Author's Note: The villain of this piece is something you will only recognize if you've seen the TV series. If you have awesome it's pretty fun. If you haven't go do so. Not the new one on Netflix I haven't seen that one yet though I'm pretty sure from the commercials he's in it too. I own nothing.
3. Wisps
Toothless was delighted to see his friend again especially because she had a length of folded cloth under her arm. That meant she was going to fix up his tail and they would go on more adventures. She grinned her crocked grin when he bounded up to the edge of the opening and pulled himself up to tackle his rider, careful to avoid the fabric. She laughed as he licked her face. She turned her head away and laughed until he finally let her up.
"You know that doesn't wash out bud! I got the tailfin fabric we needed. We'll be out of here before anyone else knows we were here." Hiccup pulled out a few tools from the small bag attached to Toothless' saddle and began to work on the tail fin. About an hour later the fin was fixed and Hiccup had changed back into her now dry leathers. She patted Toothless on the head and grinned.
"That should do it bud." Both of them whirled as they heard a sound from the forest behind them. A small blue flame creature floated at the entrance to the forest. Toothless growled slightly but after sniffing the air for a few moments stopped and tilted his head in curiosity.
"What is that thing bud?" Toothless shrugged and began to walk towards it, stalking it like he did the light that reflected off a shield.
"I don't know but I think I want to lick it." Hiccup laughed.
"You want to lick practically everything, especially when you don't know what it is! Remember how sick that got you last time." Toothless paused but continued forward anyway. Hiccup rolled her eyes and followed her dragon. When they were a few scant inches away from the creature it vanished. Hiccup frowned and Toothless whined.
"Do you think I scared it away?" Hiccup held in a giggle.
"Maybe it heard your plan to lick it bud. Wait look there's another one. Bud there's quite a few of them lined up. You thinking what I'm thinking?" Toothless grinned a gummy grin.
"We should follow them, yes." Hiccup grinned and hopped onto the saddle, it was very difficult for a one legged Viking to keep up with a dragon even on foot. Hiccup slipped on her helmet to keep her hands free just in case they ran into trouble. She patted Toothless between the ears and they ventured off into the forest, following the mysterious blue lights.
They reached a cliff a few moments later and Hiccup glanced around. The blue lights had disappeared and she could find no sign that they had ever been there to begin with. She frowned. This cliff was way too close to the town for her comfort level. Then something on the horizon caught her eye. She squinted but she couldn't make it out.
"Wanna get a closer look bud?" Toothless nodded and spread his wings. They soared into the evening sky unaware that someone had spotted them from the ground.
Merad stared up at the shape as it vanished into the black of the oncoming night. He had only seen it defined for a second as the beast had spread its wings but there had definitely been a person sitting on the back of a beast that had jumped out of every tale of old he had ever heard. It had been a dragon, black as the night that now set in. Merad turned Angus around and they galloped back to the castle, he had to tell someone about this before this dragon and its rider became a threat.
What Prince Merad didn't know was that Toothless and Hiccup were now flying above the real threat, concealed by the blackness of the night. It was really hard for Hiccup not to swear aloud when she saw the symbol emblazoned on the sails of ships. It depicted the only dragon she had failed to train, a skrill. And that meant that she knew who these ships belonged to. She and Toothless flew higher into the night sky and flew around the ships one more time to see just how many there were here, they were lucky, he hadn't brought the whole armada. But she didn't know if he was here for her and Toothless or not but it could be nothing good. She and Toothless turned around and headed back for the ruins. The ships would not arrive for another day, they had some time to plan.
Meanwhile on the cliffs near the ruins five figures waited in the gathering mist. The tallest one was keeping watch while the others stood grouped together along with the monstrous figures that loomed around them. One of them snorted.
"How do you even know they came this way Aster? This is stupid." The tallest one sighed pushing his blonde hair out of his face.
"Because, Tuffnut, Stormfly said so. She says this whole place smells like a nightfury and given what we found floating in the ocean a few miles back they would have had to land on the nearest patch of land they could find." The next biggest one nodded looking scarred. He wasn't the same kind of big that Aster was, the tall blonde was made out of muscle and had recently hit a growth spurt that made him the tallest one in the group. Fishlegs on the other hand was still mostly made of what his mother liked to call lovable fluff. Snotlout, who was pouting near his dragon was the smallest off the men in the group, small but stocky. Tuffnut scoffed.
"She carries a spare duh, she's like the most prepared person that ever existed." His sister, Ruffnut, slapped him on the back of the head and pointed to a piece of cloth sticking out of Aster's pocket.
"You idiot, that is her spare! Right Fishface?" Fishlegs nodded and then glared at her looking a bit hurt. Before anyone could say anything a shadow crossed the moon. If Aster hadn't been looking for it he'd never have spotted it at all as it glided down towards them then veered suddenly left and vanished. Aster turned to Snotlout.
"Your turn." He sighed.
"How come I always gotta be the one signaling people? It's a stupid job for a warrior of my caliber." Aster glared.
"You're the only one with a monstrous nightmare you idiot!" Snotlout looked at his dragon which was trying to take a nap.
"Oh yeah." He tapped Hookfang on the nose and made a motion with his hand . The large red dragon lazily stood and lit itself on fire waving its tail in the air in circles. After a few tense moments the shadow Aster had spotted was landing next to them, revealed to be Toothless and Hiccup. She didn't look too happy to see them.
"Yeah I know I've been away from Berk for too long and my dad sent you lot after me. But that's not important right now." Aster raised an eyebrow. Fishlegs looked excited.
"Is there a new dragon?" Hiccup shook her head.
"No, there's something else in these woods but I don't think they are a threat, I'll tell you about them later. What's important right now is that!" She pointed into the distance, towards the ocean. The others all raised eyebrows.
"There's a fleet of ships headed this way, and I know who's on it." Snotlout rolled his eyes and stepped forward so he was no longer leaning on his dragon which stretched its head over to nuzzle Hiccup's hair. The two had made up long ago and the monstrous nightmare was now quite fond of the young girl he had once tried to violently murder. Toothless growled and the larger dragon retreated. Toothless wrapped his tail around Hiccups legs making it abundantly clear to the other dragons, and their slightly confused riders, that Hiccup was his and no one else should touch her without his express permission. Hiccup sighed and turned to Toothless and raised an eyebrow.
"What! He got too close to my human!" Hiccup laughed slightly as Hookfang grumbled an apology. Meatlug chuckled while Barf and Belch argued over what they were going to set on fire next. Stormfly laughed and warbled.
"I get close to your human all the time." Toothless turned his bright green eyes to the deadly nadder.
"You don't count, your human and mine want to be mates." Hiccup and Aster, the only two of the teens who actually spoke dragoneese fluently, both blushed bright red and spluttered. Hiccup collected herself first and growled at the dragons.
"Enough! We have real problems right now!" Aster took this opportunity to change the subject and the language for the benefit of the other teens who all, with the exception of Fishlegs who was fascinated by the language and in the process of learning it, looked rather annoyed.
"What problem is that? What ships are you talking about?" Hiccup took a deep breath.
"The berserkers are going to be here within a day." There was deadly silence from all present.
