Chapter One: How to Start a Dragon Academy

Astrid tries to keep the balance between the Vikings and the new addition of unruly dragons. But her good intentions are tested when local curmudgeon, Mildew, convinces the village that dragons are a nuisance.

This is Berk. For years it was Viking against dragon. The battles were ferocious...then, one day, everything changed.

A black shadow darted in and out of view above the waves before soaring towards the skies. It was a black dragon sporting a red left tail fin due to its old one having been torn off months, almost a year, prior to this day. On the dragon's back was a young Viking teenage girl with Nordic hair tied in a thick braid with her bangs held mostly out of the way by a leather headband with a few still falling over her storm blue eyes. Where her left leg should have been, there was a spring-loaded prosthetic leg. It was Astrid Hofferson enjoying a flight with her dragon and best friend in the whole world – Toothless.

I met Toothless and together we've shown people that instead of fighting dragons we can ride them...live with them...even train them.

Astrid adjusted Toothless' tail-fin to fly upwards – the two were so completely in sync with each other it was as if one had read the other's mind moments before. The pair flew up to the top of a nearby rock pillar where four other dragons and five other teens were waiting. It was the Riders of Berk team – the six teenagers who had originally been training to kill dragons until the battle with the Red Death the previous month. On the team was the heir to the Hooligan Tribe of Berk, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III; Snotlout Jorgenson, his cousin; Fishlegs Ingerman; the Thorston twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut; and, of course, Astrid, the leader of the team. She landed Toothless and turned to the others.

"Okay, guys," she greeted. "Best Trick Competition." The team had been meeting up regularly for these contests for a while and it was one of the highlights of the week for them to just get away from the village for a while, particularly for Hiccup and Astrid. Hiccup because it allowed him to have a break from Chief-training and Astrid because...well...also Chief Training seeing as she had actually been engaged to Hiccup since they were small. "Who's first?"

"Uh..." Fishlegs began hesitantly atop his Gronkle, Meatlug.

"Me!" Snotlout cut in on his Monstrous Nightmare, Hookfang. Fishlegs cast an irritated glance at the boy.

"Actually, I think it's..." he started but Snotlout interrupted again. Before his cousin and friend could start an argument, Hiccup cut in.

"Oh, sweet Baby Thor in a thunderstorm!" he huffed. "Go!"

"Oh, we'll go," Snotlout smirked. "And when we do, Hookfang and I will set the sky on..." Hookfang quickly grew tired of his rider's boastings and took off. "...FIRE!" Snotlout screamed. Astrid couldn't help but snort at the boy's screaming and Hookfang practically torturing him in midair. She glanced over at Hiccup who was also close to stitches, not bothering to hold back his tears of laughter. The teens all just completely lost it when Hookfang took a dive underwater – somehow Snotlout was still screaming when they emerged.

"Remind me to organise these contests more often," Astrid muttered to Hiccup.

"Consider it done," Hiccup grinned back as Hookfang landed back at the top of the cliff.

"I'm alive?" Snotlout panted. "I'm alive!" he crowed with delight – all the teens just stared at him. He tried to make it look as if everything had been on purpose but no one was buying it. "I mean...of course I am!"

"It's our turn," Fishlegs piped up, patting Meatlug fondly. "Ready, Meatlug?" The Gronkle snorted happily in reply. "Here we go!" The pair lifted gently off the cliff top and circled the rest of the team for coming into land. Astrid could tell that a lot of the others were sceptic about this but she knew Fishlegs better than the rest of them – he wasn't one to go for extremely daring tricks like her and the others. Besides, he looked pleased with himself. "Yes!" Fishlegs exclaimed. "New personal best."

"My turn!" Ruffnut cut in, wanting to bring a little bit more excitement to the contest.

"No, my turn!" Tuffnut argued. The twins began arguing with each other and Hiccup facepalmed. Honest to the gods...

"Uh, guys?" Astrid interrupted dryly. "Same dragon," she pointed out in equal cynicism. It shut the twins up at least.

"Oh, right," Tuffnut snickered as the twins finally took off on their Zippleback, Barf-Belch. However, as soon as they were in the air... "Go left!" Tuffnut ordered. At the same time...

"Go right!" Ruffnut yelled. The result was a highly confused Barf-Belch so the twins tried to rectify the situation by shouting their sibling's previous instruction but that just served to make things worse.

"Oh, no!" Tuffnut yelped as they flew past an outcrop of rock. "THIS IS AWESOME AND SCARY!"

Astrid and Hiccup both snickered. Honestly, never mind the competition part of the meeting – seeing Snotlout and the twins having a hard time controlling their dragons was pretty much the highlight of the day. The pair of them barely got a chance to laugh like this back at home. Eventually the twins came in the land – Astrid was amazed that they'd made it out without tying Barf and Belch's necks together. In fact, the most they'd suffered were a couple of lopsided helmets.

"We almost died..." Ruffnut exhaled.

"I know..." Tuffnut agreed before perking up. "Go again?" he grinned. Hiccup shot him a glare.

"Hey! It's my turn!" he snapped before turning to face Astrid with a sly smirk on his face. "You might wanna take notes," he suggested smugly before nudging Stormfly in the flanks. "Let's go!"

Astrid grinned slightly as she and the others watched Hiccup almost vanish against the bright blue spring sky as Stormfly got faster and faster. Of the five dragons that made up the Riders of Berk team, Stormfly was the second fastest just behind Toothless and Astrid and Hiccup organised plenty of races between the pair of them – Astrid always won but Hiccup was so competitive he kept challenging her (Astrid's excuse was that he always beat her at Hand-to-Hand Combat so it was only fair that she won at Dragon Races).

"Okay, Stormfly – prepare to flip!" Hiccup ordered. Stormfly obeyed and the pair somersaulted through the air as they began a string of tricks. "Now twirl!" The Deadly Nadder obliged. Astrid smirked slightly – maybe she should work with Hiccup on his flying technique. Unlike with her and Toothless, Hiccup's bond with Stormfly, although close, was more command based that anything else. "Quick! Upward spiral!"

Hiccup and Stormfly finished their routine and came in to land next to Astrid and Toothless. Hiccup shot Astrid a smug look, daring her to do better, before he fondly patted his Deadly Nadder on the shoulder.

"Alright, Stormfly," he smiled, with barely a trace of a pant. Astrid hid a warm grin – ever since they'd begun training dragons instead of fighting them, Hiccup had been smiling a lot more than he used to. It was as if he was finally taking the chance to be a teenager instead of the son of a chief. Astrid had to admit that she felt the same way – after years of trying to be a more typical Viking, she'd started to catch up to acting her age at last. Snapping out of her daydream, Astrid snickered as Snotlout tried to best his cousin.

