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Chapter Text

Hiccup the Useless had struck again. He had built a device that would throw a net and effectively trap a dragon within it and had tested it during a raid early that morning, despite many of the villagers who had seen him out in the chaos yelling at him to get back inside. He had been so sure that this time the device would work, that he would capture a dragon and his life would get tremendously better. And it had worked, just not the way that it was supposed to. Instead of catching one of the attacking dragons as they went after the sheep, it had instead taken down several Vikings and had allowed the sheep to be stolen, one of them being his father.

The relationship with his father was strained to say the least. Being the son of the chief was never an easy thing, and adding in the fact that he wasn’t even close to being anything like his father and that just made life tougher. Hiccup wanted so bad to be out there fighting dragons, to prove himself to the villagers, and make his father proud. He longed for his father to look at him with pride, but instead, all he got was looks of disappointment and frustration. 

“Why can’t I do anything right?” Hiccup asked himself, kicking a rock out of his way as he walked through the forests. After that morning's fiasco, he didn’t want to wait for his father to come home and for the awkwardness to ensue. So, like he had done many times after something went wrong with one of his inventions, he left the house and simply walked around the forest for hours. Try as he might, he just could not be the son that his father wanted. He couldn’t seem to fit in with everyone else, no matter how hard he tried. He was too small, too skinny, too weak. He was just…different, and he didn’t want to be. 

All he had to do was take down one dragon, and he would be set. He would be a Viking. His father wouldn’t look at him with disappointment; maybe Astrid would finally give him a chance. At least, she didn’t make fun of him when he messed up like the others did, though she did nothing to defend him either. But he had to keep positive. She wasn’t joining in. That had to be a good thing. If he could just take down a dragon, maybe he could get a date with her.

He climbed over a small boulder and plopped to the ground on the other side.  He started forward to continue on, but stopped when his green eyes spotted something a few yards away from him. Something was lying near the bushes. Hiccup pulled out his knife, just in case. He approached it with caution, frowning slightly as he studied the figure. It was a person, lying face down in the dirt. They wore strange blue leggings, black boots made of something Hiccup had never seen before, and a pale blue short-sleeved tunic, clothes unlike any Hiccup had seen before. 

He crouched down beside the figure and slowly reached out, prodding their right shoulder. The figure didn’t respond. Dark brown hair was a mess of tangles, full of leaves and dirt. Hiccup gently pushed the head to the side and let out a gasp. It was a girl, maybe only a few years older than him. The oldest she could possibly be was seventeen. How had she gotten here? Her hair stuck to her forehead and looked sticky. Blood. She had hit her head on something and looked to have a nasty gash on her forehead.

Her mouth was open slightly, and Hiccup reached down and placed his hand before it to see if she was still alive. Warm breath hit his fingertips. She was alive, though injured.  Hiccup stood and put his knife away. Whoever she was and however she got here would have to wait. She was injured and needed help. 

Hiccup turned and ran back the way he had come, heading back to the village. He ran as fast as his feet would carry him, heading for home. His father should be there. If not, he would get Gobber from the stall.  They needed to get that girl to Halla. When he finally reached the house of the chief and his family upon the tallest hill that let the house overlook the village, Hiccup ran into the house to find his father sitting before the fire, struggling for breath.

“Dad! There’s a girl in the forest,” he said as he fought to catch his breath, bending over and putting his hands on his knees as he looked towards his father. “She’s alive, but it looks like she hit her head.”

The only sound that filled the house for a few moments was the sound of the fire popping. “Who is she?” 

Hiccup shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Chapter Text

Going to college is never easy. Going to college when you live two hours from the campus sucks. But three times a week, I would make the trek. Get up at five in the morning, leave the house at seven, and get to Fullerton for my classes. Yes, I could have gone to San Bernardino, and the drive would only be half an hour, but the long drive meant more time out of the house and away from my parents. I loved them, but they were a bit overbearing. Okay, so a bit is putting it mildly. They were always pushing me to do my best, to take advantage of the opportunities that they never had when they were my age. Neither of my parents had graduated from college, and they wanted to make sure that I did. They wanted to make sure that I didn’t make the same mistakes that they had. They wanted me to have a steady career, not various jobs at fast food joints.

But one thing that they didn’t prepare me for was how to change a tire. I knew how to change the oil in my car, but not a flat tire. So when I heard the flat tire pounding against the pavement, I couldn’t help but groan. Towing was going to suck. I was up in the mountains now, at nine o’clock at night, and it was misting. Thankfully not raining, just misting. So far at least. If it had been winter, I would have cried. Pulling the car over onto the small bit of dirt to the side of the road before it turned into a steep downward slope, I put the car into park and turned the engine off. I grabbed my purse off the passenger seat and began rifling through it, looking for my cell phone.

Finally, after a few moments of searching, I pulled out my iPhone. “No reception. Seriously?”

I felt like banging my head against the wall. Yeah, once you got into the mountains, the reception was poor, but there was still typically, at least, one bar. And now all of a sudden there were no. What. The. Hell. I tossed the phone back into my purse. I looked like I would get my first experience changing a tire. Letting out a breath, I unbuckled my seatbelt, grabbed the keys, and climbed out of my little Aveo, slamming the door closed behind me. And there was the front left tire, deflated and looking rather pathetic.

The air wasn’t cold, but the mist sure made it feel colder. I pushed the button on the key fob, and the trunk popped open just before I reached it. I then put my keys into my pocket before pushing the trunk lid up. Some papers lay scattered in the trunk along with a bottle of oil, just in case I ever needed it. Oh, there was my nice beach towel. I had been wondering where that had been. But no sign on the spare tire that I knew should be in there.

“What the hell?” I muttered. Where was my spare? Did my mom or dad borrow my car recently without me knowing, and had gotten a flat? I would have to ask them when I got home, whenever that was. No spare tire. “Great. This is just…peachy.”

I would have to walk the rest of the way into town. It was still probably about twenty minutes to town from here, though that was in good weather while driving. This weather while walking? This was gonna suck. I could hear my parents now. ‘Kendra Diana Burr, where have you been?!’ ‘Oh, just stuck walking home in the rain since someone used my freaking spare.’ Yeah, that would go over well. Hmm, maybe walking wouldn’t be so bad if it meant putting that conversation off.

Slamming the trunk door shut, I walked back around to the driver’s door and opened it. I pulled my keys out of my pocket as I leaned in to get my purse, putting them inside it and trying my phone once again. Still no reception. I heaved a heavy sigh as I shoved my phone back into my purse and then zipped it up. This was going to be oh so much fun. And of all the days, I hadn’t thrown a jacket into the backseat of the car.

I locked the car as I swung my purse onto my shoulder and closed the driver's side door, checking to make sure it was locked before I started walking up the road on the small shoulder. The road was narrow, like most mountain roads are. About three feet of shoulder, and then everything went downward, and not gradually either. The slope was steep, though at least it wasn’t straight down like it was in some areas that I had thankfully already passed before the tire decided to give up the ghost. And hey, maybe my phone would get reception again while I was walking. Maybe. Hopefully.

Ten minutes later, I was soaked and shivering, still no reception. If I didn’t end up sick from this, I would be shocked. I heard a vehicle approaching from behind me and turned to see a white Ford truck slowing down beside me, the passenger window rolled down. The driver was a man in his late thirties, early forties, who had light brown hair and a scruffy beard. “Need a ride, young lady?”

I inwardly scoffed. Yeah, like I was going to get into some strange man’s truck. He may have been sincere in his trying to help me, but these days, you just never know, and I was not about to risk it. I shook my head. “No thanks, I’m good.”

“Come on,” he said. “At this rate, you’ll make it to town sometime in the morning. And this is no weather to be walking in.”

“I said, no thanks,” I replied firmly, keeping my gaze in the direction I was walking. My heart rate picked up as he continued to drive slowly alongside me. He was really determined to give me a ‘ride.’

“Get in the truck.”

His friendly tone was gone, and I glanced at the truck out of the corner of my eye. He was putting it in park. Oh shit. Shit, shit, shitty, shit, shit. I started running and heard the driver's door creak open. I didn’t chance looking back. I simply ran as fast as I could along the shoulder of the road. If I got out of this alive, I was investing in a bottle of pepper spray. Maybe some steel-toe boots, too.

I ignored the growing stitch in my side and kept running. I could hear him thundering along behind me. And then my foot caught a rock, and I was sent flying. Up was down and down was up as I tumbled down the side of the road. The ground was above me and the sky below me. I screamed. And then everything went dark, and I knew no more.

Chapter Text

The first thing I was aware of was the fact that I was sore. My entire body seemed to ache, and my head was pounding worse than any headache I had ever had before. Maybe this was a migraine. I’d never had one before, so I didn’t know how it felt, but maybe this was one. And wherever I was, it was soft and warm, and the smell of herbs and spices filled the air. But where was I? My nose twitched and I lifted a hand to scratch it, only to let out a groan. Ouch. That hurt. 

My eyes popped open as I gasped. The flat tire. The stranger chasing after me. Falling down the side of a mountain. No wonder I ached. But it seemed someone had found me, but who? Cause wherever I was, it sure didn’t look like a hospital. 

It looked almost like a log cabin, and in the center of the room was a fire pit. Over the fire pit, a pot of something was bubbling. Shelves full of jars and pots lined the walls around the room, and a narrow staircase led upstairs on the wall opposite the bed I was in. At least, I thought it was a bed. I wasn’t quite sure what I was lying on. There was a table a few feet from the bed upon which sat a bowl, a couple of leather-bound books, several pots, and loose little branches of planets. 

I pushed myself up, wincing, and sat on the bed looking around. The bed was up against the wall, and the blanket that had been on me was thick and looked like wool. And someone had changed my clothes. Gone were my shoes, pants, and shirt, and instead I found myself in an off-white, loose-fitting long-sleeve dress made of something soft. I reached up to rub my temples and found a piece of cloth wrapped around my head. 

“What the?” 

“Ah, you’re awake.” 

I looked towards the staircase to see an older woman coming down them. She was maybe around the same age as my mom, with dark brown hair beginning to go gray, gathered up upon her head. And she was wearing something I’d expect to see out of the theater department at school. Or maybe in some movie set in medieval times, or the Medieval Times dinner theater down around Disneyland. 

“That was a nasty gash on your head,” she said as she reached the foot of the stairs and walked over to the table. Gash. Well, that would explain the headache. Falling down the side of a mountain, bound to have hit a rock. 

“Who are you? And where am I?” I asked. Well, that could have been put better. Brilliant, Kendra. 

“I am Halla, and I am the healer of the village of Berk,” she replied. I frowned slightly. Berk. I knew that name from somewhere. “It was lucky that Hiccup found you when he did. A few more hours out there and you might have been lost to me.” 

Berk. Hiccup. My eyes widened. Berk was the village in the movie How to Train Your Dragon and the book that the film was based on. Hiccup was the main character of the books and movie. There was no way. “Hiccup?” 

Halla nodded and smiled at me briefly before resuming her work of mashing the contents of the bowl on the table before her. “Yes. Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, son of our chief, Stoick the Vast.”

They…There…Impossible. The world swam around me for a few moments before I passed out. 

I was in How to Train Your Dragon. I was in a fictional universe. How? No idea. Why? No idea. I mean, yeah, I’d seen the movie and thought it was adorable, but why was I suddenly in it? Dream, possibly? I shifted slightly on the bed as I stared up at the wooden ceiling above me, grimacing slightly at the soreness of my body. Nope. I was too damn sore for this to be a dream. But why was I here? Why me? 

When I said ‘I wished I was in How to Train Your Dragon,’ I meant working for DreamWorks, even though I can barely draw a stick figure. But still, it would be cool to work on a movie like that if I could draw. It’s like how I wish I could work for Pixar when even my stick figures don’t look like they should. They look, well, rather pathetic. But still, it would be cool to work for them, just like it would have been cool to work on How to Train Your Dragon. But this? Lying here injured in the healer's house in Berk, this was so not what I had meant. 

Several loud knocks came from the front door. I pushed myself up and stared at the door. I heard movement upstairs and within a few moments, Halla was hurrying down the stairs. She finished throwing her hair up into a bun just before she opened the door. My jaw dropped open. The man standing there was huge!  Dark hair was hidden under a helmet with huge horns attached to it, and he sported a bit of stubble. “Spitelout? What is the meaning of this?” 

His eyes flickered past Halla and over to where I sat. “Stoick wishes to meet her.” 

The woman put her right hand on her hip. “And he will after the girl has had some breakfast. When was the last time you ate, dear?” she asked, glancing over at me. 

I frowned. When was the last time that I ate? “I don’t know.” 

“See? So let me get some food into her before I take her to the chief.” And with that, Halla closed the door. She then went over to a shelf and grabbed a couple of bowls, and went over to the pot over the fire, muttering under her breath about how the chief should know better than to bother her this early. She ladled the contents of the pot into the two bowls before grabbing a wooden spoon and handing it to me along with one of the bowls. It smelled delicious and made my mouth water, whatever it was. Glancing down at it, it looked to be some sort of thick stew. 

“Eat up,” she said before digging into her own bowl. It was rather bland, but it was food, and my stomach was thankful for it either way. Then again, with my taste buds, anything that wasn’t super spicy was bland to me. 

“Thank you,” I said between bites. 

She smiled at me. “You’re very welcome. And what is your name?” 

“Kendra Burr,” I replied. 

She frowned slightly, pausing her eating. “Highly unusual name.” 

For this place? I’ll bet it was unusual. Then again, it wasn’t like my name was that common back home either. The rest of the meal was eaten in silence. Halla finished before me, left her bowl on the table, and then went upstairs. I had just finished my bowl when she came back down with a bundle of clothes in her arms. “These are some of my old things, but I think they should fit you.” 

“What happened to my clothes?” I asked as she plopped the clothes down on the end of the bed. 

She pulled a dark green shirt from the pile. “They were in as good a shape as you were. Yes, I think these will fit you just fine.” 

She tossed the dark green shirt, some dark brown leggings, and a tan leather skirt onto my lap. “Change into those and I’ll go see about some boots.” 

She then went back upstairs and left me staring at the clothes. Well, they said, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Since I was in Berk, I might as well dress like them. Not that I had a choice since my clothes were apparently beyond use now. And I had just bought those jeans last week. Poo. 

I sighed, pushed the blanket off my legs, and stood. Still sore, but doing better. And now my feet were cold since it seemed she had taken my socks too. I pulled off the dress to see that she had changed my undergarments as well.  She had probably seen my bra and wondered what in the heck it was. By the time she came back down the stairs with a pair of boots in hand, I had just finished pulling on the skirt over the leggings. 

“Hmm. Those fit you well,” she said as she handed me the boots, looking me up and down. I took them and sat down on the bed to put them on. The entire ensemble was surprisingly very comfortable. 

“Thank you,” I told her as I finished putting on the boots. 

She smiled, then gestured for me to sit. “I want to check your head.” 

I sat down, and she unwrapped the bandage from around my head. She held the wrap in her hand as her hazel eyes scrutinized the wound on my head. I glanced at the bandage and saw a small bloodstain. She pursed her lips. “It’s looking good, but I want to keep it on a few more days,” she said as she began to rewrap my head. “Now, come. Mustn’t make the chief wait any longer.”

I followed Halla out the front door and felt my jaw drop. The sky was overcast, and the air smelled of rain and the ocean. Seeing Berk like this was simply incredible. I closed my mouth after a moment and followed Halla through the village. People were milling about the village, glancing at me and then talking quietly with someone close by. I grinned sheepishly.

Within minutes, we were climbing up the large stone staircase that led to the Mead Hall. The doors were huge, and from here the view was amazing. You could see the entire village and the ramps that led down to the docks. It was… incredible. Some people were milling outside the hall, including a familiar group of kids. The huge, but like a giant teddy bear, Fishlegs. And there was Snotlout, trying to flirt with Astrid, who looked like she was about to clock him. And then the twins were arguing over…something. And then there was Hiccup, standing somewhat away from the other teens. They all stopped talking when Halla and I reached the top of the stairs and stared at me. 

I didn’t realize I had stopped and was staring back at them until Halla said, “Come, Kendra.” 

I glanced toward her to see that she had already opened the door. I sent a small smile towards the teens before I followed Halla into the Hall. A fire was roaring in the pit, and the torches were lit. I knew the Hall was big from what was shown of it in the movie, but I wasn’t prepared for just how big it was. But my attention was quickly drawn away from the room and to the adults that filled it, who parted like the Red Sea when I entered.

Standing on the other side of the fire pit thing in the room was Stoick the Vast, Gobber at his side, and the man who had come for me early on his other side. Just as the teens did outside, they all stared at me, and the room went silent. Okay. Awkward. “Um, hi.”

Chapter Text

These guys had definitely been eating their Wheaties. They were huge! I mean, yeah, they were shown as huge in the film, but the majority of them had to be around seven feet tall! There were even some women in here who were as large as some of the men. Guess Halla was one of the few thinner women around. But when you fought dragons for a living, I guess you did have to be buff. But still, good lord. There were probably sumo wrestlers back home smaller than these guys. 

I felt a hand on my shoulder and suddenly found myself stumbling forward, Halla having pushed me gently to move, though it had caught me off guard, obviously. Oh yes, stumbling probably really helped with making a good impression. I glared back at her as I caught myself, though her eyes were not on me, but across the hall on Stoick. I straightened up and looked back towards Stoick, Hiccup's father. Sure, he made some stupid mistakes in the movie, but he had his people’s best interests at heart. And he did love his son, he just did not understand him.  He did not understand that Hiccup being different was not necessarily a bad thing. Yet. 

“What’s your name, lass?” Stoick asked after a moment, breaking the awkward silence that had filled the hall. 

Yup, still sounded like Gerard Butler. I swallowed. “Kendra. Kendra Burr. And who are you?” I asked, feigning interest. 

Of course, I already knew who he was, but they did not know that. They could not know that. How would I even explain that I came from a world where they were all characters in a piece of fiction? That and they would think me a creeper. Or a spy. 

He straightened up a bit. “I am Stoick the Vast, Chief of the Hairy Hooligans,” he replied. The man who had come from me shifted on his left, seeming almost anxious. Stoick's eyes flickered in the man’s direction before returning to me. “How did you- “ 

“Get here?” I finished for him. He looked at me for a moment before nodding. I shrugged. “I wish I knew. The last thing I remember was being chased by a man who,” I paused and looked down. I was pretty sure what he had intended to do to me, but actually saying it aloud just seemed to make what I had nearly gone through all the more real. And horrifying. “I’m pretty sure that he was going to take advantage of me.” 

That got a response out of the crowd. They shifted and began muttering amongst themselves. Loudly. “It wasn’t anyone here,” I added quickly, holding up my hand in surrender, not wanting anyone to get suspicious of someone in the village. I sighed and dropped my hands. “But anyway, after that I fell. Guess I hit a rock or something, and then the next thing I knew, I was waking up in Halla’s.” 

Stoick simply looked at me with an expression I could not read. “Where are you from?” 

I bit my lip as I thought. How the heck was I going to explain this? “I come from the small village of Arrowhead, which I think is quite a long way from here.” 

Hmm. That worked. And a long way from here was putting it mildly. Very mildly. My home was another world. Though I could not exactly say that. They would think I was nuts. I began to fiddle with the edge of the right sleeve of the shirt Halla had given me to wear as more mutterings broke out. 

Gobber looked at me curiously, and the room once again went silent. “How old are ye, lass?” 

“Eighteen,” I replied. “My birthday was two weeks ago.” 

Getting dropped into another world, surrounded by animated characters. Yes, lovely belated birthday gift. A few mutterings broke out in the crowd once again. 

“I say we ship her off!” shouted someone in the crowd. 

“Yeah!” I heard someone else yell in agreement. “She could be a spy! Who knows if this ‘Arrowhead’ even exists?” 

I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked over to see that Halla had come up beside me. “She’ll not be going anywhere. She is injured and in my care.” 

Stoick opened his mouth to say something, probably to tell everyone in the hall to be quiet, but stopped as if he had heard something. I frowned slightly for a moment before the sound reached my ears as well. The sound of a stick hitting the stone floor of the room. The sound slowly seemed to be noticed by everyone else, and the room went silent. The crowd to the left of Stoick parted like the Red Sea to let someone I could not see through. It was a few minutes before I saw who had caused them to part like that. The elder walked into view to stand before the fire pit, her stick having made the sound that had sounded throughout the room. 

She stopped before the fire pit and looked toward me. “Come closer, child.” 

Her voice showed her age, but it was anything but frail. It kind of reminded me of the voice of the woman who played McGonagall in Harry Potter. I had no idea how I had expected her to sound, seeing as she never spoke in the movie and was only seen once or twice, but this voice was not what I had expected to come from her mouth. It held this sort of quiet strength. It was easy to see why she was so respected within this village.

I stepped forward without Halla pushing me this time and walked over to where the elder stood before the fire pit. People moved back as I walked over to her. My stomach was in knots. Who knew that having your fate be decided by a bunch of fictional characters could be so nerve-wracking? I stopped before the elder and looked down at her. Now, I was not the tallest person in the world, but this woman was short! 

She looked up at me, then lifted the hand that was not holding her staff and gestured for me to kneel, which I did seconds later. I could feel the cold stone floor through the leggings Halla had given me to wear. She then slowly walked around me, her pale blue eyes scanning me. Her eyes actually reminded me of Astrid. Perhaps they were related. Hmm. She stopped before me once more and gestured for me to stand. 

“This child is no spy,” she said as I pushed myself back to my feet. The woman continued to look at me curiously. “Though I believe she has much to learn, and she shall learn it here.” 

People in the crowd shifted but said nothing. Then Stoick asked, “Are you sure, Gothi?” 

She turned to look at Stoick, and I caught sight of a small smile on her face as she turned. Just what did this woman know about me? And what did she mean that I would learn something here? I knew of so many things that they did not, so they could probably learn something from me. 

“Positive,” she responded, before slowly turning back toward me. “Powerful magic brought this girl here. Perhaps the gods are behind this, I do not know. But one thing I am certain of, we all have something to learn from this.” 

I could not help but raise my eyebrows. Magic? Gods? Seriously? She thought that was how I had gotten here? Then again, it was the only theory I had heard so far. It was technically impossible to be where I was at that moment, so perhaps it was not so impossible that magic had brought me here. 

The hall erupted in noise as those in the hall began to protest what the woman had said. Stoick stood after a few seconds of noise and pounded his fist against the side of the fire pit. “SILENCE!” he roared, his voice echoing through the large hall. It took a few seconds, but the hall fell silent once more. “The Elder has spoken, and we will honor her decision.” 

“Where will she stay?” asked someone in the crowd to my right. 

“I had thought it was obvious,” I heard Halla say from behind me, and glanced back to see her walking up to come to stand on my left. She set a hand on my shoulder. “She’ll stay with me. She is already in my care, and she fits in my old things.” 

I could not help but smile at the woman.  She had taken care of me before I had regained consciousness, and now she was offering me a permanent place to stay while I was here, however long that would be. She was giving me a home away from home, and I felt a deep sense of gratitude for the woman. She did not have to take me in, but she was. “Thank you.” 

Halla smiled and squeezed my shoulder gently. 

“Now that that is decided, we have other things to talk about,” Stoick said, causing my head to turn back toward him. “Halla, you two may go. I will fill you in later.” 

I glanced over at Halla to see her nod in acknowledgment. The hand moved from my shoulder and down to my shoulder blade as Halla directed me to turn around and head for the doors of the hall. The hall remained silent as Halla and I walked to the doors, and I could feel the eyes of everyone in the room upon me as we walked past them. Halla moved in front of me and pushed open the right door. I winced slightly at the bright sunlight as I stepped outside. As Halla let the door close behind us, I could hear the room break out into noise. 

Gulls cried in the distance, and the whispering that had been coming from my left stopped as soon as we stepped outside. I glanced over to see the teens still gathered outside. The twins had stopped mid-fight, and the position they were currently in was quite comical. Ruffnut looked like she was trying to climb on top of her brother. The looks on their faces reminded me of the scene in the movie where Hiccup got the dragon back into the cage with the eel under his vest. Hiccup was there as well, slightly behind the others. 

“Kendra,” Halla called, and I glanced over to see that she was already a few steps down the stairs. I glanced toward the teens and flashed them a grin before hurrying after Halla down the steps. She continued down the stairs once I reached her side. She said nothing until we entered the village, where she began to point out where things were to me as we walked through its many levels until we reached the level she lived on.

She stopped talking outside the front of her house.  “Now, I am telling you this because I’m going to need you to run some errands around the village for me. Pick up ingredients, drop off orders, stuff like that. I don‘t know what it is like where you are from, but here you are of age. And as such, you will have to work.”

I nodded as she spoke. It made sense and was only fair that I did my part since I was an adult. Though part of me wondered how long it would take me before I stopped getting lost here. Shoot, my senior year of high school, and there were still times that I got lost on that campus, and it was not that big of a school. 

“Were you trained in anything where you came from?” she asked.

I nodded, wondering how I was going to word this since I was sure they did not know the word veterinarian here. “I was studying medicine back home, though it was specifically for animals.”

Halla looked slightly surprised for a moment before smiling. “Well, I am sure that will be needed here, what with the sheep getting hurt so often. Though in the meantime, you will be working with me.”

I returned the smile. “Sounds good.” 

“Right,” she said before putting her hands on my shoulders and steering me inside. “Now to check on that head of yours.”

Chapter Text

It was not until the next afternoon that Stoick arrived to speak to Halla about whatever had happened in the meeting after we had left. She had taken the bandage off my head that morning, saying that it was looking very good, so I no longer had that wrapped around my head. When Stoick arrived, I was promptly shooed out of the house and told to drop off some stuff at the home of Phlegma the Fierce, which Halla had pointed out to me the day before. The hard part was remembering just which home it was that she had pointed to when she had said Phlegma’s name. Which level of the village had we been in when she had pointed it out? So until I remembered or until someone around the village took pity on me and pointed me in the right direction, I was stuck wandering through the various levels as I tried my hardest to remember where exactly Phlegma’s house was.

Remembering the locations of places was not that simple for me. It usually took me at least two weeks to be sure of where my classes were located every year in high school. Before that time, I’d constantly need a map in my hands so I knew where in the world I was going. I was even doing that in my senior year when I had been seeing the same campus every day for three years. You would think I’d have the campus memorized like the back of my hand by that point, but sadly not. Now, stick my directionally challenged self in an animated film, and I was screwed.

I shifted the small woven basket in my hands as I turned a corner to head around one of the buildings and found myself knocked to my butt. Something metal clattered to the ground. I let out a breath and tightened my grip on the basket, which thankfully I still had a hold of and did not lose its contents. I really did not want to explain to Halla that I lost the contents when I ran into someone while lost. I wanted to do this for her. After all, she had taken me in when she did not have to.

“Oh gods, I’m so sorry!”

I looked up to see that I had walked right into Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, who was fumbling as he tried to pick up whatever it was he had dropped in the collision. Something had been wrapped in cloth, though he grabbed it before I could figure out what it was. Poor kid looked extremely embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” I replied as I put the basket under one arm and pushed myself to my feet. “No harm done. I’m Kendra, by the way.”

He finished wrapping up whatever he had dropped and stood up. “Um, Hiccup.”

I blinked, trying to look as if I was thinking about who he was. “Hiccup? It was you who found me.”

He blushed slightly and ducked his head. Good God, this kid was adorable. Sure, he was different, but why that stopped anyone from being his friend was beyond me. “Yeah.”

I smiled at him. “Thanks for getting me help.”

He shrugged slightly, still looking down at his feet, embarrassed. “Eh, it was nothing.”

“You didn’t have to get help, but you did,” I responded. Some of the others may not have helped some random girl who had just shown up in the middle of the forest. Like that one dude who wanted me thrown off the island before the elder spoke up. I cleared my throat. “Anyway, any chance you can help me find Phlegma’s? Halla wanted me to drop whatever this is off, only I can’t remember where Phlegma lives.”

Hiccup nodded after a second of just studying me. “Sure. I was going there to drop off these knives she wanted sharpened, actually.”

“Great,” I replied as Hiccup began heading in the direction that I had come from, gesturing for me to follow him. “What exactly does Phlegma do?” I asked as I fell into step beside him as we made our way through the village.

“She’s the village midwife,” he replied as he led the way down into another level of the village. “Though most of the time, she’s just a warrior.”

“Ah,” I said as we continued walking. Oh come on, there had to be something I could say to keep the conversation going. “So you sharpened her knives?”

Ah, yes, that was a good one. Of course, I knew that he probably had, since he worked with Gobber, but no one had actually told me anything about that. I looked over at Hiccup when he nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been working with Gobber, the village blacksmith, since I was little,” he said before glancing down at himself. “Well, littler.”

The corners of my mouth turned upward. Yes, he was shorter than me, but I had a couple of years on him. He had been like fourteen in the movie, and I had to be somewhere before the movie started since dragons were not all over the place. “Well, you’re how old?”

Hiccup frowned slightly as he glanced toward me. “Fourteen. I turn fifteen in four months.”

Yup, before the movie. How long? No idea. I grinned. “Well, there you go. You’re still young. You’ll probably hit your growth spurt in a few years.”

Hiccup just looked at me, the cutest confused expression ever on his face. God, this poor kid needed a friend. Someone who praised him for being the way he was, not put him down like the entire village seemed to do to him in the movie. Sure, he would have Toothless someday, hopefully soon, but even before that, the kid needed a friend.

He seemed to shake himself for a moment before he looked away from me. “That’s her place,” he told me, pointing to a house on one of the lower levels of the village. Halla’s place was up on the next level…I think. Hmm, I’d have to ask for his help to find my way back to her place, it seemed. Phlegma’s place looked similar to the other homes I had gone past while searching, a carving of a Nadder at the crest of the roof. But unlike some of the other carved Nadder heads I had seen, this one was green in color. Okay, now that I could remember.

We walked up to the door, and Hiccup rapped his fist against it twice. We heard movement inside, and the door was pulled open a moment later. The woman was large. Muscular and tall, though not as tall as Stoick or Fishlegs. She had a small horned helmet set upon her auburn hair and large green-blue eyes. She smiled at Hiccup. “Ah, I’m guessing those are my knives?”

“Yup,” Hiccup smiled, handing the bundle to Phlegma.

She pulled one of the knives out and inspected it for a moment before nodding. She returned the knife to the bundle and then turned her attention to me. Her smile faded slightly as she looked me over. I held out the basket to her with a smile. “Halla sent me to give this to you.”

She took the basket from me and peeked inside. She glanced up at me as she closed the lid, the corners of her mouth going back up. “Ah, this will be a great help,” she said. “Be sure to thank Halla for me.”

I nodded. “Will do.”

With one last smile, she closed the door. Hiccup and I turned and started walking away from the midwife’s house. “Any chance you can show me how to get back to Halla’s?”

Hiccup let out a soft laugh and nodded. “Yeah.”

“Thanks,” I said, smiling over at him. We walked in silence for a little bit, but it was not awkward silence. It was a comfortable one. Well, not really that comfortable, but not very awkward either. It just…was. I sighed and wished I had pockets to put my hands into. “So, you’re a blacksmith?”

“Apprentice,” he told me. I glanced over at him, nodding as we approached a house that I vaguely recognized as Halla’s. “It’s up one level from here.”

“Cool. If I get shooed out again, I know where to go,” I told him, stopping before the door to Halla’s. “Thanks for keeping me from getting lost.”

“Eh, it was nothing,” he said, looking down at the ground. “I’ve got to get back to the stall.”

“See you around, Hiccup,” I told him before pushing open the door, seeing that Stoic was gone and Halla was nowhere in sight. I looked out the door as I closed it to see Hiccup walking away from the house. He was a good kid, and he needed a friend. I smiled as the door closed. Well, I was going to make sure that he would have one before Toothless arrived.

Halla came down the stairs at that moment and spotted me. “Ah, you’re back. Got lost?” she asked, a small smirk tugging the corners of her mouth.

I nodded as I moved away from the door. “Yeah, but someone finally took pity on me and showed me to Phlegma’s. And then showed me back here.”

She chuckled as she headed over to one of the tables and began cutting up some ingredients. “Did you get the name of whoever helped you?”

I walked up to the side of the table and watched her cut. “Hiccup,” I responded. Halla stopped her cutting and looked toward me. “He seems nice.”

Halla simply looked at me with an unreadable expression for a moment before looking back down and resuming her cutting. “Aye. Hiccup Haddock. Always coming up with ideas and contraptions, he does things that often cause more harm than good. He’s just…. different.”

“Everyone’s different,” I responded after a moment. Halla stopped her cutting and looked at me again with that expression I could not figure out. “Not even twins are exactly alike.”

She just continued to look at me. Okay, that look was starting to make me uncomfortable. “What?” I asked after a moment.

That seemed to shake her back to Earth, for she looked away and resumed her cutting. “Can you get me the mortar from the table by the bed?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said slowly. I pushed myself away from the table and headed over to the one that was closer to the bed I was currently using. Guess the conversation about Hiccup was over.

Chapter Text

It was several days before I saw Hiccup again, though the next time that I saw him was at night. Well, technically it was probably very early morning, but without a proper clock around I was not really sure what time of day it was anymore. The days since I had run into Hiccup had been quiet, with Halla sending me on errands now and again. The topic of Hiccup seemed to be something that Halla wanted to avoid since the day I had run into him. Perhaps she was taking my words about him to heart, or she was starting to think that I was just as crazy as he was.

We had gone to bed well after dark, and the moon hung high in the sky. Sleep had come quickly, for that afternoon we had gone into the forest to pick some herbs, and my brain hurt from trying to remember the names of everything she had shown me. But sadly, we were not able to sleep through the night. Early in the morning, I was awoken by the sound of yelling in the village and roars echoing through the night air. I lay in bed for a moment, my eyes open as I stared up at the ceiling, before it finally clicked; a dragon raid was in progress.

Sure enough, a few moments later I heard noise upstairs and seconds later Halla ran down the stairs, shoving a short-horned helmet onto her head. She had thrown some dragon scale armor over a dark green dress and held a short ax in her free hand. 

"Up! Up!” she yelled as she reached the bottom of the stairs and rushed over to the bed that had been deemed as mine as I swung my legs over the edge.

“What’s going on?” I asked. Yeah, I already knew, but I could not let her know that. Too many questions.

“Dragon attack. Get your boots on,” she replied, grabbing my boots from the foot of the bed and handing them to me.

“Dragon what?” I took the boots from her slowly.

“Hurry up!” I jumped slightly at her yell, but quickly began to pull on my boots. She kept shifting on her feet and glancing toward the door. “We have dragons here, and every so often they attack, destroying homes and stealing food and livestock.”

I nodded in understanding as I pulled on my boots. As soon as I was done and on my feet, she was herding me towards the door. “Now, I’ve got to get out there and help,” she told me as we stopped before the door. “Get to the Mead Hall and stay there with the little ones until someone comes for you.”

I was being sent to hang out with the little kids. Of course. But I was a foreigner here. Defenseless as a child. I nodded. “Okay.”

“Good,” she said shortly before opening the door and herding me outside. She pushed me in the direction of the Mead Hall before she ran off with a yell to help.

The tall torches were up in the air and burned brightly in the night sky, illuminating the village. Homes were on fire. People were yelling. Sheep were bleating. And flying through the air were dragons, hundreds of dragons. Sure, I knew that one day they would be nice, friendly creatures in this village, but at that moment, looking up at them flying through the night sky, I felt fear. They were not nice to the village yet. They pillaged and burned and stole food for the huge dragon on their island, injuring Vikings in the process and destroying homes, possibly even lives.

One flew overhead, roaring and spraying fire just yards before me. I got no problem admitting it. I let out a yelp before turning and running in the direction that I knew would lead me up toward the Mead Hall.

I ran as fast as I could, avoiding Vikings running all over the place with weapons in hand. I started up the wooden walkway up to the next level, panting hard and a stitch twitching painfully in my side. I was on the same level as the blacksmith stall and the long stairs that led up to the Mead Hall. I could see the base of them growing closer with every step I took.

I glanced up when a roar sounded overhead and flat out ran into someone, sending us both flying to the ground. I pushed myself up and spotted Hiccup also on the ground. He had been pushing something that looked similar to what he would use to shoot down Toothless someday in the future. He pushed himself up and then offered a hand to me. “No dragons where you come from?”

I let laugh, which made me sound like I was losing it, as I took his hand. Within seconds, I was back on my feet. “That obvious?”

“Welcome to Berk,” he said in a way that made me unable to tell if he was being serious or sarcastic. I assumed the latter. He moved back to the cart thing that he had been pushing as another dragon roared. A house nearby went up in flames.

Hiccup started to move off, pushing his new invention before him as I stood there surrounded by chaos. I glanced toward the base of the stairs that led up to the Mead. Halla had told me to go up there and stay with the children because I was as useless in this situation as they were. I looked toward Hiccup. He was running as he pushed the cart thing, heading off past the flaming houses. Almost every Viking he passed yelled at him to get back inside.

Oh, Halla was probably going to kill me for this. But instead of going to the Mead Hall like I was supposed to, I instead ran after Hiccup. I dodged Vikings that were yelling and carrying weapons, and a few that had clothing that was smoldering, before I finally caught up to Hiccup.

“What is that thing?” I asked as I started running just alongside him. He jumped, letting go of the handle of the cart thing, which stopped rolling and clunked to the ground. I winced as Hiccup ran into it. “Sorry.”

“I’m okay,” he said, though it was more of a wheeze than anything. He took a few deep breaths before looking at me. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going with you,” I replied as he grabbed the handle of the cart thing.

He stared at me for a moment. “Why?”

I shrugged. “I’m curious about what the hell that thing is,” I said, gesturing with my head to the cart thing he had been pushing.

Behind us, a dragon roared, causing both of us to glance back. Another home went up in flames, but I watched one dragon taken down by a Viking. It never went back up. I turned around to see Hiccup had started moving again, weaving through the Vikings running about around us. I ran and caught up with him. “Well, what does it do?”

He glanced over at me but did not stop moving. “One of the ways to catch a dragon is to throw a net over it. This thing should do that for us.”

“’Should?’” I repeated as we came to a stop on the rise that overlooked a field of grass. The dragons had not made it here yet, and the sheep still grazed.

Hiccup opened his mouth to reply, but that was when the dragons found the sheep. He turned to the cart, unfolded several parts, and it turned into something that I knew was a predecessor of the creation that he had used in the film to bring down Toothless.

One dragon, a Nadder, I believe, landed and started grabbing sheep. I glanced over to see Hiccup adjusting one last thing on his creation. Another landed beside it. In the distance, I heard someone shout, “THEY’VE FOUND THE SHEEP!”

“Hiccup,” I said slowly, taking a step back. One Nadder turned toward us, lifting its tail. Oh crap, the spikes. “HIT THE DIRT!”

I pulled Hiccup down, who yelped, just as the Nadder sent its spikes toward us. I could feel them fly by my hair and heard a ‘thunk’ as a few embedded themselves in Hiccups' net thrower. One grabbed the edge of my skirt and sank into the ground. I swallowed heavily as I lifted my head, glancing over at Hiccup. That had been a close one.

His green eyes studied me. “How did you know about the spikes on their tail?”

I opened my mouth to respond, only to be interrupted by the sound of the Nadder taking off, a sheep in its grasp. Hiccup quickly got up and went back to the net thrower, pulling the spikes out of it before he aimed at another Nadder that was getting ready to leave. I pushed myself to my feet just as Hiccup fired. It worked just fine, but instead, the net capturing the Nadder, it wrapped around a Viking that had suddenly appeared to take on the Nadder.

Hiccup stood in shock as the Nadder took off, though thankfully without sheep since more Vikings were arriving on the scene. One of the Vikings went to cut whoever had gotten caught in the net free. I looked between Hiccup and the person trapped in the net. “Well, at least it worked.”

He turned his shocked, wide eyes toward me. “What? It did. You just…didn’t fire it soon enough.”

“HICCUP!”

Oh, no. I recognized that voice. Hiccups dad. We both grimaced and looked toward the net to see that the person who had been caught was now free. Yup, of course, it had to be his dad who had gotten caught in the net.

“Kendra? I told you to go to the Hall!”

I winced. Oh, crap. Halla. Hiccup and I glanced toward each other, our expressions identical. They were expressions that said ‘we are so dead.’

Chapter Text

To say that we had been in trouble would be an understatement. Stoick told Gobber to take Hiccup back to their home, barely glancing at his son as he fumed. Hiccup glanced at me before Gobber herded him away. Seconds after they headed off, Halla had grabbed my arm in a tight grip and had not released me until we were back inside her home with the door closed. For the first time since I had met her, she looked pissed. The short ax in her hand only made her more terrifying.

“Are ya daft, girl? I told you to get to the Hall,” she said. That was the worst part about her anger. She did not yell at me. She did not need to.

I hung my head slightly. “I was on my way there when I ran into Hiccup- “

“Hiccup. Of course,” Halla muttered, crossing her arms over her chest. “The boy is a bad influence, always getting in the way, running around with his strange ideas…you should have just ignored him and gone to the Hall.”

I lifted my head, no longer feeling bad about defying her. Didn’t they see what they were doing to him? How much did their shunning probably hurt him? He was just a kid, a kid who wanted nothing more than to be wanted and accepted. “What, you want me to shun him like everyone here does? Just because he doesn’t think like you guys do?”

Halla opened her mouth to say something more, but was cut off by a knock on the door. Whoever it was did not even wait for confirmation before entering. It was Stoick, though he no longer looked angry. He looked weary. He glanced between Halla and me before his gaze settled on the healer. “You’re needed.”

Halla nodded before going about, grabbing a few things, and putting them into a small basket. I then realized they were healing salves. There had been injuries, and from the way Stoick looked, they were pretty bad. After she had grabbed a few things, she headed to the door and followed the chief out. As she closed it, she looked at me. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

Before I could even respond, the door closed, and I was left alone. I groaned and walked over to the bed, dropping down onto it. Someday, they would see Hiccup as more than just a hindrance, an oddity. Someday, his father would realize just how amazing his son was and stop trying to get him to be something he wasn’t. But I had no idea how far off that day was. How far ahead of the movie had I been dumped? A month? A few days? A year? I lay down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.

I could still hear shouting outside. Sheep belting. I have no idea how long I stayed there, just staring up at the ceiling, looking at the grain of the wood that had been used to build the floor of the second story above my head. Ooh, what a pretty knot in the wood. It was when I started seeing eyes staring down at me in the knots in the wood that I knew I had to get up. There were no eyes in the wood. Blame it on too much Doctor Who.

I pushed myself up and stood, glancing around the quiet house. There was still shouting outside, but it was quieter now. And the yelling was further away now, perhaps down a few levels. I headed for the door. I needed fresh air. I opened the door and stepped outside. There was no one near Halla’s, and in the East, the edge of the sky was beginning to lighten. I glanced around and found a nice patch of grass just to the left of her door and sat down, pulling my legs up and leaning back against the house.

Sighing, I dropped my head back against the house, looking up at the sky. Stars shone against a dark blue backdrop, so many more than I was used to seeing back home in Arrowhead. Though the town was in the mountains, we still got the light pollution from the valley. You were able to see more stars than you could down in the cities, but it was nothing compared to this. Here, there was no such thing as light pollution. And I was seeing some that I had never been able to see at home.

The sound of approaching footsteps made me look away from the sky, and my eyes landed on a figure who paused his walking when I looked at him. I gave him a small smile. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he responded quietly before crossing the last few feet and sitting down beside me, his shoulder just a few inches from mine. “Sorry, I got you in trouble.”

I shook my head. “Hey, I was the one who decided to go with you. I got in trouble because of something I chose to do, not something you made me do.”

Hiccup said nothing and looked away after a moment. I sighed and looked up at the sky again. It was beginning to lighten, but plenty of stars were still visible. “I’ve never seen so many stars.”

I heard Hiccup move, but did not turn toward him. “You don’t have many where you come from?”

I shook my head, looking at an odd pattern in a clump that I could not make out. “They’re there, you just can't see them all.”

“Why can’t you see them all?”

I lowered my head and looked over to see that his green eyes were locked on me. “Where I come from,” I began. I worried my lower lip and turned my eyes back to the sky. “It’s a lot different than here. The cities are bright and full of lights that sometimes make it hard to see the stars, even where I live in the mountains.”

The young Viking said nothing, but I heard him shift beside me again. After a few minutes, he asked, “Do you miss it?”

Did I miss it? Did I miss home? Even with all the pressures that my parents put on me and the teachers who gave out way too much homework? The long hours I worked at the local grocery store when I was not at school? But my parents loved each other and me, my coworkers were pretty cool, and I had some awesome friends. “Yeah,” I replied softly. “I miss my parents.” And indoor plumbing, I added in my head.

“No brothers or sisters?”

I removed my gaze from the sky as I shook my head. “Nope.”

He was looking toward the sky as well, though he looked toward me after a moment with a small smile. “Me either.”

“Kendra.”

I froze at the sound of my name and saw Hiccup’s eyes go wide and fix on something just over my shoulder. I turned around. Just before the door to Halla’s was the woman herself, looking weary, and when her eyes landed on Hiccup, slightly irritated. “Hiccup.”

Hiccup quickly got to his feet. “Sorry, I was just…I’ll be going now.” He quickly moved past Halla and toward the level above where his home was.

I pushed myself up as Halla stood watching me. She said nothing as I moved past her and went into the house, her a few steps behind me.

“What was he doing here?” she asked the second it was closed.

I stopped next to the bed and turned to face her. “He came to apologize.”

“Just as he should,” she said with a curt nod. “Pulling you into his schemes, making you look back before the village.”

“And like I told him, I chose to follow him. He didn’t make me go with him or ask me to. I wanted to go with him.”

She looked almost stunned for a moment before the stern look in her eyes returned. “I hope you choose better next time. Because of you being there, Mildew is already calling for you to be sent away from Berk.”

I glared at her. “I made the right choice tonight. His invention would have worked perfectly if he had fired it a few seconds sooner.”

She said nothing, just looked at me with her stern gaze. After a moment, she turned and headed for the stairs. “Get some sleep. We have work to do in a few hours.”

Once she disappeared upstairs, I turned and groaned, running a hand through my hair. Why was she being so-ugh! I kicked the end leg of the bed. “Ow! Ow! Ow!”

I hopped on one foot and sat down on the bed, only to be poked by something sharp poked me. Still stuck in my skirt with dirt on the end was the Nadder’s spike. Somehow, I had not sat on it outside. I yanked it from the fabric, which left a good-sized hole, and set it down on the table near the bed.

I sighed and flopped back on the bed, my food still throbbing. Someday soon, she would see. Someday soon, they all would see. The day he would shoot down Toothless would be the day everything changed. But until then, Hiccup would be frowned at, and I would bang heads with Halla about hanging around him. I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes, waiting for sleep to come to me.

Chapter Text

I have no idea how long I slept, just that I slept like a rock. The next thing I knew, Halla was shaking me awake. I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes as she moved around the room. Sunlight shone through the gaps around the front door. The healer was by the cauldron over the fire, which was now out, pouring spoonfuls of something into a bowl. She then grabbed a spoon and walked over to where I sat in bed, holding the bowl out to me. “Here you go.”

I hesitantly took the bowl from her, remembering her anger the night before. “Thanks.”

I felt her eyes on me as I took a bite of what turned out to be a bland stew. I looked up at her after a couple of bites to see her handling the Nadder spike that I had pulled out of my skirt. After a second, she noticed me watching and set the spike down on the table.

“I have to go to the war council,” she told me. I nodded. She opened her mouth and started to say something before closing it. After a few seconds of watching her consider her words, she said, “Just try to stay out of trouble.”

I scoffed and looked down at the bowl of stew in my hands. “It’s not like I planned on having a dragon firing spikes at me.”

I heard her sigh and looked up. “I know, Kendra. Just…think before you do something like that again. It would be a shame if Mildew got his way.”

“Who’s Mildew?” I asked. That was the second time she had mentioned him, and both times the context of it was not good. “Is he like the village crank or something?”

Halla cracked a smile. “Something like that,” she said before turning and heading for the door. She paused at the door and looked back at me. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

I nodded that I understood. She opened the door and walked out, pulling it closed behind her. I sighed and looked down at the cooling bowl of stew. Eh, might as well. I was hungry, and her stew was pretty good. I would have preferred it with a little more spice to it, but oh well.

Once I finished the stew, I sat with the bowl in my lap and stared around the house. Strangely quiet without the sound of the fire going. She said she would be back in a few hours. What the heck was I supposed to do during that amount of time? I sighed and got up off the bed, setting the empty bowl down on the table. It was no use staying in the house. I was not just going to sit there for who knows how long staring at the ceiling again.

I walked outside and took in the village as the door closed behind me. Several structures on this level were damaged, but it looked like most of it was down on the lower levels. I could see smoke rising from a few smoldering ruins. Stoick had looked grave when he had come for Halla the night before, but she had not mentioned that anyone had died. Hopefully, all those she tended to were recovering okay.

I looked toward the upper level. A few stragglers were running up the steps toward the hall for the meeting. Smoke also rose from one of the buildings up there. The smithy. I smiled and started heading in that direction. Halla would probably not be very happy, but I could not find it in me to care. Hiccup was a good kid and pretty easy to get along with. Why people could not see that yet was beyond me. They would see, someday. After he nearly loses his life to save them, and years of them putting him down. That could not be good for his self-confidence.

