Astrid had never been to war.

She quite liked that fact. She would even say she was proud of it.

That was the odd thing. That she was proud of it. Vikings as a whole were battle-centric, they glorified bloodshed almost as much as they glorified getting drunk after bloodshed, feasting after bloodshed and then lying in till late afternoon with a headache.

The many Viking tribes had spent so long being attacked by dragons, using every waking second to ward them off and keep on surviving, that they had fallen out of habit when it came to attacking other tribes. Dragons had become their common enemy and because of it Astrid, her parents, her grandparents and her grandparents parents had never stepped foot on a battle field where they were aiming to kill other Vikings. Things were now at a point that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone on Berk who had killed someone. Maybe on other islands that had less dragon raids, tribes like the Berserkers, there would be a larger population of warriors with kill counts. But not Berk.

That realisation slammed into her like a cold winter wind when she received Hiccup's next letter. They'd been going back and forth about three weeks and Astrid had managed to get into a routine. Hiding the terror- which Hiccup informed her was called Swifty- was easy and she hadn't been asked any questions about why she was suddenly using more paper and charcoal. She knew eventually something had to go wrong. It was bound to happen. She guessed the twins would probably accidentally intercept Swifty or maybe her parents would find the letters, seeing as she was stowing them under her bed.

But these were all mundane problems. So simple. Hiccup was going to war.

Over dragons of all beasts.

The whole fourth and fifth legions were going to battle to protect from a power-hungry man looking to control every dragon with an iron fist. Willingly laying down their lives for these animals. The man was attacking Rome, too, albeit. But it was all over the dragons. All because of them.

It was so different to Berk. Such a crazy thought.

"Astrid, go to bed!" her mother called from downstairs. The neighbours candle-lights had been long-since put out. her father had been asleep for a few hours, her mother out on watch.

Astrid pressed her lips together as she finished reading the final paragraph of Hiccup's letter. She folded it up and slipped it under her bed, sitting down on the edge. She absentmindedly scratched behind Swifty's ears, realising what she was doing seconds after she had. She stared wide eyed at the green terror as it curled up further, stretching against her fingers. And it purred.

Her breath shook as she exhaled.

Every day Dragons became less and less monstrous to her. It was mind-shattering, the slow realisation that everything she had been taught about dragons was wrong. It was giving her a headache, this unhurried process of recreating her perspective on an entire class of animals. Every step closer she got to sharing Hiccup's view took an entire recalibration of her mind, only to be re-done when her thoughts changed her further.

If only she could get it over with, prove everything to herself now.

She wanted to immediately take everything Hiccup said to heart, whip her mind around and rethink everything she had ever been taught. But she needed proof. Needed it right in front of her. She needed more than one terrible terror and the word of a man who'd cast-out her entire clan. She wanted to trust Hiccup's word, but what if he was wrong? What if the romans had made a serious misjudgement? Of course, it is unlikely that an entire empire could get something so severely wrong.

Which was why that idea came back to her.

That idea she'd had the first time she'd heard of all this.

It was ridiculous. Stupider than anything the twins and Snotlout had ever said combined.

But her feet moved anyway and she crept down the stairs quieter than she ever had before. Her feet made barely any noise as she snuck by the few people left on watch.

And then she was at the training ring, the gate creaked as she rolled it up and stood in the middle of the stone floor.

This was how she made her decision.

Atticus strapped his gear onto Sparks' saddle, once again running through it all mentally. He had everything, he'd essentially packed up his entire life into three bags. Everything but his family, back in the capitol. Gods he missed them.

The rest of their gang were doing the same thing, strapping gear to the dragons and suiting up. Ready to go to... war.

War.

He was terrified.

War was what got his grandpa killed, the effects of it took his mother.

And now he was running right on in after them. It was almost poetic. Was his entire family destined to die at the whim of Mars?

He was being overly dramatic, there was a chance he wouldn't die. A small one.

No, he couldn't be sure of that either.

When they made it to their new front line of attack he'd find out exactly what chances he had.

He heard a thump as Jael dumped her flying gear at her feet, having moved into the shade after sweating in the sun while strapping her other equipment to one side of Ex and Plodes' shared torso.

He looked over Spike's saddle at his friends. Hiccup, Aeliana, Charlotte, Verlin and Jael. They were just as grim-faced as him, likely thinking similar things to him. Aeliana thinking of her battle-oriented family, hell-bent on the tradition running through their lineage for the rest of eternity. Charlotte dreading the letters from her family, stories of her brother crashing into her heart all over again. Jael and Verlin, as far as Atticus knew, didn't have family in the military. But they did have family in politics and relatives on their mother's side in militaristic areas- they surely had heard plenty of stories. And Hiccup had watched people fight dragons for years, watched fire rip apart families, homes and friends.

But, he wagered, they were all thinking that there were no better people to live, fight and die beside.

Drago's army had taken over a good portion of Brittania before the eighth Legion, which was stationed primarily around those north-western provinces, could start holding them back. Drago used surprise to his advantage and when the roman army managed to start pushing him back he brought out a dragon no one had heard of or seen before. They heard, from one recon soldier who'd managed to get in and out while also attaining decent information, that it was called a bewilderbeast, an alpha class dragon. When that news made it to Hiccup and his friends it set them on edge for the rest of the trip.

