Work Text:
“Woooooohoooooo!!” Astrid yelled, gripping Stormfly’s crown of spikes as they went soaring rapidly down toward the woods. In the first light of the morning, the wind that met them was crisp and cool. When they reached the trees with barely a yard to spare, Stormfly jerked up, speeding over the trees as Astrid laughed.
“Oh, it’s great to be doing this with you, girl!” she exclaimed happily, petting Stormfly’s head. Reluctantly, she turned her head and looked towards the sun. “But it’s time to head back for breakfast now. Let’s go.”
The duo changed direction and started flying in the direction of the Clubhouse. Having read the task chart posted outside the Clubhouse, she knew that at the end of the day she’d be back, flying over the same trees and paths on patrol. Of course, she and her dragon would go a lot slower than she had just now on her early, thrilling flight. Tonight on patrol she would be thoroughly searching the island for anything out of place.
Hm , Astrid thought, thinking back to the previous weeks, I’ve had patrol a lot lately. In fact, it must be about two weeks since I had dinner duty last! Odd. But she just shrugged it off.
When she reached the Clubhouse, Hiccup and Fishlegs were the only ones there, readying the breakfast porridge as usual. Toothless and Meatlug were lying in the sun just outside, seemingly trying to get in a bit more sleep. Stormfly, however, invigorated from the early flight, stomped eagerly toward them, much to the protests of the relaxing dragons. Astrid left them to it.
“Good morning Astrid!” Fishlegs greeted her, waving with one hand and stirring a bowl with his other.
“Hello,” Hiccup said, doing the same.
“Hi, guys,” Astrid replied, cheerfully sitting down at the table. “I take it the twins’ ‘Morning Show’ didn’t happen today?” she asked, noting the twins’ absence.
“Blessedly not,” Fishlegs responded with relief in his voice.
“Blessedly!” a voice shouted, making Fishlegs jump and nearly drop his bowl. Ruffnut popped into the doorway, and Tuffnut appeared beside her. “‘Blessedly’, he says, brother! ‘Blessedly!’”
“Sorry!” Fishlegs sputtered out, “I didn’t mean any—“
“That’s enough, Fishy,” Tuffnut said gravely, holding out a hand, “by all means, count yourself blessed.”
“It’s always the blessed ones Loki turns his eye on,” Ruffnut stated darkly, sitting down at the table and looking Fishlegs down with narrowed eyes.
Hiccup and Astrid blinked, taken aback by the comment, “Uhh… the porridge is ready,” Hiccup finally said, beginning to scoop the porridge from the big bowls into smaller ones. He began passing them out as Tuffnut and Fishlegs sat down. “Has anyone seen Snotlout?”
“I have,” Snotlout declared, strutting into the room with a grin, “in fact, I see him quite often. He always looks back at me in the reflections of his admirers’ eyes,” he said lyrically.
This time, they all blinked. Then, all of a sudden, the table erupted in hysterical laughter. Everyone took part in the laughs except Snotlout… and Hiccup, who had the heart to at least try not to laugh.
“Oh! Nevermind,” Snotlout snapped, sitting down quickly at the table, “just give me a spoon.” He glared at Hiccup, who quickly wiped a smile off of his face and handed Snotlout a spoon before sitting down himself.
Once everyone had calmed down, they ate in comfortable silence until Astrid, always the first one done, sat up from the table.
“Well!” I’m going to start setting up the training drills in the arena now,” she remarked, ignoring the groans that rose up from the table. For the most part, Astrid put herself in charge of organizing their training drills when they didn’t have to prepare for any specific upcoming missions. “I expect you all there soon.”
“Can’t we just do ‘Beat the Dome’ again?” Ruffnut whined.
“We can’t always only focus on flying,” she replied, putting her bowl away. “Today, we are going to practice speed and agility on foot .”
This set off a storm of even louder groans, particularly from the twins and Snotlout. Fishlegs whimpered, and Hiccup ducked down and tightened the string on his prosthetic.
“If you don’t want to do it, that means you need to,” Astrid retorted sternly and briskly walked out of the room toward the dome.
A few minutes later, the Riders had all (albeit reluctantly) gathered in the dome. Astrid had set up a few obstacles, but the bulk of the drill was running laps around the Edge that included more stairs than even Hiccup considered necessary. Needless to say, by the end of it, each and every one of them was panting and worn out.
