"You're no' even tryin'!" Gobber yelled, leaning through the bars of the arena. His voice echoed through the ring, disapproval clear in his tone.
Hiccup ignored his old mentor, attention fixed on the viking across from him. Astrid looked exhausted, dark bags clearly defined under her eyes.
She grunted, readjusting her grip on the axe. The handle was slick with sweat, and he'd seen it nearly slide through her fingers a few times during the session. They'd been at it for a while, and the training session was starting to take a toll on each of them.
Unlike previous days, Gobber was not content with a simple fight. Today he seemed determined to run her through more complex training maneuvers, urging her to push herself further. The girl never complained or argued, but it was obvious that her heart was not in it.
Hiccup edged further away from her, putting as much space between the duo as possible. He was grateful for the natural speed and stealth of the Night Fury, as it made it easy for him to retreat. If she couldn't catch him, neither of them would have to endure another fake fight.
It was much harder to fight her now that she knew the truth. Neither participant wanted to harm the other, but both were aware that those feelings had to be masked for the sake of the secret. This resulted in an awkward series of sparring sessions that made it abundantly clear to Hiccup that neither of them had been meant for a life in theatre.
"It's no use," called Astrid, raising her shielded arm to wipe sweat from her brow. "He's too quick."
'He', noted Hiccup with pleasure, not 'it.'
After a week of being treated like a beast by the Berkians, it was a relief to hear.
If Gobber noticed the shift in the way she'd addressed him, he didn't comment. Instead, he banged his hook on the bar loudly. The sharp sound was like a sharp spike, driving right into Hiccup's skull. He growled, shaking his head to clear away the ringing.
"Oi, lass!" The man scolded, paying the disoriented Night Fury no mind. "You've never been one to give up! Still go' time for one more go!"
"Gobber," reprimanded a stern voice as Stoick the Vast stepped into view. "She's been at it for over an hour. She needs rest – can't you see the beast is obviously trying to weaken her? You'll just make her an easy target if you keep this up."
Hiccup felt his heart tighten as he caught sight of the bearded viking. He hadn't seen his father in days, and seeing him now brought all sorts of feelings to the surface. His heart ached with the longing to be reunited with his only remaining family, but the rational part of him was quick to poke holes in that fantasy.
No matter how much he may want to be part of Berk once more, it was foolish to allow himself such hope. He knew he needed to accept that this would be the closest he'd get to spending time with his father.
Hiccup could see a small muscle twitching in Astrid's cheek, a tell that she was seconds away from lashing out. She clearly hadn't liked the implication that she'd been weakened in any way and was preparing to prove the chief wrong.
Just great, he thought, tensing his muscles. Thanks, Dad.
"I need a win," she murmured to him, voice tight and near silent. "Come on, Hiccup, your father is watching. You have to give me something."
Inwardly, he groaned, but he knew she was right. The easiest way to appease the vikings above was to let them think Astrid was making progress. A small victory would surely satisfy their curiosity for the day, allowing Hiccup and Astrid an out.
Hiccup twisted away from her in a dismissive way, as if he were totally unconcerned about her presence. As if he'd ruled her out as a threat entirely. It took all his concentration to pretend not to notice her slow footfalls approaching from his blindspot.
He groomed a spot on his scales awkwardly, trying to remember what natural dragons did in the wild. Observing them had never been high on his priority list, even after being cursed. Now, he wished he'd taken more time to understand the creatures. Perhaps then he'd know how to act in this moment.
He hoped his actions looked convincing, but he doubted it. His movements felt wooden and stiff and he was certain they looked even more so. At least Night Furies were rare enough that the chief could chalk up any weird behavior to it being a quirk of his species.
When Astrid was a few feet away, he made a show of pretending to finally notice her, spinning around with a dramatic shriek and flaring his wings behind him. The girl widened her eyes at the loud sound, but kept her stance steady as she swung her axe.
