Author's note (20-05-2014): This story has been updated with a new version of the first two chapters! Please, re-read these chapters if you've read them before!
I
NIGHTLY TERROR
Hiccup had half expected that he would not get any sleep this night either. He lay on his bed, twisting and turning to find a comfortable position, all the while pressing the fabric of the blanket into his ears to shut the noise out. But no matter how much he tried, the noise still broke into his dreams. The noise held so much pain and sadness in it that his dreams darkened and turned into nightmares. It transformed a proud father into a vicious barbarian. It invaded a peaceful flight on the back of Toothless and had it end in disaster. Tonight, that was what had happened. Hiccup was almost glad that he could not sleep, for he did not long to get back to the world in his head where both he and Toothless were falling out of the sky with no hope of surviving.
Hiccup sat up in his bed, breathing heavily. He shook the horrible thoughts out of his head and scanned the room around him. It was pitch black with only a few rays of moonlight peaking through the gaps between the roof planks. The moonlight fell on the magnificent creature curled up in the corner. His black scales were even darker than the night he was named after, as if his skin swallowed any light that tried to illuminate it. Hiccup thought the dragon looked tense and realized that Toothless was not asleep. He had covered himself with his huge wings and pulled his legs in under him. The Night Fury, usually an impressive and intimidating sight, looked so very small. Hiccup watched him for a while before throwing the blanket aside. He carefully put his iron prosthetic leg down on the floor. Toothless' ears reacted to the almost inaudible sound and turned in the boy's direction, but the dragon did not move. Hiccup walked over to him by the window and sat down next to his head. It surprised Hiccup that Toothless did not look at him.
"Hey, you okay, bud? Is the sound bothering you?"
Toothless opened his huge, green-glowing eyes and growled a reply. When Hiccup gently started scratching him behind the ear the dragon instantly relaxed a little. He moved his head closer to the boy's leg, touching it with his muzzle.
"It's okay," Hiccup said. "I can't sleep either with that going on."
He tried to prevent a yawn but instead it got so intense he got tears in his eyes. The yawn rubbed off on Toothless who gawked so much his retractable teeth peeked through the gums. Hiccup smiled tiredly and caressed the dragon right between the eyes, a spot he knew Toothless enjoyed him stroking. Through the roof window he could see the stars twinkling like little jewels scattered about the black canopy. He would have enjoyed any night like this one, but the noise prevented that. It wasn't very loud, just penetrating and powerful. This was the sixth night in a row that the noise had disturbed the Isle of Berk. For hours and hours it went on, only stopping a few minutes now and then, from the last light of one day vanished until dawn broke on the next. People were beginning to suffer from lack of sleep — Hiccup and Toothless included. Usually the villagers would have geared up and gone after whatever was making the sounds by now and tried to stop it. But this was different.
The noise was coming from across the sea to the North, a part of the world from where nobody who had ventured there had ever returned. There were no inhabitable islands as far as any existing map could tell, and beyond that the waters were uncharted. Vikings spoke of legends that the end of the Earth lay not too far in that direction, and that any ship which sailed there would fall of the edge and never be seen again. No one from Berk had ever traveled that far, and no one planned on it. The idea of going after the source of the nightly noise was considered foolish and suicidal. However, it had not been entirely unusual for the thought to cross Hiccup's mind over the last few days, but he had ignored it.
Hiccup heard a loud bang from downstairs and figured his father had given up on sleeping as well and was taking out his anger and tire on the dinner table. Since there was no longer any reason for Hiccup or Toothless to remain quiet in their room, Hiccup rose to his feet and stretched his back.
"How about we take a midnight flight?" he proposed the dragon. "It's quieter on the other side of the island."
Toothless immediately lifted his head with his ears up high and eyes glistening with excitement. With his eyes not yet used to the darkness, Hiccup fumbled his way back to the bed and pulled Toothless' leather saddle out from underneath it. Toothless wagged his tail when he saw the saddle, dragging the artificial tail fin across the uneven floor.
Hiccup laughed at the dragon's cuteness. "Careful with the fin, bud. It took me three days to repair that last time."
With practiced hands Hiccup strapped the saddle onto the Night Fury's back and secured the straps around the legs. He had to tighten the girth a notch so that it would not move around when he sat in the saddle. Hiccup couldn't remember the last time he had to do that, but he did not worry himself about it. Toothless' weight went up and down like waves on a stormy sea depending on how much fish the village could spare for the dragons.