Astrid, Hiccup, and the twins had finished at the arena first, and as the former two began to chat, Tuffnut walked off to grab some water, and Ruffnut seized her opportunity to steal a single flask of Monstrous Nightmare Gel.
Triumphant, she approached her brother, who was just coming back. “Hey, bro, look what I got!”
“Awesome, sis!” Tuffnut replied, holding out an identical container.
“Wait a minute, you stole some gel too?” Ruffnut asked.
“Gel? No, this is water,” he replied, drinking from the flask.
“Then why do you have it in a Monstrous Nightmare Gel flask?”
“Because, my dear sister, the cups are all the way up at the Clubhouse, and these,” he said, pointing to his flask, “are right here.”
Tuffnut took another long drink from his flask just as Snotlout ran into the arena and stopped, out of breath. He spotted Ruffnut and Tuffnut standing off to the side, holding identical flasks while Tuffnut drank greedily out of his. He immediately walked over just as Tuffnut finished the drink in his bottle with a contented sigh.
“Oh, is that water? Thank Thor, I need a drink. I’m dying,” Snotlout said, panting. He snatched Ruffnut’s container out of her hand and hastily took off the top, not even bothering to look inside. Before either of the twins could say something, he put the flask to his lips, tilted his head back, and chugged the liquid, swallowing greedily.
“Ahh…” he sighed once he was finished, thirst quenched. Then his face scrunched up. “Hm, weird taste,” he said, “oops! Looks like I drank it all.” He handed the empty container back to Ruffnut. “Sorry not sorry.” And with that, he walked away toward Astrid and Hiccup, probably about to complain about the drill.
The twins watched him leave with wide eyes, frozen in place. Ruffnut looked down at the empty container in her hand and then at her brother.
“Tell me if I’m wrong…” she began uncertainly, “but did Snotlout just drink a flask full of Monstrous Nightmare Gel?”
Tuffnut’s shocked expression turned into one of admiration. He shook his head incredulously. “Who knew that man could do something so… Nutty?”
“We should drink some too!” Ruffnut exclaimed, “we can’t let ourselves be outdone by Snotlout! Except…wait… isn’t that stuff highly flammable?”
“Yeah!” her brother responded eagerly, “and probably poisonous, deadly… toxic…” Tuffnut trailed off, his excited smile vanishing. He and his twin turned worriedly in Snotlout’s direction. “Oh, no.”
“We’ve gotta do something, Tuff!” Ruffnut said urgently, “Hiccup will kill us when he finds out we let Snotlout poison himself!”
“If he finds out.”
Ruffnut sighed sadly and shook her head. “Oh, this would have been so funny if we had done it on purpose.”
As soon as he had finished the training drill, Fishlegs had snuck away to his hut to relax and sort rocks for Meatlug. His heart was still pounding as he sat down breathlessly at his desk. Of course, he had been the last one to finish. Subconsciously, he wondered if he had done anything recently to make Astrid mad at him.
Suddenly, a banging at his door made Fishlegs jump.
“Come in! Come in!” he called out, startled.
Immediately, much to his surprise, the twins practically fell into his hut with urgency and began speaking.
“Hey, Fishy!”
“Yeah, hey—“
Fishlegs was about to greet them in return when Ruffnut interrupted him.
“We have a question for you.”
“Yeah, a very important, urgent, but totally random—
“Yeah, totally random—“
“—question we want to ask you.”
“Uh, okay,” Fishlegs said from his chair, a little overwhelmed by their clamor, “I’ll answer any question that I can.”
“Great!” Tuffnut yelled, then continued, saying each word slowly and carefully, “Ok, then, what would you have to do if you ingested some Monstrous Nightmare Gel?”
Not that weird of a question, considering they were the twins.
“I wouldn’t even try drinking Monstrous Nightmare Gel in the first place, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Fishlegs answered, beginning to turn back to his rocks.
“What? No!” Ruffnut shouted, “what we mean is… like, what would you do if, um… someone you knew… accidentally, um, drank some Monstrous Nightmare Gel?”
Fishlegs stood up suspiciously. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
“No!” they both said together.
“We just really, really, would like to know what a guy would have to do to survive ingesting Monstrous Nightmare Gel—hypothetically, you know, Tuffnut stammered, “for um, the… the pursuit of knowledge.”