As I headed up to the next level, I was not met by the usual stares and looks that I usually got while walking around. Evidently, most people were up in the hall for the council. I reached the partly open-air building within a few minutes, the air ringing with the sound of a hammer hitting an anvil. I paused at the overhang and quickly spotted the person with the hammer. Hiccup was so focused on his work that he did not notice me. He hammered the metal a few more times before putting it into a barrel of water, sending up a large cloud of steam.

Once it began to clear, I raised my hand and knocked on the nearest beam. “Knock-knock.”

He looked up from where he stood, pulling the metal from the barrel as he smiled. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said, returning his smile. I moved further into the smithy until I stood across from him. “Got the place to yourself today, huh?”

He nodded, glancing down at the metal on the anvil. Now that I looked at it, it looked almost like a sword. “Yeah. Gobber’s up at the council meeting, so he asked me to repair some of the weapons that were damaged last night.”

“Cool,” I responded. “Mind if I keep you company? Halla’s at the meeting too.”

His smile turned into a grin. “Sure.”

Over the next few hours, I helped him repair weapons. He hammered swords that were horribly misshapen, sharpened axes and knives, and shaped spearheads and arrowheads. He would ask for something, tell me where it was, and I would go and retrieve it for him. Thankfully, only a couple of times did I grab the wrong tool, but Hiccup took it all in stride with a smile.

After finishing an axe, he set down his tools and looked over at where I stood leaning against a worktable. “Let’s take a break.”

I gave a slight shrug. “Sure.”

“Come on,” he said with a smile, heading back behind a curtain that concealed the back room, gesturing for me to follow him. I stepped past the curtain and stopped. It was the small workroom that Hiccup had spent a lot of time in during the movie. Lit by a candle in the corner and above a workbench to the left of the door were tons of drawings. Plans for weapons, calculations, in a word, blueprints.

I stepped into the room and moved over to the bench to look at them closer, Hiccup standing back and watching me. “You drew all these?”

I glanced back at him and saw him nod. “Yeah.”

I looked back at the drawings. “They’re really good,” I said. The glimpses of them we saw in the film did not do them justice. The detail in them was incredible.

“Eh,” I heard him say. I glanced back at him in time to see the shrug. He had no idea how good they were. “They’re just plans for projects.”

I looked back at the drawings. “They’re still amazing. Way better than anything I can do.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him come up beside me and sit on the stool, his head turned toward me. “I’m sure yours are good.”

I tore my eyes away from his drawings and looked at him with raised eyebrows. “I can draw stick people, and even they look pathetic.”

He laughed, which made me smile. He turned away, and I heard him messing with something on the other side of the stool. A few seconds later, he turned around with two chunks of bread in his hand. He held one out to me. Still smiling, I took the offered bread. “Thanks.”

The bread was a little stale, but not horribly so. My stomach happily accepted it, making me realize just how hungry I had been. I swallowed a bite before asking, “So, what’s your next project?”

He stopped chewing for a second, looking genuinely stunned that someone was interested in what he was making. He shook his head after a moment and finished chewing a bite of bread. “I’m going to modify the net thrower so that setting it up doesn’t take as long.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it worked perfectly, just fired a few seconds too late.”

Further conversation was cut off by the sound of someone moving out in the main area of the smithy. A few moments later, a male voice called, “Hiccup?”

“Back here, Gobber,” Hiccup called back as I turned around to face the door. A few moments later, the curtain was pushed aside, and the larger Viking stepped into the small room, instantly making it feel even smaller.

“Ah, there ye are,” he said just as his eyes landed on me. “And ye got company.”

I heard Hiccup get off the stool and move around to stand on my left. “Kendra, this is Gobber,” he said, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him gesture to the large blacksmith.

Gobber gave me a toothy smile. “Nice to meet ye, lass.”

I returned the smile. “Nice to meet you, too. I’m guessing the meeting is out now?”

“Aye,” he nodded. “Three ships are to head to the dragon nest within the hour, and Halla will be going as well, so ye best be getting back to her place.”

“Right,” I said with a nod. I turned to look at Hiccup beside me. “I’ll see you later.”

He smiled and nodded. “Yeah. And thanks for the help.”

I raised the bread as Gobber moved away from the doorway so I could pass. “Thanks for the snack,” I said before passing Gobber and stepping through the curtain. As I walked through the smithy, I heard Gobber start talking, but his words I could not understand.

I emerged from the smithy, and all around the village, I could hear people shouting and gathering things for the upcoming voyage to the dragon nest. I walked through the village, heading back down to the level Halla lived on, chewing on a piece of bread. The sun was high in the sky, so it was possibly around noon or the early afternoon. No wonder I was hungry.

I was chewing on the last bite when I arrived at Halla’s. I pushed open the door and found the healer inside, hurrying about as she gathered things into a basket with a strap on it. She paused her work and looked toward the door as I closed it behind me. “There you are. Where have you been?”

I shrugged slightly. “Helping Hiccup repair weapons that got messed up in the attack last night.”

She looked at me for a moment before turning and continuing her packing. “At least you were doing something useful. Can you get me the mortar from the table beside the bed?”

“Sure,” I said as I crossed the room to the table beside the bed that I called mine. I grabbed what she asked for and took it to her.

She grabbed the mortar from my outstretched hand and placed it into the basket. She looked into the basket, her eyes scanning the contents. She then closed the lid and straightened. “I believe that’s everything.”

She looked at me for a moment before placing a hand on my shoulder. “Watch out for the place while I’m gone. You can take meals up in the hall. Stay safe and out of trouble, you hear?”

I gave her a small smile and nodded. “I’ll do my best to.”

She squeezed my shoulder gently before releasing me, grabbing the strap of the basket and slinging it up onto her shoulder. “That’s all I can ask for. I’ll be back in a few days.”

I nodded. “Right.”

She smiled at me and then headed to the door. As it closed behind her, I thought back to the villager’s first voyage to the island in the movie, the one after the attack during which Hiccup shot down Toothless. Three ships had gone, only one had returned. Though that had not been everyone from the village, unlike the attack at the end. But if something similar happened this time, I prayed that Halla was on the ship that returned.

The rest of the day was pretty boring. I straightened up things around Halla’s, took a nap, and paced the room several times. I thought about going back up to the smithy to see Hiccup, but I had no idea if he was still there. So I spent the afternoon pretty much bored out of my skull.

When evening finally arrived, I left Halla’s and headed up toward the hall for dinner. People still worked on the ruins on lower levels, clearing and beginning the process of rebuilding. A few younger children ran around outside before being called in by their mothers. But the village was significantly quieter. I glanced toward the smithy as I passed it, but the fire was out and the place appeared to be empty.

I climbed the long staircase to the hall and entered to find it pretty empty. Only a few people sat at the tables around the room, eating their meals. Platters of cooked meat and bread sat around the edge of the massive fire pit. I grabbed a platter for myself as well as a cup and headed over to a table. I set my things down on the table before sitting down myself.

The door to the hall creaked open, and a group of familiar figures entered. Astrid looked about ready to kill Snotlout as the group headed over to the platters of food and grabbed some for themselves. I looked away from them as they moved to find a table and began to eat the leg of some bird that I had grabbed. I was chewing when I glanced up again, spotting them a few tables away. My attention was pulled away from them when someone sat down across from me, blocking the view.

“Evening, Kendra,” Hiccup said with a smile. “Hope it’s okay if I join you.”

I grinned at him. “Of course, it is.”

He began to eat his leg while I continued to work on mine. It was not bad, just a little bland. Though apparently, something showed on my face, for Hiccup asked, “Is it okay?”

“Hmm? Oh, yeah,” I said, waving it off. “It’s fine. Just a bit different from home.”

He took another bite of his own and swallowed. “What’s the food like where you come from?”

“It’s a lot different from this,” I replied. “We have a lot of spices that you don’t seem to have here. And I usually take my food with a lot of spices. My parents think I’m nuts because I like it so spicy.”

He smiled as he set down his drink. “So it’s a little bland compared to where you’re from?” he asked, gesturing to the food on my plate.

I shrugged slightly. “Pretty much.”

He chuckled a little before he continued to eat his food. We continued to eat, Hiccup asking questions about the food at home every so often. When we were almost finished, I saw someone approach the table from the corner of my eye. I looked up to see Snotlout approaching.

He stopped at the end of the table and looked at me. “Kenny, isn’t it?”

I frowned and looked over at Hiccup with a raised eyebrow, who fought down a smile. I looked toward Snotlout. “It’s Kendra.”

He blinked and then shrugged. “Anyway, what are you doing over here with my useless cousin?” he asked. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hiccup look down at his plate. “You should be over with us, and you can sit right beside me.”

I looked him up and down before pushing myself off the bench. Standing, he was a little shorter than me, perhaps a little taller than Hiccup. “Okay, Snotty, listen up. Hiccup may not be as buff as you are, but brains usually beat brawn. He is not useless. He is smart and funny, and I would rather be friends with him over you any day.”

He looked at me blankly. “What’s brawn?”

I groaned. Okay, where was the nearest wall? I wanted to bang my head against it.

“Exhibit ‘A’ of why I want to hang out with Hiccup over you,” I said before turning and heading for the door. I was almost done with my food anyway. I heard Fishlegs explaining to the twins what ‘brawn’ meant, which caused Ruffnut to laugh. I turned around just before the doors at the sound of running footsteps approaching me. Hiccup stopped just a few steps away from me.

“Did you mean that?” he asked. It took me a minute to recognize the look in his eyes. Hope. He was hoping that I had meant what I had said.

My posture relaxed, and a soft smile formed on my lips. “Of course, I did. He got my name wrong for crying out loud.”

Hiccup laughed. “Yeah, I can’t believe he did that.”

“He’s really your cousin?” I asked. That had not been something mentioned in the movie, at least from what I remembered.

He nodded. “Yeah,” he said before frowning. “How did you know his name?”

Oh, crap. How to explain this one? “I heard one of the others say his name when they came in a little after me. They weren’t sitting that far away.”

Thankfully, he accepted that with a nod. “If you’re still hungry, I think there’s some fish left at my house that we can cook.”

I smiled. “I’d like that.”

Chapter Text

It was almost a week later that the ships returned. I had spent most of the time I wasn’t asleep with Hiccup, helping him with the tasks that Gobber had left him to do since the blacksmith had gone with the others to the dragon nest. It was one of the afternoons that I was keeping him company that we began to hear shouts in the village about the boats being back.

Hiccup stopped working on sharpening an axe and glanced outside. I followed his gaze as several younger children ran by, followed by mothers yelling for them to slow down, though the women were smiling. Hiccup set down the axe, smiling. “Come on.”

Together, we joined the crowd heading down to the docks. I could not help but feel anxious. How many ships had returned? Was Halla on one of them? If she wasn’t, what would happen to me? What would the village do without her? We walked down the wooden pathways that were attached to the cliff, all of which led down to the docks. Due to the crowd, we stopped at the tier above them and looked down. Two ships sat on the docks, and both had sustained some damage.

The people on board the ships looked to be in slightly better shape for the most part. Most were covered in scrapes and bruises, though I did spot a few broken limbs. They were in makeshift slings, which had to be Halla’s doing. I heard Hiccup sigh and glanced over at him. He was staring at someone down on the docks. I followed his gaze and spotted his father and Gobber. Ah, it was a sigh of relief. Both looked okay, just a couple of scrapes.

I kept looking around in the crowd below for some sign of Halla. I swallowed and kept looking for her brown hair. She had to be okay. She was the village healer. They needed her, and so did I. Where else would I stay? She had taken me in from the get-go.

“Kendra,” Hiccup said, setting a hand on my shoulder.

I looked over at him, beginning to panic. He nodded down at the docks. I followed his gaze and looked around desperately for a few seconds before I spotted her. She hopped off the second boat onto the dock. She had a few scrapes and a thin cut under her left eye, but otherwise, she looked okay. I felt myself almost sag in relief. She was okay.

“Oh, thank god,” I muttered as I watched her turn and help someone else off the boat. The man had a bucket on his head. His hands were pressed against the sides of his head and appeared to be moaning in pain, even though I could not really see a scratch on him.

“Oh, no,” I heard Hiccup mutter as he removed his hand from my shoulder.

I looked over at him, but he was staring down at bucket head. “What?”

“That’s Bucket. He can tell when a storm is coming because the bucket on his head tightens,” he explained. I looked back down at the docks. Another man hopped off the boat and took Bucket’s arm and started leading him away. “And since he doesn’t look good, it must be getting close.”

“What happens when there’s a storm?” I asked, watching as Halla helped more people off the boat.

“We secure our homes and just stay in the Hall until it’s over,” Hiccup replied. “It’s all we can do.”

I watched as Stoick walked over to Halla and the two began to talk. They talked for a minute before Stoick headed up the docks as Halla helped the last few people off the boat. She had just helped the last person off and slung her basket over her shoulder when heavy footsteps sounded on the walkway close to where Hiccup and I stood.

I turned and saw Stoick coming up the ramp toward us, Gobber right behind him. Hiccup was already turned toward him, so all I saw was the back of his head. The two Vikings stopped before us. “Hiccup. Kendra.”

“Dad,” Hiccup said.

I nodded once. “Sir.”

“I saw Bucket. There’s a storm coming, isn’t there?” Hiccup asked.

Stoick nodded. “Aye. I think it’s why the dragons weren’t as fierce in their attack.”

“So that means we'd best start preparing for it,” Gobber said, stepping up to stand beside Stoick. “Stall still in one piece?”

I stepped up beside Hiccup. “The place is fine. Pretty clean, actually,” I said, glancing over at Hiccup. He looked over at me, the corners of his mouth turned upward.

“Ah, so ye helped him out again?” Gobber asked.

I nodded. “Yup.”

He patted me on the shoulder with a laugh, which caused me to stumble into Hiccup. “Thank ye, lass.”

“What is she being thanked for?” Halla asked as she appeared from behind Stoick and Gobber, looking between the blacksmith and me. She looked a little worse for wear and exhausted, but otherwise, she was okay.

I smiled at her. “I helped Hiccup at the stall.”

Halla glanced over at him before her eyes returned to me. If she was going to say anything, she was cut off from doing so by Gobber. “Best start warning everyone of the storm.”

Halla nodded. “Right. I’ll need to restock some of my stores before it hits. Kendra, I’ll need your help with that.”

“Okay,” I said, starting to follow after the healer as she turned to head up to the village. I glanced back at Hiccup and waved. “Later, Hiccup.”

Turns out what Halla needed to restock on were herbs, things that looked like just weeds to me. After returning to her house, she dropped off her axe, emptied her basket, and filled it up again with pots and bowls from around the house. Then we left. We walked through the village, which had come to life with people preparing for the storm, across a bridge, past the dragon arena, and into the forest. By the time we hit the tree line, the wind had picked up and the temperature had dropped from comfortable to chilly.

I followed Halla through the forest, the woman glancing around for what she needed. After a minute, she seemed to spot it and stopped to crouch down, pulling the basket off her shoulder. I crouched down beside her as she pulled a pot out of the basket and pressed it into my hands, saying, “Hold this.”

She pulled a knife from the basket and cut a branch from a plant before her and put it into the pot before going to cut another branch.

“Do you remember the name of this plant?” she asked me after a moment.

I thought back to the first time we had gone into the forest to restock her herbs when she had pointed out so many plants to me with names I could hardly pronounce. I shook my head after a moment. “Sorry, no.”

She looked at me for a second before turning back to the plant. After cutting off a few more pieces and putting them into the jar, she took the pot from my hands and put it back into the basket. “That should be enough,” she muttered. She then stood and shouldered the basket once more.

“Okay, now I need…” she muttered under her breath, and she turned away and continued on into the forest, walking quickly. I followed after her, almost running to catch up with her. By the time I reached her side, she had found another plant and knelt before it. She set the basket on the ground and pulled out another pot, which she shoved into my hands. She then pulled off a good number of the small leaves on the plant.

I sniffed as a scent reached my nose. “Is that mint?”

She paused her work and looked up at me, a small smile playing at her lips. “Well, at least you remembered one plant.”

I returned the smile, “Maybe there’s hope for me yet.”

She chuckled as she finished gathering some of the mint before she put her things back into the basket and put it over her shoulder once more. We moved a little further into the forest, and Halla stopped at yet another plant I didn’t recognize and began pulling off some leaves. Though after a minute, she paused her work and glanced into the basket.

“What?” I asked.

She bit her lip for a moment in thought before nodding and bringing back out the pot of mint leaves, handing it over to me. “Go back and get a little more mint. People’s nerves will be frayed due to the storm, so best to have plenty on hand to help calm them down. “

I nodded as I pushed myself up from where I had been crouching beside her, pot in hand. “Okay.”

“Be careful,” she called after me as I went back the way we had come, looking around for the mint plant. Just past a tree, I found the plant. I glanced back in the direction of Halla and could still see her, though she was a good way away. I crouched down, set down the pot, and set about pulling off more leaves.

I had been pulling for leaves for a few minutes when I heard something from the direction that Halla was in. I paused my work and glanced back, but saw her still working on the plant that I had left her on. She hadn’t moved. I shrugged before going back to work. I worked for a few more minutes before hoping that I had grabbed enough and moving to stand.

As I pushed myself to my feet, I heard something move in the direction of the village. Once on my feet, I looked over and spotted a large boar standing a few feet away, staring at me. I slowly bent down toward the pot, keeping my eyes on the boar, specifically its large tusks. I grabbed the pot and slowly straightened up.

“Nice Pumba,” I said as I began to back up, keeping my eyes on the boar. I did not like the way that it was looking at me. What had I done, taken the mint leaves that he wanted?

SNAP!

A twig snapped beneath my foot. I glanced down, and I heard the boar squeal and charge. I turned around and ran in the direction I had left Halla. I could hear the boar just behind me.

“Halla!” I yelled as I ran, just seconds before my foot collided with something and sent me flying forward, the pot disappearing from my hands. I hit the ground hard, all breath knocked from my lungs, and felt a sharp pain in my right leg. I went to push myself up and saw two feet in front of me. I heard Halla throw something before the boar squealed in pain. A thump and then all was quiet.

I heard Halla move down toward my feet. “Don’t move, Kendra. It got you good in the leg.”

I pushed myself up onto my elbows but didn’t move my legs. I could feel Halla’s hands around where the pain was, and could feel the area around it becoming damp. I glanced over my shoulder, though not for long, since it was uncomfortable, but long enough to glimpse a bloody gash on my lower leg. My stomach churned as I turned away and could feel bile rising in my throat.

I took a deep breath and released it slowly as I listened to the sound of Halla moving down by my leg, trying to get rid of the urge to puke. It subsided, but my stomach still churned. I was fine with blood, had no problem watching those animal hospital shows and looking at the innards of a cat while eating dinner, but it was something else to see my own blood all over my leg.

I swallowed. “Where’s the boar?”

“Dead,” she replied. I heard fabric ripping before I felt pressure on the wound. “Threw my knife into its eye.”

I let out a breathy laugh. “You must have damn good aim.”

I felt something being wrapped around my leg. “That I do. Looks to be a female. It’s possible she may have babies in the area and thought you were a threat to them.”

“Oh,” I muttered, looking down at the dirt beneath me. Okay, so Pumba was not Pumba but Pumbina, and probably a protective mother. Oh, my leg hurt.

“Okay. I’ve wrapped the wound, but I’ll need to take care of it as soon as we get back to the village,” I heard her say before her feet entered my line of sight. Then her hands came into view, and she bent down to help me up. Her hands were covered in blood.

With a little difficulty, I was up and leaning heavily against her, her arm wrapped around me. A few feet away, the boar was dead, and its eye was bleeding. I swallowed as we began to move past it in the direction of the village. This would probably take as long to heal as the wound on my head did. Though at least then I had been able to walk.

“This is the second time since I’ve been here that you’ll be taking care of me,” I commented as we moved slowly through the forest. “I seem to be injury-prone here.”

“I’m sure that will change over time,” she commented as we walked, or rather hobbled along. I glanced at her, waiting for her to elaborate, but she never did.

By the time we got back to the village, it was after dark. Though even with the sun down, people were still moving about, making preparations for the storm on the way. And now you could tell it was near. The winds were stronger, and out over the ocean, you could see the storm clouds gathering strength. A few villagers glanced at us as we moved toward Halla’s house, but none stuck around. They simply ran off. But when we were almost to her house, two large figures approached us with a third smaller one moving behind them, the largest carrying a torch.

“Halla,” Stoick called as we neared her front door. We stopped and waited for him to get closer. Following behind him were Gobber and Hiccup. His eyes went to my leg. “What happened?”

“Sent her alone to gather more mint. Boar attacked her,” Halla explained. “Must have had her babies nearby.”

He was silent for a moment. I glanced over at Hiccup, who was staring at my leg. “You get what you need. I’ll take her up to the Hall. The storm will probably hit sometime in the night.”

“Right,” she said with a nod as she shifted me beside her. The next thing I knew, I was in the air, against the chest of Stoick. He had lifted me as easily as a rag doll. I glanced over at Halla, who nodded toward me. “I’ll see you in the Hall, Kendra.”

“Okay,” I replied before she headed off into her house. Stoick then turned and started toward the Hall, Gobber and Hiccup following after him.

“Have you ever used a dagger, Kendra?” Stoick asked me as we reached the upper level of the village.

I shook my head and glanced up at him. He didn’t look down at me. “No, sir.”

“We’ll have to see about changing that,” I heard Gobber say from somewhere behind my head as Stoick reached the base of the stairs. I blinked rapidly. I suddenly felt very tired.

“Kendra,” I heard Stoick say as I began to doze off. My head snapped up, and I heard the doors to the Hall creak open. People had been talking, but paused for a moment before asking what happened. “Hiccup, talk to her.”

“Um, okay,” I heard him say as I felt myself lying down upon a flat surface. I blinked up at the ceiling of the Hall high above me. That view was suddenly blocked as Hiccup looked down at me. “I’ve been thinking about ways to modify the net thrower.”

“Oh?” His face was blurry. I could see his mouth moving, but all I heard was noise. None of it made any sense. My leg hurt, and all I wanted to do was sleep.

And then Hiccup was gone, replaced by Halla. She placed her hands on my face as she looked down at me.

“Kendra, I need to sew up the wound. Bite down on this,” she said before putting something in my mouth before I could even try to say something. Halla then disappeared, and I was left looking at the ceiling again.

Then sharp pain came from my leg. Something piercing the skin, and a painful tug. I screamed. It paused for a moment before starting again. I felt someone grab my hand before everything went dark.

Chapter Text

Pain. That was the first thing that I felt. A sharp pain and soreness in my lower leg. Why did my leg hurt so bad? What had happened to me? I remembered Halla’s worried face and blood on her hands as she helped me back to the village. My blood. The boar. We had been out picking plants before the storm hit, and the boar had attacked me, thinking me a threat to her babies. But what happened after we had gotten back to the village, after Stoick had carried me to the Hall, I couldn’t remember.

“Kendra? Can you hear me?”

The voice was familiar, and I was glad to hear it. A sense of comfort came with hearing it. The voice was young and male. Hiccup.

“Halla! I think she’s waking up!”

Slowly, I became aware that I was lying on a hard surface, something soft elevating my head slightly. The room was warm, and something soft had been draped over me. A blanket. I heard rapid footsteps and then felt a hand on my forehead.

“Temperature is fine,” said Halla. “Kendra, can you open your eyes?”

It took a moment for me to process her request. My eyelids feel like lead, but somehow I managed to get them open. Everything is a blur for a few seconds, and a face appeared above me. Then it sharpened, and I recognized Halla, who looked relieved. Another face appeared on my other side. Hiccup.

“Thank the gods,” he muttered.

The corners of my mouth twitch upward, and somehow even that little bit of movement hurts. “Hey.”

I winced at the sound of my voice. I sounded like I had a frog shoved up my throat, which also throbbed when I talked. The saliva in my mouth also tasted disgusting. For a moment, I wonder why, but then I remembered screaming. Halla had stitched up my leg, and I had passed out not long after she had started. Sure, I’d had stitches before, but back home where there was laughing gas and lovely pain medication like Vicodin.

“Hiccup, go get her some water,” Halla said, glancing up at Hiccup, who nodded before moving away, disappearing from my line of sight. Halla then returned her gaze to me. “How are you feeling?”

I swallowed some of the disgusting saliva. Ow, even that hurt. “Like hell,” I croaked. Halla cracked a smile. “How long was I out?”

“About a day,” she replied. “Storm’s still going. It hit not long after you feigned.”

Well, that explained the hard surface that I was lying on instead of the bed downstairs in Halla’s house. And as I woke up more, I became more aware of things beyond Halla. The smell of a fire and cooking meat. The soft chatter of people.

Hiccup returned a moment later with a cup, which he handed to Halla. With her help, I managed to take a sip. The water was nice and cool and felt fantastic going down my sore throat. It also helped with the horrible taste in my mouth. Halla moved the cup away from my mouth as I swallowed the last of what she had given me. My stomach thanked me for sending something to it after so long, even if it wasn’t food.

“Better?” she asked, setting the cup down somewhere out of view. Possibly the bench.

I nodded. “Thanks.”

Halla smiled again. “I’m going to check on your stitches.”

“Okay,” I said as she moved down the table I was lying on to check on my leg. I looked over at Hiccup as I felt Halla messing with the wrappings. Now that I was more awake, I could see that Hiccup looked tired. No, not tired. Exhausted. “When was the last time you slept?”

He frowned slightly for a second before saying, “The night before the ships got back.”

“So you stayed next to me the entire time?”

Hiccup looked down sheepishly. “Pretty much.”

“That has to be…the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” I said, a soft smile on my lips as Hiccup looked toward me. He returned the smile after a moment. “Now go get some sleep. You look like you’re about ready to fall over.”

He laughed and ducked his head. “Right. I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll be here,” I said as he moved away. He glanced back as he walked, a grin on his face. “Since I can’t really walk at the moment.”

“And it’ll probably be a couple of weeks before you can without help,” Halla said, coming back up to stand beside my head. “The boar didn’t go very deep, but it was a good size.”

A couple of weeks. Couldn’t say I was really all that surprised. And since they didn’t have crutches, as far as I knew, I’d have to rely on help to get anywhere. I nodded. “Okay.”

“Now, you just rest. Try to sleep. I’ll get you something to eat when you wake up,” Halla said as she readjusted the pillow under my head.

“Alright,” I said, nodding. She smiled before I closed my eyes.

“Sleep well, Kendra.”

It was two days later when we were finally able to leave the Hall. With the help of Halla, I had been able to sit up and eat the day after I had woken up. My stomach had been so thankful to have something in it other than water and my saliva. Hiccup had spent most of the days we were all stuck in the Hall by my side. Halla would occasionally give me a look, but said nothing. Perhaps she was realizing that Hiccup was a good kid. That or she had finally realized that I was going to be friends with him no matter what anyone else thought.

When the time came to leave the Hall, I had tried to tell them that I could make it without being carried, that I could do it with Halla’s help. Did they listen? Nope. I ended up leaving the Hall the same way that I had entered; bein, being carried by the chief of the village. And this time, I was aware enough to feel a bit embarrassed. I was eighteen years old, had only been in Berk maybe a month or so, had been injured twice, and was being carried in the arms of their chief like a child. Again. If the elder was right and gods or something had brought me to Berk, they seemed to have it out for me.

When we stepped out of the Hall, I was hit by a wave of cold that caused goosebumps to pop up everywhere. I shivered slightly. If Stoick noticed, he said nothing. The sky was spotted with fluffy white clouds. Glancing around, I could see that the village was now covered in several feet of snow. If any buildings had been damaged, I couldn’t tell. Hopefully, no one’s home had been damaged.

Hiccup had been just behind us when we had left the Hall, though by the time we arrived at Halla’s, he was nowhere in sight. Halla had to clear some snow away from her door before we could enter, but everything looked to be in order when we did. Though it was cold. As Stoick carried me over to the bed and set me down on it, I could hear Halla working on getting a fire going to warm the place up. “Thank you, chief. Hopefully, this is the last time I get injured.”

He gave me a small smile. “Hopefully. Either way, once that leg is better, you’ll start training with a dagger.”

“See if the Hofferson girl can help her,” Halla said as she stood up from beside the now blazing fire. It illuminated the room and slowly began to fill it with warmth. “She and Kendra have similar builds.”

Stoick nodded. Hofferson. That name sounded familiar. “Hofferson?”

“Astrid Hofferson,” Halla replied. That’s why the name sounded familiar. Hiccup had mentioned her once or twice. Or several dozen times. “Four years younger than you, but talented with an axe. Especially for someone her age.”

“Aye, and proficient with other weapons as well,” Stoick added. He glanced over at me and looked me up and down. “They do have similar builds. Good thinking, Halla. I’ll go speak with the HofferHoffersonst as Stoick was heading for the door, it burst open and Hiccup ran into the room, though thankfully stopped in time to keep from running into his father. His notebook was in his hands. “Dad.”

“Hiccup,” Stoick said. As soon as his name was out of his father’s mouth, Hiccup was moving around his father and over to where I sat on the bed. Stoick watched his son for a moment before leaving Halla’s, closing the door behind him. Halla watched the chief leave, then glanced over at Hiccup before heading upstairs.

“I had an idea. To help you walk until that heals,” Hiccup said as he sat down on the bed beside me, opening up his notebook. He flipped past pages and pages of drawings until he stopped on one about halfway through and showed it to me. It was a blueprint for something that looked like a crutch. Something to help me walk until my leg healed.

“So this is where you ran off to when we left the Hall,” I said, looking at the details of the blueprint. It was slightly curved at the top where I would lean on it, and he had drawn another version, a padded version, just next to it. It had three support pieces that went about halfway down to crutch the, where they joined back up with the main piece.

“Yeah. Still needs a little tweaking, but I think it’ll work,” he said.

I smiled over at him. “It’s going to be great. Thank you.”

He returned the smile before looking down at the blueprint. Just next to the drawing of the padded version, there was writing. It looked almost like a list, but I couldn’t read it. I pointed to it on the page. “What does that say?”

“It’s just a list of possible paddings,” he replied before looking up at me with a slight frown. “You can’t read?”

“I can read just fine. Just not that,” I said, gesturing to the writing in his notebook. “I don’t know that language.”

He glanced down at the page before looking back at me. “You’re speaking it right now.”

“I…what?” I asked. I was speaking a language that I didn’t even know, yet he and everyone on Berk sounded like they were speaking English to me.

“What language are you hearing?” he asked.

“English,” I replied.

He looked slightly confused. “What?”

“English.”

“What’s that?”

He didn’t know what I was saying. The word didn’t exist. Like that one episode of Doctor Who where people in Pompeii didn’t know the word volcano. It just didn’t translate. “Guess the name of it doesn’t translate. But how can I be speaking a language that I don’t know and hearing the one that I do know?”

Hiccup shrugged. “Gothi did say the gods could be behind bringing you here. Maybe they are behind this too.”,

“Maybe,” I said, looking down at the page, at the words that I couldn’t understand. How long had I been here? A few weeks? A month? I wasn’t entirely sure. How long would I be here? Would I be here for the events of the movie, or find myself back home before everything here in Berk happened? Would I ever go home at all? “Can you teach me?”

I looked over at Hiccup. He looked a bit surprised. “What, teach you how to read?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I have no idea who brought me here, or for how long. But no matter how long I am here, I think it would be helpful if I could read your language.”

“You want me to teach you? Why not ask Halla, or my dad, or- “

“I’m not asking them, I’m asking you,” I said, cutting him off.

He had the same look on his face that he had that one night in the Hall when Snotlout had asked why I was sitting with his ‘useless’ cousin. Years of being put down, of seeing his inventions fail, and being ridiculed for it had taken their toll on his self-confidence.

“Will you?” I asked. “Please?”

He nodded after a moment. “Okay.”

“Great. I’ve got plenty of downtime due to this,” I said with a grin, gesturing to my leg. That got a smile out of him. “Though I’m supposed to start training once it’s healed. With a certain young Viking lady, you’ve mentioned.”

He ducked his head slightly and reached up to scratch the back of his neck. “Oh, I’ve mentioned Astrid before?”

“Oh, just one or two dozen times,” I said, fighting down a grin.

Chapter Text

It took Hiccup a couple of days to get the crutch done, tweaks and all, and it did really help. I was able to get around on my own. I was slow, but at least I was able to move without being carried. That, and I didn’t want to go very fast and risk screwing up the stitches. I did not need to go through that experience again anytime soon.

Hiccup was usually with me whenever I was out and about, and I found myself spending more days in the Stall since I couldn’t help Halla very well when I was moving around so slowly. Whenever he had a break from helping Gobber, he would break out his notebook and start teaching me the letters of the alphabet in their language. It was slow going and hard. I’d never been very good at languages and had barely passed French in high school. But he was a patient teacher, and kindly corrected me when I got something wrong. After a week, I was able to recognize Hiccup’s name as well as my own.

It was after being on the crutch for about a week that I was awoken in the middle of the night again to roars and yelling. Halla came running down the stairs, helmet and axe in hand. Using the crutch, I got up off the bed as carefully and as quickly as I could, wincing slightly as the stitches pulled. Halla put on her helmet and grabbed my left arm, helping me to the door. “Let’s get you to the Hall.”

“Okay,” I said as she briefly let go of my arm to open the door. Once outside, she wrapped her arm around me to help me walk quickly.

Outside was chaos. There was still a good amount of snow on the ground, and it looked orange as it reflected nearby flames. Dragons darted across the night sky, and Vikings with weapons ran after them with a yell. We quickly moved up the path toward the Hall, going as fast as my leg would let me. It was as we were almost up to the next level that someone ran up to us, causing us to stop walking.

“I can help her, Halla,” said Hiccup.

Halla hesitated for a moment before removing her arm and stepping out of the way. Hiccup soon took her place. I gave her a small smile. “Good luck.”

“Get up there as quick as you can,” she said before running off in the direction she had just come from, raising her axe.

“How’s the leg?” Hiccup asked as we started moving again.

“Achy, but I think the stitches are okay,” I replied.

We were almost to the base of the stairs when a sound in the air made me stop and glance back. A sound that I knew, but one I had not heard since finding myself in Berk. Only one thing could make that sound here. I felt the corners of my mouth twitch upward. Hiccup looked at me, confused for a moment, but if he was going to say anything, he was interrupted by a distant yell.

“NIGHT FURY!”

A flash of blue fire, and one of the catapults was destroyed. Hiccup tugged on my arm, and we started moving again. “Come on.”

Walking fast had hurt, but the stairs felt even worse. I winced but kept moving. “Wh-what was that sound?”

“Another dragon,” he replied. “A Night Fury. No one’s ever seen one.”

I glanced up. We were maybe halfway up the stairs. Just a few more minutes of pain. “You guys have a lot of dragons here. Wouldn’t it be smarter to, ow, just leave?”

“We’re almost there,” he said. “We’re Vikings. We have stubbornness issues.”

I hissed in pain, glancing up at the doors of the Hall. Close. So close. “Gonna have to check the stitches when we get in there.”

It took a few more painful minutes to reach the top, and once back on level ground, the pain lessened slightly, but my leg was throbbing. Thankfully, someone was at the door and opened it for us. There was a good number of people in the Hall, though not as many as when I had first woken up in Berk and been brought up here. Those who were in the Hall were children sitting close to their mothers. A couple of babies were testing their lungs, their wails echoing in the large room.

Hiccup helped me walk over to the nearest bench, which I dropped down onto so hard I was momentarily distracted from the pain in my leg. I pulled the crutch out from under my arm and leaned it against the table before working on lifting my leg up onto the bench. Hiccup sat down next to my foot as I reached for the bandage on my calf and started to undo it.

“I got it,” said Hiccup, gently pushing my hands out of the way so he could undo the bandage.

I gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”

It took a minute, but he got it off. I glanced at the bandage, which thankfully was blood stain-free, before looking down at my leg. The skin around the five stitches was red, but none seemed to be bleeding. And the healing skin hadn’t opened. “Thank goodness. I was so sure she’d have to redo them later.”

“Thankfully, she doesn’t,” he said before working on redoing the bandage.

“Yeah, I really did not want a repeat of that experience,” I said. Just letting it rest on the bench was helping with the pain. It still hurt, but was slowly lessening. “Once was enough for me.”

Hiccup pulled his notebook out from his vest and set it on the table. “If you want, we can work on your reading some more while we wait for the raid to end.”

“What about Gobber?” I asked. “Don’t you need to go help him?”

Hiccup shrugged. “He’ll understand.”

I raised an eyebrow.

He glanced up at me. “Okay, so I’ll probably have to do extra work tomorrow for him. It’s fine.”

“Well, what about your net thrower? Don’t you want to test out the tweaks you made?” I asked, glancing over at the doors to the Hall as someone else came in with a young child in tow.

“Nah, maybe the next raid,” he replied. He was giving up the chance to test it after tweaking it to keep me company.

I smiled. “Or we can test it on a sheep or something before the next one. Have it all ready to test on a dragon.”

He smiled as he opened up his notebook and picked up his pencil. “Sounds like a plan,” he said before writing something down. He then set down his pencil and held up the page for me to see. “What letters are these?”

I grimaced, only this time not from the pain in my leg.

It was almost an hour before the raid ended. Halla came into the Hall just behind Stoick, who announced that it was safe to leave. Mothers began to gather their children and head out while Hiccup put away his notebook, and I grabbed my crutch. Hiccup stood up, and I was about to swing my leg off the bench, but Halla held up a hand to stop me. I set the crutch back down as Stoick and Halla stopped before us.

“How’s the damage?” I asked as Halla sat down where Hiccup had been and began to remove the bandages. “We checked it after we got here, and it wasn’t bleeding.”

“Good, no bleeding is good. And thankfully, no one was seriously hurt,” Halla replied.

“Aye, though we lost half a herd of sheep and several houses,” Stoick added, glancing over at Halla as she looked over my leg.

“My home was partly destroyed,” Halla said after a moment, looking up from the wound and at me. I felt my stomach drop. Halla had been the first one to welcome me here and had taken me in. “The loft is completely gone. I need to go through my supplies and take stock of what survived once it’s cleared enough to get in there. It’ll take at least a week to repair. Until then, I’ll be staying with Phlegma.”

“What about me?” I asked as she went back to inspecting my leg. She glanced up at Stoick.

“You’ll be staying with us,” Stoick said, moving over to stand beside Hiccup, who did a double take at his father’s words.

I glanced at Halla, who didn’t look completely thrilled with the idea but seemed to be trying to smile all the same. For some reason, I had the feeling that no one else wanted me to stay with them while her home was rebuilt. Even after being in Berk for over a month, maybe even two, since I’d lost track of how long I’d been in Berk, I still rarely got smiles from those I delivered things to for Halla. Phlegma smiled at me whenever I dropped something off for her, but apparently, she didn’t like me enough to stay with her.

“A little irritated, but the stitches look fine. Should be able to remove them about the time the house is rebuilt,” she said before rewrapping my calf.

Halla finished wrapping it before helping me up off the bench, Hiccup handing me the crutch. It was slow going, but we left the Hall a few minutes later and headed down the stairs. Halla had an arm around me to help, and Hiccup walked on my other side. Halla and Stoick started talking about the repairs to be made to her house, which I didn’t really pay attention to since I was busy making sure I put one foot after the other.

When we reached the house of the chief and his family, Stoick went inside after bidding the healer goodnight, while Halla and I stopped just outside the door. She removed her arm from around me and stepped away. “I’ll come by and check on your leg tomorrow after I take stock of what survived of my stores. See if I have everything to make a salve for it. If not, I’ll see if Gothi has some.”

“Gothi?” I asked. Why would she have some salve?

“I learned all that I know from her,” Halla replied. “She still knows plenty of healing techniques that I don’t.”

“Oh.”

She smiled. “Get some rest, Kendra.”

“You too, Halla,” I said as she moved away, heading for the lower levels where Phlegma lived.

I followed Hiccup inside, and we headed for the stairs up to his room in the loft. We were starting up them when Stoick walked up to stand beside where we were on them. “Hiccup.”

In front of me, Hiccup stopped and looked at his father, who he had to look down at due to the stairs. “Gobber expects you at the stall bright and early to make up for not being there during the raid.”

I raised my eyebrows and fought down a smile. Hiccup glanced over at me and fought down a smile as well. “I kinda figured.”

“Right,” Stoick said with a nod. I glanced back and forth between them. Okay, this was awkward. This was going to be an interesting week.

“I'd better get Kendra comfortable and then get some sleep,” Hiccup said after a moment.

“Right. Right. Sleep well, you two,” he said, glancing over at me before heading toward the door that led to his room under the loft.

Hiccup let out a breath before moving again toward his room. I reached the top of the stairs and stood there, watching as he walked across the room to a chest along the wall and pulled out a pillow and a couple of blankets.

“You can take the bed, and I’ll just sleep downstairs,” he said.

“You don’t have to sleep downstairs. You can stay up here. I don’t bite,” I said, giving him a small smile.

He just looked at me for a moment with an expression I couldn’t identify before he nodded. “Okay,” he said before heading over to the wall across from the bed and laying out the blanket to lie on.

I grinned as I walked over to the bed and dropped down on it, leaning the crutch against the wall. “Sorry for kicking you out of your bed.”

“It’s okay,” he said as he lay down on the little bed that he’d made for himself on the floor. “Your stitches probably wouldn’t like having to get up and down from sleeping on the floor.”

I chuckled softly as I took off my boots. “True.”

Once they were off, I lay back against the pillow, pulling the blanket over me. The candle on the desk by his bed flickered as I shifted to get comfortable. I closed my eyes after I finally found a comfortable position and tried to fall asleep. A few people seemed to still be awake, and I could hear their calls to each other through the walls, though I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Across the room, I could hear Hiccup roll over.

I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling, watching the light from the candle flicker. “I haven’t shared a room with someone in years. It’s only ever been sleepovers, the last one when I was…fourteen or fifteen for a friend’s birthday party.”

I could hear Hiccup shift on his blankets. “A couple of years ago, Snotlout and his family had to stay here after their house burnt down in a raid,” he said. “It was definitely not a party.”

I grinned up at the ceiling. “Yeah, can’t see that one being any fun.”

“I used to stay with my Aunt Freda and Snotlout when we were little and our dads went on trips. Those weren’t bad. Actually, they were kinda fun from what I remember,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice. Then he sighed. “But they stopped being fun by the time I was five or six, and after I started working with Gobber, I stopped staying there at all.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t know how to. I just stared at the ceiling, at least until a massive snore erupted from downstairs that made me jump slightly. It sounded like a chainsaw going right next to my head.

Hiccup chuckled. “Sorry, probably should have warned you about that.”

“Yeah, a little warning would have been nice,” I said, sitting up. He turned his head toward me as I sat up. “How do you sleep with that?”

He shrugged. “Guess I’m used to it.”

I must have made a face because he started laughing. I was tempted to throw the pillow at him, but then I’d have to get up and get it back.

“Was your mom used to it, too?” I asked. Shit. Foot in mouth. Why did I have to say that of all things? Sure, I’d wondered about his mother before, but had never asked since no one ever seemed to mention her.

Hiccup’s smile faded slightly, and he turned to look at the ceiling.

“Sorry,” I said, looking down at my lap. “I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said. I glanced up to see him roll over to look at me. His eyes dropped to the floor. “I don’t know if she was or not. I don’t even remember her. She died when I was less than a year old.”

Sure, my mom and I weren’t exactly close, but to not have her be there for me at all? Or the other way around, and not have my dad around growing up? I couldn’t imagine.

“What happened?” I asked after a moment. I’d already stuck my foot in my mouth once, might as well go all out.

“Dragon raid,” he said quietly, glancing up at me before rolling over onto his back to face the ceiling again.

That…sucked. And actually explained a bit. Why his dad hated dragons so much. They’d killed his wife when Hiccup had been a baby. No wonder he reacted as he had after the whole thing with the Monstrous Nightmare. Or would react since that was still some time in the future.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, lying back down. “I’m not exactly close to my mom and dad. Shoot, I look for any excuse to spend as much time out of the house as possible. But to not have one of them around…I can’t imagine.”

Hiccup didn’t say anything. All I could hear was his quiet breathing across the room.

I sighed and closed my eyes. “Night Hiccup.”

“Night.”

Chapter Text

Staying with Hiccup and his father for a week was…interesting, to say the least. Breakfast every morning was rather awkward, with neither of them knowing what to say, and me sitting there in the middle, glancing between them like I was watching a tennis match. Dinner hadn’t been much better.

So when Halla arrived one morning to remove my stitches and say that her house was finished, I was relieved. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed spending time with Hiccup, I had. After the first night of my stay, when I’d inserted my foot into my mouth, it did end up being like a sleepover. We’d just talk until we fell asleep, or rather, when he fell asleep. Unlike Hiccup, I was not used to loud snoring and did not get used to it in a week.

I was also relieved to get the stitches out, so I didn’t have to worry about pulling them all the time. That, and no matter how much padding the crutch had, after using it so much, my armpit was sore. And it got me away from another awkward breakfast. Taking them out was uncomfortable, and once she was done, she wrapped a thin bandage around my calf.

“Thanks, Halla,” I said, lowering my leg over the side of the Hiccup’s bed, which we had sat on so that Halla could remove the stitches. Hiccup and his father were downstairs finishing up breakfast.
Halla smiled as she stood from the bed. “Now, my house is done and I’ve got something to show you.”

With that, we headed downstairs, where breakfast was being cleaned up.

“Thanks for letting me stay here,” I said as I reached the base of the stairs.

Stoick’s beard twitched. “We were glad to have you.”

“Anyway, I’m off to show her the house,” Halla announced, pushing me toward the door. The massive red beard twitched again. Yeah, he was definitely smiling under there.

“I’ll see you later, Hiccup,” I said as I headed out the door, glancing back and waving at him.

He smiled. “I’ll be at the forge."

We took it slow back to Halla’s since my foot had to get used to supporting all my weight again, and it felt a bit odd to do so after so long of trying to keep weight off of it so as not to do anything to pull the stitches.

Approaching the house, it looked pretty much the same, but something was different. Something that I couldn’t put my finger on until we stepped inside. The main room downstairs seemed to be longer than it used to be. There was another table now beside the fire in the center, and more shelves along the walls. The bed was in the same place, and I turned to head to it, but Halla put a hand on my shoulder to stop me. I glanced back at her.

She shook her head, smiling. “Come with me.”

She removed her hand and headed for the stairs. Upstairs was a place I had never been to before. There was a hallway and two doors; one near the front and another toward the rear of the house. She led me toward the one at the rear and opened the door, waiting for me to go in first.

It wasn’t the biggest room in the world, but it was able to fit a bed, which had a chest sitting at the end of it, as well as a desk under a small window that was currently open and letting in the morning light. A bedroom.

She was giving me my own room.

I slowly turned around to look at Halla, where she stood in the doorway, smiling. “I’ve been considering adding another room to the house for some time now, for storage purposes. Finally decided to go ahead with it, but for a different reason.”

She paused, watching me. She blinked and looked toward the chest at the end of the bed. “The chest has my old things in it for you to use since they fit you rather well.”

Halla returned her gaze to me just in time for me to wrap my arms around her in a hug. She seemed startled for a moment, but then wrapped her arms around me and hugged me gently. I hadn’t been hugged since coming to Berk.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

I could hear the smile in her voice. “You’re welcome, Kendra.”

It was a couple of days later when I was sitting with Hiccup eating dinner, and someone walked over to where we sat on our own. Hiccup’s eyes widened slightly. “A-Astrid. Hi, Astrid. Hi.”
She stopped at the end of the table and looked over at him for a moment with a raised eyebrow. Hiccup turned red and went back to eating his dinner. Astrid then turned her attention to me, her expression neutral. “Your leg finally better?”

“Um, yes,” I replied.

“Good. We start training in the morning. Meet me at the base of the stairs to the Hall just after sunrise.”

She then turned and left before I could even say anything, catching up with two adults who waited for her by the doors of the Hall. They stepped out into the night together.

To be honest, I had forgotten about the training. It seemed like so long ago that Stoick and Halla had talked about it after I had been injured by the boar.

“Okay,” I said slowly, turning my attention back to my dinner. “Apparently, I start training in the morning.”

“You forgot about it, didn’t you?” Hiccup asked before taking a bite from his piece of fish.

“Yup,” I said with a slight smile before taking a bit of my dinner. “The last I heard of it was just after we got back to the house once the storm was over. So yeah, I forgot. So sue me.”

“Sue who? Who’s Sue?” Hiccup asked, looking confused.

“Never mind,” I replied, waving it off. “Just an expression from home. Not really sure how to explain it so it would make sense. Anyway, I’m guessing the only reason you remembered the training is because of who is going to be training me?”

Hiccup didn’t look up from his dinner but shrugged slightly. “It’s not the only reason I remembered.”

“Right,” I said slowly, fighting down a smile.

Hiccup rolled his eyes, fighting down his smile as he ate.

“You’re late,” she said, sitting in the grass beside the steps leading up to the Great Hall.

“Sorry,” I replied.

Astrid said nothing, just got up from where she had been sitting on the grass. Her axe was nowhere in sight. Actually, she didn’t seem to have any weapons on her at all.

“I thought you were training me in weapons?” I asked.

“I am,” she said. “But you are going to train the way I do, and I start every day with a run around the village. Then I work with my axe. But I’ll be showing you how to use different weapons, not just a dagger, so you can know how to use them.”

I nodded. Okay, that made sense. No need to mess up her own training routine completely just to train me.

“Try to keep up,” she said before taking off down the path I had just come up. I sighed and began to follow her.

