So here's the new chapter. Bit more original material in this one. I apologize if Astrid seems a bit happy, but I dont believe she can go from sullen teenager to brilliant, sarcastic and playful young adult in the space of half a movie. she must be happier at heart than she seems to be in the movie, so I've done my best to show that here. Many thanks to my two reviewers, you two help a lot! Enjoy the new chapter, and do let me know what you think.

Chapter Two: In Which I Am Coerced Into Dragon Training

I try to close the front door as softly as I can, and I wince when it squeaks and clanks shut. My dad is stoking the fire somewhat angrily, so I hope he hasn't noticed me.

I run to the stairs, and I get partway up before my dad calls me.

"Hiccup."

"Dad, uh… uh, I have to talk to you, Dad," I say, slowly climbing down the stairs to face him.

"I need to speak with you, too, son," he says, clasping his hands.

"-I dont want to fight dragons."

"-I think it's time you learnt to fight dragons," we chorus. I look at him, slightly alarmed.

"What?" we say at the same time again.

"Ye - uh. You go first," he says.

"No. No, you go first," I say. He breathes in and clasps his hands again. Maybe this is a nervous tic for him, though we've not had enough talks for me to have noticed this before. He's usually wildly gesticulating in anger.

"All right," he sighs. "You get your wish. Dragon training. You start in the morning."

"Oooh, man, I should have gone first." I pull nervously at my hair and scratch the back of my head. "Cause I was thinking, you know, we have a… a surplus of dragon-fighting vikings, but do we have enough break-making vikings, or small-home-repair vikings?"

"You'll need this," he says as he drops an axe in my hands. I barely manage to catch it.

"Argh!" I stumble down the last steps under the weight of the axe. "I don't want to fight dragons." My dad laughs outright.

"Oh, come on. Yes you do," he says, and turns around as if the conversation is over. I follow him.

"Rephrase: Dad, I can't kill dragons," I stress.

"But you will kill dragons," he says. Oh, thank you for showing faith in my dragon-slaying abilities now that I don't want it!

"No, I'm really extra-sure that I won't."

"It's time, Hiccup."

"Can you not hear me?"

"This is serious, son. When you carry this axe," he straightens the axe in my hands, "you carry all of us with you." It certainly feels heavy enough for me to believe that, I think. "Which means you walk like us, you talk like us, you think like us." I didn't know being one of them entailed being exactly like them. "No more of… this."

"You just gestured to all of me," I say, rolling my eyes. Seems to be a common opinion as of late.

"Deal?"

"This conversation is feeling very one-sided," I complain.

"Deal?" he asks more forcibly. I sigh.

"Deal," I say meekly. He hoists a basket onto his shoulder.

"Good." He pauses, and makes a fist for me. "Train hard. I'll be back. Probably," he adds.

"And I'll be here. Maybe." If a dragon doesn't roast me alive, first. The door slams behind him.

The sun had fully risen after my dad and his fleet left, and I have yet to go down to breakfast.

We vikings like to do everything en-masse, so when one of us eats, we all eat. The dining hall barely fits all of us, but I've never had much of a problem with space. I'm just the right size to slip past and in between everybody, and they don't necessarily notice me.

The clearest space is in the back of the room, where all the kids my age have their own table, the little kids have their own, and there is a space left expressly for mothers who want to breastfeed their babies. I'm usually sitting at the breastfeeding table, since it's usually empty. Mothers prefer to stay at home to feed their children, and rightly so. But sometimes, when there is a mother, I always give her her privacy, and sit on the far edge of the teenagers' table.

Today, of course, there aren't nearly as many people, the fleet having just left not long ago. I grab a mug of sheep's milk and a plate of fish. Not an appetising combination, I know, but food is food.

I walk right past the table where Gobber is sitting with the other kids my age, and make a beeline for an empty table nearby.

"Uh-uh, Hiccup. Over here," Gobber says. Today, he has a long sickle-like hand, and he points to his table using it. I make a face in protest, but Gobber is unfazed, beckoning me over once again. My head falls back in annoyance and I stalk grumpily to the table, scanning who is in attendance: Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Snotlout, Fishlegs, Gobber, and, of course, Astrid. Five pairs of eyes follow me, and Astrid stares at her cup disinterestedly.

"Nice of you to join the party, Hiccup. Odd to see you being so social," he says meaningfully.

