It's kind of sad, but I've never had this many hits/views on a story. And my other stories are multi-chaptered. I guess it's because it's Kingdom Hearts stuff, and you see that everywhere.
Anyways, you're making a writer feel good.
Astrid woke up the next morning aching all over.
She felt like she was on a flat bed, on the ground. Something was curled over her extended neck and tail- she guess that was Toothless. Wings overlapped her own. She grumbled, struggling to get out of Toothless's grasp-
Wait, what? Extended neck? Tail? Wings?
Astrid jumped forward with inhumane swiftness, earning a lazy groan from whatever was curled up next to her.
She turned to face the creature.
There was a kind of dragon she had never seen or heard of in her life.
Her blue eyes stretched wider than wide, and she bellowed a screech that would beat any Thunder Drum. Only seeing a four-finned tail sweeping in front of her- her tail- made her scream louder.
Hiccup jumped up, green eyes blaring in the sun as he stared at the screeching dragon before him. For a moment, he thought that the nightmare of transforming into a dragon was just a dream, that this was Toothless, who finally snapped from being on the island-
But then he saw ice cold eyes with scared, narrowed pupils, how this dragon had four fins on its tail and no fins at its tail's base, and a whole other bout of differences that he couldn't name at the moment. "S-stop!" he tried telling the dragon, who he thought was female, but his cry somehow overlapped and only turned into a loud roar. He stood up on his legs, but apparently, those were now to be called his hind legs now, because he fell over.
The female stopped screeching like a banshee and curled up into a protective ball, but that was only one of Hiccup's worries. His legs felt strange. They were shaped differently, as well as his arms being a bit more chubby than usual. He brought his hands up to his face and saw claws, five of them with an opposable thumb for each. The boy bit his tongue to keep from screaming like the other dragon, but instantly stopped because his newly sharpened teeth pierced it.
He searched over himself, finding a four-finned tail like the female, but, again, no fins at his tail's base. After staring at this tail for a moment, he tried flexing his fins. They only twitched. Hiccup could hardly control this new tail, anyways, so he would have to save that for later.
Then he moved on to studying his wings. He remembered that these wings were the first thing that grew from him when he was turning into this dragon, so he tried moving them. Right now, they felt like stiff, wooden appendages, and did not heed his command at all to spread out. It seemed like his whole body was a shining ebony color. Hiccup moaned, then looked around him.
He was on an island, but not the island where he was last. He and the female dragon were on a wide beach, seemingly stretching across at least half of the island's shore. The sea looked warm and inviting, but when Hiccup stumbled over to it with unadjusted legs, and stuck a claw-hand in the water, it was cold and sent shivers up his spine.
Hiccup instinctively drew away from the water, and then slowly crept up on the female to check her out from a closer range.
Astrid was watching the other dragon, who stuck his (she thought it was male) claw in the water and had now turned and started creeping up on her, like she was his next meal. Her eyes were hidden by her wings, so anyone would think she was asleep. She was curled up in the equivalent of a dragon's fetal position. She started to shake; she was defenseless, without her signature axe, any weapon... what the heck? Astrid? Defenseless?
If she really had to be a dragon, then that meant she had claws, fangs, strong wings, a muscled tail, and most importantly, the power to breathe fire. Though a downfall because she had no idea how to use any of these things, they could also help, somehow, or at least scare the other dragon away.
She suddenly leaped to her feet, only barely managing not to collapse again. Her legs weren't steady enough to support her- they were too untrained, flimsy and flailing.
Nonetheless, she saw the other dragon flinch, cowering down. She pulled her lips back in a sneering snarl that felt fake on her wider mouth, advancing slowly toward the enemy so she wouldn't trip. The dragon cowered even lower, nonetheless, and his green eyes grew wide, pupils looking threatening although only narrowed out of fear.
The eyes reminded her of her friend Hiccup. She drew her head as high as she could, which wasn't very high on her new, unusual neck, and growled at the male. He cowered down even lower, if that was even possible.
"What's your name?" she spat more than said, then instantly felt stupid. She spoke English! Why would she expect this unknown dragon to understand her?
She was more than surprised when the male dragon replied. "H-Hiccup," he whined, looking up with fearful eyes.
"Hiccup!" Astrid's eyes grew wide and she bounded up close to her dragonified friend, a grin on plastered on her face. "It's me, Astrid!"
"Astrid?" Hiccup scoffed with a strange, new-found boldness. He tilted his head. "How can you be Astrid? You're acting far to happy to be Astrid-"
Astrid promptly balled up her claw, hand, thing, and slugged him in the face.
The punch wasn't very hard by her standards, because she wasn't used to her limbs, but it still appeared to inflict pain, because Hiccup rubbed his seed-shaped head and drew back his ears. "Okay, I believe you."
"Good, now we have to find out what in Odin happened here," she snorted before trotting and tripping toward the beginnings of the lush forest that made up most of the island, Hiccup following her.
"We should at least learn how to use our new bodies," Hiccup protested, trailing after her and clawing at her tail softly to stop, "before we try to go off into wherever."
Astrid looked over he shoulder at him, causing her neck to hurt by the slight movement. He flinched at her piercing gaze. He was right; she could barely even move her limbs without falling over. Neither of them could fly, breathe fire, hunt, protect themselves, or even walk freely because of their new legs, now having four of them and their hind legs being so unusually shaped. They were like newborn babies, and particularly easy picks for enemies, particularly, other dragons.
