How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World has finally premiered in the Philippines (yay!). I can't watch it on the premiere day, because… college (not yay…). But! I WILL definitely watch it this weekend.
Holy Shields, I don't know if I'll be able to handle all the feels.
Well, while I'm bracing myself for the inevitable existential crisis I'll have once I watch the third… and final… film, enjoy this new chapter of "How to Train Your Dragon with the God of Mischief"
NOTE: I don't own anything here, except for my OCs. Lyrics to "Run Wild" belong to Laney Jones and the writers of the song.
Chapter 14: Test Drive
"I am already regretting this…" muttered Erland as the wind buffeted his face.
Embla laughed, her antennae fluttering in the breeze. "This was your decision, Loki. There's no turning back now," she reminded him as they flew in between Toothless and Stryka, the six of them soaring across the ocean.
"Wow…" Zenna looked behind her, seeing Berk slowly getting smaller the further away they flew. "And here I thought a mountaintop view was the epitome of beauty. This is amazing!" she shouted, throwing her hands up in the air.
"And my love and I get to experience this view every time we take wing," chirped Stryka, glancing at her beloved mate who was thrilled to be back where he belonged – the sky.
"Okay there, bud, we're gonna take this nice and slow," Hiccup said as they reached cruising altitude. "Here we go. Here we go… position three, no, four…" he mumbled, consulting his cheat sheet.
"Lose the cheat sheet, Hicc. Flying's supposed to be instinctual. You just do it," hollered Zenna. She then looked down at Stryka. "It is instinctual, right?" she asked uncertainly, relaxing when Stryka bobbed her head up and down in affirmation.
Ignoring Zenna, Hiccup checked his cheat sheet then pushed on the pedal, opening the tail fin.
"Let's do this!" Eyes alight with determination, Toothless maneuvered around a cloud, him and Hiccup grinning when they saw that their flying was going smoothly.
"Not bad…" Erland murmured, still keeping a tight grip on Embla's saddle. He had made the mistake of looking down earlier and his stomach was turning over inside of him.
"Alright, it's go time. It's go time." Hiccup signaled to his friends that it was time to dive.
Slowly, then, gradually gaining speed, Toothless, Stryka, and Embla dove down until they were skimming the tops of the waves.
"Come on, buddy, come on, buddy!" Hiccup encouraged Toothless as they leveled off.
"Alright, Stryka! Atta girl!" Zenna cheered as Stryka gaily soared above the white-capped waves.
"Oh thank Norns, oh thank Norns…" Erland chanted under his breath, nausea diminishing now that they were no longer so high up.
The dragons flew under a natural rock arch, the seagulls calling out to them and to one another overhead. So far, so good…
"Sea stack!" Zenna yelled to Hiccup and Toothless before the duo plowed into one of the several sea stacks dotting the water.
"Sorry!" Hiccup yelped, hurrying to steer Toothless out of harm's way.
"It's okay accidents happe— Oh shit!" Toothless growled as they hit another one.
"That was my fault."
Erland rolled his eyes as Embla picked up speed to glide beside Toothless. 'Hit him for me,' he commanded Toothless, the Night Fury gladly slapping Hiccup with his ear.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it. Position four, uh, three." Huffing, Hiccup changed the tail fin's position again, this time, sending him and Toothless climbing upwards. Stryka and Embla followed suit, roaring with delight.
"Yeah! Go baby!" Hiccup yelled, feeling the adrenaline rush.
"Yes! Wooooo!" Zenna howled, violet eyes sparkling with unbridled joy.
Oh glory to the gods! This was the most spectacular thing they had ever experienced!
But not for Erland.
The higher Embla flew, the more his fear grew. Gripping the saddle so hard that his knuckles turned white, Erland found himself thinking back to when he was still Loki… when he was hanging over the Bifrost with just Gungir to keep him from falling…
…When he let go of all that he had known.
Embla, sensing her rider's distress, tried to slow herself down, but the winds were blowing too wildly. She had no choice but to keep ascending. She tried to whisper words of encouragement and reassurance but the former god didn't seem to hear her, too great was his fear.
Oblivious to Erland's rising panic, Hiccup and Zenna continued to fly higher and higher on Toothless and Stryka's backs.
"Oh, this is amazing. The wind in my…" Hiccup barely got the words out of his mouth before a gust of wind tore his cheat sheet off the saddle.
"CHEAT SHEET! STOOOOP!"
All three dragons, believing that Hiccup had sent out a direct command to them, paused in mid-flight, their aerodynamic forms curved like cats prepared to leap. The resulting stop in their momentum caused Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland to be unhooked from the saddles.
The whole ordeal lasted about three seconds, enough time for the six companions to realize with horror what was happening and what was about to happen.
