The Letter
Five… Four… Three… Two… One.
Rayden was knocked out of his bed by a large black forepaw. He fumbled for the battle-axe hanging on the headboard, but he was tangled in his sleeping furs. Then, with a low growl, Toothless the Night Fury pinned him to the wall, opened his mouth…and Rayden was licked so hard he was lifted off the floor. Blasted Hiccup! He thought. Always right. Toothless really does keep perfect time.
By the look of the sun dial on the windowsill, it was 3 hours before noon. Exactly the time when Hiccup had told his dragon to "Get his lazy apprentice out of bed".
Rayden had been apprenticed to him about thirteen months ago now, on account of his skill. Not his skill at smithing, but archery. He hailed from an island clan not much different than Berk. The Apollom clan excelled in archery, and as a bonus, the best archer under the age of twenty was granted one request. Now Rayden's mother had been coaxing him to get a job and saying that he could not make a living of archery, no matter how good he was. But he was good. Very good. He won, without even trying. His mother was right, he needed a job. But most of all, he wanted to spend the rest of his life around the one thing that fascinated him the most. Dragons. By learning smithing from Hiccup himself, it was a win-win.
Life on Berk had been good for him in the time he had been there. He had been learning everything about dragons, in addition to shaping iron. All in all, he was learning well and it was great. Except for when Hiccup pulled stupid stunts, like having his dragon throwing Rayden across the room. As Toothless flew out of the loft, Rayden quickly got dressed and put on his sheepskin vest. He tousled his jet black hair and straightened his angular jawline. Most of him was angular, making him incredibly handsome, and his ocean blue eyes had spied many of the berkian women giving him some looks and winks. He knew most everyone in the village, they had all made a point to meet him at some time or another, and were a very get-along group. But he knew anyone of them could savagely kill someone as easily as they could say "pass the ale" at the midday meal.
As he slowly walked out of his room he noticed the claw marks on the stairs. He let out an angry huff of breath. Toothless had climbed up the stairs. Again.
"There's a giant flap in the wall for a reason! So you don't ruin my stairs!" he yelled to himself. He absent-mindedly unlatched the front door and began walking toward the mead hall for a quick breakfast.
He heard the distinctive clack of metal on the ground and turned to see Hiccup walking out of his own house a few yards away. He didn't really look like a master smith, small but toned, only nineteen years of age. But hey, he didn't look like a master dragon trainer either.
"I see you're up on time", Hiccup smiled "So I was right you know. Hand over the three silver pieces".
Rayden tried to put on a smug expression.
"Can I forfeit from the bet?" he asked.
"On account of what?"
"On account of all the ale I drank last night!" Rayden said, laughing as he handed over the coins. They continued on to the mead hall. As they walked in, Rayden began searching for food, but Hiccup looked for something else.
"Third table on the left", Rayden whispered to his best friend and teacher.
Rayden was half a head shorter and barely tanned at all. He wasn't quite as strong as Hiccup. But looked stronger, with refined and easily visible muscles. Even though shorter, he had eagle eyes.
Hiccup looked to the third table on the left, and sure enough there sat Astrid, looking more vividly beautiful than ever, her blond locks falling in front of her eyes and her ever present should guards strapped on. Hiccup swayed towards the table as if he had been enchanted. But Rayden had no love life at all, that wasn't his priorities right now. As a normal eighteen year old, right now he desired food. He quickly grabbed a platter and walked stealthily down the tables, snatching some lamb here, some drumsticks there, without alerting a soul. By the time he got to the table and sat down beside Hiccup, he had a mountain of meat, some vegetables and a tankard of ale.
Hiccup gasped. "Did you just empty the whole serving table"?
Hiccup stared at the sheer amount of food on the plate, and as he did, he never noticed the three silver pieces expertly slipping out of his pocket and back into Rayden's money pouch. But Astrid noticed and directed a cheeky smile at him. He downed half of his ale in one gargantuan quaff of refreshment, and started down on his plate. Only to discover, that every piece of his favorite, charred salmon, was gone. He turned around and saw Toothless, an innocent look on the dragon's face. Toothless opened his mouth to trill at him, and a pile of charred, salivated salmon spilled to the floor from the Night Fury's mouth.
Suddenly Toothless wasn't so innocent looking.
