Toothless paced in protective circles around the campsite, watching his rider and his mate out of the corner of his eye. The boy was asleep again—that bothered Toothless a bit, that he couldn't stay alert for more than a little while, but there was nothing to be done for it—and the girl was distracting those irritating hatchlings away from Toothless's tail for the time being. It still stung mildly where they had impaled it with their tiny baby teeth. Hatchlings often took awhile to learn boundaries; he'd indulged them this time, out of pity for their newly orphaned state, but once they were home he'd have to show them what was what.

He hadn't understood everything the pair had said to each other after the girl had come out of the woods. Many of the people he knew had a bewildering tendency to communicate in circles, using words that contradicted their tone and body language. But he could tell that these two had achieved some kind of truce: the smell of their anger and hurt had dissipated. And every few minutes, the girl would look over at her mate and smile to herself even though her eyes were still tight with worry.

The dragon had not missed the acrid scent of fear that had wafted off of her as she came back to them after her trip to the spring. From the words he did understand, he gathered that it had something to do with the baby Nadders. The humans called them Deadly for a reason, and seeing the hatchlings unaccompanied by their own kind made Toothless nervous also. He had seen things, in his travels for the nasty dragon that ate dragons, and he knew that the girl with the sun-colored hair would fight like a Hel demon beside him but he hoped fighting wouldn't be necessary. He was hungry and a bit weak, having refused to hunt since that would mean leaving the human pair alone. Humans' precise anatomy was as much of a mystery to Toothless as their communication habits, but he had long since learned that they were softer than dragons, their hide more permeable and their bones fragile. And the boy couldn't get up, still, even though he was well enough to say things that upset his mate, and Toothless didn't like that. Things that couldn't move, in the wild, didn't live long.

The sun continued to move in its ordained path overhead, and the tree shadows changed in length. The baby dragons grew bored with the game the girl had devised. They started scampering back and forth helter-skelter, and she shooed them away from Hiccup as he continued to sleep. She stood, stretched, and walked a short distance away. Soon her axe was flying through the air into tree bark, the throws regular and well-timed. She stopped after a few minutes and replaced the weapon into its sheath on her back. Toothless knew she was capable of practicing for a period ten times longer, but guessed she was saving her energy in case she needed all her skills later.

She sat down cross-legged next to Hiccup, opened up her pack and ate some more food. She studied the prone dragon rider at her side as though trying to make a decision, then sighed and closed the pack again. She leaned forward, head in her hand, knee jiggling. Finally she stretched out on the ground. She whistled softly, and looked at Toothless, and he understood what she wanted without words. He opened his eyes wide and gurgled at her. It's okay. Go ahead. I'll keep watch. It's what good Alphas do. The girl lay down and reached her skinny arm over Hiccup as though she thought it were the strong, shielding wing of a dragon. Soon she started to snore.

Toothless chuffed quietly to himself. You have a fierce bite, even for a human female, but you can't hide your true self from me. I know you'll fight to protect that boy until your last breath.

00000000

Astrid didn't know how long she had been asleep, but as soon as she woke she knew something was wrong. She jerked upright just in time to see the baby Nadders scuttle past her into a nearby thicket.

"Toothless!" The dragon was crouched at the far edge of the forest glade. His ears were back and he was growling, so low she could barely hear it. She saw irregular flashes of red leather as his tail twitched back and forth.

Hiccup woke and turned his head toward her. "Astrid?" he said weakly. He started to pull himself up to sit.

"Stay down!" Astrid hissed, and pulled her knife from its hiding place in her boot. She knew Hiccup had one in the sheath on his arm, but hers was far more—effective. "Take this, and keep quiet." She rolled nimbly to her feet, grabbed the flame sword from where it lay on the ground and shoved it into her belt. She unholstered her axe and crept forward until she was beside Toothless. The dragon's eyes were narrowed and his pupils had disappeared to mere slits. His nostrils flared and closed in agitation.

