I'm Posting In AO3 For The First Time And Oh My God I Never Thought Formatting Would Be Such A Pain In

i'm posting in AO3 for the first time and oh my god I never thought formatting would be such a pain in the ass. Absolutely love the website but I guess I'm not used to formatting things in that way

using emdashes and a semi colon in the same line. this sentence will end when i do

Day 1: "Ruffled hair"

Hilda let out a heavy yawn as she flopped down onto her bed, exhausted, the bedframe creaking underneath her weight, complaining about the sudden weight it had to support. The young healer groaned, tiredness and discomfort flowing freely through her body. It had been a rather long day—not only did she have to deal with the twins messing around with poison from speed stingers in the morning, which led to her finding out they had also exhausted her already low stock of antidote, which in turn lead to an almost day-long expedition to nearby islands to look for the needed ingredients and make once more some bottles of said antidote… but she also had to fly rather late at night to the dragon hunters’ base to retrieve some ingredients Viggo had promised her. While the journey wasn’t too long or exhausting, on her way back to Dragon’s Edge she faced the added issue of a sudden rain.

Rain didn’t prove much of an issue for most riders, not with how light it had been anyway; they would just soar above the clouds to avoid the light drizzle, or maybe even fly through it if the journey wasn’t too long. But neither of those was an option for Hilda and Boreas. Neither of them had the greatest sense of direction, and so dragon and rider relayed on rock formations and island shapes to know whether they were flying in the right direction or getting absolutely lost, which made it so they were forced to fly underneath the clouds for longer flights like that one. To make matters worse, as a woolly howl, there was a considerable amount of hair coating the dragon’s body. The unexpected rain, or any contact with water really, proved incredibly tedious at best and dangerous at worse for his kind. They had been relatively lucky as the rain didn’t grow into a storm, though, yet by the time Boreas landed on the dragon’s edge, his weight had increased and made it all that much harder to fly, not to mention how sluggish the usually agile dragon felt. But, they had made it, and now they were both utterly spent and drenched.

Hilda groaned as she forced herself to rise from her soft, inviting bed, painfully aware that sleeping in soaked clothing would only make things much worse for her. She took off her boots and coat, her vest and pants soon following as she looked for some kind of bucket to let them dry in, not caring much about how they’d get wrinkly rather fast if she didn’t stretch them out properly. Finding a cloth to dry her hair, the young healer approached the wooden chest that lay underneath her bed and stored all her clothes, some neatly folded and some others thrown in there without a care in the world. She fetched a clean pair of pants and a comfortable shirt, not minding whether they were outside clothes or inside ones. She just wanted to sleep.

Boreas, however, had other plans. The dragon growled softly from outside the hut, making Hilda glance in his direction to check on the beast. He was scratching the ground, lifting some dirt with his claws, his growls soft and persistent. Hilda sighed, knowing what that meant: her dragon was seeking her attention, and guessing by the urgency of his pawing, her help too. She walked towards the door, a bit groggy from the tiredness and with her towel on her head, awkwardly sitting on the top of her ruffled hair.

“What's wrong, big guy?” Hilda inquired as she knelt down, knowing that her dragon preferred it when they were at the same eye level. Boreas growled once more and shook without previous warning, spraying Hilda’s face with a cascade of drops of water. She tried to raise her hands and cover herself, yet the dragon had been too quick, and her reflexes were rather slow after the long day. She sighed, giving Boreas a bit of a glare. “What was that for?”, the young healer asked as she dried her face off with her towel. The dragon roared now, as if impatient, and Hilda merely stared at him, blinking. It took her longer than she cared to admit to notice what the issue was. Right, the water. Boreas didn't like being wet. In fact, the woolly howl despised water. Hilda had observed a similar reaction to water coming from other snow dragons, and with Hiccup they had hypothesized that it was in their nature to avoid big bodies of water. After all, it wasn't the same to swim in a lake with lukewarm water than one with freezing temperatures, the latter much more common in these dragons’ habitats. A self-preservation instinct buried in their blood, one that prevented those animals from trying to swim in cold water and dying trapped underneath a layer of ice or frozen to death. If Boreas had been a wild dragon, Hilda would have applauded this system. But given he no longer lived in those snowy and desolate mountains they had first met at, his rider found this quirk of his rather annoying. Of course, she didn't blame him for it. It was nature at its finest, and at least the dragon was kind enough to let her bathe him once or twice a year. That was something. But now, soaked in the rain’s water and cold from the chilly air of the night, the dragon looked at her with pleading eyes.

