Cold Wind Blows

[Astrid]

Astrid closed to her, letting the wind pick at her clothes and play with her hair. It was only the afternoon, but it was rather cold and windy. She leaned back on one hand and lifted her leg to rest the other arm on her knee, opening her eyes to check on Lilith, who was simply flying about, enjoying the breeze after a long day of vigorous training. Once more, Astrid had to give Hiccup kudos for picking the right dragon for her, Lilith and herself worked well together and though they were still developing and wasn't at the point of their relationship like Hiccup was with Toothless, they seemed to work well enough to get through the rough play of the training field.

Smiling slight, she looked down, merely out of habit as a rosy color came to her cheeks at the thought of him. He was the first one to prove her wrong, the first one to ride a dragon, and the first one to kill the big one at the Dragon's nest and put a stop to the pest that has been taking off with the villager's sheep. Why wouldn't she be impressed? He was always different, and who knew he would get where he was? She shook her head, looking back up at the rippling waters as she took a deep breath, flashes of red appearing and disappearing as Lilith soared into the clouds and dived back down to the waters.

Sky blue orbs followed the red scales with fascination before turning and landing on Berk, her home itself. She rubbed her forehead absently as she laid back on the stone, propping both hands behind her head as a pillow. She closed her eyes, just enjoying the silence and easing her muscles before she went back to training.

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[Hiccup]

Hiccup had been taking Toothless for a flight. The dragon had been getting antsy and well, so had he. He hadn't really been able to just fly with Toothless without another reason for it in a long time. It was relaxing being up in the clouds, at least it was for Hiccup. He knew that not everyone was comfortable with being so high off the ground. He glanced to the sun, just enjoying the ride, and following Toothless' lead. That was until the misceivous Toothless decided to take a dive.

When Hiccup and Toothless reached the surface once again, Hiccup was coughing up all the water he inhaled. "Toothless! I kind of need some sort of a warning before you do something like that. I think I just inhaled half my weight in sea water!" He exclaimed to the now snickering Toothless. That Dragon had one odd sense of humor. Hiccup felt heavy, his clothes, inclusing the heavy fur vest, was sopping wet, and quite frankly he wasn't fond of it.

Toothless ignored Hiccup's silly ranting, but felt the need to snicker at him. Toothless always found humans to be most amusing. He never really understood how they thought but the things that they did never ceased to amuse him.

On the way back he spotted someone he recognized. Astrid and Lilith were just on the outskirts of Berk. Hiccup and Toothless had the same idea at once, and went to land near where they were sitting. With Toothless perched solidly on a rock, Hiccup detacthed himself from Toothless, and approached Astrid. "Hey, what're you doin all the way out here?" He asked, taking a seat not too far from where she was sitting. To be quite honesthe was kind of cold, though he didn't really mind. He would dry off sooner or later, and then would be ok again.

[Astrid]

<sub>Astrid opened her eyes and sat up, looking at the Hiccup and Toothless as they breached land. Hiccup moved and sat down next to her a little ways off. She smiled at the sight of them both. "Hey, nothing much, just getting out...relaxing before training again," she replied. She always trained, as often as she could, knowing that she had to get stronger. But that didn't mean she didn't like to relax and just ease up for a few minutes or a day.

Beside her, Lilith had noticed the two approach and hand landed quietly beside her, eying the two curiously before approaching. She was always glad to have another Night Fury around, there were plenty of other dragons, but Night Furies were rare as it was. And though Toothless and herself hadn't exactly been around each other that long, at least she wasn't the only one.

Astrid reached out, petting her red scales. "What about you? What are you doing about?" she asked, not doubt the same thing as her, but still, she really wasn't the type to show that much emotion, so she really didn't know what to say. The only thing she was good at was training. But it pretty much ended there.