Astrid's heart thudded and she tried to breathe as quietly as possible. She stayed in her ready position for what felt like an eon, but she heard nothing, not even the chirping of birds. Toothless was overreacting to something, she decided—she started to relax, to stand up—

There was a flash of black and purple, and Toothless was rolling on the forest floor grappling with something huge and clawed and dreadful.

"Look out!" Astrid screamed at Hiccup, just in time for him to twist to the side and avoid the cacophony of limbs and teeth and wings as it crashed into the large boulder. She didn't recognize the monster; no drawing in the Book of Dragons could capture the sheer dark ferocity of the thing as it tried its best to rip at Toothless with its—

She knew what it was. She had heard one of the villagers describe its attack when she was small, and she had never forgotten the sense of sick horror that had haunted her sleep later that night. The spikes on the head and tail, the long, sharp pointer claws…it was a Skullion. The species was vicious and its members preferred to slash the Achilles tendon before eating their prey alive.

Toothless was managing to maneuver his attacker back toward the edge of the glade, away from Hiccup, who was on his hands and knees, staring in helpless terror. Astrid didn't want to be anywhere near the snarling mass, but she couldn't let the thing work its evil on Toothless. She didn't know if he had ever seen one before or if he knew what it could do, or if he could stave off the ghastly pointer claws...

She took three steps forward—her hand found the correct position on her axe handle. The monster was on top of Toothless now, its back to her. She might just have a chance.

Now.

Reflexes born of years of training and gut instinct kicked in. She drew back her arm and threw.

"Astrid!"

Before she could see her weapon hit its mark, Hiccup's sharp yell whipped her head to the right. There was another Skullion at the opposite edge of the clearing, tensed and about to strike. She almost choked in panic, thinking she was weaponless, then she swiped Hiccup's flame sword from her belt. Its heat pushed on her face and blurred her vision slightly as she ignited the blade.

Oh, gods, protect him, I can't get there in time. Still, she started to run; she could at least try to throw the sword, even if she didn't understand its weight, it might still do enough damage to—

The second Skullion snorted; it lacked functional eyes and ears, but it could smell Hiccup where he knelt nearly defenseless on the ground. It leapt into the air—

-and came crashing down, just six feet away from him, with the knife that she had given him buried in its heart. It groaned and twitched. A flurry of Nadder spikes came out of nowhere to stick in its hide and it convulsed once more before growing still.

Wings flapped loudly above her. She shrieked and stepped back, holding the flaming blade in front of her face.

"It's us!" A familiar accented voice came from the sky. "Put that thing down before you hurt somebody!"

Astrid's face opened in surprise as the late chief's Rumblehorn, Skullcrusher, landed in the glade, Eret son of Eret on his back. She looked up through the trees, and saw Valka on Cloudjumper and a riderless Stormfly hovering above.

There wasn't enough room in the glade for all three dragons to descend safely—"We'll land on the cliff close by," Valka called, and they flapped off.

"Are you all right?" asked Eret, dismounting Skullcrusher. "Shut that off already!"

Astrid stared at the flame sword, realizing it was still alight in her hand. She found the thumb switch and the blade shot back into the hilt. She looked back to where Toothless had been fighting the first Skullion. The Night Fury was growling at the carcass still, but Astrid's axe had flown true. It had struck the monster in the back of the neck, severing its spinal cord.

She let out a long, shaky breath, bent over and rested her hands on her knees. "We're fine…" she turned her face toward Hiccup.

Her husband was up on one knee, panting for air, his left arm that had thrown the knife hanging limply beside his supporting leg. The other arm was gripped around his midsection.

"You just missed the party," he said to Eret. He took in two more shallow breaths before the whites of his eyes appeared and he collapsed sideways in a dead faint.

Epilogue

The trip back to Berk was mercifully uneventful. Before they left Itchy Armpit, Hiccup was checked over quickly by Eret and Valka while Astrid and Toothless kept a nervous watch for more Skullions. The Night Fury had sustained some scratches and a bite to the shoulder but was otherwise unharmed.

