Chapter 4: Getting Acquainted

I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day. I got of bed, stretched, and pulled on a fresh shirt and vest. I was about to say good morning to Forge, but I didn't see the emerald dragon anywhere. I looked everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found.

"Huh, well, he must have gone off to the cove with Toothless. Well, I'll see him later," I said.

It was then that I heard the faint flapping of wings right behind me. I spun around quickly, catching a glimpse of the Terror as he ducked around behind my head.

"Forge! What are you doing trying to hide from me?" I asked, spinning around again and catching the dragon in a headlock. He gave me a look of resignation like he had accepted his fate of being my prisoner. It was the look that Toothless had given me that day that I had set him free, that look of giving up all hope and just giving in to the larger, more fearsome presence that lay before him.

I promptly dropped Forge, who managed to catch himself before hitting the ground. I took a shaky breath, steadying myself. This was just getting crazy, even for me. That look struck a cord of grief and regret right through me, as if the dragon were looking into my soul, my deepest self, and pulling something to the surface that had lain dormant for years. It was spooky.

I had a bunch of time before training started, so I decided to take a little breakfast to Toothless. I didn't know what in particular he liked, so I grabbed a little bit of everything, even a whole smoked eel. Ugh, the thing smelled disgusting, and tasted even worse, but maybe Toothless would like it.

I ran to the cove, wanting to spend as much time as I could with Toothless and Forge, my only friends. See, try as I might, none of the other kids ever really accepted me. I was always the outcast, the reject, just that kid who like to make stuff. I was the inventor, and nothing but. Of course, there was Astrid, but that was a long time ago. They used to play together as children, but as they grew older, the two had drifted apart. I still held feelings for her, intense feelings actually, but I had no idea if she felt the same way. Probably not.

I arrived at the cove and was greeted by a groggy night fury. Not the prettiest sight, I might add, as he was still shaking off his sleep and was stumbling all over the place.

"I guess you're nocturnal, huh? Thanks for waking up for me though. You guys are my only friends, so it's nice to see that you care," I said, and I got another groggy look from Toothless, which cleared quite quickly upon seeing the fish. I emptied the small basket, and Toothless started to dig in, but he stopped quickly, running away and hissing at the pile. I followed his gaze and saw what he was hissing at. It was the eel, that disgusting eel.

I held it up, and Toothless's eyes shrunk to slits, looking like he was going to die of fright.

"No! Okay, yeah I don't really like eel much either," I said, throwing the eel off into the distance. Toothless quickly calmed down, resuming eating the rest of the fish.

I was left to think, and I came across a thought. If Toothless was that scared of the eel, would other dragons feel just the same way? There was one sure-fire way to test my theory, and it started in ten minutes.

"Alright guys, be good. I'll be back later, with more food for you Toothless," I said, grabbing the eel from the ground and hiding it under my vest, where no one could see it. But the dragons could surely smell it, as was evidenced when Toothless freaked out when I walked too close, as well as Forge. I smiled. My plan just might work.

I had to run to make it to training on time, but I managed to run in the door just as Gobber was gathering everyone for the introduction to the lesson.

Alright class, now we're going to do battle with the Hideous Zippleback today. This one should be fun for you kids. You'll each have a bucket filled with water, and your job is to figure out which head is the sparking head, and get it wet. A wet dragon head can't light it's fire. Good luck," said Gobber, trudging over to the cage and yanking the lever.

A thick fog billowed out of the cage, a defense mechanism that the Zippleback could use when frightened, or so Fishlegs was muttering in my ear, along with a host of other unpleasant things about the dragon. Seriously, the kid was like a walking encyclopedia of dragons.

I couldn't see anything, only the fog. I could hear plenty, including the fight that started between Astrid, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Snotlout. Apparently Tuffnut and Snotlout had doused Ruffnut and Astrid, thinking that they were dragons.

"Hey, it's us, idiots!" I heard Ruffnut yell out.

"Your butts are getting bigger. We thought you were a dragon," said Tuffnut.

"Not that there's anything wrong, with a dragonesque figure..." said Snotlout before getting punched rather rapidly in the sternum. Ruffnut swung her bucket at her brother, knocking him back into the fog. I heard a scream, and then saw Tuffnut stumble out of the fog clutching his arm.

"Oh, I am hurt! I am very much hurt!" he yelled.

