I was so pissed off, so angry! I didn't know what was up with Hiccup, he was acting like I was not there, like I didn't exist! It was so annoying.

It started a few days ago, I'm not going to tell you the whole situation because it isn't something I wanted to remember, to sum up: one day I went to look for Hiccup for our usual races, I knocked, he opened, said he couldn't, and slammed the door on my face. On my face.

I didn't make a big deal about it, I just thought he was tired or that he was working on some other project, he didn't like to be bothered while doing that, so I could understand. I decided I would talk to him about it the next day.

But, surprise! The next day, when I found him in the great hall, reading a book while eating breakfast, he ignored me completely; I was angry then, but nothing more. 

What really pissed me off was that, later that day, I went to look for him, again, to his house (I didn't know why I was even trying), but he wasn't there! Stoick told me he had gone to do some research to the Cove. When I arrived there, he wasn't anywhere to be found, and neither was Toothless. That was it.

I knew that he could go to ride Toothless on his own whenever he wanted, that was what I did with Thunderlight at midnight, but was it a coincidence that it was the same exact time of our races? I didn't think so.

Thunderlight nudged my hand, which, I hadn't noticed, had turned into a fist because of the anger.

"I'll come later, bud, for our flight, remember?" he growled happily, and I forced a tiny smile before leaving him.

Since I had punched Snotlout in the face, the teens didn't bother me anymore. They weren't my friends but, at least, they weren't my enemies, either. They were acquaintances.

I didn't like eating in the hall before because of them, they used to bother me, and I wasn't going to make a scene in front of everyone. When I punched the Viking, it was just me, him and his friends, not the entire village, but the hall was a communal center, which meant every single Viking ate there.

Anyways, back then, they wouldn't let me grab my food, so I just made my own in my house. It wasn't that I suddenly began liking it but, at least, I could eat in peace.

When I got into the building, I could see Snotlout, the twins, Fishlegs, Astrid and...Hiccup?! Of course, he stood me up, and then appeared in the hall like nothing ever happened. Hypocrite.

I approached their table, when Snotlout and Fishlegs saw me; they backed off a little bit. Great, now they were scared of me. I didn't want them to bother me, but I didn't want them to be afraid of me either.

Astrid was focused on her things, the twins were fighting and Hiccup...Was ignoring me, again.

I grabbed my dinner, went to sit to the furthest table, and stayed there, though I wasn't hungry anymore. I played with my food with the fork, not grabbing a single thing.

I raised my head a little bit towards the teens' table, and I swear I saw Hiccup staring at me, but he lowered his head quickly, or he never raised it in the first place and I was just imagining things.

I got up, leaving the dish on my table, and was about to go home, when I heard someone calling for me or, at least, that's what I thought, because they said 'You!'

 I turned around, expecting to see Hiccup, but instead I saw...Astrid? I looked around, but no one else was standing up, so I frowned and stared back at her.

"Are you talking to me?" I asked pointing to myself.

"Is there anyone else called Alexa here?" I shook my head still confused.

"No"

"Then it's you, I guess" I blinked "Listen, I saw what you did the other day" the other day? What was she talking about?

"Uh..."

"You punched Snotlout in the face" oh, that "I honestly would have done the same" I smiled a little bit "You have a great warrior spirit"

"Thank you, I guess?"

"We could use that on dragon training" 

Was dragon training the only thing that mattered?

"Listen, if you are here to try and convince me to start dragon training, I'm not interested" I said dryly, and turned around ready to leave.

"Whoa, stop there" she grabbed me from the shoulder and turned me towards her "I'm not here for that"

"You..." I blinked again "You are not?"

"No! I was gonna ask you if you wanted to hang out with us later" ignoring it was almost nighttime, and there wasn't much to do, I replied:

"Again, are you sure you're not mistaking me for another person?" none of them talked to me before, why start now? It was kind of strange.

"Uhm, I don't think so...Why?" was she serious?

"I'm the 'worst Viking Berk has ever seen'"

"Now I think you are confusing yourself with Hiccup" I felt my blood boiling inside me at the mention of his name, but ignored it.

