Hanna landed in the middle of a pine forest. She dismounted and quickly cheecked her surroundings for Vikings. Once she was sure that there was in fact no one else around, she began to jog through the trees.

The forest thinned, and soon she could see a stone and wood house through the trees. A clanging noise came from the yard around the house, and Hanna slowly moved closer to see what was going on.

She reached the tree line and made sure to stay hidden as she peered into the yard. She easily spotted Darius, her long-time crush, working on something close to the tree line. Him and another man, who Hanna assumed to be his father, were hammering wooden poles into the rain-softened ground. They were both beaded with sweat and breathing heavily.

A middle-aged woman came out from the back door of the house, carrying mugs probably filled with water. The men stopped their work and went to greet her. They each took a mug and the family began to chat idly.

Hanna gazed intently at the family, completely forgetting her Dragon was behind her.

"So, are you hoping to accomplish anything from this?" Stonescale asked, making her jump.

"Stonster! Gods, don't scare me like that!"

The Vikings turned their heads to the forest, the sudden dragon noises puzzling them. They went back to their conversation as Hanna turned to her Dragon.

"I don't know if I will or not! But if I stop coming here, I most definitely wont accomplish anything!"

"I don't know, there's a lot of stuff you could be doing back in the sanctuary..."

Hanna groaned before turning back to the family. She squatted down and took out her sketch pad. She began to to sketch the family.

After a few more minutes, they broke their conversation and the men went back to their work. The woman took the mugs and walked back inside, shutting the door behind her.

Hanna then turned her full attention to the drawing, trying to remember every detail about her crush's mother.

An hour later, the men were still working, and Hanna was working on another drawing. This one a more fanciful picture. It had Darius with his left arm around her. She let out a mournful sigh. If only her drawings could be real.

She continued to work on the drawing, and when she was finished, she spent a few minutes staring at it. It was beautiful. He was beautiful.

She looked up again, only to find that apparently it had gotten too hot to keep shirts on. Darius stood, shirtless, fitting a wooden pole into two notches in two upright poles.

Hanna gasped, but before she regained her senses and could start drawing, a loud bell echoed over the island. The men exchanged a few words before Darius grabbed his shirt, and he and his father disappeared into the house.

Hanna sighed.

"Can we go now? You've just wasted my entire day!"

"I guess."

Hanna mounted the Hobblegrunt, but her sketch pad slipped from underneath her vest.

"Ugh, great."

She dismounted, but right before she was about to grab it again, her Dragon snatched it up in his teeth.

"Hey, Stonescale, give it back!"

She jumped to reach it, but he held it in his jaws, out of her grasp.

"Come and get it!" he began to toss it into the air, catching it again just before Hanna could snatch it away.

"Stonescale, this isn't funny!"

Hanna jumped to fetch it again, but her attempts were futile. Her Dragon began running, and he led her deeper into the evergreen forest, waving the sketch book in the wind.

She continued after him, not noticing as one page caught on the wind and fluttered to the ground.

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Hiccup jolted awake. Toothless greeted him as usual, and informed him that he had slept in. The young Viking didn't care, even though his Dragon was rather annoyed. His mind was elsewhere.

That dream. The dream he had dreamt that night. It had come to him. His mark. It was perfect.

He threw his blanket onto the floor and jumped out of the bed. He dashed to his desk and grabbed an empty sheet of paper. He looked arond desperately for a charcoal pencil before remembering. His mother had taken them away.

He cursed under his breath before running out of his room, paper in hand. The mark still flared in his mind, but he would loose it any second.

Hiccup dashed around, wondering where he could find something to draw it with. Suddenly, he realised, Hanna would have one.

He turned a corner, his Dragon running behind him. He hoped Hanna was out on Stonescale. She wouldn't look well on him using her to go behind their mother's back.

He reached his sister's room, and was glad to find no one was there. He ran to her desk, snatched up the first suitable writing utensil he could find, and scribbled down the doodle.

Finally, he could relax. It was on paper. Now knowing he had time to go into more depth on the design, he began to sketch it out.

After a couple of minutes of sketching, he held out the paper for him to see. Toothless looked over his shoulder, and warbled a 'wow'.

There, on the paper was his mark. Their mark. Their insignia.