"Okay, oh great and mighty dragon-master, what do you think we should do?" she huffed, stumbling over to the middle of the beach and sitting down. Hiccup noticed that she sat down like Toothless did, folding his wings back and looking down at him in a domesticated manner, like a cat with a friendly dog's mind. Still, eating that raw fish wasn't fun.
He sat down in the same way in front of his female friend. She studied him for a moment, probably taking in the fact that he was a dragon, then stared at his eyes as if to make sure he was human. Then she huffed out a big sigh. "I guess we should learn how to walk, then?"
She went on all fours without waiting for the boy's answer and started shuffling around. Hiccup immediately saw that she was doing it all wrong. She was walking like a penguin, joints completely stiff as if they were made of wood.
Speaking of wood, he looked at his left hind leg and cried out in delight. No artificial leg was there; it was as good as any leg, as well as all of his tail-fins.
He caught Astrid staring at him strangely. "My leg's back," he called out.
She stiff-leggedly 'walked' over to him, then intrusively sniffed his leg. Hiccup felt his tail slap happily against the sand, but subconsciously, and willed it to stop. It didn't.
"That's great," she said dully, as if determined not to feel happy, now that Hiccup pointed out that she was acting way more happily than she usually did. Hiccup felt his new ears go down with his new lips, and even his wings, and his tail curled around his feet in his sitting posture.
"What the heck?" Astrid drew back as Hiccup's eyes grew large and watering. "I swear, you're going to become a depressed Toothless if that keeps up."
Hiccup's eyes grew wider, but he jumped to his feet. "Toothless! I left him on the island, I was looking for you again, but I couldn't think right, I had to go into the cave, it just-"
"Hiccup?" Astrid said slowly. "You were looking for me... again? How long have I been gone?"
"A month," Hiccup stated bluntly.
"Oh. Let's learn to walk now, kay?" she said abruptly, walking off again as if she had pegs for legs, and seeming stiffer than ever now that she received that news.
Hiccup tilted his head after her. "Well, for one, use your joints..."
Toothless had been swimming for hours. He had been built for flying, not swimming, and his short, chubby legs ached more than the time he had raced other dragons on land for hours on end...
He had caught a fish, and he was carrying it in his mouth, making his mouth water like mad. At the moment, he was seeking some kind of rock or land to take shelter on as he ate. Toothless had gills, invisible to the human eye, though they were usually unused, until now, were they flapped like mad for the surrounding water's oxygen.
At last, there was a rock. He heaved himself onto its flat surface, thanking the gods for a wide surface, though slick from a rainy downpour. Raining it was, as Toothless sunk his teeth into the fish greedily.
After he was done, the dragon rolled over onto his back. He had enough of the wet, and now it was raining, making him feel cold. He curled up into a ball, seeking warmth from himself. Loneliness set over him. He was cold, wet, alone, and missing his rider dearly. It was the only thing that was keeping him going, for now. Toothless placed his tail across his short muzzle, breathing out a hint of flames, and went to sleep.
About an hour had passed. Astrid and Hiccup had managed to learn how to walk, sort of. Their legs were still stiff, still awkward, but they were able to stumble around without falling. In fact, they could jog a little as well- well, at least the equivalent of jogging.
Now they were trying to learn how to run. After learning how to walk, this was faster in progress, and almost felt easier. Astrid copied Toothless from the times she watched him running; she ran by springing in bounds, and actually found it easier than walking. Hiccup had a little more difficulty, but both mastered it by half an hour.
"So, should we go in the forest now?" Astrid said impatiently after practicing running and walking a bit more.
"I don't think so. Who knows what could be in here? And we can barely run away," Hiccup reasoned. He was distractedly drawing the dragon-transformed Astrid in front of himself. The real Astrid stared at it, muttering some sour words that sounded like 'Barely? Ha!' with lazily half-closed eyes.
"Well, what do you think we should do? Learn how to fly?" The prospect of flying filled both of the teens with excitement, though they both knew that it would be impossible at the moment, now only being barely able to control their wings and tail.
"We can't," Hiccup stated obviously, "But we can learn to breathe fire, since we can at least control our faces."
Both of them tried, but were surprised as well as delighted when sparks showered from their mouths. They shared ideas about how to breathe fire- they tried imagining the fire being breathed, or maybe huffing it up. They got better, actually causing fires that lingered on the sandy beach for a few seconds, and scorched some sand black until it shifted around from the dragons' footprints. In the end, they were able to spit small blobs of fire, hopefully able to burn any potential predators that weren't dragons and steer them away.
Night had fallen, and Hiccup and Astrid only noticed it until now. They decided to settle on the sands for now, trusting their newly sharpened senses to warn them if they needed to be wakened, though it would have been smarter if they took turns taking watch...
Hiccup and Astrid slept apart. They curled up, now slightly more controlling of their new limbs, and wrapping their tails into comfortable positions with much difficulty. More than once Astrid caught Hiccup trying to worm next to her, and whether for warmth or to satisfy his affections for her, she didn't like it. But at the sixth try, her own self being cold and the lack of sleep- thanks to Hiccup- made her gave in. Hiccup and Astrid lay on the beach side by side, sharing their new bodies' heat.
They didn't hear the near-silent wing beats of oncoming dragons.
I love making cliffhangers, though this isn't my best. Cliffhangers are chicken soup for the soul.