Class today went pretty well. We weren't focusing on flying tactics or learning to fly in formation or anything we normally work on as a class. Today was meant to help Jack become better accumulated with Clearstar.

Now Toothless is the greatest friend I could have ever asked for. Back when I was the village weakling and nobody wanted anything to do with me, Toothless was always there to cheer me up (even if he was kind of stuck there since I shot him out of the sky, but he doesn't hold it against me… I hope). But now with the dragons living among us, I am glad to see how close everyone has grown to their own dragon. Astrid and Stormfly are inseparable, Barf, Belch and the twins go together perfectly, Hookfang and Snotlout share the same personality, and Meatlug and Fishlegs almost share one brain.

It always feels good to see a dragon and human getting along so well.

And Jack and Clearstar are no exception.

The two of them have grown remarkably close to each other since he managed to train her just a few short weeks ago. He has managed to train her to turn invisible and fire rapid acid bursts whenever he tells her to. And yet, they share an unbreakable bond with one another that Toothless and I share with each other. Deep down, I feel great knowing that I had helped make Jack feel so happy.

And yet, there is one thought that stays in the back of my mind. It has been there since the day we found Clearstar.

The egg.

Her egg is still lost in the woods somewhere; cold, unprotected, unsheltered, and exposed to the elements. What if we don't find it in time? What if it freezes to death? I would never forgive myself if that were to happen.

But this question has been stuck in my brain for a little while now…

If we do find the egg, what will Clearstar do?

She is a mother and her instincts will surely kick in the moment she finds it. She has a nest on her island, she has resources for taking care of her baby. Once she finds the egg, what if she leaves the island with her baby and never comes back? Jack would be shattered if that were the case.

I have been meaning to talk to him about that. About how if we find the egg, she will have to choose between Jack and her baby. Inside, I'm pretty sure I know what the answer is. I want to tell this to Jack, but I can't. He's so happy now and so full of excitement. I can't just crush his spirit with this sudden reality check, can I?

Well, I suppose we'll have to cross that bridge when we get there.

In the meantime, it's getting late. I looked up into the sky and saw the sun beginning to slowly set over the water. I dismissed the class and they all flew out of the arena in a heartbeat: except for Jack. He wanted to stay a little longer so he and Clearstar could privately train. I allowed him to.

Leaning on my crutch I hobbled over to Toothless who was sitting by the wall of the arena patiently. I looped the crutch over my shoulder, reached my arms over his back and pulled myself up so my right leg was in the stirrup and my left stump was just resting on the side. Without my prosthetic and Toothless' tailfin, we can't fly back to town. We're going to have to walk. Er, um, he's going to have to walk that is.

Toothless began to walk over to the exit and I turned my head to look behind my shoulder as Jack was dragging out more and more Outcast dummies for Clearstar. I closed my eyes and sighed.

Cherish your time with her.

The second Toothless' paw touched the grass he was already in a sprint. He breathed heavily as the forest flew by us in a blur of brown and green. With the wind blowing in my face and the feel of Toothless' back rising and falling made me feel as if we were flying, but it still wasn't the same. We were land locked and unable to take to the sky. But we'll have more than enough time for flying tomorrow.

Gobber had promised me he'd have my leg and Toothless' tailfin finished this afternoon. All that stood between me and my leg was a peaceful stroll through the woods with my best friend. It doesn't sound so bad now that I think of it that way.

Now just walking from the arena back to town is a good forty-five minute walk. But Toothless managed to compress that trip to five minutes. We burst through the last layer of foliage and were now running along the street towards the blacksmith shop.

Once the building came into view Toothless skidded to a halt on the gravel street, leaving a cloud of dust lingering by his feet. He came to a halt right at the entrance. "Great job, bud," I say as I pat him on his head, he let out a purr in reply. I un-looped the crutch from my shoulder, swung my left leg over the side, and carefully dropped to the ground. I put the crutch in position under my left armpit and hopped to the front door.

Before I could raise my hand to knock on the wooden surface, the door swung open, revealing the face of a man who looked very proud of himself with his overly long, braided mustache dangling on both sides of his face. "Ah though' Ah heard ye comin'. Ah assume ye're 'ere for yer leg?" "And the tailfin." "Of course! Ye didnae think Ah'd ferget 'bout Toothless' tael, did ye?" I let out a little chuckle. "No. I suppose you wouldn't forget. Stay here bud. I'll be out in a minute." The Night Fury snorted and shook his head in reply.

Gobber lead me into the shop and gestured for me to have a seat on a stool placed in the center of the room, surrounded by all the weapons and gadgets I've made throughout the years I've been his apprentice. "Alright," he said quickly under his breath as he walked around a corner and out of view. "Ah know Ah left it round 'ere someplace… Aha!" My eyes widened as I heard his sudden cry of triumph. He came walking back around the corner with a familiar rectangular piece of wood in his hand.