“Well…” Fishlegs responded, now somewhat intrigued by the idea, “I don’t know if there is a way to survive. It’s not like there’s an antidote or anything.”
Fishlegs didn’t see the twins’ faces fall.
“Hmm…” Fishlegs continued, “I guess you could try inducing the person to vomit. That could potentially get the gel out of the person’s system, although I’d never recommend it… hey!”
Before Fishlegs had finished speaking, the twins had bolted out the door. Fishlegs thought about running after them but decided against it. What could he do? The twins wouldn’t tell him what they were up to, and he wouldn’t be able to stop it anyway. He really just wanted to sort his rocks. Besides, although the twins were certainly very good at creating chaos, Fishlegs couldn’t deny they usually did a good job of resolving it someway or another in the end.
Outside Fishlegs’ hut, Ruffnut turned eagerly to her brother. “So, any ideas on how we can get Snotlout to hurl?” she whispered.
Tuffnut looked back at her with a grin. “Still have any of that old fish oil?”
“Hiccup!” Snotlout cried, barging into Hiccup’s hut, “for the sake of all that is true, good, and beautiful, do not let the twins cook dinner tonight.”
Toothless, from his place beside Hiccup, perked up at Snotlout’s abrupt intrusion, and Hiccup looked up from the project he was working on (Dragon Fly 7, though he’d never admit it to Astrid), confused. “Why? It’s their turn for dinner duty tonight.“
“I know it is! You can’t let them cook tonight. Do you know what they just did?”
Snotlout began his story, waving his arms wildly and occasionally making angry air quotes with his fingers. “Tuff and Ruff came up to me with a slice of bread supposedly greased with some rare, creamy, “delectable” butter Johann had fetched them from overseas that I “just had to try” and you know what it actually was greased with? Some of Ruffnut’s old fish oil! The stuff she puts in her hair!” Snotlout finished, exhaling sharply. “It made me lose my lunch,” he said with a dramatic sob.
Hiccup stared back at him with a smile tugging his lips. It was clear he was desperately trying not to laugh. Toothless wasn’t faring much better.
“Hiccup, if you don’t wipe that grin off your face right now, I’m gonna steal all your spare legs.”
“Sorry, Snotlout, but you should really know not to trust the twins by now,” Hiccup said, gesturing at him with a hammer in hand, “I mean, how many times have they been able to fool you?”
“They can be very persuasive!” Snotlout whined.
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Hiccup replied, turning back to his project, “if you don’t want the twins to make dinner, you or someone else is gonna have to do it.”
“But I’m already on the schedule to make dinner tomorrow!”
“Listen, Snotlout, if you want me to—“
Snotlout looked up hopefully. “You’d do that for me?”
“No, of course I wouldn’t,” Hiccup answered with a smirk. “I was going to say, I have some weapons I have to fix in the forge today, so I can’t. You could ask Fishlegs.”
“Ugh. If I wanted another salad for dinner, maybe.”
“Well, if you’re really desperate, maybe you should give Astrid a chance.”
Instantly Snotlout gagged, tears springing to his eyes. “No. No, no, no. Never again.”
“Oh come on, Snotlout,” Hiccup said in return, “it was just that one time. Who knows? Maybe she’ll surprise us if we let her have another try.”
“Don’t forget her yaknog,” Snotlout responded, and Hiccup immediately shuddered. “Remember that? I couldn’t bear to taste something like that again. You only tasted it. I swallowed it.”
Hiccup winced sympathetically; that was painful memory for them both. “Yeah… nevermind.” He sighed. “Let’s just hope she hasn’t noticed that I’ve removed her from dinner duty for the entirety of next month yet.”
“Oh, who cares if she does?” Snotlout retorted, “Just tell her she’s needed on patrol because she does a good job. She’ll definitely believe that.”
“Snotlout—“ Hiccup began warningly.
All of a sudden, they heard an explosion go off far away.
Hiccup shook his head. “You better go and let the twins know they’re off dinner duty before they explode half the island trying to cook.”
“On it,” Snotlout obeyed, walking outside. “Oh, those muttonheads…”
“You’re late,” Snotlout remarked as Fishlegs walked into the Clubhouse. Behind him Meatlug took off shakily toward the stables.