"I don't think so, everyone says that"

"No one says that"

"Snotlout says that"

"Snotlout is an idiot" I was about to say something else, when I saw someone moving in the teens' table:

It was Hiccup

What was he doing?

I looked over Astrid's shoulder, but she put herself between us "So, are you coming or not?"

"Uh..." I peeked over her other shoulder and saw Hiccup standing up and running away, but Astrid blocked my vision again "Yeah, sure. I..." I wasn't paying much attention, instead, I was looking over her head, but Hiccup couldn't be seen anymore "I'll catch up with you guys later" I said, walking past her to follow Hiccup.

Where was he going?

I stepped outside, it was almost eight o'clock and no one could have seen anything at that time, no one but me. I narrowed my eyes, focusing on any movement around me, and saw him running towards...The Cove? At that time of the night? 

I ran after him, trying not to make much noise, not to step on any sticks because he would notice someone was following him, and trying to keep undercover, although he probably wouldn't see me. His eyes weren't as trained as mine to see in the night.

When I arrived to the Cove, I heard him silencing Thunderlight, who was purring loudly. I hid behind a rock, making sure none of them could see me.

"Shh, shh. Keep it quiet" he rubbed my dragon's snout, calming him down "There we go" my pal stopped making so much noise, and looked at him interested "Now, as always, don't follow us. We will come back" I frowned, as always? You mean...He had done the same thing before? "And don't say anything to 'Lex, okay? She can't know" 

Okay, I started to get angry. What was all that about? What was going on?

Thunderlight purred and nudged his hand, meaning he would obey him. Not for long, though, I was not going to stay there waiting for him to come back; I was going where he was going, whatever place that was.

After he flew up and disappeared in the clouds, I got out of my hiding spot, and Thunderlight growled happily while bumping my hand with his snout.

"No, sorry, bud. No night flight today, we need to follow Hiccup and Toothless" he made some other noises I didn't quite understand, and let me hop into his saddle. We took off in the direction Hiccup and Toothless had gone.

He may obey Hiccup, but he obeyed me more. After all, I was his rider, wasn't I?

"Stay down, bud, we don't want them to see us, do we?" I patted his wing. I could see them flying ahead of us, and Hiccup seemed like searching for something in particular; he was moving his head from right to left but, then, some clouds blocked our vision, and, when they vanished, we couldn't see our friends anymore.

"What? Where did they go?!" I grabbed the handholds tightly "Faster, bud!" he flapped his wings and continued flying at high speed, but he suddenly stopped "Pal? Why did you stop?" I asked, his ears were moving in a really strange way.

Suddenly, he swooped down at high speed, and I had to grab the handholds with all my strength so as not to fall.

"Thunderlight! What are you doing!?" I shouted. He had never acted like that before "Stop, STOP!" he dodged rocks one after another, and I had to duck a few times so as not to hit my head.

Then, I saw it:

An enormous mountain made out of rock, with some red openings high above was located right in front of us. I didn't know what on earth that was, or why Thunderlight was guiding us towards it.

He found an entrance, fit for any kind of dragon, and got in. A dark tunnel was ahead of us, we went through it, and arrived to the core of that entire mountain: millions of dragons were spread everywhere in rock platforms, surrounding what seemed like a pit full of red smoke, which made everything look red, too.

The dragon's nest.

Thunderlight then flew behind a rock column so as to hide both of us, while I hopped off him and went to take a closer look.

Thousands of dragons had arrived before us and were dumping the kill, our food, in the pit, but none of them were eating it. 

What was down that big hole?

A Gronckle flew over the pit, and stayed hovering there while he dropped...A fish from its mouth? I heard a sudden growl, and a giant...Head?! Came out of it, swallowing the poor thing alive.

I gasped and scurried backwards while still on the floor, my face facing the giant opening, when I hit something. I turned around and raised my head to see...

"Hiccup?" he looked stunned for a moment, before opening his eyes wide. What on earth was he doing here? Behind him, Toothless appeared from the shadows. 

Oh, so the dragon had taken him there, he wanted to get himself killed, didn't he?

"W-what are you doing here? Y-you're not supposed to be here!" I frowned, a little bit angry.

