashes it over her brother’s head. “Oops,” she crows with a smirk at her girly brother. “Now this one has blood on it.” She doesn’t have another millisecond to think before the Gronckle’s first blast goes off, lava tearing right through the shield in her hands, the impact force sending both her and her brother flying.
Ruff lays on the ground, dazed.
“Tuffnut, Ruffnut, you’re out,” Gobber yells.
“What?” she mumbles from the ground, dazed.
Fishlegs almost immediately gets blasted into oblivion, and Snotlout is going to mid-battle flirt with Astrid. Eeew. Any girl would have to be crazy to fall for that. Yuck.
Oh, and then he gets blasted, and Ruff giggles from where she’s stuck in the side-lines. On second thought, watching the chaos unfold isn’t so bad. Not if she gets to laugh at Snotlout – and then the Gronckle goes in case of Hiccup.
He dropped his shield, and he’s technically out, but the dragon is still attacking him, even though he’s supposedly dead.
“Wait, I’m confused,” Tuffnut complains. “I thought he’s out.”
“Yeah. Dragons don’t seem to get the rules of this game,” Ruffnut grumbles. This is so confusing.
Hiccup dives against the wall, but he’s backed on the wall now. The dragon is going to kill him, and for once in Her life, Ruff has no idea what to do. And that’s not a fire that’d be fun to start. Yeah, he’s annoying, but she doesn’t want him dead?
“Hiccup!” Gobber yanks the dragon aside last minute, and lava hits the rock beside him instead. He wrestles the Gronckle back into the cage, and Ruff watches with a surge of annoyance when she realizes that, predictably, Astrid is the only one who didn’t get killed. Of course, it was her. Ugh. Can’t that girl lose at anything, like ever?
Gobber helps Hiccup to his feet, who’s still staring wide-eyed at the still smoldering hole on the ground right by where his head was.
“Ouch,” Ruff offers, wandering over to him.
“What’re you doing here?” Tuff asks, pointing. “We thought you were eaten by a Night Fury.”
“No, I, uh, didn’t find it,” Hiccup answers and flees. He’s still so jumpy, like he thinks they’ll bite. Actually, maybe she should. It sounds awesome. Tuff wouldn’t expect it. But really, she doesn’t mean to be nasty to him. Doesn’t he get that? Like he still has issues hanging around them.
Ouch.
So much for being friends. Ruff was really starting to count on that.
***
They have to meet in the Great Hall for mealtime, and for Gobber to keep ‘teaching’ or whatever. And apparently, this starts with a fancy lesson of criticizing everybody. Astrid finally admits that she screwed up her summersault dive, which Ruff already knew, obviously, but Snotlout’s jumping on a ‘no, she did great!” and Gobber’s all “she’s great for noticing” like that somehow change s she screwed up in the first place.
Yeah, great, everybody likes Astrid. Everybody loves her, everyone wants to be her friends. Like, hello? There aren’t any other people sitting at the table.
Hiccup passes, but Ruff almost didn’t notice – he’s so quiet still. She’s dragged him over to the table to eat once in a while, but he doesn’t seem to like it, so she’s mostly left it alone. You know, mostly.
“Where did Hiccup go wrong?” Gobber asks.
“He showed up?” Ruff asks obviously, because he shouldn’t even have been there. He’s not a dragon fighter. If he wrestles dragons, he’s gonna get eaten. Doesn’t everybody know that? He’s not a normal Viking fighter thingy. He’s good ad mind stuff, but he is no fighter.
“He’s never where he should be,” Astrid replies, and of course everyone’s jumping to cheer her on. Yeah, not like Ruff got the answer righter or anything.
Gobber hauls out the Book of Dragons, and the twins descend into a torrent of wails. She is not going to read a stupid book, thank you. That is so, so dull.
“Why read words when you can just kill the stuff the words tell you stuff about?” Snotlout complains.
“Oh, I’ve read it, like, seven times,” Fishlegs chirps and starts babbling. Ruff doesn’t care. Ugh. She hates factual details and stuff. There’s nothing exciting about that. Fishlegs is so, so boring. Ugh. Sure, he’s a part of the Fire Brigade and they’re stuck around each other, but that doesn’t mean she has to like him.
She finishes her bowl, and the group starts heading out when she realizes Hiccup is staying behind with that stupid book. “Really?” she asks, pausing to head back. “You’re gonna read that?”
