Okay, this took me longer than I thought to update. I wrote it quickly but I was being quite lazy with my double checks and what not. Anyways,
Enjoy!
I bet you couldn't even do it
It was warm when I woke up.
I slowly opened my eyes, just to be met with nothing more than infinite darkness. I blinked a few times but even then the darkness didn't go away. Even in a sleepy state my mind already started racing and I instantly thought I had become blind. I was holding my eyes open, right? I tried raising my hands to my eyes but for my surprise, they didn't move.
I looked down, which immediately seemed illogical because if I had indeed become blind, what could I see anyway? So instead I started moving my fingers around and to my great joy they moved just like they were supposed to although they were partially blocked by some unknown substance. I then tried bending my wrists in different directions in which I was successful. I started moving my wrists and wiggling fingers around, trying to feel even something that would give me a clue of where I was. Was I in a tight pit with warm ground around me? Or had I been buried in a large pile of yak feces? Or was I possibly in a dragon's stomach?
Well, at least I didn't smell anything so even if it was yak feces, it wasn't fresh. Not that it was very relieving.
Well, at least I didn't feel any pain, at least not yet. Actually the only flaws I could notice in my body were my possible blindness and the fact that I couldn't move any of my limbs more than an inch or so. I tried blinking my eyes once more and tried moving any part of my body that I could possibly move even a little bit and soon enough I could feel the tension around me loosen up as I wiggled myself around.
But then for my great surprise I could hear a loud grumble right behind my head, just like the one which humans' stomachs make. The immediate thought was that I had indeed been eaten by a dragon which apparently digested its food extremely slowly. Just great. A lowly creature like me would get a lowly end like he deserved.
Then I suddenly realized something. Eaten by a dragon... The dragon attack! Where was my father right now? And what about the king? What had happened? Not that I should care. If I was really being slowly digested by some obviously large dragon to fit in it's belly whole, why should I be concerned of others? They never were concerned for me except for Toothless... TOOTHLESS!
I panicked that instant. What had happened to Toothless? I can remember we were flying really fast and that I had had the worst headache of my life. But why were we flying again? I can't even remember right now. Just thinking about it made my head hurt. At least first I THOUGHT that thinking about the events caused the headache but after a while, I realized the pain in my head was really getting a lot harder even when I wasn't thinking about it.
"Aww come on! Will you just stop! I'm trying to think other things here!" I mentally screamed to my headache. Yeah, like I could scream it away.
"Ugh... Hiccup, will you please quiet down a bit, I'm trying to sleep here you know..." I could hear a familiar voice in my head but before I could realize anything, my mind was suddenly filled with a vast arrangement of blurry imagery of dragons, large halls and plenty of meat and more surprisingly, images of myself. I also somehow felt even sleepier than before. I shook my head as much as I could and managed to lose some of the sudden visions that crowded my head but what I couldn't lose was the strange sudden sleepiness.
"Wait... Toothless?" I thought and started to wiggle again, trying to free myself from the grip of whatever I was in. if I could hear Toothless in my head this powerfully, that must mean he's somewhat close.
"Will you stop moving around... that tickles..."
I froze. Tickles? Wait... How am I even talking to Toothless right now? I thought the Dreskr didn't last when you fell asleep and also I wasn't even concentrating on using it. Was I just imagining?
"Toothless where are you?" I tried, this time focusing on messaging him. If the Dreskr really was open, I should be able to send him a message and if it wasn't, I would know because my message wouldn't reach him.
"Somewhere soft I think... Let me see" He replied to me. Good, at least I wasn't imagining, at least it didn't seem like I was. I automatically opened my eyes in response to his message and could see a stack of hay blocking my vision and... Wait a minute. I opened my eyes again and saw nothing but black, just like before. But in my mind I could sense an image so powerful that it could even be thought as seen by myself although my vision wasn't quite as sharp as the image in my head.
"Wait, what is going on? What happened? Toothless, Where are you?!" I screamed in thought, trying to focus on messaging Toothless but my mind was too confused to send even the simplest of messages.
"Ouch, stop, you're giving me a headache. Stop moving and see for yourself" He messaged me and suddenly I was nearly blinded by a sudden burst of sunlight in my face as the tension around me faded away completely. So I wasn't blind after all.
I stirred my eyes and wondered. I definitely hadn't succeeded in sending a message, it was like he was reading my mind. After my eyes got used to the light, I could faintly start making out the outlines of our environment.
Hay. A lot of hay and a cloudy yet blue sky and a blinding sun.
I spread my arms to feel things around me and came to a quick conclusion that I was sitting on top of Toothless' wing and we had indeed been laying in a haystack. So it had been Toothless and not a pile of yak feces... uhm... those two don't really even compare, how the gods had I thought of yak feces?
I looked up, trying to find any sorts of landmarks but couldn't quite find any. Actually, I thought one of the trees had looked familiar but quickly realized that those trees grew all over Berk so it wouldn't be enough to confirm our location.