“Yeah, well, Meatlug wasn’t feeling well,” Fishlegs replied, looking after his dragon as she flew wobblingly away. He looked inside. “I thought the twins were in charge of dinner tonight,” he said.
“Hmph. Well, lucky for you, the Snot Man’s on the job today!” Snotlout said, passing plates out.
“Is Meatlug alright?” Hiccup asked as Fishlegs sat down.
“She should be,” Fishlegs answered, “she just has a little stomachache, that’s all.”
Snotlout placed the main dish, a plate full of cod, in the middle of the table, and soon everyone was eating.
“Do you think she might have eaten a weird rock?” Hiccup asked Fishlegs.
“Maybe, but I don’t know what type of rock could’ve done that to her.”
“Hmm… a mystery, a puzzle,” Ruffnut commented, intrigued, “a riddle of rocks, you might even say.”
“Ooh, I love riddles!” Tuffnut exclaimed excitedly. “You know, I’m not that bad of a riddle-maker myself.”
“Ha! Puh-lease,” Snotlout replied, “Even Hookfang could guess a riddle made up by you.”
”But you sure couldn’t!” Ruffnut exclaimed.
“I could guess ten of Tuffnut’s riddles without even thinking,” Snotlout replied haughtily.
“Is that a challenge I hear?” asked Ruffnut with a grin. She turned to her brother. “C’mon bro, think up a riddle!”
“Give me a sec,” Tuffnut said, closing his eyes shut and putting a hand to his head and using the other one to stroke Chicken, “it takes a while for a riddle-master to riddle his riddles… Aha! Got it.”
Tuffnut opened his eyes and said aloud:
Patterned red, yellow, black,
This dragon’s out of whack,
Touch it and you’re out of luck,
Though it can’t even run amok.
Snotlout squeezed his eyes shut in concentration.
“Got an answer, Snotlout?” Astrid asked.
“Hold your Nadders, Astrid,” Snotlout snapped, his eyes still shut, “hmm… let’s see… red, yellow… can’t run…”
Hiccup sat up in his seat with a grin. “I know,” he said.
“Oooh!! Me too!” Fishlegs squealed excitedly.
“Urrrrgh,” Snotlout groaned frustratedly.
“Give up?” Ruffnut asked.
“Of course not!” Snotlout yelled, “I’m so close! I can feel it. I mean, I know what it is! I’m just—making sure. Dragon… luck… can’t run… Is it—is it a Scauldron?”
“A Scauldron?” Ruffnut burst out laughing. “Seriously? Since when are Scauldrons red, yellow, and black?”
“I forgot about that part,” Snotlout muttered bitterly.
“It’s a Slitherwing!” Hiccup remarked.
“Ding, ding, ding,” Tuffnut rang.
“Ooh! Ooh, I’ve got one!” Fishlegs yelled,
Darker than sassafras,
With an impressive healing power,
Lighter than mint,
And topped with a tiny blue-green flower!
“Ugh, is this a plant riddle?” Tuffnut asked.
“Booooring!” Ruffnut complained.
“Fine,” Fishlegs replied, turning his nose up, “if you don’t want to guess, then you don’t get the answer.”
“Good,” Snotlout said, “who would want to waste their brain space with all that useless knowledge?”
“He-hey!” Hiccup interposed cheerily, trying to break up the argument, “uh, I’ve got a riddle!
Um,
An unsafe haven, a colorful base,
Chaos and adventure are all packed in this place,
With danger, laughter, and weirdness galore,
But also great friendships never dreamt of before
“That’s easy,” Astrid said, leaning towards Hiccup, “Dragon’s Edge.”
“Oh. I was gonna say the boar pit,” said Ruffnut.
“Gosh, Hiccup, that was beyond corny,” Snotlout said.
“Gee, thanks, Snotlout,” Hiccup deadpanned.
“Alright, it’s my turn,” Astrid announced, “
All these pests do is yell and creep,
So don’t forget to do a perimeter sweep,
Or else in the night you’ll hear in your sleep:
(in a mocking tone and while punching one fist in the air) ‘Boyoyoyo, oi, oi, oi!’
The table erupted in laughter, or almost. Snotlout looked peeved while Fishlegs wiped a tear from his eye.