"Yeah, but can you do that without the dragon?" the boy asked sarcastically. Hiccup's face darkened momentarily as he punched his cousin in the shoulder - the pair of them barely got along despite Snotlout's multiple attempts to swarm up to Hiccup – recently he'd even tried sucking up to Astrid on multiple occasions, even hitting on her from time to time much to her annoyance and Hiccup's frustration...yeesh, just because Astrid was, admittedly, the best looking girl on Berk it gave Snotlout no excuse to try to win her affections - she would've picked Hiccup any day even if she wasn't engaged to him! However, when Hiccup turned back to face Astrid, his face had returned to the playful smirk which Astrid returned.

"Looks like we've got our work cut out for us there, boy," she grinned to Toothless who huffed happily in reply. Astrid smiled – she didn't need to understand Dragonese to know what Toothless was saying.

"Then let's show them how it's done."

Grinning until her cheeks began hurting, Astrid gave Toothless a small nudge and they shot into the sky using Toothless' unique vertical takeoff ability. As they spiralled through the rocky outcrops and caused the ocean waves beneath them to spray when they came out of a dive, the other teens watched in admiration from the cliff edge. Astrid spotted an upcoming outcrop that was worn away underneath like a bridge – now for the main event.

"Ready, boy?" she smirked. Toothless grunted happily in reply as Astrid locked the tail-fin in place, allowing him to glide before jumping onto the outcrop. Running as if she had two feet instead of the one, Astrid's smile never left her face as she left off the outcrop and straight back onto Toothless' back and slotted her prosthetic back into place. Perfect.

"They're still the best," Hiccup smiled softly to himself as the others cheered in amazement. No matter what they did, Astrid always found some way to top them all, and she knew it.

"Another win, boy," Astrid chuckled to herself, patting her best friend on the head in congratulations as she gave the signal to the others to head back to Berk. It was gone lunchtime and everyone was hungry.

Yep...dragons. Most people on Berk would say life here is better since we made peace with them. Unfortunately Dragons are still, well, dragons.

Returning to Berk was never a return to a quiet village but it was easy to say now that things were a lot more hectic than they usually were on a Thor's Day afternoon. Astrid and Toothless headed over towards the food store to see if they could grab a sneaky fish or something before dinner but judging by how almost every dragon in sight was scoffing themselves on everything they could see, Astrid shot a look at Hiccup that said 'Something's telling me we're gonna have to wait'.

"Let go of my food!" a Viking woman yelled from outside her house on the opposite side of the Plaza. Astrid winced as she saw the purple Deadly Nadder try to wrestle a loaf of bread from the woman. If there was one downside about now having dragons on Berk, it was that they now caused havoc on a daily basis instead of a nightly basis. "Drop it, pesky dragon!"

"Aw...Thor, help us..." Hiccup muttered just loud enough for Astrid to hear. Secretly, the same thing was going through her head – she wasn't going to hear the end of this. It was due to her that the dragons were allowed to live on Berk in the first place now.

"Get off my roof, you pest!" a Viking man shouted at a Monstrous Nightmare who was taking an afternoon nap on his roof. Elsewhere, another Viking ran through the Plaza chasing a dragon that'd made off with his apples and another Viking lady shot past after a dragon who'd taken her washing out...quite literally. Astrid buried her head in her hands – as if the Boneknapper episode hadn't been embarrassing enough when it came to Vikings and their underwear.

"Incoming!" someone warned. Astrid and Hiccup glanced upwards and grimaced – dragons were flying overhead and green blobs were falling out of the sky...it was that time of day again.

"Dragon poo!" a Viking yelped in disgust. Astrid spotted two Vikings with whom the Haddocks were close friends with – Mulch and his companion, Bucket – and upon seeing that they had two portable shield-roofs with them, dragged Hiccup over to them to take shelter from the poop-shower.

"Eww, gross, gross, gross..." she barfed, hopping over a green blob that landed in front of her boot. Luckily, her luck paid out this time and she missed it. "Oh, poop. Oh, that's disgusting..."

"Hey Mulch. Hey Bucket," Hiccup greeted awkwardly. "Sorry about the...uh..." he added, indicating the disgusting shower and grateful for the shelter the shields-on-sticks provided.

"Every day at three," Bucket remarked. Bucket was a fairly simple Viking who'd suffered a head-injury a while ago and since then he'd always worn a bucket on his head...hence his name, really. Despite his simple nature, he was kind-hearted and always there to listen if you wanted to talk. Before the whole 'dragons-are-friends' malarkey, he'd been one of the few Vikings Astrid could talk to about her issues, not that he could offer much helpful support in the matter. "They're regular at least. A tip of the cap."

"Better then the days when it was 'kill or be killed'," Mulch shrugged. Mulch acted as Bucket's conscious and it was rare to see one without the other. Whereas Bucket was naïve and cheery, Mulch was often cynical and to-the-point. Astrid and Hiccup smirked in agreement to his statement – compared to the nightly dragon raids, the toilet showers were bearable. "Hey, we've got some fish for that father of yours, Hiccup."

"Really?" Hiccup grinned slightly.

"It's about time," Astrid mumbled before yelping in pain as Hiccup slammed his heel onto her right foot.

"Bucket, give the kids the cod," Mulch instructed. Bucket turned to pick up a nearby barrel but both Hiccup and Astrid's faces fell as they saw that there was no fish inside. They turned to face each other with a look that clearly said 'Dragons'.

"I ate it already?" Bucket blinked in surprise. As well as everything else, he had a very short-term memory. "Did I enjoy it?"

"Um, no, uh, actually Bucket...I'm afraid the, uh..." Astrid cut in as the dragons raided the food store. She spotted some flying over to the other side of the island – this wasn't going to end well. Brace yourself for major complaints session from resident island Grumpy Man, she thought to herself.

Most of us here on Berk are willing to take the good with the bad. But there are those who will never accept the dragons and will do anything to drive them away.

On the other side of the island, a lone house stood by a large cabbage patch as three o'clock approached. The only human occupant was, as Astrid put it, the resident island Grumpy Man – Mildew. Even his name was miserable. Mildew's grumpy personality was matched only by his appearance – his grey beard was matted and his blue-grey eyes were dull with an irritable glare. Mildew was hardly the most popular Viking on Berk – in fact, they'd built his house on the other side of the island for the main reason that they didn't like him that much (these are Vikings we're talking about, okay?) – but even nowadays he usually didn't bother the rest of the village. Normally, he was having a nap at this time of the day but now he was woken up by a loud banging on his roof.

