Chapter Two: A Call for Help
Hiccup hooted as he raced through the clouds with Toothless. Morning flights like these were what kept him from going insane from all of the chief duties he'd had to help his father with recently. They allowed the young man to clear his head and get away from the chaos that inhabited Berk on a daily basis, not to mention they let him feel like his fourteen year old self once again. Hiccup knew that at eighteen and a half he was now an official adult and as such had responsibilities to take on but he loved to grab the opportunity to feel like that didn't matter whenever he could. Once in the sky, he forgot his previous frustration towards Toothless for waking him up so early in the mornings (especially when he'd been helping his father late into the night) and enjoyed the moment as it lasted. Hiccup couldn't shake the sad feeling that once he became chief, leisurely flights like these would become a rare luxury for him.
"Hard to think that soon flying will be something we do to get jobs done, huh, bud?" Hiccup sighed, remembering how he'd managed to convince his father to get his own dragon (a Thunderdrum named Thornado) so that chief-ing will be made a little easier. Toothless grunted in reply – thanks to an old scratch Kyra gave him years ago, Hiccup was able to understand Dragonese.
"Still, as long as we get to fly together, right?" the Night Fury pointed out. Hiccup smiled and nodded his reply. Toothless suddenly froze in midair and his eyes widened, his pupils narrowing into slits.
"Toothless?" Hiccup frowned. "What's wrong?"
"Windwalker," Toothless replied. Windwalker was Kyra's Star Backed Night Fury (a Night Fury with silver-white markings and a sparking forked tail) and Toothless' mate. She'd moved to the Meathead Isles with her rider when Kyra had married Artair Godrikson, the heir to the tribe, last summer but Toothless hadn't minded too much – dragons and their mates often spent extended periods of time apart – so Hiccup was surprised to suddenly hear his friend get anxious about his mate, especially when dragons could keep in contact over large distances via telepathic communication (the stronger the bond between dragons, the further the distance reached). "I can't hear her..."
"You think she's okay?" Hiccup wondered.
"I don't know...ever since we became mates I've always been able to talk to her," Toothless explained, his grunts and whines becoming increasingly high-pitched in worry. "Something's blocking her mindset..."
"Right," Hiccup noted. "Look – we'll go back to Berk and talk to Dad. I think we need to pay Kyra a visit." With that, he turned the black dragon around and shot back towards his home island, narrowly dodging the torrent of dragons that were heading to the Rookery for Snoggletog. Landing close to the plaza, he wasn't expecting to see Heather of all people there.
"Hiccup! Where have you been?" Astrid snapped as she walked over. "We've been looking everywhere!"
"I said I'd be out flying," Hiccup replied. He turned to face Heather. "Listen, Heather, as much as I'd like to talk, I need to go talk to Dad..."
"Whatever it's about, it's gonna have to wait," Heather interrupted. Before Hiccup could get another word in edgewise she continued. "Kyra sent me." Hiccup paused for a split second – the last time he'd heard from Kyra was merely a week ago where she'd told him she, Artair and their dragons would be visiting Berk to spent the Snoggletog feast with them given that Astrid wasn't allowed to fly whilst pregnant with her baby. What was so obscure that she felt the need to send a messenger to her brother rather than come herself?
"What is it?" Hiccup asked, his frowned deepening.
"It's Windwalker," Heather explained. "She's sick – Kyra doesn't know what's going on." Toothless started next to Hiccup.
"Windwalker's sick? What's wrong? What's happened?" he spluttered.
"Could be the reason why you can't get in contact with her," Hiccup grimaced. Toothless shook his head defiantly.
"Can't be," he insisted. "She came down with some nasty bouts of dragon flu whilst you were gone and we could still communicate fine!" Hiccup was suddenly, albeit briefly, grateful that he'd been cursed for three years – if Windwalker had come down with dragon flu on more than one occasion that would have been bad news for him seeing as he did not do well with flu and fevers whatsoever.
"Well, I was about to ask Dad if we could go to the Meathead Isles anyway," Hiccup noted to Heather. "So...that's actually pretty convenient."
"Oh," Heather blinked. "Well, that was easy. Let's get going," she instructed, holding Iona close and leaping onto the back of her pink and yellow Monstrous Nightmare, Newtsbreath. Hiccup was about to take off on Toothless again Astrid grabbed his arm.
