For days we flew and saw nothing, where was this other rider, did they even exist or did I just imagine them.

One day, after almost a week of searching, we finally saw them again. This time, we watched them perform and waited until after the rider had flown on their own and then remounted, and then we followed them as they flew off.

For what seemed like forever we followed the pair silently, staying well back so as not to be seen, and soon we burst through the cloud cover over an island. I knew this island, though not very well. It was called Berk, it was tiny, perhaps half the size of ours, but it was infested with dragons. Everywhere I looked there were dragons. They were on top of houses, eating out of giant bowls full of fish; there were even babies in what looked like a dragon nursery. This was like nothing I had imagined, a whole other island that knew what dragons were really like.

I flew Firefly to the top of a cliff overlooking the island and we landed. We watched as the Night Fury and its rider landed in the centre of the island and the rider dismounted. The rider started to walk away when the dragon pounced on them from behind, flattening them, for a moment I thought it was attacking them, then I saw the rider flip over underneath the dragon and reach up to tickle him. I could hear from my perch the dragons' laughter, if it could be called that, and watched as it bent its head and started licking the rider from head to toe. That was when the rider wriggled out from under the dragon and shook themselves off; trying to get rid of the dragon saliva they were now coated in.

I turned to look at Firefly, she was watching this exchange as intently as I was, it seemed she was as confused by this as I was. I had never seen such a bond between a dragon and its rider other than what I had with Firefly, maybe there was something about Night Fury's, or maybe the same thing ran through our veins.

The blood of a true dragon rider.

I looked back down at the island just as the rider was removing their helmet/mask contraption. He must have been about my age, and he was cute. He stood at average height for a Viking but his build was different to what you would normally see. For a guy, he was really wiry; he looked like he might snap if you punched him too hard. He had longish brown hair that naturally sat ruffled, even after he ran his hand through it to smooth it out. As I looked him up and down I noticed something else, he had some sort of contraption were one of legs should be, he'd clearly lost it in an accident and I had been replaced with a substitute, though from my vantage point I couldn't make it out clearly.

I decided to sit and watch what happened with all these dragons around.

I sat atop the cliff and watched the island for hours; Firefly came and went, often heading off to feed. But I stayed, and I noticed things. The rider seemed important in the village, and not just because they were a rider, there was something else; the village treated him with the highest respect, but why? And then there was the girl, the pretty young blonde, who I noticed was also a dragon rider, though her dragon was a Deadly Nadder. These two were close, very close, they must have been together. It made sense, she was almost as good a rider as he was, maybe even better than me.

It wasn't until that evening just before I was about to leave, did I realise why the young rider was so important. There was a village meeting, just like we had most nights, but what shocked me, was what the young rider did. He sat in the chiefs' chair and took order of the meeting. He was the chief, it was unheard of for someone to be chief at such a young age, but here was the proof. And taking seats either side of him were the young blonde I'd seen him with and an older woman, she must have been of some importance to be sat at the chiefs' side, his mother maybe, since she was too young to be the village elder.

I decided to leave it for the day and whistled for Firefly, but she didn't come, where could she be. After whistling two more times, she finally appeared. She landed and looked at me as if to say sorry, I didn't blame her, dragons weren't meant to be grounded, they were meant to be up there, amongst the clouds. She was just having fun.

I climbed up into the saddle and we took off. We got back home just as the sun set, and I knew I'd have to tell someone about what I'd seen that day. So I went home, and found my mother. I sat her down and told her everything, even my suspicions about the different people I'd seen him with, and the fact that it seemed this rider, was chief on Berk.