I felt cold air hitting me and I moaned something incoherent, wanting the nice warm blanket back. But I felt eyes on me, like someone was staring intently at me, and I shifted uncomfortably. I had had enough of people staring at me in my life. I opened my eyes.

I saw Hiccup standing over me, holding the blanket with his eyes wide. The other Night Fury had his eyes wide open too and his pupils were slit in warning, as if he didn't know me. I wondered why they were acting so weird and then I noticed that, lying here on the floor, they looked taller than usual, especially the black dragon. And then I looked down at myself.

I had hands. And feet. And peachy, soft skin, not white, hard scales. Damn it! It had happened again!

For the first few years, it seemed to be random. I would go to sleep as a dragon and wake up as a human, then stay human for a period of time, be it two weeks or two months, and then I went back to being a dragon for some time. But lately, I had been able to shift form at will, though an overnight shift like this still happened every now and then. Then I remembered Hiccup and the other Night Fury and I glanced back up at them, trying to gauge their reaction. Whatever would happen after this, it all depended on their first reaction.

I locked eyes with Hiccup and his eyes grew impossibly wider. Great. He had seen my eyes. When I was in dragon form, they looked like oversized, red human eyes. But when I was in human form, they looked like small, red dragon eyes, with cat-like pupils and all. I was brought back to the present by Hiccup himself, who dropped the blanket he was holding (thank the Gods, because it had been barely covering my naked body when he was holding it-one disadvantage of shifting forms) and took a hasty step backwards, taking his dragon with him.

"Who... who are you?" he asked hesitantly. Hold on, did he not know who I was? Did he think that I was just a regular human and he hadn't made the connection between me and "Whitewash" yet? Apparently not, for he wasn't calling for the other villagers to come and lock me up, the evil, dangerous beast.

"My name's... Jenna," I replied. It was weird to say my old name out loud again. I had tried to run away from it a long time ago, when I first realized that I would never be accepted by anyone who knew the truth about me.

He looked surprised at how scratchy and hoarse my voice sounded. Well, what did he expect? I hadn't had a reason to use my human voice in quite a while.

"Okay...Jenna," Hiccup began, obviously not knowing what to say. "Um, where are you from? And what are you doing here? I haven't seen you around the village before." He said this while backing up to the arena exit/entrance, keeping his eyes trained on my odd eyes. He was nervous and pretty wary. Maybe he thought that I was from an enemy tribe, sent to attack? Well, I technically was, then, because the last time I checked, the Lava-Louts and the Hairy Hooligans hated each other.

I realized that in all my thoughtful contemplation, I had stayed quiet for too long and that Hiccup had left with his dragon. I gripped the blanket tighter, sighing. I couldn't go anywhere like this and I knew that I couldn't shift back into dragon form within two hours of waking up as a human, for some reason, and by the time two hours went by, I'd probably be in a cell, either out of fear of what I was or for me being a prisoner of war or something equally stupid. Either way, there was no escaping it, so I did the one thing that I thought might help my situation under the circumstances: I fell asleep. Hell, there was always the possibility that I would wake up as a dragon before they came back.


An indeterminable amount of time later, I woke up and heard voices, as if they were far away and lost in a fog. Have I been drugged again? I wondered. Then, figuring it was important, I clawed my way through unconsciousness and focused on the voices surrounding me without opening my eyes or giving any other sign that I was awake.

"But Dad, she looks harmless! She could've harmed me when we were alone in the arena, but she didn't!" It was Hiccup and he was speaking to someone rather indignantly.

"No, son! You weren't alone. You had Toothless with you. This, this... monster must've realized that and didn't attack you. But she has to be locked up and sent off the island, Hiccup! Thor knows what she'll do to us when she wakes up!" It was the voice of a man, deeper than Hiccup's with a thick Scottish accent, and he sounded angry. Strike one. Plus, he had called me a monster. Strike two.

Monster!

Freak...

You're just a beast!

She should be shipped off the island!

MONGREL!

I frantically pushed away the awful memories of my childhood and tried to focus on Hiccup and the man's conversation again.

"What do you mean, monster? And what is she going to do to us when she wakes up?" Hiccup asked the man desperately. I realized that he didn't really know my true nature. He just thought that I was from an enemy tribe or something and that was why the man was mad at me. But clearly, the man knew what I was, and I had to suppress a shiver at that realization.

"Lad, I'm going to tell you a story, and you have to promise not to interrupt," another voice, less deep but with the same Scottish accent, said kindly but seriously.

"O-Okay," Hiccup said, obviously a bit curious about the second man's serious tone of voice.