“I like reading,” he answers, almost a bit defensively.
“But reading is so boring,” Tuffnut whines as Astrid passes them, heading for the doorway. Of course she’s leaving. She never hangs around the twins. Which is fine, too, because Ruff doesn’t like her, anyway.
“I don’t like blowing things up, setting fires, the rest of that,” Hiccup replies, poking at his bowl. “You know I wonder, sometimes… maybe they’re not as bad as we think they are.”
“Finally!” Tuff cheers before Ruff can say anything. “Fires are great! I’m so glad you’ve been officially indoctrinated into the ways of the truly disturbed.” Her brother flings an arm over Hiccup’s shoulders.
“I meant the dragons,” he offers weakly.
“Uh, what?” Ruff asks, confused.
“It’s just… the war, the fighting,” Hiccup continues. “Maybe we’re part of the problem. Expanding our borders, competing for food…”
“But dragons are evil,” Ruffnut argues, confused. Everyone knows that. She is not following.
“Yeah,” Tuff agrees. “Everybody knows dragons are bad.”
“But what if we’re also… partly misunderstanding them?” Hiccup asks, fidgeting. His hands are pretty much always moving. Ruff does not get that. Not that she’s good at sitting still herself.
“Um.” Tuff rubs his head. “I’m gonna need to lie down.”
“Uh, me too,” Ruff agrees, and they back out. That was so, so weird.
***
“I’m really beginning to question your teaching methods!” Fishlegs screams hysterically as he dodges flying Deadly Nadder spikes. Ruff could care less, until she rounds another corner in the barriers Gobber had them set up for today, crashing right into the giant, towering and snarling dragon. She and Tuff freeze, backing away as the dragon hisses in their faces.
“Look for its blind spot,” Gobber instructs. “Every dragon has one. Find it, hide in it, and strike!”
“Ughhh!” She groans disgustedly, catching a whiff of her brother. “Do you ever bathe?”
“If you don't like it, then just get your own blind spot?” Tuffnut yells, ramming his face into hers.
“How about I give you one?” she snarls back. The dragon hisses, and she whips around just in time to see it pulling back, and then a blast of fire is incinerating their shields yet again, and Ruff is thrown wildly onto the ground with a yelp.
“Blind spot, yes,” Gobber snickers safely from above. “Deaf spot? Not so much.”
Come onn. She has to land a hit one of these days, right? But here they are, stuck out and watching the chaos again. Her and Tuff back out towards the edge of the circle and hope the stupid but maybe-not-bad(??) dragon won’t kill them – at least that it won’t kill her. They could do with one less Nut, if everyone knows what she’s saying.
And of course, Hiccup messes it up again. At least he about ruined Astrid’s glory streak. She lands on him and they struggle over their weapons with her stupid axe stuck into Hiccup’s shield, and he obviously isn’t happy giving up his only means of defense. Ruffnut knows she sure wouldn’t be, either.
“Is this a joke to all of you?” Astrid yells after chasing the dragon back into its cage. “Am I really the only one taking it seriously?”
“Take it seriously,” Tuffnut hisses.
Ruff glowers at him. Maybe he’ll ‘take it seriously’ when she takes an eye out.
“Our parents war is about to become ours,” Astrid keeps yelling, swiveling around to shove her axe end into Hiccup’s face. He flinches back with what looks like well-practiced instinct. “Figure out which side you’re on.”
She stalks few of the clearing.
“Meet tonight at the watch tower,” Gobber yells after them. “I’m expecting you all there.”
“Ohh. That looks like it hurts,” Ruff offers, inspecting the reddening area on Hiccup’s face from when Astrid stepped on him.
“It’s nothing,” Hiccup mutters, picking himself up. “I – I gotta go.”
“What’s got him so antsy?” Tuffnut wonders as their friend flees once more.
***
Things continue being weird. Actually, Hiccup mostly continues being weird, and Ruff is mostly inclined to ignore it, because it’s not her business… and then they get stuck up against the Hideous Zippleback.
“Today is about teamwork,” Gobber is rambling. “Now, a wet dragon head can’t lite it’s fire. The Hideous Zippleback is extra tricky. One head breathes gas, the other head lights it. Your job is to know which is which.”
“Uh, how do we do that?” Ruff asks hysterically, gripping the water bucket as tightly as she can. “And why did have to get stuck with Astrid?”
“At least you weren’t put with Snotlout,” Astrid snaps over her shoulder. “Or Hiccup.”
