"HAHAHAHA" Tuffnut laughed.
"HERE WE GOOO!" His sister, Ruffnut followed in.
Barf and Belch shot through the sky in a blur of toxic green, as one of the heads released its famous gas.
Snotlout who flew camly on his Monstrous Nightmare, turned around on his warmed up seat just to see imminent danger, four crazy heads flying towards him. "Ahhh! Turn turnturnturn TURN YOU MUTTONHEADS! We're gonna cras-" He screamed.
"WE KNOW!" The twins shouted in unison. Their Hideous Zippleback spun uncontrollably and would've hit the Nightmare if Snotlout hadn't swerved at the last minute like he did.
The two-headed green dragon surpassed the red one's previous place, leaving it an authentic green inferno. They did a couple more pirouettes and then started flying again in a stable course, joining the rest of the group.
"Ohhh we're bored-" Tuffnut mumbled, his elbow resting on one of Belch's horns and the hand of said arm supporting his face. The other hand polished the dragon's second horn in a slow, slothful movement.
Belch instinctively released some sparks and the gigantic cloud of gas left behind them as an impossible-not-to-see track immediately exploded in a LOUD, ENORMOUS... KABOOM!
"Sooo Booored..." Ruffnut muttered.
All the other riders stared with wide eyes at the explosion that for a long moment turned the whole sky orange.
"But that doesn't mean you have the right TO ALMOST KILL ME!" Snotlout complained, waving his arms hysterically in the air.
"You said it all Snotlout. Almost." Hiccup commented sarcastically from Toothless, while grinning discreetly.
Snotlout opened his mouth in shock. "Wha- Oh so now it works like- FINE!" He crossed his arms angrily.
"Ohh, don't be like that Snotlout. They didn't even GET to kill you." Astrid joined in.
"...Shut up Astrid..." Snotlout mumbled. "This is all HIS fault anyway!" The Jorgenson accused Hiccup, pointing an accusatory finger at the boy.
"We've talked about this...!" Hiccup groaned from the Night Fury's saddle.
"And you made it pretty clear..." The Jorgenson started. "You're a dull, ONE-LEGGED VIKING!"
Hiccup bustled, carefully glancing at his prosthetic leg working Toothless' pedal.
It was still sore from the infection he'd faced not many days ago. It was itching, it hurted and was extremely uncomfortable. He couldn't walk without limping and it was impossible to hide it although he tried to mask it the best he could: he didn't want to scare his friends anymore- they had had quite the scare by thinking he was dead for a week. That was just enough.
Oh, did he mention that flying was affected? Yeah... if walking was hard then controlling a whole mechanism with your hurting foot- or stump, if you prefer it- was everything but pleasant.
Astrid watched him from Stormfly, concern filling her eyes. She watched him struggling to change the pedal's position, the uneasiness he'd tried to hide when Snotlout mentioned his left nothing, the fight to stay focused on the horizon.
"Why are we at this again?" Tuffnut asked.
"Humpfff... weren't you listening?!" The blonde complained from Stormfly.
"I don't know, I wasn't listening. It was Ruffnut's time to do that." The male twin replied.
"It was?!" His sister exclaimed.
"Humm, yeaaah... I told you so." Tuffnut said.
"Oh, I probably missed it."
"How?" Tuffnut asked.
"I wasn't listening. But really, why are we at this again?" Ruffnut finished.
Fishlegs groaned and turned his attention back to the Book of Dragons he'd been reading during the trip, obviously trying to ignore the twins.
Hiccup rubbed his hand on his face. He didn't really want to explain it again to the Thorstons but what choice did he have.
"We're going to check on several islands like we've been doing for the...hummm... I don't know...LAST 6 HOURS TO FIND THE STUPID DRAGON THAT ALMOST KILLED HICCUP!" Snotlout blurted, being faster than Hiccup. " On other words, he has an obsession."
Hiccup face palmed.
"It's not an obsession Snotlout" Fishlegs started, raising his nose from the book. "It's just a matter of making sure that Grumpy found a new home. I personally would prefer NOT to see it again- Meatlug gets the chills just by thinking about him- but his home island was destroyed remember?"
"Oh I remember. The same island that almost KILLED US ALL!" Snotlout fumed.
" There you are again with the almost my friend." Tuffnut started. "Never had YOU witnessed such a marvelous moment of destruction in your life."
"Never." Ruffnut nodded. "It was beautiful."
Astrid felt the need to just jump on top of those two muttonheads. It had been ANYTHING but beautiful.
