I'm back again! I'm so glad I finally have the time to get back to How To Be A Pirate! YAAAAYYYY! Thank you so much for reading, and I would love it if you could leave a review!

Disclaimer: I do not own HTTYD, all rights go to Dreamworks, Cressida Cowell, and now Cartoon Network.

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Chapter One

The Smoke Monster

I blinked my droopy eyes open, then quickly slid them into a tired squint. The sun made me feel that much more tired, and it felt as if I had fallen asleep in the middle of the afternoon, and my mouth had that odd taste, and all my senses had a fuzzy feeling to them. The morning air whipping at my face and tangling my loose, auburn hair helped a bit, giving me that beloved feeling of freedom. The flapping of wings was comforting, some mornings when my Skrill, Glimmer, wakes me up for our early rides, it gets a bit lonely, but with my dad, his Night Fury, Toothless, my brother, Blunder, and his Timberjack, Woodchipper, it's not that bad. Well, not that it was bad in the first place, of course.

"Less, three yaks are straying to the left of you!" Dad shouted to me, pointing.

"I'm on it!" I shouted back, cueing Glimmer into a dive toward the yaks. As soon as we got on the far left end of the yaks, and there was no danger of hurting them, Glimmer shot her lightning-fire at the nearby rock ledge. The white-blue fire hit a rock just jutting out of the ledge and seemed to absorb it, the fire almost appeared to be rotating around it for a moment, before it dissapeared into the earth nearby. The yaks, startled by the sight and sound of her extraordinary fire, bolted back to the safety of their herd.

"Good job," Dad praised as Glimmer glided back above the herd.

I nodded a thank you, and sat a little straighter in my saddle. We were all eating breakfast at our table when Mulch and Bucket came knocking on our door, asking my father for his help herding the yaks from the spring and summer pasture to the fall and winter one, which was closer to the village. Due to the herd's number increasing abnormally this year, it was not a job for two older men on foot. So, my mother had stayed home to tend to the house and any of the villager's problems while me and Blunder voluntarily helped Dad. I just shouldn't have stayed up so late last night, teaching Zephyr how to fly on Glimmer.

About a week ago, Zephyr had realised that just about everyone our age on the island had a dragon of their own. He kinda felt bad about being the only one without a dragon, which kinda made me feel bad, and decided to help him. I asked dad for advice and help, and he said to first teach him how to ride. So, of course, I volunteered Glimmer as a 'Flier's Ed' dragon. I decided to start him out how I started out... Earning Glimmer's trust. Due to the incident two months ago, it took Glimmer a while longer to open up and trust Zephyr than it would normally take a dragon to trust it's rider's friend. We had just begun flying yesterday, and Zephyr did, well, good... except for when he crashed into the middle of the barn, and we had landed in a huge heap of old, moldy hay, and gave the animals inside quite a fright.

I didn't see Zephyr before we went out to move the yaks, but I was sure he was sore. I know I was, and I could feel Glimmer's stiffness through the saddle, and could tell her reaction time is rather slow, due to the soreness.

I swooped down a little lower, and took over watching the middle of the herd, my dad moving to my left side and Blunder staying on my right. I sped up a little as the yaks did, maybe they knew the new pasture wasn't too far off now. Then I saw how they were beginning to scatter, keeping in biggroups, but breaking off just barely. I wouldn't have paid much attention to it, if they hadn't pushed their young into the center of their running bunches. I could tell something was off.

"Something's wrong," I hollared over the ever-quickening sound of their hooves, "they're nervous about something,"

"Well, duh," Blunder loudly replied, "we're on dragons!"

"No, she's right, Blunder," Dad yelled, "look at their formation. Try to get them closer together,"

Toothless and Woodchipper began blasting fire balls to the sides, causing the yaks to run closer together, as planned, but they began to get even more firghtened, almost terrified. What could it be that's making them so afraid?

Then I heard what sounded like a far off roar. Glimmer was the nervous one now, she gave a small squak, and I scratched the side of her head to reassure her. Then, I turned my head around slightly to see if I could spot whatever dragon that was. But, strangely, all I could see was dark clouds. Even stranger, it looked more like smoke than clouds. In fact, it was smoke. Was that what the yaks were so afraid of? I searched the ground near the smoke, but it wasn't connected to the ground. Nothing was on fire, because the smoke was hovering in the air. Okay, that was really weird. I turned back around and diverted my attention back to the herd ahead of me.

The flapping sounds of dark wings against the sky must have been drowned out by the yak's thundering hooves and frightened cries. I didn't even realise how close it was until I heard my father scream.

"LESS!"

I whirled my head back around to where I saw the smoke. I saw a flash of grey the exact shade of the smoke that was now closer than the first time I had seen it, just before I was knocked from Glimmer by a dark wing, hitting me in the back with such force I lost all the air in my lungs, my feet were torn out of the stirrups, and I slipped from the saddle. Glimmer grabbed me by the leg as I fell past her talons, and I hung there, upside down, in mid-air, terrified.

"Hold on, Less!" Dad yelled to me, "Try to climb back onto her!"

Glimmer tried to fly lower to the ground as I forced myself to reach foreward and grab onto her leg, which was still holding mine. I found this very hard, mainly because my legs are longer than my torso. I was in a mid-air, upside down toe-touch-like position now, and I finally grabbed a hold of Glimmer's silver talon, when I peered up to get a better look at the dragon above us. It was much bigger than Glimmer was, with scales the color of the dark smoke it spewed out of it's large mouth. It somewhat resembled a Monstrous Nightmare, except it's size was quite bigger, but not by too much. It's wings were frayed at the ends, and it's claws long and sharp, giving it a mysterious, almost ghostly look. It's mouth, like the Nightmare, was full of razor sharp teeth, it looked so much like the Nightmare, in fact, that I thought it must be a distant relative of it. It appeared almost as if instead of making itself enveloped in fire, like the Nightmare, maybe it enveloped itself in smoke.

I saw one of the smoke monster's long legs swoop down, and I opened my mouth to shout a warning to Glimmer, but was too late as it swiped at her, knocking her right out of the sky, and she began to fall, the hit jarring her so much she let go of my leg as she fell. I was falling so fast through the air I barely knew what was happening before the ground, poluted with yaks, raced up to meet me, and everything went black as I hit the ground.

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Cliffhanger! Sorry it's so short, and it's been so long, but school has been killer. Anyway, thank you so much for reading. Tomorrow my horse has to be put down, thanks to her battle with arthritis she's been fighting for about 2 years or so. So please know, that even though I may not be able to post another chapter too soon, or respond to many of your lovely reviews, they are still greatly appreciated, and the make my day.

So thank you so much!

LOVE!