Uh, she’d actually rather be with Hiccup, if it’s all the same to Astrid. Ugh, does she have to be so obnoxious?
And then, outta nowhere, water splashes, drenching Ruff from head to toe. “Hey!” she yells furiously at Snotlout and Tuff. “It’s us, idiots!”
“Your butts are getting bigger. We thought you were a dragon,” Tuffnut supplies, snickering.
“Not that there's anything wrong with a dragon-esque figure,” Snotlout starts and Astrid punches him in the face. Ruff hears a crunch as he goes down. Ruff throws her bucket at Tuff for good measure – and then a sudden swinging tail knocks everybody to the ground.
Tuff is yanked into the smoke. The air so so thick, it’s hard to see, and she has no idea where the dragon is, or if her brother just got eaten.
She doesn’t want Tuffnut to actually get eaten by that Zippleback, even if it would be cool, and she certainly doesn’t want to get eaten, either. Scars are fun, sure but not actual death? That would not be fun. That would not be fun at all.
“Wait,” Astrid warns, holding her arm out in a motion to stay still, and then Tuffnut flies out of the fog shrieking.
Still alive. But the swinging tail takes both girls off their feet, and then the dragon is on to Hiccup and Fishlegs. Fishlegs douses the wrong head, and out comes the green Zippleback gas, both heads slithering out from the cloud and hissing.
That dragon… is awesome.
Hiccup scrambles back as the Zippleback prepares to eat him, having predictably totally missed his throw, and then the unthinkable happens.
The dragon just stops. Both heads back away from him, and Hiccup gets up, chasing it back into its cage with nothing but his hands. “Yes, that’s right,” he yells. “Back into your cage. Now think about what you've done.” He shuts the door on it, relatches it, and rubs his hands off on his vest as every member of the arena stops to gape at him. Ruffnut knows she’s pretty stupid, but she doesn’t think she’s ever seen anything like that before, not even for all the crazy things she has seen. “Okay,” he asks cheerfully. “So, are we done? Because I’ve got some things I need to, uh…” He trails off. “Yep. I’ll see-see you tomorrow.” He motions towards the doorway and scrams while the entire room is still frozen in shock.
“What,” Astrid asks finally. “Was that?”
“Don’t ask me,” Gobber replies grumpily, going to secure the cage. “In all my years of dragon fighting, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Great,” Snotlout grumbles. “Then who should we be asking?”
“Hiccup!” Tuff yells, and they run after, but he’s already gone.
***
It doesn’t stop there. Ruffnut’s starting to think it’s actually just starting when the next day, they’re put up against a Gronckle again and Hiccup just drops it somehow.
She and Tuff aren’t the only ones who finally manage to chase Hiccup down by the bridge as he tries fleeing the arena again. “What was that?” Fishlegs asks as they finally catch up to him – one thing Ruffnut will say is that Hiccup is a really, really fast runner when he’s trying to be. “Some kind of trick? What did you do?”
“How’d you do that?” Tuff asks.
“It was really cool,” Ruff agrees, hauling her brother out of the way by his horns so she can reclaim her rightful spot next to Hiccup.
“Hey, Hiccup, I’ve never seen a Gronckle do that before,” Snotlout gushes, equally awed, and entirely a strange look on him.
“I – I left my axe back in the ring,” Hiccup fumbles out. “You guys go on ahead. I'll catch up with you.” He breaks for a run back to the arena, only to smack into Astrid, who Ruff gets the feeling conveniently positioned herself in the wrong place right then. He dodges past her, mumbling an apology as he stumbles, and makes a break back towards the arena.
From the scowl Astrid has fixed on his back, Ruff is pretty sure that was intentional, and she’s annoyed.
“Who knew that scrawny little Viking had that in him?” Tuffnut asks, awed.
Ruff feels a bit of shame herself. All these years, she thought Hiccup was nobody special. But what he’s doing there, whatever things nobody has even seen, not even Gobber – he’s more of a warrior than any one of them. He’s coming in first in the Trial of Flame, no question, and she has no idea how they all missed this. “How did we miss this?”
“I have no idea,” Fishlegs replies. “I’ve never even heard of something like this, not even in the Book of Dragons. This is amazing.”
“Somebody’s obviously teaching him,” Astrid replies, eye narrowed. “This is a set-up. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Sure it does,” Snotlout drawls.