"Yeah, well. I thought I'd say hi." I pause. "Hi." I turn and try to walk back to the empty table I saw earlier, but Gobber hooks me by the collar and sets me down next to him. "Ok," I say as I hit the wooden bench. Snotlout sneers at me. The twins snicker to themselves. Astrid ignores me. Fishlegs is the only one who looks at me somewhat sympathetically, and I wonder if he might be my only chance at making a friend in this whole endeavor.

"So, anyways, I was totally this close to killing that Gronkle," Snotlout boasts, continuing a story that must have started before I got there.

"Uh, no you weren't," Ruffnut says in her scratchy voice.

"Yeah, more like this close to running home crying," snickers Tuffnut. The twins guffaw together, much too loudly for how unfunny Tuffnut's retort was, and I roll my eyes. Snotlout protests this statement.

"I was not! I threw my bucket at its head, and I totally knocked it out," he says. I huff a sigh into my mug and take a sip. When I put my mug down, I see Astrid looking at me over the top of hers. My heart stutters for a moment, but my eyes are fixed on hers. She tilts her mug up and drinks and then slams it down onto the table.

"What? What are you looking at?" she hisses. Snotlout's attempts to soothe his bruised ego stop, and even the twins stop chortling. Gobber looks on with one eye, but otherwise pays no heed.

"No-nothing," I stammer. "You're just… right in front of me. Where else am I supposed to look?" I ask timidly.

"I don't care. Somewhere else. You're creeping me out," she glowers. I sigh.

"Sorry, sorry." I look back down to my cup, and Astrid turns her glare to the others. Snotlout clears his throat and Fishlegs's eyes dart around, slightly panicky.

"You guys are all goin' down. I'm gonna be the one who kills the dragon," says Tuffnut. I let out a sigh of relief; trust one of the twins to break up the tension. Ruffnut groans like she's heard this before - and very likely she has - and Snotlout argues. With the pleasant conversation back, I sneak another glance at Astrid, She's in the middle of taking another sip from her mug, but she catches me looking and sends a glare over the rim. I quickly look away, not wanting to provoke any more angry questions and/or demands from her.

Astrid's mug comes back down onto the table.

"Well, all of you are competition now," she says offhandedly, interrupting a conversation about various dragon-killing techniques the others had picked up from their parents. Fishlegs had a surprising amount of knowledge on all the dragons and their strengths and weaknesses. I make a note to ask him what he knows about night furies. "You can trust that I won't be giving away my secrets," she says pointedly. Gobber nods.

"She's right. You are all competing against each other, now. At the end of this series of lessons, you can all hold hands around the campfire and share techniques. But for now, the more secrets you have, the more tricks hidden up your sleeves, the better." He looks at the sun through one of the windows. "Dragon training starts at half sun-up, and ends when I say so. All of you go… do something until that time. Don't exert yourselves, because I will not go easy on you, and nor will the dragons." And with that, Gobber stands up and picks up his plate. "Enjoy your breakfast."

We all stare at him as he goes. As soon as he leaves, Snotlout starts up again.

"Yeah, but how difficult could it be to kill a dragon? You just spray some water on it and then give it a left hook. Not that hard," he says.

"I'm pretty sure it's not that easy. Also it depends on the kind of dragon, like if its a Scaldron, then spraying it with water won't help. Cause, cause Scaldrons spray boiling water on you, and-" Fishlegs trails off as he sees us staring at him. "Well. Yeah. So. Depends on the dragon," he finished quietly.

"Well, whatever. Not like I'll ever face a Scaldron, anyways. Those things never show up, the cowards," Tuffnut sneers. Ruffnut's nose crinkles in amusement.

"That's a lame excuse to not be prepared to fight a dragon," Astrid snorts. "Just because a dragon is rare, doesn't mean you shouldn't be prepared to kill it. If fighting dragons was easy, the war would have been over generations ago."

"You're right, babe," Snotlout says. "I'm gonna be ready to kill all sorts of dragons!" Astrid looks at the window, like Gobber did, and she grabs her plate and stands.

"Dragon training is in an hour," she says. Without saying anything else, she leaves. I quickly scrape the last bit of my food into my mouth and get up after her. I catch her just as she drops her plate onto a counter. I stack mine on top of her and walk beside her.