Well, at least I knew we were still on Berk because even though the trees couldn't tell us our exact location, they still only grew on Berk as far as I knew it.
"How about we get a little higher and try to see where we are. It can't be too far from the village because there's a haystack here but I still don't recognize this area." I messaged Toothless who replied that he couldn't fly quite yet because I had been sitting on his wing and made it numb.
"Oh, sorry about that. Well, I suppose that's not necessary, we can walk a little as well. There's a hill there, let's go." I said and pointed at an area that seemed to rise above everything else.
I knew Toothless didn't like walking that much, even short distances like that but as he had said himself, he couldn't fly yet so he just had to agree. We slowly made our way to the bottom of the hill and up from there, the scenery turning more and more familiar as we did.
"Oh, so we're here!" I exclaimed out loud. "I just didn't recognize the place from the ground. This is the place where we went on a few of our flights to collect berries."
"Hmph, I figured it might have been" Toothless messaged me quickly, turning his head a little away from me.
"You did? Then why didn't you say so?"
"What?"
"What what?"
"I didn't message you. How could you tell what I was thinking?" He wondered
"You weren't? I'm sure you did, maybe you just didn't notice it."
"No, I always notice when I'm messaging you. That's because I have to focus on maintaining the link and messaging you at the same time, I couldn't just slip something to you without first focusing a little on sending it through the link and I surely wasn't"
"What?"
"I'm saying I always notice when I.."
"Toothless, wait. When I woke up earlier one of the first voices I heard was yours. Can you maintain the link while you're sleeping?"
"Not that I know of. I've been told it's impossible because you need a certain amount of concentration to do it."
"Then can you do it first thing in the morning?"
"I don't think I can, especially after waking up, my mind is all blurry for a while after waking up, why? And what's with all these questions?"
"Because I think I woke you up. I was thinking about you when I realized I didn't know where I was and suddenly you replied to me, saying that I should be more quiet."
"...Now that you mention it, I did hear someone who sounded like you shout my name."
"Exactly my point. Are you sure you can't maintain the link while asleep?"
"Positive."
"Then that leaves only one question left. Toothless, are you focusing on maintaining the link right now?"
"Of course I am, how do you think I would be talking to you right now?"
"Ok then, could you turn off the link now? I need to know something."
"Okay, sure, even though I can't understand why. Closing now." He messaged and I could immediately feel the Dreskr fade away like usual. Strange because you couldn't feel it while it was active but when it's gone, you know it's gone.
I wasn't able to think much longer because the slight headache I had suddenly got harder again. I grabbed my head and my mind was soon filled with an image of myself holding my head in obvious suffering and also feelings of concern and sudden confusion.
The headache then suddenly doubled and I could hear Toothless scream, or was it me? I tried looking at the ground but instead I saw an image of two large tree trunks but the image soon returned to the place where I intended to watch, on the ground. I focused all my attention on a shiny red rock and tried ignoring the images that filled my head.
When I was finally freed from most of these images, I braced myself and lifted my head to see Toothless, laying on the ground with his pupils narrowed and front paws on his head. When I saw him, the headache nearly came back but I forced it out like I had last time, focusing on a single object that this time happened to be one of Toothless' scales.
"Toothless, look at me!" I screamed at him. "Focus on my voice alone, don't let the images overpower you! Focus on my voice!"
After a while his eyes returned to normal and he started breathing heavily, looking straight at me like he had seen a ghost, and based on what I had seen, maybe he had. The ghost of the past.
"Toothless, can you hear me?" I questioned in my mind, directing it to Toothless but not having high hopes because the Dreskr was off.
"Hi-Hiccup... Wha-What was that.. What, why, what is happening, what were those images? Why can you talk to me right now? You're not using your mouth and I turned off the Dreskr and I-I... ARGH! It's back! IT HURTS!"
Toothless! Focus! imagine an object and focus on it! Do it and the pain will soothe!" I shouted and once again got back some of the pain in my head. I did my best to do as I had before and focus but this time my mind was forcibly filled by pictures of different fish.
We remained in that position for a while, both fighting a battle in our heads. Even after we had defeated most of it, some of the pain still remained.
I panted hard and glanced at Toothless but immediately had to turn away due to a pain spike. Instead, I started talking as calmly as I could.
"Toothless, based on the result I think I might know what this is." I explained. "...And I think you might know it yourself. Think of last night. I bet you also had a headache while we were flying. I think the Dreskr between us grew too strong while we were fighting.
Toothless looked at me for a while, looking absolutely dumbfounded. He gulped like a dragon could and whispered to me exactly the thing I had been thinking.
"The Dreúgr"
A short one this time but I promise you guys, next chapter is where I'll get things moving for good!
This chapter is not exactly how I wanted it to be but I guess it delivers the point :D I'll be explaining more about this topic in the later chapters anyway.
-Dawnbreaker