She wasn’t flat-out running, but she wasn’t going all that slow either. At first, I was able to keep up with her, but after about five minutes, I started to get further and further behind. My feet hurt in the boots, and I could hear my blood pounding in my ears.

It had been a year since I’d had to run like this in P.E., since it had been almost a year since I had graduated high school when I had found myself in Berk, and I was feeling it. This kind of pace had not been this hard back in school. But it was now.

We ran all the way down to the docks before turning to head back up, and the incline back up was even harder, and I fell further behind Astrid. By the time I caught up with her standing outside of a house that must have been hers, she’d been waiting for a couple of minutes.

I put my hands on my knees when I stopped before her, panting heavily. She was breathing harder than normal, but not nearly as hard as I was. My hair fell around my face, pieces of it sticking to my sweaty forehead. Apparently, the braid I’d put it in had fallen out, not that it had been the best job in the world. I hadn’t braided my hair since middle school, and while it was fine when I was helping Halla, it apparently didn’t hold up well to running.

I heard Astrid sigh before seeing her head inside the house out of the corner of my eye. At least, she had waited outside until I caught up; otherwise, I probably would have gotten lost in the village. Again. And I’d be able to keep up with her once I got back into the routine of running.

When she came back out, I straightened. She carried her axe in her right hand, and a dagger was at her hip. She held her left hand out to me. “Here.”

I looked down at her hand to see that it held a cord that I could use to put my hair back up, since the one I had been wearing was gone, and who knows where it had fallen. I took it from her and started to braid my hair.

I paused when I spotted her watching me with raised eyebrows. “What?”

“That’s how you braid your hair?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“No wonder it fell out,” she said, leaning her axe against the house and coming around to stand behind me. “Here. I’ll show you.”

I could feel her hands working out the mess that I’d called a braid before redoing it properly, and she told me exactly what she was doing as she was doing so that I could do it myself in the future. Hopefully. I’d try to replicate her results at least.

She stepped away when she was done, and I ran my hand along the braid she had made. Neat and clean, and the cord was tied nice and tight at the end between my shoulder blades. So that was how it was supposed to feel. I gave her a small smile. “Thanks.”

Astrid returned it as she picked up her axe. “Let’s go.”

Astrid led the way again, with me following, though this time walking, so I wasn’t a mile behind her but a few steps. More people were out and about the village now, starting their days. Of course, a good number of them glared at me as I followed Astrid. Not as many as it used to be since I had been here several months, but I still got the looks rather often. I mostly just ignored them, but as we walked by, Astrid didn’t ignore the looks. She noticed the glares, and to my surprise, glared right back at those we passed.

“Why did you do that?” I asked as we left the village and headed for the tree line. “Why did you glare back at them?”

She glanced back at me. “You’re no spy. If you were, Halla would have known in two seconds.”

“And instead, she took me in.” Back at that meeting in the Hall, Halla had been the one to stand up for me. Well, her and the Elder.

“My family, we trust her judgment. We respect our chief’s judgment. And Gothi’s. So if they say you’re not a spy, then you’re not.”

That reminded me. “Are you related to the Elder?”

Astrid stopped walking and turned around to face me, looking slightly surprised.

“Your eyes,” I added. “They remind me of hers.”

After a moment, she smiled. “She’s my great aunt. My grandmother’s older sister.”

I smiled. Astrid then turned around, and we continued on into the forest. We stopped in a small clearing where the trees had scars from being hit with an axe numerous times over the years.
Astrid pulled the dagger from her waist and flipped it, holding the hilt toward me. I took it in my right hand. Immediately, she had to correct how I was holding it.

“Okay, now see the marks on that tree?” She pointed to the one that had rather fresh scars from an axe about twenty feet away. I nodded. “You’re going to be aiming for that mark.”

I took a deep breath and threw the dagger. It flew through the air and clattered to the ground ten feet away from the tree and way to the left of it. I wasn’t expecting to hit it, but I wasn’t expecting to do that badly either. And that was only with a dagger. How bad would it be if she had asked me to throw the axe?

“Looks like the first day of training went well.”

“Shut up.” I glared at Hiccup and then winced as I sat down on a stool in the forge that afternoon.

My entire body ached. After showing me how to correctly throw the dagger and spending a while on getting my form right, I tried the axe. It had only gone about five feet before falling to the ground. I just wasn’t strong enough to throw a weapon that heavy that far. Then we started hand-to-hand combat. My bruises had bruises.

“Was it that bad?” he asked as he started sharpening a sword.

I shook my head. “Not really. Mostly, I just didn’t realize how out of shape I was. Though hand-to-hand combat…yeah, she completely kicked my ass.”

“Don’t worry, lass. It’ll get easier for you in time,” Gobber called from where he was pounding on the anvil.

I smiled over at the blacksmith. “I’m just going to be in pain until that time comes.”

“So what all is she teaching you?” Hiccup asked, glancing up from the grindstone.

“All sorts of weapons. I don’t remember all the names that she listed off. Though I need to build up my strength first. The knife went okay when I threw it at a tree. The axe.” I paused, thinking back to how far it had gone. “Maybe five feet? Not even close to the tree, that’s for sure. She mentioned doing some sparing once I’m further along. And not on the ground every five seconds in hand-to-hand training.”

Hiccup hummed and continued to sharpen the sword.

“How far can you throw one?” I asked.

He didn’t lift his gaze from the sword.

Gobber let out a short laugh. “Throw it? He can barely pick one up.”

I looked over at Hiccup. His gaze was still on the sword, though his expression was downcast. “Hey, you still got that growth spurt coming, remember? I’m sure after that you’ll be able to not just lift one, but throw one pretty damn well.”

He just glanced up at me with a small grin before going back to sharpening the sword.

“Late again.”

“It’s been three days. I’m not used to waking up at this time yet,” I replied as she stood up from where she had been sitting and waiting on the stairs since Berk had been covered by a fresh layer of snow during the night. “And we’re still going to train in this weather?”

She looked at me with raised eyebrows as though she couldn’t believe I’d just asked that. “This is Berk. We get snow nine months out of the year, so yes, we’re still training. Get used to it.”

Then she was off running through the village. I groaned and started after her. “I slip and fall, I blame you!”

“Go right ahead,” she called back to me, not glancing back or slowing her pace.

This time, I trailed much further behind her as we ran, and within a couple of minutes, my chest was heaving and my legs felt as though they were about to fall off. I soon felt like pulling off the extra coat that I had pulled out of the trunk to wear that morning after seeing the fresh layer of snow on the ground.

Which was exactly what I did when we stopped out front of her house. I pulled it off and dropped it on the ground, bending over as I tried to catch my breath. The snow had made it a little more difficult, and I had lost count of how many times I thought I was about to slip and fall right on my face. I missed tennis shoes.

She let me catch my breath as she went inside to grab her axe and dagger, then we were off toward the forest to train. We didn’t talk much, and I stumbled a few times due to the snow, but soon the tree line came into view. And a voice yelling our names behind us. We stopped just before the trees and turned to see who was yelling. After a moment, Hiccup came into view. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Astrid start to frown.

I met him halfway and could hear Astrid’s footsteps behind me as she followed. He stumbled as he reached us, and I grabbed his arm to keep him from falling. “What’s going on?”

“Halla…Halla needs you. Needs your help,” he said, trying to catch his breath. He then looked over my shoulder at Astrid. “It’s Gothi. I guess she went to see Halla this morning and…”

He was interrupted by Astrid pushing past us, running back toward the village. Hiccup and I glanced at each other before running after her.

Chapter Text

Snoggle-what?

Hiccup told me all that he knew as we ran after Astrid toward the village. Gothi had gone to visit Halla for some reason. While they had been talking, Gothi had started slurring her words and mentioned something about her eyesight before falling unconscious. Halla had gotten her into the bed downstairs before running for Hiccup and telling him to find me and Astrid. 

What had happened to Gothi sounded familiar. My grandfather had died from it when I had just started high school. Even if they didn’t have a name for it in Berk, I knew its name back home; stroke. 

But Gothi couldn’t die from it as my grandfather had. She had been around in the movie, had chosen Hiccup over Astrid to face the Nightmare. She couldn’t die from this. Unless the story had changed. But I hadn’t done anything to change anything major, had I? Could my simply being here change something so drastically? 

I shook my head as Hiccup and I entered the village a good distance behind Astrid. I could think about that later. Right now, I needed to get to Halla’s and help. 

Hiccup and I arrived just minutes after Astrid, who was talking with the same people I had seen her leave the mead hall with. The man had an arm around the woman as she spoke softly to Astrid. I walked past them and opened the door to Halla’s. She looked up from where she knelt beside Gothi, pouring something into the older woman’s mouth.

“Kendra. I need you to finish mixing what is already in the mortar.” She nodded toward the table before returning her focus to Goth.  

I quickly set to work finishing what Halla had been mixing. She moved away from Gothi a few minutes later and I paused my work for her to throw something else into the mix. 

“How is she?” I asked as I finished the mixture and Halla took it from me. 

Halla went back to Gothi and put some of the mixture into Gothi’s mouth. She heaved a heavy sigh as she closed the elderly woman’s mouth. “Truthfully, I am not sure. This has happened before, but it has been many years and I was not the one to treat them. And that treatment sometimes did not work.” 

I looked to the unconscious woman on the bed. “So she treated them.” 

“No,” replied Halla. She turned away from Gothi and looked at me. “My husband did.” 

“Husband?” This was the first mention I had ever heard of her having a husband. She had never mentioned being married, and neither had anyone else on the island that I talked to. 

Halla nodded, pursing her lips as she returned her gaze to Gothi. “He was a doctor. He traveled the world to learn his trade. Learned a few things that even Gothi did not know.” 

“What happened to him?” I asked softly. No one had even mentioned him around me before now. So whatever it was, could not have been good and must have really hurt Halla. 

Halla turned away, glancing down at Gothi. Then she cleared her throat and stood up. She set the now empty bowl on the table as she walked past me. “I need to go talk to her family and the chief. Come get me if something happens.” 

She was out the door before I could come up with anything to say. Her husband was dead, and apparently, it hurt so bad it seemed the village was in agreement not to talk about him at all. At that moment, I realized that even though I had lived with Halla for a good length of time and cared about her a great deal, I didn’t really know much about her. 

I sighed, turning away from the door only to find myself being watched. Gothi’s pale blue eyes were open and focused on me. 

“Oh thank goodness, you’re awake! I’ve got to- “I trailed off. Gothi just continued to stare at me, but something about her gaze made me uncomfortable. Her eyes almost seemed to hold more knowledge than before. 

She had said magic or the gods had brought me to Berk. “Gothi, did you see something?” 

Gothi opened her mouth to say something but ended up closing it and simply nodding. 

From the way she was looking at me, I had a feeling I knew exactly what she had seen. “You know where I’m from, don’t you?” 

She nodded. 

I let out a shaky breath and looked away from her. I was partly relieved and partly frightened. On the one hand, she had somehow seen where I was from. Something, or someone, had shown her where I was from. On the other hand, she now knew where I was from. She knew that I had knowledge of Berk’s future. 

I looked back over at Gothi. “Do you know what I know? Did you see that too?” 

Another nod. 

It felt as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Someone else knew what was to come, what was going to happen to Berk, to Hiccup sometime in the future. It wasn’t something I had to do alone anymore. There was now someone I could talk to that would believe me, that wouldn’t think I had completely lost it. 

“This is, this is great!” I grinned at her. “Now I have someone to talk to about all this.” 

Gothi glanced down for a moment before smiling at me sadly. 

I frowned. “What? What’s wrong?” 

Gothi opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She closed her mouth and sighed. 

Then it clicked. “You can’t talk, can you?” 

She shook her head. 

So much for having someone to talk to. She could listen, and maybe she could even write a simply reply that I would be able to read, but an actual in-depth conversation was now apparently out of the question. 

It reminded me of something a character said on one of my mom’s favorite shows; magic comes with a price. She now knew the future, knew what was to come and where I came from, but had lost the ability to speak. That couldn’t be a coincidence. 

I glanced toward the door. “I, um, I better go tell Halla that you are awake.” 

She gave me that sad smile again and nodded. I turned and headed to the door. When I pulled it open, I could see that Astrid was still outside with her parents and that Halla was now talking to Stoick. Hiccup leaned against a house across the way and more people had gathered to find out what was happening to their elder. 

Halla looked toward the house when the door opened, her brow furrowed in worry. I smiled as she excused herself from the chief and walked over to where I stood in the doorway. 

“She’s awake,” I said, cutting her off when she opened her mouth to speak. 

Halla started to move around me, but I stepped over to cut her off. She frowned at me. “Kendra…” 

“She can’t talk,” I told her quietly, spotting Astrid and her parents over Halla’s shoulder straining to hear what was being said. “She saw something, and now she can’t talk.” 

Halla’s eyes widened slightly. She then glanced back at Astrid and her family. “She has woken up. I’ll examine her and then you can come see her.” 

Astrid’s mother seemed to slump in relief and leaned against her husband. The man smiled and nodded at Halla, who returned the nod before moving past me into the house. I smiled at them before following Halla inside and closing the door behind me. 

Halla was already kneeling beside the bed examining Gothi. This went on for about ten minutes before Halla stood back up and went to the door, telling Astrid and her parents that they could come inside and see her, but warning them that Gothi had lost her voice. 

As the family went over to see Gothi, Halla closed the door and gestured for me to follow her to the other side of the room. “It’s remarkable. I’ve never heard of someone who fell ill as she had recovering so quickly.” 

I glanced over to where Gothi lay on the bed that had once been mine, Astrid’s mother kneeling beside her. Astrid herself sat at the foot of the bed, her father watching over the three women. “She’s very lucky. The same thing happened to my grandfather when I was around fourteen, and it killed him.” 

“It has killed a few over the years,” Halla replied. “But most it left them a shell of their former selves. Unable to do many simple tasks on their own.” 

I nodded but didn’t say anything. 

“Though this was no normal illness either,” Halla said after a moment. “She was given a vision and her voice was taken as the price. Without her voice, and with her writing abilities impaired at the moment due to the illness, she can give us no clue about what it was she saw.” 

I didn’t say anything, just looked back over at the family around the bed. What was there to say? That I knew what Gothi saw because she had seen where I had come from and what I knew? Yeah, could not see that one going over very well. Unfortunately, the only one that could understand was no longer able to speak.  

Gothi ended up staying at Halla’s for a few weeks while she recovered from the stroke. She had to relearn how to feed herself and take care of herself, the stroke having robbed her of those basic abilities. 

In the meantime, the people of Berk still had their own occasional injuries (some courtesy of yet another dragon raid) and illnesses that needed to be taken care of. Every time I offered to help them though, to take one more thing off of Halla’s plate, they just said that they would wait until Halla was done helping Gothi. I knew why, but it was still irritating. They wouldn’t let me help them for the same reason I still sometimes got looks while going out to train with Astrid. 

I groaned in frustration as Halla closed the door behind yet another villager that refused to let me help them instead of waiting around for Halla. “I know I’m not as knowledgeable as you or Gothi, but I’m not completely stupid. I can do some of the simple things. Yet they still won’t let me help them.” 

Halla glanced past me, looking at Gothi where she sat up in bed. I followed her gaze just in time to see Gothi gently knock her fist against her head. 

“Gothi’s right,” said Halla. “We’re a village of stubborn people. Change does not come easily to us.” 

I sighed, leaning against a table. “It’s just frustrating. I can help.”

Halla pat my shoulder on her way back to Gothi. “I know you can. You’ll get the chance to sooner or later.” 

The day that Gothi left to go back to her own home was the day that I noticed that something was different about the village. People’s homes had decorations on them, decorations that vaguely reminded me of Christmas. Had those been up the day before when I had last trained with Astrid? If they had, I had somehow completely missed them. 

I ran a hand through my hair as I made my way towards the upper level to stop by the smithy. Yes, I had been busy helping Halla, but I didn’t think I was that oblivious to my surroundings. I had noticed that it had snowed and that the homes damaged in the last raid had been repaired. Yet somehow I had completely missed the decorations. 

Both Gobber and Hiccup were busy working when I arrived at the smithy, which was also decorated. On the shelf next to the various attachments for Gobber’s hand was a helmet with antlers covered in…was that garland? 

I knocked on the doorway. Gobber caught sight of me first. “Been a while since I’ve seen you around here, lass.” 

Hiccup looked up from his work and grinned. “Hey.” 

“Hey,” I replied, grinning at him. “Yeah, Astrid and her family and Halla are taking Gothi home, just to make sure she’s all right. From the look on her face when Halla mentioned that they were all going with her and the way she gripped her staff, I think she’s fine.” 

“That woman’s too stubborn to check out anytime soon.” Gobber laughed before turning his attention back to the metal he was working. 

I smiled as Hiccup headed for the back room and waved for me to follow. “But yeah, between helping Halla and training, didn’t really give me much of a chance to stop by.” 

“How’s training going?” Hiccup asked as he pushed the curtain aside, gesturing for me to enter first. 

I shrugged as I headed into the back room. “Okay. Still covered in bruises. I think Astrid was working out her frustrations about everything with Gothi while training me. Oh, before I forget. What is with the decorations everywhere? I know I’ve been busy, but I didn’t think I was that blind.”  

Hiccup chuckled as he let the curtain fall behind him, heading over to sit on the stool. “They’re Snoggletog decorations.” 

Leaning against the workbench, I stared at Hiccup as he sat down. “Snog-what?” 

“Snoggletog,” he repeated, grinning at what must have surely been a strange expression on my face. “Stupid name, I know. But it’s a holiday here. Decorations. A feast in the Hall. Giving each other gifts. Odin delivers gifts to the kids during the night that once they grow older, realize it was just their father all those years.” 

I laughed. “It sounds a lot like a winter holiday that’s celebrated where I’m from. When is it?” 

“Two days.” 

I blinked. “Wow. Apparently, I am that blind.” 

Hiccup opened his mouth. I glared at him. “No comment, please.” 

There were even more decorations up around the village by the time Snoggletog arrived. Halla had even gotten up on the roof to string up huge garland and colorful lanterns now that we weren’t taking care of Gothi 24/7. 

The couple of times I stopped by the forge, Gobber actually wasn’t working much. Most of the time he had put on the helmet with the antlers and garland on his head and had pulled out a hand attachment covered in small bells. The few times that he was working when I arrived, he was not wearing these items but was singing at the top of his lungs. These were times when Hiccup would take a break and we’d go into the back room. It muted it slightly, but not much. 

The morning of the holiday dawned bright with a fresh layer of snow on the ground. I woke up early, which was a habit now drilled into me by Astrid, even though we weren’t training that day. She was spending the morning with her family before the feast in the Hall that evening.

Halla was already up when I went downstairs, stirring something in the pot over the fire. She looked up when she heard me and smiled. “Happy Snoggletog, Kendra.” 

“Happy Snoggletog,” I said, stopping next to her as she ladled some of whatever was in the pot into two bowls. She held one out to me. “Thanks.” 

I sat down in a nearby chair and started eating. She sat down her bowl and grabbed a rather large package wrapped in brown cloth off the table. “Now, I know it’s not much since we’ve been busy these past few weeks, but I hope you like it.” 

I stopped eating, spoon halfway to my mouth. Snoggletog. Gifts. She was giving me a gift, yet I had not even thought to get her anything. I had no clue what she would even want. I put the spoon back in the bowl and set both down on the table. 

“I-Thank you,” I said, taking the package from her. “I don’t have anything for you, though. I hadn’t even heard of Snoggletog until two days ago.” 

She gave me a warm smile. “I had a feeling you might not know of it,” she said. She gestured to the package in my hands. “Go on, then.” 

“Still feel bad, though,” I muttered as I unwrapped the cloth. Halla said nothing, but when I glanced up at her she was still smiling. 

I pulled back the last of the cloth to find a beautiful dark blue tunic inside. Long sleeved and with a hood lined with a soft tan fur. I ran my hand over the fur, gasping at how soft it was. 

I looked up at Halla. Her smile was even larger now. “We’re well into winter now. Thought you could use something nice and warm while you train. Something that’s just yours, not one of my old things.” 

I got up from the chair, set the top and wrapping down on the chair, and then hugged Halla. I felt her arms wrap around me as I smiled over her shoulder. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.” 

 I ended up wearing the top for the first time that night to the Snoggletog feast in the Hall. The sun was setting when the feast got started and walking into the Hall, I was once again reminded of Christmas. Garland and softly glowing lanterns had been strung up between the columns.  The air was filled with the scent of food and the sound of people talking and singing. I was able to immediately pick out Gobber’s voice. 

Platters of food lined the edge of the fire pit in the center of the room. Barrels of ale were along the wall to the left, and plenty of people were gathered around them refilling the mugs. 

I headed for the food, the smell making my mouth water, while Halla headed over to talk to Phlegma. I had just grabbed a plate with a leg of lamb and a piece of bread when I saw someone out of the corner of my eye come up next to me. 

I glanced up and smiled at Hiccup. “Hey. Happy Snoggletog.” 

“Happy Snoggletog,” he said with a grin. He held up his hands to show that they both held a mug of ale. “Grabbed some for both of us.” 

“Thanks,” I said. He headed off toward a table and I followed after him. 

He led the way to a lone table to the right side of the Hall, where no one else seemed to be seated. A plate of food already sat on the table and there was a wrapped package on the bench. Hiccup set the mugs of ale down and then sat down before the plate, next to the package. 

I sat down at the table across from him. “I’ve never had ale before, so this should be interesting.” 

Hiccup looked surprised. “Really?” 

I shrugged. “Where I’m from, we have rules about not drinking things like ale until a certain age and I’m under that age.” 

He looked even more surprised than he had before. 

“Yeah, things are different there,” I said, grabbing my mug and holding it up. “Bottom’s up.” 

I took a sip and gagged, fighting down the urge to spit it out all over Hiccup. It made my nose tingle and the flavor... Let’s just keep it simple and say that I did not like it at all. 

I forced myself to swallow it, blinking rapidly and clapping a hand over my mouth to keep from spitting it out. Or throwing up. Through blurry eyes, I saw Hiccup get up quickly.   

 “Ugh. Oh, my God, that’s horrid,” I said, sticking out my tongue and shuddering. 

Suddenly I had another cup in front of me, this time filled with milk. I took the offered cup from Hiccup, who then moved to sit back down. “Thanks.” 

I took a sip of the milk. Never knew milk to taste so wonderful. I pushed the cup of ale down the table, away from me before setting down the milk. “I don’t know how anyone can drink that. Must be an acquired taste.” 

Hiccup just fought down a smile as he tore off a piece of bread and ate it. “Well, at least we’ll never have to worry about you getting drunk from ale.” 

I scoffed. “You got that right.” 

It was at that precise moment that a clearly very drunk Gobber wandered over to our table. The horns of his helmet were covered in garland and the attachment for his hand was a piece of wood with a dozen jingle bells attached to it. In his hand was a large mug of ale. “Happy Snoggletog you two!” 

“Happy Snoggletog, Gobber,” I said, Hiccup echoing the greeting. 

“Not hitting the ale tonight, Kendra?” Gobber asked, looking down at our table. 

I followed his gaze and saw him looking at my mug of milk. “Yeah, it didn’t agree with me. So Hiccup got me some milk instead.” 

Gobber chuckled. “Guess that means I won’t be able to talk you into joining us in some Snoggletog songs then?” 

“Um, definitely not,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve been told that my singing sounds like a dying cat. And that was my dad being nice.” 

Gobber laughed loudly at that, clapping my shoulder. His mug of ale sloshed, some spilling onto the floor. I laughed, if somewhat awkwardly. Though Gobber didn’t notice. Across from me, Hiccup grinned in a way that said that he could relate. 

Gobber’s laugher slowed and he took a long drink from his mug. “And did you enjoy your gift?” 

Across from me, Hiccup went still. His wide eyes went between me and Gobber. 

“Oh yeah, this tunic from Halla is really nice and – “ 

I stopped at the pointed look Gobber was giving Hiccup. He wasn’t talking about the tunic that Halla had given me that morning. Hiccup now seemed to have found something on his plate to be fascinating. 

“I’m off to get more ale,” he said, giving Hiccup one last look before he walked away. 

I started at Hiccup for a moment, waiting for him to look up. When he finally did, he sighed. “I was waiting for a good time to give it to you.” 

He grabbed the package that had been on the bench next to him and handed it to me.  Wrapped in a soft cloth that was tied off, the package wasn’t very large and weighted little.  I moved my plate off to the side and set it on the table to unwrap it. 

Wrapped within the cloth was a dagger. The blade shined in the light and the handle looked to be a light wood with leather wrapped around the hand grip. The handle was decorated with carvings of dragons. 

“There’s a sheath as well, but I wasn’t able to finish it in time. The handle took longer than I thought it would.” 

I looked up at Hiccup. He watched me cautiously, waiting for my reaction. This kid had made me a dagger. He had made me a gift for Snoggletog. I had received gifts before that I had loved, like clothes and an iPod, or tickets to a concert, but never something that something had actually made themselves for me before. Had labored over themselves. 

I stood up, swallowing a lump in my throat. “Get up.” 

Hiccup looked like that was the last thing he expected me to say. “What?” 

“Up.” 

He stood as I came around the table and once he was clear of the bench, I pulled him into a hug. Hiccup seemed startled for a moment before hugging me back. “Uh, I take it you like it?” 

I let out a wet laugh, my breath ruffling his hair. “I love it.” 

I let him go, stepping away as I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. “No one has ever made something for me before. They always got it from someone else.” Like Walmart. “Just, thank you.” 

He smiled. “Happy Snoggletog, Kendra.” 

I smiled, stepping forward and hugging him again. “Happy Snoggletog, Hiccup.”

Chapter Text

The next couple of months passed in a blur of more snow, training with Astrid, and helping Halla in the aftermath of a couple of dragon raids. Hiccup ended up not finishing the sheath for the knife until a couple of weeks after Snoggletog, after which time I started wearing it at my hip. Astrid had even started me training with it, having noticed it within minutes of meeting her the first time I wore it, and had nodded in approval after I had shown it to her.

If Snoggletog had been this world's equivalent of Christmas, then if I was keeping track right it was toward the end of February. Maybe. And if I was thinking correctly that I had arrived here in September or October (and I had no idea if that estimate was correct or not), then I had been in Berk around six months.

Six months since my car had a flat on my way home and I somehow ended up here. It seemed like forever and no time at all at the same time. Somehow in those months, I had come to know my way around Berk better than the high school I had navigated for four years. People still sometimes gave me a look when running in the mornings with Astrid or when delivering things for Halla, but they weren’t as frequent as they used to be. Still, none trusted me enough to let me help them with minor injuries when Halla was busy.

It was toward the end of February, maybe even early March after most of the snow had melted, when the training routine Astrid and I had developed was disturbed. As we headed into the forest after our daily run, toward the clearing that we usually used, we found that we were not the only ones out training. First, it was Snotlout out with his father. I didn’t think anything of it until the next day we passed the father and son duo and then happened across another pair out training.

Hiccup and Gobber. With a sheep.

I stopped walking and watched as Hiccup struggled to lift the sheep and put it on his shoulders. And then try to walk with it there. “Um, what is happening?”

Startled, Hiccup dropped the sheep, which quickly ran off.

“Thawfest training!” Gobber clapped Hiccup on the shoulder, which made him stumble. “Go catch that sheep before it gets too far, Hiccup.”

“Right.” He shot me a quick smile before taking off in the direction the sheep headed.

“Kendra,” Astrid called, who was waiting on the edge of the clearing Hiccup and Gobber were using.

“See you later, Gobber.” I waved and jogged off to catch up with Astrid. “So, what is Thawfest?”

“It’s a competition every year to celebrate the coming of spring. There’s the sheep lug, the log roll, and the ax throwing competition. See who the best Viking of our generation is,” she explained as we continued toward the clearing we tended to use. I glanced over to see an annoyed look on her face. “The Jorgenson family has won the last three generations. They usually don’t shut up about it for at least a month.”

Jorgenson. I knew that name from Hiccup mentioning it in passing. Mentioning it usually when he mentioned his cousin. “Wait, Snotlout? How did he beat you at ax throwing? That’s like…your thing.”

She gave me a small, amused smile. “I appreciate the vote of confidence. I’ve gotten close a few times, but usually it’s the twins or Fishlegs screwing me up.”

“And Hiccup?” I had a feeling I already knew the answer to how he did every year.

“Last place every year. But he’s always…. gracious about it. Never a sore loser,” she replied. Yup, what I had expected. “He and Gobber always start-up training just after his birthday.”

Wait, what? I stopped walking and looked over at her. “His birthday?”

Astrid stopped and looked back at me. “Two days ago. He didn’t tell you?”

I shook my head. “No.”

She looked surprised at that. “I figured he would have, seeing how close you two are.”

“Me too,” I said softly as we resumed walking.

I had spent part of the day with him two days ago after making a delivery for Halla. I’d helped a bit around the forge, and we worked a bit on my reading (I could now actually read what was essentially a short children’s story), but he hadn’t said a word about what the day was. Why hadn’t he told me it was his birthday?

We stopped as we came into the clearing that she had been using the last few months to train me, which I had learned during that time was her normal training spot. I sighed, rolling my shoulders. I’d talk to Hiccup later and ask why he didn’t say anything about his birthday. “Okay, what’s up first for today?”

“Knife, ax, then hand to hand,” she explained, going over to a tree and refreshing the mark that she wanted me to aim for.

I nodded, unsheathing the knife that Hiccup had made for me for Snoggletog. And unlike when I had started training months ago, I could now hit the mark with the knife almost every time.

I wasn’t able to get to the forge and talk to Hiccup until a couple of days later between helping Halla and Hiccup training for Thawfest. Gobber was nowhere in sight when I arrived, but Hiccup was hard at work modifying the net thrower. The last couple of raids he hadn’t been able to get out and test it and kept making tweaks to it whenever he had a free moment.

I leaned against a post at the entrance and watched him work for a moment, not wanting to startle him while he was concentrating.

Turns out, I didn’t have to say anything. He noticed me a few minutes later when he looked up, searching for something. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said, moving away from the post and looking at the net thrower. “Any progress?”

He nodded. “It should be quicker to set up now, but I won’t really know until I get the chance to test it out.”

“You could always test it on the sheep you’ve been training with,” I suggested with a shrug.

He sighed and looked at me with a deadpan expression. “It’s taken to running away as soon as it sees me.”

I couldn’t help it. Between the look on his face and his tone, I snorted. Hiccup rolled his eyes but was fighting down a smile as he turned back to the net thrower.

“Hiccup?”

He hummed but didn’t look up from his work.

“Why didn’t you tell me about your birthday?”

He stopped working and his head snapped up, his expression startled. He looked confused for a moment before he sighed, setting down his tools. “Astrid.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “But why did I hear about it from her? Two days later?”

Hiccup didn’t say anything, just stared down at his tools. And stared. And stared.

“Hiccup?” I asked softly, slowly moving towards him. This silence from him was starting to get unnerving. It wasn’t like him.

“They never say anything.” His voice was so soft, I barely heard him at all.

I stopped arm's length away from him. “Who doesn’t?”

He scoffed, shaking his head as he continued staring down at his tools. “Everyone, except Gobber and my dad. They know, and just ignore it.”

Oh, lord. This poor kid. Isolated. Put down. Ignored, on a day when he should be celebrated for existing. As much as I liked Astrid and had started to think of her as a friend and not just my trainer, she had a long way to go. To grow. It would happen, one of these days, but until then…

Hiccup yelped as I pulled him into a hug. It took him a moment before I felt him hug me back, his face pressed into my shoulder. “I’m sorry they don’t see the amazing person that I see. They are missing out.”

Hiccup didn’t say anything, but he sniffed and his hold on me tightened. I rested my chin lightly on top of his head. “Happy belated birthday, Hiccup.”

The next week of training with Astrid was frosty, with me barely talking to her at all. I followed her instructions and answered any questions, but never engaged in any conversation with her like I normally would during our run around the village or breaks during training. She never asked or confronted me about it, and I never explained why, but I had a feeling that she knew why.

Training with Astrid was then paused for two days for Thawfest. Even though the games themselves would only take a day, the second day was apparently for the celebration of the winner.

The roof was lifted from the area that would be used for dragon training one day soon (which I did not even know was possible until Astrid pointed it out to me the last morning before the games were to start) and stands for the audience moved in around it to be able to watch the games. The entire village crowded into the stands to watch the youngest generation complete.

I followed Halla into the stands just to the left of where Stoick was seated, where she took a seat next to Gothi.

The kids were already down in the arena, getting ready to start. Astrid was stretching, the twins were fighting (as usual), Snotlout was flexing his muscles at the crowd, while Fishlegs and Hiccup both looked like they’d rather be anywhere but in that arena. Gobber was down there as well to oversee the events.

“SNOTLOUT! SNOTLOUT! OI! OI! OI!”

The booming voice behind me made me jump, making Halla and Gothi chuckle. Okay, I could see how hearing that for a month for years could get old in a hurry. And why did his voice sound like David Tennant?

“Welcome! Welcome, to this year's Thawfest games!”

I glanced in the direction I heard the voice and saw the man with a bucket on his head, the same one that could predict bad storms with said bucket, on a bench on the other side of Stoick close to the edge of the arena. Next to him sat the man who had helped him off the boat that day. “Halla?” She hummed and leaned closer to me to hear over the roar of the crowd. “Who is that next to Bucket?”

“Oh, that’s Mulch. He and Bucket have announced the games for years,” she replied as they explained that the sheep lug would be the first event.

I blinked. Bucket and Mulch. I really hoped those were nicknames because who on Earth would name their kid Bucket?

When the first event started, I could quickly see why Astrid said she’d come close to winning only to be screwed up by Fishlegs or the twins. Hiccup stumbled and lost his sheep first, which fell and tripped Fishlegs, who fell into the twins and his sheep went flying, right into Astrid.

I sat there gaping at the arena as Snotlout was declared the winner of the event. It was like a damn comedy of errors. What were the odds of all that happening? And from what Astrid said, this was a regular occurrence during Thawfest. What the actual hell?

Snotlout’s dad was so loud I covered my ears as the kids moved off to the side and Gobber set up for the next event, the log roll.

The log roll went pretty much the same way. Fishlegs went down first. Hiccup just after him. Tuffnut went down, tripping his sister, who in turn tripped Astrid. I covered my ears again as Snotlout was declared the winner. This…was absolutely ridiculous.

There was more of a break between the log roll and the ax throwing, during which families went down to visit their children. Within moments I could hear SNOTLOUT! SNOTLOUT! OI! OI! OI! coming from the entrance of the arena.

“I’ll be right back,” I told Halla, not waiting for her response before slipping out of my seat and heading for the entrance of the arena.

One day soon, another event would be happening in this arena and Hiccup alone would be preparing to enter. Today, everyone was there with their families. Astrid with her parents. Fishlegs with what I assumed was his mom, who was even taller than he was. The twins were being chewed out by their parents for being more focused on fighting each other than the games. Snotlout and his dad were the loudest of the bunch and could not be missed.

I arrived just in time to see Stoick giving Hiccup's shoulder a squeeze before he left, nodding at me as he passed. Hiccup saw me and I could immediately see him perk up as I walked over to him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I replied, putting my arm over his shoulders as we moved off to the side, putting more distance between us and Snotlout and his father. “Are the games always this…”

“Pathetic?”

“I was going to say ridiculous,” I replied. He gave me a confused look. “Someone falls, who falls into someone else, who in turn knocks everyone down except Snotlout? It’s so ridiculous that if I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t believe it.”

Hiccup looked thoughtful for a moment and opened his mouth to say something but said nothing, instead just letting out, “Huh.”

I frowned at him. “What?”

He shrugged. “It does sound ridiculous when you put it like that.”

A moment later Gobber called them back into the arena. Hiccup sighed. “At least this will be over soon.”

I gave his shoulders a squeeze before removing my arm. “Hey, you got a growth spurt coming one of these days. You’ll get them that year.”

Hiccup looked skeptical, but the corners of his mouth were turned upward so I took that as a win as he headed back into the arena. I returned to my seat, hoping maybe the ax-throwing event might go a little better since it was where Astrid excelled.

I was wrong. So wrong. Tripping. Flying axes going everywhere except the targets, with Snotlout coming out as the winner.

And Astrid had not been kidding. The Jorgenson’s were extremely annoying for the next month.

Chapter Text

Another day, another dragon raid. And by day, I mean night. They always seemed to raid in the early hours of the morning. It was honestly getting annoying. Come to think of it, maybe that's why so many here were so mean and cranky at times. They were sleep-deprived from being woken up in the middle of the night so often.

This one, I never even made it to the Hall before Halla needed help with injuries. A house collapsed early after the raid had started, and the injuries were bad. Third-degree burns, a broken leg, deep gashes, and chunks of wood impaled in his body when the house had collapsed on top of him. I helped her triage the one man while the raid continued overhead, and by the time we had done that, the raid was over.

After we got him stabilized and sent him off to a family member's house with his wife watching over him like a hawk, the line of those needing care seemed to go on and on. I don't know how long I was helping Halla, fetching bandages and mixing ingredients for balms, since people still wouldn't accept my help, when the door was kicked open by a skinny old man with wild gray hair, even wilder eyes, and a bleeding sheep in his arms.

“Halla! Ya got to help my Fungus!”

Halla turned around from where she was covering burns on her current patient to glare at the man. “Mildew, as you can see, I have a line of people to help. I have people to help. People. I don't heal animals.”

Ah, so this was the Mildew that I heard about. Somehow, the name fit him to a T.

“But, Halla-”

Halla cut him off, still glaring at him for interrupting her. “Again, people, Mildew. Not animals. Not sheep.”

She didn't. But I had been training in it back home. And I had learned what was used for medicine here since many of the medicines I had learned about in school didn't exist here. “I can help.”

They both turned to look at me. Halla’s glare softened, and a small smile twitched at her lips. Mildew looked suspicious. Not surprising. He had apparently been one advocating for getting me sent away from Berk. “I was training specifically in the healing of animals where I come from. And from what I recall, none of the ingredients here are poisonous to sheep. If I need to do anything aside from stitches.”

Mildew continued to look suspicious. “I’d rather have-”

“No,” Halla said, cutting him off again. Her glare had returned. “You want help, she can help. I have people to attend to.”

The old man looked torn for a moment, then his sheep bleated pathetically in his arms. The wound on his side was bleeding sluggishly and looked pretty deep from a glance. In that second, Mildew looked heartbroken. “Fine.”

“Kendra, you can use the table in the corner,” said Halla before she returned to her patient.

I nodded and hurried over to said table, which thankfully did not have much on it for me to move. I cleared what little was on in before grabbing one of the spare pieces of cloth that Halla kept on hand while she was working. I laid it out on the table. “Set Fungus there. I need to get some water to first clean the wound to see what we’re dealing with.”

Mildew stood off to the side, fretting in place as he watched me gather what I needed. Once I got the wound on the sheep's side cleaned (thankfully, he had been recently sheared, or seeing the wound would be a lot more difficult) and it did not look as bad as I had originally thought. It was deep, but not as deep as I had feared. But it was long. It would definitely need stitches. “He’ll need stitches. I’ll get what I need, but I’ll need you to hold him still as I do it. We don’t need him kicking me while I have a thread through his skin.”

Mildew nodded and moved into place to hold him as I gathered what I needed for stitches. I could hear Mildew talking softly to the sheep as I did so. I glanced over at Halla to see her with another patient, and she glanced at me, smiling softly. She looked...proud. I gave her a small smile and returned to Fungus.

I got the needle and thread ready, took a deep breath, and began. The last time I had done stitches had been on a practice dummy made of plastic in a classroom. Actually doing it on a living, breathing animal was something else entirely that no lesson could prepare you for.

Mildew did a good job holding him still, muttering reassurances to the sheep whenever it cried out. With his help, the process did not take long, and before I knew it, I was tying it off and preparing a bandage for it.

“You will need to change the bandage daily. Make sure to keep the area clean to help prevent infection,” I explained as I finished wrapping the bandage around Fungus. “Bring him back in a week and I’ll check on the stitches, see if they’re ready to be removed.”

“Right,” he said, picking up the sheep once I was done with the bandage. Fungus bleated in his arms. He nodded, shifted the sheep in his arms, reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled something out, which he set down on the table before leaving without saying another word.

“Okay, then,” I said, setting about cleaning up the table. What he had set down was a small, gold coin.

“That’s the closest you will ever get to a ‘thank you’ from that man,” said Halla as she walked up next to me, wiping her hands on a cloth. She spotted the coin in my hand. “And he paid you as well. Stingy bastard. But he loves that sheep. Think it’s the only thing he’s ever actually loved. Odin knows it wasn’t his wives.”

I blinked and looked over at her, putting the coin in an empty pouch on my belt that now had a use. Mildew had been married? Multiple times? “Wives?”

“Aye, married three times. Thor only knows what they saw in him,” she replied, tossing the cloth into a basket filled with them to be washed later. “Anyway, the line is gone. Everyone, sheep included, is taken care of. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“So, what are we working with today?” I asked Astrid when we reached the clearing where we did our daily training. “Ax?”

Astrid shook her head. “Trying something new today, now that you’ve improved your upper body strength.”

She walked over to a nearby hollow log and pulled something out. I couldn’t see what until she turned around. In her hands was a large bow with a quiver of arrows. Okay, I was excited. I’d grown up with Narnia and Susan Pevensie. And The Hunger Games had just come out a few years ago.

”Most prefer hand weapons to get up close to a target, and because it is nearly impossible to fight a dragon with a bow, but we all know how to use one. They are used for hunting, fighting other tribes, and funerals.”

“How often do you guys fight other tribes?” That was not something mentioned in the movie. Only dragons. Perhaps fighting them overshadowed fighting other people?

“Not often anymore,” she replied, taking a few arrows out of the quivers and stabbing them into the ground. “Most tribes in the area, we have treaties with. We’d rather save our strength for when it’s truly needed.”

“Dragons.”

She nodded. “Dragons.”

Astrid pulled something else out of the quiver and unfolded it before setting the quiver down against the log. “This is an arm guard. It’ll protect your arm from the string snapping against it. Without it, you can get some horrible bruises.”

“Okay,” I said as I took it from her. “Which arm?”

“Which arm is your strongest?” she asked.

“Right.”

“Then you’ll put it on your left,” she answered before helping me secure it to my left arm, just below the elbow. What I wouldn’t give for Velcro. It would make putting it on so much simpler. “You’ll hold the bow with your left and draw the string with your right.”

Astrid handed me the bow, and honestly, it was heavier than I expected. She spent the next few minutes correcting my posture before pulling an arrow from the ground and handing it to me.

“See that section of the string that’s a slightly different color? That’s where you’ll knock your arrow.”

I did as she said, then she corrected my finger placement around the arrow.

“Now, aim for the tree we’ve been using. Lift the bow and draw back. Use your back, not your arms. Use your mouth as an anchor point.”

Okay, this was harder than Susan Pevensie made it look. My arms started to shake slightly as Astrid adjusted my back posture, which did help, and the shaking stopped.

“Now, release.”

I did, and the arrow went flying. It did not hit the center of the tree, which was marked from previous training sessions, but it did hit the edge of the tree—and stayed. I laughed as I lowered the bow. “I did it.”

Astrid grinned. “Not bad for your first time. Now-”

She was cut off by the sound of a horn blowing from the direction of the village. “What’s that?”

“You know how I mentioned treaties with other tribes? That's the Berserker Tribe, come for the yearly signing.”

“Berserker?” That did not sound good at all.

She nodded, going to fetch the arrow from the tree. “Led by Oswald the Agreeable.”

I blinked. “The chief of a tribe called the Berserker’s is called the Agreeable?”

“He was called the Antagonistic back before I was born,” Astrid explained as she put the arrows back in the quiver and put the quiver at her waist. “My mom says he changed after his father passed, and he became chief and a father in the span of a few months.”

I took off the arm bracer and held it out to her, along with the bow. She shook her head. “Keep it, we’ll go again tomorrow.”

“Sounds good,” I replied, folding up the bracer and putting it in the pouch that held the coin from Mildew. “So, the whole village comes out to greet them?”

Astrid shook her head. “No, we don’t have to. But I figured you’d want to be there. Oswald always brings his son, Dagur, and it falls to Hiccup to keep him out of trouble.”

Oh, so this kid must be pretty young. “So, you’re thinking Hiccup might need help babysitting?”

Astrid stopped walking, looking at me with a frown. “Dagur isn’t a baby. He’s your age. And he’s…he’s a lunatic. He locked Fishlegs in a cage last year for three days, feeding him rotten cod heads, and he tends to use Hiccup as target practice as soon as he gets off the boat. One year, he even tried to drown him.”

I was running back to the village before she could say another word.

By the time I got to the village, I could see Stoick heading toward the Hall with an unfamiliar man with black hair, Gobber not far behind them. The two men continued toward the stairs, but Gobber spotted me and looked somewhat relieved to see me. He didn’t say anything, but he gestured with his hand attachment (a hammer today) toward the forge.

I could hear voices as I approached the forge, one I knew belonged to Hiccup and the other unfamiliar, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I stopped in the doorway and could see Hiccup near a wall with a knife embedded in the wood just above his head. Between him and me was a young man with bright red hair pulled into a short braid, who was lifting his hand to throw another knife.

I didn't think about the fact that this was the son of a chief. The heir to a tribe called the Berserkers. I didn't care that this could cause problems with them; maybe even nullify the treaty. I just saw someone threatening my friend and reacted.

With my free hand, I pulled the dagger Hiccup had made for me from its sheath at my hip and threw. Months of practice with Astrid paid off. The knife was knocked from his hand, and I heard it and my dagger land somewhere on the floor.

“Holy shit,” I breathed. I had hit something other than a tree.

Hiccup shifted his gaze from Dagur to me, eyes wide. And worried.

Dagur whirled around to face me. “How dare-”

He looked furious as he looked me up and down. Then surprised. “Who are you?”

I noticed then that my arm was still outstretched from throwing the dagger. I lowered it and glared at him. “Kendra. And I don't appreciate you using my friend for target practice.”

He grinned. I could see then why Astrid had used the word lunatic. It was a creepy and manic kind of grin. “Aw, but Hiccup had just sharpened my knives for me. We were testing them, weren't we?”

Hiccup was saved from answering by the arrival of Astrid. “The chiefs just entered the Hall. As heirs, you two should probably get up there.”

The Berserker’s face twisted in displeasure. “Ugh. Fine.”

He pushed past me, then stopped and glanced over his shoulder. He looked me up and down again. “I look forward to seeing you again, Kendra.”

Then he continued on his way towards the Hall. “Did he just-”

“Yup.”

“Yes.”

I gagged. That nutcase had checked me out because I threw a dagger at him. Ewww. I shuddered.

Astrid patted my shoulder. “I saw that throw. Nice work.”

“Thanks,” I said as she turned and headed toward her home. “See you tomorrow.”

She didn't turn around, but waved, letting me know she had heard me.

Hiccup was picking up the knife and dagger from the floor. He tossed the knife onto a workbench without a glance, but examined the blade of the dagger. “Nicked the blade. I'll repair it later.”

“Thanks,” I replied. He set the dagger down on another workbench and started out of the forge.

He stopped next to me. Hiccup looked up at me, opened his mouth, but then closed it again. Instead, he gave me a quick hug before running toward the stairs leading to the Hall.

I smiled after him before leaving the forge, heading home.

Chapter Text

The Midnight Sun and a Guy Named Bork

Thankfully, Dagur never mentioned what had happened in the forge. However, he apparently asked for more details about me, which made me gag again when Hiccup told me about it the next day.

The rest of the Berserker's visit was uneventful. They shared a meal in the Hall, signed the treaty, and were on their way back home by sunset. Dagur’s knives were returned to him as they went down to the docks.

Weeks passed, and soon summer had arrived. Long days and short nights, with how far north Berk was. Three more dragon raids, and word of how I had helped Mildew had spread because all of a sudden, people stopped turning me away when I offered to help take some of the load off Halla. Some still turned up their nose, sure, but some were starting to accept my help.

Then came the days when the sun only seemed to go down for a few hours before coming back up again.

“Of course. I was going to get them out soon anyway. It's almost time for the Midnight Sun,” Halla told me one morning during breakfast when I'd asked if she had extra blankets or something to block out the sun coming in my window at what had to be three in the morning.

I stopped eating. “The what?”

“For two weeks every year, the sun doesn't set at all,” she explained, setting down her bowl. “The last day marks the Summer Solstice, and there will be a feast that day as well.”

“Two weeks of constant sun?” I asked. I knew that some places got constant sun in the summer, but this told me just how far north Berk was. Like the Arctic Circle north. “How do you sleep, or tell it's time to sleep?”

“With what you just asked for. Blankets over the windows to block out the light,” Halla explained with a small smile. “And the sun still moves across the sky; it just does not set during those two weeks. But the blankets help. Trying to keep a somewhat normal sleep schedule is difficult, since blankets don't block out all the light, but without it, sleep deprivation can cause a lot of problems.”

“It's going to be a long two weeks, isn’t it?” I asked before taking another bite of my oats.

She nodded. “Aye. No raids during those two weeks, but typically plenty of injuries due to those running amok due to lack of sleep.”

Amok ended up being the perfect way to describe the two weeks of Midnight Sun. The blankets over my window did help, but like Halla said, they couldn't block out everything. They weren't like blackout curtains you can get from Walmart, but they did help me get some sleep. Not a full night's rest, but enough to feel rested and not want to bite someone's head off.