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"Righ', who's turn is it to check on the lass?"

"Ugh, we did it yesterday."

"Yeah. She almost took our heads off."

"That would've been cool."

Gobber stood in the arena, talking to the little students he had left.

After Astrid had decided to stake out until she killed the Night Fury, the rest of the teens had been taking turns to go and check on her everyday. They would go, bring her food, and attempt to convince her to come back. So far, their attempts had been fruitless. The twins had come back with with dislocated hands and shoulders, and Snotlout had just got off crutches.

"I guess it's my turn. Now that I'm going to fetch her, her knight in shining armor, she'll be back faster then you can say 'Snotlout, I doubt that'," Snotlout announced before whispering to the twins, "you guys wouldn't happen to have any shining armor, whould you?"

Ruffnut whispered back, "Come by our house after training."

Gobber rolled his eyes before continuing. He sighed. "Yes, Snotlout it is your turn. Here's the food and a blanket. Gothi said there's a bad storm coming."

"Of course she said that. The sky's been getting darker for hours!" Tuff whispered to his sister.

"Don't worry, Gobber. Astrid will be back home soon enough. She won't need the blanket!"

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Snotlout made his way through the forest as thunder rumbled in the distance. Finally, he came to the Cove.

He entered, and spotted Astrid fishing by the pool. She truely was beautiful, even though she hadn't showered in weeks.

As he approached her, she caught a fish and added it to the growing pile beside her. Once he was close enough, he decided to make himself known.

"You really think you're going to need all that fish?"

Astrid didn't even flinch.

"No, Snotlout. I'm not fishing for me. It's for the Night Fury."

"You caught it?!" Snotlout almost dropped the food in surprise.

"No. It's to lure it here. It must be nearby; this is where it lives. I just need to speed it's journey home along."

"Oh."

All this time, Astrid hadn't turned around.

"I've killed many dragons since I've camped here, but none were a Night Fury."

"Astrid, do you really believe you can kill it, even if it does show itself?"

"Yes," she answered strongly.

There was a silence, before Snotlout spoke again.

"Well, I brought you some food, and a blanket 'cause-"

"I know it's going to storm, and I've been preparing."

Without taking her eyes off the water, she pointed to her shelter, which she had begun to build up with stones and sticks. Snotlout was impressed.

"Princess, you realize if you wanted a house I could've just come to build it for you."

"Leave."

Snotlout dropped the attempt to flirt with her. "Will this house your building be like the one you grew up in, though? What about all those memories?"

"Those memories are tainted with memories of Hiccup. Here, the only constant memories are of his death, and those fuel my revenge."

"Astrid, please come back. We miss you. We need you. And you need to do your final exam."

"Has Gobber found a Night Fury for my exam?"

"No."

"Well, then I don't want to hear about it. I'm not coming back, Snotlout, until I get the beginings of my revenge. And after that, I'll be leaving Berk to seek the rest of my revenge." she pulled in another fish.

"Astrid, please-"

"No, Snotlout. That's final. Tell Gobber and the rest of the teens to forget about me, because I live out here now, independently. With nothing but Hiccup's ghost to power my revenge. Stop bringing your pleads and cries, food and blankets. Do not come here again. You have my warning."

With that, Astrid shut up. Snotlout tried to get her to talk, or to even aknowledge that he was there, but she stayed still and scilent.

Finally, he said his goodbyes, left the food and blanket on the mossy ground, and left.

They still visited her over the next few days, but soon gave up. Whenever they went, she would ignore their presence, until finally, she was considered a lost cause.

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Okay, guys. Sorry for the late update. Now that schools coming up (August 9th for me. Wahoo!(sarcasm there)) Marching Band will be starting in a week(yaaayyy!!!!), and I still have some summer work I have to finish(booo!). So, naturally, updates will be slowing down. (Awwwwwww!)

But, I will try to update as soon as possible, every time. Please take note of this so that when there's 1 to 3 weeks (hopefully it won't come to that) of no updates, don't be mad! It's just school. Getting in the way of everything else is in the definition.

Anyway. Probs won't be updating for a couple of weeks. (those of you in MB can understand camp and precamp taking up all yo time) (not that I'm complaining. I love Marching Band!)

So I'll see ya when I see ya!

Bye!

¤Cloverpool¤