A.N.: This chapter has gone through the watchful eyes of TMNF's new beta, Cke1st. Scatty approves!
Disclaimer: Someone else owns HTTYD, and that someone is not me.
Hiccup was, hands down, the best rider on Berk. On Toothless, he never felt more powerful, and his dragon probably felt the same. So when they lost track of the other Night Fury and its rider, Hiccup and Toothless shared a dose of gut-squirming shame.
"Where'd they go?" Hiccup wondered out loud, echoing Toothless' thoughts as they hovered among the clouds. "Let's keep searching, bud. They can't have gone far."
His Night Fury rumbled his agreement. They started to zoom off into the clouds when a very familiar sound pierced the air. It would have struck fear into the hearts of regular Vikings, but not this Viking. Hiccup was not an ordinary Viking.
"Toothless!" He warned his dragon urgently.
'Way ahead of you!' Toothless would have said, and evaded the oncoming plasma blast. The powerful round of plasma exploded twenty feet away from them, and Hiccup found this odd. But he couldn't think about it for long; as Hiccup and Toothless recovered from a barrel roll, the other Night Fury and its rider burst forth from among the clouds. Two growling Night Furies circled each other.
"There you are!" Hiccup's gaze settled on the other dragon. He breathed out, "Another Night Fury."
The other Night Fury was nearly as large as Toothless, and looked nearly the same. It was more slender and curved. Its eyes were shaped slightly differently, and it had a complete set of wings and fins.
Hiccup locked eyes with the other rider, who looked as young as he was. By the way his lithe body was tensed like an animal ready to pounce, his jaw was set, and how wild-looking his black eyes were, like he was reining in heaping amounts of terror, Hiccup realized the danger he and Toothless had narrowly escaped from. This boy had meant business. His dragon had fired a shot, and it wasn't a warning shot. It was an honest-to-goodness killing shot. But it had missed. Hiccup wanted to know why.
"I don't want to harm you," Hiccup persisted. "I don't know why you shot us, but please, we can talk about this!"
The other boy held his gaze. He was calculating his chances of escaping or blasting, or trusting Hiccup without breaking eye contact. Hiccup hoped the boy would choose the last option. Hiccup also noticed how the other Night Fury seemed to be alternating between angry growls against Toothless and concerned croons towards its rider, who responded by rubbing the Night Fury's neck gently.
"Whose village are you from, dragon rider?"
"Stoick the Vast of the Hairy Hooligans," Hiccup answered immediately, and saw a spark of recognition in the other rider's eyes. Soon, his father would have his hands full trying to reassure yet another tribe that Berk was not organizing a dragon army. Hiccup would have to deal with this stranger on his own for now. But he didn't think it was safe to tell a complete stranger that the chief was off to another village to re-negotiate a peace treaty. For all Hiccup knew, this rider could be a spy. Still, Hiccup felt a rush of relief by just invoking his father's name. "And you?"
The rider shared one dragon-rider moment with his Night Fury, heaved a sigh, and said, "We'll have to talk somewhere else. Privately."
…
"Is this private to you?!" Evander cried out. The boy had taken him to the Berk Dragon Training Academy. At the entrance hung a lovely Night Fury emblem, which was the only friendly object in the academy as far as Scatty was concerned. Both Night Furies had swooped inside the cage-like structure to find several dragons and presumably their riders chatting among themselves. "What part of the definition of 'private' did you not understand?"
The boy shrugged, and dismounted from his dragon with a grace that surprised Evander despite the boy's half leg. "This is where we deal with dragon-related issues. And here in Berk, we face our issues together."
A rumble of agreement escaped the other Night Fury's throat.
Evander heard a collective gasp from the other riders, none of whom looked much older than he was. All of them, along with their dragons, were staring at Scatty and him. The moment he dismounted, Scatty bristled and remained restless no matter what calming trick Evander tried out, from scratches to whistles. The staring only helped elevate Scatty's stress levels, and she constantly flicked her tail from side to side and kept her body tensed. The other dragons sniffed the air curiously, and were eager to meet this newcomer.
"Can't you calm your dragon?" a snot-faced Viking asked. He stood by what Evander knew to be a Monstrous Nightmare by reading the Dragon Keeper's Journal at Nott. Somehow, the flamboyant physique of the Nightmare fitted the apparent personality of its rider.