“I get it, I get it. Let's get you dry again”, Hilda murmured and petted his snout with care as she thought of the most efficient way to go about this. They had a big enough hearth of sorts in the clubhouse, but firing it up would probably catch the attention of Fishlegs, who was on watch duty at the moment, and it would have been awfully suspicious of her to show up at those hours of the night with a soaked dragon and no reasonable explanation that didn’t involve secretly flying off in the middle of the night. Starting a campfire right there, then? The rider surveyed her surroundings with a thoughtful expression, only to dismiss the idea. It would take too long to gather the necessary materials to craft a bonfire big enough to dry her dragon, and given Borea's inability to breathe fire, it would take her even longer to light the whole thing up. She glanced back at her dragon, her brows furrowed in thought and later in worry. It was clear the beast was uncomfortable, something that Hilda didn’t appreciate, even less given she knew she could help him. So, keeping a tired sigh to herself, she went inside her hut once more and rummaged through her things until she found a few more towels. “Alright, you big ball of fur, time for… whatever the opposite of a bath is”. The dragon huffed, throwing some of his icy breath at Hilda. “Yeah, well, you try to be funny when you are this tired. Now shut it, mister, and collaborate with me here”

The young healer kneeled down, her dragon begrudgingly laying on the grass as well, and she started drying him as gently as she could. She knew Boreas loathed the feeling of towels, scratchy and uncomfortable, but there was no other way to do it. At least, no one that Hilda’s exhausted mind could come up with. Fighting off a yawn, she felt her eyelids growing heavy, yet she persisted. The smell that reached her nostrils as she shook the dragon’s fur wasn’t anything pleasant either, an unpleasant scent that wafted to her nose, a musky and sweaty blend reminiscent of a Viking long overdue for a bath. But she kept going. Amused, she noticed how, as she dried some portions of his fur, the hair became ruffled and fluffed up, which her dragon didn’t appreciate as much. She untangled some strands of fur with her fingers, careful not to hurt the dragon, and combed his hide to keep it nice and tidy. Without noticing, she began humming a song as she worked, a soft melody that seemed to soothe Boreas, who lowered his head upon his front paws and calmly swayed his tail from side to side. The lazy beast could be grumpy at times, but Hilda had learnt enough about his tells to know he was at peace then. With a smile and newfound strength, she continued her meticulous care, keeping up both the untangling and the drying.

It took a couple of hours—some of the most exhaustive, monotone hours she had gone through, but Boreas was finally dry. Well, not completely; his fur was still moist to the touch, but both rider and dragon were happy with the result. Plus, the young healer had taken the liberty to braid a section of his fur, and that along with how happy and comfortable Boreas looked now, made her feel like her efforts had been worth it.

Hilda’s gaze travelled upwards towards the night sky, wondering how many hours of sleep she had left to enjoy, and maybe entertaining the thought of hiding in the edge’s cave system just to sleep in and avoid Hiccup’s inevitable scolding once he found her. A gentle touch on her hand brought her back to earth, and a warm smile tugged at her lips as she saw her dragon’s snout bumping into her palm. Hilda let out a tired, yet pleased yawn. “Good night, big guy”, she mumbled as she lay down on the grass. Boreas curled up around her, his fluffy and soft fur providing shelter from the biting cold. The dragon’s purring filled the night as he, too, drifted to sleep, closing his eyes. “I love you too”, Hilda mumbled back as sleep enveloped her in its gentle embrace.

I might have started the month with a fever and awful throat and teeth pain healthcare system pls take out my wisdom teeth already BUT I fully intend to try doing a full month of writing prompts. Most likely these and not any fandom's list since they are pretty vague so I can fit whatever character I feel like using at the moment

October Prompts 🎃

Word prompts to use for doodling or writing

ruffled hair

apple scent

full of colors

walks in the forest

autumnal

falling leaves

chestnuts

umbrellas

ravens

Oktoberfest

pumpkin spice

cornfields

black cat

spooky

first wine

flying kites

whispers

picking apples

ghosts

sweater weather

acorns

pile of leaves

harvest

fog

Jack-o-lanterns

campfire

witches

samhain

stormy days

seance

trick-or-treat

it's been a hot minute since I've drawn the canon cast

I've been thinking about names for the Gravity Falls crossover AU

(Yes they have to be latin phrases, shush)

"Ex Altiora" = "From the heights", referencing Toothless' arrival in Gravity Falls

"Ad Astra" = "To the stars", referencing both the ad astra per aspera title in Journal 3, and also the Pines family's eventual goal of getting Toothless to fly again so he can return home