"Dragons, I should've known," he grumbled, grabbing his walking staff and storming outside to inspect the damage. It wasn't the first time Mildew had been having issues with the dragons invading his cabbage patch (not that anyone minded, especially the teens – they all thought the dragons were doing the village a favour there), nor was it the first time he'd had some damage done to the roof.

"Helps himself to my roof and my cabbage..." Mildew grunted as he grabbed his sheep, Fungus (also his only companion after the deaths of his three wives...people were still suspicious about that). Mildew froze as he took in the scale of the damage – a Gronkle and a Monstrous Nightmare were on his cabbage patch which was all but ruined.

"My whole field! Gone! That does it, Fungus," he grumbled angrily, snatching up his sheep and storming towards the main village.

Back in the main village, Stoick the Vast was overseeing the storing of the food. Winter was fast approaching and supplies were being restocked all over the place – it was always the village's top priority when the sea was due to freeze over in a few weeks at most (a few days if they were unlucky).

Store the rest of it in the back, the fishing boats just came in with a big catch" Stoick ordered to the Vikings filling the food house with the latest catch of fish. Astrid's stomach growled – gods, what she wouldn't give for a salmon right now (judging by Toothless' even louder stomach roar, she got the feeling he concurred).

"Stoick!" Mildew yelled. Astrid and Hiccup sagged next to each other at the sound of the guy – if there was one person Hiccup had hated more than Astrid before she'd trained Toothless and shown him what dragons were really like, it was Mildew. In fact, if there was anyone that any of the village had hated more than Astrid before the whole 'dragon training' thing, it was Mildew. They still hated him more than anything.

"Ah, here's Mildew with the complaint of the day," Gobber huffed next to Stoick. Gobber was the teens' mentor when it came to fighting and had originally been training them to fight dragons – a cynical man who rarely had any good advice to give, although he was close to the Haddocks, being an old friend of the family.

"You picked a bad time, Mildew," Stoick sighed as the old man came storming over to the food house. "I'm in the middle of storing food. The freeze is coming." Astrid smirked dryly – yeah, like that was going to work when old Grissle-Grumps was involved. Mildew would never shut up until he got his way – to be honest, Astrid was amazed he'd put up with the dragons for this long (they'd been living on Berk for about six months).

"It's those dragons again," Mildew hissed. "Those demons are not fit to live among civilized men."

"Neither are you, Mildew," Gobber cut in sarcastically.

"Yeah, why do you think we built his house so far outside of town?" Astrid muttered to Hiccup in an undertone. He covered up a snort of laughter with a cough – luckily it still worked when Mildew was involved given that the man had never heard Hiccup laugh anyway. Unfortunately, Mildew had heard Astrid and he gave her a glare.

"Ah, very well, make your jokes," he sneered. Astrid gave him a blank stare in return. "Meanwhile these dragons are in our village's cod! Turning people's houses into piles of rubble!" he pointed out angrily. Astrid winced when the gathering crowd begun agreeing with him – well, this was a first.

"Mildew's right!" someone yelled. Hiccup bit his cheek – yeesh, he hadn't thought things were this bad.

"They even disturb an old man's rest!" Mildew complained, indicating dark circles under his dull eyes. Personally, Astrid couldn't see much difference – he had always looked like that for as long as she could remember and she had a very good memory. "Can't you see these bags under mi' eyes?" he huffed.

"He's right," Hiccup whispered to Astrid. "He's hideous." Astrid coughed incredibly loudly to cover up her laughter.

"These are wild and unpredictable beasts!" Mildew growled. Astrid gulped as the village began shouting in agreement...oh, for the love of the gods, there was no pleasing these people. First they're angry because dragons are the enemies and make nightly raids (okay, that one was understandable) and now they're angry because the dragons are just being themselves! Honestly, they were the ones who'd been worried after they'd flown off at Snoggletog a few months ago. "They even cracked this man's skull. Like an egg," Mildew added, pointing at Bucket. Hiccup glowered at the man – really? He had to stoop that low?

"Egg? I like eggs!" Bucket grinned. "Scrabbled! Over easy! Poached!" Astrid sagged slightly – okay, at least Bucket didn't mind.

"You need to put those dragons in cages," Mildew suggested angrily, meeting with shouts of agreement all over. Astrid was now incredibly confused as well as worried – gods! This village needed to make up its Thor-damn mind! "If you don't they'll eat us out of house and home and destroy the entire village!"

"They don't mean any harm," Astrid protested, her connection to the dragons speaking for her before she really knew what she was saying. "They're just dragons being...well...dragons." Not having anything to add, Hiccup nodded in agreement next to her, patting Stormfly on the head gently and Toothless nudged Astrid in his usual way to show that he was there for her.

"Look, Mildew, if there's a problem I'll deal with it," Stoick promised, trying to keep the peace. Astrid glanced to her side and noticed that Hiccup had that look on his face that he usually did when he was taking down mental notes on chief-ing methods.

"Oh, there is a problem Stoick," Mildew snarled. "And I think I speak for everyone when I say you better do something about it." With that, he stormed out of the village square and the rest of the crowd dispersed muttering angry insults mostly directed towards the dragons, much to Astrid's annoyance.

Later that evening, Stoick, Hiccup, Astrid and Gobber were back at the Haddock household after dinner. Gobber was carving a small duck for some of the smaller kids in the village and Stoick was pacing up and down the room whilst Hiccup and Astrid finished off their stew.

"We can't just let dragons run wild like they own the place," Stoick sighed. Despite not wanting to admit it, he knew that Mildew had a legitimate point this time. The dragons were causing a lot of trouble around town and as chief he knew he had to do something about it. "Hey, we could put up signs!" Even Hiccup facepalmed at that.

"Signs? For dragons?" Gobber quizzed incredulously.

"No! For the people," Stoick corrected. Astrid face-desk-ed on the table, barely missing her bowl of stew. That idea was just about as bad, if not worse, than the 'signs for dragons' and Gobber knew it.

"Signs? For Vikings?" Gobber groaned. "We're not big readers, Stoick." Well, unless you counted Hiccup, Astrid and Fishlegs who had all read the Book of Dragons until they'd almost memorised it.

"Then we'll build a huge net and stretch it around the plaza," Stoick suggested. This time it was Hiccup's forehead that hit the table.

"Nets? You do know they breathe fire, Dad?" he pointed out grimly, his nasally voice muffed by the wood.

"I know very well they breathe fire, Hiccup!" Stoick snapped. He thought for a while before saying what Astrid had never expected him to say. "Maybe Mildew was right? We have to figure something..."

