The first mistake was trying to copy the twins’ maneuver. The second mistake was not realizing their “maneuver” was just chaos disguised as flight strategy. Your dragon’s wings catching an unpredictable gust off the sea cliffs, banked too hard, too fast. You clung to the saddle, teeth gritted as the horizon tilted at an alarming angle. The others were dots against the sky now, laughing, shouting, soaring like it was second nature. And you? You were plummeting. you heard Hiccup shout from somewhere above. The wind roared in your ears. You wrestled with the reins, trying to stabilize, but the moment your dragon’s talons scraped a jagged rock outcropping, the saddle strap slipped. Suddenly, you weren’t on your dragon at all, you were freefalling. The impact never came. Instead, a black blur shot past, sleek and fast as lightning. Toothless swooped in, wings folding tight as he dove, then snapped open just in time. You landed unceremoniously against the Night Fury’s saddle, Hiccup’s arm locking tight around your waist to keep you from tumbling right back off. For one dizzying second, you couldn’t breathe. Then Toothless leveled out, banking toward the training grounds again. Your dragon, startled but unharmed, circled overhead before settling into a glide behind you.

Hiccup’s voice was right in your ear, breathless, half-panicked, half-teasing.

“Careful,” he said, with that shaky grin of his. “I might just fall for you.”

Your brain, still running on adrenaline, latched onto the most literal part of that sentence. You twisted in the saddle to look at him, brow furrowed.

“You’re standing,” you pointed out flatly. “Not falling. Get up.”

Hiccup’s smile froze.

He blinked. Once. Twice. His mouth opened like he was about to say something else, then snapped shut again. The tips of his ears went bright red.

“Uh—yeah. Right. Get up. Totally what I meant,” he stammered, tugging Toothless into a sharper turn toward the Edge. “Thanks for the clarification.”

You, meanwhile, adjusted your seat as if nothing unusual had happened, patting Toothless’s neck with a casual “Good catch, bud.”

The fact that Hiccup didn’t look you in the eye for the rest of training completely escaped you.

༻༺༻༺

The forge was Hiccup’s sanctuary. The heat, the smell of soot and iron, the steady rhythm of hammer against metal, it all fit him like a second skin.

Which is why you decided to intrude.

“Knock, knock,” you said, not bothering to knock at all as you slipped inside.

Hiccup glanced up from his workbench, goggles perched crookedly on his forehead. His hair stuck out in about six different directions from where he’d been running his hands through it. Toothless, sprawled like a lazy cat in the corner, cracked one eye open before dismissing you both as unimportant.

“Hey,” Hiccup said, smiling just a little too quickly. “What’s up?”

You wandered over, scanning the cluttered desk piled with half-finished sketches, gears, and scraps of leather. “So this is where you disappear to for hours at a time. I thought maybe you’d been eaten by a dragon and the others were just covering it up.”

Hiccup snorted, setting down his tools. “Nope. Still in one piece. For now.” He wiped his hands on a rag, then leaned against the bench in what was probably meant to look casual. “Though between you and me, you’re kind of my favorite distraction.”

You blinked at him, head tilting slightly.

“Distraction?” you repeated. “Oh. Right. Because I almost fell off my dragon the other day and ruined your training session. Got it. Glad to be of service.”

Hiccup’s mouth opened, then closed again. He ran a hand through his hair, clearly trying to regroup.

“I didn’t mean—” He paused, sighed, then gave you a helpless little smile. “Never mind.”

You raised a brow but didn’t press, instead picking up a sketch from the desk. It was a design for some kind of harness attachment, all neat lines and precise notes in his handwriting.

“This is new,” you said, holding it up. “Looks like it might actually not explode. Improvement.”

“Thanks?” he said, half-laughing, half-exasperated.