"Good girl!" Astrid cheered as Stormfly landed gracefully in front of her and dropped the stick she was holding in her mouth at her feet, right with all the other ones. It was a nice pile of sticks, branches and stones that Astrid had thrown for her dragon the entire afternoon, and Stormfly managed to fetch them all.

"How about we call it a day? Dinner's on me, and since you did so well today, you're going to get extra chicken." The Nadder squawked in anticipation and nuzzled Astrid's cheek, purring softly. Astrid laughed and leaped onto the dragon's back. "Come on, girl, let's get to Berk before sunset".

As they glided across the forest, Astrid stretched her hands and yawned. Her whole body was sore and exhausted, but it was a rather pleasant sensation - the kind you get after a day full of training. She has been trying to teach Stormfly how to fetch for quite some time, but now the dragon seemed to have finally perfected the new trick. Astrid could not wait to show this to the other riders.

The horizon was already painted bright orange when they saw the village houses in front of them. Astrid patted Stormfly's neck. "Take us straight home, girl, there's a bucket full of chicken waiting just for - WOOOOOWWW!"

The Nadder suddenly took an abrupt turn to the left, folded her wings back and dove straight toward the village market place. Astrid doubled over and grabbed the saddle in order to avoid being thrown off.

"Wha - Stormfly! What are you doing?!" she cried, but Stormfly simply ignored her. She shot like an arrow through the market, knocking over carts of apples, turnips and onions, and also some unfortunate Vikings who failed to duck in time. Suddenly Astrid realized that if they don't stop now they will bump right into Hiccup and Fishlegs, who were walking a few feet ahead of them and seemed to be deeply engaged in conversation, completely oblivious to the chaos happening just behind their backs.

"Wait - No!" Astrid screamed in horror. "Please, Stormfly, just st - "

Everything happened so fast. One moment Hiccup was walking peacefully and talking to Fishlegs, and the next one he was dangling upside down from Stormfly's enormous jaw, arms flailing wildly and his peg leg caught between her teeth.

They flew like this for only a couple of seconds. Before Astrid could say or do anything Stormfly landed at her front door, stretching her wings and roaring triumphantly, Hiccup still dangling from her mouth like a rag doll.

Astrid jumped off the saddle. "Hiccup! Are you alright?" she panted.

"Ahhh... I think?" Hiccup's upside down face stared at her in total confusion. "W-what just happened?"

"I have no idea," Astrid admitted. "We just came back from training. Everything was fine, nothing unusual, and then she went completely crazy and flew straight at you like you were some kind of - " her speech suddenly died when she looked at Hiccup's fake foot. Her eyes widened. "Oh."

"What?" Hiccup asked nervously. Flush was spreading slowly across his cheeks as the blood came rushing to his head. "I gotta say, Astrid, this conversation would be a lot easier if I was able to see something other than your boots."

"Oh, sorry!" Astrid almost forgot. she cleared her throat. "Stormfly, drop it."

"Wait - drop?! Hold on a sec - arrrghhfff!"

Stormfly released her grip on Hiccup's foot, causing him to crash to the ground with a pained yelp. Astrid forced back a laugh as she reached to help him up. "Sorry about that. You okay?"

Hiccup took her hand and pulled himself up, blinking rapidly and rubbing his head. He shook his left leg, making sure the metal was still securely attached to his stump. "Well, I still see only one of you, which is a good sigh, I suppose. Care to share what the hell is going on?"

"I was teaching Stormfly to fetch," Astrid explained. "We were training all day, and... well, you can say that she took her training to a whole new level." Stormfly puffed out her chest, looking extremely satisfied with herself. Astrid chuckled. "Yeah, that's my girl," she stroked the dragon's snout affectionately.

"You were teaching her to fetch people?" Hiccup asked in dismay.

Astrid bit her lower lip. "Actually, we were only training with sticks... or small branches." She lowered her gaze to Hiccup's feet. "And I guess your peg leg fits quite nicely into this category."

Hiccup simply stared at her, too stunned to reply.

Astrid passed her weight from one leg to the other nervously. "Are you upset?" she murmured. Personally, she found the whole thing pretty hilarious, but she also couldn't help but feel a little bad for her boyfriend.

Hiccup shook his head and gave her a sheepish smile. "Just make sure you train her to fetch sticks which are not attached to other people."

Astrid laughed lightly. "I don't know... I kinda like her commitment. Besides, it might come in handy some day."

Hiccup narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "And how's that, exactly?"

"All I'm saying is that sometimes my boyfriend is quite hard to find, with all his academy duties and smithy projects and chiefing lessons that his father is making him to take, and it sure would save me the trouble of looking for him if I could just command my dragon to... bring him to me." She gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Now if you'll excuse me, Stormfly and I are starving. See you later!"

"Hey - wait! You can't say just something like that and walk away!" Hiccup protested, but Astrid ignored him and led Stormfly to her stall, closing the door behind her.

"Don't worry, babe!" she called through the closed door. "I'll find you after dinner! Or, at least, Stormfly will." She smiled to herself. Maybe it was time for Hiccup to start teaching Toothless some good evasive maneuvers.

Jokes about Hiccup's legs give me life.

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