"No, no, wait, Stoick!" Astrid cut across, getting up from the table and giving the rest of her stew as well as a basket of cod to Toothless. Hiccup also stood up to give Stormfly some dinner before Astrid continued. "What if I deal with the dragons?" she suggested.

"You?" Stoick blinked. Even Hiccup snapped his head around so quickly he got whiplash.

"Who else?" Astrid shrugged with a small smile playing across her face, her confidence slowly growing. "If anyone can control them, I can. I'm the best woman for the job," she added, patting Toothless on the head as he reassured her of her confidence in herself.

"You're not a woman yet, Astrid..." Stoick began but Astrid quickly cut across him.

"Not if you don't give me the chance to be!" she pointed out. Hiccup grimaced but given that Astrid had her back turned to him and his face was only partially lit by the fire, no one saw. Although, he did see that his girlfriend had a point – she was the most qualified when it came to training dragons, having the most intel on the subject given how much time she'd spent with Toothless before anyone knew about him. He couldn't help but be worried about her – despite having tolerated her at best for most of his life, Hiccup always felt that sense of worry when it came to Astrid. Even so, Stoick agreed.

"Fair enough, you'll have your chance...starting tomorrow," he nodded. Astrid grinned triumphantly – secretly she couldn't wait for the morning to come so she said a quick goodnight to Hiccup before running upstairs, throwing off her spiked shoulder pads and sliding under her blanket.

/\

The next morning, Astrid stood just outside the house with Toothless with a confident smile on her face – time to start getting the dragons under control.

"Okay gang," she grinned. "There's gonna be some changes around here." Her attention was instantly caught by a Viking woman nearby shouting at a dragon for trying to steal her bread. Astrid ran over to help and gently scratched the purple Deadly Nadder in question under the chin to make it drop the bread. The Nadder turned its attention to her but Astrid was able to keep it calm enough to place a hand on its nose. Smiling that she'd accomplished one thing already, her smile vanished when she spotted a pair of dragons fighting. She began heading over to break things up when a sheep got caught in the crossfire – quite literally.

"Toothless, stop that fight!" she instructed. Toothless nodded and shot off whilst Astrid grabbed the nearest bucket of water. "I'll put out the sheep." Astrid ran as fast as her metal leg would allow her as she chased the sheep, barely putting out the flames consuming its wool before it knocked her down a hill. She barely had time to get up before she noticed that things around her were just going from bad to worse – dragons were causing trouble left, right and centre and there was no way she could be fast enough to get everything under control. If anything, her reputation as 'village klutz' was coming back to haunt her.

Meanwhile on a hill overlooking the Plaza, the rest of the teens were observing the happenings below.

"What's she doing?" Snotlout frowned on top of Hookfang as they watched Astrid run around the village frantically. From Stormfly's back, Hiccup was regretting his decision to let Astrid have a chance of doing something by herself.

"Uh, I think she's helping the dragons break stuff?" Tuffnut suggested with a smirk.

"Cool," Ruffnut grinned. At that moment, Astrid just got knocked over by a wayward Gronkle. Hiccup winced – that looked like it hurt.

"Wow, she could really use our help," he grimaced.

"We'll get to it," Tuffnut shrugged.

"In a minute," Ruffnut snickered. In the Plaza below, Astrid continued to control the wild dragons but to little to no avail. For every dragon she calmed down, another three came along to give her even more trouble and the worst was yet to come as Hiccup spotted the familiar sight of dragons flying over the village. He groaned when he saw that the sun was just past its highest point in the sky.

"And...it's three o'clock," he groaned as the green blobs of dragon excrement began to fall. In the Plaza, Astrid hadn't noticed the dragons overhead and hadn't had time to find some shelter – instead, she resigned herself to what was going to happen.

"Oh, no," she moaned.

/\

"Oww..." Astrid moaned that evening as she relocated both shoulders and stretched out her legs. Toothless was by her side and had heated a pan of coal to warm her bed up – it had done little to ease her aching muscles. "Everything hurts..." she grumbled, removing her metal leg. "Even this," she huffed as what remained of her left leg hung uselessly below her knee whilst she let it recover from the higher than normal amount of prosthetic-leg-usage that day. Toothless cooed sympathetically and licked Astrid's face gently when a familiar nasal voice sounded from downstairs.

"Astrid! I'm home!" Hiccup called. Astrid started and quickly yanked her metal leg back on.

"Hiccup?!" she spluttered, jumping up from the bed and brushing herself down. "Perfect..." she muttered irritably. She made a nervous face at Toothless as she heard Hiccup coming up the stairs and across the house towards her room. "I don't look too beat up, do I?" she asked worriedly. Astrid wasn't one to usually worry about her appearance but given her still evident crush on Hiccup and the day she'd had, she wanted to look presentable.

In reply to his rider's question, Toothless grumbled a little bit and his eyes widened, his pupils taking up most of his bright green-yellow irises. Astrid huffed – she didn't have to speak Dragonese to understand what the Night Fury meant. She must look pretty bad.

"Oh, great," she groaned. "Dragon pity," she huffed just as her door opened and Hiccup walked in.

"Hey, Hiccup!" Astrid greeted awkwardly. "Did you...uh...have a good day?"

"It was decent," Hiccup shrugged. "Chief training this morning followed by a flight with Stormfly."

"Oh, right!" Astrid grinned nervously, praying that it hadn't come out as a grimace. "I...um...hope that went well."

"So, how was your day?" Hiccup asked, folding his arms.

"Oh, uneventful," Astrid laughed nervously. She hated it that she still got so flustered around Hiccup especially when she was lying...which she was...very badly...as usual. "Hung around the plaza...you know..." she added. Hiccup raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I do know," he grimaced. Astrid's nervous grin vanished to be replaced by an embarrassed expression. "We saw you out there." Well, that was just peachy. "It's hard to believe you're still standing." Giving up on the pretence, Astrid let out a massive groan before slumping back onto her bed, her right foot and left leg giving out entirely.

"I'm gonna be seeing flaming sheep in my dreams for the next month," she moaned in self-pity. The moment was interrupted by someone else shouting from downstairs.

"Astrid!" Stoick yelled. Astrid yelped and quickly scrambled to her feet again, wincing as she put too much pressure on her left leg – thankfully Hiccup and Toothless caught her before her face became best friends with the floor. Stoick stormed upstairs and entered Astrid's room just as she righted herself. "Astrid, what's going on out there?" he asked – Astrid gulped when she saw how angry he looked. There was a reason why she was terrified of the man. "The plaza looks like a war zone." No kidding.

