Chapter 25 Gift of The Night Fury III

Tonight was the eve of Snoggletog. The berkians were celebrating in the great hall. Everyone was happy except one.

Hiccup sat with other teens. His friends was chating as much stupid and silly non sense stuffs as possible while playing with Stormfly and Mealug's children. Hiccup was patting Toothless son who was resting on his heaps like a cat. Stormfly, Meatlug and Hope cured on the floor besides the table and talked about their opinions on this human holiday.

" Hiccup. You need to cheer up." Astrid said and put an arm around him.

" I am doing my best. I am jealous you know." He said while drank a bit of mead like he just lost a bet.

" Jealous for what. It should be us to be jealous of you. You are the only one who recieve a gift from a dragon."

" Its no use if Toothless doesn't come back this night."

" He will. Trust him."

" I know I should, but the surrounding doesn't help me."

" Hey Hiccup, do you know what the gift is?" Tuffnut asked.

" Yes." He said. Everyone turned their attention to him and leaned closer.

" My gift is my mum." He said quietly. The twins was going to yell but they were stopped by Astrid who put her hands on their mouth.

" But your mum was eaten by a dragon." Fishlegs spoke softly.

" It made sense in the old days, but not anymore now." Astrid said.

" You mean back when we thought dragons were bad, it make sense that she was eaten. But now since we find out dragons are good, so that dragon didn't kill her." Tuffnut suggested.

" Exactly. Tuffnut." Hiccup agreed. The twins weren't really stupid or dumb, they just act like it, although they did think differently which could be seen from the disaster of the tree.

" So how can they possiblely find her? She's gone for fifteen years!" Snotlout asked in disbelieve.

When Astrid was going to explain, she saw the door of the hall opened slowly. She patted her friends' shoulders, got their attention and pointed to the door.

A stranger was standing at the entrance. Behind the person was a Stormcutter. People stopped their chatting, put their mugs of mead down and looked to the entrance as cold air poured into the place. That stranger wore a strange body armor, a mask and a staff on his hand. Who is this guy? The person removed her mask and revealed her face.

Her face was so familiar. But the people couldn't recognize her immediately as she was such a distant past in their life.

" Valka!" Stoick shout in happiness. He stood up and stormed to his loved, knocked a few people in the process. He turned his pace to a slow walk when he was only six feet away from her.

" Valka. Is that really you?"

" Yes, Stoick. Its me. I come back." She and then the two embranced. They really wanted to kissed each other on the limps, but they suppressed the thought as there were in public.

Hiccup trotted to meet his mum. He was excited, but he didn't know what to say.

"Hello...mum."

" Is that really my Hiccup? All those years." She lift his chin and saw the scar." Its really you."

Stoick faced the Stormcutter. Hate and love filled his mind. It took away his love brutally but gave his love happiness at the same time. When he made eye contact with it, it lowered his head and looked to the ground, avoided him. He realised the dragon felt gulit and sorry for what it did to him in the past, and hope he would forgive him. He put his hand on its snout.

" You don't need to felt gulit. You did the right thing. I forgive you...and thank you for making my love happy."

The dragon looked up to him and spoke something. Although he was terrible at dragonese, he knew it thanked him.

" He, Cloudjumper thanked you." Valka translated.

" I know." He said while closed the door to stop cool air pouring in.

" You understand dragon?"

" I understand him from my heart."

" Hiccup. You need to thank Cloudjumper for saving your life." Valka said.

The father and son was confused.

" I think its time to let everyone know what had really happened fifteen years ago..."

Flashback

Cloudjumper was flying over Berk at night. The king would sent scouts to this archipelago regularly to check the state of the war. And the returning dragon would always say the same thing" Its still going."

He heard the human blew the warning horn as the dragon raid began. He had seen raids before and this time was no different. He didn't like the war just like everyone did in his nest. His king said the future of dragons was to befriend with humans. But this was such a idiotic thought when he saw a viking chopped a head of his kind with his axe and a nearby dragon revenged the lost of its comrade by burned that human to ash.

Then he saw something unusual happened. A nightmare broke into a house which located on the edge of the village and it wasn't used to store food. He descended to get a better look of what the nightmare planned but still remained hidden in the night sky.

He heard crying of a human baby. He heard the nightmare was going to eat the human. He couldn't let this crime happened in front of him. He flew straight to the house and get there just in time when the nightmare opened its jaw.

He bited the tail of the nightmare and dragged it backward so she bited into thin air. She was pissed that someone dared to stop her from having a snack. She turned around and saw a dragon which had four wings, larger than her and he was angry. She knew she couldn't win a fight against a stormcutter easily. And it would be stupid for her to fight now when there were humans rushing towards here.