Everyone at the table, most of Hiccup's gang, laughed at the scene before them. An expert thief, beaten in his own game. It was pretty embarrassing for Rayden. But he laughed as well and mock-saluted the dragon, who then allowed Rayden to scratch him under the chin. But he found the pressure point that Hiccup showed him, and Toothless slumped onto the floor. Now it was the giant lizard being laughed at. Seemingly outdone, Toothless mopped up the fish off the floor, which Rayden had no desire to eat anymore. And then the dragon began making strange gurgling noises.
Nobody knew what the dragon was doing. Except for Hiccup, who was trying not to laugh and failing at it. The convulsions grew in tempo and intensity until even Hiccup began to look concerned. At this point everyone in the mead hall was watching. And then, without warning, Toothless regurgitated the biggest piece of salmon he could find in his stomach. Right onto Rayden's lap.
The laughter in the hall sounded more like thunder, and Rayden lowered his head.
"Okay, ya beat me."
He tried to reach and scratch under the dragons chin, but Toothless wasn't falling for it again. Still, he allowed Rayden to pat his head. Then, Toothless began to sniff periodically, as Rayden slipped a small leather pouch bound by some twine out of his sleeve. He waved it in front of the Night Fury enticingly, and threw it out of the mead hall to the cobble stone below. Toothless followed it quickly out the door. The tables had turned again.
"Dragon nip?" Hiccup speculated, and Astrid giggled, magnifying in sound until most of the mead hall was chuckling.
Rayden, with slobber and fish all over his lower body, had no desire to eat anything else. He quietly finished his ale and began cleaning himself as Fishlegs and Hiccup began to discuss the behavior of Toothless.
"Obviously they don't like being outsmarted." said Fishlegs as he produced his book of dragons and began to write the finding inside it. Hiccup and Rayden pulled out their copies and handed them over. Those were the only three copies, filled with jealously guarded secrets. The three had decided that whenever one of them found out something new about a dragon, he would have the unfortunate pleasure of copying it into all three books. They had already discovered many things such as the behavioral habits of Terrible Terrors in pack and what food made Zippleback gas the most potent.
Snotlout interrupted their chain of thought as he cooed "Hey Astrid, how about a little game of footsies?"
Astrid put on the prettiest face of disgust she could manage and said: "Sure!"
Astrid complied immediately, and there was a huge thump from under the table, as Snotlout fell to the ground clutching his shin, groaning. As he lay there in pain, a green and red Terrible Terror came along and used the body of Snotlout as stepping stones up to the table. He then proceeded to crawl over to Rayden's plate and pick himself a chicken drumstick.
Rayden smiled to himself. Just three days ago, Hiccup had presented him the small dragon. It was fast and loved to retrieve Rayden's arrows for him as he practiced archery. So he had dubbed the little guy "Arrow". Rayden looked sternly at his dragon.
"Arrow. Down." Arrow dropped the drumstick and jumped onto the floor. Rayden tossed him the same piece of meat, which he continued to eat, on the floor where he should be. Hiccup, Astrid and Fishlegs were watching.
Hiccup gasped, "Hey 'Legs, did you just see that? He just made a Terrible Terror drop a piece of chicken. I didn't even know that was possible!"
Rayden sighed. He wished he hadn't made that mistake. As a new addition to the village, he couldn't afford any more attention. But pushing his feelings aside, he explained:
"Ever since I was little, I found everything I ever said to a dragon, they listened and no matter what I tell them to do, they comply. I can't tell them complicated things, no more than a sentence. "
Hiccup seemed to mull it over in his mind. If Rayden is telling the truth he could quite possibly become the world's most accomplished dragon rider, he thought. So it was time for the true test. Hiccup looked closely at Rayden and said the one thing he knew was impossible.
"Hey Rayden, tell Arrow to share his chicken with that other terror".
Hiccup pointed across the hall where another Terror, red and orange, was resting on a small Viking boy's lap. Rayden snapped his fingers to draw the attention of his dragon.
"Arrow. Share." He said and pointed to the other terror.
Without even a grunt of complaining, Arrow bit off half of the drumstick and dragged on the piece, which was bigger than him. The tiny dragon half pulled half flew the piece over to the other one and presented it to her. She got up from her owner's lap with a stretch, and affectionately nipped Arrow on the shoulder.
Fishlegs dropped his tankard, which nearly spilt its contents all over the three most valuable books in the archipelago. But he seemed not to notice, and told Hiccup: "We have to do more testing on this! C'mon, Rayden, let's get to the academy!"
They spent the rest of the morning having Rayden give various commands to various dragons. Fishlegs and Hiccup were furiously scrawling notes into their journals. Even though asked several times, Rayden did not reveal his secret. Once though, Hiccup asked the well used question.
