The Hideous RuffleTuffleback Chapter 2
Their next Dragon Training opponent was a Deadly Nadder. This one was a much tougher opponent than the Gronckle; it could attack by flinging poisonous tail spines as well as by breathing fire, and its bite also looked dangerous. The teens scattered through the flimsy wooden maze that Gobber had created, looking for trouble so they could boldly overcome it (they hoped). Ruff and Tuff stayed together, the way they always did. They turned a corner – and found themselves face-to-face with the Nadder! But they were right in front of it, just under its chin, and it couldn't see them.
As they darted from side to side to stay in its blind spot, Ruff's nose was suddenly assaulted by a foul aroma. It took her a moment to realize where it came from. It was her brother. "Do you ever bathe?"
"Yeah, once a week, whether I need it or not," Tuff shot back. "You got a problem with that?"
"Maybe that dragon can't see you, but it can sure smell you!" she burst out.
"If you don't like it, just get your own blind spot!"
"How about I give you one?" Their argument was broken up by a blast of dragon fire. They broke and ran in a panic, shooting right past Hiccup, who had chosen this moment of all moments to ask Gobber some nonsensical questions about Night Furies. The next thing they knew, the Nadder was knocking the wooden labyrinth flat as it pursued Astrid, who finally turned to fight after getting tangled up with Hiccup. She dealt the lizard a hard blow that took all the fight out of it, and the training session was over.
As they walked home afterward, Tuff turned to his sister. "Why did you ask if I ever bathe? You're around me all the time! You know what I smell like."
Ruff thought before she answered. "I don't know. You don't smell any different than usual. It just hit me a lot harder than usual. It's like my nose got ten times more sensitive, all of a sudden. It was weird."
They had barely lay down to sleep that night when Ruff sat upright. She tried to sneak out of bed, but it's hard to be sneaky when you're on the top bunk and your brother is on the bottom. "Ruff, where are you going?"
"I need to step outside," she gasped. "I don't feel so good."
"Me, neither, all of a sudden," he said weakly, clutching his stomach. "I guess we do everything together, even get sick."
"You're such a copycat," she muttered, but her heart wasn't in it. They got a few feet away from the house and knelt on the ground... but they didn't lose their supper.
No, it was much, much worse than that.
She suddenly felt very dizzy. She slumped over to her left, which happened to be the direction her brother was kneeling. He slumped over at the same time. A sudden blinding light in her eyes kept her from seeing anything for several seconds; a roaring in her ears nearly deafened her. Then she opened her eyes, shook her head, blinked hard...
...and stared straight into the eyes of a Hideous Zippleback.
She screamed and tried to pull away. But her scream sounded wrong, and her body wouldn't cooperate. She glanced down at herself. That was when she saw the green-and-red scaly body that her long, snake-like neck was attached to. The other head of the Zippleback was attached to the same body. That was when she really screamed! So did the dragon's other head!
"Get me out of here!" she begged.
"No, get me out of here!" the other head exclaimed. It shouted with a dragon's voice, yet somehow, it sounded like...
"Tuff?"
"Ruff? Is that you?"
"It's supposed to be me, but I don't sound like me," she said.
"You don't look like you, either."
"You should talk! Look at you! You're... you're hideous!"
"You're no prize-winner, either, Ruff. What are we going to do?"
"You mean, about us being stuck to the same body?"
"No, I mean about us being a dragon now! If anybody sees us, they'll kill us!"
"Oh. Yeah. I guess we need to hide," she decided.
"Sounds good. Where do we go?"
"Uhhh... I don't know. Someplace where there aren't any Vikings."
"Do you know any places like that? I don't."
Ruff thought hard. "Even if I knew a place like that, we probably can't get there."
"Why not?" her brother demanded. "We have wings now! We can fly anywhere we want to! This could be awesome!"
"Yeah, so we have wings. Do you know how to fly? I don't."
"How hard can it be?" Tuff asked. "Those stupid dragons can do it, so why can't we?"
"Uhh, Tuff... don't look now, but we are a stupid dragon. And I think they've been practicing flying for a lot longer than we have."
"Well, then, uhh... maybe we should practice, too." His dragony mouth turned up in a grin that was somehow familiar-looking. "I bet it'll be fun!"
"Yeah, sure, just like going to the training ring the other night was fun," Ruff sighed. "So, what do we do?"
"Flap our wings, dummy! Like this!" Tuff concentrated. Nothing happened.
"Honestly, can't you do anything right? You just flap! Watch!" She focused on making the wings go up and down. Nothing happened.
"See? It's not so easy," Tuff gloated.
"Are you trying to control them at the same time as I am?" she demanded.
"Yeah, what about it?" he asked.
"Well, quit it! Just let me try it." After a few seconds, their wings came down, then up, then down. "Now we're getting somewhere!" she exclaimed.
"No, we aren't," Tuff retorted. "We're making a nice breeze, but we're still on the ground. Maybe we should watch the dragons, the next time they come to Berk, and see how they do it."
"Idiot!" Ruff burst out. "If we're around the next time the dragons come to Berk, our friends will think we're a dragon and they'll kill us!"
"Oh. Yeah. So... what should we do?"
""Maybe we can hide in the Lost Caverns," she suggested.
"Yeah, I think we can fit in there," he agreed, "but what will we do when we get hungry?"
"Well, maybe we could..." Whatever she was about to say, she never finished it. The dizziness and the blinding light and the roaring in the ears came back... and when it passed, they were both lying on the ground about a foot away from each other.
Tuffnut sat up and shook his head vigorously. "Ruff, I will take all your chores for a week if you can convince me that that was just a really, really bad dream."
"If you mean us turning into a dragon, I'm still hoping it was a dream," she replied as she tried to stand. Then she looked down and said, "Nope." They could plainly see the fresh footprints of a Hideous Zippleback in the dirt.
"Well, at least we got better," Tuff said as he stood and dusted off his clothes.
"Yeah," she nodded. "But what made it happen?"
"How should I know? I'm not a dragon expert," he demanded. "Who do I look like, Gobber the Belch?"
"No, but maybe we should ask him in the morning. He knows everything about dragons."
"Maybe." He pulled some dry weeds out of his hair. "Right now, I just want to get some sleep. I feel like somebody dropped a longship on me." For once, the twins agreed on something.