"What do you mean I'm not-?" I stopped in my tracks and remembered dinner: Astrid had come up to me all of a sudden, when she had never talked to me before, and that was when I realized something "Astrid was supposed to be the distraction, wasn't she? So you could escape"

"Uh..." I took that for a yes. I got up and dusted myself off "Okay, what is going on? Why are you avoiding me? Why have you been ignoring me these past few days?" he began scurrying backwards while I followed him "You stood me up I don't know how many times, you ran away with no explanations..." I numbered the things he had done with my fingers "So, what's going on?" that beast roared again, startling me, and making me gasp again.

"'Lex, I promise you, everything has an explanation, but we should leave" that was the best idea I had ever heard.

"Finally we agree on something" I said, hopping on Thunderlight's saddle.

"Hey! We agree on a lot of things!" he replied, following me, but I ignored him.

"You better give me explanations, or I will push you off Toothless, so I hope you know how to swim" we were flying back to Berk after leaving the nest and, surprisingly enough, we didn't have much trouble doing that.

"I'm feeling really under pressure here" he said, but I ignored him and continued looking ahead.

"Just talk, what on earth was that thing?"

"The dragon's nest" I rolled my eyes.

"I know that, I'm talking about that giant...Head" it gave me the chills just to think about it.

"We have a theory...Well, actually, Astrid has theory" I frowned.

"Astrid?" what did she have to do with that? He nodded.

"Do you remember that time I was riding Toothless with her and you were following us?" I looked at him reproachfully.

"Let's get some things straight: I wasn't following you, I was riding happily with Thunderlight, and it wasn't my fault you were doing the same thing" he rolled his eyes.

"Anyways, Astrid came up with the theory that, that thing, like the bees, is their queen, and they are the workers" okay, that kind of made sense "And since then, I've been coming over and over to the nest" I opened my eyes wide, he could have died in there, but stayed with an emotionless face. I hadn't forgiven him.

"What for?" I asked indifferent.

"To investigate, see what was going on"

"Your investigations always get you into trouble"

"Yes, I'm well aware of that"

"Then why did you come back?" he shrugged.

"Curiosity, I guess"

"I think I get it, but there's one thing I still don't understand" he gave me a questionable glance "Why didn't you tell me about it? I could have helped you"

"Uh...Did you...Did you see the size of that pit?" he asked, pointing with his thumb behind us.

"Uh... No? I was too busy freaking out to notice that!"

"It was enormous! I kind of went in there, and I didn't want you to..."

"WHAT?! ARE YOU CRAZY?! YOU COULD HAVED DIED IN THERE!" I didn't bother to cover up my concern that time, he could have gotten himself killed!

Actually, coming there in the first place was a suicide mission.

"I-I know..."

"THEN WHY ON EARTH DID YOU DO IT?! HOW DID THAT EVEN HELP YOU?!"

"It helped me, because it proves that dragons aren't really bad creatures, they are just afraid of their queen eating them alive" he was strangely calm, which also made me freak out even more but, at least, I didn't scream.

"Thanks the gods you are still alive. Though, I still don't get why this has anything to do with your attitude towards me these past few days"

"I wanted to tell you. Really" didn't seem like it "But I knew that, if I told you, you would have wanted to help me"

"Well, yeah. Ever heard of the word 'best friends'?"

"Uh... Those are two words, actually" I glared at him "Nevermind" he said, mildly scared "It's because you are my best friend, that I didn't want to put you in danger" wait, what? He did that for me?

"Uh...Woah, I...Uhm..." the words couldn't come out, I couldn't believe he was so concerned about me. That was unexpected.

"I know that was really selfish of me because you can defend yourself and all that, but... I just..." he said hurriedly, and I giggled.

"No, no. It's okay, I really appreciate it" he looked at me with his eyes opened wide.

"R-Really?" I nodded.

"Yeah" and then I did something not even I could have predicted; I got closer to him while hovering in the air with Thunderlight, leaned in, and kissed him in the cheek "Thank you" his face was red, and I was pretty sure mine was too.

"N-no problem" he said mildly surprised, but smiling anyways.