He walked over to me and held out his hand, waiting for me to give him back the crutch. "Ah'll trade ye," he said jokingly. I handed him the crutch, which he grabbed by hooking his left prosthetic hand under the cushion, and he held out my new leg. I grabbed it, looked it over to make sure everything was just the way they were on my other leg.

Once I gave it the all clear, I rolled up my left pant leg, placed the prosthetic accordingly to my stump, held it steady and pulled the straps to safely secure it. I gave one last tug and looked down at it approvingly. I let my leg fall to the ground with a satisfying clack and tried to push myself up from the stool.

The moment I left the seat my left knee buckled under the sudden weight and I violently dropped to the ground. "Whoop! Careful there, 'iccup. Ye need tae get used tae supporting ye'r own weight on that thing agaein." He reached down, wrapped his massive hand around my skinny arm and helped me back to my feet. "Thanks Gobber."

Once I had my footing back I took a deep breath in and stepped my left foot forward. I transferred most of my weight to the prosthetic and lifted my right foot up to step forward. My weight shifted suddenly and my body was wobbling from side to side. I managed to get my right foot back to the ground in time to catch myself as Gobber held his hands out in case he needed to catch me.

I took one shaky step forward, then another. Then I took another step forward with only a mild shift in balance. A few minutes later, I'm walking freely again. I let out a triumphant chuckle and looked down at my new appendage. "Whit did Ah tell ye?" I looked behind me and saw Gobber's face in a big smile which I happily returned. "Thank you, Gobber. You have no idea how much I- how much we appreciate this," I said gesturing over to the window which Toothless was eagerly looking through.

"It's nae a problem, lad. Jist remember, if ye ever need aenother limb, don't ever hesitate tae come here and ask." My eyebrows knitted. "I'll, uh, keep that in mind. Now," I cleared my throat, "how about Toothless' new tailfin?" Gobber sniffed and walked in the opposite direction and disappeared behind the same corner. After a few grunts and snorts I finally heard him cry out in triumph yet again as he came back around the corner with a big red fabric resting in his hands. "Ah believe Ah've made it tae yer liking."

A grabbed the fabric from his hands, unfolded it, and a familiar red tailfin decorated with a white skull staring back at me. I turned back over to Toothless, who was still peering at me from the customer window anxiously. I held it up for him to see. "What do you think bud? Does it look good?" The large black creature bounded off his hind legs and began jumping in circles on the dirt road. "I'll take that as a yes. Stay there, I'll come out and put it on."

Before I left, I looked over in Gobber's direction and smiled. "Thanks again, Gob." He saluted me with his hook hand and smiled.

I walked out the doors and approached the overly excited dragon. He was bouncing happily once his eyes caught the red tailfin. "Settle down! Settle down, bud." I put my hand up and calmly talked to him. "Let me just reattach this baby and we can go flying. How does that sound?" He gave me his famous smile and snorted again. He hooked his tail around so the end was laying at my feet.

I knelt down, slipped the end of his tail into the grove of the tailfin, wrapped the buckles securely around, and stood back up to look it over. Toothless lifted the tail so it was at his eye level and looked it over carefully.

"Well, what do you think? Does it feel normal?" His reply consisted of plowing me to the dirt and repeatedly licking my face. "Alright! Alright!" I laughed, trying to push him off. Once his paw left my chest I stood back up and laid my hand on his snout. "I know bud. It feels good to be whole again, doesn't it?" I looked down at my prosthetic and gave it a little shake for emphasis.

"Now, how about we go for a little ride before nighttime? How does that sound?" He lowered his head and began to shift excitedly from paw to paw. "That's what I thought. Now let's-"

"HICCUP!"

The smile on my face vanished as the sound of a loud, squeaky, and frightened voice reached my ears.

I whipped myself around and saw Fishlegs running at me at full speed. "Whoa, whoa whoa there! Fishlegs stop!" Before he could stop his large hulking body crashed into me and we both fell unceremoniously to the gravel road.

"Sorry Hiccup," he said as he picked himself off the ground, dusting off his fur vest then helping me back to my feet. "It's ok," I said as I began to brush off the dust from my vest too. "Just be careful next time. Now what was it you needed?"

Still out of breath from his run over here he bent down and held his hands on his knees for support as he heavily and greedily breathed in and out. "It's terrible, Hiccup! I still don't believe it! My-my Gods this could spell out disaster for the entire island!"

"Fishlegs!" I yelled. "What is it you are talking about? You've got to slow down." He nodded his head quickly up and down as he got his breath under control.

"It's Dagur, Hiccup. He's not in his cell!" My eyes widened and I could feel my pupils shrink to the size of the eye of a needle. "What do you mean 'not in his cell'"?