"I know it looks bad..." Astrid stammered, holding her hands up defensively.

"Really bad," Hiccup corrected her in an undertone. Astrid hid a wince – she still wasn't confident enough to even shove the guy let alone elbow him in the ribs like she wanted to. Hiccup was really helping her right now.

"Yeah," Astrid huffed before continuing. "But this is only 'phase one' of my master plan," she explained nervously.

"Oh," Stoick blinked. "So you do have a plan?"

"I do...of course I do!" Astrid nodded insistently, although Hiccup wasn't convinced. "It's very complex. Lots of drawings...several moving parts," she continued. "Yeah, it's, uh, pretty wild." Dammit, now she only had a maximum of six hours to actually come up with a plan...brilliant. Oh, well. She'd had less time before. Not that it had worked...

"Uh-huh," Stoick noted, clearly only half-convinced at most. "Well, this had better work because Mildew's stirred up the whole island."

"Oh, great!" Hiccup huffed. "That's just what we need."

"I know it's bad, son," Stoick sighed. "Listen, Astrid, if you don't get those dragons under control, they'll be calling for their heads," he warned before heading downstairs to go to bed. Toothless grumbled fearfully and nuzzled his head under Astrid's arm for reassurance. Astrid smiled gently and scratched him behind the ear.

"Don't worry, boy," she soothed. "Your head's not going anywhere."

"You do realize there are, like, a bazillion dragons out there and only one of you?" Hiccup pointed out worriedly. "I hope you really do have a plan."

Astrid's mind whirred for a few moments before she came up with something. Of course – why hadn't she thought of it before?

/\

"That's your plan?" Ruffnut questioned dumbfounded the next morning. "Train dragons?"

"Here?" Tuffnut added. "Where we used to kill them?"

Astrid had gathered the rest of the teenagers in the Arena where they had once had Dragon Training before the defeat of the Red Death. Since then, the place had gone out of use – to be honest, Astrid was amazed that wildlife hadn't started taking over yet – until today, when Astrid came up with the idea to use it to not learn how to fight dragons but instead how to train them. She figured she might as well make the term 'Dragon Training' literal.

"Right, because we don't do that anymore," she confirmed, placing her hand on her hip and using the other to gesture to the Arena (no doubt if the place had a mind it would be thinking 'you just gestured to all of me' at that point). "That's why it's available," she explained. The dragons had all been gathered up as well but looked far from comfortable with the whole thing – they looked incredibly skittish, as if memories of the place were flooding back. Toothless was relatively calm, having not spent that much time here (he was only locked up for an afternoon or so after he came to rescue Astrid from being fried by Hookfang during the final exam).

"Actually, the dragons do seem a little nervous," Hiccup noted as he tried to keep Stormfly calm by smoothing down her tail spines and grooming her scales.

"That's because they're very sensitive," Fishlegs explained sadly, comforting Meatlug who looked terrified. Astrid couldn't help but think 'Well, now you know how I felt when you nearly blasted my face off on the first day of Dragon Training' but she felt horrible for thinking it and so kept her mouth shut. "Meatlug especially," Fishlegs continued. "She lost a cousin here. We try not to talk about it."

Hiccup had to admit that he was impressed with Astrid's resourcefulness. He'd left her to think about what she was going to do about the dragons the previous night and then early that morning, just after Stoick had left the house, he was woken up not by Stormfly as he usually was, but Astrid shaking him awake and telling him her plan to use the Arena as a place to train the dragons as well as teaching the others how to control them. That way, she wouldn't have to deal with things alone – he was glad she'd realised that much.

"It's amazing that Dad just gave us the Arena," he remarked, a slight grin creeping onto his face. Astrid's confident smile was suddenly replaced by an awkward grimace.

"Well, it would be, if he did, yeah," she stuttered, fiddling with her plait and nervously brushing her bangs out of her face only to have them fall straight back in front of her left eye. "But, he didn't," she continued awkwardly. "So that's another thing we should try not to talk about." Through the stammering, Hiccup finally caught on with what the girl was saying.

"Wait, so we're going behind Dad's back?" he realised, his face switching to an irritated scowl as he raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

"There you go!" Astrid exclaimed in a forced manner. She was trying to sound annoyed but it just came across as nervous. "Talking about it! Uh..." she paused for a moment as she got her words together. "Alright," she sighed before turning to address the team. "Everybody, here's the thing. The dragons are out of control," she explained. "We want them to live in our world without destroying it but they can't without our help. They've been blowing things up in the village...we've gotta do something about that."

"Got it!" Tuffnut snickered gleefully. "Help dragons blow things up. We can totally do that!" Astrid refrained from facepalming.

"No. I believe I said..." she tried to speak but Ruffnut cut straight across her.

"Here's how we're gonna do it," she grinned evilly. "First, we make them really, really angry..." she planned, looking at her brother who instantly agreed.

"No problem," Tuffnut laughed. "We anger everybody." Well, at least they were aware of that much.

"No, you guys, this is serious!" Astrid protested. "Mildew wants all of our dragons caged," she explained. That shut the twins up. "And I don't know about you but that's not okay with me."

"You're right," Tuffnut mumbled. "She's sorry," he added, indicating his sister who promptly whacked his shoulder.

"Okay, then. Next problem..." Astrid exhaled nervously before regaining her stride and fetching a loaf of bread from her satchel. "The dragons are eating everything in sight," she explained. "Now, when a dragon grabs something it's not supposed to have, you can get him to drop it by giving him a little scratch just below the chin," she demonstrated by giving the loaf of bread to Toothless before scratching him under the chin, just beside the pressure point so that she didn't end up with a Night Fury squashing her.

"Blah-blah-blah!" Snotlout snickered. "Maybe that works for you and Toothless... But Hookfang and me? We do things a little different," he smirked. Astrid refrained from scowling – okay, Snotlout had admittedly been treating her a little nicer as of late but she still tolerated him at best. Of all the teens, he was the one she liked the least – heck, even the twins were more use than him at times!

"When I want this big boy to do something I just get right in his face and..." Snotlout explained in his usual smug tone as he tossed Hookfang the loaf of bread Astrid had retrieved from Toothless before shouting at the top of his lungs (and trust me, he had large lungs)... "DROP THAT RIGHT NOW! YOU HEAR ME?" However, instead of dropping the bread like Toothless did, Hookfang grumbled a bit and instead grabbed Snotlout in his jaws before hoisting him off the ground.

"See?" Snotlout's muffled voice sounded in an attempt to sound like he'd done something mildly right. "He dropped it..." he pointed out meekly. Okay, admittedly, Hookfang had dropped the bread – it just wasn't the approach Astrid had in mind. Hiccup was struggling not to laugh.