Hiccup squeezed Toothless' saddle in a tight grip when he changed the pedal's position once again. His throbbing head also not helping but still joining to the party. Sure, it was better than three days ago when he'd arrived "back from Valhala".
He glanced at Astrid right before looking back at the horizon in front of them again. He then realised the look in her eyes; she was still worried. He turned back to her, the blonde silently studying him with a pair of deep, thoughtful blue eyes; as if she could read every single feeling he was having.
"Hey." He said, giving her two thumbs up. The girl laughed, which made him feel much better and for a second everything was ok. For a second Astrid stopped worrying about him, for she'd found so funny his careless, sudden turn, giving her those two thumbs up with that simple "Hey" out of the blue.
"Hiccup." Fishlegs called. "I think we arrived at the other island."
Hiccup couldn't have been happier to hear those simple words that meant landing and NOT working the pedal.
You see, it'd been him. It'd been Hiccup who wanted to go look for the dragon. He didn't know why, all he knew was that he NEEDED to. Ever since he'd woken up with Grumpy by his side that he couldn't help but feel... connected with the Grey Remorse. He just wanted to make sure he'd found a proper home, because even being deadly, the two-coloured dragon's species was also on the brink of extinction.
He looked at Toothless. On the brink of extinction just like the Night Fury's. And all because of bad men like Viggo, Ryker and the Dragon Hunters. Hiccup didn't blame the Grey Remorse for infecting him. No. He blamed the ones behind it, the ones who so mischievously had used the creature's natural instincts to try and kill him. Grumpy... he'd been just another victim, like Hiccup.
The other riders (especially Astrid cough) had tried to convince him otherwise. They had tried to "put some sense into his iron skull" like Snotlout'd said. They said it was still pretty early and that he should rest and recover ( they didn't need to inform him of it though for Hiccup sure felt what his body'd been through) but once he'd put and idea on his head, no one nor anything could pull it out.
Call it obsession over the dragon, like his cousin had over a thousand times now, Hiccup prefered to call it... Being Sure.
"See Snotlout, this might be the island we're looking for. You can finally rest." He played.
"Yeah like I'm going to rest on a second Remorse Island. No way! Not at least with a deadly, rash, crazy, bad-humoured dragon on the loose thank you."
"He said might." Astrid stated, a sarcastic grin growing on the corner of her mouth. Gods, I'm passing way too much time with Hiccup, she though. " In case we don't find Grumpy you can always fly back to the Edge and leave us doing the work."
She knew very well the answer, they had already had this conversation anyway and Snotlout had refused to let them go without him to be there to keep an eye on Hiccup and the other on the black and white dragon. Not that he cared of course...
"Pfff yeah, start dreaming. Like I'm one to turn my back to a challenge. Besides it's just a big, Titan-Wing-Big hunk of scales with cold eyes..." He mumbled, his voice wavering with fear and uncertainty by the end of the sentence.
"...Long, sharp talons. Made of pure venom..." A male voice mumbled from behind in a spooky tone.
"...A tremendous desire to kill... Can you feel that?" A female one joined in.
"It's the smell of flash and blood." The male continued. "It can smell the fear, and once he detects it, it's just a matter of seconds before it..."
"ATTACKS!" The twins yelled, Barf and Belch flying right behind Hookfang so that both heads could literally touch the Jorgenson.
Speaking of him. "AHHHH!" Snotlout screamed, flying away from the twins. "I'm not scared I'm not scared I'mnotscared." He mumbled to himself so that the others couldn't hear it.
"Psssssst." Hiccup called, making signals with his right hand.
"Haaamm... What?" Tuffnut questioned. "What was that? I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND YOU!"
"SHHHH!" The Haddock boy repeated.
"ME NEITHER! WOULD YOU SPEAK A LITTLE LOUDER WE CAN'T HEAR YOU!?" Ruffnut shouted.
"Shhhhhhhhhh" Hiccup, Astrid, Fishlegs and Snotlout repeated.
"WHY MUST THEY SPEAK IN RIDDLES!?" Tuffnut complained. And he couldn't have complained louder. The male Thorston's voice reaching the highest volume of the whole conversation.
Hiccup put two of his fingers between his eyes. Wow, he was doing that a lot lately. "Oh for the love of Thor..." He mumbled. " Come on we've done this for what? 20 times now? Just keep quiet. I think I don't need to remind you of what this dragon does the first time he faces... Well, everything. And if he's in this island we sure don't want to testify it again now, do we?" He explained in a just high enough whisper for it to be understandable.
"Oh that! You could've said it earlier H!" Ruffnut screamed back.
All the other riders sighed just has they started their way down.
