“This never gets old!” I yelled as the wind whipped past me, the helmet I was wearing protecting me from any serious harm, or at least that was the idea. My wingsuit as usual was flared open, allowing me to do what no other rider could even dream of accomplishing, which was flying with their dragon.
Speaking of dragons, out of the corner of my eye I could see the one being that had affected my life the most; my best friend, Toothless the Night Fury. A dragon so fierce it is said that the Night Fury dragons are the unholy offspring of lightning and death itself. As usual he was giving me that wide eyed grin which was almost trademark to him, showing nothing but pure unbridled happiness to just be flying about with me. If I could have seen my face, I would have seen an almost exact replica of that look. Even during the middle of the night we could see, the moon was bright enough to pierce the clouds.
“Woohoo!” I yelled again before performing a bank to my right, diving down under the clouds. Being above the clouds was nice but the view wasn’t anything special, all there was was white puffs, nothing interesting or notable. Sure, going as low as I was, was a little risky but as long as I had Toothless by my side, I had confidence that I would be safe.
As the cloud coverage lessened, the outline of the most beautiful sight filled my vision; Berk. A sight to behold to be sure. With animals, dragons, and of course people, all living in a beautiful harmony among the recently rebuilt town. The grass was various hues of green, as the blades not touched by the light of the moon appeared a darker green than the blades which did get the moon’s light. The sea was a nice tint of blue, with the familiar sound of waves washing and crashing against the shores of the island, crops were blooming, and the animals roamed around. I could never get enough of the sight, and in a way, it was all mine.
Being the chief of the village was hard work, harder than anything I ever had to do but as the challenges reared their ugly heads, I never backed down, taking them down one at a time. Of course that wasn’t to say I never got help along the way, and I would never be that prideful to not acknowledge all of those that helped me along the way. Whether it be my Mother and her words of wisdom, Astrid and her endless loving support, Gobber and his experience, or Toothless and his … well, honestly the only thing he had was his control of the dragons.
It was almost as if he knew that I was thinking mean thoughts about him, for without a single second of warning, I was tackled from behind by a massive ball of black scales. I hardly had any time to react before we were tumbling through the air, my entire body clutched closely to his, and I knew why a few seconds later.
The ground slammed into Toothless with no remorse, but he hardly cared, that dragon could take far worse than a simple attack by the ground. The initial impact was followed by many more, but decreasingly forceful ones, until eventually we came to a complete stop with him straddling my body as I lay on my back.
He had the typical smug grin on his face, the one that just screamed ‘I won.’ I simply rolled my eyes at him, like I could give any other response to his antics.
I swear that his smirk grew wider before his mouth opened and his massive, saliva coated tongue attacked me in a vicious assault of licks. no matter how I tried to defend, scramble away, or flail, his tongue kept on assaulting me, right in the middle of the village square.
“Gah! Stop that! You know that doesn’t wash off! How many times do I have to tell you!?” I shouted, trying to push him away from me, but failing horribly at it.
Eventually Toothless stopped his licking, instead opting to chuckle at my soaking wet body. That dragon would be the death of me, unless he kept saving me. I stood up slowly, using my hands to wipe off the most of the saliva but no doubt there was more hidden somewhere.
I was lucky that there was not a soul around to see the little event or else I would have never lived it down. How could the chief of Berk be defeated so easily and in such a sloppy way? I simply smiled at such a thought, I was pretty sure that everyone already had seen Toothless take me down with such easy force.
“Alright, Toothless, let’s go see Mom and Astrid before we head out,” I said, starting to walk back to my house, they should be there by now … in fact I was probably late. With a little bounce in my step, Toothless and I moved from the open square to our house.
It was the largest house in the village and conveniently placed right next to the Great Hall. Father never really told me much about the home, but I could assume that it had to have been built either by his father or his father’s father. I knew he didn’t build the magnificent thing but that didn’t mean he didn’t work on it.
The moment I reached the door, it swung inwards, revealing my Mother who was standing with her arms folded in front of her, foot tapping and a smug grin on her face. “You must stop being late, Hiccup.”
“Yeah I know, but can you can’t blame me this time, blame this big lug. He decided to assault my face again,” I told her, motioning to Toothless all the while. He on the other hand was currently following a butterfly intently, looking as if he was about to pounce on it and eat it.