Just in the first few days, Halla and I had to help patch up six people who lost their tempers and started a brawl in the center of Berk. Most people just had short tempers and would snap at the littlest thing, but others had some strange reactions.

Astrid put a pause on our training due to being too happy, borderline euphoric. She showed her pride in my accomplishments during training, but it was something else when she hugged me the first time I managed to land a hit during sparring. I was too shocked to say anything, and the poor girl had been so embarrassed she had called off training then and there.

Poor Stoick wasn’t immune either. Nine days in, he had stopped by the talk to Halla about supplies she needed, only to stop mid-sentence. He had started into space for a good minute before snapping out of it. Halla just patted his shoulder and sent him home to rest.

Gobber, somehow, seemed immune. Not irritable (like me), not biting anyone's head off (like Halla), just his normal self. Though he did enjoy watching the antics of others. A guy named Sven dancing around the fields with his sheep. Bucket and Mulch dueling in the middle of Berk with eels (or rather, trying to). Even Mildew was affected, crying over how much he loved Fungus.

I had thought Hiccup was immune as well, until we hit day eleven. All of a sudden, he couldn't work. Not on weapons, not his inventions. Poor kid just could not concentrate enough. Gobber had to chase him out of the forge before he injured himself.

When I wasn't helping Halla with injuries from fights cropping up almost daily, Hiccup came over to Halla’s, and we'd work on my reading in my room.

On day thirteen, one day before this craziness was due to end, we were in my room, on the floor, and leaning back against my bed as Hiccup helped me read some of his notes on inventions since I was ready for something more difficult than the equivalent of a children's book. Except that we eventually both fell asleep.

At some point, I was woken up by a blanket being gently draped over us. I shifted slightly, blinking up. The room was darker, but bright enough to see a large figure kneeling before me. A hand gently settled on the back of my head. “Shhh. Go back to sleep, lass.”

I nodded, letting my head drop back down to settle on Hiccups, which was resting on my right shoulder. “I can do that.”

Stoick chuckled softly as I closed my eyes. I heard him quietly stand back up and close the door behind him.

“They wake up?” I heard Halla ask quietly.

“She did,” he replied. “Though she is probably out again already.”

“Good. She hasn't said it, but this has been hard on her. I don't think she's ever experienced the Midnight Sun before…did anything ever turn up on your search for this Arrowhead?”

If Stoick said something, it was too quiet for me to hear.

“Johann is due within the next few weeks. Perhaps he has heard something since his last visit.”

“Aye. Perhaps. But…she's good for him. She supports him. Listens to him. These months since he found her in the forest…He's happier than I've seen him in years.”

“She is,” Halla responded after a moment. “Now, if she'd only help keep him out of trouble instead of getting into it with him.”

Stoick chuckled, and I heard the floor in the hallway squeak. “Were Val and I so different?”

I could faintly hear Halla laugh as they moved away from my door. “I'll send him your way after breakfast.”

I could hear Stoick say something, but they were now too far away for me to make out what. I shifted slightly to make myself comfortable, smiling slightly, and let myself drift back to sleep.

The Midnight Sun ended with a large feast up in the Hall. I spent it with Hiccup, enjoying the food and atmosphere, and avoiding the mead. Then I, and most of the village, slept for the better part of two days as our sleeping schedules got back to normal. I don't think I'd slept so soundly in my entire life.

Not long after, maybe a week or two, something called Bork Week occurred. This Bork, who was related to Gobber, was the one to write the Dragon Manual. The book and all his notes were on display in the Hall for a week before going back into storage in Gobber's house.

I ended up checking them out at dinner one night, wandering over to look at the display after I had finished eating. Hiccup was just a few steps behind me.

The book and all of the notes Bork took were spread out over two tables. A few others were looking at them, but most were still focused on their meals.

“So, he wrote all of this?” I asked, looking over a page with a drawing of what looked like a Timberjack. The drawing was good, but I thought some of the stuff Hiccup would one day draw was better. More detailed than this.

“Yeah,” Hiccup replied, coming up next to me and opening the book. “Outside of dragon training, which doesn't happen every year, this is the only time the manual leaves Gobber's house.”

He stopped on a random page. The Skrill. Strike Class dragon. Extremely elusive and could ride lightning bolts. Can shoot bursts of white fire. Hair will stand on end if you get too close. Extremely dangerous. Kill on sight.

Wait. I just wasn’t remembering that from the movie. I could read it with little problem and no assistance from Hiccup.

“Hiccup.”

“Yeah?”

“Turn to another page.”

Hiccup glanced at me, brow furrowed, but turned the page. “Whispering Death. Vikings can identify a Whispering Death by its bulging eyes, spiked body, and the hundreds of sharp teeth that line the entirety of its mouth.”

Hiccup glanced between the page and me as I read the description. I stopped talking when it described how their teeth made the whispering sound that gave them their name. His lips twitched upward. “You read that. Without my help.”

I nodded, grinning before I pulled him into a hug. He yelled in surprise before hugging me back. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

He pulled back, shrugging. “It was nothing.”

I shook my head, pulling him into another hug. I rested my chin on the top of his head. “It's really not.”

A couple of days after the writings of Bork and the Dragon Manual were returned to Gobber’s house, I was helping Hiccup out at the forge when people started happily running through the center of Berk, heading toward the docks. After the fifth person went by, yelling about sails on the horizon, I looked at Hiccup. “Please tell me it’s not the Berserker Tribe again.”

Hiccup snorted, setting down his tools. “But Dagur liked you so much.”

I glared at him. He held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t worry. It’s Trader Johann. He usually comes a few times during the summer when the weather’s good. It’s always like this when he arrives.”

Johann. Where had I heard that name before?

“You guys only have one trader that only comes a few times a year?” I asked as he moved around the forge, looking for something. One trader and only a few visits did not sound like a good thing.

“We used to get more, but between the weather and the dragons…”

“They stopped coming,” I finished as he grabbed something from his stash and put it into a pouch, which he then slung over his shoulder. He gestured for me to follow him, and I did. We joined the crowd of people heading toward the docks. “So, what kind of stuff does he have?”

“Trinkets. Plants. Spices. Paper. He travels all over, so it varies. One thing he usually has is squid ink. I prefer that to charcoal, but I ran out months ago.”

“I take it you get paper from him, too? Since you mentioned it,” I said as we stopped at the end of the line on the docks.

“Yeah. I'm all stocked up right now, though. Dad gave me a bunch for my birthday.”

I smiled. Stoick may not understand his son completely, but he did try.

I could see a small ship just getting settled into place at the end of the dock, the dark-haired man on board throwing a rope to someone on the dock to secure the boat.

“So just stocking up on squid ink from him this time?” I asked as the line slowly moved forward, people boarding the ship to browse now that it was secured to the docks.

Hiccup nodded. “And checking out his wares. He sometimes has some scrolls from places as far away as Rome.”

Holy crap. The Roman Empire was still a thing.

Hiccup must have caught my expression because the next thing I knew, he was frowning at me. “What?”

I shook my head, smiling at him. “That’s just…a long way away.”

It took a moment, but the smile returned to his face.” Yeah, it is. He says it's a lot warmer there than it is here.”

Yeah, I didn't doubt that. Berk was up near the Arctic Circle. Rome was near the equator. The upside was not having the deal with what had to be one hundred percent humanity since Berk was, well, an island, and horribly hot temperatures. We’d gone to Disney World once when I was in middle school, and high humidity plus high heat was no joke.

“Do they have different dragons there?” I asked as the line slowly moved closer to the ship.

Hiccup nodded. “Oh yeah. Either mostly ones that stick to water or burrow in the dirt. Johann has said their arena in Rome is bigger than all of Berk. When he was there once, the dragon could burrow in the sand and shoot flaming balls of sand at people.”

Arena. In Rome. Was the Colosseum in Rome used for dragon fights? “Whoa.”

“Ah, Young Master Hiccup!”

I looked in the direction of the voice and found it belonged to what had to be Trader Johann, who was smiling at Hiccup as the line was finally close enough to the ship for us to board.

As Hiccup went over to greet the man, I started to browse the many items he had out for display on the deck of his ship. Weapons. Lots and lots of weapons. A chess set that looked like it was made of marble. A table of jewelry, some of which looked like something you would see in the Egyptian section of a museum. A small set of shelves filled with scrolls, which I could not get a good look at due to Fishlegs eagerly going through them. Seeds for plants from around the world. Would some of them even be able to grow this far north? And spices. Pepper. Ginger. Cinnamon. And was that cumin? I wouldn’t be able to make curry, but it’d probably have more kick to it than anything I’d had in months.

“Ah, you must be the newest resident of Berk I’ve heard so much about!”

I jumped slightly, not having noticed him come up next to me. Hiccup was a step behind him, a little pot of what I assumed was his ink in hand.

Wait? He’d heard of me. “All good things, I hope?”

“Of course! Most of it from Master Hiccup here!” I glanced over at Hiccup, who looked down, his cheeks slightly pink. “I see you’ve taken an interest in some of my spices.”

My attention went back to the trader. “Yes. Is that cumin?”

“Ah! You are familiar with it! So, you’ve been to the land of pharaohs?”

I shook my head. “No, I’ve just encountered it before. A…trader at home would often have it.”

And that trader’s name was Joe. I reached into the pouch I’d been using for the coins people had given me for helping them.” How much for it?”

Chapter Text

“DRAGONS!”

I sighed, glaring at the ceiling. Another day, another dragon raid. Again, how much of a problem was sleep deprivation here on an everyday basis?

Halla burst into my room, axe in hand, as I was pulling on my boots. “Get to the Hall.”

I nodded, getting up and following her down the stairs. More and more voices were joining the shouting outside, and occasionally I could hear the roar of a dragon over them. Good thing Johann had left the prior afternoon. 

While Halla went off to help, I went off toward the Hall. Well, the Hall and the forge. They were both in the same direction, so she would be none the wiser if I checked in on Hiccup first. See if he needed help with anything. 

When I got to the forge, Gobber was nowhere in sight. Hiccup was, and he was getting the net thrower ready to take out for a test run. “It’s ready?”

“As ready as it will ever be,” he replied, smiling at me. “You coming?”

I shrugged. “Of course. See if it works as well on a dragon as it did on a random sheep.”

“That one from Thawfest still runs every time it sees me coming,” he said, picking up the handles of the net thrower and pushing it out the door past me. 

I laughed as I followed him away from the forge. People yelled at Hiccup to get back to the forge as we made our way through the village, heading towards the fields where the sheep grazed. 

When we got to a small field that dragons had not gotten to yet, Hiccup quickly set to work getting the net thrower ready. I stood off to the side and let him work, not wanting to get in the way of the setup. 

He had just finished when a Monstrous Nightmare found the field where we were, and the terrified sheep that had been cowering next to their feeding area. Hiccup gestured for me to get behind him as he lined the machine up to capture the dragon.

I moved behind him slowly, careful not to make noise and attract the dragon's attention. Hiccup glanced back at me with a lopsided grin and pulled the trigger. But when it fired, it didn't fly forward like it had before when testing on sheep. 

Instead, it flew back at us.

The net grazed Hiccup, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, unable to move. The net, capable of fitting over a large dragon, had wrapped itself around me. My legs were wrapped up tight. 

“Kendra!” Hiccup looked down at me, green eyes wide with terror. I wiggled, trying to reach the dagger at my hip, but the net limited how much I could move my arms. My hand grazed the hilt, but I couldn't turn my hand enough to grasp it or pull it out. 

Hiccup dropped down next to me, his dagger in hand. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.”

Movement over his shoulder drew my attention, and it felt like the blood in my veins turned to ice. 

The Nightmare had noticed us.

“Hiccup.”

He glanced back, but didn't stop cutting through the net. But it was slow work because of how thick the ropes were. It was also wrapped around me twice since I was a lot smaller than a dragon. 

And the Nightmare was moving faster than he could cut.

I tried again to get my dagger, but still couldn't grasp it. And now my hand was shaking, making it even harder. The Nightmare was getting closer. 

“Hiccup.”

He glanced at me, eyes wide. My heartbeat pounded in my ears. He swallowed and refocused on cutting the rope. I could see his hands shaking. “Come on, come on…”

“Hiccup!”

The Nightmare was maybe three feet from us, and taking a deep breath. Green gathered at the back of its throat. I knew what came next and tried again to grab my dagger. My fingers slipped off the hilt. 

“HICCUP!”

I screamed, but mine was not the only voice calling his name. The Nightmare looked up past us as a figure leaped over us and onto its head. 

Stoick. 

Another large figure joined him. Spitelout.

I jumped when someone joined Hiccup, and then relaxed when I realized that it was Halla. With her help, the net was removed in moments. I wiggled away from it, kicking it as far from me as I could. 

Halla put her hands on my shoulders, helping me sit up, eyes looking me over for any injuries I might have. “Are you alright?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but couldn't get anything past the lump in my throat. The world blurred. I vaguely noticed that the sounds of Stoick and Spitelout fighting had stopped. 

I tried to say something, that I wasn't hurt, but what came out instead was a sob. I blinked, and the world didn't clear. I couldn’t breathe. 

I opened my mouth again and all that came out was another sob. And another. They just kept coming, and tears streamed down my face, making the world go blurry. I curled over my lap and just sobbed. I felt Halla’s arms go around me, making soothing circles on my back.

A moment more and I'd have been dead. Toast. Hiccup too. 

Hiccup. 

He could have died, too. 

I looked up, blinking through tears to make sure he was okay, but he was gone. His dagger sat forgotten on the ground next to where he'd been. 

Moments after I had noticed he had left, Halla had taken me home.  She got a fire going, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and gave me a cup of warm milk before heading out to tend to injuries. I just sat there, staring into the fire. 

I had nearly died. Yes, I knew that one day the dragons would be peaceful, but that hadn't happened yet. Now, they could be downright terrifying. I could still see the Nightmare stalking toward us…

And Hiccup had been in danger too. Never left my side as it closed in. Just kept trying to get through the net. But if he died…

Then the peace with dragons would never come. The queen would continue controlling them for who knows how long. The fighting would just go on and on and on.

I shook my head, taking a drink of the milk, which was no longer warm. How long had I just been staring off? I rubbed a hand over my face. I should try to sleep, but I had a feeling that it wouldn't go well. 

The door opened, and Halla walked in, and I noticed that the sky was light behind her. The sun was already up. Good lord, I had been staring into the fire for a lot longer than I thought. 

Halla glanced at my mostly full cup as she sat down across from me.

“Many injuries?” I asked, my voice still hoarse. 

“Only a few this time. And mostly minor burns.”

I nodded, taking a sip of the milk, which I regretted. Lukewarm. Blech. I reached over and set it down on the table next to the fire.

“I talked to the chief.” 

Oh boy. I did not like the way she said that. I braced myself for whatever news she was about to give me.

“You are to join the Bucket Brigade. Next time there's a raid, Astrid will get you and show you what to do.”

And keep me away from Hiccup during raids. Keep us both out of trouble. She didn't need to say it for me to know that that was the reason for this assignment. 

I nodded. She stood and came over, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Think you can sleep?”

I shook my head. “Not yet.”

“Then you should talk to him. Hiccup.” She patted my shoulder. “Chief says he's…not taking it well.”

Oh boy. If Stoick had said something to her to tell me…that did not bode well at all. 

I nodded. “I will. Get some rest, Halla.”

Halla squeezed my shoulder gently before heading upstairs. As soon as she was out of sight, I grabbed the pouch of seasoning I'd gotten from Johann from where it sat on the table next to the fire, stuffed it into a pouch on my belt, and headed out the door.

Gobber was at work repairing blades when I got to the forge. He stopped when he saw me and glanced toward the closed curtain to Hiccup's workspace. He set down his tools, waving me over to him with his prosthetic. 

“Glad you're here, lass.”

“Halla said he's not taking it well?”

Gobber sighed and gestured with his hand toward a barrel of scrap. I frowned, looking back at him. What was he getting at?

He looked at it again, raising his eyebrows at me. I looked back at the barrel. A bunch of scrap. Some wire hanging out. Something that looked like a trigger. Wait, was that…

The net thrower. He'd destroyed it.

“Oh.” Oh, Hiccup.

“Aye.”

I looked over at the curtain. “He still here?”

“Aye.” Gobber sighed, looking toward the curtain as well. Like Stoick, he might not completely understand Hiccup, but it was obvious he cared for his apprentice a great deal. He gestured toward the barrel. “Wreaked that thing and then disappeared back there.”

I slowly walked over to the curtain. I stood there for a moment, but heard nothing from the other side. I took a deep breath and pushed the curtain aside.

“Hiccup?”

I blinked, letting the curtain fall back behind me as my eyes adjusted to the dim space. A space whose floor was littered with crumpled-up papers. 

Hiccup sat on his stool, looking surprised, and just stared at me. The wall above his table was bare, his drawings and schematics having been pulled down. The table was also covered in crumpled-up paper.

No. No, no, no! He couldn't quit! If he did, he'd never shoot down Toothless. The dragons would never be free of the queen, and the war would just go on and on and on.

“What are you doing?” I started grabbing the crumpled pages off the floor. “You can't just give up inventing!”

Hiccup looked baffled as I put the papers in my hand on his table and bent down to get more of them off the floor. “They’re dangerous! I almost got you killed!”

“You were there too! That dragon almost got you as well!” I placed more crumpled papers on the table. 

“I'm a Viking; it's an occupational hazard.”

I stopped where I was stooped down to grab more papers and looked over at him. “Well, I've been here…wait, how long have I been here?”

Hiccup frowned at the change of topic. “Uh, almost a year?”

I set more papers on the table and put my hands on my hips. “Shit. Seriously?”

He huffed a laugh. “Yeah.”

“Damn,” I said, looking around the floor for more papers. Looked like I'd gotten them all. I started grabbing them from the table and uncrumpling them. “Anyway. I've been here almost a year. I guess it's rubbed off and is now an occupational hazard for me as well. Not quite a Viking, but Viking adjacent.”

“But-”

“Life is dangerous. I could walk out the door and be run over by a yak or pushed off a cliff  by Mildew.”

“He actually likes you now since you helped Fungus, and he doesn't like anyone but that sheep, so I can't see that one happening.”

I rolled my eyes and lightly shoved his shoulder, making him sway on the stool. “You get what I mean.”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, looking at the pile of crumpled papers. “But maybe they are too dangerous.”

I grabbed another paper and uncrumpled it, using the table to help flatten it out. “I was with you when you tested that thing. Loads of times. And it never did that before. Sometimes things just go wrong. But that doesn't mean you stop trying.”

He glanced back at the pile of paper as I grabbed another and flattened it out. “You really think I should keep trying?”

“Yes. Hiccup, you are brilliant.” I put the paper on the small stack of wrinkled but no longer crumpled papers. I put my hands on his shoulders, and he looked up at me. “And one day, everyone will see it. You just need to keep trying. Yes, something will probably go wrong again. But there's a saying where I'm from, from an inventor. He failed, like, 2,000 times to get his invention to work. But he never saw it as a failure. He saw it as finding 2,000 ways not to get it to work.” Thank you, National Treasure, for that tidbit. 

Hiccup just looked at me for a moment before pulling me in for a hug, his chin on my shoulder with the added height from the stool. “Thank you.”

I wrapped my arms around him, resting my chin on his shoulder. “You wouldn't be you if you gave up inventing, Hiccup. It's a part of you.”

We stayed like that, quiet for a few moments,  before Hiccup pulled back. He glanced over at the pile of papers. “Guess I should get this cleaned up.”

“After we get you something to eat and you get some rest. I got my spices for you to try.” I patted the pouch they were in at my hip. “Got some lamb or fish at your house to put it on?”

A little while later, I found myself cooking in Hiccup's house while he worked in his notebook. Gobber had been working still when we left the forge and nodded at me as we walked out.

When we arrived, the fire was just embers, and Stoick wasn’t home. Probably out helping with cleaning up from the raid still. Hiccup had pulled out some lamb and vegetables, which I coated in the cumin before getting them cooking. Hopefully it came out okay. 

I'd love a good curry, but without all the ingredients or a copy of the recipe in front of me, it was not going to happen. My cooking skills were limited when I didn't have a recipe in front of me. 

I stirred the vegetables, which looked about done, and then poked the meat. It looked okay, but I'd never cooked lamb before, so I wasn't entirely sure. I think springy was good. 

“Okay, I think the food is done.”

I heard Hiccup get up from a bench on the other side of the fire, and plates appeared in the corner of my eye. I smiled over at him as I moved the food off of the fire and onto the plates. I then moved a third piece of meat and some vegetables off to the side, away from the flame but able to keep warm. Just in case Stoick came back soon. 

“Heard you scratching away over there. Got another idea already?” I asked as I sat down next to him. I smiled as he handed me a knife and fork. 

I cut off a bit of lamb and took a bite. Not bad. Better than I'd had in months, but still a mild spice in my book. Maybe more cumin would help. I'd put on what I thought was a lot, but apparently not.

“Yeah, let me show you.” He balanced his plate on one leg and put his notebook on the other, opening it up with his left hand. “It's designed to throw a bola...”

He kept explaining more about it, but I didn't hear it. Because I knew that design. He'd use that device to bring down a Night Fury.

We were getting close to the events of the movie. How far out were we? 

I was knocked out of my thoughts by Hiccup coughing next to me. “Are you okay?”

“Oh gods.” He set down the plate and moved the notebook off his lap, going over to where he and his father kept their food supplies and getting a mug of milk. 

“Was something wrong with it?”

He held up a finger as he took a long drink of milk. He put down his hand as he swallowed. “I think a Gronkle just lit my mouth on fire.”

I blinked. “That was too spicy for you? That was barely mild to me.”

“That was mild to you?!”

Chapter Text

The movie's events did not actually begin until around a month later, though there were several false alarms. Nights when Hiccup was confident he had hit something but hadn't. This happened three times before it actually was the events I remembered watching.

Every time, it seemed like my heart would freeze in my chest, wondering if this was it, but something was always off. Not all the pieces fit what I remembered at the beginning of the movie. Events missing.

I remembered the Nightmare crushing The Mangler, as he'd come to call it. I remembered him running from it, which resulted in one of the braziers being destroyed. But each time, those parts didn't happen. He'd get chewed out and push The Mangler back to the forge.

It didn't help that I wasn't able to actually go with Hiccup anymore. Between training and the raids, some days I saw Astrid more than Hiccup. Astrid had become a friend, though I still wasn't fond of how she and the others treated Hiccup, and she knew it.

The job itself wasn't too bad. We'd push a giant barrel of water on a wagon to the house that was burning and then fill buckets from there to put the fire out. Snotlout was an annoyance, trying to flirt with both me and Astrid. We'd just share a look before she yelled at him to get back to work.

The twins were, well, the twins. Most of the time, they were more interested in fighting each other or trying to one-up the other than actually working. I think they'd probably be happier fanning the flames than putting them out from their reactions at times. Other times, they could be as annoying as Snotlout. Well, Tuffnut more than Ruffnut.

Fishlegs was as kind and as knowledgeable as he'd seemed when watching the movie. He'd share the stats of the dragons that'd fly over us as we worked. Sometimes he was even able to tell which type of dragon had started the blaze we were currently working to put out. Then the twins or Snotlout would make fun of him, and he'd stop talking.

We'd just finished putting out one fire not far from the forge, and we're getting ready to move to another when the house exploded behind us. I groaned and looked back at it. There was nothing left to save now. “Oh, come on!”

“That was definitely a Gronkle.”

I smiled at Fishlegs before looking at the house that was beyond help now. And already smoldering. I sighed. “Welp, onto the next one.”

The barrel was past the forge, and as we went by, I could see Hiccup leaning out the window. He had an awed expression on his face as he watched Astrid run past. He didn’t even notice me until I tapped his chin. “You're letting flies in.”

“What, uh…”

I laughed as I waved back at him, watching as Gobber used his prosthetic to pull him back inside. I then refocused on the task at hand. Fill the bucket, toss it on a fire. Again, and again. Yells of people and roars of dragons faded into the background, though I did recall hearing the sound of a Night Fury a couple of times.

Time passed in a haze of haul the barrel, douse the blaze, and repeat. By the time it was over, and we were hauling the barrel back to the square where it was kept, the sky was getting light.

A crowd was gathered, and I could hear Stoick chewing out Hiccup again, but this time, something was different. One of the two braziers was missing. All that was left was a burnt stump.

“...kill it, you know? It's who I am, Dad.”

The brazier. That line. No sign of The Mangler. This was it. And now he was being helped home by Gobber.

This was it. It was finally happening. But the question now was, what do I do? Change things? Make them better?

“...never seen anyone mess up that badly. That helped!”

I glared at Snotlout and smacked him upside the head. “Ow!”

Hiccup and Gobber were past us now, but Hiccup smiled back at me before he turned his attention to home. When his back turned, Gobber glanced back and gave me a nod.

I ignored the other teens and went searching for Halla. See if she needed my help. If she didn't, I needed to talk to Gothi. I needed to figure out what I was going to do.

Thankfully, Halla didn't need me. A few injuries and all of them minor enough to where she didn't need my help. So, I made the long walk to Gothi's home.

It also happened to be one hell of a workout. Perched high above the village with an impressive view, it wasn't the easiest walk to make. The first time I'd made it with Halla had been after Gothi had recovered from the stroke. I felt like I'd been dying by the time we got to the top.

It still wasn't easy, but it wasn't as it had been the first time I'd come up here. And this was the first time I'd made the trek alone. When I told Halla I'd see her later, she probably just figured I was going to see Hiccup.

Hiccup. Had he found Toothless yet?

Gothi was waiting for me on her porch when I got close to her house, not looking surprised to see me at all. “It’s started, but you already knew that, didn't you?”

She nodded and gestured for me to follow her inside. Inside reminded me of Halla’s. The scent of herbs, some hanging to dry from the edge of the loft where she slept. All the marks that this woman was a healer, before she passed the torch to Halla.

Gothi sat on one of the chairs near the fire and gestured for me to take the other. She then looked at me with an expression that said, ‘Well, start talking!’

“I don't know what to do,” I confessed, my foot tapping on the floor. “On one hand, maybe I can use what I know to make things better. Maybe then Stoick won't disown Hiccup. Even if he apologizes later, that's still going to crush him. And maybe Hiccup won't lose his leg in the fight with the queen.”

I ran a hand over my face. I then got up and paced the width of Gothi's house. I just couldn't stay still. “But what if I change it, and things get ten times worse? What if Stoick never apologizes? Or the entire group that goes to the Nest gets killed?”

Stoick. Spitelout. Astrid's parents. Fishlegs mom. The twins' parents. Phlegma. Halla. They'd all die. All the warriors on the ships. Gone.

“Or what if Hiccup doesn't just lose his leg? What if he…”

Dies. I stopped walking.

“Gothi, what do I do? Can I take that risk? He…he’s my best friend.”

Gothi just watched me with a sad, knowing smile. Looking at her, I knew my answer. She knew, too, without me saying it.

I can't change what's to come. I have to let it play out. At least that way, I know things end well. I know Hiccup will live. He'll lose his foot, but he'll live.

Losing him is a risk I can't take. It'd crush Stoick. It would also crush me.

Sure, I'd had best friends before, but none like Hiccup. None that had known me so well, despite all that I was currently hiding from him. None that had made me a gift or built a crutch to help me walk after the boar got my leg.

Maybe one day, after everything, I could tell him the truth. I just hoped he wouldn't hate me for it.

It was mid-afternoon by the time I got back to Halla’s. After my talk with Gothi, or rather me pacing and ranting at her, she handed me a cup of what was basically herbal tea to help me calm down before heading home.

Halla had a large basket almost full and was waiting for me when I walked in the door. “Where are you off to?”

“Chief has called for another search for the Nest and wants me along this time,” she replied. “Before we go, though, two things.”

“Okay…”

“First, I need you to be ready to help Phlegma. She can’t come along this time. There's a mother, Edda Larson, due to give birth at any time, and she'll need help for that.” She grabbed one last thing from the table and put it into the basket before closing it.

Okay, so on call to help deliver a baby. Never done that before, but first time for everything. I let out a breath, nodding. “Right, and the second thing?”

“Dragon Training for the teens starts in the morning now that they are all of age or close to it. You're not taking part, but you are to observe. To learn about the beasts to better protect yourself against them.”

Probably seemed necessary after everything that'd happened with the Nightmare. Thankfully, I wasn't being put in there with them. Perk of only being Viking adjacent, I guess.

I nodded. “Understood.”

Halla smiled, slinging the basket over her shoulder. She grabbed her helmet from the table and put it on. “See you in a week or two.”

I smiled as she put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing it lightly. “Stay safe, Halla.”

Not long after Halla left, I was getting ready to head to the Hall to grab dinner when someone knocked on the door. I opened it to find Hiccup, who looked like he ran to Halla’s, and he pushed past me into the house before I could say a word.

“Hiccup? What's wrong?”

He looked between me and the open door. It was only after I closed it that he started talking. “I hit a Night Fury with The Mangler this morning.”

“It worked?” I asked, sitting down on a bench by the fire.

Hiccup sat down next to me. “Perfectly, until a Nightmare stepped on it.”

“Okay, but I have a feeling this isn't what you wanted to talk to me about. Considering you wouldn't say anything with the door open.”

“I didn't want anyone heading down to the docks, especially my dad, to hear.”

I already knew, but of course I couldn’t tell him that. “Hear what?”

Hiccup took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I found the Night Fury in the woods, and I let it go.”

Play shocked. Play shocked. “You - what?”

“I let it go. I tried to kill it and…I just couldn't. Then I get home, and dad tells me that I start Dragon Training in the morning.” He slumped forward, putting his head in his hands. “I finally get what I wanted, just after finding out that I can't actually do it.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Well, you won't be going to training alone.” He lifted his head up from his hands and looked over at me. “Halla wants me to observe Dragon Training. And I'm also apparently on baby watch with Phlegma.”

After thinking for a moment, I could see recognition dawn on him. “Oh yeah. Mrs. Larson is pregnant again.”

“Again?”

“The Larsons already have a son, Gustav. He's…eleven or twelve, I think. She was pregnant last year, but…”

She lost it. Well, that explains why Phlegma wanted help this time around. She didn't usually call on Halla for help. Mostly just asked for more herbs or salves that Halla made. But if this woman had lost a child before, it made sense that she wanted help around this time.

I gave his shoulder another squeeze before standing up. “Come on. Let's go get some food.”

The Hall was relatively empty when we arrived to get dinner. Many went on the ships to the Nest, but some had remained. Those too old, those with children too young, those recovering from injuries or illness.

Hiccup and I grabbed some chicken, vegetables, and bread before grabbing a table of our own. Not long after we sat, the other teens picked a table nearby. Before she sat down, Astrid walked over to our table.

Hiccup smiled at her around a mouthful of chicken. I chuckled, shaking my head. “Hey, Astrid.

”Astrid looked at Hiccup with a raised eyebrow for a moment before turning her attention to me. “Training is on hold for a couple of weeks.”

“Dragon Training?”

She nodded. “Starts first thing in the morning.”

“I'll see you in the morning then.”

Astrid looked confused.

 “Halla’s having me observe Dragon Training,” I explained.

“Makes sense,” she said, nodding. “See you tomorrow, then.”

“See you in the morning.”

And with that, she turned and walked back to the table where the other teens were seated. I looked back at Hiccup to see him staring after Astrid, looking forlorn.

I patted the top of his head, startling him back to reality, before picking up a chicken leg.

Chapter Text

Hiccup was at the door when I opened it in the morning, waiting for me to walk together to the arena. He had two rolls in his hand and an axe in the other. “Morning.”

I smiled at him, closing the door behind me. I took one of the rolls offered. This kid. “Thanks.”

We walked silently to the arena, eating our rolls as we went. We arrived just as Gobber lifted the gate for the other teens. “Welcome to Dragon Training!”

I squeezed Hiccup's shoulder. “Good luck.”

I left him behind and went to find a good spot to see. It had rained overnight, and the benches around the arena were still wet, so I opted to just lead against the metal bars over it, above one of the dragon pens.

I got settled just in time to see the others realize Hiccup was in the arena with them.

“Oh great. Who let him in?” Tuffnut grumbled, loud enough for me to hear from where I was standing. 

Gobber closed the gate to the arena. “Let's get started! 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…” said Snotlout, making the twins laugh. Fishlegs and Astrid didn't join in. 

“Can I transfer to the class with the cool Vikings?” asked Tuffnut. 

“There's only one class, you moron,” I called down to them. Ruffnut cackled.

Hiccup smiled at me, though he jumped slightly when Gobber put an arm around his shoulders. Words of encouragement that weren't really encouragement, from what I remembered. I couldn’t hear him from up here. Not until he was addressing the entire group again. 

Gobber made his way past the teens lined up in the center of the ring toward the pens below me. “Behind these doors are just a of the many species you will learn to fight.”

I smiled at how excited Fishlegs looked down there as Gobber started introducing the dragons that they had on hand for this. “The Deadly Nadder.”

I couldn’t hear him from up here, but I knew from the movie and could see his mouth moving that Fishlegs was muttering stats under his breath. 

“The Monstrous Nightmare.”

Astrid was now giving Fishlegs the side eye while Hiccup looked amused. 

“The Terrible Terror.”

“Attack eight, venom twelve!” That one I could hear. Poor kid was just too excited to keep it quiet. 

“Can you stop that!” Gobber came to a stop at the last pen, which was right below me. “And the Gronkle.”

“Whoa, wait! Aren't you going to teach us first?” Snotlout asked once Gobber placed a hand on the lever to release the Gronkle into the arena. 

“I believe in learning on the job.” With that, he pushed down the lever, and the Gronkle burst out of its pen and into the arena. 

The teens scattered. In person, without the epic music, watching it was less epic and more anxiety-inducing. When Gobber wasn't shouting at them, all that I could hear was the wings of the Gronkle, the patter of feet, and their panting breaths as the teens ran.

“Today is about survival,” Gobber said, standing off to the side of the Gronkle's pen, watching the teens. “If you get blasted, you're dead. Quick, what's the first thing you're going to need?”

 “A doctor?”

“Plus five speed?”

Oh boys. Funny in theaters, less funny in person when something that can spit balls of fire at you is buzzing through the air like a giant wasp. 

“A shield.”

Gobber confirmed that Astrid was correct, telling them that it was their most important piece of equipment, which sent all of them heading over to the equipment in the arena to grab one. Gobber had to help Hiccup get his. 

The twins, of course, had to fight over one. They were too busy fighting over it to see the Gronkle being drawn towards the antics. It blasted the shield from their hands, and they both went down. 

“Ruffnut, Tuffnut, you're out!”

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, still leaning on the metal bar to look down into the arena. It was bad enough observing. I couldn't imagine being in there. If it was this hard to watch now, what would it be like later with the Nightmare, when it was only Hiccup down there?

I shook my head. Not something I wanted to think about at the moment. That was a future Kendra problem that I would deal with when it happened. 

Focusing back on the arena, the Gronkle fired a shot, knocking the shield off of Fishlegs’ arm.

“Fishlegs, out.”

Wait, where was Hiccup? I spotted him just as Gobber did, behind a wooden barrier. “Hiccup, get in there!”

Astrid dodged a blast and ended up beside Snotlout, who apparently thought this was the best moment to try flirting with her again. I rolled my eyes. Comical in the movie, ridiculous in reality. 

He was so busy paying attention to her that he didn't notice the Gronkle until it shot at him. It hit his shield, and he landed hard on the ground from the force of it. 

“Snotlout! You're done!”

Just Hiccup and Astrid left. She was beside him for a moment, and I could see them speaking, before she rolled away just before the Gronkle shot at Hiccup. His shield was blown off his arm and rolled across the arena. Of course, he had to run after it. 

The Gronkle had been paying attention to Astrid until he started running. Heart in my throat, I watched as it chased him down and pinned him to the wall. 

Where was Gobber? He stopped this in the movie. Where was he? 

What if me just being here changed things?

At the last second, Gobber hooked the dragon's mouth like a fish and yanked. The shot landed right next to Hiccup's head.

“Go back to bed, ya overgrown sausage!” Using his hook, he maneuvered the Gronkle back into its pen and closed the door. Once it was secure, he walked over to where Hiccup was still sitting against the wall, dazed. “You'll get another chance, don't you worry.”

“Remember... a dragon will always,” Gobber said, loud enough for the class and me to hear. He gave Hiccup a pointed look. “Always, go for the kill.”

Hiccup, still looking dazed, looked over at the smoldering blast mark. My hands ached. I looked down to see that I had been gripping the bar so tightly that my knuckles were white. I released the bar and shook my hands, trying to get rid of the ache.

“That's it for today. See you all in the Hall after sundown, and we'll talk about what went well and, well, what didn't.”

Hiccup didn’t move, still staring at the mark as the other teens left the arena once Gobber opened the gate. 

“Hiccup!”

Gobber startled Hiccup out of his daze, who then ran for the gate so that Gobber could close it for the night. I met him by the gate as Gobber finished securing it. 

We started making our way back toward the village in silence, walking so slowly that Gobber passed us on the bridge. He raised an eyebrow as he passed, Hiccup so deep in thought that he didn't even notice. I shrugged, and Gobber continued on. 
 
Once we were over the bridge and Gobber and the others a fair distance away, I grabbed Hiccup's shoulder and forced him to stop walking. “Okay, you are so out of it that you didn't even notice Gobber passing us. What is going on?”

He blinked and looked around, processing how far we had gotten while he had been lost in thought. “Gobber said dragons always go for the kill.”

I furrowed my brow, hoping I looked confused enough to be believable. “Yeah. What about it?”

He looked back toward the forest out on the other side of the arena that we had just left behind. “The Night Fury didn't. It screamed in my face and then flew away.”

I tried to look surprised before looking in the direction he was. Somewhere in that direction was the cove where Toothless was stuck. “You let it go, then it let you go.”

He looked at me for a moment, and I could see the gears turning in his mind before he looked back toward the forest. “I'm going to go find it. I want to know why it didn't follow the rule.” He looked back over at me. ”Come with me?”

I looked toward the forest, then over toward the village. This part he needed to do on his own. He needed to form that bond with Toothless with no interference from me. That, and Halla did leave me a task to do. “I can't. Not until the baby comes.”

“Oh yeah. Mrs. Larson.” He looked between the forest and the village. 

I smiled at him. “Go. I'll see you later in The Hall, and you can tell me all about it.”

Hiccup nodded, a grin growing on his face. “Right. See you later!”

With that, he took off running toward the forest.

A thunderstorm moved in late that afternoon, and it was starting to sprinkle as I made my way to the Hall for dinner. Hiccup had not yet returned from the forest, and so far, no one had come to get me to help with a baby. 

The other teens were just settling down at a table when I walked in, Gobber already there as well. I grabbed some food and sat down at a table le nearby. I was observing training, not part of it. That, and they probably wouldn't welcome Hiccup to sit with them.

Gobber let them eat first and had a chicken leg himself before talking to them about what went wrong in training that day. He started with Snotlout, who, of course, thought that he hadn't done anything wrong and that the problem was Gobber's teaching style. 

I shook my head as I took a bite of my food.

“Perhaps our observer has something to add?”

I paused chewing and looked over my shoulder to see all of them looking over at me. Astrid had a slight smirk, and Gobber looked amused. Snotlout, however, did not. “Pft, what would she know about Dragon Training?”

I swallowed my food and swung my legs over the bench to face the table they sat at. Gobber was starting to grin. “Okay, then. Here's what I observed as someone who knows nothing about Dragon Training. When a fire-breathing animal flying through the air like a bee is coming at you is probably the worst time ever to decide to hit on Astrid. You were so distracted, you never saw it coming until it had knocked you flat on your ass.”

Ruffnut started cackling, and Tuffnut was leaning against her, laughing so hard. “And you two.” They immediately stopped laughing and straightened up, looking shocked that I was calling them out. “You were also distracted. You were so busy fighting each other that, like Snotlout, you never saw the Gronkle coming until you were out.”

Gobber looked like the cat that ate the canary. “Thank you, Kendra. Notice anything else?”

“Fishlegs. You were so excited to share what you know about dragons that you stopped paying attention to the dragon coming at you.”

Fishlegs nodded. His excitement had drained while I spoke, but he looked like he understood. “I know.”

By now, Gobber was practically beaming. “Thank you, lass. Now, where did Astrid go wrong in the ring today?”

“I got nothing.” I shook my head, giving a slight shrug. 

Astrid smiled at me. “I mistimed my somersault dive. It was sloppy. It threw off my reverse tumble.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Ruffnut said sarcastically. 

I rolled my eyes, smiling back at Astrid. Tumbling was not something that I had gotten into when I was little. As badly as I had wanted to try it and join my elementary school friends there during the summer, my parents just weren't able to swing it at the time.

“No, no, you were great. That was so 'Astrid'.” Snotlout made to grab her hand, but Astrid smacked his away. 

“Thank you for proving my point,” I said sarcastically as I heard the door of the Hall creak open. Hiccup quickly came in and closed the door behind him, drenched. No longer just sprinkling then.

“Astrid's right. You have to be tough on yourselves. Where did Hiccup go wrong?” Gobber frowned at his apprentice as he went and grabbed food before taking a seat next to me, not even trying to sit at the other table.

“He showed up.”

“He didn't get eaten.”

I glared over at the twins. 

“He's never where he should be.”

“Thank you, Astrid,” said Gobber, before giving me a pointed look. 

I rolled my eyes, setting my empty plate on the table behind me. I gave Hiccup a small smile before I turned back to face Gobber and the other teens. 

“Actually, he did better than most of you until the end. He got distracted by Astrid, same as you, Snotlout,” I said, cutting off a retort from him that I could see coming. “His biggest error was chasing the shield after it got blasted off his arm. That got the Gronkle's attention.”

“But he hid!” exclaimed Snotlout. 

I shrugged. “He still lasted longer than you, didn't he?”

Gobber nodded, looking impressed. “Kendra makes a good point. Sometimes, before you can fight, you have to make sure you survive. Survival was the point of today.”

Snotlout grumbled but said nothing. He just sat glaring down at his empty plate.

“You need to live and breathe this stuff.” Gobber grabbed a familiar-looking book from the table behind him and plopped it down in front of the teens. “The Dragon Manual. Everything we know about every dragon we know of.”

Thunder boomed, shaking the Hall. Yup, no longer just sprinkling outside.

Gobber glanced up at the roof. “No attacks tonight. Study up.”

“Wait, you mean read?”

“While we're still alive?”

Gobber ignored the complaints of the twins and Snotlout and just kept on walking. The huge door of the Hall slammed closed behind him.

Fishlegs started getting excited about dragons again, which the twins tried to shut down as the group got up to leave. It didn’t work. He just kept going, and they just ignored him, as he followed them and Snotlout out the door into the rain.

I rolled my eyes at them. Wealth of knowledge, and of course, they ignore it. Hiccup got up and walked over closer to where the book sat near Astrid on the table. 

“So, I guess we'll share - “

“Read it,” said Astrid, pushing the book down the table toward him and getting up from the table. 

I raised my eyebrows at her as she got up from the table in a hurry. At first, she started to ignore me as she walked past, brushing off the look I was giving her, then she stopped walking and glanced back at us both. She sighed and seemed to deflate a little. “I'll see you guys tomorrow.”

And with that, she was gone, the door thudding closed behind her. I looked over at Hiccup, who still stood near where Astrid had been sitting. I glanced at his plate to see that he hadn't finished. 

“Hiccup.” I nodded at his plate. “Bring the book over and finish your dinner. We'll look at it together.”

“Right.” He grabbed the book and set it on the table next to his plate. He then glanced around the Hall. “The fires will be going out soon. Let me grab a candle.”

I swung my legs back over the bench to face the table as he walked off to grab a candle. By the time he returned with one, the fires were dimming, and the last few people were making their way out of the Hall. We were the only ones left in the huge space.

Hiccup set down the candle and then took his seat next to me. I grabbed the book and opened it. “Eat first.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He rolled his eyes but pulled his plate closed.

“Looking for something specific, I assume?” I asked, carefully opening the book. I glanced over to see him nod while chewing. 

“Classifications. Strike, Fear, and Mystery,” I read. “I'd assume Night Fury is under Mystery?”

I started flipping through the pages, searching for Night Fury. Thunderdrum. Timberjack. Scauldron. Gronkle. Zippleback. Skrill. “Boneknapper. Really?”

He shrugged, pushing his empty plate away. “Apparently? I've never seen it.”

I flipped through more pages. Whispering Death. Stormcutter. And they all had five words in common at the end of the text. “I'm noticing a trend here.”

“Hmm?” 

I glanced over at him as I turned to the next page. “Extremely dangerous. Kill on sight. Every single one so far ends with the same five words.”

Hiccup put his hand out to stop my page flipping. “Except for that one.”

Night Fury. 

The page was just as empty as it had been in the movie. 

“Speed unknown. Size unknown. The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself,” Hiccup read. And one of the cutest dragons to ever exist. “Never engage this dragon. Your only chance, hide and pray it does not find you.”

He pulled out his notebook, opened it up, and plopped it open on top of the Dragon Manual. “You found it.”

“Yeah,” he replied, voice quiet. “He saw me when I dropped my charcoal.”

Look shocked. Sound horrified. “What?”

“He just…stared at me.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Stared at you.”

Hiccup looked away from the drawing and over at me. “Like…like he was as curious about me as I was about him.”

I looked down at the drawing. My eyes were drawn to the erased tail fin. I touched his notebook cautiously. “Only one tail fin?”

Hiccup nodded, and his expression fell. He looked...guilty. “He can't fly. He got stuck in a cove and was trying to get out when I found him. I think when I shot him down, his tail fin was ripped off.”

Ripped off. Suddenly I remembered the impact sight from the movie. The destroyed trees. The rut in the earth. And faint traces of dried blood on the ropes when he had been tied up. 

How painful had that been? How painful might it still be? Was there something I could do to help ease that pain? There was nothing in this book about their anatomy. What food did they go for? What did they avoid? What was poisonous to them? At the very least, I could probably clean it to make sure it didn't get infected. 

“Kendra?”

I shook my head. “Sorry. Just started thinking about ways I might be able to help or at least make sure the area doesn't get infected.”

Hiccup started grinning. “So, you'll come with me next time?”

“Not sure about next time, but once I'm off baby duty, yeah,” I replied, returning his grin. And once the bond between the two had already begun to form.

Chapter Text

Hiccup did the same thing the following morning; he was at the door when I opened it with a couple of rolls in his hand. I smiled, took a roll from him, and we walked to the arena while eating. 

Sometime yesterday, Gobber had set up walls in the arena for today's training, turning it into a maze. He let the Nadder out, then left the teens inside as he came out and stood next to me to observe them. 

While Hiccup hadn't been distracted until the end of the day before, he was distracted from the get-go today. Apparently, now was what he thought was the best time to ask Gobber why his ancestor had left the section on Night Furies mostly blank. I let my head thud lightly against the bar when he was startled by the dragon doing what dragons tend to do: shooting fire at him. 

“Focus, Hiccup! You're not even trying!”

And also, not being very subtle now that I thought about it. With the obvious questions about Night Furies, how did no one on the island put the pieces together?

“Today is all about attack. Nadders are quick and light on their feet. Your job is to be quicker and lighter.”

The Nadder was up on top of the walls, bouncing around like a parrot as it searched for the teens. The group darted past it while it was turned away, though it turned around in time to catch Fishlegs.

He lifted his shield to block the spines the Nadder sent at him. “I'm really beginning to question your teaching methods!”

Honestly, I could not fault him for wondering that. Not everyone learned by doing, which was something my high school PE teachers never seemed to understand. Now that I thought about it, Gobber kinda reminded me of the one I had in my sophomore year.

“Look for its blind spot. Every dragon has one. Find it, hide in it, and strike.”

The teens split up. The twins turned a corner only to end up face to face with the Nadder. They quickly got together in its blind spot, right in front of its nose, but didn't last long before it still found them because they started fighting. Again.

“Blind spot? Yes. Deaf spot? Not so much.”

Gobber looked about as frustrated with them as I was. Was this what my teachers had felt like?

Astrid, Snotlout, Fishlegs, and Hiccup darted past just below Gobber and me. Though Hiccup soon stopped and backed up. “Hey, so how would one sneak up on a Night Fury?”

“No one's ever met one and lived to tell the tale. Now get in there!”

I shook my head slightly, trying to tell him that this was not the best time to ask these questions. 

“I know, I know, but hypothetically…”

He finally saw my face just before Astrid got his attention. She gestured for him to get down and be quiet. Thankfully, he got the hint. 

The Nadder was approaching where they were hiding. One by one, they rolled past it while its back was turned. Until Hiccup, who started to roll, and his shield stopped him right in its line of sight, and got its attention. 

Astrid utilized the blind spot, went to take aim at the dragon, only to get pushed out of the way by Snotlout trying to impress her. He threw his weapon…

And missed. Astrid glared at him before they took off running from the Nadder, the dragon hot on their tail. Snotlout was making excuses for why he missed as they ran. 

Nice to know that everything that Gobber and I had said to him last night had gone in one ear and out the other. Gobber and I glanced at each other, shaking our heads.

Then Hiccup was back to ask questions, as the Nadder started knocking down walls behind him, trying to get to Astrid. 

“-has anyone ever seen one napping?”

I glanced between him and the walls coming down like dominoes toward him. “Uh, Hiccup.”

“Hiccup!” shouted Gobber.

“Hiccup!” Astrid screamed from the top of the wall that was about to fall on him. He finally turned around and realized what had been happening behind him.