"Heh heh," Tuffnut chortled. "Should we help him?"

"Yeah," Hiccup smirked, his cheeks beginning to hurt as he tried to keep his laughter in. "In a minute," he shrugged, echoing Ruffnut's earlier statement when he'd asked them if they should help Astrid the previous day. Astrid couldn't keep the grin off her face but continued, grateful that Snotlout had shut up for a bit.

"Alright," she smiled confidently. "We've got a lot of training to do," she pointed out, referring to the teens as well as the dragons. "But together, we can keep these dragons under control!"

With that she gave the signal for the team to leave the Arena and head out to the village. The dragons ran on ahead as the others began walking back...at least, most of them.

"Uh...can somebody do that chin scratchy thing?" Snotlout pleaded, his head still inside Hookfang's mouth. "Hello? You guys still there?" he called when no answer came.

/\

Later that afternoon, the team began walking through the village when a sight that Astrid wasn't expecting greeted them.

"Huh," Fishlegs grunted in surprise. Astrid frowned and scanned the scene. "No dragons," Fishlegs added. It was true – there wasn't even a single Terrible Terror to be spotted and you could at least always see one of those nesting on a rooftop or something.

"That was easy," Ruffnut remarked. Too easy, Astrid thought.

"Lunch?" Snotlout suggested, now free from Hookfang's jaws and covered in dragon saliva – good luck washing that out, Astrid thought to herself, knowing from experience how difficult it was to get dragon saliva off her top. Anyway, getting back on topic...

"That's weird," Astrid muttered, squinting against the late autumn sun. "If the dragons aren't here, where are they?" she wondered aloud. Hiccup grimaced next to her and pointed towards the food store.

"Something tells me that way..." he groaned. On cue, the teens pelted over to the food store where dragons of every shape, size and colour were helping themselves to fish, meats and bread.

"Ow! Stop it!" a Viking yelled, having a tug-of-war with a Nadder over a salmon. "Give me that – that's mine!" Hiccup suddenly recognised the Deadly Nadder involved. It was a female covered in blue, red and yellow scales.

"Stormfly?" he exclaimed in horror. Nearby, a distinguishable Monstrous Nightmare was helping itself to a barrel of cod.

"Hookfang!" Snotlout blurted out, running over to try and get his dragon back under control but to no avail. Astrid was frozen in horror at the scene and to make matters worse, Stoick was already there before she could do anything.

"They've eaten everything!" Stoick exclaimed angrily. "We've got nothing left for the freeze!" Then to make matters even more worse...

"I warned you Stoick," Mildew hissed. Oh, great – he just had to be there. "But did you listen to me? No," he scoffed. "You put a bunch of teenagers in charge!" Astrid bristled almost visibly – at least this 'bunch of teenagers' knew more about dragons and how to put up with them than Mildew did. "Now look what the dragons have done! Caging is too good for those beasts." Astrid cut in before Mildew could say any more, although she was already scared that she could do little to change the situation. She had to try, though.

"Stoick, I swear I can fix this!" she promised. "We...we were just starting to..." she stammered.

"Enough, Astrid!" Stoick bellowed, so loudly that even Hiccup cringed. "How can I trust you to control all the dragons when you couldn't even control your own?" he snapped, pointing towards a cart of meat. Astrid slumped in despair as she recognised the only black-scaled dragon with a bright red prosthetic tail-fin on the island.

"Oh, Toothless..." she muttered as the Night Fury gave her an innocent look with his mouth full of a large ham. The look vanished when he saw how disappointed his rider was. Stoick was already getting ready to restock the store.

"Bucket! Mulch! Man the boats!" he ordered. "We need another catch!" Mulch grimaced next to Bucket.

"It's too late Stoick," he explained regrettably. "It took us six months to catch all that fish."

"Don't tell me it's too late!" Stoick growled. "We've got to try!"

"Of course we do!" Mulch nodded before turning to Bucket. If there was one thing that Astrid didn't quite agree with the way Mulch looked after Bucket, it was the way he would always pass the blame onto him and Bucket wouldn't even know he hadn't done anything wrong. "Uh, don't tell the chief it's too late. You're always so negative!" Mulch scolded.

"I don't know what it is with me..." Bucket mumbled. Astrid tried again.

"Stoick, please! You've gotta listen to me," she begged, her voice becoming more and more desperate. "I know dragons better than..."

"Not now, Astrid," Stoick snapped, ignoring the pleading looks coming not only from his foster-daughter's face but also his son's and the other teens'. "I have a village to feed." As always – the village came first. Astrid had felt the same frustration when she'd tried to tell Stoick that she'd shot down a Night Fury all those months ago and he'd simply said 'Can you not see I've got bigger problems? Winter is almost here and I have an entire village to feed!' as she did now. Honest to the gods! Stoick was a father as well as a chief...

"The dragons have done enough damage," Stoick huffed. "By tonight, I want every one of them caged. Understand?" Astrid and the others shared a simultaneous inhale of shock – they hadn't expected Stoick to actually take Mildew's advice.

"Bah!" Mildew huffed. Oh, speak of the devil... "You can't just cage these dragons! You need to send them away now!" he demanded. Astrid's despair grew as the village behind her began roaring in agreement. Then, to her greatest surprise and shock, Stoick gave in.

"You're right, Mildew," he nodded before turning to head to the docks. "We'll cage them tonight, and in the morning, Astrid will send them off the island."

"What?!" Astrid exclaimed, a hand flying to her mouth before she stop it.

"Dad, please! No!" Hiccup protested as his father passed by. Stoick placed a hand on his son's shoulder – it was a forced gesture.

"I'm sorry, son," he sighed before walking away. Astrid stared after him, not bothering to keep the tears falling from her storm-blue eyes.

Later that evening, in the Great Hall, everyone was sitting down to a rather lousy meal of broth – the dragons had eaten everything else. Even so, the lack of food wasn't what was on everyone's mind, even Snotlout's.

"I can't believe we have to send them away," he muttered, not even touching his spoon.

"It's gonna be weird," Hiccup choked slightly, playing with his broth as he spooned up a small amount before letting it fall back into the bowl. "I got used to Stormfly's face being the first thing I see every morning," he sighed. It was true – apart from that morning when Astrid had woken Hiccup up at the crack of dawn, Stormfly always poked her head through Hiccup's bedroom window as a signal to say 'Morning flight, now!' and he would always comply, throwing back the covers and jumping out the window onto her back, flying a few laps around the island before heading back home for chief-ing lessons with his father.