"I'd give a pretty penny to know how those malicious buggers got here," Eret remarked. He started to unbuckle Hiccup's chest armor and detach the haphazardly re-folded wings. Astrid had tied them up surreptitiously during one of his earlier naps to get them out of the way, wincing as she had noted each rip and tear. "I thought they were all confined to a single island, in a completely different neck of the woods, as it were."

"Well," Astrid replied, staring into the trees, "we already know there are people who sail around with captured dragons on their boats, now, don't we?"

She turned just in time to see Eret pull out a sharp knife.

"What are you doing?" she cried.

"I've undone all the laces I can. It'll be hard to get the rest of it off of him without his cooperation, and I don't want to risk hurting him further. We don't have much time; there's another storm coming. I can make cuts just here, and here, and open it right up."

"No," Astrid begged, ignoring the fact that she had not half a day earlier told Hiccup just how much she hated the selfsame wingsuit that Eret was now proposing to destroy. "Do you know how hard he worked to shape that leather just right? He'll be devastated."

Valka came to her aid—I take back everything I said about you, Astrid said to herself out of impulsive gratitude—pointing out a way she could lift her son so that Eret could tug the suit off without much twisting or pushing.

"He's got some scrapes and bumps, for sure," said Eret afterward, and lifted the thin undershirt Hiccup wore under the leather to prevent chafing. "Looks like he rebroke that rib, and then some."

"Check his back," said Astrid. "Carefully."

Valka swore in a dragon dialect Astrid had never heard before. "Look at that line of bruises. What do you suppose…"

"His back fin," she said. "It didn't open, and it's folded up tight and hard when it's not deployed. A tree branch, or a rock, in the wrong place, and…" she didn't need to elaborate further.

There was a squeak from the thicket, and the Nadder babies reappeared. Eret startled to a combat stance, knife in his hand, but Valka grabbed his arm. Astrid explained where they had come from and her plan to have Stormfly foster them. Valka nodded her approval.

Stormfly eyed the hatchlings suspiciously, but Astrid's scent had rubbed off on them while she had trained them to play fetch. She cocked her head and gave Astrid a look that said You'll pay for this in chicken, later, and proceeded to regurgitate some of the fish she'd eaten on the way over.

Finally they were done and ready to go. Hiccup was wrapped in a blanket and placed in a large leather sling for Cloudjumper to carry—it was, appropriately, one of his own recent inventions. Skullcrusher lifted off first, with Toothless, grasping the Night Fury gently in his claws. The black dragon put up with it; he had no choice, but he looked both pissed off and regretful at the necessity. Astrid suspected that once Hiccup was recovered, she'd find him in the forge again, making another tail fin that would give his friend the capacity for independent flight.

Astrid caressed Hiccup's unconscious face one last time as Valka attached the sling. The woman once described by her son as a crazy, feral, vigilante dragon lady looked at the young man's new wife with concern. The girl was still covered in mud and her eyes held a tired, haunted look.

"Are you okay, lass?" she asked.

"Yes," said Astrid. "I'm fine. We're fine." In more ways than one.

"You saved his life, you know," said Valka.

"It comes with the territory, where Hiccup's concerned," Astrid replied. "An 'occupational hazard,'" she said in Stoick's thick brogue, "to quote the person who probably loved him more than anyone."

She looked around the small clearing, taking in the sight of the disturbed forest floor and the bodies of the two dead Skullions.

"Let's get out of here," she said, and handed one of the Nadder babies to Valka. She took the other in her arm and climbed on Stormfly. "I'm not sure I ever want to see this place again."

0000000

Hiccup opened his eyes gradually, squinting as he was blinded by the light coming in through the window shutters. I really need to talk to Astrid about moving the bed back. Her judgment when it comes to furniture arrangement is about as awful as her taste in drinks.

Speaking of which, why did his mouth taste so awful? He hadn't had anything to drink in…how long?

Wait. What day is it. What time is it?

He tried to sit up, and moaned as his underused muscles protested. His torso was wrapped still, and it looked like there were even more bandages than the last time he'd checked.

Astrid stirred next to him. Her blue eyes opened and she smiled at him groggily.