The eighth legion made a quick decision, one they hadn't been able to ferry along to the emperor- there was simply no time. They evacuated Brittania of every man, woman and child, then scrambled to the southern tip where they held Drago off till the fourth and fifth legions could take root in Gallia Belgica, there they would wait for the majority of the eighth that had been evacuating civilians to catch up. Then they'd break from the south of Brittania and funnel Drago through the sea to Belgica, where they would be met with three legions of fury.

The fourth and fifth were stationed, when not dispatched, around Noricum and Raetia. Those provinces were due west of Belgica, and the closest. That and the amount of dragon experience the fourth and fifth had made them the emperor's best choice for this battle.

Hiccup was almost glad he'd chosen the fourth and fifth because of that. He didn't like to admit that he had any influence on anything of much importance, the idea scared him. But the rumours and stories of 'the dragon master' drew a crowd of prodigy dragon riders to his legion, which tended to leek into Charlotte's thanks to some of his careful redirecting. His choice to join the fourth and fifth had equipped them with some of the best dragon riders, well, anywhere.

And they were going to make all the difference in the coming struggles.

When Hiccup and his friends flew over Gallia Belgica they couldn't help but be grateful for the population density- in that it was low. There were a few townships and other small settlements towards the south of the province, closer to some of the cities and rivers. They could see why, as they got further north. The air was bitingly cold for summer and the fact it was blowing straight in from the coastline didn't help.

Some of their cohorts had flown over with them, their dragons began setting down just south of where they would make their more permanent camp for this battle, all the legionnaires- regardless of whether their cohort had arrived yet- flew along with the gang, setting down at the coast.

It was all flat lands, no mountains or even hills really. The coast stretched for maybe fifty miles and bled into deep green moors and sparse tree growth.

There was a river to their west- and another way far down east, although it wasn't much worth mentioning, it was too far to be strategically useful. But other than that it was... a flatland. Just grass and a coast as far as the eye could see, and the ocean.

"why the hell did they pick here to be a warzone?" Jael sneered, "how the hell do we keep 'em from going round us? There's nothing to flank us or anything!"

"it's unpopulated and almost directly south of where Drago's force is squatting," Aeliana explained calmly, "it's the easiest place to heard his soldiers."

"you can't herd dragons." One of Charlotte's legionnaires piped in, squatting in the sand and looking out over the ocean, "this will be a blood bath." Their shoulders shuddered under their armour.

"it won't," Aeliana scowled, voice stonier than her face, "we have a large population of dragons in our legions, we can lose some to stationing them as scouts in the ocean, they can shoot down any ship that tries to travel further north-west or south-east along the coastline."

"there's a watchtower down a ways," hiccup stated, taking his notebook out of his coat and flicking it to the map he'd managed to copy from the librarians extensive collection, "we can station some people in a camp there, who can then scout the ocean. rotate people through it."

"that'd work," Atticus looked over his shoulder at the map, "we could also keep our main camp close to the coast. It would stop Drago's men from getting so far into land that we'd have to form multiple flanks, and it would keep the majority of the fighting force in Brittania or on ships scattered through the strait."

"there's no way we can stay close to the coast, not from all the information we've got from the eighth," another legionnaire- Gaius if memory served, he was appointed with Hiccup- commented, "their fast moving and they have dragons too. We need to prepare for heavy fire."

"we dig in, then." Charlotte stated grimly, not liking the idea much, "we form in trenches, keeping them clear of the coast. It'll help keep our numbers unknown, too. And give us an element of surprise when our enemy makes land."

"you want to resort to trench warfare?" Verlin asked, incredulous, "are you kidding?!"

"got a better idea?" Aeliana sniped back.

"I..." clearly not, "but you can't use trenches. They collapse, they breed illness-"

"we have time to do them right, Verlin." Aeliana assured, a supportive look on her face. Hiccup got the impression this may have something to do with the twins non-roman heritage, but he couldn't be sure.

"trenches will help keep flanks secure, too." Charlotte said, keeping the conversation back on track and diverting people's attention from Verlin's outburst.

"well," Hiccup sighed, "let's get started then."

A/N

so I've actually started re-writing the first few chapters of this fic, because in the year or so that I forgot about it my writing ability and style has changed drastically.

I'm also doing this because, my lord, are the OCs of this fic one dimensional. so I'm actually really enjoying going back and making them a bit more interesting and multi-faceted. you'll see some of the effects of that coming out in how I write about them now, especially Jael and Verlin.

aside from that, on the topic of rewritten chapters, how interested are Y'all? so far I'm just changing as I go and I figure I'll update them all at the same time so there's no weird stuff going on.

also also, what are your thoughts on relationships in this story? I don't have much set in stone, but the further we get, the further I cement. so, throw some ships at me, I'll decide some things. don't stay with romantic, though. what kind of platonic dynamics do you see here? just go haywire, I'd appreciate it. include our lovely OCs, too, if you wish. I, for one, think Astrid and Charlotte would be great mates. I like the idea of involving you guys in a bit of the eventual ending to this plotline, seeing as its your investment in it that reminded me it still existed in the back of my brain, gathering cobwebs.

and, do you guys want me to introduce Daggur and Heather or nah?

final thing: I think I'll try a monthly update schedule for this, cause I've already got a weekly one and I barely keep up with that (check out my fic Yo Dickhead if you're a young justice fan, wink wink, nudge nudge).

anyway, see ya'll later, bye!