"Every night before I went to sleep, Meatlug would lick my feet," Fishlegs whimpered. Astrid, who like Hiccup was only playing with her food in her sadness, looked up and stared at Fishlegs incredulously. Okay, those two had a weird relationship. "Who's gonna do that now?!" he wept.

"I volunteer Tuffnut!" Ruffnut piped up, trying to alleviate the tension but even her voice was half-hearted. Tuffnut wasn't even in the mood to fight or joke back.

"Whatever," he groaned. "What time should I be there?" Hiccup huffed and slammed his spoon down on the table, pushing his bowl away and kicking the bench away from the table as he stood up.

"Come on, guys," he sighed sadly. "Let's get this over with."

The teens gathered their dragons outside the hall and began walking over to the Arena. They had spent the afternoon gathering up most of the wild dragons on Berk and getting them shut away for the evening but this was the hardest part of everything...Astrid could feel her heart wrenching as she walked alongside Toothless and on more than one occasion she stopped to gulp back tears, unwilling to let anyone see her cry.

"This is the worst day of my life!" Fishlegs cried. Unlike Astrid, he had no problem letting the tears out. "We're never gonna see our dragons again!" he wailed.

"We can't let that happen!" Astrid protested, but she was already so far behind the rest of the group that no one heard her. She stopped in her tracks and hugged Toothless close as he nuzzled her gently in comfort. "Toothless is the best friend I've ever had," she whispered. Her moment was ruined by the arrival of a certain old man making his way back home.

"Oh! Toothless, I'm gonna miss you so much..." Mildew sneered in a high-pitched voice – Astrid glared at his stupid impression of her. The old man leant on his staff smugly before turning his steely gaze to the Nordic Blonde.

"You know what your mistake was?" he snickered. "Thinking dragons could be trained. A dragon's gonna do what a dragon's gonna do," he explained with a cruel shrug. "It's their nature. And nature always wins." With that he sauntered off into the darkness, Fungus trailing behind him like a dog. Astrid sighed – it was all thanks to that miserable old half-troll that she was losing her best friend...the first real friend she'd ever had. Nearby, a woman dropped a basket, sending the contents flying. Astrid blinked with surprise as Toothless stopped the contents flying too far by stopping them with his tail and making sure the woman could pick everything up.

"Oh! Thank you, Toothless," the woman smiled as she made her way home. Astrid suddenly had a brain wave and her face, previously forlorn, lit up like the moon above her.

"You know what?" she muttered to herself. "Mildew is absolutely right!" she exclaimed, running over to Toothless who looked at her excitedly as she leapt onto his back. "Come on, boy!" she urged as Toothless jumped into the skies and the pair shot towards the Arena. At the Arena, the teens were preparing to shut the dragons away. Hiccup held up a torch as Stormfly looked at him sadly – he forced himself not to look at her.

"Goodbye, Hookfang," Snotlout muttered, trying to keep the sadness from his voice as Hookfang gently nudged him before entering the Arena. Hiccup took a deep breath as he stood by the contraption to shut the gate.

"I'm sorry, Stormfly," he whispered hoarsely, pointing at the gate with his torch. "Now go." Reluctantly, Stormfly obeyed and walked slowly into the Arena. Hiccup got ready to close the gate as Snotlout slumped beside him.

"Ugh," he groaned. "Feels like big sharp teeth are tearing at this...thing inside my chest," he moaned. Hiccup was too depressed to feel amazed that his cousin actually had any feelings.

"That's what it feels like when your heart is breaking," he explained quietly, turning away so that Snotlout wouldn't start teasing him for having tears threatening to roll down his face.

"I don't have a heart!" Snotlout protested. "I'm not a girl." Hiccup ignored him and began turning to wheel to close the gate to the Arena when...

"Don't close it!" someone shrieked. Hiccup blinked with surprise as he saw Toothless and Astrid flying at breakneck sped towards the Arena before they skid to a halt merely metres in front of him. Astrid was panting on her friend's back but her eyes had an elated glean to them. "We are not locking them up," Astrid insisted, leaning forward onto Toothless' shoulders as she got her breath back.

"What happened?" Hiccup asked, curious as to what had made his fiancée so excited. "Did you change Dad's mind?" he question excitedly before wincing in suspicion. "Or are we going behind his back again?" he quizzed.

"Uh...one of those," Astrid shrugged in admittance. "Look. The dragons are gonna do what they're gonna do," she explained, a smile spreading across their face. "It's their nature. We just need to learn how to use it!" she pointed out. Hiccup thought for a moment before catching onto Astrid's plan – now this was something that could work.

"Now that's more like a Hofferson!" he grinned.

/\

The next morning, Mulch and Bucket were still out trying to catch another load of fish. Pulling the net up for what felt like the millionth time in the space of a few hours, Mulch sagged when he saw the state of them.

"Ah, the nets are empty again," he sighed.

"Did I eat them already? Did I enjoy it?" Bucket asked innocently, rubbing his forehead in thought as if trying to remember something he never did. "Oops...am I being too negative?" he questioned when a familiar screech came from above. It was Astrid and Toothless, closely followed by Snotlout and Hookfang.

"Snotlout, scare us up some dinner!" Astrid instructed with a large grin spread across her face, a rarity when it came to teaming up with Hiccup's egotistic cousin.

"Dragon attack!" Bucket yelped, ducking for cover as Snotlout led Hookfang into a dive under the water. The pair came across a shoal of cod not far away and scared it towards the boat where the fish swam straight into the net. As Mulch pulled it up, the net was as full as it had been in a three-day fishing trip and he shouted his thanks as Snotlout and Hookfang emerged from the sea.

"That's right! That just happened!" Snotlout cheered. Astrid's grin widened if that was even possible. This was working.

"Come on! Follow me!" she called gleefully, leading Toothless back towards Berk and to the other side of the island where a certain grumpy-grandpa was woken up from his afternoon nap again.

"Huh?" Mildew mumbled sleepily as he heard the dragons flying around outside. This time it was Hiccup and Fishlegs accompanying Astrid on the rounds.

"Afternoon, Mildew!" Hiccup greeted cheerfully. Astrid glanced up at the sun which had just passed its highest point in the sky. Perfect timing.

"Three o'clock!" she announced. "Time for the fertiliser!" On the ground, Mildew frowned in confusion before the teens called in the dragons to come over to the cabbage fields.

"Okay, Meatlug. Let 'er rip!" Fishlegs instructed as the green rain began falling onto the fields, much to Mildew's horror. As much as it was satisfying to see the man like this after what he'd forced the teens through the previous evening, Astrid knew that this should also be beneficial for the guy as well.

