Disclaimer: I do not own "How to train your dragons" or any of the characters. All copyrights go to the actual writers. This is just a fanfic written by a teen who's a fan of the movies and the series "Race to the Edge".
Chapter 1
The cold wind whipped her face. Her cheeks were freezing and her hands were numb. But that was logical, since she had been riding Stormfly for hours in this awfully cold weather. And it was freaking summer! How on Earth could people live in this part of the globe? Yes, Astrid Hofferson knew the world was round. Why? Because she had once spent two years searching for the so called "Edge of the flat world". She kept on flying east. And she flew on and on until… she came to the same town, where she had started. Astrid looked down. There was just ocean. No sign of any island. She signed. Maybe it had been a mistake, travelling this high up north. Astrid shook her head. This wasn't a mistake. This was an adventure. She was an explorer after all. Astrid was born on small island south-west of Spain. There everyone had a dragon. Dragons were looked as valuable pets and in a lot of cases friends. Having a bond with any sort of dragon was considered a gift from the gods. Yes, Casad, was a wonderful island with wonderfully warm weather. "At least it was until the Great War," Astrid thought bitterly. The Great War. The destruction of towns, cities and islands. Deaths of thousands of soldiers and civilians. She had lost everything in those three years. When the war ended she was a friendless eleven-year-old ex-soldier/orphan with her second dragon. And since everyone was too busy with building up their own lives again, she had left to start her adventures. And here she was, seven years later, travelling the northern seas, seeing what awaited her there. Stormfly groaned. She was getting tired. So was Astrid. "Don't worry girl," Astrid said as she patted her dragon, "I'm sure we'll find some land soon." Stormfly snorted as a reply, as if saying, "You should have bought a map." "Well, where's the adventure in that?" Astrid laughed. Stormfly turned her head and glared at Astrid with one eye. Astrid raised her hands. "Okay, okay I got it. I'll buy a map at the next village we get to. I just hope my Norwegian is good enough." Stormfly snorted once more and focused ahead of her. Astrid also focused ahead. There was suddenly so much fog around them. Astrid's hand went to her axe. Fog was the perfect hiding place for an attack. Then a dark shape in front of them was slowly growing bigger and bigger. The fog started to fade to reveal a tall island with huge spikes of ice covering the top. There was a cave at mid-height. "Well better than nothing," Astrid thought. She had slept in way creeper places than this.
Valka was playing with some of the dragon babies. They hadn't learned to fly yet, so they were just joyfully jumping up and down. Suddenly Cloudjumper was right next to her, flapping her wings urgently. "Something must have happened," Valka thought as she quickly pulled her mask over her face and jumped onto Cloudjumpers back. Cloudjumper lifted off and flew swiftly to the entrance. When they were halfway through the entrance tunnel, she saw a light. "Did the hunters find the nest?" Valka thought mortified. But then she saw a bunch of calm dragons surrounding the light. Her eyes widened at the lights source.
Astrid twirled a few times, her hands consumed by her flames. When she and Stormfly had entered the cave, they realized it went way deeper into the mountain. Curiosity got the better of them, so they wandered farther in. Then they met the other dragons. They were all new species that Astrid had never seen before. She was so excited. This was why she came. To study the difference between southern dragons and northern dragons. The other dragons though, didn't seem at all delighted about their human visitor, so Astrid decided to do her thing. Astrid wasn't an average human. She was a draga. A draga is a human with dragon blood in their veins. Draga bloodlines date back thousands of years to the time of the Dragaci Coven. As a draga, Astrid possessed abilities such as controlling and creating fire, super hearing, smell, sight and touch. She could also change some aspects of her physical appearance at will. She had learned from the beginning that dragons tend to relax when an unknown species shows a characteristic that dragons also has. So, she transformed her hands into balls of fire and began a little dance. The dance was just her twirling around, moving her hands up and down. Then she stood still and turned the flames into two orange glowing balls. She crouched to the ground and rolled the two balls towards the other dragons. The balls grew quickly smaller and left two stripes of fire behind them. The dragons let out joyous roars. Astrid smiled and gave a little bow. That's when she noticed to figure standing in between the dragons. It was thin, tall and had human hands. Those hands went up to the mask, hiding the face, and took it off, revealing a dark-haired woman with green eyes.
Valka stared at the girl in awe. How did she do that? Was she even human? She looked human with her golden hair in a side braid, her blue eyes and lovely face. She seemed a little smaller than Valka and wore a way too large brown coat. This girl was surely 17, 18, but she composed herself like a woman. "Hi," the girl stammered in an accent that Valka didn't recognize, "Me…not…um…danger…me friend." Clearly the girl wasn't from around here. "Welcome my dear," Valka said, "Welcome to our dragon's nest. I'm Valka and this is Cloudjumper." The girl pointed at herself "Astrid," then pointed at a dragon that kind of looked like a Nadder, only with different colors, a different wing- and tail shape. And weren't Nadder heads a bit smaller? "Stormfly," Astrid said. "You tired?" Valka asked. Both newcomers nodded. Valka had noticed from the beginning that they were exhausted. "Come with me. We'll let you stay for tonight. We have enough food and space for both of you." "Thank…you," Astrid replied with her very thick accent.
Astrid understood a few of the words. Welcome, dragon's nest, tired, you, come, stay, food. It sounded alright. And Stormfly had calmed down and was starting to follow the older woman, which was always a good sign. "We were anyways going to camp here, so why not take the invite," she thought and followed the woman and her dragon, Valka and Cloudjumper if Astrid had understood correctly, farther into the cave. Soon the tunnel was filled with light and Astrid was standing on a cliff overlooking a green valley with a gigantic waterfall and lake. In the lake was the most enormous dragon Astrid had ever seen. "Who…this?" she asked Valka pointing at the massive creature. Valka smiled at the girl's awe. "It's a Bewilderbeast. Every nest has its queen, but this is the king of all dragons!" Valka explained. Astrid nodded and looked around the nest. It was at least five times bigger than any other nest she had encountered. She took out her new notebook and started writing down the new knowledge. Valka looked over Astrid's shoulder, but couldn't read any of the words. "What language is this?" Valka asked. Astrid jumped, she had totally forgotten about her hostess. "I…write notes," Astrid started to explain, "I love dragons…and I study dragons. I want to…um…learn…difference of south dragons and north dragons." Valka nodded, but still wanted an answer to her question. So, she pointed at the words in Astrid's book. "Language, please?" Valka tried again. Astrid needed a few seconds before she understood, "Spanish. I write Spanish". Valka nodded. Spanish. She had heard about this language before. It was widely spread in the south if she was correct. "So, you come from the south?" Valka asked. Astrid nodded, "Yes, first time north." "The cold must have been harsh on you," Valka examined Astrid's shaking body. "Yes…told it was summer…not…um…think summer so cold." Valka laughed, "Oh poor thing. Come on, there's a very warm space down this way. And I'll get you a better coat, because with that useless thing, it's a miracle you're still alive." Astrid groaned, "I pay a lot for this." Valka laughed all the way to her kitchen.
The quote "Every nest has its queen, but this is the king of all dragons!" is from the second movie. Valka says it to Hiccup when he first sees the Bewilderbeast.
I wanted Stormfly to still be a Nadder, but since she is from areas with warmer temperatures, I thought it would be better if there were some minor differences, in the appearances and abilities, between a northern Nadder and a southern Nadder. The same goes for other northern and southern dragon comparisons, although maybe I'll invent some original dragons or even another class. We'll see ;).