Out of all the islands they'd selected for possible new homes for the dragon, this one was the biggest. Really THE BIGGEST.
They had decided to make a list of all the islands they knew about with characteristics that resembled the Remorse Island. Er... Ex... Remorse Island this is. Those were the ones that could offer the Grey Remorse the heat and humidity the dragon needed so much.
Anyway, out of 22 islands that could work, some of them barely fitting in their list because they weren't exactly the most perfect ones for the effect, this one was the one that looked the most like the old, currently inexistant Remorse one.
It was circular on one side, with long, sunny beaches so close to each other that they looked one and the same. On the other side a large, dense forest took place. The high trees with their swollen tops made it impossible for the youths to see the ground. Then in the middle...
"It's HUGE..." Astrid mumbled, shaking her shoulders to get rid of the cold, nervous shiver that ran through her spine. She was reminded of the other volcano's destiny and by the looks of discomfort on the others' faces they were reminded as well.
Hiccup was the only one who didn't seem bothered by the tall formation on the place's centre.
Then again, he had probably fallen unconscious the second the gang left Remorse Island and was way too detached from the world to even realised that the freaking volcano was freaking crambling apart on top of him.
Another shiver ran all of her spine, up and down, down and up at the thoughs of the massive destruction that this one would cause if it was destroyed. It was LARGE, with capital letters and TALL with capital letters as well. Actually, it was so tall that it's top couldn't even be seen for it literally disappeared in the clouds.
Clouds that had probably been formed around the top because of the warmth the volcano emanated.
Toothless was the first dragon to land as always, the leader was the one who told his team if it was safe or not after all.
A few seconds after them, all the other dragons landed, glad for finally being able to rest their wings.
Meatlug fell on the ground, starting to snore right there. Fishlegs found it adorable. Barf and Belch, Hookfang, Stormfly and even Toothless didn't look very different though.
Astrid barely waited for her dragon to come to a stop on the safe ground. As soon as she could, the blonde Hofferson ran towards the Haddock boy.
Hiccup dismounted his black dragon and as soon as his bad leg touched the sand under them, he started going down.
Astrid launched forward just in time to pull him to a hug and break his fall, which gave Hiccup the time he needed to place his prosthetic better and gather some strenght to support that limb of his.
"H-How..." He started, trying to find the words to ask her how on Odin's beards she had preddicted his fall.
Astrid gently pushed him up by his upper arms, slowly pushing him away from her so that she could face him eye to eye.
"Easy... It's called being attentive." She replied, now securing him by his shoulders and letting go of him. "That and lets say I've got quite the train with all that happened."
Hiccup felt ashamed, he really didn't like people worrying over him. Toothless passed his head under his best friend's arm and the auburn boy patted the Night Fury's head.
"In fact, we all had." Astrid finished. A peaceful moment followed and the two stared intensely at each other, sweet grins on their faces.
"Hey love birds, hate to break it to you but I'm not wating around to find out if this is the right island. I would like to get done with this while we're young, please." Snotlout blurted, still speaking in a low volume.
The young riders of the Nadder and the Night Fury immidiatly blushed with the 'love birds' on the begining of his sentence.
"Right..." Hiccup whispered, scratching the back of his head. He and Toothless started walking (read: stumble) to a well visible cave, digged on the volcano's side. It seemed like a good enough starting point.
It was a big, dark cave. More portions on the big.
"Well if our not that little flying friend moved here, than he changed from a hut to a palace..." Ruffnut murmured, agape and staring at the size of the scary volcano above them.
Hiccup signed for them to stop and slowly approached the creepy cavern's mouth. If Grumpy really was there, then Hiccup would have to teach the dragon some decour ideals...
He and Toothless peeked the entrance and for their terror or great relief (they didn't really know), a spiky dark tale barely stood out in the darkness.
Was it sleeping? Oh please let it be sleeping... Hiccup though.
But the gods seemed to really hate him.
Just has he took another slow step, the creature's motionless form stopped being... well, motionless.
"Is he there?" He heard the others ask from right behind him, however Hiccup froze as a red eye shone inside the cavern.
"Hiccup?" Astrid asked from behind.
But Hiccup had frozen solid. His eyes widened as the creature launched forward, blind in it's natural instinct.
He had one thing on his mind: That wasn't Grumpy and it wasn't that asleep.
The black and white dragon flew forward in a flash, his long, venomous talons at the ready.
Hiccup's world turned to slow motion and he didn't even recall earing his friends' shouts.
Yep...Tuffnut couldn't have complained louder when they arrived.