Then they started to fall out of the sky.
"NOOOOOO!" Hiccup forgot about the cheat sheet as he and Toothless fell, desperately trying to reach each other.
"Holy Shieeeeeeeeelds!" screamed Zenna, flapping her arms about uselessly. Stryka roared and quickly righted herself and swiped at Zenna with her right front leg, her claws snagging on Zenna's fur vest.
Grunting, Zenna managed to pull herself toward Stryka and haul herself back onto the saddle. "Come on, Hicc!" she yelled frantically to her surrogate brother.
"Oh, gosh! Oh, gods! Oh, no!" Hiccup saw a mountain peak whiz by. "Y-you gotta angle yourself! Okay, no, no, no! Come back down towards me! Come back down… YOW!" he yelped frantically to a struggling Toothless before getting smacked in the face with the Night Fury's tail. They had to get back to each other and pull up before it was too late…
Finally, the two of them managed to get to each other.
Then the roars of a Changewing grabbed their attention.
"ERLAND!" Hiccup and Zenna saw, to their horror, that their friend was still falling. What was worse was that he wasn't even trying to get back to Embla. He was simply frozen, curled up into a ball with his eyes tightly squeezed shut.
Helpless.
He was absolutely helpless.
'This is it… I'm going to die…' thought Loki as gravity continued to pull him down. Perhaps this was his fate all along, to fall after having risen so high.
He had been a king of Asgard before falling off the Bifrost.
He had been a dragon rider, had touched the clouds, only to fall and die like a lowly mortal.
He heard Hiccup and Zenna screaming, begging him to open his eyes and fight against his inevitable fate, and he felt a pang of sorrow.
'I'm so sorry. And I had grown so fond of you two as well…' He thought, regretting that he never got a chance to tell Hiccup and Zenna the truth.
But, then again, maybe it was better that they didn't know. At least, when he died, they would remember him as a friend and not as a monster…
"LOKI!"
Eyes snapping open, Loki saw Embla still freefalling beside him.
"Grab on!" the Changewing roared, stretching out her tail.
He grabbed onto Embla's prehensile tail and yelped as he was tugged towards her. Scrambling onto the saddle, Loki finally broke out of his stupor.
"Pull up!" Hiccup hollered, the cheat sheet somehow finding its way into his mouth, as they neared the tree line.
The three Vikings pulled hard on their dragons' saddles, desperate to get back up into the air before they crashed. To Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland's immense relief, they cleared the tree line by the skin of their teeth. That's when they realized they were headed straight for a sea stack maze!
Hiccup spat the cheat sheet out of his mouth and checked it.
"JUST LOSE IT ALREADY!" Both Erland and Zenna shrieked as they approached the treacherous obstacle course.
Deciding then and there to listen to his two friends, Hiccup threw the cheat sheet away and decided to trust his instincts.
They all did.
If anyone had been sailing around the area, they would have been treated to a most wondrous sight: three young Vikings on the backs of dragons, slaloming through the sea stack maze at great speeds. It was as if man and dragon had become of one mind, of one body, as they took quick turns, twists, and spins in navigating through the mazy multitudes.
For Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland, it was as if something had awakened in them. Flying suddenly felt so natural, like they had been doing this all their lives.
Hiccup and Zenna, as they made snap decisions, felt as if they were sharing their thoughts with Toothless and Stryka, the two Night Furies trusting their riders to guide them safely out of the danger.
As for Erland and Embla, they really were reading each other's minds.
'Right.'
'Left.'
'Turn that way.'
'Turn this way.'
'Look out!'
'Phew, close call!'
'Do we go up?'
'No, go down.'
'Here?'
'There!'
They went back and forth, both of them assessing the terrain and relaying their thoughts to one another at impossible speeds.
And the more he and Embla cooperated with one other, the more Erland forgot about the paralyzing fear he had felt when he had tumbled through the air. He felt a swell of confidence surging through him, fueled by adrenaline, and trusted Embla that they would make it out of here alive – together.
The fog cleared, revealing the end of the maze. Toothless, Stryka, and Embla gleefully flew onwards, relieved to see open water up ahead without a sea stack in sight.
After a brief moment to realize that they were all still in one piece, Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland found themselves celebrating.
"YEEEEAAAAHHH!" Hiccup yelled, swinging his arms up over his head in triumph.
"WOOOOOOO!" Zenna hollered into the wind, the biggest grin on her face.
"YES!" Erland whooped, pumping his fist in the air.
In celebration, Toothless and Stryka both unleashed plasma blasts that exploded into two glorious infernos… right in front of them and their riders.
"Come on!"
"Aw man!"
"Don't even think about, Embla." Erland smirked as his Changewing opened her mouth.