“I’m glad to see you, even if you do nag my ear off.” I teased, while embracing my mother, as she hugged me back.
She simply smiled and shook her head before removing herself from the doorway, allowing me to walk inside. Toothless could never have fit through the door, so instead he had to come in through the door to his roost. The moment he noticed that I was no longer standing outside, he leaped onto the building before scrambling his way inside, dropping his head down from the roost, looking at us upside down, his tongue wagging out as per usual with him.
I pushed his head slightly to the side, making my way over to a seated Astrid who had a mug of something in her hands, and since there was no smell to it, it most likely wasn’t alcohol. Of course that didn’t mean that she didn’t partake every once and awhile. After all, us Vikings held far too many celebrations to actually stay away from it.
“Hiccup! Glad you could finally make it home, Odin knows when you ever make enough time to sleep,” she said before leaving her seat and mug to come up to me.
Slowly she wrapped her arms around me, pushing herself up to me before our lips met. It wasn’t anything long but it still felt amazing, almost incomparable. The reaction from Toothless just made it that much better, since he looked like he was trying to stick his tongue out in disgust but ended up having it flap over his face because he was upside down.
“I’m glad you're home though, things are rather … bland without a certain duo,” she said, giving me a little punch on the shoulder.
“Ruff and Tuff never leave the village though,” I said, a little smirk crossing my face, while Astrid just rolled her eyes at me.
“Yeah, yeah … so, where were you two? Goofing off as usual? Don’t you have a village to run, or whatever you call it,” she said, sticking her tongue at me. That of course was mimicked by Toothless who had since returned to ground level, and apparently taking Astrid’s side in the entire thing.
“Oh, you know … flying, gliding, working on the map … just the basic stuff,” I said, rubbing the back of my head as I glanced around the house. I noticed that despite her quietness, and the fact she was cooking, Mom was staying right up with the conversation.
“I thought you were done with that, Hiccup?” she spoke up, finally breaking her silence.
“Well we were, but a couple of days ago we came across something rather new, much farther east,” I said, starting to recant the little tale. Toothless, eager to get into the act, hoped deftly over to me and began to nod his head vigorously. “We were moving past a recently catalogued forest, you know, the one that you wanted to name, Astrid, and we came across something rather ... odd.”
“Odd, as in …” Astrid said, rotating her hand in a circular motion indicating for me to continue despite my pause.
“Odd as in a wall of, well … clouds,” I said sheepishly, lacking the ability to describe didn’t really help me in my retelling of what happened.
“A wall of clouds?” Astrid said, raising an eyebrow in disbelief.
Toothless murmured a few sounds, trying to fill in the gap of the story, gesturing with his front claws as to how wide it was. It was amusing to see him stretch out his legs to their full distance before he realised they weren’t long enough to describe it. His face fell into a slight frown before his eye lit up, and I knew what he was going to do. Without further pause, his wings snapped open to their full length, inside the house mind you, knocking down multiple decorations, and utensils in the process. He simply held a massive grin as he pointed from wing tip to wing tip, proud of his ‘accurate’ description.
“Oh, Toothless,” Mom simply said as she moved about to pick up some of the strewn about utensils. “You need to watch where you’re going, or maybe you will have to sleep outside.”
I glanced over to Toothless who looked at my mom in sheer terror before wilting and pulling his tail closer to him. I merely laughed before giving him a few pats on the back.
“Anyway, this wall of clouds was different. They stretched down all the way to the ground, and even past that when it came to cliffs. We tried to fly above it, tried being the key word here, and failed despite the big lug here … we had to bail after awhile,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the ebony dragon whose ears just perked up at the slight mention of him.
“So, what do you think is in there?” Astrid said, extremely curious at the prospect of their being something else out there, despite us having not a single clue as to what was in or beyond the veil of clouds.
Toothless summed up the answer with a little grumble that sounded close to a ‘I don’t know’ before shrugging his shoulders. Of course, his moment of enlightenment was quickly passed by as he spotted mom placing a few fish down beside him. She nearly had to jump out of the way to avoid being tackled by him, while I had to duck to avoid his tail.
Returning to the topic at hand, I continued. “To be honest, I don’t know. I did see a fleet of what looked like Berserker ships go into the cloud. That’s why later tonight, Toothless and I will head back to that cloud and see what we can find, who knows, maybe there is another dragon nest there.”
