Chapter 19: Snooping Out the Competition… and Snooping in General

Now that I was truly thinking of the fact that there were other species of dragons, I just had to go find some. Oakheart and I perched at the top of the great hall, looking for any rarer dragons that were accompanied by a student. As time passed, I saw more and more vikings emerging from the city of tents wearing competition clothes of various shades and colors. It seems that humans now come in as many colors as dragons! I chuckled to myself, enjoying the thought.

Quite some time had passed, before I noticed a white shape circling up high in the air. It was quite large, so Oakheart and I flew up to investigate. We were rewarded with the shape revealing itself as a boneknapper, bleached white as the bones it wore. On it's back perched a rider in, surprise!, black leather competition clothes, with a white clan crest on the back. They appeared to be working on making their turns tighter, as they would start to dive, and then twist almost sideways as they arced through the clouds.

As they spiraled past, Oakheart dove after them, building speed until he threaded the eye of their spiral. When they straightened up, he pulled up alongside, and I gave the girl riding the skeletal dragon a grin. A challenging grin. The kind that says, "Come on, let's race, just because we can." She grinned back, and we both started picking up speed as we changed into slightly steeper dive angles. Out past the edge of Berk we flew, and down towards the ocean. On impulse, I had Oakheart tuck in his wings, and we plummeted like a comet down towards the whitecaps, stopping our fall to zoom across the ocean at high speed. We made a vertical turn around a seastack, and then rose back up and around, heading towards the shore. I looked around, wondering where the dragon had gone, when I saw a talon out of the corner of my eye. My head shot up, to see the bleached stomach scales of it passing us overhead.

"Nice try, but I'm still in the lead!" the rider called.

"Not for long!" I shouted back, and I leaned into Oakheart, practically flat against his back to cut on drag. So that's what the belly padding is for! I felt the thicker cloth protecting me from getting jostled or poked by the small spines on Oakheart's back. With my change in position, I felt something else as well. I felt Oakheart surge beneath me. He picked up speed, and we caught back up to the boneknapper, so that we passed underneath, and pulled up in front of them. Yes! I dove down to the landing field next to the tents, feeling the impact of the boneknapper landing just moments later.

I smiled at the other rider. "Good race! I haven't had a challenge like that for a while."

"Same here! I really thought that I had you, but then that sudden burst! Whoa!" We both slipped off our dragon's backs, and walked towards the tents. "I'm Olivia. Olivia the Creative."

"Frostfire Markson. And this is Oakheart." He let out a friendly growl.

"This is my partner BoneChiller." He let out a squeaky purr. She laughed. "He's still getting used to his voice." I chuckled too.

"Oakheart only just got used to his size. I completely relate." As we meandered through the forest of striped cloth, we swapped stories of our dragons, our adventures, and just fun in general. We joked about how seemingly every other person had black as the base color for their crest, and that Gronckles seemed to be under-rated by so many. "So, obviously you didn't get BoneChiller from the school. Where did you get him?"

"Well, actually from Gobber, in a round-about sort of way."

I gave a sideways glance. "It sounds like a story to be told."

"Well… for a very long time Gobber was persued by a boneknapper. No one believed it even existed. It was just a myth. But one day, he managed to find it, and make peace with it. He brought it back to Berk, along with four or five others. Over time, they started to settle here, and raise hatchlings. Gobber's boneknapper had it's first nest right next to his forge, and Bonechiller was one of the eggs. He gave it to me, because boneknappers are such loyal and sweet dragons, so they make great ones for first-time trainers. After a while, the boneknappers decided to move more into the forest, where they wouldn't break so many things by accident. I remember what Gobber said:

'It's for the best. Boneknappers are large dragons, and they need space to live. So, they're going where they won't be confined by small, brittle houses.'

He had been pretty torn up about it, but his boneknapper still comes to visit sometimes. And as he knew, it really was better for them." She trailed off, as we were both lost in thought. Suddenly, she looked up. "Oops, I was so busy telling the story, I passed my clan tent! I had better go." I nodded.

"Alright. See you in the competitions." I gave a half smile.

"Better believe it. I'm going to challenge you to a rematch. We'll race it out on the obstacle course. See who wins then."

"You have a deal." We both grinned, knowing we were most certainly friends and rivals now.

I started further in towards my own tent, not really thinking of much. "Do you even know what would happen if anyone heard about it, even thought they heard about it? It would be the end of this whole thing!" I heard an angry whisper coming from around the side of a nearby tent. "I've worked too hard to risk anything that would topple this achievement." I slowed, walking quietly towards the corner of the turquoise and red cloth.

"...alright. You're right. We can't let them know."

I knew this was eavesdropping, but my curiosity got the better of me- this sounded just too mysterious, and possibly criminal.

"Good."

"But are you sure? I mean, I don't want to make a mistake… It could really hurt someone."

"We won't make a mistake. I'm sure of it." I listened closely, my eyes widening. Hurt someone? This sounded bad. What's worse, that one voice sounded like Yarlo… What was that bully planning on doing now? I crept back towards the path as quietly as I could, not wanting to be seen by whomever these co-conspirators were. I slipped onto Oakheart's back, and had him take off, flying first towards the village, and then circling back around to pass over the tent. I saw Yarlo's retreating back, and a swish of the tent flap as a girl came out. Oakheart floated on the breezes overhead, unseen.

"Come on, boy. Let's see what they're up to." We followed her, the bright turquoise of her clan gear making her easy to spot. "Just where are you going?" I muttered to myself. We had finally made it to the edge of the tents. With a quick glance around her, she walked out into the open... And then into the woods. I nudged Oakheart to land in a tree further in, hoping to get a look at what was going on. His green scales camouflaged us perfectly.

"Phantom. Phantom!" She called. Out of the dim light a purple and magenta form emerged, wearing a saddle and saddlebags. She jogged up to her, patting her snout in a relieved way. Well what do you know, another boneknapper. This must be one of the other descendants of the dragons that Gobber brought to Berk. I began to stifle my breathing, trying to avoid putting any trace of my scent in the air. Boneknappers had an incredible sense of smell. That was what made them such great trackers. "Hey girl. We have a job to do." She reached up to the bags on the dragon's shoulders, pulling them onto the ground. With her back to me, I couldn't see what she was doing in them. What is she getting? A weapon? Their secret something-or-other? I leaned forward slightly, trying to get a better look.

Cree-eek. A low growl emerged from the boneknapper's throat. Shoot! My eyes darted to the bark of the tree we were perched in. The girl's head shot up. She looked around silently, instantly on alert. Her eyes scanned the brush around her, slowly working up the trees as Phantom panted beside her, like a bloodhound itching to give chase. Very softly at first, another sound made its presence known: a continuous hiss. I slowly dipped my head down to face the tree below us. It appeared that the tree itself was making the sound. My brow knitted together as the girl's stance relaxed. She placed a calming hand on her dragon. "Easy girl; we're alright. It's just Rorrim. Yarlo said he was here." The boneknapper ceased growling, but remained on edge as our tree quieted. I waited to see what exactly she meant.

Slowly, a slight shadow unfurled itself from around our tree, winding down onto the ground. I finally saw what the girl had gotten out of her bag: a dried haddock. She held it out, and slowly color leaked into the shadow, revealing its true form. All of a sudden, the conversation I had heard started to make a little sense. This could hurt people, and cause a lot of problems. It could also be used for quite a bit of mischief and cheating.

I was staring down at the back of a changewing.