"Hey, stranger. What's a cute fellow like you doing in a place like this?" She shifted, stretched and pushed back the covers, and Hiccup's mind went blank as he saw that she was wearing only underpants and her breast wrappings.

"Water?" he croaked.

She sat up quickly, slapping her own cheeks to wake herself. "Sorry." She got up and poured him some from the pitcher on the bedside table. "Had this ready for when you woke up. I figured you might want it, considering how long you were out."

Hiccup sipped the water, feeling grateful as it went down his parched throat.

"And how long was that?"

Astrid's eyes glanced to the floor. "Five days. You woke up a few times, but you probably don't remember."

"Five days? I wasn't that badly hurt, was I?"

Astrid didn't answer, but the tightness that appeared in her jaw told him what he wanted to know.

She leaned around to check the bruises on his back. "Those have faded quite a bit. Do you want to try getting up? There's food downstairs."

He shook his head. "In a little while, maybe. Right now I'm just happy not to be lying in a crumpled mess on Itchy Armpit."

"I saved your wingsuit," Astrid said. "Eret wanted to cut it off you, but I got them to find another way."

Hiccup half-grinned at her. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you."

"You bet." She lay back down next to him on the bed and stretched langorously, lifting her breasts and spreading her legs. Hiccup blushed. He still wasn't used to seeing her like this, and he was having difficulty accepting the fact that the fierce girl who kept away male attention at axepoint would even allow it.

"You're beautiful," he said. She rolled over to her side, pinning him down with her bare leg like she'd done after they'd first made love.

"I know," she replied. Her hand came up in front of her face; she twisted the pretty silver wedding ring around and around with her fingers.

"We are okay, right? You're sure you don't want this back?" She angled her head up to look at him, a nervous, questioning expression on her face.

Her lips were pink, her eyes were blue like the seas of Berk…and her loose bangs were falling into her face like they needed a trim. He swept them to the side gently, kissed her forehead and then took her hand and pushed the ring firmly to the base of her finger.

"I'm sure that I don't," he said. "Really, very, extra sure. I made it for you. You know how stubborn I am; would I really take back a thing like that?"

She snuggled into him contentedly. Hiccup leaned his face into her hair, breathing in its Astrid scent, listening to the Terrible Terrors trill and warble outside.

"Just," he said, "let me know right away, the next time you decide to betray our secrets to crazy dragon-trapping megalomaniacs."

She kicked his lower leg, the good one, in response.

"Ow. I need that. I'll be headed out soon, there's still tons of stuff to get done around here—"

"No, there isn't," Astrid mumbled into his upper chest. She pinched a fold of skin over his pectoral muscle with her lips, a bit painfully.

He pulled back. "What do you mean?"

"I got us another week off. No one will bother us, unless we want them to."

Hiccup inspected her face warily. "What did you do to secure it? Spitelout still has all of his body parts, right?"

He yelped as her hand went down his trousers, and he wilted back into the pillows as she began to stroke him with the dexterity he had long suspected she possessed.

"I promised them we'd make a future heir of Berk," she said. "We really owe it to them, you know, especially if you're going to keep pulling stunts like this last one."

"I suppose…"

"They'd prefer two heirs, actually."

"They…they would?"

"I think we should give them at least three."

Oh, man…

"Whatever you say, milady."

"Good answer, chief. Now kiss me."

~The End…?~

A/N: Thanks, y'all, for reading all the way to the end (you did, didn't you? It looks like people have been skipping Chapter 4, which is kinda weird….)

If this is your first time reading this fic, please let me know how I did. Seriously. If you liked it, I want to know why. If not, I want to know why too. Just be thoughtful in the con-crit. Do it in a PM if you want, whatever floats your boat. I don't bite. If you've come back to view my work multiple times, which I know people have, I'm incredibly flattered. :-)

I'm working on another fic right now, placed three years before this one and loosely incorporating elements from the tv series. It's going to explore how Hiccup and Astrid might go "official" and will probably be heavy on the h/c. If that's your thing, if you like my approach to writing and are a close and serious reader, I might want your help. Let me know if you're interested in seeing drafts.

Love, Freya