NOVEL NEXT Chapter 11: chapter 11
The next day Hiccup had no training, so he focused on making the saddle and foot pedal. He got up super early to start working on them and was at it the entire morning.
When afternoon came, he rushed to the cove with the finished items and presented them to Kala excitedly. She sniffed them and got excited then she playfully ran away from Hiccup in a catch-me-if-you-can way.
"Hey!" Hiccup yelled as he chased her around the cove.
~~~HTLANF~~~
As the day went on, Hiccup and Kala were testing out the saddle and foot pedal to see if they worked properly. Hiccup changed the position of the tailfin, but a gust of wind hit them and sent them tumbling backwards. When they landed, it seemed to be in a field of very tall grass.
Hiccup got up and looked around for Kala, only to find her rolling around in the grass purring happily. He picked some of it and examined it.
"This may come in handy during training."
~~~HTLANF~~~
At training the next day Hiccup tried to get away from the Gronckle they were going up against for the second time, but he stopped when he remembered the grass that he and Kala discovered the day before. Because of how it affected Kala, they dubbed it Dragon Nip.
He held it up to the Gronckle while looking away then looked at the dragon as it came to a stop while purring as its eyes dilated. Hiccup smiled and started to rub the Dragon Nip on the Gronckle's snout, which made it fall to the ground in pure bliss.
All the teens looked at Hiccup in shock, but Astrid did not look happy at all.
When training ended most of the teens followed Hiccup asking questions.
"What was that? Some kind of trick? What did you do?" Fishlegs asked.
"How'd you do that?" Tuffnut added on.
"It was really cool." Ruffnut said.
"Hey, Hiccup!" Fishlegs tried again.
"Hey, Hiccup, I've never seen a Gronckle do that before!" Snotlout said, trying to get his cousin's attention. Most likely to pry his tricks out of him to use them himself.
Hiccup started to feel really overwhelmed by all the questions being thrown his way.
'C'mon think. Come up with an excuse to get away from them!'
"I left my axe in the ring. You guys go on ahead. I'll catch up with you." Hiccup said as he backed away from the others and dashed back in the direction of the Kill Ring.
Astrid watched him dash off with a glare.
~~~HTLANF~~~
That afternoon Hiccup was spending time with Kala. She was in dragon form again and he was giving her scratches and pets all over to help get some loose scales off. As he was, he scratched under her jaw and she melted into a purring puddle on the ground not able to move, which led to her falling into a blissful sleep.
Hiccup jumped when she fell and looked at his hands.
"I wonder.."
~~~HTLANF~~~
The next day at training Hiccup dodged the Deadly Nadder and was able to get close enough to scratch under its jaw. The Nadder had the same reaction Kala did the day before, falling to the ground in a blissful sleep.
The other teens stopped what they were doing in shock.
"Hiccup, you're totally going to come in first, there's no question." Tuffnut said after recovering from his shock.
~~~HTLANF~~~
That afternoon Hiccup was in the cove yet again working on fixing up the flight gear. He didn't feel like working on it all in the forge. Especially since Gobber was working on a couple of broken weapons from Dragon Training.
He looked up when he heard something jumping around to see Kala playing with some light that was bouncing off of the hammer he was using.
Hiccup laughed a bit and moved the light around. Kala chased it happily trying her hardest to catch it, but never succeeding because Hiccup would move it the second she thought she finally had it.
~~~HTLANF~~~
The next day at training Gobber had everyone gathered around at the smaller cage that was in the Kill Ring.
"Meet the Terrible Terror." He said as he opened the cage.
A green Terrible Terror scurried out of the cage once it was unlocked and looked at all the teens while licking one of its eyes. Hiccup tilted his head as he looked at it.
'Kinda cute. Although, from what I have witnessed and the info Kala gave me on them, they can get pretty chaotic.'
"Ha! It's like the size of my--" Tuffnut started to say, but was cut off as the Terror growled and jumped up biting down on his nose. Tuffnut screamed and started running around while trying to pry the Terror off of him. "AH! GET IT OFF! OH, I'M HURT! I AM VERY MUCH HURT!"
Hiccup looked at the shield on his arm and smirked a bit.