"She doesn't like being trapped," Evander replied evenly, glancing once at the metal framework above them. The other Night Fury rider shot him an apologetic glance. "Or any semblance of it."
"Sorry about this. It's just that the village is new to the dragon training thing," he told Evander, who nodded and continued to pacify his dragon. In his peripheral vision, Evander saw the other Night Fury rider do a double take. "Did you say… she?"
Evander nodded absently. "Easy, girl. Easy. EASY."
"I'm Hiccup, by the way. And I am the head of this Dragon Training Academy."
"No, I do not succumb to hiccups, and I do not want to enroll Scatty in your Dragon Training Academy," Evander said distractedly, not averting his eyes and concentration from his Night Fury, who was still very much restless. That is, until the other Night Fury approached her.
Scatty growled.
"Stay back," Evander tried to warn the other wide-eyed dragon. Its tail was curled and lowered, its wings were raised half-open. It sniffed Scatty curiously, to which a narrow-eyed Scatty responded with a haughty snort and a painful-sounding tail-whack to the shoulder. Hiccup was at Toothless' side in an instant.
"Toothless! Are you okay?"
"That's one way of how Night Furies greet each other," Evander explained with a note of surprise. He raised an eyebrow at the other Night Fury's name. "You named your dragon 'Toothless'?"
The blonde girl stepped forward. "Enough about us. Why don't you start introducing yourself?"
Clearly intimidating and not as dainty as her body frame suggested, Evander thought unconsciously. Out loud, he told the other riders, "I'm Evander, so-"
He cleared his throat and gestured to Scatty, who had trotted away from Toothless and his rider.
"Evander. This is my dragon partner, Scathach."
"Scathach the Shadow," one of the Vikings said breathlessly. He was probably the nerd with a soft spot. He was as boulder-like as the Gronckle who nuzzled against him, and he responded with a tender hug. Yes, he was definitely the nerd with a soft spot. "They say that she was one of the female warrior twins, and the other was Aoife, but they had a falling out because of some guy. Cuckoo-lame?"
The others gaped at him, and he backed into his Gronckle as if it would shield him from the others' stares. "So anyway… Scathach the Shadow."
"Apt name, is it not?" Evander agreed, moving to stand by his dragon, who still fixed her narrowed eyes at an innocent-looking Toothless. "But I call her Scatty. And by the way, it's Cuchulain."
"How did you find Berk?" the blonde girl demanded.
Evander shared shifty looks with Scatty, who snorted and jerked a head towards the others and their dragons. He sighed, then said, "Well, Berk found us. Scatty and I are, um, explorers from the, uh, north. We did a good deal of wicked flying in a storm before we crash landed here, and spent the rest of the storm in a cave in the mountains. Hiccup found me in your airspace a couple of minutes ago and... ah, led me back here. Now, who are you guys?"
"Well, you know I'm Hiccup—" The other Night Fury rider began, but was shoved aside by the snot-faced Viking. "Hey!"
Confused, Evander raised an eyebrow. "Sorry, what?"
"You heard it right! This here, is Hiccup the talking fishbone," snot-guy said, earning a glare from the blond girl and Hiccup. He ignored them and gestured to the huge red Monstrous Nightmare beside him. "I'm Snotlout, the best Viking teen on Berk. Just so you know, no one crosses me and Hookfang."
Snotlout folded his arms in front of his chest, trying to intimidate the newcomer, who was irritatingly indifferent.
"Call me Astrid." The blond girl introduced herself, putting a fist to her waist. She put the other hand on the spiked blue Deadly Nadder behind her, who perked up at the physical contact. "She's Stormfly. Don't underestimate us; I'll make sure you're sorry if you do."
Evander cracked a cheeky grin. "Acknowledged."
"I'm Fishlegs," said the nerdy teen. His Gronckle nudged him again. "And this is my dearest Meatlug."
"That's a fine Gronckle you have there," Evander noted, trying for a small good-natured smile.
"And over there," the boy called Hiccup gestured to the pair of teens smacking each other's faces, "are the twins, Ruffnut and Tuffnut. They're more than a match for their Zippleback, Barf and Belch."