"Okay, for one – you need to tell your dad that you're going," she pointed out irritably. Hiccup groaned – it was true. He wasn't going to be excused from his chief training without good reason. "And second, you guys had best get ready to pull a boat because I'm coming too."
"Astrid..." Hiccup moaned.
"What?" Astrid raised an eyebrow. "How else am I supposed to get to the Meathead Isles if I'm not allowed to fly for the next six months or so?"
"I was going to say that it might be better for you to..." Hiccup mumbled but Astrid interrupted him again.
"Look, Kyra's my best friend as much as she is your sister, Hatchet-Head," she snapped. "Is there any reason why I shouldn't be allowed to come?" she added, placing her hands on her hips.
"You're gonna come no matter what I say, aren't you?" Hiccup smirked.
"Yep, pretty much."
That ended that.
/\
"Why do we have to do this?" Snotlout moaned from his red and black Monstrous Nightmare, Hookfang. He and the rest of the Defenders of Berk, along with Stoick and Thornado, were pulling along the smallest sailboat the Hairy Hooligan tribe had – and even that wasn't every small given that it took the entire team to pull it along if they wanted to get to the Meathead Isles before nightfall.
"Because we need to get to Kyra as fast as we possibly can so the more dragons the better," Hiccup explained for what seemed the hundredth time.
"But we've been going for hours and we're still not even close!" Tuffnut moaned from one of the heads of the Hideous Zippleback he shared with his sister, Barf-Belch.
"We've been going for less than fifteen minutes, you dolt!" Heather snapped. "At the speed we're going at we should get there before sundown." That was saying something given the short daylight hours at this time of the year.
"So this is about Kyra's dragon?" Stoick asked from Thornado.
"Apparently," Hiccup replied. "Toothless was also saying earlier how he can't get into contact with Windwalker."
"She must be in pretty bad shape, then," Fishlegs mumbled worriedly from his Gronkle, Meatlug. "It's not often that dragons are so sick they can't communicate."
"Last time that happened Mildew had brought blue oleanders to Berk," Astrid remembered, shuddering at the memory of how sick the dragons were at the time and the memory of Mildew's butt when they were trying to extract the Scauldron venom from it. She still had nightmares about it. "It's also got to be pretty odd if Kyra doesn't know what's going on." Hiccup knew that Astrid had a point. Valkyra Godrikson, née Horrendous Haddock II, was the human embodiment of the Goddess of Dragons, Lohikäärme, known as the Dragon Shifter. Her powers included being able to turn into any dragon of her choice but her preferred dragon was a Night Fury. If she didn't know what was wrong with Windwalker, something had to be up.
"True," Hiccup nodded when Heather announced that they were nearing the Meathead Isles so Hiccup gave the order to quicken the pace as they raced the last kilometre or so to the docks where a face Hiccup hadn't seen in ages was waiting to greet them.
"Hiccup!" Kyra greeted, her dark auburn hair tumbling over her shoulders wildly as it always did and her mismatched eyes glinting in the evening sunlight. "Guys! You came!" she added, jogging over and hugging her brother and sister-in-law before saying a brief hello to the others. "Thanks for getting him, Heather."
"No worries," Heather smiled. Kyra was her friend as well as her future chief-tess so the task of fetching Hiccup wasn't exactly one Heather was reluctant to do for Kyra. "Hiccup was about to come over anyway."
"Toothless said this morning that he couldn't get into contact with Windwalker," Hiccup explained quickly. Kyra's face turned into a frown.
"Well, Windwalker's been completely out of sorts lately," she frowned, biting her lip. Astrid glanced at her friend's hands – she could just about see small Night Fury scales creeping out from under the long sleeve of the blue woollen winter tunic Kyra was wearing, as they often did when she was anxious. "I don't know what's going on with her."
"And you think I do?" Hiccup grimaced cynically. "Kyra, just because the first dragon I ever trained was a Night Fury doesn't mean I know everything about them – they're pretty much the species we know the least about...!"
"I'm not asking you to figure out what's wrong, Hiccup," Kyra groaned. "I'm just asking for your help. Also having Toothless around might cheer her up." Speaking of Toothless, the Night Fury was getting restless and wouldn't stop moving.