“The Jorgensons? Ha, good one, Astrid,” he said.
“Yeah! Ha, very funny Astrid,” Snotlout bit back, “wait a minute—we don’t creep! We’re not at all creepy!”
“Then why when I went into my hut today, my hut, mind you, did I find Heather’s trunk open and her recipes laid messily around with one missing, and why now do I see said missing recipe shoved into your helmet?” Astrid retorted.
All eyes turned to Snotlout as he quickly tried to shove the piece of parchment sticking out into his helmet. “Heh, well, how about you riddle me this:
What’s the coolest and awesomest thing in the world?
“It’s 1000 pounds of flaming muscle, that’s what! Snotfang in action, baby!” Snotlout trumpeted, flexing his arms, “Snotlout, Snotlout, oi, oi, oi!”
“That doesn’t even rhyme,” Ruffnut stated, unimpressed.
“And you’re not supposed to give us the answer,” Tuffnut added, “what kind of a riddle-master are you?”
“I gave you the answer because it’s so dang obvious and way too easy to guess.”
“Umm, that doesn’t make any—” Fishlegs asked.
“Shut up, Fishface,” Snotlout interrupted.
“Okay, I think that’s enough riddles for today…” Hiccup began to say.
“Aww, but I just thought up a good one!” Ruffnut interrupted.
“Fine. One more,” Hiccup said with a sigh.
“Ok,” Ruffnut exhaled,
“This stuff’s green and deadly,
Though it looks a lot like jelly,
Oops! It got stuck in Snotlout’s belly!”
“Monstrous Nightmare Gel?” Hiccup guessed, puzzled, “but how could that get—“
Snotlout blinked. Once, twice. Then suddenly, he exploded, standing from his spot and sending his plate flying. The twins, took their chance and ran away, cackling and grinning like mad.
“Arrrrrrrgghhhh!” Snotlout, giving a war cry, chased after them with murder on his face.
The remaining Riders sat at the table, still and silent.
Suddenly, Fishlegs’ eyes widened. “Oh my Thor,” he said, seeming to realize something.
Hiccup raised an eyebrow at him. “Care to share?”
“Oh, yes. Well, um, earlier today the twins came into my hut to ask me something. They uh, asked what someone would have to do if someone accidentally ingested Monstous Nightmare Gel. At first, I thought they were asking because they wanted to see what would happen if they tried, but they were talking about it as if someone else might have, well, drunk Monstrous Nightmare Gel, and well, of course, I didn’t think much of it, because, um, they’re the twins, you know? But—“
“Wait, wait, wait,” Astrid interrupted, “are you saying that the twins made Snotlout drink Monstrous Nightmare Gel?” she asked astonished.
“Not made him drink Monstrous Nightmare Gel,” Fishlegs replied, “they made it sound like it was a complete accident.”
“Well, what did you tell them?” Hiccup asked incredulously and a bit panicked, “Does Snotlout still have Monstrous Nightmare Gel in him?”
“I-I don’t know,” Fishlegs admitted, “I told them there wasn’t really a way to fix anything like that. I did say something about inducing vomiting, but I told them I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“Oh my Thor,” Hiccup moaned, facepalming as he remembered his conversation with Snotlout that afternoon.
“What? What is it?” Astrid asked worriedly, “is everything alright?”
“Yeah, things are fine,” Hiccup groaned in reply, “as fine as things ever are around here. Let’s just try to forget any of this ever happened.”
Astrid laughed. “Which part?”
“All of it,” Hiccup said.
“What do you say, bud? Wanna test out Dragonfly 7? I bet we could get a couple of test flights in before the sun sets!” Hiccup said, holding up Dragonfly 7 proudly in his hut. He was immediately met with a flick to the head by a tail fin.
“Okay, fine, Mr. Bossy,” Hiccup retorted, “we’ll test it out after sunset instead.”
Toothless cocked his head to the side, unimpressed.
“Oh no! Astrid has patrol tonight!” Hiccup remembered, slapping his forehead with his hand.
His dragon chortled at him jeeringly. Hiccup didn’t laugh. Astrid and Toothless made too good a team trying to stop him from jumping from perilous heights experimenting.
“Tomorrow morning, then,” Hiccup said contentedly, putting his invention away.
Toothless rolled his eyes. Tomorrow was going to be another long day…