She'd moved slowly enough that he could follow the arc of it, leaning to the side in such a way that it barely grazed his right foreleg. It wasn't deep, but it still stung. He stumbled back a few steps, not giving her a chance to strike again.
Stoick yelled his approval, satisfied by the outcome. Astrid had become the first Berkian to draw Night Fury blood and the chief was proud of her accomplishment.
It figured that the first time his father was proud of something he'd been involved in, that event was based around his own pain.
Astrid's eyes were sad as she watched him back away, an unspoken apology clear on her face. Her attention briefly flickered to the bit of blood on her axe, lips pressing into a thin line as she returned her gaze to him.
Hiccup jerked his head upwards, hoping the vague half nod would translate as a sign of his understanding and forgiveness. He turned his attention to the shallow cut, cleaning away the blood with his tongue. It was unpleasant to do so, leaving a metallic tang in his mouth, but the alternative was walking around with his blood trailing down his leg.
Clank! Bang! Clank!
Hiccup was actually relieved to hear Gobber's loud entry to the ring. The session was finally over, and he wasted no time slipping back into the cage.
The blacksmith sealed him inside without a second glance, whistling an old shanty tune to himself. Hiccup had missed that sound, he realized. Gobber only knew a few songs, and he'd had a tendency to cycle through them while they worked together in the forge.
Even though it had been years since Hiccup had heard the song, he remembered every note. There were days where the song had grated on his last nerve, but now he found it just brought back a stream of warm memories.
The forge had been his escape within Berk, back when he'd felt his size and strength were enough to make him an outsider. Now finding himself truly a village outsider, he longed for the simpler days when being seen as weak was his greatest fear.
Those days now felt like another lifetime.
Hiccup was slowly going stir crazy. Once he'd shifted, he found himself pacing the confines of his prison like a man on a mission. He'd memorized every scratch on the walls, even found a few scattered scales in the dirt from…previous residents.
He tried not to think of where they were now. There weren't many possibilities, and none of them were pleasant.
The metal door screeched open, its sudden noise startling Hiccup from his thoughts. He jumped, shakily turning to meet Astrid's eyes.
She had her hands piled high with blankets and furs, a pillow shoved under one arm.
"What's all this?" He asked, heading into the ring. The cool air on his face was a welcome relief, offering a much needed break from the stuffy confines of the cell.
She dropped the blankets by the door, laying the pillow on top. "For your last night in the ring," she explained. "I would have brought them last night, but it was already so late by the time I left."
He smiled, touched by the unexpected gesture. "That's really nice, Astrid," he said, hating that he couldn't accept her act of kindness, "but it'll be too suspicious if there's bedding in a dragon cell. As much as I want to take it, I can't."
Astrid didn't look happy with the answer.
"It's only one more night," he reminded her, stretching his arms in front of him. "I can handle it."
The blonde's attention fixed on his arm, expression tight as she looked at the pink line down his right forearm. The fading evidence of their earlier fight.
"It's fine," he assured her, voice light. "It'll be completely gone in a few hours."
"It's not fine, I did that."
Hiccup gave her a long look. "Yes, you injured a dragon. That's kind of the goal around here," he reminded her, waving a hand around the arena. "A point of pride actually, if you ask anyone…"
"It's not the same and you know it."
"It is to all of them," he pointed out, "Besides, I'm getting out of here soon. You'll be the only viking in Berk who can say that they injured a Night Fury. That's gotta count for something."
"Bragging rights for life," she agreed, voice thoughtful before turning and punching him lightly in the shoulder, "You're an idiot."
"Haven't you hit me enough today?" He teased, rubbing his shoulder.
Her face soured again at the reminder and he wished he could take back the words. She narrowed her eyes, "This needs to end before something like that happens again – or worse! They're probably going to want more than a graze next time. Where are you with that plan?"
Hiccup was grateful for the subject change, rushing to explain. "Well the simplest option is to make it look like I busted out of here on my own. That way, there are no loose ends to tie up and no one gets in trouble."