"So… Astrid. Weren't your parents afraid that gnomes and trolls would get you? Your name is distinctly… pretty. Un-viking-like," I say. She shoots me a side glare.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well… when I was a kid and asked my dad why viking names are so ugly, he told me that gnomes and trolls would be somehow repelled by our names. Though, to be fair, it's not like our charming viking demeanor wouldn't do that anyways," I say. Astrid makes a small sound, and I turn around to look at her. I'm surprised to see her almost smiling. Not quite, but it's so much better than her looking like she wants to hit me. Then she flicks her bangs to the side with a toss of her head, and her stony front is back.

"My parents operate under the assumption that by the time they can't offer me their protection, I'll be tough enough to defend myself from all manner of evil creatures." She cuts me a meaningful look. "I don't need a name to protect me." She walks away briskly.

"Ok! Great talking to you!" I call after her. She doesn't turn around. I fill my cheeks with air and then let it out with a snort. "Good job, Hiccup. Real nice story." Astrid disappears into her house, and reemerges a couple seconds after, axe in hand. She walks off towards the woods, twirling her axe.

That looks heavy enough that I wouldn't be able to carry it, I think to myself. I bet she could throw it to me from there, and I wouldn't even be able to lift it.

She's likely going to practice exactly that: her axe throwing skills. Personally, I've always prefered weapons that are lighter. In part because I have a chance of knowing how to handle them, and in part because that's all I've been allowed with. Other than the scrap metal and damaged weaponry in Gobber's shop, the only weapon I've really learned how to use without hurting myself are a knife and the bow and arrow. I don't imagine either would help me very much in fighting dragons. Knives are too small and would cause very little damage, and I also run the risk of death because I'd have to be super close to use it. The arrows would be great, in theory, but dragonhide is too tough for arrows to pierce.

This puts an idea into my head, and with it in mind, I pat my vest to make sure I have my knife, and follow her into the woods.

We walk into the forest, me trying to be as quiet as I can, and she plants herself solidly in front of a big tree. She breathes in and out a couple times, and then raises her axe.

She throws her axe with such force that my eyes can barely follow it as it lodges itself in the tree's stump. She walks up to the tree and pulls her axe back out. I realize too late that when she walks back, she'll turn around and see me.

"What the fuck are you doing, Hiccup?" she asks. She throws her axe again. "I thought we were done talking." She stalks back and throws.

"We, uh… we were," I say slowly.

"Well then?" she gestures to me questioningly with her axe.

"I was just… I was going to practice my knife throwing," using the weapons route I'd chosen earlier.

"Your knife throwing?" she raises an eyebrow incredulously.

"Yes." I reach into my vest and pull out my knife. She smirks, amusement twinkling in her eyes.

"Well, I mean, who am I to stop you from practicing. You can't get any worse or any more useless. Let's see it," she says.

"See what?"

"Your knife throwing. Duh." I blink stupidly.

"You're gonna… you're gonna watch me?" I squeak.

"Well, they do say that you learn something best by teaching it to someone else," she says amusedly. I swallow.

"Ok," I say meekly. I adjust my grip on my knife and turn to face the tree. I take a deep breath and pull my knife back to throw.

"Stop." Astrid's voice interrupts me just as my arm starts moving forward. I stop and look at her. "You can't even hold your knife right," she said. She pulls my knife from my grip and weighs it in her hand. "Your whole knife is made of metal, and your handle is covered in leather."

"Yes, I know that much. I was there while Gobber made it for me," I said.

"I wasn't. Finished," she glares. "Which means that your handle is heavier than the blade. You always throw your knife so the heavier part is towards the target. So-"

"So I hold onto the blade?" I ask. She blinks.

"Never interrupt me."

"Sorry." She flips the knife in the air and catches it by the blade. "How do you not slice your hand open like that?" I ask her.

"Practice. The first few times, I sliced my palm open, but I got a scar out of the whole ordeal, so it's worth it," she says.

"Oh, right, because pain is so much fun."

"No, but it looks cool," she grins. The smile scares me, cause I'm not sure it's a friendly one. More predatorial than anything.

I swallow.

"So… what's next?" I ask a little higher than i would have liked." She shifts her feet in the dirt until her left foot is further forward than her right.

"All your weight on your stronger foot, and your weaker one in front. Pull back your arm, and as you throw, shift your weight onto your other foot. Then," she throws the knife, and it sinks deeply into the tree, "follow through." I look at her confusedly, and she rolls her eyes. "That means let your hand keep moving."

"Oh. Ok."

"Well? Go get your knife."