"I-I was going to roar, Loki! I don't even know how to breathe fire!" protested Embla, her jaws gleaming green with acid.
Erland fondly rolled his eyes before looking at Hiccup and Zenna covering their faces as the flames washed over them like an orange wave. Thankfully, the blasts hadn't been lethal and only singed their hair.
But oh how Erland laughed at the sight of his two friends' sooty faces.
Hiccup and Zenna both glared at Erland as he laughed at them, before laughing themselves.
They couldn't believe it. They actually flew, for real. And they'd managed to survive going through a treacherous sea stack maze at high speeds, on the backs of dragons no less.
The three of them laughed for a couple more minutes before looking at the sights all around them, Toothless, Stryka, and Embla slowly climbing up until they were back high up in the clouds.
"Well," Erland looked down before looking back up at the two young Vikings who had roped him into all of this madness. "I think it's safe to say that I'm no longer that afraid of heights," he declared before reaching down to rub the little spot between Embla's ears. 'Thanks for saving me, Embla,' he mentally added.
"I've got your back, Serpent Tongue." Embla's antenna gently rubbed against his cheek. "From now on, you are my rider, my comrade… my friend. And I will always be ready to protect you. I swear by the blood of my ancestors, you need only call for me and I will be there," she said softly.
"What's she saying, Erland?" asked Hiccup, seeing how happy the young man was.
Smiling and giving Embla another head rub, Erland looked up. "She just promised to protect me. Says I'm her friend," he replied before looking at Toothless and Stryka. "I imagine that Toothless and Stryka feel the same way, yes?" he inquired.
"Definitely." Toothless smiled. "Hiccup, while you may have taken away my ability to fly solo, you've given it back… with a little something more. From now on, you are my best friend. My rider and brother in all but blood. No enemy, human or dragon, shall harm you as long as I live. By the blood of my ancestors, I so swear," he pledged.
"As do I." Stryka trilled. "Zenna, my human sister, by the blood of my ancestors, I swear to you that no harm shall come to you as long as I live. As long as there's breath in me, I will do my best to keep you safe," she promised.
When Erland translated their words, Hiccup and Zenna were profoundly touched. Hugging their dragons, they both whispered to do the same.
'No matter what happens…' Erland leaned down and rested his hand against Embla's neck. 'The three of us will protect you all as well. If there comes a time where we are discovered, Hiccup, Zenna, and I will fight with everything we have to keep you three safe. I promise you, Embla. As your rider… as your friend… I will never let anything happen to you,' he promised.
Embla crooned, "I know you will, Loki. I trust you." And went higher and higher.
Throwing his hands up high, Loki laughed, feeling the clouds part through his fingers. Seeing Hiccup and Zenna follow him on Toothless and Stryka, he realized something.
He had friends now.
He wasn't alone anymore.
"There's a light at the end of the darkness," Zenna suddenly sang out, surprising him and Hiccup. She smiled and bobbed her head to an imaginary beat. "The last step is always the hardest…"
"She's singing Eli's song…" Hiccup whispered, tears coming to his eyes. It had been ages since he heard Elias sing that song, a song the older Fiersome had written for them and would have performed together in their band's debut before the fateful raid happened…
Zenna felt her heart grow light as she imagined her older brother looking down at her from up high in Valhalla, singing his song. "But we fight it, and we push against a world that's caving in. It's not power that makes you the strongest…"
Looking at each other, Hiccup and Zenna grinned.
Hiccup and Zenna: Run wild, run free!
The sky's beneath our feet!
Run wild, run free!
Won't hide what we were meant to be!
Hiccup laughed and sang along, Zenna and Erland backing him up.
Hiccup: There's a dream that waits like a tiger,
An ember that grows to a fire.
And we're climbing to the greatest heights,
The world can't stop us now!
They try to bring us down but we just burn brighter…
'Only those two can start singing at any moment… But what the heck, this occasion definitely calls for singing!' thought Erland as he joined Hiccup and Zenna in singing the chorus.
Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland: Run wild, run free!
The sky's beneath our feet!
Run wild, run free!
Won't hide what we were meant to be!
Toothless, Stryka, and Embla crooned and warbled, singing along in their own special way, as they took their riders higher up into the clouds.
And all the while, Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland sang their hearts out, their voices harmonizing perfectly and floating on the winds.
Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland: Run wild, run free!
The sky's beneath our feet!
Run wild, run free!
Won't hide what we were meant to be!
It was a whole other world, up in the sky…
Up in the sky, with their dragons, they really were free.
Read and review! And, like Hiccup, Zenna, Erland/Loki, Toothless, Stryka, and Embla… RUN WILD! RUN FREE!
-GuardianDragon98