Can I Borrow Your Night Fury
A Short Fan Fiction by Scothanial Karrasch
(I had this idea before Riders of Berk so some things might not be accurate.)
Chapter One: The Errand
Astrid walked around Berk. It was a nice day; it was partly cloudy but the sun still shined brightly. There was a slight breeze in the air, just cool enough to raise your hairs but not cool enough to make her shiver. To Astrid, this was perfect. The normal snow or sleet got tiresome after a while, so she wanted to take as much advantage of this day as she could.
The place was oddly empty. Usually it would be full of life and friendly greetings. But today, no-one seemed to be around. She knew where they all were. They were all up on Raven's Point where Hiccup housed his weekly Dragon Lesson. From little kids to their parents and even single adults came by to get a little lesson in taming Dragons; since Hiccup was the first one to do it, and he knew more than anyone about dragons, he got picked to be the teacher. Today's lesson was all about Nadderheads. Nadders were Astrid's specialty, so she didn't need to accompany this lesson.
Just when her mind was going through all of the things she could do on Berk, she heard a clanking coming from the metal shop. She thought, 'Is that Hiccup? Why isn't he teaching?' She investigated; as she looked inside, she found the large, one armed, one legged man named Gobber. His prosthetic was in the form of a hammer. It beat down on a glowing hot sword blade; sparks flew on contact.
"Oy, Astrid," he said with a toothy smile. "I'm glad you stopped by."
She looked around to see if he could have been talking to someone else; but sure enough, she was the only Astrid on this island. 'He's glad to see me?' It was rather odd. "You wanted to see me."
"Oh yes. I need an errand to be run, and Hiccup is busy teaching about dragons so I was thinking you could."
Astrid had nothing else to do today. Why not? "Sure, what do you need?"
He smiled again. "You see, there is this special metal that I use to repair damaged swords like this." He indicated the chipped worn sword on the anvil. "Normally, I'd have a crew of men sail off to Fosphero to get it, but, well, everyone is at that dragon lesson."
Fosphero was an island not too far away from here. The metal he wanted was rare on Berk, but on Fosphero, it was as common as summer grass. "I figured; you have a dragon that can fly. Would you be able to fly to Fosphero for me and get some metal?"
Flying. Astrid couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it, but flying would be perfect on a day like this. "Sure. I'd be glad to."
"Thank you so much Astrid." Gobber turned around, tossed some stuff around, and returned with a bag in his hand. "Take this. We use it too collect the stuff. It's laced with a special material that won't burn but is also very flexible."
"Thank you," Astrid said as she took the bad. With that, she left to find her dragon, Stormfly.
Since the dragon arena wasn't being used to fight dragons anymore, they turned it into a home for them. It was roomy and could hold a decent amount of tired dragons. The door was left open so they could leave and return whenever they wanted, but if a dragon needed to be found, this was most like the place.
She scanned through the dragons of many types, shapes, sizes, and colors. They all had a distinct quality to them that made one dragon stand out from another. As dragons moved out of the way for her, she finally found the familiar spiked sky-blue tail of her Nadderhead.
"Stormfly, there you are girl!" She ran up and hugged her dragon around the neck. It purred softly then groaned a little. Something didn't sound right to Astrid. She examined Stormfly's eyes, nose, moth, and horns. Finally she spotted it.
"Oh, no. You have the dragon flu." Dragon flu was the equivalent to a Viking cold. It wasn't too serious to worry about, but still wasn't too pleasant. Testing Stormfly's strength, Astrid pushed on her to get her to stand up; but she refused to and replaced her head on her crossed arms.
"Aw sweetie," Astrid said consolingly, "I'm supposed to run an errand for Gobber, but I can't fly you when you're this sick." Stormfly went back to resting. She looked around for another solution. None of these dragons were tamed for riding yet, and the ones that were tamed Astrid was not comfortable riding on at all. She had a bad experience with Hookfang, Snotlout's Monstrous Nightmare; she needed two people to ride a Zippleback; and Meatlug, Fishleg's Gronkle, would be too slow for a round trip to Fosphero. The only option left was Hiccup's Night Fury, Toothless.
"I guess that will have to do," she said; and she left to Raven's Point to find Hiccup. After a while of jogging and hiking, Astrid spotted Hiccup in front of the large group of students. He had his hands under the Nadder's neck.
"... And if you scratch under their chin like this," he moved his fingers across the scales and the Nadder fell right to sleep. The class oo-ed and ah-ed. "After that, the Nadder will sleep for an hour so be careful you don't..." he spotted Astrid, and smiled, "don't do that while you're flying."