"Right!" I scurry off to get my knife. I grip the handle and tug, but it's stuck in the bark. "Hey, Astrid!" I call and look behind me.

"See you at dragon training!" she says, already running back to the village. I look up at the sky, seeing that the sun is getting pretty high. With my running talents, I'll be late for sure. I look at my knife and pull at it slightly desperately. It doesn't budge.

"Urgh! Fine!" I leave my knife where it is and run back to the village.

I burst into my house and look around.

"Where is that thing?" I ask myself, looking for the battle axe my dad gave me yesterday. I find it by the fire, and run back out, considerably slower now that I'm weighed down by the axe.

I get there just in time to hear the twins talking about the various injuries they'd like to sustain in dragon training.

"Yeah, it's only fun if you get a scar out of it," Astrid comments lightly, flipping her hair and looking around excitedly. I can almost feel the dragon-killing intent coming out of her.

Her comment is so much like earlier that I feel the need to respond similarly.

"Yeah, no kidding right? Pain. Love it," I respond, trying to sound as moody and teenager-istic as possible.

"Oh, great, who let him in?" asks Tuffnut, slumping on his spear.

"Let's get started!" Gobber interrupts. "The recruit who does best will win the honour of killing his first dragon in front of the entire village," he says, twisting his sickle-hand in imitation of ripping out a dragon heart, and I cringe.

"Why 'his'?" I hear Astrid say to Ruffnut. She shrugs non-committally, but Astrid looks bothered. Understandable, because she'll probably be the one to kill the dragon anyway.

"Hiccup already killed a Night Fury, so… does that disqualify him, or...?" Snoutlout asks, rolling his eyes. The twins chortle, and I can't help but think they look like skinny Gronckles.

"Can I transfer to the class with the cool vikings?" Tuffnut asks, walking away. Astrid cuts him a glare.

"Not that you're not a cool viking, You're the coolest of the vikings," tries Snotlout.

"There is no other class, dipshit," she hisses. There voices trail off as they get further away. A hand drops down on my shoulder and I turn to see Gobber.

"Don't worry. You're small and you're weak. That'll make you less of a target. They'll see you as sick, or insane, and go after the more viking-like teens instead," he laughs. "Behind these doors are just a few of the many species you will learn to fight. The deadly Nadder-"

"Speed eight, armour sixteen," Fishlegs says beside me.

"The hideous Zippleback-"

"Plus eleven stealth, times two."

"The monstrous Nightmare-"

"Firepower fifteen."

"The terrible Terror-"

"Attack eight, venom twelve!"

"Can you stop that?!" Gobber yells. Fishlegs's eyes go wide like he hadn't even noticed he was doing it. Gobber's hand rests on the lever before the last cage. "Aaaand, the Gronckle."

"Jaw strength eight," Fishlegs whispers to me.

"Whoa, who, wait. Aren't you gonna teach us first?" Snoutlout asks, panicked.

"I believe in learning on the job," Gobber says. He pulls down the lever, and a Gronckle comes careening out of its pen. "Today is about survival. If you get blasted," the gronckle smashes into the wall, "you're dead. Quick! What's the first thing you're going to need?"

"A doctor?" I ask.

"Plus five speed?" Fishlegs asks, and I wonder what he does in his spare time.

"A shield," Astrid says.

"Shield, go!" Gobber commands.

We all scramble to grab shields.

"Your most important piece of equipment is your shield. If you must make a choice between a sword or a shield, take the shield." He helps me attach my shield to my arm and then shoves me towards the dragon. I did not want to go that way, I think.

The twins argue over a shield, and Fishlegs runs away from the Gronckle.

"Get your hands off my shield!" Tuffnut yells.

"There's like a million shields!" says Ruffnut.

"Take that one, it has a flower on it/ Girls like flowers." Ruffnut tears the shield out of his grip and bashes him on the head with it. "Argh!"

"Oops, now this one has blood on it," she sneers. As they pull on the shield, the Gronckle shoots it with a stream of fire, and the twins fly in opposite directions.

"Tuffnut! Ruffnut! You're out!" he says. The twins look up, disoriented. "Those shields are good for another thing. Noise. Make lots of it to throw off a dragon's aim."

Astrid slams her axe against her shield, and I mimic her.

"All dragons have a limited number of shots. How many does a Gronckle have?"

"Five?" Snotlout tries.

"No, six!" Fishlegs says.