"Chances of survival are dwindling to single digits now," said a worried Fishlegs. He screamed when a head came out of the fog, sniffing him. Fishlegs dumped his bucket on the head, only to see it burble green gas out of its mouth, making a sound akin to laughing, as if it were mocking him.

"Wrong head," muttered Fishlegs, before running away again screaming when a huge stream of gas spurted from the dragon's head and onto Fishlegs.

I saw the other head, and I knew that it was the sparking one. I through my bucketful of water as high as I could, but it only made it halfway before falling down again.

"Oh, come on," I said, furious at my lack of skill in water tossing, something everyone else was better at, being on the fire brigade and all.

The two heads began sniffing at me, growing more and more animated. The sparking head tried lighting the gas, but it had already dissipated. I approached the dragon, arms outstretched. The Zippleback stumbled backward, nearly tripping over itself in an effort to get away from me.

"Yes, yes, back into your cage. Don't make me tell you again," I said, backing it into its cage. "Now think about what you've done," I said, pulling the eel out from under my vest and tossing it into the cage. I closed the doors, wiping the slime from the eel off of my hands. Ugh, I hated that stuff.

I turned around to see everyone just standing there, staring at me.

"So, are we done? Because I have some things that need attending to and... yeah so, see you tomorrow," I said before strolling out the exit, leaving everyone else just staring and wondering what had happened.

As soon as I was out of sight, I laughed uncontrollably. The looks on all of their faces was just priceless. It was easy to imagine. I mean, me, Hiccup, the village screw up who was only good in the forge, had just bested a dragon, a vicious, man eating beast. But I knew better. I knew what they really were underneath the facade, I knew that they were really our friends, to be trusted and helped. They were powerful beasts, but they had emotions, thoughts, actions all their own.

As soon as I got control of myself, I grabbed a bag of fish and ran off to the cove. I walked in through the passageway that I had made previously, but I didn't see either the emerald or the onyx dragon. I set down the huge basket of fish, walking around and calling for them. I didn't see the black blur until it was on top of me, licking my face with its rough tongue.

"Hey Toothless, I missed you too, but please, stop licking me! Ugh, your tongue is like sandpaper. Okay, okay, what do you want to show me?" I asked after I wiped the saliva off of my face. Toothless led me over to where Forge was sitting in the dust, drawing a strange image with his claw. I watched for a little while, and Forge just sat there, drawing druce little shapes in the dirt. Some of them actually looked like real objects. I saw a Terror, a night fury, a human, I guessed me, a crude image of the cove, and a fish. I patted the dragon's head.

"Well look at you, the little artist. I never knew that you could draw," I said.

Forge clicked and warbled at me again, before remembering that I didn't speak dragonese and switching to charades. He pointed to me with his tail, then made a drawing motion, then he made it look like he were watching the drawing, and then he drew himself. I had a vague idea of what he was trying to say.

"Oh, you saw me drawing and copied me. That makes sense, but you draw well," I said, feeding him a fish, which he ate up gratefully. In fact, looking at Forge's images, I noticed that they all looked suspiciously like some that I had drawn myself. I shook myself out of my trance and saw that Toothless was also trying to draw in the dust. He wasn't as good at it, but he wasn't drawing just to draw. He was trying to tell me something. He drew an image of a night fury from above, but with a missing left tail fin. He pointed to it with his head, and then motioned over to the work table that I had set up in the cove.

"You want me to try to help you fly again by using my inventions?" I asked, amazed that I was having a conversation with a dragon. Toothless nodded, and then gazed into the sky, looking like he really wanted to return there.

I walked over to my work table, cleared off some of the clutter that had already begun to accumulate, and pulled out a spare piece of paper. I beckoned Toothless over and started to take a few measurements, taking notes on how the tail worked and how it was laid out before drawing a blueprint design. Toothless looked at the design with an eye of approval, and I knew that I had to get my friend airborne again. It was the least I could do for one of my only friends that I had, and I needed to right the wrong I had done by taking away the gift of flight from him.

Hey readers, I'm sorry for the delay, but my computer broke and I'm getting it fixed. In the meantime, I have to use my family's computer, which I can only use for certain periods of time. That and I've been working on some big school projects. I'll try to update as fast again now that I have some time this weekend. Please remember to review.