Down the wall went, and I gripped the bars tightly, looking down through the dust, trying to see what had happened. After a few seconds, the dust cleared enough so that I could see that Astrid had landed on top of Hiccup, her axe stuck in his shield. 

As she got up, so did Nadder. Astrid realized this and started trying to yank her axe out of Hiccup's shield. Except it wasn't budging. 

I could see Hiccup trying to help to no avail. Just as it was about to reach them, Astrid yanked the axe and shield from his arm and slammed it against the Nadder's head. The shield shattered, and the Nadder yelped before wandering off. 

It was then that I noticed that Gobber was now down in the arena, herding the Nadder back into its pen. I hadn’t even noticed when he had disappeared from beside me. 

Astrid caught her breath as Gobber put the dragon away before turning to glare at Hiccup. “Is this some kind of a joke to you? Our parents' war is about to become ours. Figure out which side you're on.”

“Astrid!” I called down to her. She had been stomping away from Hiccup but stopped and looked up at me. Her face was stern, and she was angrier than I had ever seen her. Well, in person, that is. “If you are going to yell at him for being distracted, you should yell at them-” I gestured toward Snotlout and the twins- “too. None of them listened to a word I said last night about what I observed yesterday, and it showed.”

She still looked pissed, but she nodded. “Good point.”

She then stomped off toward those three, and I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but could tell she was yelling at them.

I glanced down at Hiccup to see him getting off the ground, giving me a small, grateful smile. 

 “Kendra!”

An unfamiliar voice called, and I looked around for who it had been. Then I spotted them; a small boy with black hair and a small helmet on his head was running from the direction of the village toward me. 

He skidded to a stop before me. “Phlegma?”

The kid nodded. “My mom just went into labor. I ran for Phlegma, who then sent me to get you.”

“Right. Lead the way.”

As soon as I got in the door, Phlegma put me right to work. As I ground up herbs for a tea to help with the pain, mint and something I wasn't familiar with from the smell, Phlegma was checking to see how soon the baby would be coming. 

“Not long now,” she said, returning to a squat next to the woman in labor, who was kneeling on the floor. So different from the way it was done in modern times. Phlegma patted the Edda's shoulder. “You might be ready once you're done with the tea.”

“Should just be a few minutes,” I said as I got the mixture into boiling water. She had another, larger pot of water already boiled for cleaning purposes, plenty of towels and rags, and numerous plants and herbs dried, ready to be ground up as needed. 

Edda nodded, taking deep, focused breaths. Now and then, she would wince. I didn't know much about childbirth, except for what I learned from television shows, but the little I did know told me she would be ready to push anytime now. 

Once it was boiling, I ladled some into a cup and took it over to Edda.

“Thank you,” she said, taking the cup from me and slowly sipping it. She winced as she took a second sip.

“Kendra. I want you to stay on her left side unless I need you to get something for me. Understood?” 

I nodded, squatting on Edda's left. Thank the lord for Astrid and her training. When I arrived here, I would not have been able to hold this position for long.

Edda started wincing more often as she slowly worked her way through the tea. Once she was done, Phlegma took the cup from her and set it down somewhere behind her, out of the way. 

“Edda, I'm going to check again. Kendra, keep her steady.” I took hold of Edda's elbow as Phlegma let go and bent down to check under the gown that Edda wore. Edda winced again, this one lasting longer. 

Phlegma sat back up. “The babe is crowning. Get ready to push when I tell you to.”

Edda scoffed. “I've done this before.”

Phlegma glared at the woman. “Your last successful childbirth was eleven years ago. Now push!”

Edda's face scrunched up, and at first, she looked like she was fighting to keep from screaming. That lasted about five seconds. 

I have no idea how long the labor itself took. The process just seemed to repeat over and over. Phlegma telling her to push, Edda screaming as she did, and then her shaking breaths in between the pushing. 

Over and over. Until Phlegma checked her progress again and came up smiling. She grabbed a soft blanket that she had ready behind her. “One more should do it, Edda. Now push!”

Edda let out her loudest scream yet, swaying slightly under my hands. Her scream cut off, and I caught her from falling forward, just as a baby started crying. 

Phlegma helped Edda sit back with her free hand. The woman looked absolutely exhausted. Once she was seated, Phlegma smiled and passed Edda the baby, a bloodstained towel wrapped around it, and the cord still needing to be cut. “It’s a girl.”

Edda let out a breathless laugh, tears running down her cheeks as she smiled down at the baby. Definitely not as clean as they were in television shows.

“Kendra,” Phlegma said as she stood up, wiping her hands with a rag. “Go get her husband and son.”

I slowly stood up, my legs aching and numb, and made my way over to the door. I opened it to find the sun starting to set and her husband pacing a few feet from the door. Their son had been sitting against Phlegma's house and stood up as soon as I opened the door. Both rushed over to me. “It’s a girl.”

They both looked relieved and went right in when I stepped aside for them to pass me. It was as I came back that I realized I'd gotten used to the smell. Blood, sweat, and poop since apparently something the television shows never showed was women tend to poop during labor. I wished Phlegma luck in getting fresh air in here after this. Though since this was her job, she was probably used to it.

Phlegma had gotten mother and baby moved to a bed she kept downstairs in her home, and was tossing bloody towels and rags into a basket. She gestured for me to use the water she had set aside for cleaning to wash my hands. It was then that I noticed I had gotten a little blood on my hands. Must have been on the floor when I went to stand.

“Mother and baby both look good,” Phlegma said as I washed my hands. 

“That's great,” I replied, grabbing a clean towel from the stack to dry my hands. I glanced over at the family, all three smiling down at the baby. “Phlegma?”

“Hmm?” I stepped back to let her wash her hands.

“Why are there so few children on the island?” In all the time I had been here, I had never seen teenagers aside from Hiccup and the others. Maybe a dozen or so that were younger than them.

Phlegma sighed, putting down the towel she used to dry her hands. “Halla didn't tell you?”
 
I shook my head. Though I'd never asked her, either. It hadn't occurred to me until I looked at the baby and her older brother.

“There was an illness, ten - fifteen years ago. We lost many, but it hit one group particularly hard.”

“Children.” That explained a whole lot.

She nodded, looking solemn as she gazed at the family across the room. “Aye. We also lost many mothers and babe's to it. And, as you spotted, we're still feeling its effects.”

Why would Phlegma ask if Halla had told me or not? Oh. Oh, Halla. “She lost hers, didn't she? Halla?”

Phlegma glanced over at me and nodded. “Aye. She was one of them.”

And then sometime after that, she'd somehow lost her husband. My heart ached for her.

I started when Phlegma put a hand on my shoulder. She nodded her head towards the door. “Thanks for your help, lass. Now, go get some dinner.”

After being in the fresh air for a few minutes, I decided to go and change into clothes that didn't smell like sweat before going to dinner. After changing and throwing the clothes in a basket to wash another day, I headed back downstairs to get dinner from the Hall. 

Only to find Astrid at the door when I opened it. “Oh. Hey, Astrid. What's up?”

“Thought I'd come get you before you got to the Hall. Gobber got some fish and chicken for us to roast on one of the catapult towers that was destroyed. Said to invite you.”

“Okay,” I said, closing the door to Halla’s. “Lead the way.”

I'd of course seen the catapults from a distance but had not been close to one. “So, how long did you chew out Snotlout and the twins?”

Astrid scoffed lightly, but she had a small grin on her face. “Oh, a while. Gobber looked impressed by the time I was done.”

I laughed. “Nice.”

“How's Mrs. Larson?” she asked. 

I smiled over at her. “Mom and baby girl are doing just fine.”

Astrid smiled and opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off. 

“That's great!” Hiccup said as he came up on my other side. “Hey, Kendra. Astrid.”

Astrid glared over at him before looking away, reminding me that it hadn't just been the twins and Snotlout she'd been upset with in the arena this morning. I gave Hiccup a small smile. 

The rest of the way to the catapult, which thankfully didn't take too much longer to reach, was extremely awkward. Hiccup looked like he wanted to say something, but stopped himself because of Astrid. Astrid didn't say another word once Hiccup joined us.

Gobber and the other teens were already there and starting to cook their food of choice on skewers when we arrived. 

“Nice of ya to finally join us!”

Astrid took the open spot next to Fishlegs while I followed Hiccup to the spot opposite her on Gobber's other side. I also noticed that it was their closest to the ramp that led up here.

Gobber passed out the remaining skewers and offered us a choice of chicken or fish. Hiccup took a fish while I went with chicken. With the smell of roasting meat in the air, I was quickly reminded by my stomach that I hadn't eaten since the roll Hiccup gave me this morning. 

“The babe?”

I smiled. “Mrs. Larson and their new daughter are doing well.”

Everyone seemed pleased to hear that. After what Phlegma told me about the illness and how they were still feeling the effects of it, it made sense that it would be a relief for everyone. 

As I got my chicken cooking, they went over how things went in the arena that morning. What had gone well and what hadn't. “Though much of that-” Gobber glanced at both me and Astrid. “Has already been covered.”

I didn't pay much attention to the rest of that conversation. I was more focused on my chicken. Would it hurry up and cook already? I was hungry!

Just as I pulled my chicken away from the fire since it finally seemed like it might be done, Fishlegs asked Gobber about the type of dragon that had taken his leg. 

“A Monstrous Nightmare.”

Having had one stalking toward me, yeah, I could see it.

I yanked off a chicken leg and glanced at the meat. It looked thoroughly cooked. No seasoning, but oh well. If I got food poisoning, I got food poisoning. I was hungry. 

“- and I saw the look on his face. I was delicious. He must have passed the word, because it wasn't a month before another one of them took my leg.”

Losing two limbs in a month? Recovery for that must have sucked.

Fishlegs looked thoughtful. “Isn't it weird to think that your hand was inside a dragon. Like if your mind was still in control of it, you could have killed the dragon from the inside by crushing its heart or something.”

By the time Fishlegs stopped talking, all of us around the fire were looking at him with similar expressions of ‘what the actual hell?’ The direction that thought had gone was actually vaguely horrifying. 

“I swear I'm so angry right now.” Snotlout tore off a chicken leg. “I'll avenge your beautiful hand and your beautiful foot. I'll chop off the legs of every dragon I fight, with my face,” he said, pointing to his face. 

Gobber shook his head, finishing a bit of his chicken. “Uh-uh. It's the wings and the tails you really want.” He tore off a chicken wing. “If it can't fly, it can't get away. A downed dragon is a dead dragon.”

Gobber stood up. “Alright. I'm off to bed -”

I felt a tap on my arm and turned to see Hiccup standing, quietly setting down his uneaten fish where he'd been sitting. He raised his eyebrows at me and nodded toward the ramp. 

I knew he was asking if I was coming. 

But no way was I leaving my chicken. I wasn't even halfway done with it! I gently pulled it off the skewer and, for good measure, pulled his fish off as well. He hadn't even touched it, and knowing the Forbidden Friendship scene had happened while I was helping with the baby, the last thing he'd probably eaten was a bite of raw, regurgitated fish.

Tuffnut was showing off his tattoo when we slowly made our way down the ramp. Once we were at the base of the catapult, well away from the others, I shoved his fish at him. “Eat your dinner.”

He rolled his eyes but took the fish from me. 

“Now, want to tell me where we're going?” I asked as we walked away from the catapult. 

“The forge,” he replied, taking a bite of the fish as we walked. 

He didn’t speak again until we reached the forge. He handed me his fish and got a candle going from just inside the door before leading me into the backroom.

“Okay, we're well away from the others. Why are we here?” I asked as he went around the room, lighting more candles. 

He set down the candle he used to light the others, and I handed his halfway-eaten fish back to him. “What Gobber said got me thinking.”

He took a bite of his fish. I waited for him to finish chewing before asking, “Which part?”

Hiccup sat down on his stool. “That it's the wings and tail you go for when you want to kill a dragon.”

“And it's the tail that got torn off when you hit the Night Fury.” I took a bite of my chicken. Getting cold, but still okay to eat. 

“Yeah.” He nodded, pulling out his notebook and dropping it onto his workbench. “If he can't fly…” 

“So, what are we doing here?” I asked. Of course, I already knew, but he didn't know that. God, I hoped I could tell him one day and not have him hate me for all of this.

“We?” He grinned. 

I shrugged. “Well, you dragged me into this.”

Hiccup rolled his eyes. “I poked you and asked if you wanted to.”

I waved him off. “Same thing.”

He laughed and set his fish aside. He grabbed a piece of charcoal from his bench and opened his notebook to the drawing of Toothless. 

I leaned on the bench next to him. “So, what are you planning?”

Hiccup scoffed lightly, drawing the tail back onto the drawing that he'd erased the day before. “Probably something stupid.”

I waited a moment to see if he'd elaborate, but he didn't. “And that something stupid is what, exactly?”

He sighed and flipped to a blank page of his notebook. Hiccup looked over at me, the corners of his mouth tugging upward into a small grin. Even if he thought it was stupid, doing this had him excited. “I'm gonna help him fly again.”

Chapter Text

It didn't take Hiccup long at all to sketch out an idea for the trail prosthetic. It did, however, take him hours to make it. At first, I helped him by pumping the bellows to get the fire ready for him, or handing him the tools that he needed. But eventually, he reached a point where I was of no help, and I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open.

As he weighed the pieces and started assembling the tail prosthetic, I headed back to his workroom and sat down on his stool. I crossed my arms and used them as a pillow, a pose I hadn't used since pre-calculus in high school. I drifted off to the sound of him working on the other side of the curtain. 

The next thing I knew, something was poking me in the side. Repeatedly. 

“Kendra.”

I took a breath and opened my eyes, and was immediately reminded of how uncomfortable this position had been at times back in school. Okay, sitting like this to put my head down on an elevated bench was not my best idea. I could feel the knots in my back.

I sat up, stretching as I did so, and almost smacked Hiccup in the face as I did so. 

I snatched my hands back. “Sorry!” 

He laughed, and I noticed his hair was drying, but his clothes were still pretty damp. “Why are you wet?” I glanced around. The candles were getting low, and through a crack in the curtain behind him, I could see that it was light outside. “Wait, how long did I sleep?”

“A while,” he replied, nodding to the bench I had just been sleeping against. On it sat two rolls. “Tried out the tail and had time to grab those.”

“But not a dry shirt?”

He shrugged. “It'll be dry by the time we get to Dragon Training.”

“You didn't wake me?” I grabbed one of the rolls, tore off a piece, and popped it in my mouth.

Hiccup grabbed the other roll. “I was going to, but…” He trailed off, looking thoughtful. “You looked like you needed the rest.”

Honestly, he wasn't wrong. I had been tired and did feel better. I gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”

He shrugged again. “Besides, you can go with me later. It worked, but not without me helping him.”

I glanced at all the drawings up above his workbench. He'd sketched out an idea in his notebook before creating a full schematic, which now hung above the bench. “So, what are you making next?”

He grinned. “A saddle.”

Look shocked. Look shocked. I raised my eyebrows. “A saddle? You're…going to ride him?”

He nodded, grabbing the other roll off the bench. “Anyway, we'd better get going before we're late.”

Hiccup was mostly dried off by the time we got to the arena. The only part of his tunic that was still wet was under his fur vest. 

After all the teens arrived, Gobber handed them each a bucket filled with water and organized them into pairs. Snotlout and Tuffnut. Astrid and Ruffnut. Hiccup and Fishlegs. I took what seemed to be becoming my spot above the dragon pens.

Gobber walked over to one of the pens with double doors. As soon as he started to unlock it, green smoke started to seep out from every single gap that existed. 

“Today is about teamwork.” He undid the final lock, and the doors burst open. Green smoke quickly filled the arena. Within moments, I couldn’t see anyone that was down in the arena. “Now, a wet dragon head can't light its fire. The Hideous Zippleback is extra tricky. One head breathes gas, the other head lights it. Your job is to know which is which.”

I put my chin in my hand as I leaned against the metal bar of the arena. How was I supposed to observe this one when I could see anything due to how much smoke the Zippleback had released? I could see faint shapes within the smoke, but not enough to tell who was where. The only thing I could see was Gobber walking along the wall of the arena.

“There!” I heard Snotlout shout.

Splash. 

“Hey!”

“It's us, idiots.”

It seemed that Snotlout and Tuffnut had found the girls.

Moments later, Tuffnut started screaming. “Oh, I am hurt! I am very much hurt!” He emerged from the smoke near the closed gate of the arena.

That was when the smoke started to clear, and I could see what was going on. One head went toward Fishlegs, who doused it with the water in his bucket, only for it to be the wrong head. Smoke poured from its mouth, and Fishlegs went running, the head aiming the smoke at him. 

“Fishlegs!” shouted Gobber.

This left Hiccup alone as the other head emerged from the smoke. The head that needed to be wet to prevent a spark. 

“Now, Hiccup!”

Hiccup threw the water, only for it to fall short of the head it needed to hit. I couldn’t hear him from where I stood, but I saw his shoulders slump.

“Hiccup!” Gobber moved away from where he was with the other teens near the gate, but he'd never reach Hiccup in time.

The Zippleback advanced. I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. Even though I knew he'd be okay, I still gripped the bar tightly. He did have the eel, didn't he? 

The Zippleback sniffed him, then backed off. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding and slumped against the bar. He had the eel. Thank God.

The others stood baffled as he seemed to scold the Zippleback back into its pen. “Back! Back! Back! Now don't you make me tell you again! That's right, back into your cage!” I could see him messing with his vest and knew he was removing the eel. “Now think about what you've done.”

The Zippleback, so terrified of the eel, cowered in the back of the pen as Hiccup slowly went about closing the two massive doors. Once they were closed, he turned around to face the other occupants of the arena. Fishlegs dropped the bucket he was still holding as Hiccup brushed off his hands. “Okay! So, are we done? Because I've got some things I need to…”

The teens and Gobber just stood there in stunned silence. Hiccup nodded and ran toward the gate of the arena. “Yep! See you tomorrow!”

I could hear the beginning of the beautiful, perky music in my head as I ran toward the entrance of the arena. My memory of it faded as I met Hiccup just as he got the gate open. 

Behind him, I could still see the others staring after him in stunned silence. “I think you broke them.”

Hiccup led the way from the arena into the forest. As soon as we reached the tree line and could no longer see the arena, he filled me in on how he had known to use the eel to his advantage. We walked maybe thirty minutes before we were ducking under branches and rocks, and emerged on a rock that overlooked the cove and marked the entrance to it.

It was even more beautiful than it had looked on screen, and bigger too. What had appeared to be a large pond was closer in size to a small lake. “It's beautiful.”

Hiccup grinned. “Come on.” 

He led the way down into the bottom of the cove, which was definitely narrow at times and tricky at others. It would be easy to fall if you weren't paying attention to where you were putting your feet. At the bottom, his shield was still stuck between two boulders. “Toothless! Got someone to meet you!”

“The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself, and you called him Toothless?” I glanced over at him as we moved away from the shield, further into the cove. There were large boulders all over the place, covered in moss, at the base of the cove walls. They had probably fallen down here at some point in the past. 

Hiccup shrugged. “It just stuck.”

A soft rumble came from behind us, and I whirled around to see Toothless emerge from behind boulders we had just walked past. 

Dark scales that seemed almost dark blue under the afternoon sunlight. His big green eyes, so like those of a cat, were dilated as he looked between me and Hiccup. How many people who had seen the movie like I had would kill to be standing where I was at that moment?

Then his pupils turned to slits, his eyes narrowed at me, and he started growling. The last time a dragon had looked at me like that… I swallowed loudly and took a step back.

Movement out of the corner of my eye, and then Hiccup was in front of me, holding his hand out toward Toothless. “It's okay. She's a friend.”

Toothless looked between us, but his pupils stayed slits and refocused on me. 

“Kendra.”

I glanced at Hiccup before my gaze went back to Toothless. “Yeah?”

“Throw your dagger into the water.”

My eyes went back to him. “What?”

“I had to do the same thing. He won't calm down until it's gone.”

“But-” You made me that dagger.

“It's okay. He won't hurt you.”

“But you made it!” The words came out in a rush as I glanced between him and Toothless, who still growled at me. “You made me that dagger.”

“Oh, for - I'll make you another! Just…” Hiccup looked between me and Toothless. “Trust me.”

I focused my eyes on him. “I do.”

I took a deep breath, unsheathed the dagger, and tossed it into the water off to my right, my eyes not leaving Hiccup. 

Plunk! 

It was gone. The growling stopped. Neither of us looked toward Toothless. Hiccup lowered his hand. His green eyes didn't leave me. “I didn't realize it meant so much to you.”

“Of course it does,” I said quietly. “I told you when you gave it to me that no one had ever made me a gift before.”

A small, soft smile slowly formed on his face. “I’ll make you another. My etching has improved since then.”

A curious-sounding rumble came from right next to us, reminding us both that we were completely ignoring the dragon that had just been growling at me. We looked over to see that Toothless was now right next to Hiccup, ears up, eyes wide, and looking almost annoyed that we'd forgotten about him. 

Hiccup let out a breathy laugh and rubbed the dragon on the nose. “Sorry for ignoring you, bud.”

Toothless made another curious rumble, looking between me and Hiccup with large pupils. Hiccup grinned at me. “Hold out your hand.”

I nodded and lifted my right hand toward Toothless. Hiccup removed his hand from Toothless and gestured toward me. “It's okay. She's a friend.”
 
Toothless looked between my hand and my face as he moved closer. He gave my hand a good sniff before nudging it with his nose. 

It let out a breathy laugh. I was touching a dragon. Not just any dragon, I was touching Toothless!

His scales, for the most part, were smooth and warm beneath my hand, like pebbles on a beach. Those that bore visible scarring would probably be rougher. 

I looked between Toothless and Hiccup, who looked ecstatic. “Is it alright if I…” I paused, looking for the right word. “Examine him? You said he was hurt when…” When you shot him down. I wasn't sure about giving that verbal reminder so early in their friendship. 

Hiccup nodded. “Hear that, bud? She's going to look you over. Make sure you're okay.”

“I'll do my best. My understanding of dragons is…limited since we don't have dragons where I'm from.” I ran my head back over his head. Sure enough, those scales that were scarred were rougher than the rest, but these were older. Fully healed. 

Toothless seemed almost to purr as I ran my hand over the back of his head, moving towards his neck. I glanced over at Hiccup. “Where, besides the tail, should I look?”

“Legs and wings.”

I stopped at his shoulders and looked down at his front legs and over his wings, where they were folded up along his side. I couldn’t see anything on this wing that looked recent, but I spotted something on his leg. I removed my hand and crouched down. Toothless let out a rumble, like he was sad I'd stopped rubbing him. 

Sure enough, some marks were more recent than the scars I'd spotted on his head. They looked more recent, but remarkably, they were already pretty well healed over. New, shiny scales already covered the area. From what I could tell, they didn't look infected. 

I stood back up and looked further down his wing, gently running my hand over the bone that supported it. Toothless seemed to shiver, but didn't growl or pull away. Further down, there was scarring from the ropes, like those on his leg; they were already well along in their healing. If I didn't know it had happened the other day, I'd assume they were weeks old, not days.

“Okay, I'm going off the idea that dragons are like lizards. Part of the reptile family. I'm not super familiar with their treatment, but these look okay to me based on the little that I do know.” I continued looking at the rope burns on his left side before stepping over his tail and checking his right. They looked relatively the same. Different stages to healing, but healing. No signs of infection. 

“If anything ever does get infected…” I trailed off. Like at the end of the movie when the tail was, or rather will be, destroyed when fighting the queen. Did he just get burned by the hot metal? Or was he just exhausted from the fighting and protecting Hiccup when he was knocked off? I shook my head and looked toward Hiccup. “The Dragon Manual is the only source of information on them, isn’t it?”

“Yes?” Hiccup looked somewhat confused, but also curious. Probably wondering where I was going with that question. 

I sighed as I reached Toothless’s head and rubbed it. Yup, he was definitely purring like a giant cat. “We know they don't like eels, but why? Are they toxic to dragons? Or do they just give them the runs?”

Hiccup had been grinning at Toothless, but his face turned horrified at the idea of a dragon having the runs. “From his reaction and the Zipplebacks, I'd say toxic.”

I nodded. “For as thick of a book as the Dragon Manual is, it didn't actually have that much information in it. Like the eels.” I glanced toward Toothless’s tail. The prosthetic was still in place. “Can you remove the tail so I can look at it? Though even if it is infected…”

“You wouldn't know how to treat it,” Hiccup said, finishing my thought as he moved towards Toothless’s tail. “I'm going to take this off really quick, bud.”

I patted the dragon's head before removing my hand, heading back toward his tail. Hiccup was sitting on his tail to unbuckle the prosthetic. Once it was undone, he moved the tail away and stood up. I knelt by the missing tail fin and looked at the area. Hiccup knelt just behind me.

Thankfully, the area did not seem infected or like it needed stitches. Though it was definitely not as healed as the rope burns on the rest of his body. “It doesn't look infected, and looks like it's healing okay, though it's probably sore as hell.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see Hiccup looking guilty. He looked away from the tail and at me. “I just…wanted to help him fly again. I didn't even think about how painful it must be to have it on.”

Just past him, I could see Toothless watching us, his head tilted in curiosity. I looked back at Hiccup. “Your heart is in the right place, but what can you do now to make it less painful?”

Hiccup turned and looked over his shoulder. Boy and dragon just watched each other for a moment before Hiccup turned back to me. “Some sort of padding. Wool? Fur?”

I smiled. “Sounds like you got some modifications to make and a saddle to design.”

Chapter Text

Hiccup worked overnight to add padding to the tail and craft the saddle. When I asked him when he was planning on sleeping, since he hadn't the night before either, he just shrugged and said that he would later. I stayed with him, mostly just watching him work or occasionally handing him a tool, until he got to the intricate details of it. Then I went and fell asleep in his workroom again.

Thankfully, he got the chance the following morning. A storm blew in overnight, and it was still raining in sheets once morning came, so Gobber called off Dragon Training for the day. He wanted the dragons to be able to breathe fire during training, to get the teens used to it. Rain would make it so that they couldn't. 

So, Hiccup stashed the tail and saddle in his room and got some sleep while I sat downstairs reading a book on herbs and plants that I'd found at Halla’s. The Dragon Manual didn't mention anything about what was poisonous to dragons, but maybe this might give me some clues on where to start if Toothless ever got injured and it got infected. 

After reading it for a few hours, though, that idea looked like a bust. For a community that wanted so badly to kill dragons, how had no one paid attention to what was or wasn't poisonous to them?

The storm stopped by lunchtime. So, after we ate, Hiccup fetched a basket of fish for Toothless, and then we were off to the cove with the saddle and tail so that Hiccup could test them out. 

Hiccup got the tail back on with ease while Toothless was eating. The saddle, on the other hand, ended up not being so easy. As soon as Hiccup held it up to show Toothless, the dragon ran away. I just sat against a boulder laughing as Hiccup chased him around the cove.

After this went on for maybe ten minutes, Toothless finally stopped and let him approach with the saddle. He kept shifting away from Hiccup to make it more difficult to get the saddle on. 

I just sat there giggling every time Toothless shifted, which made Hiccup send a half-hearted glare in my direction. The design he had now was simple, based on what I remembered of how complex it would end up becoming by the time of the test drive scene. This one had Hiccup on Toothless, hanging on with one hand, the leather strap to the tail-fin in the other. 

They got airborne, but didn't last very long. Hiccup gave the strap a particularly hard yank, and the two of them separated, flying in opposite directions into the water. I winced and got up from the rock, walking over to the edge of the water as they both started swimming in my direction. 

Toothless got out first and proceeded to shake himself off like a dog. He then heated a patch of ground, curled up, and started cleaning himself like a giant winged cat.

Hiccup took a couple of minutes longer to get out of the water. “Okay, so I need some sort of strap connecting me to the saddle.”

“You okay?” I asked as he pushed wet hair out of his eyes.

“Yeah, just wet,” he replied as he pulled off his soaked fur vest and started wringing it out. He paused and just stared at it for a moment. “A harness. For me, that connects to the saddle, secured by hooks.”

I grinned at him. “Sounds like you already figured it out.”

He returned the grin, nodding. “Yeah, let's get back so I can get started.”

The harness for him to wear and the hooks on the saddle to connect him to it took him far less time to design and create than the tail or the saddle. Fewer moving parts for him to consider and small pieces to craft and let cool. We both actually got some sleep in our own beds that night. 

Hiccup was at the door before sunrise the next morning, wanting to test an idea for controlling the tail before Dragon Training resumed that day. He brought the harness stuffed into a satchel that I wore while he carried the saddle. 

It took him a bit to get the saddle on again, since Toothless decided to continue squirming as he tried to do so. They were airborne longer this time around; this time, the strap to the tail was tied to Hiccup's left boot. Then they disappeared over the rim of the cove and didn't reappear. 

After a few minutes, and seeing the sky getting brighter with no sign of them coming back, I got up from the boulder I'd been leaning against and walked closer to where they had disappeared. “Hiccup?”

“We're okay!” I heard him yell before I saw him appear at the edge above me. “There's this grass that he really likes.” He glanced behind him, I assumed, to look at Toothless. Ah, yes, the grass that's like catnip to them. “Hopefully, I can get him away from it.”

Hiccup then disappeared. A few minutes later, they came gliding back into the cove. I walked over to them as he undid the strap around his foot. He loosely attached it to the saddle so Toothless wouldn't trip on it while we were gone.

I rubbed Toothless’s head as Hiccup slid off the dragon's back. Toothless purred and pushed against my hand. “He liked the grass?”

“Yeah,” he patted Toothless’s head. “See you later, bud.” We then started walking toward the hidden entrance of the cove. As we walked, he pulled something out of his pocket to show me. A handful of grass. “He was rolling around in it like a cat with catnip. Trying to get him to come back here so we can get to Dragon Training was not easy.”

“So…” I started as he put the grass back in his pocket. He'd use it in training today. 

“Dragon nip!” He cut me off with a shout as we squeezed through the boulders and pushed past the branches concealing the entrance to the cove. “It's like catnip, but for dragons!”

I smiled. This kid. He was so enthusiastic and passionate. Kind and smart. How was anyone ever able to stay mad at him or not like him? It was something I just could not understand. 

We had to run the rest of the way to the arena to make sure we weren't late, and doubled around to make it seem as if we'd come from the direction of the village instead of the forest. The others were already inside, so Hiccup headed to join them as I took my place to observe. 

There were more people around today to watch, probably in reaction to hearing about how Hiccup had left them stunned after the Zippleback the other day. One of them was Gothi, and I took a spot next to her. “Come to observe today?” 

She gave me a flat look that I couldn’t decipher. I heard Gobber speaking, but didn't pay attention to him or what was happening in the arena. I frowned at the elder. “What?”

She gently tapped my forehead with her staff. “Ow! What was that for?”

Gothi looked at me with raised eyebrows and gestured toward the other side of the arena, where maybe half a dozen people stood. “What-”

She tapped herself with her staff and gestured to where the people stood on the other side of the arena. She was over there? When was she - Oh. “You've been at all the trainings. I just didn't notice you over there.”

Gothi sighed, looking relieved that I'd finally understand what she'd been trying to tell me. The others around us reacted to something in the arena. I looked down to see the Gronkle flopped on its side in front of Hiccup. 

I glanced over at Gothi. She was looking at me with a small, knowing smile and raised eyebrows. What was that look about? I glanced back down into the arena to see the Gronkle gone and Hiccup running toward the exit.

I'd been so busy paying attention to what was happening in the arena, what was happening to Hiccup, that I never even noticed that Gothi was always there, observing just as I was. She would be the one who picked the ‘winner’ to face the Nightmare, so of course, she'd observe each training session. I'd just been blind, like I'd been at Snoggletog. 

“Kendra!” Hiccup called from the entrance to the arena. 

“See you tomorrow, Gothi.” I smiled at her and jogged over to Hiccup. I reached him just as the other teens did as well. So instead of the forest, we had no choice but to head toward the village with them. 
 
As we walked, they bombarded him with questions about what he had done in the arena. Halfway across the bridge was when he was finally able to get a word in and make an excuse to go back toward the arena. 

“I left my axe back in the ring,” he said, backing up a few steps away from the other teens. He glanced at them and looked at me. “You guys go ahead, and I'll catch up with you.”

“Right.” I nodded. “I'm gonna grab some food. Want me to save you some?”

He grimaced slightly. “As long as it's not with that seasoning you like.”

“Fine.” I rolled my eyes. “I'll make it boring and bland.”

He grinned and turned and ran back toward the arena. Toward Toothless. 

The others looked confused, except for Astrid. She looked suspicious as she watched Hiccup disappear from sight. Once he was gone, she looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “Seasoning?”

We started walking toward the village again. “Yeah, we found out Hiccup has no tolerance for spice. I got some from Johann when he was here. While it's just mild to me, barely spicy, really, Hiccup thought differently.”

Snotlout and Tuffnut apparently thought it was hilarious. I scowled at them. “I wouldn't laugh so hard. Stoick didn't care for it much either, from what Hiccup told me.”

That got them to stop laughing. Ruffnut laughed. Fishlegs smiled. Astrid caught my eye and gave me a slight smirk. 

After cooking up some chicken, one without seasoning for Hiccup, and grabbing some fish for Toothless, I headed off toward the cove. By that point, it was already early afternoon. It took me a bit to find the landmarks that were near the entrance to the cove, since this was my first time making the trek on my own, but eventually I managed to find it. 

When I arrived, Hiccup was wearing his new harness and had removed the saddle, but he was sitting on the ground, leaning against Toothless as he worked in his notebook. He was working so intently, he didn't notice me. Toothless did and warbled a greeting as I climbed down into the cove. 

Hiccup looked at Toothless, realized where the dragon was looking, and started grinning when he spotted me. He set aside his notebook as I approached. “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said as I opened the bag I'd used to carry the chicken and fish. I pulled out the unseasoned one and handed it to him. “No spices, as requested.”

“Thanks,” he replied. 

I pulled out the two large fish I'd grabbed and walked closer to Toothless’s head. He gave me a gummy smile when he spotted the fish in my hand. “They’re cooked, but figured you wouldn't mind.”

He opened his mouth, and I placed one fish into it. I put the other between his front legs to get on his own as he swallowed the one I'd placed in his mouth. I sat down next to Hiccup, leaned back against Toothless, and pulled out my chicken. “So, what did I miss?”

Hiccup swallowed some of his chicken. “Harness works. Also, found out something new about dragons.”

“Oh?” I took a bite of my chicken. 

He nodded, looking excited. “Yeah. I was giving him a good scratch after I took the saddle off, and when I rubbed just under his jaw on the left side, he just went limp and fell to the ground purring.”

I blinked. Oh yeah, the trick he'd use against the Nadder. I glanced over at Toothless, who had his head on the ground and his eyes closed. “Huh. Wonder why that particular spot?”

“I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with how they breathe fire.” He tore off a piece of chicken and popped it into his mouth. 

I chewed on a piece of chicken, humming. That would make sense. And explain why the spot was something universal among dragons. A special gland for either the spark or the gas they produced?

We ate for a few minutes in silence before I asked, “What were you working on in your notebook?”

He held up one finger as he finished chewing and put it down when he swallowed. “I'm redesigning how I operate the tail. Just the strap on my foot isn't working. So, I'm designing a system where I can control it with my foot by shifting the angle of my foot, which will adjust the position of the tail.”

The pedal system that he'd use for the rest of the movie. I gave him a small smile. “Getting more complex. How many more sleepless nights is this going to take?”

“Eh, just a couple,” he says with a shrug before eating another piece of chicken. 

I rolled my eyes. Maybe I'd be able to get him to take naps in the afternoon.

That night, he started turning his sketches into detailed blueprints. It had definitely become more complex and would take him a couple of nights to complete. I did what I could to help, which wasn't much, before falling asleep in the workroom again. 

The next morning at Dragon Training, Hiccup used the maneuver he'd learned the day before to take down the Nadder just before Astrid was going to strike it with her axe. I glanced around the stands as people cheered. There were even more people here today than there had been yesterday. 

We managed to get away to the forest without having to make excuses this time. Hiccup grabbed a basket of fish he'd hidden just inside the tree line, and we made our way to Toothless. Thankfully, I was able to convince him to take a nap as we leaned back against Toothless, just enjoying the nice afternoon weather. 

We headed back to the village as the sun started to set, so we could get dinner in the Hall before heading to the forge for the night. Between feeding ourselves and feeding Toothless, the stash of food in Halla’s was gone, and the one in Hiccup's home was getting extremely low.

We grabbed some food and grabbed seats at an empty table. But as soon as Hiccup sat, our table was swarmed. Not just by the other teens, minus Astrid of course, but by adults who had been at training that morning. 

“How did you do that?”

“What was that? Some kind of trick? What did you do?”

“Hiccup, you're totally going to come in first, there's no question.”

There were so many questions being thrown at him that I couldn’t tell who was asking what. Hiccup's eyes were wide and darting around at the faces now peering at him. 

“I-uh.” He could barely get a word out before another question was thrown at him. Then someone elbowed me and almost pushed me off the bench. 

I slammed my cup down on the table and stood, the bench scraping the stone floor. “Enough!”

Those right next to me backed off, but those closer to Hiccup didn’t. “I said, ENOUGH!”

That got them all the shut up. I glared at them all, but especially the adults. Adults much older than me who should know better. “First, you ignore him, then you swarm him? Only once he's done something worthy of your notice?”

I scowled at them, then looked at Hiccup. He gave me a small, relieved smile. “Want to finish our dinner elsewhere?”

He was up and grabbing his plate and mine before I even finished the question, looking relieved to get out of there. “Please.”

We moved away from the table, and thankfully, the masses didn't follow us. Astrid now sat alone, abandoned by the other teens, and scowled at Hiccup. 

I paused in front of her. “Jealous is not a good look on you, Astrid.”

I didn't stick around to see her reaction, just sped up to catch up to Hiccup. 

“You okay?” I asked as we walked out of the Hall.

“Yeah,” he replied quietly, handing me my plate. “That was…”

“Overwhelming?” I offered after he trailed off and went quiet for a moment. 

He huffed. “Yeah. Overwhelming is putting it mildly. I wanted their attention like that for so long and now…” Hiccup glanced up the stairs behind us and shook his head. “Now, I don't want it. Not like this.”

My heart ached for him. “You want to be liked for who you are, not who they currently think you are.”

Hiccup slumped slightly. “Yeah.”

One day soon, they would see what type of person he really was. Brilliant. Kind. Passionate. Caring. Loyal. It would just take him being disowned, and then saving their lives and almost dying, for them to see it. To see him.

I shook my head. “Your house or the forge?”

“Forge,” he replied. “Gobber should be home by now.”

He completed most of the work he needed to do that night, but needed to make minor adjustments to the tail that was still on Toothless before he could put it all together. So, before training, back to the cove we went, Hiccup carrying a few tools that he needed to finish his work. He'd bring the rest over that afternoon with some fish for Toothless. 

It was while he was making the adjustments to the tail that he discovered another way dragons were like cats. The morning light hit the hammer he was using just right to cast a light, which Toothless then chased. Hiccup would direct it, and Toothless would pounce, making us both smile. 

We weren't able to do it for very long, otherwise we would be late for Dragon Training. Gothi gave me a knowing look as I took my place to observe the day's training. I just returned it, since we both knew exactly what would be happening today. Hiccup would use what he learned that morning to get the Terrible Terror back in its pen. 

A few minutes later, that is exactly what happened. The small dragon detached itself from Tuffnut's nose to chase the light being reflected off a shield Hiccup was holding, right back into its pen. I smiled at Gothi before going to meet Hiccup at the entrance to the arena. 

We headed back to the village and grabbed something to eat from the dwindling supplies at Hiccup's house. Then I shouldered a basket of fish for Toothless while Hiccup carried everything else, and off we headed toward the cove. 

It was as we were approaching the cove, just enjoying the comfortable silence between us, that I could hear something in a clearing ahead of us. Grunts of effort and something embedding in wood. It was a sound I'd become familiar with while training with Astrid. 

I stopped walking, remembering what happened next that I'd completely forgotten about. Astrid spotted Hiccup, but wasn't able to follow him. It was like a ten-second scene; no wonder I'd forgotten about it. But she'd probably have an easier time with two people in the mix.

I tried to grab Hiccup's arm to stop him, but it was too late. I ducked down behind a bush and watched as Hiccup froze, like a deer in headlights, staring at something in the clearing. Then he turned and walked away, quickly ducking out of sight as I caught Astrid leaning over a fallen tree, trying to spot him again. 

I ducked down out of sight again as her head turned my way. I held my breath until I heard her groan in frustration and stomp off. I didn't move until I heard her resume throwing her axe into a tree. As quietly as I could, I headed off toward the cove from another angle, putting plenty of room between me and Astrid. 

“Oh, thank Thor. That was close.”

It took a bit, maybe twenty or so minutes longer than normal with how often I was checking to see if Astrid was behind me, before I made it to the cove. Hiccup had been pacing near the entrance to the cove, Toothless watching him, looking almost amused, when I got there.

“I heard her a second before we got there, but wasn't able to catch you in time,” I said, sliding the basket off my shoulder. 

Toothless came bounding over and started sniffing the basket, looking excited. I rubbed his head. “Yeah, I know, lunch is a little late today.”

“Let him start eating,” Hiccup said, walking over to where he'd left the saddle and tail gear leaning against a boulder. “I'll get this on while he's distracted.”

“Good idea.” I undid the latch on the basket and then pushed it over. Fish spilled out onto the ground, but there was plenty still left within it. Toothless immediately laid down and started eating, which gave Hiccup the chance to put everything on him without the dragon deciding to play.

Even though Hiccup had a number of things to put on and connect, there were enough fish to keep Toothless distracted and content the entire time Hiccup was working. He wasn't bothered in the slightest as he lifted limbs to put hoops over them that directed the strap to the tail-fin without getting in the way. By the time Toothless was done, so was Hiccup. 

“So, what now?” I asked as he secured a piece of paper to the top of the saddle, just below his hand grips. Ah, yes, the cheat sheet that wasn't going to last very long. 

Hiccup put the few tools he'd brought in the now-empty basket that had been holding fish and attached a coiled rope to his belt. “There's an overlook nearby. I want to test the tail first. Get the hang of it in a more controlled environment.” 

“Makes sense.” I nodded as he hopped up onto the saddle and connected the harness to it. 

Hiccup held out his hand to me, smiling. “Come on.”

I grinned and took his hand, climbing up behind him. Holy shit, I was on Toothless. I could feel his muscles moving as he got to his feet. 

“Hang on.” I could hear the smile in his voice. Hiccup shifted his foot as I lightly gripped his waist. I heard the tail-fin snap open and saw Toothless’s wings open from where they had been closed against his sides. Hiccup glanced past me to check on the tail-fin, then smiled at me before looking forward again. “Let's go, bud.”

Then, before I could blink, we were in the air. My stomach dropped, and I let out a yelp, my grip tightening on Hiccup's waist. We glided above the treetops, heading for the nearby cliffs. 

“You okay?” Hiccup shouted over the wind in our ears.

“I think my stomach is still back in the cove, but other than that, just peachy!”

I heard and felt Hiccup laugh before he asked, “What's a peach?”

“They're a sweet fruit that we have access to in Arrowhead,” I replied as we cleared the tree line and Hiccup angled Toothless down toward a section of cliff that had a stump near the edge. 

There was a jolt when Toothless landed that almost reminded me of an airplane touching down, and just like that, my first flight on a dragon was over. I let out a breathy laugh and removed my hands from Hiccup's waist before sliding off.

My legs were shaking slightly as I landed back on firm earth. I patted Toothless’s side. “Thanks.”

Toothless glanced back at me as Hiccup disconnected from the saddle and warbled, giving me a gummy grin like he was telling me, ‘You’re welcome.’ It was incredible just how much he seemed to understand. Hiccup detached the harness and slid off, not looking shaky at all. 

He lightly touched my elbow. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I nodded, smiling at him. “Just need to get my land legs back.”

Another moment or two and the shaking faded, though Hiccup walked with me to a spot on the grass nearby where I could safely observe the tail-fin testing. Then he removed the rope from his belt, attached one end to the stump, and the other to a strap of the saddle across Toothless’s chest. 

This was the perfect spot for them to test the tail. The sea breeze gave them just enough lift to easily hover while Hiccup took note of which position of the tail-fin did what. Six different positions in total. It was perfect, until, like it showed in the movie, a particularly strong gust of wind came up while they were in the air, causing the rope to snap. 

“Hiccup!” I stood up as they flew backwards into the tree line. 

I jogged over and made it just in time for Hiccup, who was dangling from the saddle, realized the loop connecting him to the saddle had closed when they had hit a tree. “Are you guys okay?”

He struggled for a moment, but then was able to get his feet firmly on the ground. Hiccup tugged the strap again to no avail, and his shoulders slumped. “Yeah, but I'm stuck.”

“And let me guess, none of the tools you have back in the cove can help,” I said, rubbing Toothless on the head. He pressed lightly against my hand, purring. 

“Nope.” He shook his head, popping the p.

In the movie, Hiccup had snuck Toothless into the village after dark so that he could get the tool that he needed. He'd nearly gotten caught by Astrid. But now…now he had something he didn't have in the movie. 

Me. 

This was a small thing. This was me grabbing him a tool, not changing something that could put his life at risk in the grand scheme of things. Big things, major events, those I couldn’t risk touching. But this, something small like this? This I could do.

“Exactly what tool do you need to fix it?”

In the end, me grabbing the tool, which was basically a pair of pliers, took maybe five minutes total. We waited until it was dark. Hiccup and Toothless waited just inside the tree line. I made my way to the forge that was now empty, grabbed the tool, took it to Hiccup, and that was that. 

Dragon Training was canceled again the following morning due to a storm, which cleared up by early afternoon. Once the rain stopped, Hiccup and I made our way to the cove. 

Toothless ate the fish we brought, and then Hiccup climbed up onto his back and secured himself to the saddle. He double-checked the tail-fin and then let out a breath. 

“Good luck,” I said. 

“Thanks.” He looked excited, but also nervous. First real test of the tail-fin and his control of it. Not over land or the forest. Over the ocean. Higher into the sky than any other test run. More dangerous than any other test, making it one he'd insisted on doing alone. 

“Back in a bit.” Then they were off, shooting up into the sky, and I was left alone in the cove. 

Time seemed to crawl by while I waited. First, I sat, leaning against a boulder. I tried to read another book I'd found at Halla’s, but gave up after reading the same sentence five times because I just couldn't concentrate. Then I got up and started pacing. 

Had he lost the cheat sheet yet? Were they in free fall yet? Would he get back on the saddle in time? Or had they both fallen to their deaths? Had me getting the tool been too risky? Had just doing that changed too much? 

I don't know how long I was pacing, my thoughts filled with questions like that before I heard a roar and the sound of wings. I looked up to see Toothless diving down into the cove, leveling out at the last minute to land just feet from me. 

Both boy and dragon seemed thrilled as they landed. Hiccup was grinning, hair blown back by the wind, and singed? Hair, clothes, everything. Oh yeah, Toothless had shot fire and then flown through it. But even with that, he looked thrilled as Toothless pranced over to me with Hiccup on his back. 

“I take it that it went well. Though why are you…” I gestured to his current singed state.

Hiccup looked down at himself. He cringed slightly at the now singed harness and tunic, but was soon grinning again and pat Toothless on the head. “He got a little excited.”

Toothless smacked Hiccup with one of his ears. I covered my mouth to keep in a laugh. Hiccup rolled his eyes, but his grin never vanished. He reached out a hand to me. “Ready?”

I grabbed his hand and climbed up behind him, hands settling again on his waist. Holy crap, I was really doing this. “Ready.”

This time, Toothless sprang into the sky. Higher, and so much faster than the day before. This time, I didn't yelp. I screamed. My light grip on Hiccup's waist turned into me wrapping my arms around him.

But my scream soon turned into laughter. It was terrifying. Wonderful. Horrifying. Incredible. Like the tallest roller-coaster in the world, but it could breathe and think. I could hear Toothless’s wingbeats. Feel his muscles shift beneath me.

I was flying. On a dragon! On Toothless!

We flew for hours. Through the clouds, making us damp from the moisture they held. Upside down, sending my stomach into my throat, and my heart pounding in my ears. Speed along the cresting waves, sending up mist in our wake.

We didn't land until the sun was sinking low on the horizon, on a ridiculously small island just off the coast of Berk. Toothless had dipped into the sea, picked up a bunch of fish, and deposited them on the shore before landing next to the pile. 

My legs were shaking again as I slid to the ground, but I wouldn't change it for the world. I leaned back against Toothless as Hiccup slid off him beside me. My pulse was still racing, but I don't think I'd ever grinned so much in my life.

“That was,” I started, shaking my head as I tried to find the right word for it. “Amazing doesn't seem to cover it.”

“Even with all the screaming?” He laughed, but he was grinning as much as I was.

I laughed. “Even with all the screaming.”

“Shaky again?” he asked. 

I nodded. “Yeah.” 

He glanced around the small island we were on. “I'm going to see about finding some wood. Snag a couple of fish for us?”

“That I can do,” I replied. 

He walked off, looking for wood, and I walked over to the fish pile and grabbed a couple from the center that weren't covered in dragon saliva for us to eat. My legs were still somewhat shaky, so I used Toothless to steady myself as I walked. 

He watched and seemed to understand that I needed him to steady myself, because he didn't lie down to eat until after I'd gotten fish and was walking without needing him to steady myself. I patted his side and sat down beside him. “Thanks, Toothless.”