"Correct! Six!" Fishlegs nods proudly. "That's one for each of you!" Gobber says happily. The Gronckle blasts Fishlegs's shield out of his hands, and Gobber calls him out.

"Hiccup, get in there!" Gobber says to me. I'm hiding behind a wooden plank, trying to stay places I won't get killed in.

"Ah!" As i come out of hiding, the dragon blasts the wall next to me. The dragon turns away from me and turns to Astrid and Snotlout.

"So anyway, I moved into my parents' basement. You should come by some time and work out. You look like you work out." Astrid rolls away and a blast of fire hits Snotlout's shield.

"Snotlout, you're done!" Gobber says. Serves him right, I think, flirting while in dragon training. Astrid stands besides me, eyes scanning the arena, watching the dragon.

"So, I guess it's just me and you, huh?" I ask.

"Nope, just you," she says, gliding away.

"Ah!" My shield flies away in a blast of heat, and I turn to chase it.

"One more shot!" Gobber calls. I can hear the air vibrating around the Gronckle's wings, and I'm reminded of the fat bees that we sometimes see in the summer. "Hiccup!"

I slam back against the wall, and the dragon peers down at me over its wide muzzle. I stare at its teeth and pray to Odin that this dragon won't kill me either.

The Gronckle's mouth opens, and I can see orange light building at the base of its throat.

When the shot comes, it's not where I expected it to be. I cover my head as the wall behind me explodes into pebbles and simmers behind me. I scoot away from the fire.

Gobber has hooked his sickle into the dragon's mouth, and is spinning it back into its pen.

"And that's six. Go back to bed, you overgrown sausage!" he says, throwing the Gronckle into the pen and lowering the log that kept the door closed. "You'll get another chance, don't you worry. Remember: a dragon will always, always, go for the kill," he finished, looking pointedly at me. He pulls me up by the arm and walks away. The others stare at me, but I'm not thinking about them. I'm thinking of that Night Fury. The most fearsome dragon known to vikings, and it let me live where a Gronckle wouldn't have.

Almost before I know it, I'm back in the forest. I'd pulled my knife out of the tree, pouring water on the blade to make it slip more easily, and then planting my feet against the trunk and using my weight to pull. I'd fallen flat on my ass, but I'd gotten my knife back.

I'm back where I cut the Night Fury's ropes, the bolas still on the ground. I weigh them in my hands and remember Gobber's words.

A dragon will always, always, go for the kill.

"So why didn't you?" I wonder aloud. I set the bolas down and walk in the direction I'd seen the Night Fury fly off in, hoping to find clues as to where it's gone.

I hop over a fallen log and slip between large rocks, and I get to a small bowl that the earth has created. A small lake ripples serenely in the wind, and a couple trees grow around it. The roots of a giant fir grow down into the valley from above, and make it look like there's almost a small house nestled right there between the roots. It's beautiful.

But there's no dragon.

"Well, this was stupid."

Just as I turn to walk away, something black and shiny next to my feet catches my eye. I bend down to pick it up. It's rounded on most sides, and tapers at one end. It gleams iridescent blue-black in the sun, and it feels cool in my hands. I stroke it, feeling the roughness in my hands, and a black shadow streaks across my vision, making a screeching noise.

"Ah!" I fall backwards, shocked at the sudden movement.

It's the Night Fury, trying to scratch its way up and over the wall and fly away. As it begins to fall backwards, it opens its wings and glides over the lake and crashes down onto the ground. It tries again on the other side of the bowl, but it falls back down to the earth, tail curling awkwardly underneath it.

I grab my notebook from inside my vest and draw the Night Fury as it tries to fly out.

"Why don't you just fly away?" I wonder as I finish its tail. I look up and the Night Fury shoots a bolt of blue fire in frustration. I look down at my drawing and rub out one of the flaps on his tail, noticing he should only have one.

He tries to fly away and fails again, twisting to the earth and crashing again. He lands next to the lake, and a small fish breaks the surface of the water. He gets up and carefully moves towards it, and then dunks his head into the water, moving it this way and that to catch a fish. He doesn't.

I stare at it. The dragon, no matter how deadly it is, really is a creature of beauty. My pencil falls out of my hand, and too late I realize that it'll drop down the rounded rock I'm sitting on. My pencil twirls to the ground and makes a small clattering noise.

The dragon looks up at me, its green eyes narrowing. I think I hear a low warning growl, and it's enough for me. I turn tail and run back to the village, thoughts of the Night Fury chasing me back.