Tuff Love (A How To Train Your Dragon Fanfiction | Astrid x Tuffnut)

FINALE: When we're alone

"I want to change my vote." Fishleg's stammered on top of his Gronckle dragon, Meatlug.

The whole team was stationed at the top of a mountain cliff that was topped with pillows of white snow. Fortunately, the snowfall had lightened to a sprinkle since they had trekked to the top of the landform with other Berkians. The latter refused to let the heavy snowfall before deter them from having as much fun as possible on Snoggletog morning.

Ruffnut sat idly on Astrid's Deadly Nadder, Stormfly, and prepared for the most insane drop she could picture. The trees in the snow-covered valley at the foot of the mountain's slope looked like black specks on a white, Earth-sized canvas. She didn't care who won, as long as she ended up with at least two broken bones. Stormfly grunted when Ruffnut patted her flank and snickered excitedly. Stormfly's talons dug into the cliff-bed's snow to be ready to launch downward into the snow. Her rival was Toothless, Hiccup's Night Fury, because they had spent the most time together proving who was the strongest dragon out of the two of them. Stormfly bet she would dive gracefully onto her stomach to slide her rider through the snow at the fastest pace, and she could hear Toothless's grumble right then in her imagination at the moment she would fly past him and his master.

Snoutlout gripped the long, slender, and ribbed horns of his Monstrous Nightmare dragon he called Hookfang. Hookfang lit up the snow in front of his talons with a blazing fire-blast laced with flammable gel from his glands. The snow at Hookfang's feet slurried as Hookfang expected, all for his headstart when he would scamper past the cliff to nosedive past Meatlug, Stormfly, Toothless, and of course the Hideous Zippleback with two heads, Barf and Belch. The conjoined dragon brothers were both terrible at anything that involved rational thinking. Hookfang was sure they would be last. Hookfang snorted a hot blast of air at Belch's nose. Belch zapped Hookfang's yellow eyes with a fire spark, and Hookfang flinched, nearly blinded.

"Aye-get your dragon in line before I do it!" Snoutlout warned Tuffnut. "Like Gobber said-no cheating!"

"Cut it out, boy," Tuffnut softly pleaded to Belch. He nudged Belch's snout with the toe of his winter boot. Belch's head finally swerved away from Hookfang and returned to focus on the steep slope below his paws. Tuffnut countered to Snoutlout, "Since when do you listen to the rules?"

"Don't worry about that," Snoutlout said. He cracked his knuckles and proclaimed to Belch, "your tail is mine." Snoutlout called to Toothless, "and so is yours-buhhd!"

"I dunno, Snoutlout; Hookfang isn't exactly what I'd call competition," Hiccup laughed from another position before the slope, still finding Snoutlout's impersonation of himself ridiculous. "The Night Fury is one of the fastest species ever known. Can your dragon break the sound barrier?"

"Shut up and watch!"

"I'll take that as a no," Hiccup chortled to himself. To Toothless's ears, he whispered, "don't hold back." Toothless heard Hiccup's human language speak to him daringly, and he let out a confident screech. Helda saw the spine of Toothless glow neon-blue by her legs, and she instinctively clung to Hiccup's middle.

Fishlegs mentioned, "technically, a Monstrous Nightmare can break the sound barrier in a dive more than three-thousand feet. It's not really possible in lower altitudes."

"Save your nerd rant for the Edge, Fish." Ruffnut complained. "Can I go now?!" She yelled to Gobber.

At any moment, Gobber, who hovered at the side of the cliff on his own stout dragon, would yell "go!". Snoutlout knew Hookfang would race past everyone and even Hiccup and Helda, who balanced on Toothless together.

Belch shuffled eagerly to the edge and itched for Tuffnut's voice to give him a command to fly. Tuffnut felt an impatient tug in his hands from Belch's short, rod-straight horns that pointed in a diagonal from the middle of Belch's crown. He laughed a little in jest that Belch could never wait for too long. He expected Belch to disqualify him from the race anytime soon if Belch decided to leap without hesitation down the slope before any other dragon. Tuffnut saw Astrid struggle to keep Barf still.