"Not this again!" Hiccup cried as he and Toothless tumbled towards the forest. Toothless roared. They had almost made it to the cove when a lightning bolt out of nowhere had struck Toothless' tail.

Hiccup quickly unattached his safety belt and fell off his dragon's back. Toothless then propelled himself forward, then wrapped his wings around his rider before they hit the ground.

"Ugh, Toothless, are you okay?" Hiccup got up.

"Yup, fine," he responded as he shook his head.

Hanna landed next to them. "Are you guys okay?"

Hiccup nodded. "We need to get to the Cove, then figure out a plan to make Toothless another tail."

Toothless cooed apologetically, "Sorry."

"It's not your fault, Bud!" Hiccup said.

"You're right!" Toothless smirked, "It's yours."

Hiccup scowled at his dragon as a rain drop leaked through the canopy of trees and landed with a plop on his head.

"Come on, we need to get to the Cove," Hiccup began to march through the undergrowth, in the direction of Toothless' old home.

"Right! Where it'll be full on raining!" Toothless trotted grumpily behind him.

"It'll be better than receiving enormously large drops to the head," Hiccup teased as his dragon met the same fate he did. Toothless growled as Hiccup led him, Hanna, and Stonescale through the trees.

Soon, they reached the Cove.

"Wow! This is where you trained Toothless? It's beautiful!" Hanna gasped as they ducked beneath the wedged shield.

"If you ignore the pelting rain and obvious signs of a battle," Stonescale said, clearly unimpressed. He flew up and over the stone walls.

Toothless warbled worriedly, "What should I do?"

"Toothless, plasma blast!" Hiccup commanded, pointing at the shield. They heard the familiar whistle before the Night Fury shot and the shield exploded. The dragon barked in approval before walking into the Cove.

"We need a plan," Hanna said.

"Somehow I need to get into the forge and make another tail without being seen," Hiccup warbled.

"Right. Any ideas?"

Hiccup roared, "I got it! You need to appear in the village and say you need to use the forge. Then, you make it look like you're doing something until it gets dark, then I'll come in and make the tail!"

"How? I can't speak Norse."

"You can motion and stuff, and that way they can't question you," Hiccup explained.

"Why don't you just go in under the cover of night?"

"Because, this way if they hear something in the forge, they won't be suspicious."

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"Chief!"

"There's someone in the village!"

"It's a girl!"

"I've never seen her before!"

"What is it?" Stoick stepped out of his house.

"A girl appeared in the village, we don't know her!" Bucket said.

Stoick followed the villagers to the main part of town. There, he saw a young girl, probably about Astrid's age, with her red hair tied up in a bun. She worn a cut vest over a tighter, green shirt, and a brown skirt over leggings. Stoick walked over to greet her, but stopped in his tracks when she looked up.

Her eyes. They reminded him... of his son. They were bright green, and full of adventure and curiosity. And they made him hurt. He didn't want to spend anymore time than he needed with her.

Walking up to her, he said, "Hello, welcome to Berk. If you don't mind me asking, who are you?"

The girl tilted her head in confusion, then began motioning hammering something.

"Can you understand me?" Stoick asked her. The gathered crowd began whispering suspiciously as the girl continued to act as if she was making something.

Astrid spoke from beside the chief, "I think she wants to make something."

"You're right, Astrid," Gobber said, "she's stoking a fire!" Hanna had begun to imitate what Hiccup did when he worked. She smiled, imagining what Hiccup would say about her technique.

"Do you think she needs to use the forge?" Astrid asked.

"I think that's exactly what the lass is trying to tell us!" Gobber said.

"Right. Astrid, do you think you can lead her to the forge?" Stoick asked as the girl continued motioning.

"Who said I couldn't lead her?" Tuffnut asked.

"Because you don't even know where the forge is!" Ruff exclaimed.

"How do you know?"

"I share a house with you! And a spoon, and a yak, and a dish, and a..."

As the twins continued bickering, Snotlout stepped forward. "I would happily lead this lovely lady to our humble forge." He walked towards her and bowed. She looked at him with confusion.

"I think our guest would much rather take a trip through the arena. There, I can teach her about all the dragons we have ready for training-," Fishlegs was cut off by the Chief.

"Enough! Astrid will lead her!" And Stoick turned and headed back to his hut.

Hanna looked worriedly up at the sky. The sun was setting. She was running out of time. She and her brother had spent the rest of the day in the Cove, so that she didn't spend a suspicious five hours in the forge. Suddenly, the blonde girl took her hand and spoke.

"Come on, the forge is this way," Astrid tugged gently on the girl's hand and they walked through the village.

Hanna immediately knew this was Astrid. Hiccup's drawings of her were so accurate it was amazing. She continued to speak, but Hanna had no idea what she was saying.

"You know, you remind me of someone... I can't think of who though..."

Soon, they reached the forge.

"Here we go," Astrid led the girl through a doorway in the forge. "I guess you can work here, this place used to be the workshop of a friend of mine." Her eyes began to water, but she blinked the tears away. "He - he died a couple weeks ago." She looked away. A hand laid on her shoulder, and she looked up. The girl's lose strands of windswept hair were swaying in front of her strikingly green eyes. Eyes... No, it couldn't be. Astrid swept the thought away. "You remind me of him, with the forge and all. He wore a vest like that, and he had green eyes as well."