He watched the nightmare hissed in frustration as she flew away. He turned around to check the condition of the small human. He was alright except the damn female left a small cut under his chin. He was crying and scared. He touched the hatchling with the flat side of his wing hook gently so the human knew he wasn't going to hurt him. The baby stopped his crying and looked at him curiously. He put another of his hook on the cradle and played with the tiny human. The human was happy. He wanted to stayed there longer but he knew he must leave as the adults would reach here any moment.

He put his hook away and planned to leave. Then, he saw a woman holding a aword and looked at him with fear. But he sense other thing from her. She didn't looked at him with hate but amazement. He moved closer to the woman. He wanted to know why this human didn't chop his head off when he focused on the baby moments ago. To his surprise, the woman lowered his weapon and raised her hand toward his snout. He realised she didn't hate dragon. She saw the other side of his kind.

Just when the palm was going to reach his snout, a axe landed on his crown. He was so terrified that he let his instinct over took his mind. He fired at the attacker. The woman yelled and put him. He stopped his attack and turned to face this very special human. He wanted to show and proved her that his kind were not monsters as they human thought. He saw the large human rushed over to protect the baby. This was his chance. Without thinking, he snatched her in his claw and flew away.

" So Stoick, this is the truth. It is Cloudjumper saved Hiccup from a hostile dragon." Valka ended. The crowd was shocked that a dragon went to protect a human when he had more than enough reasons to not to.

" I am so sorry." Stoick said to Valka and Cloudjumper. " If I waited a little bit longer, I will never lost you and I could see more about dragons fifteen years ago."

" Don't say this Stoick. Its me who need to apologise."

" For what?"

" For not coming back...

Flashback

After seemed endless of hours of flying to Valka, she was dropped to a stone cold floor gently. She got up and faced the kidnapper.

" What do you want, dragon?" She asked nervously. She knew the dragon wouldn't harm her or why would it play with Hiccup. The dragon pushed her to a entrance of a long tunnel. She thought it wanted her to go that way. There was light, and the sound of waterfall and wing flaps emitting from the opening. When she exited from the tunnel, she entered the most beauitful and amazing place she had ever been in her life.

When she was looking around in awe, something block the light and the place dimmer. She turned around and saw a huge white dragon with long tasks looking at her. The giant gave a small puff of ice. She relaxed as she knew the giant would hurt or eat her either. The ice dragon shifted its attention to her kidnapper and made the latter bowed. She guessed this white dragon must be the king or queen of this nest. Then, the two dragons made a lot of complex noise to each other, like they were talking. She was fascinated. There was a lot more about dragons that she didn't know. She wanted to learn more. She scanned the corner of the platform she was standing and saw injured dragon. She knew it was the work of dragon trapper. She wanted to stay and help the wounded creatures, but she also had a family back in Berk. She didn't know how to choose. But she snapped her thought as it was the dragons to made the decision.

" Cloudjumper, why do you bring, no kidnap a human to here?"

" I want to show her that we aren't devils, my king."

" We can show her that we aren't evil, but the people of her village will hate us more."

" I also just realised that... So I plan to sent her back."

" Do it."

Valka walked back to the tunnel as the Stormcutter ordered her. She reached the place where she was dropped. The dragon lowered his back and asked her to climb on board by motioning his head. After she gripped hold of one of its spikes on the back, the dragon took off.

She was as terrified as she was held in the claws and had her first flight an hour ago. But she slowly relaxed and enjoyed the freedom, the view. She didn't know where the dragon was going, but she didn't care as she knew it wouldn't do bad things to her.

She saw Berk. The dragon wanted to sent her back. No! No! She couldn't go back. How on earth was she going to explain her returning when the whole village knew she was carried away by a dragon. Told them the truth wouldn't work as they never listened and would never accepted her explaination. They would see her as a witch who had the power of evil black magic to control dragons. Not even Stoick could protect her from the punishment of exile. She could only go to the outcast island as other tribes wouldn't accept a outcast if she get exile. But the place was ruled by Alvin who was the biggest enemy of Berk. She might have a chance if she lived with dragons, the creatures she loved. She cried in pain as she was never going to see his son and Stoick again, the two who meant so much to her.

The humans on his back started to shout in panic and hit him with her fists. He turned his neck and looked at her. She pointed at the direction of his nest with her hand. He didn't understand her shouting and talking but he could test their meaning with his action. He turned around and flew away from the village. The woman stopped her shuting and hitting and seemed to be happy. He didn't understand why she wanted to stay away from her home. But he knew the nest was going to be her new home and he was going to take care of her.

"This is why I don't come back... I am sorry."

" We understand Valka."

The door was opened again as Toothless entered.

" Toothless, you are back!" Hiccup hugged Toothless and then Valka and Stoick joined the embrace.

" Happy Snoggletog!" Astrid snnounced.

The sound of people cheering and celebrating exploded from the quiet room.