'Maybe if I used the shield to make a light for it to chase I could lead it back into its cage.'
With his mind set, Hiccup maneuvered his shield to reflect the sunlight coming into the Kill Ring to make a light on the ground. The Terror saw this and stopped chomping on Tuffnut's nose. It tried to catch the light, but Hiccup kept moving it and had the dragon follow the light to its cage. The Terror chased after the light and followed it right into the cage without any hassle.
Tuffnut walked up to a fuming Astrid as he massaged his irritated nose.
"Wow, he's better than you ever were." He commented to her.
Astrid got even more irritated by that.
~~~HTLANF~~~
That afternoon Hiccup put on the flying harness that he made and grabbed all of the flying gear for Kala then made his way to the cove.
On his way there he stopped when he heard Astrid training with her axe.
They locked eyes for a bit, then Hiccup quickly rushed off before she could bombard him with questions.
He stopped to catch his breath at the entrance to the cove, then entered smiling.
~~~HTLANF~~~
Later on that same afternoon, Hiccup and Kala were out at a cliff to test out all the tailfin positions.
Hiccup had tied a rope to an old tree stump and Kala's saddle to keep them from tumbling back by the wind like the last time they tested out the flight gear.
He had a piece of parchment and a charcoal stick to draw out each position so he could memorize what position did what.
Kala would hop up to glide each time they changed positions, then land and wait patiently for Hiccup to write down his little cheat sheet.
When he was finished and ready to do the next one, she hopped up to glide again, but they got hit with a really strong gust of wind and went tumbling back as the rope broke.
Both of them groaned when they landed. Kala shook her head to get rid of the dizziness as Hiccup sat up holding his head. They both stood and he tried to undo his tether to the saddle, but groaned when he noticed the safety hook got bent from the crash.
"Oh, great."
He removed the saddle from Kala, along with the tailfin.
She turned human and moved a strand of hair out of her face.
"Maybe we could use this as an opportunity for you to finally show me your village? I'm curious about what it looks like."
Hiccup thought about it for a bit then smiled and nodded.
"Sure, why not? We're closer to the village than the cove right now anyways, so might as well."
Kala smiled and helped him with the flight gear as they made their way to the village.
~~~HTLANF~~~
It was dark by the time they made it to the village, which worked in their favor since no one knew Kala was on the island except for Hiccup.
They snuck through the village by taking routes between all the buildings and checked to make sure no one was around before rushing into the forge. When they got inside they made sure everything was still closed and set down all the flight gear. Kala helped Hiccup get his harness off then looked around the place as Hiccup tried to fix the safety hook on the saddle.
"So this is where you work?" Kala asked as she looked around curiously.
"Yep. Whenever Gobber needs help with fixing or making weapons I come in to help. It's also where I invent things. I have a personal work room that he gave to me for that reason. It's a pretty small room for most people in the village, but the perfect size for me." Hiccup explained between his struggled grunts as he pried at the iron.
Kala continued to look around, picking up weapons that were left out here and there to look at them.
Neither of them realized that someone was walking up to the forge from all the noise.
"Hiccup? Are you in there?"
Both of them froze and looked at each other. Hiccup collected himself and mouthed 'Stay here.' to Kala as he left the forge. Kala stayed completely still.
When he got outside he was shocked to see Astrid.
"Astrid. Hey! W-what are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at home right now?"
Astrid raised a brow with her arms crossed.
"Shouldn't you?" She retorted.
Hiccup glared at her a tiny bit.
"I was working on something."
"This late? I normally don't care what people do, but you're acting weird. Well, weirder ."
Hiccup scoffed and crossed his arms.
"Did you just come here to try and pester me about how I've gotten so good at Dragon Training? Because if so, then you're out of luck. I'm not gonna give you the satisfaction of knowing my tricks just so you can be on top. Goodnight." Hiccup spat and then went back into the forge.
Astrid growled and walked off.
"You okay?" Kala asked as Hiccup came back in.
He sighed and nodded. "Yeah I'm okay. She just gets on my nerves. Let's finish fixing the saddle then I'll take you back to the cove, okay? I'll stay there with you tonight."
Kala nodded and started to help Hiccup fix the safety hook.
~~~HTLANF~~~