"Smile, Mildew!" she urged, flying past with a sly smirk on her face. "We just saved you three months of work!"

Once the 'fertilising' was complete, the group rendezvoused back at the village, all of them beaming from ear to ear.

"Woohoo! That was awesome!" Fishlegs grinned. Hiccup was panting with glee as he turned to face Astrid.

"How did you know that was gonna work?" he asked. Astrid grinned back in a way that was part sly, part relieved that the dragons' nature could be used to the village's advantage and part in happiness.

"Because they're dragons, and they're gonna do what dragons do," she replied simply. "We just have to work with them and not against them," she explained, dismounting Toothless and scratching him behind the ear fondly in congratulations as Hiccup and Fishlegs also dismounted their dragons. Brushing a stray bang out of her eye, only to have it fall straight back into place, she continued. "You know who we should actually be thanking...?" she began when a familiar voice piped up behind her.

"There they are, Stoick!" It was Mildew. Astrid winced when she spotted her foster-father with him – Stoick did not look impressed. If anything, his face was darker than she'd seen it in a long time. "Those dragons don't look like they're in cages to me," Mildew growled.

"No," Stoick confirmed, glaring at Astrid and Hiccup. "This is not what I asked for."

Literally minutes later, the teens had been separated from the dragons and gathered up in the Arena. The entirety of the village had filled up the spectator stands to see what would happen to the team and Mildew had taken a front-row seat. Stoick was standing with Gobber in the Arena with the teens who were all bunched together in a nervous group.

"Oh, no!" Fishlegs whimpered, barely audible. "What's Stoick gonna do to us?" he wondered nervously.

"I'm too pretty for jail!" Ruffnut mumbled.

"Ha, where'd you hear that?" Tuffnut snickered next to her, earning nothing except a smacked jaw. Stoick glowered at them all.

"You all disobeyed my orders," he growled in a tone that set even Snotlout cowering. "And there will be consequences," he added. Hiccup shot a glance.

"I told you we were gonna get in trouble," he hissed.

"Actually, you...OW!" Astrid yelped as Hiccup's fist came into sharp contact with her shoulder.

"You never listen to me!" Hiccup huffed, rolling his eyes.

"Not true!" Astrid protested before wincing as Hiccup's heel became best friends with her toe. Still, she was able to compose herself. "Stoick, if anyone's going to get in trouble it should be me," she insisted, walking forward (albeit with a slight limp) but Stoick interrupted her.

"No," he cut across, silencing her with a stern look. "You all had a hand in this." From his seat in the stands, Mildew was enjoying the proceedings.

"Oh, this is going to be great, Fungus," he snickered quietly to his sheep. "It's about to get ugly," he added with an evil grin.

"You took over this place without asking," Stoick glared, causing all of the teens, especially Astrid, to break eye contact in shame. "You released the dragons against my wishes." Dammit, he wasn't done. "Things are going to change around here." This really wasn't sounding good and the teens shrunk, waiting for the punishment to come. "That's why I..."

"You're getting a dragon training academy!" Gobber cut in cheerfully. Gasps of shock and amazement could have been heard from the Wild Zone.

"Wha...!?" Mildew spluttered

"Gobber!" Stoick huffed, almost whining. "I wanted to tell them!" Astrid glanced at Hiccup, her eyes widening with amazement. Hiccup's green irises were also flashing wildly in excitement.

"I'm sorry," Gobber apologised. "You're right. Go ahead."

"Well, you told most of it!" Stoick snapped jokingly. Gobber shrugged with a smile.

"You can tell Astrid the part about how proud you are of her!" he suggested although Stoick protested at that as well, flushing as red as his beard. Even so, he turned back to the teens who were too happy to care.

"Astrid...well...what he said," Stoick chuckled. Astrid could have sworn her cheeks went hot – she'd ask Hiccup later if she'd gone red (he said she was glowing, but not red-as-a-tomato red). "You've all made me proud," the chief continued, gesturing at the team before waving his hand around the arena. "This dragon training academy is for you all."

The village erupted into applause in the stands as the dragons were let into the arena to reunite with their riders, who all rushed over to greet the reptiles.

"Hookfang! My buddy!" Snotlout cheered, hugging Hookfang around the snout. The Monstrous Nightmare purred loudly and nuzzled Snotlout in a 'best-bud' kind of way. Hiccup's face broke into a delighted smile as he spotted his beloved Deadly Nadder.

"Hey, Stormfly!" he grinned gleefully, making sure he didn't accidently run into Stormfly's blind spot as he hugged her. "I missed you so much!" he smiled, stroking her beak gently as she cooed.

"Meatlug!" Fishlegs cried joyfully, crashing headlong into his Gronkle. "Oh, who's daddy's little baby? Oh, who's daddy's little fluffy..." he babbled. Astrid ignored him and ran straight over to her best friend who was bounding across the arena to meet her.

"Hey, boy!" she laughed, throwing her arms around Toothless' neck. In the stands, Mildew grumbled about how he would get the dragons someday before storming off with Fungus. Astrid could care less about him right now – the team had the dragons back.

"Now all you have to do is train them," Stoick smiled, placing a hand on Astrid's shoulder.

"Not a problem, Stoick," Astrid promised in return, standing up as straight as she could, flicking her hair off her face and smiling proudly. "After all, I've got him," she smiled, scratching Toothless behind the ear.

"Ah-hem!" Hiccup coughed by the rest of the team, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. Astrid shot him an apologetic glance and flushed bright pink.

"And...them, too," she admitted with a shy shrug.

Dragons can't change who they are. But who would want them to? Dragons are powerful, amazing creatures.

Later that afternoon, the dragons helped to hoist a new sign over the gates of the arena. It was an old wooden shield that had been repainted to show the Strike Class insignia, edited to show the Night Fury in black with on red tail-fin, symbolising Toothless – the first dragon to have been trained on the Isle of Berk.

"Berk Dragon Academy," Hiccup smiled as he and Astrid watched the proceedings. "I like the sound of that," he noted, punching Astrid good-naturedly on the shoulder. She smiled in return, unable to wait to hold the Academy's first official classes. Now this was something she was looking forward to being in charge of.

And as long as it takes me I am going to learn everything there is to know about them. Wouldn't you?

AN: Here by popular request! Like I said in the description, this will be a one-episode per chapter thing but that doesn't mean that updates will be weekly! A Viking for Hire is currently in the works, as is Defenders of Berk (I'm trying to get as many out the way as I can) and How a Hofferson Trains Her Dragon 2 will be started once the film's out of cinemas.