"Well," he started, "I went up to where we keep our prisoners to check up on him, but he wasn't there! His cell was empty!" "Ok, um, let me think here for a second. When you took him to his cell last time, did you take away everything he could have used to escape?" "Well," he brought his hand to his chin, "I took away the knives he had in his pockets and put his bow and arrows where he couldn't reach them."

"Did he keep anything else?" "Well, he was wearing his warrior helmet at the time." I stared at the large teen for a moment before I found my voice. "You left him with a sharp object that could be used for lock picking, willingly?" He scratched his head. "That does seem pretty obvious now. Are you mad?" In all honesty, anger and rage was building up inside me right now, but unleashing it all at Fishlegs would accomplish nothing." It doesn't matter now. What we need to do is find him before he leaves the island!"

"Wait, why don't we just let him leave? He'd be out of our hands then." "Because he's the only other one on the island besides me who even remotely knows where the egg landed! We still need his help." Fishlegs stood up straighter and took a deep calming breath. "What do you need me to do?" "Go get Jack and meet me over at his cell. I'll get Astrid." "Do you want me to get Snotlout and the twins too?" "I don't think we need them around in this case." Fishlegs raised his finger. "Good point. Alright. Jack and I will meet you at the cell!" With that, he ran off in the direction of the dragon arena and disappeared into the forest.

I looked down to Toothless. "Sorry bud, looks like that fly will have to wait. Let's go get Astrid."

Later

"So, let me get this straight," said Astrid, rubbing her temples, "you left Dagur, a psychotic, yet resourceful teenager in a locked room with a sharp enough object to pick the lock, and you don't even think about it?!" Her voice echoed through the empty halls of Berk's scarcely used dungeon and rang deafeningly in all our ears.

"It's bad enough that we're in this situation, but do you really have to go and h-hurt my feelings like that?" Fishlegs began to tremble and whimper. Astrid let out a small sigh. "Look, what happened, happened," Jack said with both hands raised as he was standing next to Heather (who was with Jack in the arena at the time according to Fishlegs), "there's no use playing the blame game. We have to find him."

"He's right," I spoke up, "what's important now is that we keep calm and find him. Now, there's only one way out of here, let's get to the entrance and see if we can find any clues as to where he went." Astrid, Fishlegs, Jack and Heather all nodded in agreement. "Alright, let's go."

We walked down the long corridor, passing empty cell after empty cell as our footsteps silently echoed throughout the halls. We never really had prisoners. Back in the day, our biggest enemies were the dragons. But we had built a dungeon in case we ever needed one.

And wouldn't you guess it? It turns out we really did need it.

The door leading outside was right up ahead. I reached my hand out and grasped the knob. "Alright, we'll start our search in town. After that we'll break into groups and search- oh man." As I opened the door, three faces were staring back at us.

"Snotlout? Ruff? Tuff? How did you guys know we were in here?" Heather asked curiously. "We heard Astrid yelling and followed the sound over here. We figured you were torturing Dagur. We wanted in!" Tuffnut exclaimed, pounding his fist in his open hand.

"Well, you wasted your time," I began. "Dagur escaped. Now we've got to look for him. And since you three are here, you might as well help us look." Snotlout put on his best angry face and smacked Tuffnut on the back of his head. "I told you this was a bad idea! Now we actually have to do work!" "Just shut up and come with us," Astrid demanded as the five of us stepped outside.

It was now nighttime and the sky was now covered in a giant black and blue coat with thousands of stars poking out of it.

"Hey, what's with the super soldier here?" Snotlout gestured to Jack, who was indeed dressed as if he were walking straight into battle. A shield hung on his back and he was holding a sword in his right hand and a bow in the left. Multiple arrows rested in a quiver hanging from his belt. "We are going against a mad man here. I have to be prepared for anything he throws at me." Snotlout quickly lost interest and continued walking forward with our group.

I lead the group to the center of the village and we stopped and formed a circle. "Alright, here's what we're going to do; first we search town. Look over and under anything you can. After that, we're going to split up and-" "Does anyone else smell that?" Ruffnut chimed in. I sighed. "Smell what, Ruffnut?"

She pointed her nose in the air and took in multiple wiffs through her nostrils. "It smells like… Something burning." Tuffnut's nose twitched shortly afterward. "I smell it too."

"Call me crazy, but I smell it too," Jack said. "So do I," added Heather. "Um, Hiccup?" Astrid tapped my shoulder and pointed to the top of a hill that lead to even more houses, but she wasn't just pointing to the hill. Over the crest of gravel road, out of my field of vision, there was a bright light flickering just over yonder. And the smell of a large bonfire finally worked their way into my nostrils as well.

Over the hill the light grew brighter and brighter until an object finally crested over the hill. It appeared to be a large wagon with large bales of hay on it, but those particular hay bales were on fire. And the wagon was rocketing right at us.

"Uh, guys," Tuffnut said, "I think I found him."