Astrid protested, “What!? No! Hiccup, you’re the chief now. You have a family, even an entire island to take care of! You can’t just go doing things like you did before you were inducted as Berk’s chief!”
I knelt before her, taking her smaller, feminine hands in mine, looking into her eyes. “I have to do it, Astrid. I’d send you, but you’re nearing the time to give birth, and I’d never be able to forgive myself if something bad should happen to you, or our baby. I can’t trust the Snotlout or the Twins to get the job done, because they’d either get into a fight and forget what their mission was, or they’d take along some mead, or beer, and get drunk. I couldn’t let you go, not now, Astrid, you know that. You’re too close to giving birth. Plus, Mom needs to stay with you. She’s already experienced the whole pregnancy and birthing process and can help you, if I’m not here. If the Berserkers are up to something, then we need to know about it, especially if their activities involve Berk in some way. It’s the only way; please Astrid, I wouldn’t dare to suggest it if I thought that there was a better way.”
I looked over to Mom, who was still cooking over the fire, but still paying attention to the conversation, as I’d see her glance occasionally at me. “Plus, in the event that something should happen to me and I’m not able, to for whatever reason, return; then Mom will have to take up the role of being Berk’s chief. She’s the only one who has the experience to do it until our child is of age. I’m not planning on anything happening to me, but then again, neither was Dad.”
I came up behind my mother, hugging her from behind as I murmured into her ears, “If I don’t come back, please, take good care of Astrid and our child.” Mom simply nodded, as I began to gather items that I thought I might want for a trip into exploring what was beyond that massive wall of cloud. Basically my cartography kit, which I got from Trader Johan; as well as a wilderness survival kit, and a medical kit, in the event that he might need it.
I placed them into a satchel and proceeded to get into my gliding suit. Once that was done, I called Toothless over, who stood at attention as I placed the saddle on him and tightened the straps securely. I then proceeded to examine the belts, tugging and yanking, looking for weaknesses in the gear. Dragon riders always made sure to have spare gear, in the event that they do find a weakness in their gear, but don’t have the time to fix, or replace it due to circumstances. Usually requiring haste to respond to the many attempts against Berk and its citizenry.
Once I was satisfied that the the saddle and its belts were safe to use once again, I scritched Toothless’ chin, before lightly smacking him on the back, so that he could leap outside, and wait for me out there, while I bid my family farewell. I leaned over and hugged Astrid, since she was so heavy with child, and frequently found it painful to be on her feet for longer than half an hour. “I love you, and look forward to seeing you soon; the gods willing, Astrid my love.”
“Take care, and please don’t do anything reckless. … Just, come home again safely.”
I turned to Mom. “Take care of her. I love you, Mom. I thank the gods that you’re back in my life and I hold dear each and every day that I get to spend with you.”
“I will. Do what you must, my son, and come home to us safely.” She got up from her chair and hugged me tightly, before I turned to see a drawing of my father.
“I’m going now, Dad. Watch over and protect Astrid and Mom while I’m gone. I miss you, even though our relationship as father and son was often … more than a little awkward, you were still there for me when I needed you the most. You’ll always be with me.” I caressed the edge of the picture frame, before exiting the home.
Once my satchel was secured to the saddle, and I was satisfied that it wasn’t going to come loose after several test yanks and jerks. I climbed into the saddle. “Ready to go bud?” Toothless gave a happy sounding growl, before launching his powerful body into the air, beating his wings furiously as he tried to gain altitude. Using both stars and the familiar and not so familiar landmarks of the uniquely shaped islands, we retraced our way, returning back to the massive wall of cloud sitting on the ocean.
Even though this was a recon mission, I was hard pressed not to shout in joy, as Toothless and I soared the skies together. There’s just something about flying that is exhilarating, a sense of freedom that can’t be attained anywhere else. Up here, I can release the stress my responsibilities of being Berk’s chief. Up here, I can, if only for a time, lose myself in an illusion that I don’t have the responsibilities that I do. Up here, it can just be a young man and his dragon. Not Berk’s chief, not a son, husband or soon-to-be father.
Once we had arrived at the cloudbank, Toothless looked back at me, while hovering in place, waiting for me to give permission and reassure him about us going into the cloudbank. “It’ll probably be like flying blind, bud. Just fly like you would in a cave and hopefully we’ll see what those Berserkers are up to on the other side of this cloud. While in the cloud, do that thing you do in the caves towards the ground, in case the Berserkers have found land or are using the cloudbank for cover for whatever activities they might be up to.”