It was just after I'd sat down that Hiccup returned, carrying several pieces of driftwood to start a fire. He dropped them onto the ground just a few feet away from my outstretched legs, but kept two decent-length sticks. He handed me one as he sat down next to me.

Before he could even ask, Toothless shot a small ball of flame at the driftwood, setting it on fire for us to cook our fish. Hiccup rubbed the dragon's head. “Thanks, bud.”

Toothless rumbled before grabbing a fish from his pile and eating it in one go. We stuck our fish on the sticks to cook and held them over the fire while leaning against Toothless. 

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, taking in the salty sea breeze ruffling my hair. The warmth of Toothless behind me and the feeling of his breathing. Hiccup a comforting presence beside me.

I opened my eyes to see Hiccup watching me with a soft smile. 

“What?” I nudged him lightly with my elbow. 

He shook his head slightly, looking out at the ocean before looking back at me. “Just really glad you're here.”

I returned his smile. “Nowhere else I'd rather be.”

Poking my fish and finding it done, I broke off a piece and popped it into my mouth.

“Kendra?”

“Hmm?” I looked over at him as I chewed, raising my eyebrows. 

“Remember when you asked last month about how long you'd been here?” 

I frowned, thinking back. When had I-oh yeah, after I'd found that he'd destroyed the net thrower. “Yeah…” I said slowly, wondering where this was going. “You said almost a year.”

“Today is one year,” he explained. “A year ago today, I found you in the forest.”

A year. I'd been here an entire year. I hadn’t processed it when he'd mentioned it last month, but now…

A year since I'd tripped running from that man who'd offered me a ‘ride’ after I got a flat tire on the way home from another day of classes. 

Home. Arrowhead. My parents. 

What had happened to them? Did they mourn me? Was I now a missing poster? Or was this more like Narnia, where no time had passed there at all? 

Gods, when was the last time I'd even thought about them? When did I stop thinking of Arrowhead as home?

I found myself here two weeks after - “I'm nineteen.”

“What?”

I ran my free hand over my hair. My braided hair. A way I had never really worn it much back then. Back there. Now, I put it into a braid every morning. So much longer than I'd ever worn it before. I dropped my hand. “I turned eighteen two weeks before you found me. It's been a year since then, so I'm now nineteen.”

So much had changed. I had changed. Would my parents even recognize me? Training with Astrid had removed any baby fat I'd had left and made me stronger. Leaner. And now I had scars. My head. My leg.

Then came the sound that almost sounded like a cat heaving, and Toothless pushed a fish head covered in saliva toward Hiccup with his nose. I laughed lightly. Again, I had to marvel at how much he seemed to understand. 

Hiccup shook his head. “Uh, no thanks.” He raised his stick to show Toothless his cooked fish. “I'm good.”

The dragon's large eyes shifted from Hiccup to me. I shook my head. “Thanks for offering, but I'm good too.”

Toothless almost seemed to shrug and went back to his pile of fish. Hiccup's gaze caught mine, and we both fought down smiles. 

“Are you okay?” he asked after a moment. 

“I don't-” 

The sound of squawking reached my ears, and I turned toward the ocean to see four Terrible Terrors flying toward us. Toothless grumbled, and I glanced over to see him starting to guard his pile of fish. 

It didn't take long for two of them to start fighting over the fish head that Toothless had offered to us. A third I didn't see, until a small fish in Toothless’s pile started moving away from him. It didn't get far before Toothless grabbed the fish. The Terror tried to pull it away from him, but didn't stand a chance. 

It was like watching a chihuahua face off a St. Bernard. The Terror stood no chance, and the fish was quickly eaten by Toothless. I huffed a laugh as the Terror tried to intimidate Toothless. Yup, definitely like a chihuahua. 

Just before the Terror could spit flames at the Night Fury, Toothless shot a small flame into the Terror's mouth. The little dragon fell flat on its face, finally realizing it was outmatched. And Toothless almost seemed to be smirking at the Terror as it stumbled away.

“Not so fireproof on the inside, are you?” Hiccup laughed. He pulled his fish off the stick, and I gave him a look. He saw it, rolled his eyes, and tore off the fish's head, tossing it to the Terror. “Here you go.”

The Terror gobbled it up, then cautiously approached Hiccup. He rubbed its back, and it started purring as it curled up next to him. “Everything we know about you guys is wrong.”

"It definitely seems that way,” I said. I shook my head. “How did people miss that they are basically fire-breathing cats all this time?"

“I don't know,” he replied, his voice soft. He continued rubbing the Terror for a few minutes, then nudged me lightly with his elbow. “You got cut off by these guys showing up, so I'll ask again. Are you okay?”

I opened my mouth to say I was fine, but found I couldn't. Distraction gone, something seemed to settle in my chest, and I found a lump in my throat. Grief? Guilt? Guilt that I'd barely thought about my parents in months. I swallowed hard and shook my head. 

“I don't know,” I admitted softly. 

Hiccup rested his head against my shoulder, and I leaned my head against his. I sniffed. He smelled like salt, burnt hair, and - “You smell like a burnt sheep.”

“What?” He sputtered and then started laughing. “Happy belated birthday. I'll put a burning sheep on your new dagger.”

I snorted, then started giggling.

Chapter Text

The sun was almost completely down by the time we returned to the cove. The flight back had been more of a gentle ride than the one that afternoon, but just as exhilarating. I never particularly loved roller coasters, but I could see myself becoming addicted to flying on the back of a dragon. Especially if that dragon was Toothless. 

We both gave Toothless a good rubbing and then started back toward the village. As we walked, Hiccup ran his hands through his hair, getting rid of the windswept look it had been holding all afternoon, and removed the harness. 

“You gonna head home or go to the forge?” I asked as we walked over the bridge connecting the arena to the village. 

“Forge. Gotta design a dagger with a flaming sheep,” he said with a smirk.

I nudged his shoulder. “Oh ha, ha. Get some sleep tonight, okay? In your bed, not in the forge.”

“What's wrong with the stool?” Hiccup raised a brow at me. “I've lost count of how many times you've fallen asleep on that stool.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, and my back hasn't let me forget it. Also, it's a stool. Meant for sitting. Not sleeping.”

It was his turn to roll his eyes. “Fine, I'll make sure to go home and sleep at some point.”

“Wow. That was so reassuring,” I deadpanned. 

We bid each other goodnight not long after that. As I approached Halla’s, I noticed light from the cracks around the door. 

I frowned. Had I forgotten to put out the fire before I left this morning?

I opened the door to find that no, I had not forgotten to put it out. Halla sat next to it, stoking the flames as she heated a pot of water. 

That's right. The ship returned from an attempt to find the nest on the same day as the test-drive scene. 

I smiled as I closed the door behind me. “Halla! You're back!”

She returned the smile. “Ah, there you are. Aye, we returned this morning.”

“How bad?” I asked, taking a seat across the fire from her.

Her smile faded. “Three ships set out. Only one was fit for the return journey.” Halla heaved a heavy sigh, shaking her head. “Half a dozen families are not celebrating reunions tonight.”

Damn. I'd forgotten that they had been attacked after entering the fog that surrounded the nest. And now some families were in mourning while the survivors had huddled onto a single ship to return home.

“Word around the village is that someone unexpected has risen to the top contender to kill the Nightmare,” she said, startling me out of my thoughts. A slight smile played at her lips as she ladled some of the hot water into a cup. I could smell the herbs she often used in a relaxing tea mixture. “Have you been helping him train?”

I shook my head. “No, it's all him. Though I have been helping him avoid the crowds since he started doing so well.”

“Aye, I heard about what happened the other night,” she said, a frown crossing her face before she took a sip from the cup. “It's good that he has you.”

I blinked. That was not what I expected her to say, like ever. She had been so against me befriending him before, warning me to stay away from him back when I'd first arrived here. And now, like everyone else, she was changing her tune based on a lie. Well, a lie for now. One day very soon, they'd see him for who he really was and finally value him for being him.

Hiccup was once again at the door the following morning, knocking as I finished up a bowl of oats that Halla had made a large batch of that morning. 

I shoved the last bite in my mouth as Halla answered the door. “Ah, good morning, Hiccup.”

“Oh, morning, Halla,” I heard him say as I set down my empty bowl and headed over to the door. He saw me appear in the doorway next to Halla, and his smile widened. “Hey, Kendra.”

“Hey,” I replied. I set a hand on Halla’s arm and squeezed past her. “I'll see you later, Halla.”

With that, we set off toward the arena. Hiccup carried an axe this morning, something he hadn't taken with him the last couple of sessions of Dragon Training. He had a horned helmet on top of his head. Oh yeah, the breast hat.

He must have seen my eyes go to the helmet because he said, “Gift from my dad. He gave it to me last night. It's half of my mother's breastplate.”

I pressed my lips together. Look shocked. Look disturbed. Okay, that actually wasn't all that hard considering what his current headwear was made from. 

Hiccup laughed lightly. “Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction when he told me that.”

“Is that a normal thing?"

“No, it is not,” he said, cutting me off while shaking his head. “And apparently it's a matching set.”

I blinked. Right. I'd forgotten that detail. “I'm never going to be able to look at his helmet the same way now.”

With the ships returned, there were even more people around the arena to observe Dragon Training. Including Stoick, who looked so happy and proud. And his helmet… yup, I was never going to be able to look at that thing the same way again.

It was only Hiccup and Astrid down in the arena with the Gronkle; the others were no longer in the running. I stood next to Gothi, with Halla on the other side of her. We could see Astrid speaking to Hiccup while they crouched behind a barrier. She then darted off, staying behind barriers as she followed the Gronkle on its path around the arena. 

Some people cheered for her, most likely her parents, but, like in the movie, the girl never stood a chance. 

The Gronkle spotted Hiccup as he gave his dad a reassuring smile and made a beeline for him. Maybe it remembered the dragon nip and hoped that he had more.

Instead, he gave it a good scratch along its left jaw, and down it went. The thing was so happy, its tongue was hanging out of its mouth. And that was, of course, the moment Astrid went charging at it with a yell. That yell turned to cursing as soon as she processed that the Gronkle was already down for the count.

The crowd roared, drowning out her cursing. Gothi stepped forward and tapped her staff against the metal bar of the roof of the arena. It was not enough to quiet the crowd, but Stoick was easily able to get them to quiet down. “Wait! Wait!”

Gobber and Astrid stopped Hiccup from leaving, the latter of the two looking absolutely livid. I couldn’t help but wince, knowing that her anger was about to get so much worse.

“Okay, quiet down! The elder has decided.” The crowd went silent, and all eyes around the arena turned to where Gothi stood next to me.

Down in the arena, Gobber held up his prosthetic above Astrid. The elder shook her head slightly. Astrid's eyes went wide, and something that I could see now that I hadn't seen when watching the movie was the faint hint of hurt. Gothi wasn't just the elder of the tribe to her, but a family member.

Gobber put his prosthetic down and raised his hand over Hiccup, and Gothi nodded. The crowd roared, and the hurt vanished from Astrid's face, replaced with a look that was murderous. A look she directed at Hiccup beside her. Yup, so much worse. If looks could kill, Hiccup would be toast.

Down in the arena, the other teens hoisted Hiccup onto their shoulders. He grinned, but how anyone was able to believe that grin was genuine was beyond me.

I didn't see Hiccup again until late that afternoon. The other teens had taken him to the Hall to celebrate, along with a large number of adults, including his father and Gobber. 

I was heading back to Halla’s after delivering supplies to an injured person from the recent nest raid. Without warning, someone grabbed my wrist and yanked me into the shadows between two houses. Their hand clamped over my mouth when I yelped. I was about to start struggling when I caught sight of who it was. 

“Hiccup? What the hell?!” I asked as soon as he removed his hand.

He winced, then glanced around. “Sorry, but I can't be seen.”

“What is going on?” I frowned at him. He was wearing the harness and had a basket slung over his shoulder. “You're leaving.”

Or at least, he was preparing to leave, but he'd get caught by Astrid before he could. But that happened at sunset, and it was already late afternoon. Shouldn't he have been at the cove already? 

His gaze snapped to me. “Yes.”

I knew why, but to keep up appearances, I asked, “Why?”

Hiccup's shoulders slumped, the basket slipping from his shoulder and landing on the ground with a soft thud. He leaned against the house behind him, his gaze on the ground. “I can't do this anymore, Kendra.”

The lies. The act that he put on in the arena. The fake smile he put on when Gothi chose him. He didn’t have to explain it. Not to me. Not only because I knew, but because I could relate.  

I was tired of lying to him. Hiding what I knew, even if it was to make sure he came out the other side alive. I hated it. But how do you begin to explain that you come from another world? A world where the person who had become your best friend is the main character of the story now playing out. And to keep him safe, to make sure he lived, I had to let things play out. Let him get hurt, physically and emotionally. It sounded insane even as I lived through it. 

I walked over and leaned against the house next to him, blocking him from view if anyone happened to walk by. “Where will you go?”

“I don't know,” he admitted with a small shrug. He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Come with me?”

I had been looking out at the village, but at that, my head turned so fast my braid came around and smacked me in the face. I blinked, pushing the braid back.

That was why he was still in Berk? Why hadn't he gone to the cove yet? For me? Would this change things? Would his lingering for me cause Astrid to miss him? 

Something of my racing thoughts must have shown on my face, because he took my hands in both of his and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Please? We'll go somewhere where we can get spices for you.”

With those big green eyes and a pleading expression, how had anyone turned this kid down? For anything over the years?

“Okay,” I said. I prayed to any deity listening that Astrid would still catch him. I hoped things would go as they did in the movie. 

I glanced in the direction of Halla’s before looking at Hiccup, who was now grinning at me. “I'll meet you at the cove as soon as I can. I need to get my things, and if Halla’s still there…"

“It might take you a bit to get out unnoticed,” he finished. He let go of my hands and hauled the basket back up onto his shoulder. “Right. I'll see you at the cove.”

I glanced to see if anyone was around. “I think the coast is clear. Go. I'll be there as soon as I can.”

When I looked back at Hiccup, he did the last thing I ever expected. He leaned up and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek. 

We just stared at each other for a moment. He looked somewhat surprised that he had done that; meanwhile, my brain was making the same screeching noise as a computer getting online using dial-up Internet.

With a hint of pink on his cheeks, he gave me a crooked smile before he turned and ran, disappearing into the shadows of the houses across the way. I just stood there, gaping like a fish. 

He'd just - I slumped back against the house behind me. 

Shit. 

The entire time I'd known him, he'd clearly had a crush on Astrid. Hell, I’d just teased him about it a week ago! So where -when- did this happen? What would this do to the story I knew? 

Was I overthinking things? Maybe it didn't mean anything? No, that was a ridiculous question. This was Hiccup, after all. He'd meant it, even if he hadn't meant to do it right then. 

I leaned my head back, letting it thud lightly against the house behind me, looking up at the fluffy clouds in the sky.

Shit.

By the time I made it back to Halla’s, there was no sign of the woman. Not surprising. It had taken me a while to get moving after that shock. 

I quickly packed a fake ‘to go’ basket, grabbed the bow and quiver I'd gotten from Astrid, figuring I could get some practice in while I waited in the cove, and set out. 

It was as I approached the entrance of the cove that I heard screaming. I stopped walking and glanced around, trying to figure out where it was coming from. It was definitely Astrid, but where—I looked up.

Ah. 

I spotted them just in time to see Toothless drop her onto a tree branch on the edge of the cove. With the tree drooping from the weight of the dragon, Astrid was now dangling over the cove. 

I squeezed and ducked through the entrance. I looked up again to see that Astrid was now seated behind Hiccup on the saddle, refusing to touch the boy in front of her. Oh dear, she'd regret that in a moment.

Toothless launched into the sky, the tree creaking and dropping leaves down into the cove in his wake. And Astrid was screaming again, though within seconds, they were out of range. 

The sun was just now starting to set, and they wouldn't be back until after dark if all went as it should. Hopefully. 

Hopefully, minor changes wouldn't cast too big a ripple in the overall scheme of things. If things went majorly wrong, if he -

No. Things would be fine. I hadn’t changed anything major. They'd be fine. He'd be fine.

I climbed my way down into the cove and set my basket down next to where Hiccup had left his. I glanced inside. Clothes. Paper. Ink. Oh, good, he'd brought some food too. They'd probably be hungry by the time they got back. Between his basket and mine, we had enough for three people, with a couple of fish for Toothless as well.

Feeling the need to do something, not wanting to sit and really think just yet, I found a tree to use as a target. I picked up Astrid's axe from the ground and used it to slash an X on the tree to aim at before leaning the axe against the boulder next to the baskets. Then I put on the arm guard, checked the bow and quiver, and got shooting. 

For a little while, I was able to just lose myself in the rhythm of shooting. Knock, draw, aim, release. Use my back, not my arms. Over and over until the quiver at my hip was empty. I took a deep breath and released it slowly, looking at my makeshift target. None had hit the center of the X, but none had missed the target either. A definite improvement over where I'd been months ago.

I leaned the bow against the boulder and walked over to retrieve my arrows. A glance at the orange sky told me I'd have enough light for another round, but that would probably be it for the day. I had no practice so far at aiming in the dark, though knowing Astrid, it was probably being saved for after I was able to hold my own in the sun.

Unfortunately, retrieving the arrows gave me time to think. By the color of the sky, they were probably still flying among the clouds. They'd be up there until the sun was fully down and the stars had come out. When had he—

I gave one particularly stuck arrow a good yank. Nope, I was not thinking about that now. 

But what about—no. Shut up, stupid brain.

I glanced over the tree to make sure I'd gotten them all, and then counted the arrows in the quiver. Yup, I had all fifteen of them. 

Hiccup was fifteen. 

Do you like him that way?

Ugh, stupid brain. Instead of grabbing the bow again, I sagged against the boulder next to it, sliding down to the ground. I liked Hiccup. I enjoyed spending time with him. He was my best friend. But like that? No.

Or at least, not yet. 

Fifteen. That was the key thing. I was nineteen. To me, he was still a kid. I had thought of him as a kid just moments before he'd kissed me on the cheek and sent me into this spiral. Back in my world, he'd be a high school freshman to my college sophomore. But could it turn into something more once I stopped seeing him as a kid? Once we were both adults? 

The thing was, I could. He had become my best friend. In just a year of knowing him, I already couldn't imagine my life without him. I knew that it could grow into more. It had been the case for my parents. They met through mutual friends when they were both in their twenties. With six years between them, they became best friends. Over time, their friendship grew into something more. The fact was, I could easily see something similar happening between me and Hiccup once he was older. 

I'd have to tell him the truth, though, which was something that I wanted to do since I hated lying to him. After all this was over, the queen dead and him learning to live with one leg, I'd tell him the truth. See if our friendship survived it. See if he didn't think I was absolutely insane. See if he didn't hate me for lying to him.

I leaned my head back, glaring up at the sky. The bright orange of the sunset was now fading. So much for another round of practice. Stupid brain.

Once the sun set and my stomach growled, I stored the bow and quiver. Then, I built a small fire and took food from the baskets to cook. One chicken with seasoning, which I'd cook and eat first, then I'd cook the other two for Hiccup and Astrid. Several large fish were set aside for Toothless. 

It wasn't until I had finished eating and was starting to cook the other two chickens that I heard voices and the sound of wings. Toothless landed about ten feet away from the fire, and the two humans on his back slid off as I stood up.

“No, no, no, it totally makes sense - Kendra. Why am I not surprised to find you here?” Astrid said as Toothless gave me a gummy smile. 

“I got some fish for you when you're done.” I rubbed his head, which made the dragon purr, before he headed over to get a drink. I looked at Hiccup and Astrid, nodding toward the fire. “I got some chicken cooking if you guys are hungry.”

“I - actually, yeah. Thanks,” she said, heading over to the fire. 

I looked over at Hiccup with raised eyebrows. “She caught you?”

“Yeah. How did you—"

“I got to the cove just as you dropped her on a tree branch,” I answered as we started walking toward the fire. “And I saw Toothless launch off that same tree moments later.”

“As soon as I apologized, he stopped,” Astrid said before taking a bite of one of the chickens. She held the other skewer out to Hiccup, who took it and settled on the log beside her. “After that, it was…”

“Amazing? Incredible?” I offered. 

Astrid laughed, nodding. “Yeah.”

Toothless picked that moment to walk over, so I grabbed one of the fish and tossed it to him. He snapped it out of the air and downed it in one gulp. 

“He's extremely smart. I'm constantly surprised by how much he understands,” I said, taking a seat next to Hiccup. Toothless settled down on the other side of the fire. I tossed the other fish over to him, which he happily gobbled down before he started cleaning. “Though he's also like a giant, fire-breathing cat with wings.”

Astrid watched the Night Fury, looking absolutely stunned as he cleaned himself like a cat. She shook her head in disbelief. “I'm seeing it, but it's…”

“The opposite of what you've been told and observed your entire life?” I suggested. 

“They're just protecting themselves, same as we are,” Hiccup added. 

“Another way they're like bees! You swat at them, they protect themselves,” Astrid said, setting down her chicken and standing. “We have to tell your dad.”

Hiccup shot up, shoving his chicken into my hands. “No, no! Not yet.” He grabbed Astrid's wrist to keep her from moving past him. “They'll kill Toothless. Astrid, we have to think this through carefully.”

I glanced between them, hoping I looked confused. 

Astrid looked at Hiccup like he had finally lost his mind. “Hiccup, we just discovered the dragons' nest, 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?”

Hiccup released her wrist as she spoke and moved to stand between her and the entrance to the cove. “Yes.”

Firm. No room for argument. And he thought he wasn't like his father.  

Astrid looked stunned. This was a side of him she hadn't seen before. 

“Um, what is happening?” I asked, looking between them.

Two heads shot toward where I still sat by the fire. 

“We found the nest. Or rather, Toothless did,” Hiccup explained. “Dragons steal food for this massive dragon on the island. They feed it, or they end up as food for it. It snapped up a Gronkle like it was a berry when it brought back a tiny fish.”

“We only saw the head, but I think I'm barely taller than its eye,” Astrid added. 

That was a scary thought. Astrid was just slightly shorter than I was. And that was just its eye? In the movie, it looked huge, but how big was the thing in reality? I could see the wheels turning in Hiccup's head. “We're not leaving, are we?”

He shook his head. “No.”

Astrid didn't look surprised to hear this at all. Then again, she'd caught him as he was preparing to leave. What did seem to surprise her was me. She did a double-take and looked over at me. “You were going to go with him?”

“Of course.” I shrugged. I'd only agreed because I knew we wouldn't be going anywhere. Because I knew Astrid would catch him, and seeing the queen, how dragons were controlled, would change everything. But if I hadn’t known… I'd probably go. “He's my best friend.”

Hiccup had a soft smile on his face. Astrid looked between us, brow slightly furrowed. What was with that look?

“So you've known all along?” she asked after a moment. 

I raised an eyebrow at the change of subject. “He wasn't lying when he said he hit a Night Fury. He told me later that day,” I answered. “Though I didn't meet Toothless until after—"

“After Mrs. Larson had her baby!” she said, cutting me off as she put the pieces together. She looked over at Toothless, then at Hiccup. “That's why you guys left that night. You started working on the tail and everything.”

Hiccup and I both nodded. 

Astrid looked thoughtful, glancing between me and Hiccup. “What do we do now?”

“Just give me until tomorrow,” Hiccup replied. “I'll figure something out.”

“Okay.” Astrid nodded, then punched him in the arm. “That's for kidnapping me.”

Hiccup rubbed his arm, looking over at me and Toothless for help. I shook my head. Toothless just went back to cleaning. 

Astrid then grabbed his collar and kissed him on the cheek. I glanced away to give them some privacy. “That's for…everything else.”

I glanced back to see that Hiccup looked stunned. Astrid turned to leave.

“Your axe is by the baskets!” I called after her. 

She glanced back at me, smiled, and then headed over to grab her axe. “Thanks!”

Then she was gone. 

Hiccup still stood there, staring after her. He no longer looked stunned but was deep in thought. 

“So, what are we going to do?”

That startled him out of his thoughts. 

Hiccup looked at me for a moment, then ran a hand through his hair as he walked over and dropped down next to me. I handed him his chicken. “The only thing I can do now. Show them the truth so we can take down that...thing. Stop this war once and for all.”

I waited until he had eaten some of his chicken before I asked, "And how are you going to do that?”

He heaved a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “I'm still working on that.”

I let him eat. He'd figure it out. It would just have a heavy emotional cost. 

I didn't know it then, but the days to come would be some of the worst days of my life.

Chapter Text

Halla was already asleep by the time we returned to the village. I crept up the stairs and went to bed. But sleep did not come to me that night. My stomach churned with the thought of what was to come the following day. The Monstrous Nightmare. Toothless captured while protecting Hiccup. Hiccup being disowned. Stoick using Toothless to find the nest while Hiccup watched them leave. Watching it all unfold to make sure that at the end of it all, Hiccup lived. 

I tossed and turned the entire night. By the time I heard Halla getting up for the day, I had barely slept at all. As I made my way downstairs, my stomach got worse at the smell of cooking oats that Halla stirred over the fire. 

“You got in late,” Halla commented as I sat down next to the fire. 

I ran a hand over my face. “Helped Hiccup escape the crowds again. Then Astrid happened across us and…”

I trailed off, leaving Halla to fill in the blanks. Everyone around the arena yesterday had seen Astrid's anger at Hiccup being chosen over her. 

Halla clicked her tongue, briefly glancing toward me. “He alright?”

I nodded. “It just took her a while to calm down.” And a dragon scaring the crap out of her to make her apologize. 

Halla grabbed a ladle and two bowls, scooping oats into both before passing one to me. “Thanks.”

I stared down at the bowl. The sight and smell of it set my stomach off again. Hopefully, food would help calm my stomach down. 

I took a spoonful, blew on it, then put it in my mouth. I tried to swallow, but it refused to go down. My mouth filled with saliva, and I started to gag.

Shit.

I set down the bowl and clamped a hand over my mouth. Suddenly, a bucket appeared before me. Thank you, Halla. 

I tugged the bucket into my lap, and out came the oats I'd just tried to eat and the contents of my stomach. My eyes watered when I was done. I took deep breaths. In through the nose, out through the mouth. 

I started slightly at the feeling of a hand on my forehead. Halla looked down at me, concern etched on her face. “You're not warm. Perhaps it was something you ate?”

“Maybe,” I asked, my throat sore. My stomach still churned.

This was new to me. Nerves had made me nauseous in the past, like before I took my driver's test or the first time I'd flown on a plane, but never had it actually made me physically sick before. Then again, I'd never been faced with the prospect of having to watch someone I cared about go through something I knew would hurt them, and I had to let it happen. 

A cup of water appeared in my peripheral vision. I set the bucket aside and started to take sips of water. “Thanks.”

Someone knocked on the door. Halla went to answer it as I slowly drank the water, willing my stomach to calm down.

“Morning, Halla,” said a familiar voice. Hiccup. 

And there went my stomach again. The water splashed as I hastily set down the cup, getting on me and the bench, and grabbed the bucket again just in time to throw up again. 

Gods, I hated throwing up. It had been years since I last threw up, and always forgot just how much it sucked. 

“...might be something she ate.”

Hiccup knelt beside me, looking concerned. His helmet was slightly crooked on his head. “My chic-”

I cut him off with a glare as I leaned over the bucket. Just the beginning of the word almost sent my stomach over the edge. “No mention of food, please.”

Hiccup cringed. “Right. Sorry.”

“You'd better get to the arena, lad. Don't want to be late,” said Halla, who was preparing a cup of what smelled like mint tea. Hopefully, that would help. 

I tried to give him an encouraging smile, but from the look on his face, I was fairly sure I failed. “I'll be there as soon as I can.”

He looked nervous at the reminder of what he was about to face, what he was about to try to do. He swallowed loudly. “Right. Feel better.”

He gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze as he stood up. Then he disappeared from my line of sight. I heard the door close behind me a moment later. Halla handed me the steaming cup a moment later, and I set aside the bucket. “Are you sure you're up to going, lass?”

I nodded, blowing on the cup before taking a sip. The warmth and the mint were soothing. “I want to be there to support him.”

It took a bit, but the tea did help my stomach calm down. I was still extremely nauseous, but at least I had stopped throwing up. 

I walked with Halla to the arena. She headed up to join the crowd around it, which was large since it seemed the entire village was in attendance, while I headed to the entrance of the arena. 

I arrived just as Gobber was ushering Hiccup into the arena. Hiccup glanced back when I stopped next to Astrid. He still looked extremely nervous and frightened of what he was about to face and try to do, but still managed to give me a small smile before Gobber closed the gate behind him. 

Gobber patted my shoulder before heading out to join the audience. This pen he would be opening from above, apparently. 

“You okay?” Astrid asked, her blue eyes looking me over. “You don't look so good.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Think it was just something I ate.”

Thankfully, she accepted the answer, as my stomach was starting to churn again. If she had kept talking, I'd probably end up sick again. 

Inside the arena, Hiccup grabbed a shield and a dagger. Hiccup faced the pen and squared himself. I saw his shoulders move as he took a deep breath before calling out, “I'm ready.”

Gobber hit the lever above the pen, and the bar over the door lifted away. The audience went silent, waiting for the dragon to do something. Any moment now…

BOOM!

I jumped when the doors to the pen were blasted open, covered in flames. The Nightmare emerged with a roar, also covered in flames. It darted to one wall of the arena and scurried across it before firing into the crowd around the arena. I could hear the gasps and yells as people dodged the flames. 

It wasn't until it had climbed up onto the chains over the arena, its flames extinguished, that it noticed Hiccup. Its eyes narrowed. Then it slowly dropped down before him, growling. Stalking its prey.

It took a step forward. Hiccup took a step back. Step forward. Step back.

The crowd went silent. Hiccup stopped moving and let the dragon get closer, waiting for the moment he would strike. Waiting for the moment he would kill the dragon and become one of them. A moment I knew would never come. 

The only dragon he would kill was - or would be, since it hadn't happened yet - the queen.

Hiccup dropped the shield and the dagger as he walked backward, which sent confused murmurs through the crowd. Hiccup extended his hand, and the Nightmare snarled. 

Then Hiccup reached up and slowly removed his helmet. He held it for a moment. “I'm not one of them.”

He tossed the helmet to the ground, hitting the stone with a clatter. That sent more gasps and murmurs through the crowd. 

I could see people turning to look at Stoick where he sat, Gobber on one side and Gothi on the other. 

“Stop the fight.”

I closed my eyes, not wanting to watch what was coming. I had thought the first days of training were bad. Watching him run from the Gronkle and Nadder. This…this was so much worse. 

“No. I need you all to see this. They're not what we think they are. We don't have to kill them.”

“I SAID STOP THE FIGHT!”

The sound of metal on metal as Stoick's hammer hit the metal of the arena roof. Jaws snapped. Hiccup yelped. The sound of boots on stone. A roar. Hiccup's scream. 

No music. Not epic in the slightest. Just terrifying.

I opened my eyes to see Astrid looking at me, confused, before her gaze went back to the ring. “Hiccup!”

Astrid pulled her axe from her back and used it to lift the gate just enough for her to squeeze under. I stepped back and leaned against the wall, the stone cold against my back. 

I couldn’t do anything. I had to stay back. Let it play out. And I hated it. Hated every second of it. My heart was in my throat. My stomach was in knots, threatening to empty again. 

“Hiccup!” Astrid managed to get a hammer from the weapons rack that was now scattered everywhere and hurled it at the Nightmare. The hammer hit the dragon on the head, and its attention turned to her.

The first gate was flung open. Stoick stormed past me and lifted the inner gate like it was nothing. Astrid's axe clattered to the ground, no longer supporting the weight of the gate. 

I'm not sure Stoick even processed that I was there. His focus was on the arena. On his son, who was running for his life across the arena while the Nightmares' attention was on Astrid. 

“This way!” Stoick yelled, waving them toward the now-open gate.

Astrid made it through the gate, but Hiccup didn't. I was forced to back away from the gate due to a blast of fire from the Nightmare that prevented Hiccup from reaching it. My legs were shaking so badly that I kept one hand on the wall. 

Come on, Toothless. 

Hiccup scrambled back, and the Nightmare pounced, pinning him to the ground. My blood went cold.

I glanced around the edge of the arena, searching for the Night Fury that would save him. But all I saw was the crowd. All I heard was the Nightmare taking a deep breath and the crowd screaming. 

Where was -

The screech of a Night Fury getting ready to fire reached my ears. The Nightmare paused at the sound. 

The sound of a dragon firing, and suddenly, the arena was filled with black smoke, blocking the fight between two dragons for a moment. But it didn't stop the sounds. Screeching. Claws against claws. Claws scraping against stone. Snapping jaws. 

Then the smoke dissipated to reveal Toothless on the back of the Nightmare, pulling it away from Hiccup. Hiccup, who sat stunned on the floor of the arena, watched the two dragons’ fight. 

Then Toothless was on his back, the Nightmare's teeth at his belly, but Toothless kicked the dragon away. Within seconds, he was back on his feet, placing himself between Hiccup and the Nightmare, snapping and snarling every time it came near.

The Nightmare backed off, scampering away from the Night Fury. And the Vikings around the arena started to descend into it to protect their chief's son from the Night Fury. From what they perceived as a threat. 

Some went after the Nightmare, herding it back toward the pens. Most headed for Toothless, who refused to leave Hiccup even as he desperately pushed at the dragon, trying to get him to leave. 

Then Stoick rushed past me, back into the arena, axe in hand. 

“Stoick, no!”

“Dad! No! He won't hurt you!”

I winced as Vikings went flying; Toothless swatted them away when they tried to jump him. 

“No, don't! You're only making it worse!”

I closed my eyes, turning my head away from what was happening in the arena. I didn't want to see. I covered my ears, trying to block out the sound, to no avail. 

“Toothless! Stop!”

The sound of Toothless getting ready to fire. Even with my eyes closed, I could still see it in my mind from the movie. The Night Fury building up gas to fire at Stoick beneath him. 

“No! NO!”

Hiccup begging him to stop. And Toothless listening, swallowing the gas, and looking at Hiccup with wide eyes before the Vikings jump on him. 

I could see it in my mind, memories of what had played out on screen, and hear it as it happened a dozen feet away from me.

“No! Please... just don't hurt him. Please don't hurt him.”

I opened my eyes and looked back toward the arena, surprised and yet not surprised at all that I had to blink away tears. Astrid was holding Hiccup back as Stoick got to his feet. A dozen Vikings were now on the Night Fury, who kept looking toward Hiccup and then—

My breath caught as his eyes focused on me. He looked at me. Not just Hiccup. Me. 

I winced, putting my hand to my mouth to stifle a sob. 

“I'm sorry, Toothless,” I whispered past the lump in my throat. “It'll be okay.”

My gaze was torn from the dragon as Stoick grabbed Hiccup's arm, pulling him away from Astrid, who winced when a man called her name.

Hiccup stumbled after him as Stoick pulled him toward the gate where I stood. The chief's face was stone. 

Hiccup stared at me, eyes rimmed with tears, as his father pulled him along. The closer they got, the more I could see the gears turning in Hiccup's mind as he looked at me. 

Then -

His eyes widened slightly as he was pulled past me. He stumbled again, but this time, it wasn't because of his father. It was because of me. He'd somehow figured out that I had known this would happen. Had stood by and let it happen. 

So many emotions played across his face. Confusion. Shock. Disbelief. Hurt. Betrayal. Anger. 

He kept turning his head to look at me as Stoick led him out of the arena, and I could see him mouth, “You knew.”

I flinched. My stomach churned. 

I stared after them, even after they were well out of sight, until a hand clamped down tightly on my arm. 

Halla pulled me out of the arena entrance and turned me to face her at the top of the ramp leading down to it. 

“How long?” Her brow furrowed in anger, and hair came loose from under her helmet after she had spent time in the arena with Toothless and the Nightmare. She didn't yell, but her voice was colder and harsher than I had ever heard.

I winced, glancing away from her as I wiped the tears from my cheek. “Since the night he shot him down.”

Halla scoffed, releasing my arm. “You should have come to me as soon as he'd told you so we could kill it -”

“Him. Toothless. Not it,” I said, cutting her off. I glared at her.

Her jaw stiffened, her hazel eyes hard. “So, you throw your lot in with him. With them,” she spat. Halla looked away from me, focusing on a point over my shoulder. “Mildew was right. We should have shipped you off when Hic—when he found you.”

I flinched. I knew she'd be angry, but that - then again, I was just a stranger. Had only been here a year. Viking adjacent. 

I stepped back, putting space between us. “I won't darken your doorstep again.” She still didn't look at me. I sniffed, taking another step away from her. "I—thank you. For everything.”

I turned away and walked toward the village. Stoick had taken Hiccup to the Hall. They'd argue. He'd disown him and Hiccup -

I wiped my eyes once I was across the bridge, well out of sight of Halla.

I reached the base of the stairs leading up to the Hall at the same time as Stoick. He stared at me, eyes hard. I pursed my lips, glanced away, and moved up the stairs past him, giving him a wide berth. 

I was only a few steps past him when his soft voice reached my ears. “Look after him?”

I stopped and turned to look back. He hadn't turned to face me, but his voice…

He regretted what he'd said. What he'd done. But he had a village to protect that depended on him. A moment of grief at the top of the stairs was all he could show. 

“I will,” I replied softly. 

Not that it was needed. If things continued as they should, they would make up. They would get the chance to fix things. 

He glanced back over his shoulder at me for a moment, then he squared his shoulders and marched away. I turned back and hurried up the steps to the Hall.

Chapter Text

The large doors of the Hall were ajar when I arrived, a result of Stoick's unsuccessful attempt to slam them behind him as he left Hiccup inside, creating just enough space for a person to squeeze through. The only light in the Hall came from the open door. It shone on the lone occupant, who lay on the floor where his father had left him. 

Hiccup blinked against the light as I entered, his breathing shaky as he stared at me. As I moved closer to him, he continued staring at the door. I'm not sure he even processed that I was there. Probably in shock that his father had just disowned him.

His eyes were red and shone brightly with unshed tears. There were tear tracks down his cheeks, cutting through the faint layer of grime on him from the arena. I knelt beside him and, after hesitating for a moment, not sure if he would welcome the comfort from me right now, I gently set my hand on his shoulder. 

He jumped slightly, his gaze snapping from the door to me. And then he just stared at me. 

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I'm so sorry, Hiccup.”

For what just happened with your father. For what happened in the arena. For everything I had let happen. For everything I had hidden. 

He just continued to stare for a moment, and then his eyes went hard, and his jaw clenched, reminding me of how his father had looked minutes ago. He shrugged off my hand and pushed himself to his feet. 

“Hiccup,” I said, my voice cracking. He shook his head and stalked out the door. I pushed myself to my feet and rushed after him.

I followed him down the stairs and through the village, occasionally calling his name. Every time I said his name, he just ignored me and kept on walking. 

I could hear Gobber working on the apparatus to hold Toothless as we passed the forge. The villagers returning from the arena and preparing the ships either glared or turned away as we walked past. 

Exiles. Both of us. 

Not that I had ever been one of them. Only adjacent, after all. Any goodwill I had gained over the last year, after helping Mildew's sheep and Mrs. Larson with her baby, was gone. Though the glares were harsher than they had ever been before.

Hiccup didn’t stop until we reached the top of the ramps that led down to the docks. I knew this spot. It was where he'd stand for who knows how long, watching the fleet prepare to leave for the nest, guided there by Toothless after he'd let it slip to his father that only a dragon could find the nest. 

“Hiccup!”

“What?” he snapped. I stopped short of running into him when he finally whirled around to face me, his expression shifting between anger and hurt. “Want to lie to me again? Gods, I'm so stupid.” 

I flinched and stumbled back a step. Halla had stung. This…this was like a punch in the gut.

Hiccup ran a hand through his hair, pacing in front of me. ”All the signs, the things that never made sense. I brushed them off, thinking I was just imagining things - overthinking it. But I wasn't, was I? How you knew about the Nadder spikes. Snotlout's name before you ever spoke to him. You - you fought down a smile the first time you heard a Night Fury, despite never having seen a dragon before. Your face when I first came up with the Mangler, like you recognized it. Gods, you weren't even surprised when I told you about Toothless or - or when I made the saddle.”

Holy shit. He'd remembered every misstep I'd made since the day we met. Everything I had thought I had hidden had done my best to fake an honest reaction to, he had seen right through. 

“And then today -” His voice cracked. Hiccup shook his head, then glared at me. “That's why you were sick this morning. You somehow knew this would happen. How? Who are you, really?”

Shit. I knew he was smart, but I had definitely underestimated just how smart he was. To keep track of all those little slips and put the pieces together. 

I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face. “Okay, I'm going to need you to bear with me because this is going to sound batshit crazy. Absolutely insane. I've lived it, and part of me still can't believe it. But I swear, I'm telling you the truth.”

“And why should I believe anything you have to say? You lied to me for over a year!” 

I flinched. Yeah, I deserved that one. “And I hated every second of it.” I blinked rapidly, pursing my lips. What to swear on that he'd take seriously. That he'd know wasn't a lie. “I swear on the dagger you made me that's now at the bottom of the cove, that what I'm about to tell you is true. No matter how insane it sounds.”

Hiccup looked skeptical and still looked angry, but didn't protest or go back to ignoring me. He was giving me a chance, and I was not going to waste it.

“So, my full name is Kendra Diana Burr. My parents are Richard and Charlotte Burr. I was eighteen when you found me, two weeks after my birthday. I really do come from a town called Arrowhead, but saying it's far away is putting it mildly. Um.” I crossed my arms, tapping my chin with my fingers. How do I explain this? “West is that way, right?”

I pointed out of the harbor in the direction of the nest. Hiccup still looked skeptical but nodded slowly. “Yeah?”

“It's way, way, waaaay far to the west. Like, on a continent I'm not entirely sure has even been discovered yet, far. I know Vikings visited at some point, but I don't remember when that was. That and I'm not entirely sure what the year would be right now on a modern calendar. But I do remember from school that the time of the Vikings ended around the year 1000. I was born in 1993, and when I was last in Arrowhead, it was in the fall of 2011.”

Hiccup's eyebrows were high on his forehead. He was no longer just skeptical. He thought I'd completely lost it. “Okay, you're right. You do sound crazy.”

“I swear I'm telling the truth,” I pleaded. 

“You just told me you're from the future!”

I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. This was going horribly, and I was just getting started. How—I gasped, dropping my hand from my face. “Gothi. She can vouch for me.”

“Gothi? How can she -” He stopped, and I could see his brain working for a moment before his eyes widened. “Her voice. She lost her voice because she saw something.”

I nodded. “She saw where I'm from.”

“You mean when you're from?” he said slowly. “This is all just…what, history for you?”

Oh, thank goodness. He no longer thought I was nuts. Gothi was the unexpected ace up my sleeve. Trusted and respected by the entire village.

“It's a little more complicated than just traveling through time,” I said after a moment, playing with a loose string on the sleeve of my tunic. I wish it were as simple as it was for the character in that one book series my mom loved so much that featured time travel. That was just time travel. This was something else entirely. Worlds? Dimensions?

And the skeptical look was back on his face. “Then uncomplicate it.”

And the anger was back, too. Yay. Gods, I hated this.

I held up my arms, gesturing to everything around us. “This. Berk. Everyone here. You. Toothless. Astrid. Your dad. Gobber. Snotlout and the twins. Fishlegs. It’s all a story. A work of fiction. Dragons don't exist at all where I'm from. They're fictional creatures, and in this story, you are the main character.”

Shock replaced his skepticism, causing his jaw to drop open slightly. "What—me?"

I nodded. “Well, you and Toothless. It's the story of your friendship. It started the night you shot him down. And we're now approaching the end.”

He still looked skeptical, but I could see his mind working through it. Connecting the pieces. 

“If it helps, Gothi saw that part too. The how?” I shrugged, shaking my head. “No idea. She mentioned magic or gods when I first got here, and considering this should be impossible…"

He was quiet for a long while, deep in thought. Below, I could hear shouts and the sounds of the ships being loaded for the journey to the nest. 

“That…actually explains a lot,” he said, finally breaking the silence. He shook his head. “It sounds crazy, but it weirdly makes sense. It also explains how you could understand Norse, but not read it. How you seemed to recognize me and the others before we met. Your aversion to the bathhouse during the winter—"

“We agreed never to speak of that again,” I said, cutting him off. He gave me a scathing look. “Right. Shutting up.”

He shook his head. “It also explains how you recognized weapons, but had no clue how to handle them. I can't lift them, but I know how to handle them properly,” he continued, running a hand through his hair as he paced in front of me. “I also heard about your confusion about Halla’s outhouse when she told my dad about it. Then your comment about how you couldn't see the stars where you're from.”

“The term is light pollution,” I explained. This time, he didn't glare at me for interrupting him. I took that as a win. “There are so many people and cities that are so close together and merge into this massive space filled with light that it blocks out the light of the stars. Even where Arrowhead is in the mountains above the city.”

The skepticism was starting to vanish, and curiosity was creeping into his expression. “How many people?”

“Several million, I think,” I replied with a slight shrug. 

He looked stunned and stopped his pacing. “Million?”

I huffed a laugh, nodding. “Yeah.”

The tension, the strain between us, disappeared for a moment as we stood there smiling at each other. Like we had a thousand times before. But it didn't last. After a few minutes, his smile faded as if something seemed to occur to him. He turned away to look out over the fleet of ships.

He was quiet for a while, and I said nothing. Let him take the time to think. I didn't want to rush him as he processed what I was telling him. The fact that he was listening to me at all was a relief. 

“Is that why you became my friend?” he asked in a whisper. “Because you already knew who I was? Because I'm just a character in a story?”

Shit.

“No! No, no, no.” I shook my head and gently took his hands in mine. He turned to face me, but didn't look up. “You stopped being just a character to me within five seconds of meeting you. I knew who you were, who you would become, that you needed a friend, well before you ever met Toothless, but within five minutes of talking to you when we ran into each other on the way to Phlegma's, you were so much more than that.”

I pulled one hand away from his and gently tapped his chin, forcing him to look up at me. My heart ached. His self-doubt was clearly back, tenfold. “The story showed you as smart, kind, and compassionate, but you are so much more than that. Honestly, it didn't show how smart you actually are. You are brilliant. A genius, really. I'm constantly blown away by just how smart you are. And you are kind and compassionate, but also creative and thoughtful, loyal, and determined. You never gave up. Always working on some invention. You are sarcastic as hell, using it as a shield, and stubborn. So stubborn! You are more like your father than you know.”

He looked like he wanted to protest that, but I shook my head as I dropped my hand from his chin. “It's true! The look you gave me in the hall.” I let out a watery laugh. “It was almost identical to the look your dad gave me at the bottom of the stairs when I ran into him.”

Hiccup let out a wet laugh, blinking rapidly as he glanced away. But he looked back a moment later, a small smile on his face.

“And like I told Astrid last night, you are my best friend. I might have known who you were before I met you, but who you are is the reason you're my best friend.”

We just looked at each other for a moment. Hiccup opened his mouth to say something, but a muffled roar cut him off. The sound of a dragon struggling. 

I released his hands, and we both moved closer to the edge as a cart was pushed down onto the docks below us, coming from the direction of the arena. A cart with a restrained and muzzled black dragon, desperately trying to pull free. 

I couldn't see exactly what they were doing when they reached the docks, not from this distance or with all the people moving around him, but moments later, Toothless was lifted into the air and slowly set down on the lead ship next to a large figure with bright red hair. A figure who, moments later, looked up toward where we stood. 

If they were able to see each other clearly despite the distance between them, I had no idea. Insanely good eyesight, maybe? But father and son seemed to stare at each other for a moment as the ships began to move out of the harbor, the ship with Stoick and Toothless in the lead.

Hiccup said nothing as all the ships slowly made their way out of the harbor. There had to be around twenty ships in total. People who had lined up on the docks below us, mostly just the elderly and children, since this was clearly an all-hands-on-deck trip, slowly began to disappear and returned to the village. 

“I believe you,” Hiccup said quietly, finally breaking the silence as the last ship pulled out of the harbor. He looked over at me. “But if you knew what would happen, why didn't you stop it?”

I shook my head. “I can't.”

He frowned. “Can't? Or won't? Gothi, I understand. She's got the gods to answer to. But you? You could have changed it. Could have kept this from happening. So why didn't you?”

“Fine. I won't change things,” I replied. “I thought about it. While you went searching for Toothless after shooting him down, I went to Gothi's to figure out what to do. Basically, ranted at her for a bit before she shoved tea into my hands. But I realized there that I can't take the risk of changing things.”

“What risk?” And the anger was starting to return. Great. Two steps forward, one step back. 

“You. I refuse to risk you. Yes, maybe I could have changed things for the better. Maybe they wouldn't be sailing for the nest right now. But what if I changed things and instead…maybe Toothless didn't make it to the arena in time this morning and you—" My voice cracked. I closed my eyes and shook my head. I still couldn't say it. He was looking out at the ships approaching the horizon when I opened my eyes. “I'm sorry, but I refuse to risk your life. Please don't ask me to.”

His hands twitched at his sides, but he didn't look at me. He just kept his eyes on the disappearing ships. Right. Back to ignoring me. 

After standing beside him for a while, the ships now well out of sight, I realized he wasn't going to say anything else to me. I slowly backed away from him and turned to leave. Astrid stood maybe ten feet away, watching us. 