"So, it all began quite some time ago, a couple of generations back, in fact. There was a woman who was said to have been struck by lightning shortly after her daughter had been struck fatally as well, one of the strongest bolts Thor has ever made, and she changed. She went insane from the loss of her daughter. Once gentle and kind, she transformed into a dark witch, with a heart of stone. This woman was from Lava-Lout Island, where the people lived in fear of her until one terrible day, a brave man stood up to her. He tried to intimidate her into leaving their island alone, but she just laughed at him and cursed his wife so that their first-born daughter would be half Night Fury, half human," the second man said.

"The unholy offspring of lightning and death itself..." I heard Hiccup whisper.

"Aye. The witch had sworn revenge on Thor for hitting her daughter with his lightning, so she deemed it fit that this man's daughter should grow up in misery. Rather ironically, Thor chose that moment to hit her with another lightning bolt to the head, which incinerated her on the spot. But the man and his wife had a daughter, named Jenna, and when the lass was five years old... she changed. Overnight, in place of their little girl, the parents found a white Night Fury. They, of course, panicked, and looked all over the Barbaric Archipelago for anyone who could fix their daughter. But no one knew how. So, the girl would periodically change from girl to dragon and back again while growing up on Lava-Lout Island. The villagers didn't understand her and thought her to be a beast, someone dangerous that everyone should avoid. So, the girl grew up alone, without friends, hidden away from the world. The only way I know this story is through Johann the Trader, who visited Lava-Lout Island several times then and heard of the hybrid girl. Anyway, one day a few years ago, Jenna mysteriously disappeared from the island and many assumed that she had either run away or some brave soul had finally gotten rid of her. The rest of the Archipelago assumed that she was dead and forgot about the unfortunate girl. But, it seems, she actually did run away, and here she is now."

There were a few moments of a silence, moments where I dared not breathe. I could tell that the first man was already decided on his opinion about me, the second man seemed neutral but more leaning to me being dangerous and uncontrollable while Hiccup had just learned my story. On Dragon Island, he had seemed kind and caring, but what would he think of me once he knew what I was?

"I don't care," he said. Wait... what? "I just don't care, Gobber. Jenna had plenty of opportunities to attack me and the other riders, dragons or not, but she didn't. Doesn't that show that she's nice? That she's a good person?"

"Hiccup," the first man (Hiccup's father, I realized) sighed. "We may have found out that dragons are harmless, but a dragon-human hybrid that grew up in a world where everyone, even her parents, opposed and bullied her? If I were her, I'd vow to revenge-kill any human in sight."

"But Dad, that's you! I just have a feeling that Jenna is different somehow... more forgiving, maybe. You gave the dragons a chance, so why won't you give her a chance?" Hiccup asked his father.

I heard boots scrape the stone floor and more voices joined the conversation.

"What's going on?"

"Where's Whitewash?"

"Who's that girl on the ground?"

"All of you, calm down! One at a time. Apparently, Whitewash is a half human, half dragon hybrid. We've drugged her, and we we're going to ship her off the island, but now..." the second man (Gobber, I assumed) announced to the new arrivals.

There was some shocked silence, before they all started talking again.

"What?!"

"Gobber, you're not serious?"

"Is this one of your tall tales again?"

"But she looks so normal!"

"Awesome! Does she have a dragon tail coming out of her butt or something? That's would be so cool!"

I heard Hiccup sigh and tell them to wait outside the arena, which I guess they did because there were no more rapid-fire questions. "Well, I don't know about you two, but I won't let Jenna be exiled." I heard the other Night Fury give a supporting growl, as if to say that he agreed with Hiccup.

"But..." Hiccup's father said, and I felt eyes upon me once more. He was staring at me. Finally, as if reaching a decision, the man proclaimed, "Okay. Fine. The girl will be held in the prisoner cells until we figure out what to do with her."

Hiccup made a noise of protest, but Gobber interrupted him. "Just leave it for now, lad. We'll see what'll happen when the girl wakes up." Hiccup fell silent again and I felt strong arms gathering the blanket around me, bundling me in its warmth, then lifting me into the air. We walked for a while, then I heard the clink and squeak of rusty, iron doors and I knew that they had set me down in a cell. I shivered, not out of coldness, but out of fear, because being in cells brought back bad memories for me.

I heard the other two men walk way, one with an odd walking pattern, like he had a stump for a leg, but I didn't hear the clinking sound of Hiccup walking away as well (I had noticed earlier that the skinny boy had a metal leg with a spring that made a clinking sound whenever he put pressure on it).

"Are you okay?" he asked, and it took me a few moments to figure out that he was talking to me. He must have seen me shiver and knew now that I was awake. Since he knew that, I opened my eyes (no use in pretending to be asleep anymore) and looked at him. I was on a narrow stone bench in a dark, dank, grimy cell and Hiccup and his Night Fury were at the barred door, looking in on me with an expression of... sympathy?