Toothless shook his head, not in a no gesture, but more like he was impatient to get on with it. I chuckled and rubbed his cheek. "Alright, let’s go bud, but let’s go slow. Don’t want to be having any rock pillar encounters like we did last time.”
I chuckled at the memory of the scolding I had gotten from both Mom and Astrid, once they had learned of my latest near death experience, as Toothless and I nearly killed ourselves as we were flying fast in a thick fog and nearly killed ourselves on a natural rock tower that is a rather common sight for the seas in which we Vikings call home. It wasn’t fun at the time, but I know they scolded because they cared, and were scared of losing me by getting myself killed, somehow.
We entered the cloud, flying forward slowly as we didn’t want to crash into any stone formations. Time ceased to exist in the cloud. We only knew that the moon was out, because the cloud wasn’t pitch black. I don’t know how long we were in the cloud, flying through it, when the cloud emitted a bright bluish-white flash. Thinking it was possibly lightning, and knowing that it would be really, really bad if Toothless and I were to get hit by it, I shouted, “Let’s get out of here bud!” Leaning close towards Toothless’ body, to make myself the most aerodynamic profile, to make it easier for Toothless to go faster. He closed his wings close to his body, diving to gain speed. It was a dangerous and risky move, but I trusted Toothless to fly through this cloud and get us out. He was able to fly in pitch black caves, after all, so clouds shouldn’t present any problem whatsoever.
I felt the inertia as Toothless snapped open his wings, and we went from a downward spiral to a horizontal one. It felt as though my heart went from my throat to the pit of my stomach. Toothless continued to make the sounds he had in the caves on a fairly frequent basis, as we made extreme haste to exit the cloud. Because I didn’t want us to get hit by any lightning, plus I had vowed to Mom and Astrid to make it back, if at all possible.
We finally shot out of the cloud, and Toothless and I both had to react quickly as we were fast approaching a forest bordering a coastline. A range of mountains rose up in the distance. Was it Norway? I had seen dragons unlike any which I had ever encountered. I patted Toothless on the side of his neck, pointing towards the mountain tops where the unfamiliar dragons were roosting. He nodded, roaring in acknowledgement and happiness, especially since we got out of that cloud and away from the lightning in the cloud. It might have been only that one brief flash, but for Toothless and I, one flash was one flash too many.
Many of the dragons which weren’t sleeping, turned their attention towards Toothless and I, as we approached these dragons which I had never before encountered, I gazed in amazement as I saw dragons eating gems and crystals! The younger ones even appeared to move like us humans do! The older and larger dragons, from what I could see, favored walking on all fours, when they weren’t relying on their wings to move about. The largest and oldest dragon came to the fore of all the dragons and gave a mighty roar. I prepared myself for whatever might happen, as I had no idea if they might do. “Be ready for anything bud.” I instructed Toothless
“What is this abomination that I see before me! A youngling of our proud and noble race stooping so low as to be some dirty beast of burden for some filthy—monkey!?”
I had to scrabble to grasp onto one of the handles on the saddle, due to my surprise that a dragon was actually speaking in my native tongue! In all my encounters with dragons, neither I, nor anybody else that I knew, had ever encountered a species which could talk! “By the lightning of Thor! You can talk!”
The dragon looked affronted at this. “Of course I can talk, We were among the first inhabitants of this world to gain the ability of communication! Honestly, I’m surprised that you can even speak our language. Howbeit, it still doesn’t answer my previous question regarding why that dragon is sullying the honor and dignity of dragons everywhere by allowing you to ride him.”
I scritched beneath Toothless’ chin, as he closed his eyes and growled happily, while the other dragons growled loudly, apparently angered by my display of affection to my buddy. I simply shot them a glare, before straightening up to show them that I wasn’t afraid of their scare tactics.
“Toothless, my dragon friend and I, have been through a lot. At first, we were enemies, because to each other we were unknown and dangerous. It required trust on both of our parts to conquer our fear of the unknown so that both of our species could forge a friendship Toothless is grounded as he can’t fly without me to perform the adjustment to his fake tailfin, so he needs me. Without him, to protect me from the dangers my home often faces, I might have never seen the sunrise this morning. Toothless is my friend, my partner, and my best bud. Through combining our strengths, to cover each others weaknesses, we become stronger and better than what we would alone. Besides, I fail to see how me riding Toothless sullies the honor and dignity of your species. Is dragonriding not done in these lands?”