"Agreed," she said, "but it's just not believable. Gobber designed these cells to be completely impenetrable. No dragon can just blast its way through those doors without help."
Hiccup raised an eyebrow, "maybe none of the typical arena dragons, but could a Night Fury?"
She froze, considering his words. Once again, the village's lack of knowledge on the species made it impossible to say with absolute certainty. "Could you?"
"Not me," he said shaking his head with a chuckle, "but a real Night Fury with a lifetime of experience using those plasma blasts? Maybe. No one knows, and that's really all that matters. If anything, it just adds to the mystery."
"Huh," she said, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. "You may have a point, but how does that help us if you can't?"
He waved his arms towards the hinges of the door, gesturing wildly. "That's the beauty of it, Astrid – it just has to look like I did! I'm thinking some well placed scorch marks, maybe we find a way to crush the metal in a bit? Alright, probably a lot if we're gonna be believable. Everyone else will assume the rest."
"What about the latch on the outside of the door?"
Hiccup considered the problem for a minute, "bring a torch tomorrow night. We'll get the bolts hot enough, then stretch them till they snap. We'll make it look like I got the door hot enough to start melting them through it, then I used force to break it open the rest of the way."
"Stretch them with what exactly?" Astrid asked, seeing a hole in the plan. "If we get the metal that hot, we'd need something from the forge to do the rest and Gobber will definitely notice if any of his tools are gone. Anything else would just burn…"
Hiccup held up his left hand with a grin, wiggling the scaled fingers. "Oh, trust me…that won't be a problem."
Hiccup's last day in the ring was…intense.
Gobber had been pushing Astrid even harder than before, likely a result of Stoick's repeated attendance. She'd hurled herself around the ring, a flurry of blades and screeches. It was a precise dance, and Hiccup was certain that if she'd been really trying to hit him, she'd have managed it.
At one point, he was forced to pump his wings, hovering a few feet above Astrid as she hurled her weapon across the ring.
"...so it can fly," he overheard his father speaking to Gobber. "I thought maybe it'd been injured in the raid. Too much to hope that we'd have a fully downed dragon on our hands, I suppose…"
Gobber hummed in agreement, voice turning thoughtful as he considered the chief's words. "Well, we could always clip its wings? I reckin' all it we'd nee' to do is damage a tailfin and he'd be good as grounded."
Hiccup felt his blood run cold. They were really going to cripple him?
He tried to keep his eyes on Astrid's form below, but it was hard to concentrate with this new threat hanging over his head. She'd retrieved her axe and was staring up at him, face crinkled in confusion. She could read him well enough by now to know that something was wrong, but had no way to guess what he'd overheard.
"...not a good idea," it was Stoick's voice that shook him from his thoughts. "We may never see another Night Fury up close – for now, it's probably best to learn how it flies and see what attacks it uses in the air."
Hiccup could feel his heartbeat pounding in his wings as he struggled to regain a sense of calm. It seemed that the threat had passed, for now at least. He really didn't want to consider what they'd do when they decided that they'd learned enough about his flight.
Astrid yelled from below, a warcry that he couldn't ignore.
He huffed, pulling in his wings and diving down to land behind her. He let a plasma blast gather in his throat, hoping the observers would see it as a reason to end the session. It had worked before, perhaps it would work again.
"Astrid, look out!" Stoick yelled, throwing open the gate and barrelling inside. He'd yanked his hammer from his belt, and before Hiccup could fully process the fact that his father was in the ring with him, struck out and slammed it into the Night Fury's jaw.
Hiccup let the blast fade in his throat, dazed by the force of the impact.
Meanwhile, Gobber had hobbled into the arena, grabbing a shield on the way.
Clank! Bang! Clank!
Hiccup retreated immediately, feeling his jaw swelling from the hammer strike.
He'd never been so happy to see the cage door close.