The girl stared at her. Her eyes said one thing, sorry.

"Well, I'll leave you to your work," and Astrid slowly walked out of the shop.

Hanna looked around. There were sketches everywhere. Oh, Hiccup, she thought, you sure do know how to leave a mess.

There was a desk, and against one wall was a bookcase. It was littered with lone sketches, baskets of sketches, boxes of sketches, and a lot of spare metal pieces.

Soon, it became dark, and Hanna lit a well-used candle on the desk. She had been filtering through the boxes and baskets of sketches. One box contained weapon designs, another, hundreds of sketches of a certain blonde-haired blue-eyed girl.

Then, Hanna stumbled across a box hidden behind a stack of journals. Opening it, she found sketches of Toothless, blueprints of his tail and saddle rigs, notes on what Hiccup had found out about dragons, and maps of where they had flown.

Just then, there was a knock on the door frame. Hanna almost dropped the box.

"Sorry, have any trouble?" Hiccup stuck his head through the doorway.

"Not really, you have an... interesting group of peers," Hanna said.

"Tell me about it. Anyway, this shouldn't take too long, do you want to help?"

"Yeah. Um, what should I do?"

"Follow me, but first, there's bound to be some measurements around here..."

"You'd think by now you would've memorized the blueprints," Hanna smirked.

"Very funny. Ah, here we go!" Hiccup straitened up from rummaging through the shelf. In his hand he held a blueprint for Toothless' tail. "It's old, but it'll have to do for now."

"How's your collection of Night Fury scales going?" Hanna asked as she followed Hiccup out of the room.

"It's going well. In fact, I'm almost ready to make that new and improved tail."

They had arrived in the forge and Hiccup laid the blueprint out on the table.

"Right, could you go over there and get me a piece of good sized fabric?" Hiccup pointed to a shelf full of leather and different colored fabric.

Hanna walked over to it and began to rummage through the merchandise. As she did that, Hiccup moved to the chest of scrap metal. Grabbing a handful of it, he walked back to the main area where the blueprints were, and started the coals. After a while of melting, shaping, and cooling, the metal frame of the tail was ready to go. The metal he was using felt weird, he had gotten used to the lightweight and easy Gronkle Iron.

As he was working, Hanna had found a good piece of fabric, and he had shown her how to sow in the right stitches. When she was done, he slid the new tail fabric onto the frame.

"Good," he said, testing the tail, "but I need to add a leather covering along the part that'll be against his skin so it's comfortable." Hanna just nodded as he fit a strip of leather on the straight side of the tail. Quickly, he wove the leather and the fabric together. When he was done, he held it up.

"It's good," Hanna admired their craftsmanship and compared it to the blueprint in her hand.

"It'll work," Hiccup told her. He folded it up. "C'mon, we have to get back to the dragons." He gave the forge one last look before grabbing his box of dragon drawings, blueprints, and notes and dashing away.

After the had fitted the temporary tail on Toothless and took to the sky, Hiccup decided to do something. He couldn't get out of his head what Astrid had said earlier that day.

"You go on," he told Hanna, "I have something to do."

His sister nodded has he turned back towards the village. He flew slowly and spotted Astrid's house. Landing softly on the roof, he slid off of Toothless.

"Stay here, I'll be back."

Toothless nodded as his rider swung off the roof and through a window on the second floor. Hiccup landed on the floor in Astrid's room. If she hadn't been sleeping peacefully in her bed, he would still have no trouble telling it was hers.

She had her ax propped up against her bed post, and an assortment of knives displayed on a table. On one wall, she had a drawing of Snotlout posted up, with one ax, five darts, and two knives in his head. Hiccup had to stifle a laugh.

Walking over to her bed side, he bent down and kissed her gently on the cheek. She moved in her sleep, and Hiccup suddenly feared that she'd wake up and he would find an ax in his head, but her eyelids only fluttered.

He walked slowly back towards the window and swung himself over. He mounted Toothless, and together they took off into the night.

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Astrid walked back to the house from the Meade Hall. She had just finished dinner, and it was getting dark. She wondered how that mysterious girl was doing. She wouldn't dare disturb her, though. She knew how blacksmiths were if you interrupted their work.

She made her way back to her house and greeted her parents. She walked up the stairs to her room, and, grabbing a knife from her table, threw it at the picture of Snotlout on her wall. It landed in his eye, satisfying her. She had been thinking of adding a Tuffnut and Ruffnut, they had been getting on her nerves too often.

She went to bed early that night, listening to the sound of a couple of wild dragons conversing beneath the stars. She dreamt she was visited by Hiccup. He looked different. Happier. And he was missing a leg. Oh what her mind could dream up. He had walked over to her and kissed her. They had talked like they never had before, and Astrid woke up crying. Her room was dark. No Hiccup.

How she HATED that Night Fury. She sat up, grabbed a piece of paper, and scribbled down the best picture she could draw of the Night Fury. Quickly sticking it on her wall, she spent the rest of the night throwing her knives at the dragon.