The elder dragon let out a sooty puff of smoke, causing me to cough, and wave my hands, trying to clear the air. The rest of the dragons followed the example of the elder, so that it required several minutes for me to fan the smoke away. “I should think not! Besides, while I may have seen creatures similar to you, I’ve never seen a creature exactly like you. Nevertheless, it is still an affront to our draconic sensibilities to see you riding one of our brethren. Also, we would not have our younglings tainted, by seeing you riding one of our brethren.” The dragon elder focused upon the dragons that were watching us, as I waited to see how this encounter would turn out. Raising his voice to address the gathered dragons, he shouted; “My fellow dragons, we must destroy this filthy monkey and the sullied dragon which he rides upon. We must erase this example of heresy, these who dare to soil the honor and dignity of our race!” he roared, declaring this conversation over.
The dragons roared, a plume of flame coming out of their mouths as they did so. Then they turned their plumes of fire towards Toothless and I. While I wasn’t too concerned about Toothless being able to survive a brief firefight, neither I, nor our tack would fare too well in a firefight. Plus, the odds weren’t in our favor. I could only hope that Toothless was faster than these dragons.
I hastily scrambled back up into my saddle on my buddy Toothless’ back, and yelled, “Let’s go bud!” grasping upon the grips on the saddle to hoist myself into the saddle, and quickly fanned his fake tail piece out, as we hurried to leave those dragons territory. I could feel the heat as the dragons breathed their plumes of fire at us as we hurried to escape. “Don’t let them escape! Destroy them!” I could hear the elder dragon say in between the furious roars of the dragons attacking us.
One dragon managed to catch up, and his claw ripped the left shoulder piece of my flying suit. I cried out in pain, feeling the talon cut my shoulder. While it was deeper than a scratch, I could tell he’d not torn any major blood vessels. Fortunately for me, Toothless was able to outfly the other dragons. Not wanting to stop, in case those dragons were still flying after us, I strapped myself into the harness, and began hoisting the first aid satchel that I carried with me, ever since Father died. Old Gothi made sure my pack was freshly restocked prior to any excursions that I would make with Toothless. I selected a smaller bag with the Viking symbols for stopping blood flow, and rubbed it into the wound, crying out because of the pain. Once the herbal powder had been administered, I removed a roll of bandage wrap, and using my small dagger, cut the wrap and secured the loose end, once my wound had been wrapped tightly in a length of bandage strip.
“That was really something, huh bud? But wasn’t that amazing!? Those dragons could talk! How cool is that!? Let’s gain some altitude, so we can get a sense of the lay of the land. The guys back home are not going to believe this! Dragons talking!” Once we had attained a great enough height, I could see some scattering of islands in the distance, which led to a larger piece of land. I patted Toothless on the cheek and pointed towards the islands and the larger piece of land beyond. “Let’s go there, bud. But let’s keep an eye out, in case we encounter any more dragons that might attack us.”
Toothless looked back over his shoulder before nodding his head in agreement, yet I could see in his eyes that there was something bothering him. Something else aside from his usual look of self-determination and light-heartedness. For the first time since the incident involving Drago, I saw confusion in his eyes. What that talking dragon had said really hit him hard, not that it didn’t get to me as well but Toothless probably took it far more personal that I did.
“You alright, bud?” I asked, running a hand over the fins on his head. He didn’t look back at me instead opting to keep scanning the horizon. He did let out a series of grunts and grumbles though, which gave me more than I needed. Sure I couldn’t exactly tell what he was saying but we shared a close enough connection for me to guess.
“I’m interested by it too, bud. Those dragons were unlike anything that we have ever seen before. They kind of looked like giant Nightmares… we’ll find out what those dragon’s were protecting,” I said, to which Toothless just nodded in response again. “Alright, bud, let’s head back to Berk but let’s try and keep this quiet. Something this big could cause a lot of trouble among the village.”
Toothless grunted something that sounded like agreement as I clicked the wing paddle into place, and with a quick grin over his shoulder, Toothless shot forward at top speed. We would most likely make it to Berk by dusk, since this was the furthest east we had ever travelled … for now.