Astrid found this to be the best timing to intervene. "I learned that the hard way," she said out-loud. This earned her a chuckle from most of the class. "Hiccup, can I ask you something."
"Sure, anything." Ever since they started dating, Hiccup had no problems doing favors for Astrid. To be honest, he actually enjoyed doing favors.
"Could I borrow Toothless for the afternoon?"
This seemed like an odd request. At Astrid's explanation of her situation, he agreed and called for Toothless with a whistle. A few seconds later, Toothless was right by Hiccup's side, pushing his head under Hiccups arm. He obeyed and pet him.
"If you want to you could ride him. Do you know how to work the gears?"
Astrid paused. "Umm... Not really."
"It's fairly easy actually," he said, moving over to the foot petal. He took off the attachment for his prosthetic foot and added the old one for his boot. "You see you start off at 1, that's all the way down. 1 is used to take off. After that, go to 2. 2, gets you up to speed. Once you're cruising, 3 and 4 are the main ones you'll use. 3 is for flying straight and 4 is for climbing. 5 is used for going down and you want to get a lot of speed. I've never got to 6 but 6 is for dive bombs."
Astrid tried to keep all of this new information in her mind as he was spouting it out. To Hiccup, this was second nature, but Astrid would have to take some time to get used to the instructions. She put her right foot on the petal and swung her body over so that she straddled the saddle.
Toothless looked through thin pupils, turning his head to the side to see who has hopped up on him. It couldn't be Hiccup, Hiccup was right beside him. He tried to reassure Toothless. "Buddy, don't worry. Astrid just needs to run an errand."
'But she doesn't even know how to work the gears,' Toothless thought.
"I know. But she's going to try her best. She needs you."
Astrid just sat there awkwardly as the boy talked to his dragon. She understood that they have a special thought connection; it allowed Hiccup to hear everything Toothless thought and he can understand whatever Hiccup said.
Toothless relinquished with a low growl. Hiccup went back to Astrid; she slid her left foot into the gear selector. "Remember," Hiccup said, "1 to start, 2 to get up to speed, 3 to coast, 4 to climb, 5 to fall, and 6 to dive."
Astrid nodded. "R-right." She still wasn't too sure about this, but she had to do her best.
"I have to get back to class. Be careful, both of you." Toothless flapped his ears.
Astrid turned the gear to the lowest position. "Alright, Toothless. Are you ready?" She patted the scaly forehead of the dragon. She's sure that he thought something but she couldn't hear it.
'Just don't screw up the gears,' he thought. He didn't like this idea one bit; but he also didn't like to question his master; his best friend. A quick look back to make sure his gear was in 1, he flapped his wings and took off.
The rush was exhilarating. Flying on Toothless was much different than flying on her Stormfly. There was more power and the potential to go faster. Astrid could never beat Hiccup in a fair race; but Hiccup took it easy on her. She wished he wouldn't.
Suddenly, Toothless's flapping became more sporadic; it was getting harder to push. 'Two! Two!' Toothless was screaming in his head. But all Astrid could hear was a growl of panic. They were falling.
"What? What's going on?! Oh, 2!" She looked down at her food and shifted it into 2. With a giant heave, Toothless was back in balance. This worked for a little bit, but he had to flap twice as face to keep up the pace. She shifted into 3, and Toothless was able to relax and fly normally now.
'Now you got it,' Toothless thought. It was smooth sailing from here, except for the occasional gust of wind. Astrid was able to take her mind off of the gears and focus on her surroundings. The silver clouds shimmered with the sun behind them in the bright blue sky. Below, the water waves and crested with the wind; each crest produced a flicker of light. With all of the waves cresting sporadically throughout the ocean, it reminded her of the billions of twinkling stars at night
Behind her she could just make out the distinct peak of Raven's Point. She knew Hiccup was up there right now, and wondered if he could see them flying off. To the left and right was nothing but water and horizon. Up ahead, the form of Fosphero became clearer. It grew the closer they got. Pretty soon, the red glow of lava could be seen. Fosphero is a volcanic island; its mountain spews lava all day long. It's hottest near the top, but cools of near the bottom, so the shore is completely safe to land on.
"There it is, Toothless!" He let out a little growl of excitement. He has never been to, or ever even heard of Fosphero before. He wouldn't admit it, but he thanked Astrid for bringing him out here.