As I approached her, I realized her focus was less on Hiccup and more on me. I pursed my lips, crossing my arms as I stopped next to her. “How much did you hear?”

“Most of it,” she replied. She bit her lip, looking almost nervous but also curious. “Are you really…”

I nodded, huffing a laugh as she trailed off. “Yeah, I am.” 

I glanced back at Hiccup, who seemed oblivious to our conversation, though I wouldn't be surprised if he was listening and just choosing to ignore me. “He needs to hear from you right now more than he needs to hear from me. And probably from here on out, too. Not that I blame him.”

I gave her a pained smile, patted her on the shoulder, and walked away. I didn't look back. I couldn’t. He'd lost his father, tribe, and best friend, but would get them back when this was all over. I'd lost the home I'd made in the last year and my best friend, and unlike Hiccup, I was pretty sure I would not be getting them back.

Chapter Text

I knew I wanted to get to the arena to go with the teens to the nest, but first, I wanted to gather some supplies from Halla’s. I assumed she'd most likely gone with the fleet, but if she was home…I'd figure that out later if it happened.

But I wanted to have some healing supplies on hand to replace those that would be lost on the ships when the queen set them on fire. They would be needed by anyone injured, but also by Hiccup when he lost his leg.

Whether he wanted me there or not, I wanted to be there. I had to make sure he'd be okay. That he lived. And after? When he was on his feet again? Maybe see if Gothi could figure out a way to send me back, or if she couldn't, maybe catch a ship off of Berk.

But that was a problem for later. Now, I needed supplies for those who were going to be injured at the nest. That, and Halla was probably going to need all the help she could get. And if she wouldn't accept my help, at least she'd have fresh supplies.

The village was basically a ghost town now that the fleet had left, taking every person able to lift a weapon with them. Thankfully, Halla was not home, but there was someone there.

“Gothi,” I said, stopping in the doorway of Halla’s.

The elder paused what she was doing, smiled at me, then gently placed the jar she was holding into a large basket. She waved me over. I closed the door behind me and crossed the room.

“What are you -” She gestured for me to look in the basket. The supplies I had intended to grab, along with some food. A few cooked fish. Some rolls. My stomach was still a mess of knots, but I knew I needed food. I'd thrown up everything I tried to eat that morning.

I looked at her as she closed the basket. “You knew I'd come here. How?”

Gothi just gave me a knowing smile before pushing the basket toward me. I picked it up and slung the strap over my shoulder. “Thank you.”

She just poked me with her staff and waved for me to get a move on. I gave her a small smile and did just that. “Okay, okay, I'm going.”

The arena was more of a ghost town than the village. The pens were still closed, so I knew I hadn’t missed the others, but there was no one around. The hole that Toothless had made in the roof was still there, and both gates at the entrance had been left open in their haste to leave for the nest. Crates of supplies that they must have used to secure him were left next to the walls.

I pulled the basket off my shoulder and set it down just inside the entrance, opening it up to pull out a roll. The movie wasn't super obvious about how much time passed between the fleet leaving and Hiccup coming here. It made it seem like a few hours, but it could even be the following day. It was already late afternoon. Did the teens fly overnight to get there in time? Guess I'd find out.

Hopefully.

The pens were quiet as I walked past them, except for one. The one that held the Terrible Terror. I could hear it scratching at the door, chirping.

I stopped in front of it. I knew Hiccup would let out the others, as they'd be ridden to the nest, but what about the Terror? Knowing him, Hiccup would probably let it out too, and it just disappeared from the scene since it wasn't exactly the type that could be ridden.

No harm would come from me opening it now. I hoped.

Popping the last of the roll into my mouth, I went over to the lever for the pen holding the Terror and pushed it down. The door unlocked, but did not open. Maybe the dragon was hungry? There were a couple of fish in the basket.

That made me wonder how often these guys were fed. They were probably being fed the bare minimum to keep them alive for training, but not enough to be at their normal strength, poor things.

It was as I was opening the basket that I heard the door of the pen open and close behind me. If it wanted to leave, it could, what with the gates being open and the gaping hole in the roof. But when I turned around, it was carefully approaching me. Probably could smell the fish in my hand.

“Here you go.” I tossed the Terror half the fish and then sat down next to the basket.

The Terror gobbled the fish down in seconds. I had been planning to eat the other half, but tossed it toward the Terror when it looked at me for more. “When was the last time you guys were fed?”

No answer, of course. The Terror just blinked its big yellow eyes.

“I can't give it all to you. I need to make sure these supplies last.”

It just stared at me for a moment, tilting its head as it waited for more food. After a few minutes, it finally seemed to realize more food wasn't coming, but instead of leaving like I expected, it slowly walked over to me.

I held out my hand, letting the Terror sniff it. After giving it the once over, it nudged its head against my fingers. I smiled, giving it a scratch under the chin. The Terror closed its eyes and started purring, pressing into my hand.

Scaled, fire-breathing cats.

I glanced over the dragon. No injuries that I could see, though it had a number of scars. How long had this Terror been used for training? And was it a boy or a girl? How did you figure that out when it came to dragons? They were like reptiles, but even reptiles weren't one size fits all when figuring that out. Some you could tell from glands, others from tail size. Others even needed testing to figure it out. So where did dragons fall in that category? Was it the same across the species, or different depending on the type? And how did you figure out their age?

For a people dedicated to knowing and hunting dragons, they really did not know much about them.

I ran a hand down the Terror's spine, making it arch up into my hand, and a name popped into my mind that just seemed to fit. “I'm going to call you Charlie.”

“Charlie?”

I gasped, looking up to see Hiccup. He leaned against the basket of supplies from Gothi, looking between me and the Terror. In his hand was his flying harness.

He seemed somewhat amused by the name I'd given the Terror. Well, guess he was done ignoring me. But how upset was he still?

I swallowed, focusing again on the Terror that was eating up the scratches it was getting from me. “My mom. Charlotte. Her friends call her Charlie. Dad calls her Lottie. Only one that does.”

“What's she like?” he asked, surprising me when he walked around the basket and sat down next to me like it was any other day. Like this morning hadn't happened. Though our shoulders weren't pressed together like they had been before. Instead, he left a few inches between us, like back when we first met. Not angry then, but definitely hesitant.

“Extremely outgoing and friendly. Hardworking. She started at the bottom at a," I paused. How the hell do I explain a coffee shop? “Uh, I guess you could call it a specialty drink shop? There's nothing here really to compare it to. But she worked hard over the years, and now she oversees the people there.”

“So, like an apprentice becoming a master?” he asked. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. He looked curious.

“That…yeah, that's actually a good comparison for it,” I said, giving him a small smile.

To my relief, Hiccup returned the smile. “And your dad?”

“Construction. He inspects buildings as they are being built to ensure that they are following the laws and rules we have,” I answered.

“There are laws and rules for building things?”  he asked, his head tilted slightly to the side.

I huffed a laugh, nodding. “The ones for building are for safety reasons, because there have been…well, accidents from people cutting corners when building things. But there are…a lot of rules and laws about so many different things.”

“Like the drinking age that you mentioned at Snoggletog.”

Of course, he remembered that. I nodded. “Yeah, where I'm from, the legal age to drink is 21.”

Hiccup looked stunned. “21? Is that an Arrowhead rule or?”

“No, not just an Arrowhead rule,” I said, shaking my head. “It's…you know what a country is, right?”

He gave a slight shrug. “Of course.”

“Arrowhead is one tiny little town in a large country across the ocean from here, on a continent that I'm not sure anyone has even discovered yet. The population is in the billions, I think.”

Hiccup's jaw dropped open slightly, and his eyebrows shot up. “Billions? And where you're from has a few million?”

I laughed. “Yeah. It's a big country.”

We just smiled at each other for a moment, the tension still there but…muted, and I was struck by how nice it was to talk to him like this. No more hiding or half-truths. It was like it had been the other day, but without the lies. It was…refreshing. Freeing. A relief and a weight off my shoulders at not having to lie to him anymore.

The Terror squawked, and I realized I had stopped scratching its chin. I rolled my eyes and started scratching again. “Oh, so sorry I stopped, you scaled cat.”

Hiccup laughed, but it faded quickly. He just sat watching me. Not angry, but cautious. Like a skittish animal testing the ground to make sure it was safe, so that he wouldn't end up hurt again.

“I'm sorry, Hiccup,” I said quietly after a moment, though I made sure to keep scratching the dragon lest it get upset with me again. “I'd planned on telling you after everything was over, hoping you wouldn't hate me for it.”

“Hate you? No,” he said, shaking his head. “Upset with you? Most definitely. But Astrid reminded me of something. I lost one best friend this morning, but I don't have to lose the other.”

He said that now, but there was more to come yet for him to get mad at me over, and I wouldn't blame him in the slightest if he did end up hating me. I sighed. “It's not over yet. You could still hate me once it's all said and done.”

“I could never hate you.” Hiccup shook his head, grabbed something from his belt, and held it out to me.

With the hand closest to him occupied, scratching a dragon, I reached over with my free hand and took it from him. My mouth dropped open slightly as I looked down at a new dagger.

I looked back up at him. “When-”

“The other night. I finished it just before my dad showed up,” he replied, cutting me off. “I haven't had the chance to add the flaming sheep yet, so I'll need it back to finish later. But I figured you'd need it for what you know is coming.”

I gaped at him, and he just sat there watching me with a small, lopsided grin. He could have thrown it out or kept it for himself, but instead, he was still giving it to me. He was still cautious, and I couldn’t blame him, but maybe I hadn’t lost everything.

Maybe…maybe there was still a chance that I'd come out the other side of this with my best friend.

The Terror squawked again since I'd stopped rubbing it to stare at Hiccup. But this time it gave a disgruntled huff, opened its wings, and flew out of the arena. Yup, so like cats. Didn't get what it wanted, so it left.

I looked back at Hiccup to see that his gaze was now focused on the pen containing the Nightmare. I pushed myself to my feet, slipping the dagger into the sheath that I never took off. The new one slid in perfectly, a perfect match to the one I'd tossed away to gain Toothless’ trust.

I offered my hand to Hiccup. “Trust your instincts, and you'll be fine.”

Hiccup looked at me for a moment, eyes flickering between my hand and my face, before taking my hand. I pulled him to his feet.

He took a shaky breath and then let it out, releasing my hand. “My instincts are what started this mess.”

I looked between him and the pen for the Nightmare. “Trust them.”

“Still not telling me what to expect?” he said, a hint of bitterness in his tone. He may not hate me, at least not yet, but he was definitely not thrilled with the choice I'd made. He looked away. “I-”

“No, I don't blame you at all for being upset,” I said, shaking my head. “And I know you might not want me there, but I want to go with you. That and even if she doesn't want it, Halla -”

“That's what's in the basket, isn’t it?” he asked, cutting me off. “Supplies for the wounded.”

I nodded. “There's some food in there, too, if you're hungry. Gothi put in some rolls and a few cooked fish.”

Hiccup scoffed lightly. “Of course she did.”

“She was pretty much done with it when I walked in Halla’s door. Then, when she was done, she chased me out the door with her staff.”

“Yeah, that sounds like her,” he said with a light laugh that quickly faded. His expression turned grim. “This isn't going to be pretty, is it?”

“You've seen the queen. You already know the answer to that,” I replied with a shrug.

He blew out a breath and looked back at the pen that held the Nightmare. “I know.”

I glanced between him and the pen. “Want me to go get the levers for you?”

He didn't look at me, but he nodded. I could hear and see him swallow. Nerves. Fear. I could see them both in the way he stared at the pen.

I couldn’t tell him that it would work. I couldn’t tell him that we'd make it in time. This had to be him, his choice. Not just to make sure things played out correctly, to make sure he'd live, but he needed to make that choice on his own, or he'd always be doubting himself.

I wanted to give his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but with the tension still between us, I was unsure it would be welcomed. I didn't want to break this tentative peace between us. So, I turned and walked out of the arena without a word.

It was as I was walking around the arena to get to the lever for the pen that I heard the other teens enter the arena. Hiccup was so focused on the pen and the Nightmare that had tried to kill him just hours ago, that he didn't know they were there until they were right behind him.

I heard Fishlegs say something, but couldn't make out what. Hiccup whirled around, looking surprised to see them all standing there, led by a smiling Astrid.

Tuffnut shoved Fishlegs out of the way to say something to Hiccup that I couldn’t hear as I reached the lever. Snotlout then shoved him out of the way. Hiccup just looked startled and confused.

Then Ruffnut pushed him out of the way and got right in Hiccup's face, who now looked completely baffled. Astrid pulled Ruffnut away from Hiccup and put a hand on her hip. Whatever she said made Hiccup smile.

Hiccup replied to her, which I couldn’t hear, then turned to where I was by the lever.

“Ready?” I called down to him.

He squared his shoulders and nodded. “Ready.”

I pulled the lever, and the lock on the pen lifted away. The Nightmare didn't come bursting out like it had that morning, but Hiccup was still cautious as he left the other teens behind and moved to open the doors to the pen. Still, the Nightmare did not emerge, so in Hiccup went.

I left the lever behind and jogged back to the entrance of the arena. As Hiccup slowly backed out of the pen, hand outstretched to the nose of Nightmare that followed him like a puppy, I quietly went and released the levers for the other pens.

I finished with the Gronkle and turned to see Hiccup placing Snotlout's hand on the Nightmare's nose. I huffed a laugh at the fact that I could hear the dragon purring from where I stood.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the pen holding the Nadder slowly moving open. The bright blue dragon peeked out and then paused, almost like it was watching events unfold like I was. Glancing over, I could see the other two pens slowly opening as well. They were all cautious, but curious.

Snotlout looked amazed, but then looked nervous as Hiccup moved away from him. “W-where are you going?”

“You're going to need something to help you hold on.” Hiccup walked over to a crate and pulled out some rope.

It was then that the dragons made known that they had quietly exited their pens while the other teens had been focused on the Nightmare. Though from the smile on Hiccup's face, he'd noticed them coming out when I had.

“Just…let them come to you,” Hiccup instructed as he returned to Snotlout and the Nightmare, which was still purring away.

The other four teens stood still, eyeing the dragons warily as they approached. The dragons approached them cautiously, just as wary of the teens as the teens were of them.

The Nadder approached Astrid, who watched it with wide eyes, and it tilted its head to give her a good once-over. Then, after a long sniff, it gently nudged her shoulder with its nose, making her laugh.

Similar moments happened with the Gronkle and Fishlegs, and the twins with the Zippleback. As I was watching them, movement from the corner of my eye drew my attention back to Hiccup, who was at the crate again, pulling out more rope.

Right. That was something I could help with. As the teens got acquainted with the dragons, I went to one of the other crates left behind, and thankfully, it held a couple of coils of rope. Though we'd need two more. Two heads on the Zippleback, after all.

I jogged over to Hiccup, who was now helping Fishlegs, and handed him the rope. “We still need two more, but there's a crate I haven't checked yet.”

I jogged off to said crate before he could say a word. It took some digging, but down at the bottom, two more were coiled and waiting to be used. I pulled them out and turned around to get them to Hiccup, who was done with Fishlegs and was now helping the twins.

He'd just helped Ruffnut up onto a head, the dragon lowering its head to help, understanding what they wanted to do, and gave Hiccup one of the ropes.

I held up the last rope, turning away from him. “I'll get this to Astrid.”

“Kendra.”

I stopped walking and turned to face him. He had a small smile on his face. “Thanks.”

“It's the least I can do.” I started to turn away and then stopped. “And you will eat a roll before we take off.”

For a second, I was scared I'd broken the unspoken truce between us, then Hiccup rolled his eyes, a small smile on his face. “Yeah, fine.”

“Ooh, can I get one, too?” asked Tuffnut.

“Yeah! What about us?” Ruffnut added, putting her hands on her hips. Then she wobbled, and her hands quickly returned to the two spikes coming out of the top of the Zippleback's head.

I laughed, feeling a weight lifting off my chest. Good thing Gothi had packed enough rolls for several people. Though since she'd known I'd go to Halla’s, maybe she'd seen this too.

The sun was starting to set when we finally took off for the nest. Everyone had gotten a roll, and I'd given the fish that had been in the basket to the dragons, which they all gobbled up like the Terror had.

I had the basket on my back and found myself seated behind Astrid, who was behind Hiccup. His reasoning had been not wanting to put someone behind someone who had never flown before, which made sense. Let them focus on actually staying on the dragon, instead of also worrying about someone behind them.

The screaming that had come for them when we took off from the arena just reinforced that decision.

“So, you two should probably know that they know about everything,” Astrid said as Berk faded into the distance behind us, the torches just tiny pinpricks against the darkening sky.

I blinked, my stomach dropping, and not because of the flying. Everything as in Toothless, or did she mean everything as in where I came from and what I knew?

I could see Hiccup go still in front of her. He glanced over his shoulder at her, but I saw his eyes flicker toward me for a second. “Uh, what do you mean by everything?”

“I, uh, might have overheard the argument you two had at the docks,” Fishlegs confessed, glancing over at us from the Gronkle and looking extremely embarrassed.

“Fishlegs!”

Oh, crap. Wait. “And how did you overhearing us turn into them-” I gestured at the twins and Snotlout “-also knowing?”

Fishlegs flushed and went to rub the back of his neck, but his hand quickly returned to the rope as the Gronkle shifted beneath him. “I, uh…”

“He squealed like a boar when you poke it with a stick,” Snotlout said, cutting him off. I glared over at him. I could see Hiccup was also glaring at him from the corner of my eye.

Snotlout started to raise his hands, but started to slide a little, and they quickly went back, making sure he stayed on the dragon. “Hey, if you wanted a private conversation, you should have had it somewhere else.”

Hiccup and I glanced at each other. He, unfortunately, wasn't exactly wrong on that one, and we both knew it. I'd told Hiccup everything in a place where anyone could overhear us. Shoot, I had known Astrid had because she hadn't hidden that she'd been there. But apparently Fishlegs had. No, the problem was he'd told the other teens.

I'd planned on Hiccup someday, knowing the truth. All of them? Not so much. I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“I'm sorry,” I heard Fishlegs say after a moment.

I dropped my hand and opened my eyes to see both Hiccup and Astrid looking back at me. I shrugged. “What's done is done.”

Astrid turned away first, but Hiccup had watched me for a moment longer before turning back around to guide the Nadder.

It was quiet for a while after that.

“Can you tell us something about it?” Fishlegs asked, breaking the silence after we'd been flying for well over an hour. Maybe even two, I wasn't sure. The last rays of the sun were long gone, and now I could only somewhat make out Fishlegs and the others from the light of the moon.

Talking was probably a good idea. My eyes had been starting to droop since I had barely slept the night prior, and I did not need to fall off the Nadder because I fell asleep. From the way Astrid quickly straightened, I had a feeling she had been fighting to stay awake, too.

“Ummm…” What to tell them. I glanced up at the moon and smiled. “We've put people on the moon.”

“What?!”

“The moon?”

“How?”

Yup, everyone was definitely awake now.

Chapter Text

We ended up talking for hours, with them asking random questions about where I'd come from. Where I'd come from. Not home. That was a startling realization. 

At one time, when I first got here, I had thought of it as home. But after a year in Berk? Somewhere along the way, I'd stopped thinking of Arrowhead as home. And I wasn't sure when exactly it happened. 

And before the last few days, it had been months since I'd thought of my parents. A year in another world, and somewhere during that time, they'd just been pushed from my mind. What kind of daughter did that make me?

“Okay, okay. I got a good one,” Tuffnut said, startling me out of my thoughts. The sky was starting to lighten around us. I was able to see the others on their dragons easily again without squinting. “Is the world flat or round?”

“Oh, come on!”

“Seriously?”

“What a stupid question.”

“Tuff, everyone knows the world is - wait, Kendra, why are you making that face?” Hiccup asked, glancing back at me with a slight frown. Then his jaw dropped open slightly. “Really?”

I had one hand on Astrid's shoulder to keep steady, but the other covered my mouth as I tried not to burst out laughing. 

Astrid glanced over her shoulder at me, looking stunned. “Wait, he's right?”

“It is round! Ha! I knew it!” Tuffnut exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air. After hours of flying, the others were definitely more comfortable on dragons now. “Pay up, Ruff.”

“Wait, you took bets on my answer to-” 

I was cut off by a distant thundering roar reaching our ears. Everyone went quiet, and humor faded away. The Gronkle let out a whine. 

I glanced down to see we were now over the mist around the nest. So busy talking, I hadn’t realized we'd reached the wall of mist that hid the nest from the world, that had kept it from being found by Vikings for around three hundred years.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was it. 

Hiccup gripped the rope in both hands. Astrid returned both hands to his waist, and I put mine on her waist. I did not need to fall off because I wasn't hanging on. 

I saw Hiccup's shoulders lift as he took a deep breath and let it out. “Okay. Everyone on me.”

Another roar split the air, so loud I could feel it in my bones, and soon we were able to hear the screams. From the dark clouds around us emerged the huge silhouette of the volcano the queen called home. This side of the island was quiet. Everything was happening on the other side of the island. 

We flew around the volcano just in time to see the queen rearing up to breathe fire down below her. My blood ran cold. She seemed so much bigger in real life. Teal scales riddled with scars. Red spines along her back and sides. Clubbed tail. A massive horn on her nose that had been broken off, leaving a stump. What could have done such damage to such a massive dragon?

Hiccup removed one hand from the rope and placed it on the Nadder's head. “Now!”

The Nadder understood exactly what he wanted and fired at the back of the queen's head, making her pause. As her head turned in our direction, the Nadder, followed by the others, went through the smoke from the blast that had distracted her. 

“Ruff, Tuff, watch your backs!” Hiccup glanced back behind us. “Move Fishlegs!”

I glanced back. Sure enough, the Gronkle lagged behind a little, but perked up at Hiccup's instruction, moving beyond the range of the queen as she snapped at it. Shit. The dragons we were on were basically gnats to the queen. An annoyance to be swatted out of the sky. 

“Look at us, we're on a dragon! We're on dragons, all of us!” Tuffnut looked so excited, even though we were facing such a massive dragon.

I glanced down to see two Vikings staring up at us in shock, a small crowd approaching them from behind instead of running now that the queen was distracted. Stoick and Gobber. Spitelout. Halla. Two Vikings that I recognized were Astrid's parents. Fishleg's mom. Two people who had to be the twins' parents. They were okay. We had made it in time. 

After looping over the gathering Vikings, Hiccup angled the Nadder up, further out of range of the queen. “Up, let's move it!”

I had to smile. So much like his dad. 

Hiccup guided the Nadder, the others following, until we were circling above the queen, out of her range of her teeth. Now that we were out to snapping range, she turned her attention to the few leftover ships that weren't on fire were apparently the perfect chew toys. 

“Fishlegs, break it down.”

Fishlegs looked down at the queen, studying her as we circled. She turned another ship into toothpicks as we watched. “Okay. Heavily armored skull and tail made for bashing and crushing. Steer clear of both. Small eyes, large nostrils. Relies on hearing and smell.”

Small eyes, yes, but a lot of them. The thing had six eyes. 

Hiccup glanced down at the queen, then looked over at Snotlout and the twins. “Okay. Lout, Legs, hang in its blind spot. Make some noise, keep it confused. Ruff, Tuff, find out if it has a shot limit. Make it mad.”

Of course, that made Ruffnut grin. “That's my specialty.”

“Since when? Everyone knows I'm more irritating. See.” Tuffnut guided the head he was seated on to turn upside down. From the look on the face of the Zippleback, Tuffnut was succeeding in irritating one dragon already. 

I couldn’t see his face, but I knew Hiccup was probably rolling his eyes. “Just do what I told you. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

They headed off to piss off the queen, and Hiccup turned the Nadder toward the burning ships along the shore. 

The air above the ships was filled with smoke and the smell of meat that I knew wasn't the supplies left on the ships. How many had she hurt? How many wouldn't be returning home? The thought made my stomach churn, but I pursed my lips. I couldn’t get sick. Not here, not now. 

With so many ships burning and the air thick with smoke, trying to see which one held Toothless was not easy. We flew low over them for a few minutes before the whine of a dragon below us reached my ears. Hiccup turned the Nadder, and there was Toothless, struggling to get free on a burning ship we had just flown over.

Hiccup brought the Nadder down closer to the ship and then slid off the Nadder. 

“Go help the others!” Hiccup called up to us. Astrid nodded, shuffling forward to reach the rope. I followed after her, but looked down at Hiccup. 

Toothless still looked frightened, but also relieved to see Hiccup. I gave Hiccup a nod as the Nadder started to move away from the ship. 

You got this. You'll be okay. You have to be okay. 

He nodded back before turning to Toothless. Then the ship was disappearing into the smoke behind us as the Nadder flew back toward the queen. 

By the time we were circling the head of the queen, Fishlegs and the Gronkle were already down on the ground, and Snotlout was on the queen. There was no sign of the Nightmare. 

“How did he end up there?” Astrid asked, glancing over her shoulder at me.

“They made noise. It didn't work on the queen, but-”

“It worked on the dragons they were on,” she said, cutting me off. “He's improvising, but it's working.”

Snotlout's distraction was definitely working as he kept going back and forth between two of her many eyes with a hammer. The massive eye would flinch as it was hit and made her roar in rage. But it gave Fishlegs an opportunity to get clear of her massive claws on the ground. 

Now where were - I groaned. “When are those two not fighting?”

“You ever find out, be sure to let me know,” Astrid said as we flew alongside the queen's head. She grinned at Snotlout, who hit the queen's eye again. “Yeah! You're the Viking!”

Snotlout grinned, basking in her praise. But the grin didn't last long as the queen shifted, nearly throwing him off before he caught himself on one of her spines. 

The Nadder backed away as the queen turned. Her clubbed tail crashed into the burning ships where we'd left Hiccup. Shit. Please let Stoick reach him in time. 

I wasn't able to focus on the ships for long as the queen roared, so loud it left my ears ringing, before snapping at the Nadder. I hung on to Astrid as the Nadder dodged out of the way. The Zippleback then flew by, drawing the queen's attention away from Astrid and me.

Astrid glanced over my shoulder, then grinned. “He's up!”

I glanced back as we flew toward the Zippleback. A black blur was climbing higher into the air. Stoick had made it. Toothless was okay. They were alright for now and ready to take down the queen. Things were going as they should. 

They'd be okay. He'd be okay.

The twins stopped fighting as we leveled off alongside the Zippleback. “Get Snotlout out of there.”

The twins looked at each other before turning in unison toward where Snotlout was on the queen's head. I would have laughed if, at that moment, I hadn’t spotted the queen's massive teeth. 

The dragons were gnats. We were toothpicks. 

The twins continued arguing as they flew off to get Snotlout. Astrid guided the Nadder past the queen's head as he jumped, distracting her from the rescue. 

Then the queen started to inhale. Why had it not clicked that if I rode behind Astrid, I'd get caught up in this? 

The Nadder stopped moving forward, frozen in its progression. Then I felt myself start to lift off the back of the Nadder. My stomach went to my throat as I felt myself go weightless. I tried to stay seated using my legs, but my thighs weren't strong enough, and the scales of the Nadder bit into my skin, ripping through my leggings. 

I wrapped my arms around Astrid's waist, tight but hopefully not too tight to hurt her. “Hang on!”

Astrid twisted the rope around her left wrist as she was also lifted off the saddle. She hung on to the rope for dear life, and I hung on to her as the queen continued to inhale. While I had known the queen would inhale, being lifted like this was a detail I had missed. 

My arms started to slip, moving from Astrid's waist to her hips, and I hit the spiked skulls attached to her skirt. I winced, but didn't let go. 

Astrid glanced back at me, blue eyes wide. “Kendra!”

I glanced back over my shoulder, which was a mistake. Green gas gathered in the queen's throat. Her teeth were massive, and her breath almost made me gag. Rotting flesh and fish. Bits of a ship's sail stuck between two teeth off to the side.

This was it. I was going to become a toothpick for a massive dragon in a world that wasn't even supposed to exist. 

Another sound could be heard over the roar of her inhaling and my heartbeat thundering in my ears: a Night Fury diving through the air.

A blast shook the air as Toothless fired at the queen. I screamed. My arms were ripped from her waist. Astrid screamed. 

Sky and ground became a blur as I tumbled through the air. Up, down. Up, down. Gray sky. Black rock. And the black rock was getting ever closer as I fell. 

So, not a toothpick then. A pancake.

Something clamped gently around my arm, and the tumbling stopped. The basket hit my back hard, driving the breath from my lungs. I tried to take a breath, but couldn't and ended up coughing instead. 

The ground was below me and above me, bending his head down to give me a gummy smile, was Toothless. Oh no.

No, no, no, no! 

It wasn't supposed to be me! It was supposed to be Astrid! Toothless looked concerned for a moment, then gently set me on the ground before they flew off to face the queen. I fell to my knees. 

I coughed and fell forward onto my hands. This was a change. This was a really big change. It wasn't supposed to be me. It wasn't supposed to be me! It was supposed to be Astrid. 

Astrid. Where was she? Was she alright?

The rock next to me shifted, and I looked up to see Astrid dropping to her knees next to me, the Nadder just behind her. Her left arm dangled uselessly at her side, and the skin of her wrist was red. “Oh, thank Thor, you're alright.”

I shook my head, sitting back on my heels. I could breathe again, but my heart was still pounding. “It wasn't supposed to be me.”

I could see the understanding dawn on her. She'd overheard my reasons for not changing things. To protect Hiccup. But this, me falling instead of Astrid, was a change. 

I shouldn't have come. But Halla would need the supplies and help. The basket. What if something had broken? I quickly removed the basket from my back and opened it. Things had definitely moved and been thrown around, but nothing seemed to be broken. 

Astrid opened her mouth to say something, but was cut off by the sound of Toothless diving again. Footsteps in the rock around us, then a blast hit the queen on the side, knocking her to the ground. The ground shook as she hit it, and dust filled the air. If I'd been standing, I would have fallen.

It was only now that she was pissed off enough to unfurl her dark red wings. How those wings could support her, I had no idea, but they did. Within moments, she was in the sky, chasing down Hiccup and Toothless. They were faster and had agility on their side, but every tower of rock they dodged, she just crashed through like a bulldozer. 

The teens cheered nearby, but I couldn't. It wasn't supposed to be me. With such a change, would things still play out the same? Would Hiccup still lose his leg? Or would he lose more?

Astrid used her right arm to help me to my feet as Hiccup and Toothless suddenly angled upward, disappearing into the dark storm clouds above the island. A moment later, the queen disappeared as well.

“They'll be okay,” she said a moment after the queen roared somewhere in the sky above us. 

I glanced over at her as the sound of Night Fury diving filled the sky. “How do you know?”

“I don't.” She shrugged, eyes on the clouds as they briefly flashed purple. For a second, we could see the silhouette of the enraged queen. “Do you trust him?”

“Of course I do.”

Another flash. Another shot. Then another. And another. They were coming so quickly now, they almost seemed to blend together. 

Astrid glanced over at me. “Now you're just like the rest of us. You just have to trust that he'll be okay, that they can do this.”

In that moment, it almost felt like I wasn't just looking at Astrid, but someone else with the same pale blue eyes. “You're really reminding me of Gothi right now.”

She smiled before turning her eyes back to the sky. “I'll take that as a compliment.”

Another shot, a flash of purple. Then the sky turned orange. The queen was done playing around with them. The orange spread and spread, then out of the clouds darted a small black figure. 

A figure with the tail on fire. 

Then the queen was right on that tail, roaring as she dove after them. Faster they fell, and the faster she got closer to them now that the tail was burning up. Then, just as she opened her mouth, close enough to either incinerate them or gobble them up, Toothless turned and shot directly into her mouth. 

The Night Fury shot up past her head as the queen choked on fire and threw open her wings, which did nothing to slow it down as it approached the island as they were now filled with holes. Instead, she plowed into the island and exploded in a ball of fire that reminded me of the videos of the atom bomb tests. 

The shockwave threw me back, knocking the breath out of me for the second time that day. I lay there for a moment, eyes closed, ears ringing, and trying to breathe. It was done. The queen was dead. Now to find Hiccup. See if he and Toothless were okay. Help Halla if she let me. 

I blinked. Something fell into my eye, making me blink again. The world had gone gray, the air filled with ash. Wait, were we breathing in bits of the queen's corpse? I rolled to my side, coughing, both from trying to catch my breath and from the idea of breathing in bits of the queen. Ugh, my brain just had to go in that direction. 

Somewhere nearby, I could hear Stoick calling for Hiccup. I had to get up. I had to be ready to help. He was going to need it. Many people were probably going to need help after this. 

Where was the -

I glanced around me, pushing myself to my knees. Astrid was slowly sitting up, made difficult with one arm out of commission. Gobber was on his feet, helping up Spitelout. Fishleg's mother was next to her soon, anxiously looking him over. The twins were helping two adults who had to be their parents. The man looked so much like an older version of Tuffnut. 

Where was - 

I spotted the basket not far from me, knocked over with jars spilling out, thankfully none broken, just as someone grabbed one of the jars and examined it. “This is for burns, but how-” Halla spotted me, and her hazel eyes widened. “Kendra.”

“Astrid!” Two people rushed past me as I got to my feet. Astrid's parents gently helped their daughter to her feet. The Nadder was a few feet away from her, watching her almost anxiously, as though it was worried and wanted to be sure she was okay. 

“Kendra.”

Halla was in front of me now, basket closed and on her shoulder. The jar was still in her hand. “Cream for burns. Ingredients I use for amputation. How did you-”

Amputation. Hiccup. 

Distantly, I heard Stoick calling for Hiccup. “It's for Hiccup. He's going to need it. And the burn cream, well, a lot of people are going to need that.”

Halla’s brow furrowed. “How do you-”

“I'll explain everything,” I said, cutting her off. “But first, we need to find him. I don't know the details, but I know it's not pretty.”

If everything still worked out, if I hadn’t changed too much, it would only be his leg that he lost. And the movie did not show that part. How the details of it were never explained. It happened, and he'd wake sometime later. But the gap between the two was probably not something appropriate for a kids' animated movie. 

Halla looked like she wanted to push for answers now, but instead pursed her lips, nodding. “Lead the way.”

I joined the growing throng of people following the direction their chief had gone as he searched for his son. I could still hear him, so I knew he was still searching. 

A moment later, Astrid joined me, her parents not far behind her. Her arm still just dangled. She caught me looking at her. “It's just dislocated. I'll get it taken care of later. Its minor compared to what others are dealing with.”

“How do you know it's dislocated?” I asked. 

She shrugged. “It's been a while, but it's not the first time.”

“Hiccup!”

The tone was different this time. He'd found Toothless. Astrid and I glanced at each other, then squeezed our way to the front of the crowd. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the other teens doing the same. 

We stopped when we broke through the crowd. Stoick knelt before Toothless. The saddle was in major need of repairs, and the tail was destroyed; the metal of it warped from the heat of the fire. 

Toothless let out a low groan and opened his eyes. Poor dragon was exhausted. I could see major injuries, not from where I stood, but I was curious to check and see if the hot metal had hurt his sensitive tail. 

Toothless stared at Stoick. I could hear the rumble of his voice, but couldn't make it out. Then, the Night Fury unfurled his wings to reveal Hiccup, cradled safely against his chest. 

“Hiccup!” Stoick rushed forward and pulled his son into his arms. For a moment, he was silent.

Please, please. 

“He's alive! You brought him back alive!” Stoick's voice cracked. I swayed where I stood, but someone wrapped an arm around me to keep me upright. A glance told me it was Halla. 

He lived. He lived!

Gobber walked up beside Stoick as the Vikings present cheered. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I saw his head turn toward Hiccup's feet. Then he glanced toward the crowd with wide eyes. “Halla!”

Chapter Text

Halla removed her arm from around me and hurried forward with the basket I had brought. I swayed for a moment before stumbling after her. 

Stoick moved back a little, away from Toothless. "Gobber, my cloak."

Gobber removed the fur cloak from Stoick's shoulders while he still held Hiccup, and then laid it down on the ground between Stoick and Toothless. Stoick then gently laid Hiccup down on the cloak. He had a few scrapes and some bruises on his face, but no burns. Toothless had caught him in time to prevent that, apparently. 

Halla knelt by Hiccup's feet and quickly opened the basket. I glanced at his foot as I knelt next to her and fought the urge to vomit. His leg. No wonder they just skipped to him waking up in the movie. This was definitely not kid-friendly. 

His left leg, from just below the knee, was a mess of bone, blood, and shredded flesh. The bone was snapped and stuck out in the middle of his shin. Below that, the skin was shredded down to the bone, all the way down to the scraps that remained of his boot. 

Oh gods. I closed my eyes and glanced away, taking a deep breath and slowly letting it out. 

"Kendra, are you sure you're up to this?"

I opened my eyes, nodding. She was watching me, as were Stoick and Gobber, the three of them looking concerned. "I owe it to him, after everything."

Halla nodded and studied what was left of Hiccup's leg. Stoick frowned at me. "What do you mean?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but was cut off by Halla. 

"Chief." His gaze shifted from me to Halla. Her face was grim, but determined. "If I am to save him, it has to go. The damage…it's too much. It seems the beast grabbed him, but the initial break happened before that."

The queen's tail had caused the break. The shredded flesh was from Toothless. "They couldn't avoid the queen's tail. He got hit and knocked out of the saddle. That was also when he got knocked unconscious. The break probably happened then. Toothless must have grabbed him shortly after that."

The three of them stared at me.

"Lass, how do you know that?" Gobber asked after a moment, breaking the silence.

"She can explain while we work," Halla said. She glanced between the two men. "Do either of you have a small knife? I need to cut away his clothing."

Stoick and Gobber shook their heads. From my hip, I unsheathed the dagger Hiccup had given me. "Here."

Halla took the dagger from me. "Gobber, get a fire going. I'm going to have to cauterize the wound. Chief, I have some burn salves and bandages from my house in the basket. Get Spitelout to get them where they are needed. Then I'll need your help."

Gobber set off to his task. Stoick nodded, getting to his feet. He stared down at his son for a moment before squaring his shoulders and walking away.

The first thing she did was cut off a piece of his harness to use as a tourniquet, tying it off just above his knee. Then Halla had me gently peel the clothing away from the leg so she could cut it away. I pursed my lips and willed my stomach to calm. I'd seen blood and bone while helping her after dragon raids. But this…this was somehow worse. Maybe because I'd known it was coming and let it happen? Or because he wasn't just some random Viking, but my best friend? 

Stoick and Gobber returned just as Halla passed the dagger to me. I wiped the blood off on my leggings, since they were trashed anyway, and sheathed it. She took her ax from her back. "Chief, I need you to hold him still. Kendra, help him. Gobber, I need a piece of leather, thicker than his harness. Then, get a fire going and heat a sword so I can cauterize the wound."

Stoick took hold of Hiccup's shoulders gently, while Gobber passed Halla a piece of leather from a pouch on his belt. "I tore this off what's left of the saddle. Knew you'd need it. And fire's already going. "

Halla nodded, taking the leather from Gobber. If anyone knew this process as well as Halla, it would be Gobber. Missing limbs weren't an uncommon sight on Berk. But two? Gobber was the only one there.

Halla put the leather into Hiccup's mouth to keep him from hurting himself. I held down his right leg.

"Ready?" Halla asked. Stoick nodded, his eyes never leaving his son. I nodded, looking up at Hiccup's face. I didn't want to see this part. Hearing it was going to be bad enough. 

A blade moving through the air, the sound of it slicing cleanly through meat and bone, then a thud as it hit the ground. Hiccup moaned and turned his head, but did not wake. 

Halla quickly set the ax aside, cleaned the area, and then took the sword that Gobber held out to her, tip glowing with heat. Hiccup hadn't really reacted to the amputation itself, but this? His screams cut through the air as soon as the hot blade touched him. The leg under my hands jerked. 

In response to his screams, Toothless whined. I looked over at Night Fury, careful not to look down as I continued to hold Hiccup's leg still. Toothless’ eyes were wide with worry, and he fought to get up, to move closer to his rider, but he didn't have the strength to get to his feet. "Toothless! Toothless!"

The Night Fury's eyes moved from Hiccup to me. He whined again and tried to stand. "It's okay. He'll be okay, Toothless. Sometimes, to make something better, we have to make it hurt worse first. Please, please, calm down. He'll be okay."

Toothless let out another whine but settled down. The screams turned to moans of pain, and I could hear Stoick talking to him in a low voice. Halla had set aside the sword and was now threading a needle, and had bandages ready to wrap it when that was done. 

I made the mistake of glancing down and gagged at the sight of Hiccup's leg sitting inches from the stump that Halla was about to stitch up. I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. 

A gentle hand rubbed my back. "Breathe, lass."

I nodded. The hand left. I felt Gobber reach past me, then walk away. A moment later, I began to smell burning flesh.

"Kendra."

Stoick was looking right at me when I opened my eyes. Halla glanced up before starting to stitch the stump. Hiccup's leg twitched beneath my hands, and he groaned, but still didn't wake or open his eyes.

I took a deep breath and started talking. Halla glanced up occasionally, and Stoick would brush hair from Hiccup's face, but otherwise they remained silent as I told them everything that I had told Hiccup the day prior. Where I was from, what I knew, and how I had known it, how I had let it play out to make sure Hiccup lived.

"But he wasn't supposed to catch me. It was supposed to be Astrid. I don't know if that might have changed anything," I explained as Halla stitched Hiccup's stump. He moved his head a few times, but didn't wake. "And I know it sounds crazy, but I swear I'm telling the truth."

"That's one word for it," Gobber muttered from where he stood over my shoulder. 

Time for the ace up my sleeve then. "Hiccup didn’t believe me at first either, until I told him that Gothi knows."

"What?" Stoick asked, looking up from Hiccup, bushy eyebrows higher than I'd ever seen them.

Halla paused her work. "How-" Her eyes went wide. "Her voice."

I nodded. "She saw where I'm from and what I know. More than that, she knew to have that basket ready when I got to your house. Then chased me out the door with her staff."

Gobber outright laughed. Stoick shook his head, but his beard twitched. "That sounds like her."

"Chief, I believe her," Halla said after a moment, setting aside the needle and thread and grabbing the bandages to wrap the stump. "You never found any hints of Arrowhead. She feinted when I told her who found her in the forest. And her clothes…I've never seen such material or designs. She also had no scars whatsoever when she arrived."

"Medicine is a lot more advanced where I'm from," I said. "And while we do still stitch wounds, the techniques and materials have improved."

Stoick looked thoughtful while he looked down at Hiccup. When he looked up at me, his gaze was even more intense than it had been the day before on the steps to the Hall. "No more secrets. No more hiding. The truth, from here on out, or I will send you away like Mildew suggested when you first arrived."

Of course, it had been Mildew that had been so vocal that day. I nodded, swallowing. "I swear."

"Then what happens next?" he asked. Then he looked down at Hiccup. "Will he be alright?"

"I don't actually know. The story never showed what happened between you finding him and him waking up on Berk, and it ends just after that. It never showed this part," I said, gesturing at Halla, who was almost finished wrapping the stump. "The story was geared toward kids, so they just skipped to him waking up later to keep it family-friendly, not saying how long later was."

Stoick frowned, looking puzzled at that. 

Halla glanced up at me as she finished wrapping the stump. "That actually explains a lot about how you acted when you arrived."

I wasn't sure how to take that, though I was pretty sure it wasn't a compliment. She wasn't wrong, though. 

"You can relax now, Kendra," Halla said with a soft smile. I removed my hands from Hiccup's leg and sat back on my heels. She turned her attention to checking Hiccup for any other injuries. "Aside from the head and foot, any other injuries you know of?"

I shrugged. "Scrapes. Probably bruises. They really downplayed it to keep it kid-friendly."

Gobber scoffed. "'Kid friendly.' Can't even use a dagger."

"Daggers and knives are still used somewhat regularly, but mostly for like hunting. And that's a hobby now, not a necessity. Axes, swords haven't really been used in a long time," I said, glancing over my shoulder at the blacksmith. "Instead, we have powerful weapons that I'm not sure even exist yet in their most basic form. Explosions even bigger than the one we just saw."

Gobber's eyes widened, and he glanced in the direction of the queen's corpse. "Bigger than that?"

"Like flatten-a-city-the-size-of-Rome, big," I replied. 

"Beard of Thor -"

"Kendra."

Gobber and I looked toward Halla. From the look on her face, I knew. "There's a change."

"I believe so," she replied, nodding. She grabbed the bandages and gently went about setting Hiccup's arm. "Scrapes, bruises, like you said. Somehow, no burns. Miracle, that. Bruised ribs, maybe cracked, but I don't think broken. The head injury. And his right forearm is broken. The bone hasn't shifted, but it's certainly broken.”

I closed my eyes. Shit. That was definitely a change. There was no sling in the movie. "Yeah, that's a change."

"Damn. Lad won't be able to write or sketch for a while," said Gobber.

"Aye, he won't be happy about that."

Wait. That wasn't right. Every time I saw Hiccup write or draw, it was with his left. I opened my eyes and glanced between Stoick and Gobber. "Hiccup's a lefty."

"What?" Stoick looked down at Hiccup, then closed his eyes, his expression downcast. "Oh, son."

Gobber looked confused. "Every time I saw the lad working, it was with his right."

"He's ambidextrous," I blurted. That got baffled looks. "Right. Some words don't exist for you yet, so it just sounds like gibberish. It means he can use both."

"No one else is left-handed on the island, so he hid it," said Stoick, gently brushing Hiccup's hair back from his forehead. "To be one of us."

Hid it from every except me, apparently. Even from the very beginning, he hadn't hidden anything from me, while I had hidden so much from him. I sniffed and looked away, blinking rapidly. 

Toothless was still watching us, exhausted and clearly wanting to sleep, but wanting to keep an eye on his rider. I glanced at Halla. "Do you need me?"

She shook her head. "No. Once I've set this, I need to check everyone else for immediate concerns. Go rest. You look like you need it."

Rest? That did sound good. I hadn’t really slept in over twenty-four hours. But there was something I needed to do first. 

I slowly got up, my legs having gone numb from kneeling for so long, with indents from the rocks on my knees, and walked over to Toothless. He warbled at me as I rubbed his head. "You did good, Toothless. Really good. Let's see about getting what's left of this setup off of you, huh? Be a little more comfortable."

So, I pulled out my dagger and set to work, slicing through the damaged leather and letting it fall to my feet. The damage to the setup was so extensive, so much of the metal melted away or warped beyond recognition, that it'd have to be remade completely. If things still continued somewhat as they should, even with the added changes, Gobber would have it remade by the time Hiccup woke up.

I also checked the scales for damage as I pulled the metal away, but spotted none. A little rougher in places, but no scales seemed to have come off during the fight. I pulled what I could from his back, but the pieces that went around his chest, along with those on his right side, I needed him to stand so I could pull them free.

I moved to Toothless’ head and gave him a rub. He blinked at me slowly, clearly fighting to stay awake. How was I going to do this? He didn't have the energy to reach Hiccup when he was desperate earlier. He wouldn't be able to now to help me get the last pieces off.

"What do you need, lass?"

I glanced over as Gobber stepped up next to me. Behind him, I could see Halla had left Hiccup, but Spitelout had returned and was talking to Stoick, who still knelt beside his son. I turned my attention back to Toothless. "I need to get the last bit of the saddle and rig off him. Thankfully, he doesn't seem to be hurt from what I can tell, just exhausted. And I'm guessing hungry?"

Toothless warbled and gave me a gummy smile. 

Gobber looked startled and gaped at the Night Fury. "The beast-" I glared at him. "Toothless. He understood that."

I smiled at the Night Fury. "He keeps surprising me with how much he understands.”

With Gobber's help, we partly rolled Toothless to the side to pull the straps free. The Night Fury grumbled, but thankfully didn't protest our efforts. I glanced over him again, from head to tail, to check for injuries, but found none. Even his healing tail looked okay. Scales scuffed, but intact. Internally, I just couldn't tell. What I wouldn't give for an X-ray. Or a diagram of their internal structure. That'd help too. There was so much about dragons that was unknown to me. 

I turned to find Gobber examining the remains of the saddle and tail rig, looking impressed. "He designed this?"

"Took a lot of trial and error for him to get it right," I replied. "And more than a few tumbles out of the sky."

"It's impressive craftsmanship. Ingenious, really." Gobber looked proud at what his apprentice had achieved. He glanced over at Hiccup. Stoick was watching his friend and clearly listening to our conversation, his expression downcast. Gobber looked down at the leather remains in his hand, pride replaced by shame. "All those inventions. We never gave him the chance to improve them like this."

I looked at Hiccup, unconscious, his head resting on his father's knee. His arm in a sling. His wrapped stumped. I swallowed the growing lump in my throat. 

I looked down at the dagger still in my hand that he had made me. It was free of his blood, but it almost felt like I could still see it there, staining the blade red. As I went to sheath it, I spotted a mark on my hand. No, not a mark. A speck of dried blood. And another. I flipped my hands. There was some on my other hand as well. 

My stomach dropped, and my chest tightened. I had to get it off. 

Without a word, I turned and practically ran to the water line, the dagger dropping from my hand. I dropped it to the ground, not caring that my knees were getting wet or the rocks digging into them, and plunged my hands into the water. I didn't care that it was freezing or tainted by who knows what from the battle; I just needed to get it off me.

I needed it off. Why wasn't it coming off? Why was his blood still there, no matter how hard I scrubbed?

Get it off. Get it off. Get it off!

"Lass!"