"Indeed," Evander agreed, nodding with saddened eyes. Scatty followed her partner's gaze. She rumbled sadly and nuzzled her rider before returning to her restless padding of her feet and unfurling and folding of wings. Evander fought down a sob, and cleared his throat. He forced a polite smile to his face which only made him look more strained, something that only Astrid seemed to pick up. "Nice to meet you all."
"I think I know how to calm Scatty without putting her to sleep," Hiccup said, fumbling inside his vest pocket. He approached the newcomers tentatively and pulled out a few leaves of dragon nip. Hiccup was idly wondering why Evander had tensed up in alarm when the other boy saw the harmless leaves in his hands.
"No! Put that away!"
"Relax! It's just dragon nip," Hiccup assured him. Scatty sniffed at Hiccup cautiously, scattering the air current. When she realized what the boy was offering her, Scatty happily succumbed to the effects of dragon nip as Hiccup rubbed the leaves on her nose.
"You see?" Hiccup turned to the newcomer as Evander passed out on the cold stone floor.
…
Astrid and Hiccup found themselves inside Gothi's house while the elder tended to the feverish teen. With a gnarled hand on Evander's forehead, Gothi studied him for one long moment, then whipped up a foul-smelling broth. At that point, Evander had regained enough consciousness to sense what the elder had prepared, and after several persuasive tactics and a shuddering fit, the newcomer was napping on the cot peacefully.
"Where did you 'really' find them?" Astrid asked Hiccup.
"What he said was true. Toothless heard Scatty's roar when we went flying today," Hiccup told her. "I don't know where he's from, but once he comes to, we'll find out. And hopefully he'll explain all this."
Hiccup could barely contain his eagerness, and it shone through his bright green eyes. Astrid understood why. The previous Bork Week, he had traveled alone to what was supposed to be an island nest of Night Furies because he wanted to discover more of Toothless' kin. Sadly, it had only been a cover-up for a kidnapping plan by Alvin the Treacherous.
"But what if it's like last time?" Astrid demanded.
"I have a feeling he's not working for the Outcasts," Hiccup admitted. He hesitated for a moment, then said, "His Night Fury almost killed me by a plasma blast, but he missed. I don't get it."
"His Night Fury shot you?!" Astrid blurted out, only to be shushed by Gothi. "Sorry…"
"You're complaining you survived?" Astrid asked skeptically in a lowered volume. "For all you know, he could have been here to spy on us and then destroy our village! He could be a danger to us all! And then you invited him here?"
"No! Yes! Ah, this is confusing. I don't know." Hiccup knitted his brows and said, "A Night Fury never misses once it has a fixed target. If he wanted to kill us, he would have done so by now. That's why I want to know who Evander really is, and where he's from. I want to know why they failed to shoot us, and how he met that Night Fury."
Astrid sighed. There was no convincing Hiccup otherwise once he was set on something. Astrid would bet her best hatchet that she would have to pick up his slack if he ever got in trouble.
…
It didn't take long for Evander to come around. Gothi made him drink another helping of the bitter broth.
Evander made a face. "Nasty."
Gothi just smiled mysteriously at him before withdrawing to one side and letting the others ask how he was doing.
"I'm miffed you saw my allergy in action," Evander answered, a rueful smile etched on his pale face. He sat up slowly. "Dragon nip makes my body shut down, and leaves me suffering from fever and nausea. After a good nap and that…"
He eyed the empty cup in the elder's hands with a mixture of fear, awe, and spite. "…broth… I swear it tastes even bitterer than before! But I'm better now."
"That's great!" Astrid grinned. But then her eyes turned hard again, and she spoke more forcefully. "Let me ask you again, Evander. Who are you? Why did you shoot Hiccup?"
Under the intensity of Astrid's glare, Evander wanted to back down and sleep off the wooziness he still felt. Strange. The broth should have taken care of that by now. He averted his stare from Astrid's, and found himself looking at the elder, who was studying him knowingly. "I… uh…"
"Okay, let's start from the beginning," Hiccup suggested. "Where did you come from?"
Evander's eyes had turned glassy. "The Isle of Night."
A.N.: Here ends the 2nd installment. Like it? Hate it? Tell me why in a review! ConCrit is always welcome.
In the next chapter, Gothi doodles again, and guess who's going to interpret them?