growing a spine

It was in their next class that hiccup showed that he had listend to Delvins

It was the third lesson in dragon killing and they were now dealing with a zippleback, or was it technically two zipplebacks?

Either way, the moment the pen was open, green gas spewed throughout the arena obscuring everyone's vision and splitting them up and leaving them clawing in the gas unable to see the dragon or each other.

They had each been given a bucket of water to use on the dragons head, providing they chucked water on the igniting head, then the dragon would be rendered "harmless" although in actuality the dragon would still have its teeth, tail and claws, all things that could easily kill

Annoyingly the first person the dragon went after was Delvin, since there was an odd number of students he had been left alone and the dragon had chosen him to be the easiest target. A wrong assumption. He was aware the moment it drew close as even if it could blind his vision it could hardly deafen him, the one upside of being alone was that he could easily focus on the sound of the dragon's footsteps and not his partner, something the others couldnt do

So the second the dragon drew too close Delvin just stared in its direction, casting away his bucket and slamming his halberd in its direction, narrowly missing one of the heads that were emerging from the smoke, causing the dragon to hiss and move away, searching for easier prey

Prey in the form of idiots

Still listening for the sounds of the dragon Delvin heard a yelled "over there!" from what sounded to be tuffnut and ran over, only to find that he had instead emptied his bucket onto Astrid and his twin

"Wow your buts must be getting bigger, we thought you were a dragon!" Tuffnut exclaimed upon learning his mistake, ever the epitome of class

"Not that there's anything wrong with a dragonesqe figure-" snotlout, Tuffnuts partner began before getting a punch in the face from Astrid who was clearly not interested in his brand of flirting at the moment

"God you guys need help" Delvin muttered as he walked over to the group walking over the groaning form of Snotlout

"I Concur!" Tuffnut yelled, popping up with a grin that only a certain god of mischief could love "we do indeed need heeeelllllpppp!" his voice turned into a yell as a large green tail wrapped around his leg and pulled him into the smoke

"Looks like you might need another twin," Delvin said as he looked over to Ruffnut, who looked wholly unconcerned and was counting down with her fingers. Once she reached zero Tuffnut came running out of the smoke, yelling about how hurt he was

"No dragon wants to eat a Thorsten, we taste way too bad," she said with a crazy smile as she chased after her twin

"You got any water?" Astrid appeared beside him, sporting her axe and going back to back with him as they starred into the green smog

"Nope, tossed it" Delvin shook his head, he looked over to his cousin before turning back to the green cloud, looking for any sign of the two-headed dragons "you?"

Astrid shook her head "i spilled it when those idiots soaked me, lost my grip and it tumbled into the smoke" she drew her sheld closer to her body as she prepared herself, "just the two of us then"

"They don't stand a chance" Delvin couldnt help but smirk, remembering how hiccup had said the exact same thing to her, although he chose not to point that out, lest he end up like snotlout who was still on the floor, checking to make sure he still had all his teeth

However, instead of a dragon appearing they heard the sound of Fishlegs screaming nearby, nodding to each other, they ran over to the origin of the noise seeing fishlegs running for his life as one head shot clouds of gas at him

He wet the wrong head apparently

However he did come in time just to see hiccup now walking towards a cowering zippleback, clearly acting for the other's benefit as he "scared" the zippleback back into its cage

"Back beast!" Hiccup yelled as he clanged his axe against his shield clumsily, somehow fooling the others as they looked at him with gaping mouths "you know what you did! Back to your cage!"

It was honestly so very hard to not laugh at the faces everyone was making

It was only once the Zippleback had scampered back into its cage did Hiccup drop his axe, pulling a pair of eels from his shirt, causing the dragon to hiss in fear and disgust as Hiccup chucked them into the cage and pulled the switch that closed the large metal door

"What?" he asked as he saw everyone's faces and looked over to see Delvin practically bursting with laughter, "dragons hate eels, it's in the book of dragons," he said with a shrug as he walked past the starring other students, only stopping beside the now calm Delvin and turning to him "can we talk?"

"Sure, why not" Delvin responded with a shrug following the smaller boy and giving a wave to the other students as he left, ignoring the angry look on Astrid's face, knowing that she would later yell at him

Eventually, they stopped at a grassy knoll, away from most of the people nearby, Hiccup sat down on a rock and turned to Delvin

"What am i supposed to tell people?" he asked, looking lost, seeing the raised eyebrow on Delvin's face he clarified "what am i supposed to tell people when they ask about me suddenly getting better"

"Tell them the truth," Delvin said nonchalantly with a shrug

"About toothless!?" Hiccup asked with a hushed whisper, looking pale

"No, an altered version of the truth" Delvin replied with a shake of his head "tell them that you've been studying the dragons, when you learn a new trick, tell people about it. If you use dragon nip tell people that you saw a dragon hunter use it, if you knock a dragon out by scratching a nerve, tell them you saw a dragon scratch the same nerve in the wild"

"So lie?" hiccup asked incredulously

"Bend the truth" Delvin agreed with a nod "the best lies have some truth in them"