"It's been a few days since we last went on a fishing trip, you and me," he noted. Toothless looked at him hopefully and made a quiet growl that reminded Hiccup of a rumbling stomach. "I'll see if we can't spare the afternoon tomorrow and go to the Cove. I bet you'd love that."
The dragon made an attempt at a smile, his empty gums making him look so silly that Hiccup just had to laugh. After he attached the control rod from the stirrups to the tail fin, Hiccup fetched his yak fur coat and sat up in the saddle. He took a firm grip of the pommel and shot the end of his iron leg into place in the left stirrup, flicking it upwards to fold out the artificial tail fin. Eager as he was to get away from the tormenting noise still sounding through the village, Toothless spread his wings and took to the air through the window in the roof.
It was no surprise that the villagers were up and moving although the hour was late. Hiccup watched his neighbors go about the business they would have usually tended to during the day, like cleaning out the stables and fetching water. Berk looked like a ghost town from far up in the sky were Hiccup swept by, with only the light of burning torches and the moonlight to illuminate the frozen streets. As he and Toothless flew across the village towards the south of the island, they passed Town Hall. It should have been empty and closed at this time, but along with the rest of Berk it was crowded. A few dozen vikings had gathered outside the gates like a mob demonstrating for a common cause, and all the way up on Toothless' back Hiccup could hear their calls. They complained about the noise, of course. Hiccup's father had come home the other night red in the face with self-control and utterly exhausted from having handled the masses throwing complaints and demands upon him to end their nightly torment. Hiccup only wished he could do something to help.
Even as they passed Buckle Cliff, a sharp rock face on the south-east coast, the noise diminished. Hiccup felt like a pressure vanished from his eardrums and his spirit was instantly lifted. If he had not known Toothless' body better than his own, he might not have felt the dragon's muscles flex and relax underneath him. Toothless too felt better without that noise hammering in his ears. The pair reached their destination, a secret cave on the far side of High Peak Mountain where they would sometimes go to get away from their daily duties. Here they had spent many hours sky diving, enjoying the sunshine or taking cold showers in the small waterfall that cascaded over the mouth of the cave. It was frozen solid now, hanging like enormous icicles from the rock ceiling. As soon as Hiccup slid out of the saddle, Toothless went over to the ice and breathed hot air onto it, creating a stream of melted water that he then licked up. Hiccup gathered some in his cupped hands and splashed his face. The cold was refreshing.
Hiccup sat down on the very edge of the cave opening, letting his real leg dangle off the cliff. He took off his fake leg to let the injury rest against the cold rock. Even after three years the amputation still bothered him sometimes. He felt something against his back and soon he had Toothless' head underneath his arm willing him with big eyes to scratch his ears. The Night Fury lay down behind Hiccup and pulled his tail up across the boy's knee to keep him from falling. No words could describe how naturally happy the two of them were right now.
Hiccup yawned again. "You're good to have, bud. The best, actually."
The dragon sounded like he was purring and Hiccup smiled. That's when his thoughts puzzled together and revealed the answer to all his problems. He wanted to help stop the nightly noise that terrorized the village, and he could – in fact he and the Dragon Riders were the only ones who did. They had dragons after all, which they could fly without problem, and Hiccup had the sturdiest and fastest of them all to top it. They needed no ship that could sink or go over the end of the Earth to get to whatever was making the noise. If they could fly there and stop the noise at its source, Berk would be free of it and everybody could go back to getting the good night's rest that they all needed.
Hiccup leaned back against Toothless' chest, looking up into the sky as he went over the entire plan with the dragon. All that was left to do was get the rest of the Riders to come with him and, hardest of all, persuade his father to let him do it. Snow flakes started filling the air, falling quietly towards the valley far below. Hiccup pulled the fur coat tighter around him and let his eyes fall shut.
It wasn't long before he was asleep, curled up underneath Toothless' wing, dreaming about what adventure lay before them tomorrow.
Next chapter (Preparations) — Hiccup gets ready to set out on his new mission, but to do that there are a few things he needs to take care of first, especially his father.
Thank you for reading, and don't forget to leave a review and tell me what you think about the story (and the update on this chapter!)