"How do you do it? How do you talk to dragons?"
Rayden decided to use the most confusing answer he could think of.
"Dragons."
They momentarily let the matter rest, and decided to be boys. They silently crept through the village, coming up behind the mill. Stoick the vast, chief and Hiccups father, was helping load sacks of flour onto a Gronckle. There were about five open sacks on each side of the dragon. With Arrow silently perched on his shoulder, Rayden crept up and whispered: "Roll over."
The disaster that ensued afterwards was immense. Most of the village began to prepare for what they thought was a coming snowfall. They ran away, laughing so hard that their sides exploded into ribbons of pain and they had to stop. They slowed to a jog, but kept on moving through the woods, away from the yells of the chief, who hopefully hadn't seen them. Eventually they made it all the way to what Hiccup and Fishlegs called Toothless' cove.
As they were about to climb down the immense wall into the depression itself, Fishlegs excused himself, saying Meatlug needs a meal and a rubdown. As they reached the bottom, Hiccup began to look very distant and sat on a boulder, staring ahead aimlessly.
Trying to break the silence, Rayden asked Hiccup why it was called Toothless' cove. He had never heard Hiccup's story in full, so he was glad to hear it from Hiccup himself. But neither had Rayden hated dragons before they began living with the Vikings. Many times, Rayden had found himself freeing wild dragons from traps, and he always declined an offer to go dragon hunting. So Hiccup told him. He told him everything. It took nearly an hour, and then, his tale finished, Hiccup slumped even lower on the rock.
"That's the third time I've retold the story to anyone. Only you, my father and-".
"Astrid?" Rayden finished the sentence for him. Hiccup brightened slightly at her name.
"Yeah", he said, "she was really the only other one who understood my feelings at the time."
Rayden smiled and then pricked his ears at a fast approaching flapping noise. He hushed Hiccup and closed his eyes… Nadder wing beats.
"Speaking of Astrid…" She soon came into view and Stormfly quickly landed, forgoing all comfort.
The ground thundered as the dragon touched down, but her rider was already dismounting. Her voice was strained and urgent but she was smiling ear to ear.
"Hiccup. Rayden. The chief wants everybody from the academy to meet him there as soon as possible."
"What is it?" Hiccup asked, but she shook her head, still looking happy.
"Wait for your dad to tell you."
Rayden suddenly yelled at the top of his voice, a wordless cry for help. After a moment, a roar burst the silence and a Nightmare burst into the clearing. A wild one. "Stop", he commanded, and the beast allowed Rayden to climb aboard, Arrow moving his perch to Rayden's lap and wrapping his tail around the other dragons' neck for support.
"Let's go!" He said to the couple on the ground.
Astrid went towards Stormfly and Hiccup began to walk towards the Nightmare, his hand outstretched. But Rayden was already shaking his head. He winked and gestured toward Astrid. Hiccup put his thumbs up and mouthed "thanks" before quickening his pace in the other direction. He climbed up behind Astrid and put his arm around her. Hiccup was loving this moment, and so was Astrid, though she wasn't about to say that. They quickly flew to the academy without exchanging any words.
As they landed outside the academy, Rayden procured a fish from the feeding barrel near the door. Presenting it to the Nightmare, he fed it and then released it. Then they walked in with Arrow hovering above his owners head, and were greeted by the rest of the gang, as well as Gobber and Stoick.
Stoick was staring needles through the trio, especially Hiccup. Rayden thought for sure he had discovered their prank. But no time to think up an explanation, Stoick was already speaking
"A message, carried by trader Johann has been brought to my attention. It is addressed to Hiccup. The chief handed over a scroll and Hiccup unfurled the paper with anticipation. He began to read aloud.
"It's signed by the village elder of Blood's Peak, never heard of it". He began read the note again, with a louder voice "We need your help, Dragon trainer. For the past few weeks, we have been terrorized by an elusive dragon. It has slain or escaped all of our best warriors. We need you to help us, or this beast will become our bane. Only one warrior has survived an encounter with the monster, and his words sunk to my bones. It is a..."
Hiccup stopped and dropped the scroll, a strange expression on his face. It was complete shock. Rayden picked up the scroll from the cold, stone floor and read it. The dragon…is a Night Fury.
That's the first chapter guys! please review and I will be posting more chapters. Thanks To Revanhun for being my awesome editor! everybody go check out his work!
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