Kyra would only take Hiccup, Astrid and Toothless with her seeing as Windwalker apparently got worse when her sleeping area got too crowded so she asked Heather to sort the others out with sleeping arrangements for the night. Hiccup ignored the scurrying of the Meathead tribe to accommodate their guests, especially Stoick, whilst he followed his sister to her new home. Kyra let her guests in and greeted her husband, Artair Godrikson, as they entered the warm cabin.
"Hiccup," Artair greeted, rising to meet his brother-in-law. The two soon-to-be-chiefs shook hands and Artair politely greeted Astrid before turning to face Hiccup again. "Thank the gods you're here – Windwalker's been keeping everyone up." he paused before glancing a sly look at Kyra – he couldn't help it. "Not that Kyra seems to notice."
"Hey, I can't help having dragon insta-sleep abilities, alright?" she huffed although a playful smirk creeped onto her face. Her face turned serious again. "In all seriousness, though – I'm really worried about her. She won't stop eating, her sleeping patterns are all over the place...she's not like this normally, you know that!" she finished. Astrid frowned. Those symptoms sounded familiar.
"When can we see her?" she asked gently, a theory rapidly forming in her head, when she doubled over in pain as her unborn child kicked her firmly in the stomach again. "OW!"
"How's it going with the little guy?" Artair grimaced. Hiccup winced and helped to support Astrid and Kyra bit her lip.
"The baby – couldn't be better," Astrid moaned sarcastically. "Me – not so good." Hiccup gently patted Astrid's stomach and the kicking seemed to subside. "Cheers, Hiccup. Really – I'm starting to worry that he'll like you more than me," she joked dryly.
"Come on," Hiccup replied in his usual dry-humoured tone. "Have you seen the kids at Dragon Training? They hate my guts." That wasn't true and everyone knew it – the pre-teens back on Berk adored Hiccup and Toothless and hung onto his every word in Dragon Training.
"Do not!" Astrid protested with a weak smile. Kyra couldn't suppress a small giggle.
"Come on through – she's in the back," she explained, leading them through to the back of the house where a less-than-her-usual-self Star Backed Night Fury was lazing in a straw bed. Toothless bounded over and gently nuzzled his mate – Windwalker nudged his nose wearily before she gave out a roar. Kyra rushed over to calm her down but the dragon seemed almost inconsolable. Hiccup took in Windwalker's appearance – she certainly was a lot bigger than she'd been before and she looked exhausted. He was about to walk over when Toothless suddenly growled at him.
"Toothless!" Hiccup cried out as his best friend made a threatening noise. "Buddy, I just need to..."
"Uh...angry dragon alert – I'd say we give him some space," Astrid muttered. Reluctantly, Hiccup backed away, as did Kyra although she now looked more worried than ever.
"Toothless, what's with you?" Hiccup asked nervously.
"Give her some room! She needs rest!" the dragon spat. Hiccup took that as their definite cue to leave so the four humans made a hasty exit back into the main house. Once back in the main room, Kyra hung her head in her hands.
"Urgh! I hate not knowing what's going on!" she cried out in exasperation. Artair placed a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.
"Maybe Toothless knows what's going on now," he suggested, looking expectantly at Hiccup.
"Yeah, and clearly seems to suddenly not want to have anything to do with me," the young man huffed, crossing his arms and blowing an annoying bang out of his eyes. His hair was getting longer as time went on and it was starting to get in Hiccup's way – he was thinking of a way to remedy it.
"I'm sorry I had to drag you away from Berk for this," Kyra apologised. "I guess you're stuck here now until Toothless calms down at least," she grimaced.
"Don't worry about it," Astrid reassured. "It's not often we get to see you over here – makes a nice change...OUCH!" she yelped. As everyone winced, Kyra mentioned for Astrid to followed her upstairs to sort out sleeping arrangements. Eventually Artair managed to dig out some extra blankets and pillows for the guest bed in the room downstairs at the request of his wife.
AN: On a side note to this, I now have a digital painting of Windwalker on my deviantART account if you want to check it out. If there are any other characters from any of my stories that you want to see, just send me a PM and I'll do my best.
Link: art/Windwalker-Star-Backed-Night-Fury-417780306