She brushed her bangs absently, as Lilith moved to settle herself next to her partner, watching the other curiously. Human interaction were always interesting to her, mostly because they were many ways they approached each other.</sub>

[Hiccup]

Hiccup always thought that Astrid trained far too much for her own good. She hasn't yet overworked herself so much that it hurt her, at least as far as he knew, so he wouldn't say that. He didn't want to risk her popping him one again. She did it often enough that he didn't need to fuel the fire, he didn't mind, he knew it was usually her way of expressing her feeling, but he didn't go out of his way to make her do it. "More training? I mean we've been training harder than usual lately." He said, attempting not to imply anything. He really was just curious. He wasn't about to make her stop either. She was a strong viking woman, it was in her blood. She was pretty much everything he wasn't.

"Toothless and I went out for a flight. We hadn't been able to do it in a while," he said. Despite being drenched, and cold, he was feeling oddly upbeat. Something about being around Astrid. His mood always brightened when she was around, that was unless she was angry at him. It didn't really happen all that often, but it was kind of impossible to stay on someone's good side all the time.

Toothless came over to the group, feeling a little left out of their litte circle. He sat just behind Hiccup. he was a little worried about Hiccup though. The human didn't have the heat within him like he, himself, did. He didn't want him to get sick because of a stupid prank he pulled. It wasn't too cold out, and he never really saw Hiccup be sick.

[Astrid]

<sub>Astrid frowned, her thoughts turning to the reason they were training more then usual, and why she was pushing herself more then ever. "It's those Carr.... I don't trust them, we should take the time and train, getting stronger encase something happened," she said, shrugging, it wasn't to say that they were going to do something, but how they treated their pets proved that obviously they aren't exactly the nicest people living around Berk; so it was safe to say that it was better to be prepared, then to regret their decision. And of course, the stronger she is, the more satisfied she is. She was a Viking, and Vikings were supposed to be strong, though they don't fight dragons anymore, they lived in a world where war would always be inevitable, not matter how hard they try to be peaceful (even if that was manageable, but they tended to have stubbornness issues).

She turned and looked at Toothless as he moved, smiling slightly before nodding. "I know, training as been taking up most of the days, it's hard to find some time for ourselves, let along just fly with out partners," she said, avoiding to use the word 'pets'. She didn't know why, but the bond between a rider and their dragon seemed more then a dog or horse; a dragon will always defend their rider and help as much as possible, and will never leave their side unless ordered to. It was one of those things that had changed her view on them, they were more to her then before she had come to realized that they only did what they had to when they had raided Berk for all those years.

"Even if I didn't train more then most, it still true that most of the days are spend getting battered in the training arena," she said. Things had been a little tense lately, and most spend trying to ease up the tension by fighting and using weapons, lately the sessions had been longer, and required more work then when Gobber was there.</sub>

[Hiccup]

Hiccup sighed and looked to the sky. Truthfully, he dreaded training sessions with Fulgora. He tended to do badly, and she was hard on him because he did so poorly. He wasn't meant for fighting on the ground, he was too scrawny and awkward. He was meant for helping Toothless as best as he could. It was like he was two completely different people one was Hiccup fighting on the ground, and fighting in the air. He was terrible on land, but in the air with Toothless he was a champion. "Curr worries me too. I mean, I hope we can reason with you but you know Vikings.." he said trailing off. They wouldn't be able to make the Currs do anything they didn't want to, and trying would probably make the situation worse. Hiccup hated the thought of putting the dragons through a war with the people of Curr. This was a human battle, and he would feel responsible for every dragon that got hurt or even killed. He didn't like to think that way, but he couldn't help it.

"It's getting a little excessive. I mean yeah training is important. We need to be ready for whatever is out there, but overtraining isn't good either..." He said. He really didn't know how to finish the statement. So far it hadn't gotten to the point where they were actually hurting themselves from training too much, though the bumps and bruises don't really count, but he was worried that as the days til the time limit presented to them got closer things would get rougher for them. Paranoia was not something that did Vikings any good.

"Yea that's true. Some more than others of course" He said. He hoped in the middle of this whole time limit thing, things would settle down a bit, you know the calm before the storm. That would at least give him some time to take Toothless out, and make some new more sturdy gear for the dragons, maybe some armor or something, though it couldn't be metal, as it conducts electricity.