I jumped as large hands pulled me away from the water. I stared at Stoick, trying to breathe, but the air just seemed to get stuck because of the lump in my throat. The world went blurry as I started sobbing.

Stoick gently pulled me into his arms. Here he was, his son unconscious, and who knew if he'd wake up now because of me, holding me as I sobbed. I must have been saying something, but what I had no idea, and how he understood it was a mystery, because he pushed me back gently by the shoulders to look me in the eye.

"Lass, that boy could never hate you. He's too kind-hearted like his mother for that," he said, gently squeezing my shoulders. I sniffed and swallowed down another sob. I wanted so badly to believe that, but I wasn't sure I could. At least not yet. "And he will wake. He's always been the strongest of us all. I just needed a reminder of that."

He looked over his shoulder back to where Hiccup lay in his cloak. I followed his gaze. Gobber was with Hiccup now, studying his stump while he tapped his chin thoughtfully. He then looked at the remains of the saddle for a moment before returning his gaze to Hiccup. 

Stoick heaved a heavy sigh, returning his gaze to me. "He got past being the smallest of his age group. He'll get past this."

My chest ached, and not just from the sobbing. And I was exhausted. From not sleeping for who knows how long now. From sobbing. From, well, everything. I sniffed.

"Now," he said, squeezing my shoulders again before getting to his feet. He then held out his hand and helped me up. He handed me back the dagger. I avoided looking at the blade as I sheathed it. "I'm going to need your help. We've got an idea about how to get back to Berk, but we'll need you and the other teens' help to make it happen."

I frowned. Needed our help? Maybe it was the exhaustion catching up to me, but I could not figure out why he needed our help. "You've lost me, chief."

His beard twitched. "No boat survived enough to even take just the wounded to Berk. It's not a particularly…popular plan, but it seems we as a tribe must change. Though for some, they'll have to be dragged kicking and screaming. We'll get back the way you lot got here."

The way we - oh. That's why it wasn't a popular plan. I rubbed a hand over my face, wiping away the tears. I couldn’t rest yet. "This is going to be interesting."

Chapter Text

Interesting ended up being a mild word for getting back to Berk. It took hours to bond with more dragons, so we had enough to carry everyone back, though the ones we had ridden over from the arena actually helped with this. By the time everything was figured out, including how Toothless was going to be transported, night was falling.

I ended up behind Astrid on the Nadder again, with Halla behind me. Stoick carried Hiccup while riding with Snotlout. Gobber was with Fishlegs. The twins were the only ones not carrying an additional person, because the Zippleback was the one carrying Toothless.

It was early morning when we arrived in Berk, which caused panic when so many dragons started landing in the center of the village. Mildew was the loudest of them all, until Gothi smacked him with her staff and shooed him away. He grumbled at the elder, but went home, Fungus trailing behind him.

Most Vikings climbed off the dragons as quickly as they could as we landed in Berk, some even kissing the ground or running away, but not all. Some lingered, rubbing the dragon they had ridden home. Fishlegs' mom and a Nadder. Astrid's dad and a Nightmare. My attention quickly turned away from them as Snotlout landed just after us, Stoick quickly sliding off the dragon's back.

Instead of heading for his home, like I expected since Hiccup did wake up there at the end of the movie, he moved toward Halla’s. Halla hurried after him.

I started to follow, then stopped. Yes, Halla was talking to me again, but was I welcome there? I told her I'd never darken her doorstep again. Was that still what she wanted?

Scales bumped against my hand, and I looked down. Toothless looked up at me with tired eyes, but was on his feet and moving. He looked at me, almost as if he was asking why I wasn't going to help Hiccup.

"I-"

"Kendra."

I looked in the direction of Halla’s home. She'd stopped and stood watching me. "I could use the help."

I nodded and started after her, Toothless following after me. Help, yes. Anything more? I'd find out.

The door was already open when I arrived. Stoick and Halla had already entered, but the door was left open for me. I rubbed Toothless’s head. "You'll need to stay out here. There's not enough room inside for you. Okay? I'll get you some fish when I can."

"I'll get him some, lass," said Gobber, stepping up beside me as Toothless lay down just beside the door to Halla’s.

"And the arena dragons? When was the last time they ate?" I asked.

Gobber looked down. "Aye. I'll get some for them too."

He didn't answer my question, but I could figure it probably wasn't recently. Enough to keep them alive for training, but nothing more. "They just helped save our asses. They deserve better. And I'll look them over when I get the chance."

"Right." Gobber nodded and turned to move away, but stopped. "I'll look through Bork's unfinished notes. See if there's anything you could use."

I blinked. "That'd be great. I'm kinda flying blind when it comes to dragons."

He nodded, but said nothing else before walking away. I gave Toothless another rub before heading inside, closing the door behind me.

Stoick had laid Hiccup on the bed that Halla had downstairs for patients that had been mine when I first arrived. He had stepped back to let Halla examine him further.

"Arms still secure. Stump not bleeding through. Good."

I moved around the room as she spoke, heading for the bandages she used for wrapping ribs, which were stored in a basket on the other side of the room.

"Let me just re-wrap his ribs, then we just have to wait. Keep an eye out for infection. Kendra, grab the bandages for his r-" I dropped them onto the edge of the bed next to her. "-ribs." She looked up at me. Her lips twitched upward. "Thank you, lass."

"I'll go get him some clean clothes," Stoick said as Halla, with my help, started to pull off his singed tunic to expose the bandages she had put on the day prior.

He looked at the mess of bruises that covered Hiccup's abdomen and chest, being exposed as we undid the hasty job she'd done before we flew back to Berk. Stoick seemed to shake himself after a moment and headed out the door.

Halla ran her hand over his ribs before we started wrapping. "Not feeling any breaks. Yes, just bruised."

I glanced at the bruises, then focused back on the bandages. "He's going to be sore for a while."

"Aye, he will," she said as she started wrapping his chest. "My biggest worry, though, is infection. I cleaned it as best I could, but the risk remains."

I said nothing but nodded. He'd made it back to Berk, but wasn't out of the woods just yet. There was still the risk that things had changed too much.

"Lass."

I blinked, sitting up straight, and looked at Halla. Wait, when had Stoick returned? And Hiccup already had a clean tunic on.

"Kendra. You are dead on your feet. Grab some bread and go sleep."

I nodded and pushed myself to my feet, heading for the door.

"Kendra? Where are you going?"

I turned. Stoick now sat next to Hiccup. Halla was walking toward me, looking concerned.

I gestured to the door. "To sleep? I'll just stay with Toothless-"

Concern turned to confusion. "You have a bed?"

"You asked for my help, but I told you I'd never darken your doorstep again so-"

"Kendra," Halla said softly, cutting me off by putting her hands on my shoulders. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. For what I said."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "I can stay?" I asked softly.

Halla nodded. "Yes, you can stay." She squeezed my shoulders gently, then let go. "Now, grab some bread. Go sleep. Before you pass out from exhaustion."

Sleep came easily, but it didn't stay long. It was mid-afternoon when I woke up with a gasp, sweaty and shaking from nightmares. I lay for a while, trying to go back to sleep, before giving up and getting out of bed. 

I headed downstairs and stopped partway down, looking toward the patient's bed. Stoick was gone, probably had chief things to take care of now that we were back, and Halla was nowhere in sight. 

I walked over and sat down in the empty chair by the bed. Hiccup's mouth was open slightly as he slept, his chest slowly rising and falling. Still breathing. Still alive. 

Not still, as it had been in my nightmare.

The blanket was bunched up at his feet, his stump resting on top of it. I noted that his pants had been changed and his remaining boot removed. The scrapes on his face were beginning to bruise. 

I reached up and brushed hair from his forehead. "Please be okay."

I pulled my hand back as the door creaked open behind me. I turned in the chair to see Gobber walking in, a bundle of papers in hand. "Ah, you're up."

"Yeah," I said, nodding as he closed the door behind him. Though being up was not by choice. 

He crossed the room and held the papers out to me. "Found these. Bork's unfinished papers. Usually keep these locked up, but figured you might find them helpful. They're what he didn't put into the Dragon Manual."

I took them from him, undoing the string that held them together. I glanced at the one on top about Gronkle's. Basics about them, jaw strength. Nothing new so far.

I flipped it over and gasped. Diagrams of Gronkle skeletons. Details of the differences between males and females. 

And the next page was Nadder's. Females had an overbite while males had an underbite. Jaw structure. Number of teeth.

"This is..." I looked up at him, smiling. "Thank you. While it doesn't have anything about what's toxic to them and what's not, it's more than I've had for weeks. Thank you. But…why was none of this important? Why not put it in the manual?"

"You might have noticed we're not exactly big readers here," he said. 

"So, most fall in line with the twins and Snotlout?" I asked, remembering the night after the first dragon training. They'd acted like reading was akin to getting the plague. The only one excited about it had been Fishlegs.

Gobber nodded. "Right. So, Bork kept the manual to what he knew Vikings would focus on: how to identify and kill them."

I nodded, looking down at the papers in my hand. Gronkle. Nadder. Nightmare. Terrible Terror. Zippleback. Even some that I hadn't seen in person yet, like the Skrill and Whispering Death. No Night Fury, of course. Not surprising, since so little had been in the manual about them overall.

This was a starting point, but there was still so much to learn about them. So much still unknown. How to help them, instead of hunt. I glanced over at Hiccup. "I guess…we'll have to make a new one, now."

"Aye, that we will," he said. Then he clapped his hands together. "Right. Wanted to get you that. And also want to get some measurements for his new foot."

I got up from the chair. "Right. I'll leave you to it," I said, then headed for the door. I paused before opening it and glanced back. "Gobber? Do you know where the other dragons are?"

"They've taken to roosting on the roof of those that rode them," he said, shaking his head. "Never thought I'd see that."

I smiled, but said nothing before I headed out the door to track down some dragons and check them over.

Halla’s fears ended up being well-founded. Three days after we returned to Berk, Hiccup developed a fever. The area around the stitches on his stump was inflamed. To keep an eye on him, we ended up taking shifts watching over him to make sure he didn't get worse. Me, Halla, Stoick, and Gobber. Most of the time during the day, it was me and/or Halla. During the night, Stoick and Gobber would take shifts to let the other rest.

The dragons, thankfully, were doing well overall. The ones from the arena were malnourished, as were some from the nest, but not on the same level. With time and proper food, they'd recover their strength as Toothless had after Hiccup had found him in the cove. Though the Nightmare from the arena, whom Snotlout had taken to calling Hookfang, did seem to have a tooth developing a cavity that I spotted when examining him, which Gobber ended up pulling and making a replacement for in between making a foot for Hiccup and studying Hiccup's notes so he could craft a new saddle and tail rig.

The Terror from the arena, Charlie, had taken to sitting on Halla’s roof, which she did not appreciate. Neither did Toothless, since the Terror seemed to make it her -and it was a her, thank you Bork- mission in life to annoy the Night Fury while he waited for Hiccup. She'd chirp at him from the roof or settle down right on his head.

I pat Toothless on the head as I returned from helping Gobber go through Hiccup's notes in the forge before heading inside. Stoick was sitting on the bed, Hiccup against him, as he fed his son some broth. 

"Any change?" I asked, closing the door behind me. 

Stoick shook his head. "Halla drained the infection from the stitches, but the fever remains."

I nodded as I moved over to the fire and ladled some stew into a bowl. Halla had mentioned the day before that she was planning on draining the infected area. Gobber was stuck on making progress on the prosthetic he was making until he could do a fit test, which couldn't happen until the infection was gone.

I also got a bowl ready for Stoick, for when he was done feeding Hiccup, as well as Halla for when she got home, but left them on the table next to the fire with a spoon. I took a bite as I walked across the room. 

I wished the movie had been clearer about how long Hiccup had been unconscious. His bruises had faded, and he was able to walk on his leg, but the scrapes had still been visible. And who knew what else had changed aside from his arm.

"Lass," Stoick said, startling me out of my thoughts. I moved my gaze from Hiccup to his father. The bowl of broth was empty, and he held it out to me. "What happens after he wakes?"

I set down my spoon and took the empty bowl from him, setting it down on a nearby table to take care of later. "He finds Berk has changed, which has already started."

"The dragons," he stated, lifting Hiccup carefully, moving out from behind him to stand, and laying him back down.

"Yeah," I replied, trying to remember the details from the end of the movie. It had been over a year since I'd seen the movie, so some of the details were starting to blur. "He walks out of your house to find, gods, who was it…oh, it was Snotlout! He was helping others learn how to ride. There's some sort of perch for them in the town square, I think it was covered? I'm not sure anymore. Oh! And a brazier had been converted into a feeder for them. So, a decent amount of time has passed, but the scrapes are still healing scabs, so not too much time."

While I spoke, Stoick walked over and grabbed one of the bowls I'd set aside. He looked thoughtful as he blew on a spoonful of stew before taking a bite. 

"Some of that is already starting to happen. Snotlout and the other teens have already started teaching others to ride," he said after he finished the bite of stew. "They started with those related to them. Sigrid Ingerman, Axel Hofferson, both Knud and Randi Thorston, even Freda is learning."

Freda…I'd heard that name before. Wait. "Snotlout's mom?"

Stoick nodded. "Aye. Adelaide, their youngest, also showed interest in riding, but Spitelout wants her to wait until she's older."

And probably to see if this peace with the dragons would last. I blinked. "I didn't know Snotlout had a younger sister."

"She's ten years younger than her brother. Absolutely spoiled by him," he replied, a soft smile on his face, before he took another bite of stew.

His face grew somber as he ate, and he said no more. Just stared at his stew, occasionally glancing toward his son. Had he and his wife wanted more kids? For Hiccup to have siblings, before she was killed?

Not knowing what to say, I joined him in eating my stew in silence.

It wasn't until a week later that Hiccup's fever finally broke. Halla kept him at her house for a couple more days, just to make sure, before he was given the all clear to go home. Stoick had moved his bed downstairs until he got accustomed to the prosthetic, which Gobber was finally able to fit. So almost two weeks after we'd arrived back in Berk, Hiccup was finally in his own bed.

Yet he still didn't wake. 

Just continued to sleep, chest slowly rising and falling. Now that there was room, Toothless was allowed in and took up vigil beside his rider, resting his head by Hiccup's feet. 

The day after he was taken home, I stopped by to check on him. Stoick was out and about, overseeing construction around the village. Roofs being strengthened to hold dragons most often. A perch in the town square. The Thorstons were adding a stable onto their house to accommodate not just the Zippleback -now named Barf and Belch- but their parents' dragons as well. Gobber was at the forge, finalizing designs for a new saddle and tail rig that would work with Hiccup's prosthetic. 

I rubbed Toothless on the head, who purred in response, and sat down in a chair next to the dragon. He looked happy to see me, but let out an annoyed huff when he spotted the Terror that had followed me here.

"Oh, be nice, you big baby," I told him, pulling Bork's papers out of my bag and one of Hiccup's spare pencils from the forge that Gobber had given me. Charlie almost smirked at the Night Fury as she settled at my feet. "Oi, none of that."

The Terror gave me a look before closing her eyes. She'd only taken to following me the last couple of days, finally braving coming down from Halla’s roof for something besides annoying Toothless. 

I flipped through the pages, taking in not just Bork's notes, but those that Gobber and I had added. Between the notes from his ancestor and Gobber's own knowledge of dragons from training with them for years, which he had just never written down, we had a solid start on a new version of the Dragon Manual. 

BANG! 

I jumped in the chair, and Toothless shot to his feet as the door slammed open. Charlie, unsurprisingly, didn't even twitch.

No reaction from Hiccup, of course. 

"Got a new one for you." Astrid closed the door behind her. She looked disgruntled and had something brown in her hair. 

"What's wrong?" I asked, relaxing back in the chair again. As she walked closer, a stink came with her. "Ugh. Why do you reek?"

"The dragons. They all just flew over the village and pooped," she replied, looking disgusted. She glanced at Toothless and Charlie. "Those two excluded, I guess."

Oh. That's what that brown stuff in her hair was. No wonder she looked disgruntled. Eww.

"Even Stormfly?" I asked. 

"I think she was the one who got me," she deadpanned. 

I fought down a laugh at the look on her face. "This is going to sound weird, but I think this might be a good thing. Their digestive systems are recovering, either from malnutrition or the stress of living under the queen. We'll just have to see if this pattern continues, and if it does, maybe we can use it to our advantage."

"Advantage?" She looked extremely skeptical. "It's poop."

I shrugged. "Free fertilizer. See if we can herd them toward the fields with crops, instead of the village."

Her expression changed as she understood, skepticism turning to confidence. "I'll talk to the others. See if we can figure something out."

Astrid started back toward the door, then paused. She looked at Hiccup. "Any change?"

I shook my head. "No. Halla said that physically, he's doing well, now that the fever is gone. It's up to him, now."

"Right," she said quietly after a moment. Her gaze moved from Hiccup to me and frowned. "When was the last time you slept?"

I glanced down at the notes. "Last night."

I glanced up to see her raising an eyebrow at me. I sighed, setting down the pencil. "Seriously, last night. I just don't…stay asleep that long."

Astrid was quiet for a moment. "Nightmares?"

"Yeah," I replied softly, glancing up at her. 

The brow lowered, and her expression softened. "He'll be okay," she said. Then she sniffed, and her nose wrinkled. "Ugh. I need to go clean up. See you later!"

I laughed lightly as she walked out of the chief's house. My gaze then went down to Hiccup. 

"Please wake up. Even if it's just to yell at me or tell me that you hate me, just…" I trailed off. I took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

Toothless crooned beside me. His head was still by Hiccup's feet, but his eyes turned my direction. I rubbed his head before focusing back on the notes in my lap.

"Any luck herding them to the fields yet?" I asked Astrid as she stopped in the doorway of the forge, watching as Gobber and I fitted the new saddle and tail rig on Toothless to check the fit.

I glanced up to see her shaking her head. "We're trying, but they're not following. Those with riders are outnumbered by those that are wild."

She didn't say anything else, but I knew from the look on her face as she glanced toward the chief's house what she was thinking. 

Hiccup would know what to do. If only he would wake. 

It'd now been three weeks since we'd returned to Berk. Three weeks since the death of the queen, or as they were taking to calling it, the Red Death. Why red, I had no idea. It had been more teal than red, but whatever. 

Three weeks, and Hiccup still hadn't woken. Halla checked on him daily, and he was healing well. His ribs were less bruised. His arm would be in a sling for another week before she felt it was ready to be removed. His stump was healing well now that the infection was gone, and taking to the prosthetic nicely. 

But he still hadn't woken. Halla wasn't too worried yet. Stoick and Gobber were still confident that he'd wake. But that didn't stop me from worrying. Had I changed too much? What if he never woke up?

"Ah! There we go!" Gobber exclaimed, drawing my attention back to him and Toothless. He'd finished getting on the saddle and tail fin on.

"It looks right, from what I remember," I said, running a hand over the Night Fury's head. "How's it feel, Toothless? Tail comfortable?"

Toothless warbled, giving me a gummy smile. I smiled back at him and gave his chin a scratch, which he leaned into. "I'll take that as a yes."

There was a chirp from the workbench. Toothless dropped the gummy smile and gave the bench, or rather the Terror on the bench, the stink eye. I didn't even know a dragon could give a stink eye, but somehow Toothless managed it.

"Toothless," I said, putting my hands on my hips. "You are the bigger dragon. Literally. So, act like it."

I would never have thought it possible, but the Night Fury rolled his eyes at me. Charlie let out a squawk that sounded like a laugh. I glared at the Terror. "You are not helping. Do you want me to close the window tonight?"

That shut the Terror up. Charlie almost seemed to pout, but lay down and closed her eyes. I rolled my eyes, and Astrid laughed. 

Gobber looked stunned at the entire exchange, then just shook his head as he tested the foot pedal. The tail responded. "That why the dark circles under your eyes not as bad last week?"

I groaned. "Not you too, Gobber."

He raised a brow at me. 

"I've heard it from Astrid. I've heard it from Halla. And Stoick. And now, you." I gestured to the blacksmith. "Yes, I'm well aware I look like a raccoon due to lack of sleep."

"What's a raccoon?" Astrid asked. 

Oh yeah. They didn't have those on Berk. Where were they even native to? "Right. You don't have them here. They're small animals most known for rooting through trash. But they have very distinct markings on their face. Black around the eyes that makes it look like they are wearing a mask." I sighed, leaning against Toothless. "And yes, Charlie has been coming in at night the last, I don't know…four days? She helps, sometimes. Guess it's like the idea cats purring can help, since they are basically cats with wings."

"Cats purring?" Gobber asked. He looked curious, but also amused. 

I nodded. "Oh yeah. There have been studies that show that cats' purring can help reduce stress and anxiety. And since dragons purr too, I'm thinking it can also apply to them."

"Huh. Who would've thought," he said before turning his attention back to the saddle. "Right. It fits. Time to get it off."

"Hey," Astrid said from the doorway, a soft smile playing at her lips. "Just glad you found something to help you sleep."

"Me too," I replied. Charlie's presence didn't get rid of the nightmares completely, but they weren't happening every night now.

I walked across the parking lot in Arrowhead Village, heading to my car to head home for the day. I could hear gulls squawking as they perched on the parking lot lights. The hum of boats out on the lake as they headed to the docks for the night. The screech of tires as a car almost missed a stop sign nearby. Gods, did California drivers suck.

BOOM!

A blast from behind me threw me forward. I landed hard on my hands and knees on a beach covered in dark rocks that bit into my skin. I coughed on the ash that filled the air, so thick it made it difficult to see. Difficult to breathe.

Screams of pain. Yells of names.

I coughed again and looked up, pushing myself up onto my knees. And fell backwards onto my butt. A massive skeleton sat mere yards away from me, bits of charred, bloody flesh hanging from the ribs.

And before it, a small figure lying still on the rocks. Green tunic, singed and brown vest in tatters.

I knew that figure.

I scrambled to my feet and ran toward it, each step taking an eternity. I coughed on ash.

I finally dropped to my knees beside him, not caring about the rocks stabbing my knees. My stomach dropped with me. This close, I could see that the vest was darkened by blood. His leg was missing, and his chest unmoving.

Dead.

"You did this."

I turned and fell onto my butt. Stoick glared down at me, the rest of the village behind him. Toothless stood beside him, pupils narrowed into slits as he growled at me.

I shook my head. "No, no. This isn't right."

"He's dead! Because of you!" Astrid shouted, emerging from behind her chief. Her light blue eyes were icy as she glared at me.

"No," I muttered, shaking my head. "This isn't right. He was supposed to live!"

"Kendra!"

Halla emerged on the other side of Toothless. "Mildew was right. Never should have wasted my time, my supplies, helping you."

I swallowed hard. "Halla…"

"Now, we'll never have peace," Stoick growled. He closed his eyes and turned toward Toothless.

"Do it."

I shook my head, unable to move. "No, please."

"Kendra!"

Toothless stalked toward me, his mouth opening as gas built in the back of his throat.

"Please, no." I couldn't move. Something seemed to hold me in place.

I could see the purple glow in the back of Toothless’ throat.

"Kendra!"

"No!" I screamed, bolting upright in bed, only for my forehead to slam into something. Hard. Blinding pain.

I closed my eyes and fell back onto my pillow, reaching up to rub my forehead. Charlie squawked, and I felt her wing hit the top of my head as she flew away. "Ow. What the-"

"Ugh. Gods. Remind me not to wake you like that again."

My eyes shot open. Screw the pain, I knew that voice. I had longed to hear it for over three weeks.

I pushed myself up at stared. At the end of my bed, next to my feet, sat Hiccup, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

Oh. That's what I'd hit.

Morning light shone through my open window. Had he done that? I had only left it open a crack for Charlie.

His prosthetic dangled off the bed, and his right arm was still in a sling. He was here. In my room. Breathing.

Alive.

For a second, I thought I might still be asleep. That my mind was playing tricks on me again. But my forehead was still sore, so that theory quickly went out the window.

Like in the nightmare I'd just woken from, I found I couldn't move. Just sat there, staring at him, as my heart continued to pound in my ears. I still breathed like I had just taken a lap around the village.

Hiccup looked up after a moment and frowned at me. "Kendra?"

He looked concerned as I just stared at him. Why was he even here? How was he concerned? He should be mad at me. He should hate me.

The concern disappeared after a moment as something seemed to dawn on him. Hiccup shook his head. "I don't hate you."

How did he - I could have sworn I didn't say anything.

I shook my head, but didn't look away from him. "You should."

"I told you, I could never hate you. Mad at you?" He paused, looking down at his leg. I winced. Part of me wanted to look away, but I fought it down. Not wanting to look away, lest he disappear. "I was, at first. Then Dad, and Astrid, and Gobber, and pretty much everyone told me you hadn't been sleeping well in weeks. That you didn't leave my side unless you had to. Then I came to see you, and…"

I glanced down for a second before looking back up at him. Still there. Still breathing. "They weren't all that bad, but some definitely were."

"Just…" He sighed, running his hand through his hair. "No more lies. No more hiding."

"I promise," I replied, no hesitation. "Though, now that you're awake, the story is pretty much over."

Hiccup raised an eyebrow. "'Pretty much over?'"

I gestured toward the open window. "You wake up to a changed Berk. Gobber gives you a new saddle and tail for Toothless, hop on, and fly off into the sun."

Hiccup shook his head. "Gobber gave me the saddle and tail, and immediately took it back because Halla descended on me with my dad's full support."

I snorted at the mental image of Halla descending on him like a bloodhound. Hiccup huffed a laugh. For a second, it was like we were a month ago. Before everything had come out.

But it didn't last.

After a moment, Hiccup looked away, down at his leg as it dangled over the edge of the bed. "Dad also told me you had a breakdown on the island after…well, you know. And what he suspected triggered it."

I glanced toward his arm. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

"It's what you were afraid of," he said.

I nodded. "Yeah," I replied softly, finally looking away from him and down at my hands in my lap. "And then you weren't waking up, and the story wasn't clear how long exactly it was, and I worried if maybe I'd changed more than just your arm being broken too, and that maybe you'd never wa-"

Hiccup reached over and grabbed my hand with his free one. I looked up at him. His hand was warm, callused from his time in the forge. He was breathing. Here. Alive.

"I'm okay," he said, green eyes locked on mine.

"But-"

"I'm okay," he said firmly, squeezing my hand.

I just watched him for a moment, relishing in the fact that he was okay. But were we? I opened my mouth to say something, and was cut off by a loud thud from the roof. The roof creaked above my room.

"What the-"

"Hiccup Haddock!" yelled Halla from downstairs. Hiccup's eyes went wide, comically so. Not that I blamed him. Halla never yelled. "Get your dragon off my roof!"

The room suddenly went dark as something blocked the window. I frowned.

We both looked over to see Toothless leaning down from the roof to look in my window, almost blocking it completely with his head as he warbled a greeting.

I snorted, then started laughing. A few seconds later, Hiccup's laughter joined mine.

Through it all, his hand still held mine.

Chapter Text

"What was it you called your job again?" Hiccup asked. He was currently working on modifying the tail rig to shift more easily. Now that he didn't have to hide what he was doing, he could focus on making things more efficient and streamlined.

It had been two weeks since Hiccup woke up, and one since his sling was removed and Halla had given him the all clear to fly again. Not surprising to anyone, he seemed to spend more time in the air than on the ground anymore. 

He'd figured out how to get the dragons to take their business over the fields in just two days. The riders had also figured out ways for the dragons to help supply their own food, helping to scare fish into nets for fishermen. It had all pissed off Mildew to no end, which surprised no one, but impressed Stoick so much that he'd gifted the old arena to Hiccup as a place for the riders to train.

"Veterinarian," I replied as I felt along the stomach of a young green Nadder ridden by a man named Ack. "Though I was only about a year into my studies. Takes years of training."

Hiccup paused work to sound out the word. He'd come close to saying it correctly several times, relying mostly on the spelling I'd shown him when he first asked. “Vetatarian.”

I smiled over at him. “Almost. Ter-narian.”

"How many years?" Gobber asked from where he stood, rubbing the Nadder's head, keeping him calm as I examined him. 

"Typically, around eight years," I replied, feeling along where I assumed the intestines were. Ack had brought him in for constipation, and crying in pain when he did go.

Apparently, a week prior, he had just stopped joining the other dragons for their afternoon poop, going instead while on the ground in front of Ack's house. Mrs. Ack, who also supported the dragons staying, wasn't thrilled with the giant pile of poop outside her front door. Then had come the crying, before the pooping became infrequent. 

"And I had an advantage over some of my classmates in the program. I took classes in high school that counted both for high school and the vet program." I stepped back from the dragon and put my hands on my hips. I had a feeling what I needed to do, but wasn't exactly looking forward to doing it. And how to do it for a dragon was a whole different problem. 

"High school?" Gobber asked.

"General education that all kids go through until they're around seventeen, eighteen years old," I answered. "Reading, writing, history, math, science. All sorts of stuff."

Yup. I was going to have to do it. What I wouldn't give for a CT scanner or a scope camera.

"What's with that look?" Hiccup asked, setting down his tools. 

I sighed. "I'm going to have to do I rectal exam. It's the only way to figure out why pooping is causing him pain."

"A what?" Gobber asked. 

"You know how they check on the pregnancy of livestock?" I asked. 

Gobber nodded. Then he froze, and his eyes went wide for a moment before wincing. "Oh." 

"Yeah," I replied. "It can be used to detect lots of things, not just pregnancy. Though the problem is, how do I keep him calm while I do it?"

"Dragon nip," said Hiccup.

I hummed. "It could work. We'll probably need a lot of it, considering I'm going to be sticking my hand up his ass."

And I didn't exactly like the idea of being barbecued for the attempt. 

"I'll get you a glove. And some oil," Gobber said before walking away.

"And I'll go get some dragon nip," added Hiccup. 

I blew out a breath. "Thanks."

Turned out that the dragon nip worked perfectly at keeping the Nadder docile as I examined him. He'd just kept purring away as Hiccup kept the nip to his nose, Ack beside him giving the dragon scratches to make sure he kept calm.

That had been the upside. The downside had been what I had found. And I could have gotten a hint earlier if I'd remembered to ask Ack one simple question first: was their blood in his stool?

Just inside the anus, I had felt something that, even without knowing much of dragon anatomy, I was relatively sure wasn't supposed to be there. A lump the size of my thumb. 

I'd never had to give bad news to someone before, having been too early in my training for it to happen, and frankly, it sucked. Ack's face had fallen when I told him my suspicions, and that I didn't know of any treatment for it if my suspicions were true. 

I left the forge moments after he had taken the dragon home. I just walked until I found myself at the ramp overlooking the docks, sat down, my legs hanging over the edge, and watched the sun set and the stars come out. Listened to the sound of the waves crashing into the docks below. At some point, Charlie had found me and curled up in my lap.

My stomach rumbled, but I didn't particularly feel like eating. If only I'd asked as soon as Ack had mentioned that the Nadder seemed to be in pain when pooping. 

That, and even though I'd worn a glove, an apron, and washed my hands numerous times, I could still smell dragon poop.

The sound of wings and a thump on wood behind me had me turning my head. I smiled as Toothless warbled at me while Hiccup unhooked his foot. "Hey."

"Hey," he said, walking over and sitting down on my left. He was quiet for a moment, and I heard Toothless lie down behind us. “I take it there are treatments where you're from?”

“Yeah,” I replied softly. I sighed, rubbing Charlie's head. “Best case scenario, it's just a lump. Relatively easy removal.”

 “Would you be able to?” Hiccup asked. “If we figured out a way? Made the tools you'd need?”

I pursed my lips and shrugged. “Maybe? I don't know. I've never actually…done the procedure myself.”

I could see him putting the pieces together. “You were too early in your training.”

I nodded. “I still had around seven years to go. I'd studied it, but not actually done it.”

He hummed, looking out at the stars for a moment before returning his gaze to me. “And worst case?” 

“It's called cancer. There are treatments, but no cure,” I explained. I shook my head. “And none of them are possible here. It's technology and medicine that I don't think have even been dreamed of yet.”

 “Cancer? What does that mean?”

“It's…gods, how do I even explain this? Umm…” I ran my hand over my hair. Downside of braiding it: I couldn't run my hand through it when I was frustrated. “So, you have spy glasses, right? I remember seeing you trade one to Johann.”

Hiccup nodded. He looked confused, but curious about where I was going with this. 

“Well, we have things like it that can examine the body at a level that can't be seen with the naked eye, because they are so small. They're called cells,” I explained. Hiccup looked extremely curious at the idea of a microscope. If he were to encounter one, I could see him taking it apart to figure out how it worked. “But sometimes things can go wrong with them. They can mutate, or change, and attack other cells. Sometimes treatment can help, and sometimes it can't.”

He looked stunned at the idea. “And there's no cure?”

I shook my head. “Not as of the year 2011.”

“And those that the treatments can’t help?” he asked. 

“It can be fatal,” I replied. 

Before either of us could say anything else, shouts started to fill the air from the direction of the village. We frowned at each other and got to our feet. Charlie was not happy to be disturbed and flew off. 

“Come on,” said Hiccup, walking over to Toothless as the Night Fury got to his feet. He climbed on, locking his foot into place, then held out his hand to me. 

I took it and climbed up behind him. My hands had barely settled at his waist before we were in the air. As my stomach swooped, I couldn’t help but smile. I hadn’t flown since the ride back to Berk. And there was just something special about riding Toothless. 

As we approached the village, it immediately became clear why people were shouting. 

A house near the forge was on fire. 

Wait, that was -

“Gobber's house,” Hiccup breathed. 

“Shit,” I muttered. Gods, I hoped we weren't losing him just weeks after Hiccup finally woke up. 

As we got closer, we could hear Stoick directing the Fire Brigade, though unlike before, the Brigade was now on dragons. Hiccup directed Toothless to join the queue to grab a bucket. Being on dragons made the process so much faster than it had been on foot, since fires could now be doused like a DC-10 flying over a wildfire. 

Within minutes, the fire was smoldering, and Toothless landed not far from Stoick. The other teens landed nearby. I slipped off the Night Fury, Hiccup seconds behind me. I stayed by Toothless as he walked over to his father, his shoulders tense. “Where's Gobber? Is he still inside?”

Stoick shook his head. “No. We can't find him.”

“I'm right here,” said Gobber, appearing from the direction of the forge, pushing a wheelbarrow with what I assumed were belongings he got out before they were destroyed. I saw some of the tension leave Hiccup as he turned toward his mentor. “That beast will pay for this!” 

I frowned. A beast?

“Gobber, what happened?” Stoick asked. Oh good. I wasn't the only one confused. 

“What's it look like?! A dragon set my home on fire!” Gobber shouted.

“What?” I said, and could hear Ruffnut shout the same thing. Toothless made a sound and tilted his head as he looked at Gobber, one brow bone lifted. 

“You pushed me too far this time, you ugly bag of bones!” Gobber yelled at…the sky? Okay. What the hell was going on?

“Dad, what's he talking about?” Hiccup asked, turning from his mentor to his father. “Our dragons don't do that anymore.”

“He doesn't mean one of yours,” he said to his son. Stoick then looked toward his friend. “Gobber, for the last time, there is no such thing as a -”

“Boneknapper?!” Gobber shouted, cutting him off. 

Wait. I recognized that name from the Dragon Manual, back when Hiccup and I had looked at it in the Hall. We hadn't read it then, busy looking for the Night Fury page, but I remembered seeing the name and being surprised. 

“A disgusting, foul beast. Wearing a coat of stolen bones like a giant, flying skeleton.”

What the - how did that even work? How did it put on the stolen bones?

“The Dragon Manual says that the Boneknapper will stop at nothing to find the perfect bone to build its coat of armor. It's awesome!” said Fishlegs excitedly. 

“Come on, it's just a myth,” said Stoick. “It doesn't even exist!” 

Well, that was a first. A world filled with dragons, which didn't exist at all, where I'd come from, thinking one wearing armor made of bones was too much of a stretch. 

“I'm telling you, it's real! I've been running from him my whole life,” he said, hand on his chest. He then gestured to his house with his prosthetic hook. “He's the one who started this fire.” 

A Viking approached Stoick, a stick in his hand. On that stick was a white piece of clothing that was still smoking. “Stoick, we found Gobber's underpants hanging by the stove. They must've started the fire.”

The villagers around us laughed. 

Stoick turned from the Viking to his friend. “Still think it's the Boneknapper, or just your underpants?”

“I don't think! I know! Somehow, he found me again. That dragon is pure evil.”

“You would have said the same thing about all dragons two months ago,” I said, patting Toothless on the head.

Stoick gestured toward me as if to say, ‘She has a point!’

Gobber scoffed and waved him — and essentially me as well — off. “Fine. I'm putting an end to this. Come on, Phil. Let's go.”

With that, he turned and headed toward the docks. His sheep, who, according to Hiccup, never really left his owner’s house, bleated at us and followed along behind him. Now that I thought of it, I was pretty sure this was my first time actually seeing the sheep in person, which made sense since the house was now a ruin.

“I don't need their help anyway,” I could hear Gobber grumble.

Stoick sighed, shook his head, and walked away, starting to herd the gathered crowd back to bed. Hiccup stared after his mentor. 

“You're going with him, aren't you?” I asked. 

He sighed and looked over at me. “I can't let him go by himself.” He looked at the other teens, who lingered despite their families already heading home. And they all looked to Hiccup. I couldn’t help the small smile that played at my lips. So like his father, and now they were starting to see it too. “All right, Vikings! Grab your shields.”

They all cheered. Well, except for Snotlout, who, of course, grumbled. “There's no way I'm getting on a boat to go after a fake dragon.”

In the end, he got on the boat. They all did. No dragons whatsoever. Gobber said the Boneknapper would never show itself if it sensed another dragon around. Toothless had not looked pleased when Gobber had kept him from following Hiccup onto the boat. The Night Fury had sat down on the dock, sending a dirty look toward the blacksmith. 

Halla had not been surprised and had a basket of supplies ready when I ran back to her house. “Best be prepared for anything. Especially with that man and his obsession with this…Boneknapper involved.”

“I take it you don't believe in it, either?” I asked, shouldering the basket. 

Halla shook her head. “No one has ever seen one.”

“Bork did,” I replied. She gave me a flat look. I shrugged. “Hey, a year ago, dragons were fictional to me, and Vikings were ancient history.”

She blinked at that. “Right,” she said slowly, her expression turning thoughtful. “Right. You should get going so you don't miss the boat. Hopefully, you won't need anything in there.”

“But better to be safe than sorry,” I replied, heading toward the door. “Thanks, Halla. See you in a few days. Take care of Charlie for me!”

She grumbled as the door closed behind me. Halla complained about the Terror, but I had seen her sneaking Charlie scraps of meat when she had been prepping stew a few days prior. It was like watching someone with the cat they swore they didn't want.

The boat didn't actually move away from the dock until the sun was starting to rise. Stoick saw us off, shaking his head as the boat left the dock.

“So…where exactly are we going?” I asked from where I sat on a barrel next to Gobber, who insisted that they row once the wind died a few hours out from Berk.

“Dragon Island,” he replied. “Figured it's the best place to fight the beast.”

I glanced at Hiccup, who paused rowing for a moment at his mentor’s words. Dragon Island. The former nest of the queen that had kept dragons trapped and feeding her for who knows how long. His eyes flickered to me. Then he shook himself and resumed rowing. 

If I had known that's where we'd be going…I probably would have said no. That island was not a place I was eager to return to, ever, and now here we were, rowing back there not even two months later. The remains of the queen were probably still decomposing. 

Though disgustingly, I would probably be able to learn from those remains. Bork's notes were a great help, as was Gobber’s knowledge, but there was still so much unknown, especially when the focus changed from killing to healing them. If I had to set foot on that island again, maybe I could at least learn something useful while I was there.

“Come on! Put your backs into it, you lazy dogs!” Gobber yelled sometime later. Apparently, we'd stopped going fast enough for his taste. “Stroke! You're not even trying! Stroke!”

“How fun is this, right? We got the team back together, another adventure. This is pretty cool, huh?” Hiccup asked, looking around at the other teens. I gave him a small smile. Even after being awake for two weeks, it was still so nice to hear his voice again. 

“Yeah, nothing cooler than rowing until your hands bleed,” Snotlout grumbled. 

Somehow, Gobber did not hear that comment. “I just want you kids to know that it touches my heart, you helping me slay the Boneknapper. True Vikings, you are.”

“Gobber, are we there yet?” Ruffnut asked. 

Oh gods. Had that been what I sounded like every time I asked my parents that question on long car rides? If I ever saw them again, I was definitely going to apologize for those times.

“Oh, you'll know we're close when your ears explode from the piercing screams,” Fishlegs explained. “Legend says this dragon's roar is so fierce, it can melt the flesh right off your bones!”

I raised a brow at that. Everything about this dragon was getting more and more far-fetched. No wonder so many didn't believe it existed. 

Gobber shook his head. “Not so, Fishlegs. The Boneknapper has no roar at all. That's why he's terrifying. He's a silent killer.”

Okay. That sounded more plausible than a roar that could melt flesh.

“Wait, so if we don't hear anything... we're dead?” Ruffnut asked, eyes wide as she stopped rowing and looked around. 

Tuffnut and the others stopped rowing, their eyes also going wide. “I don't hear anything.”

Silence. Then, Phil made his presence known, making all the teens jump. Their yells made Gobber start laughing. “Good one, Phil. Did I ever tell you about the first time I met the dreaded Boneknapper?”

Gobber then launched into the story of the first time he had encountered the Boneknapper back when he was a teen. He'd been traveling with his family, and when he stopped to go to the bathroom, he'd found an army of Vikings frozen in ice, one of them clutching a chest that Gobber of course had to have. This was also apparently how he'd lost his tooth. It was after he'd gotten the chest and opened it that the Boneknapper attacked. 

“You expect us to believe that a frozen Viking punched you in the face?” asked Snotlout. 

I had to agree with Snotlout on that one. But something else was bugging me more. “So, it only attacked after you got the chest?”

“That's right!”

“And what was this beautiful thing inside?” I asked. What was in there that the dragon wanted so badly?

“This stunning belt buckle,” he answered, shifting his clothes to show off a white buckle holding up his pants. 

Wait. That looked like bone. “Fishlegs, what did the manual say about the Boneknapper's armor?”

“That it will stop at nothing to find the perfect bone to complete it,” he answered, looking confused for a second before understanding dawned on him. “It's after the buckle!”

It was at that moment that the ship slammed into something, throwing us all to the deck. The deck quickly started to fill with water. How had we gotten so close without anyone noticing?

I grabbed the basket from Halla as we abandoned the ship to its fate and swam to shore. As I got to my feet, I stared at the volcano that now had a huge hole in its side. It also seemed to be less active than it had been and less mist around it. Was that why? Or did the queen living in it cause the mist that had shrouded the island and the labyrinth that used to be around it? 

Gods, I did not want to be back here. Especially not so soon. Were we near where Hiccup had lost his - 

A hand landed on my arm, making me jump. 

“Sorry,” said Hiccup, lowering his hand. “Are you okay?”

I shook my head. “I'd just…rather not be here.”

“And now we're stuck here,” he said. 

We both jumped as a hand landed on my shoulder and a hook on Hiccup's. “No need to panic, kids. I've been shipwrecked many times!”

“Oh, well that's...comforting,” said Hiccup. How Gobber didn't hear the sarcasm in that one, I have no idea. 

But he launched into the story of the first time he was shipwrecked, which somehow involved a hammerhead whale, a hammerhead yak, and Thor, saving him from the Boneknapper. I pinched the bridge of my nose. What was with this guy and hammerheads? And I was starting to understand why Stoick and many others didn't believe him, because this was ridiculous. 

“Are you kidding?” Snotlout asked, leaning over to Tuffnut, but definitely not keeping his voice down. “I don't believe any of this.”

Tuffnut nodded. “Yeah, you totally made everything up!”

“The yak and the whale? Yeah, I gotta agree with them on that one, Gobber,” I said, wincing slightly at the look he gave me. “I do, however, believe you about the dragon.”

That sent the man grinning again. “Right. So. Who wants to be bait?”

Wait, what? I frowned at him. “Why do we need bait?”

“To trap it and slay it, of course!” He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

I glanced over at Fishlegs. “Did you not hear why we realized just before the boat crashed? The only reason it's after you is because you hold the one bone that makes its armor incomplete.”

Gobber realized what I was asking him to do and started shaking his head. “No, no way! It's mine!”

“You have to! It's been chasing that thing for who knows how long,” I replied. “That's probably why the Vikings you found were in the ice! It was after them because they took it, then you took it, and it's been after you ever since.”

“No!” Gobber crossed his arms, and I was reminded of a pouting child. How old was this guy supposed to be again? Five or fifty?

“Uh…guys?” said Fishlegs. I waved him off. Maybe if he just left it here on the beach, we could avoid a fight. 

“Gobber, she's right,” Astrid said, stepping up beside me. “You have to give it back.”

“No!”

“Guys!” Fishlegs yelled. I glanced back at him to see him pale and staring at something down the beach past where I stood arguing with Gobber.

I turned my head in the direction he was looking, and my blood turned cold. Past where the twins and Snotlout stood, a dragon larger than a Nightmare had landed before a massive ribcage down the beach. Light gray scales, large pale green eyes, two massive horns coming from its head, and one hell of an underbite. Sure enough, it wore bones like armor. 

And it almost seemed to be glaring at us. Or rather, at Gobber next to me. “Gobber, put the bone on the ground and back away.”

“No!”

Oh, for crying out loud. 

“Gob-”

The Boneknapper opened its mouth wide and roared, or rather, acted like it was, but no sound came out. Huh.

“Well, what do you know? No roar,” said Fishlegs. 

“Run!” Gobber yelled, turning to run. 

“No!” I went to grab his arm, but another hand got there first. Hiccup. 

“Gobber, you have to it give it back,” he said as the Boneknapper started stomping toward us.

Gobber looked between us, then over at the Boneknapper rapidly approaching us. His shoulders slumped. “Oh, alright.”

He took the bone of his pants and threw it at the Boneknapper. 

“What happened to -” I stopped as the Boneknapper came to a halt, feet sliding on the rocks, sending some scattering toward us, as the tiny bone landed before it. 

It used the talons on the edge of its wings like hands to lift the bone and carefully slot it into place on its chest. The Boneknapper shivered, then let out a roar that had me and everyone else scrambling to cover our ears. Piercing and headache-inducing, but definitely not powerful enough to melt flesh off bone. 

Then it started toward us again. Gobber stepped forward. “Alright, you've got me. Make it fast.”

“Gobber!” Hiccup yelled. 

The Boneknapper reared up like it was going to attack, then did something completely unexpected. Instead of hurting Gobber, it started nuzzling him, just as his pants fell, revealing stained underpants. 

Okay, I did not need to see that. Focus on the dragon, focus on the dragon. Which actually wasn't hard, seeing as its tail was wagging as it kept nuzzling Gobber. 

“That's gonna give me nightmares,” Hiccup muttered. 

“Yeah…I could have done without seeing that.“ I shook my head. “Anyway, most dragons are like cats, but this one seems more dog-like in its behavior,” I said, keeping my attention on the dragon and not on a Gobber trying, and failing, to get his pants to stay up. “Once you get on its good side.”

“Well,” said Astrid, putting her hands on her hips. “At least we have a ride home.”

I looked at the bones lining the dragon's spine. “If we can, it’s not going to be a comfortable ride. I got some bandages, but not enough to make it comfortable for everyone.”

Gobber's pants fell again as he cooed at the Boneknapper that he'd called pure evil the night before. Hiccup and Astrid made a disgusted sound, and I looked away. “Or maybe they can be used as a makeshift belt to keep that from happening.”

“Please!” 

“Yes! Please do that!”

I glanced back at the twins, who, with Snotlout, were covering their eyes. 

I slung the basket off my shoulder, opened it up, and pulled out the bandages. I pressed them into Hiccup's hands. “Your mentor, you get to help.”

“Yay,” he deadpanned. 

I snorted, which made his lips twitch up into a smile as he walked away. 

I closed the basket and slung it back on my shoulder. “Hey Fishlegs? I gestured to the massive ribcage of the queen. “Wanna study some bones?”

Fishlegs and I spent twenty or so minutes it took for Gobber to fix his pants and Hiccup to help him get the Boneknapper to accept riders. Fishlegs found it fascinating, but we were both left with more questions than answers. How old was she? What type of dragon was she exactly? Were there others like her out there somewhere?

“Odds are, she's not the only one of her species. The world's too massive for that,” I said from my place behind Astrid in the back of the Boneknapper. I had been correct: it was not a comfortable seat in the slightest. 

“Just how big is it?” Hiccup asked.

"By ship, it used to take years,” I replied. “Then someone figured out how to fly and did it in eighty days -”

“Wait - fly? How?”

“Without dragons?”

“Again, no dragons where I'm from,” I said, glancing between Hiccup and Fishlegs. “And I wish I could explain it, but it involves a level of science that is way beyond me. But they've figured it out to where you can get from one continent to another in around ten hours.”

Hiccup opened his mouth to ask something, but was cut off by the distant roar of a dragon from behind us. A Boneknapper roar. And more than one. I glanced back to see at least three dragons approaching the one we were on. 

“Legend did say that the Boneknapper's roar is its mating call,” Fishlegs said slowly from his spot on the Boneknapper's tail, where he sat with the twins and Snotlout. 

Gobber laughed. “I think Stoick will believe me now, eh?”

Turns out, he was right. Stoick was speechless when four Boneknappers landed in the center of Berk hours later.