Chapter 10: The Discovery
A/N: I seriously just cannot thank you guys enough for supporting this story. You all are what keep this story going, you know that? You all should feel proud of yourselves.
Also, a big shoutout to Da0Boss0x for pointing out that mistake with the first two chapters; I'm still pretty new here, and I haven't exactly worked out all the publishing details yet.
Without further ado, enjoy!
Normal POV
"Uh, Astrid?" Fishlegs asked nervously. "I think we should start heading back. It's getting pretty dark out here, and we haven't found anything." Astrid sighed. Of course they haven't been successful. If a big Viking ship couldn't find any trace of him, then what chance did a few teenagers have, even if they were riding dragons?
The Viking girl sighed in defeat. "Alright everyone, let's turn back. We can't stay here much longer before someone will get suspicious." She turned her Nadder around to head back to Berk. They others followed suite, and soon they were on their way.
The storm hit them like a war hammer. One minute it was sunny with a few scattered clouds, the next the teens were battered with rain and strong winds. Suddenly, a particularly strong gale ripped Astrid from her place on her Nadder's back. The others tried to help, but Snotlout's Nightmare wouldn't listen to him, and the twin's Zippleback got confused on which way it was supposed to go, and nearly crashed into a sea stack. Fishlegs and his Gronkle just weren't fast enough to catch her, before the Nadder folded its wing and dove toward its partner and flew under Astrid and caught her on its back.
"You, you saved me," Astrid remarked. "Thank you," she said to the dragon that had just flown through the storm to save her. "Flying…storm, no, Stormfly. That's your name…Stormfly." The dragon chirped, as if in response, as they headed back to their home.
When they sneaked back into the Arena, Gobber was waiting for them in the center of the ring.
"So, this is what I saw flying out of the Arena earlier." The burly Viking remarked.
"Gobber! We, uh, it's not what it looks like, I promise." Fishlegs was not good under pressure. Astrid dismounted Stormfly and walked up to Gobber, who was expecting an explanation.
"Well, Gobber, we kind of, well; I found Hiccup one day in a cove in the forest one day and discovered he trained a dragon and at first I was going to tell the village but they took me on a ride over Berk and changed my mind about dragons and then he left and I had an idea to train the dragons here so we all can go look for Hiccup but we didn't find anything and then a storm came and I was knocked off and then my Deadly Nadder saved me and I named her Stormfly afterwards and then we sneaked back here." She talked very fast. "So, there you have it." Astrid explained.
She cringed, expecting him to yell or be mad at her. Instead he just laughed. "So, that's where Hiccup disappeared to everyday; and how you managed to ride the beasts." He reckoned. Astrid nervously laughed with him, as Gobber continued.
"Well, I have something to share with all of you. I kind of have been training dragons of my own. Well, I wouldn't really call it training, more like tolerating. A few Terrors showed up at the forge one day, and since Hiccup ran away, I let them help me sometimes making and repairing weapons. They're really not too much trouble if you feed them some mutton every once in a while. There's one I named Sniffer who's a really good tracker. I send him out to return weapons to their owners when I repair them. I bet he'll be good for tracking Hiccup and where he escaped to. Come on, I'll show him to you." He led the teens up toward his blacksmith shop, which had a bunch of Terrible Terrors in the back at the moment. He began yelling to get them to move, which they did, and then asked where Sniffer went. The Terrors pointed to the back room where Hiccup usually made plans, and Gobber went to get the little dragon.
When he returned, he was holding a purple little Terror in his arms, which surprised the teens to see Gobber being so careful with the dragon.
"Now, does anyone have anything that had Hiccup's scent on it?" Gobber asked them. Astrid then held up the helmet that Hiccup had worn in the Arena when he faced the Monstrous Nightmare. Snotlout began to question where Astrid had gotten that, but she shot him a glare that said plenty to the black-haired Viking. She held it up to the Terror, who sniffed it, then started flying out to sea.
The teens all hurried back to the Arena, where their dragons were waiting, then flew up to catch up with the purple dragon that was maybe their only shot at getting a lead on where Hiccup was.
Gobber decided to stay behind and covered for them, saying that he had sent them into the forests to get him some more supplies before the storm came in. As Astrid was following the Terror, she couldn't help but feeling glad that they finally had someone who could lead them to Hiccup. A small smile crossed her face at the thought of finally bringing Hiccup home to his father, to his Tribe; but mostly, back to her.