A New World, Complicated

Chapter 3: Animal House (Reign)

"I've never heard of anything like that," Fishlegs marveled. "Not even in the Book of Dragons."

"I know! It was incredible!" I couldn't wipe the smile from my face. "It's as if his protective instincts just kicked in."

"Who'd believe it? The dragons we'd fought for years came to our rescue." For several reasons, I couldn't stop smiling.

"Yeah. If it wasn't for Toothless, we would have frozen to death."

"You know what? You could've used your own bodies to keep each other warm," Fishlegs pointed out. Hiccup and I immediately turned red and jumped farther away from each other.

"Um..."

"Who would do that?"

"That's crazy."

The both of us flashed another glance at each other, then looked away. The group knew we weren't exactly just friends, but we hadn't really made anything official, either. There was some strange nebulous zone Hiccup and I were trapped in, happily spending time with each other without really defining anything.

Despite that, Snotlout still took his chance to shamelessly flirt.

"Hey, Reign, if you're still cold..." Snotlout extended his arms out and blew a kiss. Appalled, I knocked my elbow into the pillar next to me, which dumped snow onto his head. "Hey!" I caught a glance from Hiccup that almost looked like... relief, but chose to disregard it.

"Hey, Hiccup." He and I looked down to see Ruffnut and Tuffnut. "Your father's looking for you."

"He looked angry." I looked back at the brown-haired boy with wide eyes.

"He's looked angry since the day I was born. But I'm sure there's no connection." Hiccup climbed onto Toothless and flew back toward his home, leaving me with the others. The moment I turned to face them, they all had these weird looks.

"What?" I asked innocently.

"Come on, Reign. You and Hiccup are smart. We know you didn't forget that you could use your own body heat to warm yourselves up," Astrid teased. I rolled my eyes and tried to suppress the blush creeping up my face.

"I-we... that is to say... I mean..." I took a deep breath and turned on my heel. "I don't have to take this interrogation." I walked away from the others and back into the village. There was an odd feeling to the air... something wasn't right. People were rushing to make... storm preparations? There's no way there could be a storm coming. Winter was just starting. I watched as people shuttered their windows, raced food through their doors, and prepared weighted bags. Then, from the distance, I could hear Bucket screaming in agony. A storm was definitely coming. Hiccup approached me with a slightly paled expression.

"We have to wrangle all the animals into the academy before the storm. Get the others."

"Come on, big boy. You can do it," Hiccup encouraged the large Yak we were trying to get into one of the cages. "Ah, come on." The creature wouldn't budge. The main concern seemed to be that the dragons were in the way. "You'll really like them if you get to know them."

"The dragons look scary, but they're just big, scary reptiles."

"Just like Snotlout," Tuff quipped. Snotlout grabbed his shirt and readied a fist, then hesitated.

"You're the guy, right?" he asked.

"No," Tuff answered in falsetto. One of the Monstrous Nightmares snapped his jaws at a Deadly Nadder, causing the Yak to run and all the other animals to scatter.