“Actually, it is possible,” Fishlegs interrupts. “Hiccup isn’t a fighter, but that doesn’t mean he’s not smart.”
“Or somebody’s teaching him because they want him to win,” Astrid grumbles. “Maybe Stoick finally got tired of his son being such an embarrassment.”
Ruffnut bristles instantly. Sure, Hiccup’s nobody to be proud of, but he’s still amazing. “Or, he’s just better than you, and you can’t stand it,” she retaliates with a smug little smirk. She can’t say how happy she is to see someone beating Astrid. Maybe it’s not her or Tuff, but at least it’s someone, and she really needed to be put back a peg or two a long, long time ago.
Maybe a literal peg. She never seems to get hurt, and then there’s Ruff who can’t do anything without something embarrassing happening. Yeah, this is definitely making her pretty happy.
“Or, you just don’t wanna think somebody is better than you,” Snotlout points out cheerfully.
Tuffnut snickers, and Ruf joins him. “Got that?” Tuff asks. “Hiccup’s ‘better than you’.”
Yeah, not that it’s even a competition. He really is.
But something about this isn’t quite right. He’s gotta be learning something from somewhere, right? And he hasn’t been talking, so maybe it’s time to do some stalking! Ohhh, she likes that. It even rhymes. They’ve got some digging to do.
***
Stealing traps is probably something the Chief would kill them for, but nobody needs to know, anyway. The point is to rig something and hope the wrong person walks into it. Heheh. Ropey traps don’t hurt anybody, you know? But Ruff and Tuff are giggling as they tie the trap to a tree when a nearby branch breaks loudly and she looks up, then jumps down from the tree to see Hiccup, something leather tucked under his arm, standing in the middle of the trees.
Ruffnut blinks at him, surprised and confused, and then he takes off again, disappearing behind a rock.
“Well,” she utters. “That was weird.”
“Yeah,” Tuff nods. “Very weird.”
***
Hiccup’s winning streak doesn’t even shift. Astrid is getting increasingly annoyed, and it’s amazing to watch. Like, level, so much fun. Ruff is in total awe of him now. She really wishes she knew he was so cool a long time ago. It would’ve been really nice to know. Add that guilt to the list of endless she’s already got and has no idea what to do with. That’s why she never stops to think about what she just did. It’s always really depressing.
So, she just doesn’t.
Everything is changing.
Hiccup’s being trialed, nagged at, and worshiped by nearly everyone in Berk, and Ruff’s starting to get the feeling it makes him uncomfortable. She doesn’t get it. She would love to be the center of attention for a little while, but apparently Hiccup has a different view. It really just seems to terrify him, though he does scare pretty easily by nature. Makes him kind of fun to mess with. Though not as fun as Fishlegs.
Well, they’re not the same person, and he doesn’t see everything the same as her, unlike her and Tuff. The only thing her and her brother disagree on is who the stupider twin is.
“You’re avoiding us,” Tuff whines as they leave the Great Hall, though there’s so many people swamped everywhere it’s hard to do anything, anyway.
“N – no, I’m not,” Hiccup protests.
“Sure you are.”
“So, the question is,” Ruff offers, pushing her brother aside,” Are you hiding from fans, or hiding from us?” She’s joking, and he can probably see that, though Hiccup’s face is tensed with panic. He’s very him.
“I – I’m not hiding.”
“How do you know all this?” Tuff asks.
Hiccup shakes his head, shrugging at the same time. “I don’t know. I think somewhere, I’ve always known. I can’t explain it. It’s just a feeling.”
“Huh. Can you give me a dragon feeling?” Ruff asks. “That sounds awesome.”
“I don’t think it’s exactly something I can just give, Ruff,” Hiccup objects. “But I guess, I mean, maybe I could teach you?”
She misses doing stuff with Hiccup. He wouldn’t really go places to participate in chaos or insanity or crime or blowing things up or all the other harmless things her and Tuffnut do, but they still spent time with each other now and then, and he sort of just vanished after dragon training started.
It’s weird. Everything’s weird. She misses her first and only real friend, if she can really call Hiccup that.
“But I – I have things to do, and uh…” Hiccup rubs at the back of his neck. “It’s been great talking to you again.”
Ruff huffs as soon as he’s gone. “Suspicious.”
“Suspicious,” Tuffnut concurs, nodding with a fierce scowl.
“I have questions,” she gripes as her brother nods. They are definitely getting answers about these strange, suspicious things.