Dear Readers,

First off, I am SO SO SO SO SOSOSOSSOSOOOOO SORRY for the long wait! I had an extremely stressful/insanely busy/somewhat crappy week last week and I was so frazzled I literally (and I mean "literally" in the actual sense of the word) forgot about updating this. And then when I remembered, I had no time to write because I was so exhausted from work and school and family stuff that all I wanted to do was scream and/or sleep off the stress. I was VERY upset that I couldn't update until now - it's been driving me nuts the past week in addition to everything else going on in my life. Figures everything would pile up on my just before my birthday - yeah, it's my birthday today! YAY! So please don't be hard on me for leaving you hanging and for giving you a kind of underwhelming update after such a long time. I tried, I really did. Hopefully this came out as cute as I am envisioning it in my head, although it is short. I promise the next chapter will be LOADED with stuff.

Thanks again for sticking with this and I hope you still enjoy.

Best regards,

Pooka

VII. How to Pick Your Dragon

"So, how did the old 'honey and the hatchet' go?"

The russet-haired dragon trainer slumped against the wall of his room and slid down until his bottom landed with a thump on the floor.

"Was it that bad?" Astrid questioned, an expression of incredulity on her face.

Hiccup let his head flop into his palms.

"Hiccup, talk to me."

"Eummgrrmpff," he whined.

"Hiccup."

The same sound emerged from his throat again as he vigorously shook his head.

Astrid crouched down to the boy's level and punched his arm. Surprisingly, he didn't budge.

"I. Am. So. Done," he muttered, his voice muffled by his hands.

"Will you please just look at me and tell me what happened?" the blonde begged, grabbing hold of Hiccup's shoulders and shaking them lightly.

Hiccup let out a strangled groan of frustration and roughly yanked his hands down the length of his face. "My dad!" he finally exclaimed. "My dad is impossible! IMPOSSIBLE!"

Astrid was slightly taken aback by her friend's sudden outburst, but she quickly stifled her surprise and gently laid a hand on Hiccup's forearm. "Okay, calm down. What did he say?" she asked evenly.

"He wants me to find him a dragon."

The blonde raised an eyebrow in spite of herself. "That's it?"

"Astrid," he whimpered, his hands flailing in the air, "you don't understand. There's no way in Hel I'll find him another dragon now. He's dead set on a Night Fury and since, well, there's only, y'know, one on this entire island…well you do the math!"

Astrid sighed and shifted so she was sitting against the wall next to her fellow dragon trainer. "Hiccup, you can't know that for sure. Why don't you round everybody up at the academy later and have your dad take a look at all the dragons. Then he can decide which one he likes."

Hiccup grunted and thrust his fingers through his hair. "It's not just that," he added. "He doesn't listen to me. I've been dropping hints for months that he should get a dragon but it was as if I hadn't said anything at all until Gobber brought it up. And even if I do find him one and he gives Toothless back, there is absolutely no way he'll ever pay attention to anything I tell him about how to train it. With him it's just…in one ear and out the other!"

"Huh," Astrid murmured quietly. "That sounds familiar."

Hiccup turned and eyed his companion quizzically. "What?"

Astrid shook her head quickly as if that would somehow erase her previous statement from existence. "Nothing," she mumbled evasively. "Just…I thought of…never mind. It doesn't matter." She took a deep breath and regained her composure. "What does matter is that your dad needs a dragon, you need your dragon back, and we need to do something about it."

"Astrid, did you not hear anything I just sai—"

"Yes, I did, Haddock, but you have to try something or else you're going to be stuck without a dragon for Thor knows how—why are you looking at me like that?"

Hiccup was gazing at Astrid with a rather odd expression on his face. "Did you just call me 'Haddock'?"

Slowly, Astrid's lips curled into a lopsided grin. "That is part of your name, isn't it?"

"Yeah but...what? Why would you call me that?" His brow was contorted into the strangest shape now.

The blonde poked the boy in the ribs. "Because I just felt like it," she replied, her eyes sparkling. "And it's funny."

For a moment Hiccup was silent, regarding Astrid with curiosity.

"What?"

"You…you are really weird sometimes, Astrid Hofferson."

She punched him in the shoulder.

"How did I know that was going to happen?" Hiccup chuckled, rubbing the spot where the girl had hit him.

"Do you feel a little less hopeless now?" Astrid asked as her grin widened.

"Barely."

"HICCUP!" Stoick's voice boomed from below.

"Oh, great, here we go," the boy muttered, rolling his eyes and pushing himself up off the floor.

"Don't worry," Astrid said as she stood up with him. "I'll find the others and tell them what's up. You just get your dad to the academy, okay?"

"Shouldn't be too hard. He thinks he owns my dragon now anyway."

She shook her head bemusedly and poked the boy in the ribs once more.

"Come on, Haddock, let's go."

A/N: Again, I apologize for how short this was. I had a completely different, longer idea for this but after I tried starting it, it just fizzled out. What I have here mostly just came from the top of my head - I had a vague concept for it but I didn't have much of a clue of where to go with that until I just was like, "Screw it; it will go somewhere" and wrote it. The "Haddock" bit at the end pretty much came out of nowhere. But I like it, even if it is kind of dumb.

Anyway, there was some extremely slight foreshadowing here of what I will get into in the next chapter, although you probably won't be able to tell what that bit of foreshadowing was until you read the next installment (sorry, I'm mean, lol). And again, I promise the next chapter will have lots more stuff, so yay. Look forward to that :)

Again, thanks as always for reading and reviewing - I really, really appreciate and look forward to the reviews! You guys are awesome!