Heart of a Chief, Soul of a Dragon

Chapter 10

 I pulled myself a little closer to Hiccup as the two of us just... sort of laid there. Ever since the last dragon race, which seemed like ages ago at that point, we hadn't really had the chance to just stop and take some time to relax. In fact, that had been the last six years of our lives—moving from one thing to the next as we attempted to solve the next problem the gods wanted to throw at us. To have the chance to decompress and do absolutely nothing almost felt wrong, but I certainly wasn't complaining.

"How're you feeling?" Hiccup asked quietly, running his fingers along one of my arms.

"Honestly?" I adjusted myself slightly, resting my head against my other elbow. "Maybe everything that's happened in the last few hours is starting to catch up to me, but I feel like my emotions are suddenly all over the place." Self-consciously, I laughed at myself. "Since we've been laying here, I think I went through, like, seven different emotional states at once."

"Mm..." I didn't really expect Hiccup to have a response to that. "This part's going to be rough, isn't it?"

"Unfortunately," I answered quickly, still smiling at him. "The human body goes through some messed up stuff when it's carrying a baby." Hiccup's brows furrowed, causing me to quickly switch gears. "But, then it's all worth it. Sure, raising the kid isn't exactly easy, either, but... I can't wait."

That finally brought the both of us back onto the same track.

"I can't wait, either." He leaned down and kissed the top of my head. "I still can't believe we actually... we're going to be parents. It doesn't feel real." He didn't have to explain the full reason why for me to understand. "Okay. As much as I hate to say it, we should probably get going to Drago."

Hiccup re-adjusted his armor as Toothless and Shriek woke from their nap. While the dragons had been asleep, Hiccup and I had come up with enough of a plan to get us to Drago, and hopefully deal with him, one way or another.

"Well, you two... we can't wait around for Drago to attack this place. We've got to find him first." Toothless roared to get the baby dragons off of him, but one stubborn one hung onto his tail for a little while longer. "Let's go."

Shriek gently nudged away a couple of little Nadders, somewhere in between children and teenagers. Admittedly, I was impressed with how patient she'd been with the young dragons that lived in the nest. While Shriek wasn't a dangerous dragon by any means, she normally had a bit of a short temper when it came to the babies. Maybe it was because she was in a place, surrounded by other dragons, that sort of felt like an old, familiar home.

Just as I turned around, a hand wrapped around Hiccup's mouth, muffling his voice. My eyes widened slightly as I took a step back, and as soon as I looked up, my eyes went even wider.

"Easy now." Hiccup managed to push away, and I reached out to take his hand as the two of us faced his dad.

"Are you kidding me?" he hissed. "How did you get in here?"

"The same way we're getting you both out."

"'We?'" I questioned. Just then, Gobber popped out from the cave.

"All clear."

"Toothless, come." Stock grabbed Hiccup's arm and started to drag us out.

"Uh, wait, uh, wait.... Okay, uh, Dad, there-there's something you need to know."

"Yeah, yeah, tell me on the way," he said dismissively.

"Well, this isn't an 'on the way' kind of update, actually," I persisted.