The wind shrieked so deafeningly that I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't hear the sound of Aroth's wings beating vigorously against the howling air, his panting huffs and puffs, or even Astrid's commands ahead of me. I felt deaf and blinded by the darkness, I felt afraid and anxious. It was a feeling I hadn't really experienced before; fear and excitement combined. While trying to will away the thought, Astrid had been trying her best to yell above all of the noise.
"Hey!" She shouted as she twisted around in her dragon's saddle, "We're pretty far from Berk now! Nothing but ocean out here! This is where we will be training!" I gave no reply. She decided to call out again, "Frida! Can you hear me?" Still no reply. Astrid rolled her eyes and swiveled back to a normal flight stance. Her hands hastily gripped the edge of the brown leather saddle and held on as tightly as she could.
"Here we go," Astrid whispered to her own sapphire Deadly Nadder. She patted his coarse scales as she slightly stood in her saddle. She was implying that she wanted her Nadder to dive towards the bitter depths below. The dragon did as commanded, falling towards the crashing, dingy waves.
Aroth's golden eyes caught a glimpse of the sudden movement ahead of him and did nothing more than follow. He rolled in the air with his spikey nose pointed directly towards the depths underneath us. My stomach felt as though it were going flip-flops within my belly as we made our way towards the water. I held onto Aroth's brown saddle for dear life, fearing that I might decline to certain death if I hadn't.
Astrid certainly had my attention now. She had pulled up in the saddle just seconds before she could collide into the splashing water. Her dragon 'put on the breaks' by outstretching his wings to their full extent, catching the wind like a parachute and slowing their fall. It wasn't long until she was joined by Aroth and I.
Though Aroth was rather smart, he still hadn't learned that if you drop into water, you become automatically drenched. As he and I dove towards the waves at an alarming rate, he somehow decided that a quick dip might be nice. Instead of stretching out his wings like I was telling him to, he soared straight into the ocean. It was only a moment of frozen paralysis until Aroth changed his position and rocketed out of the water, water spraying out in every direction possible.
I felt as though I was frozen when he hovered over the water. We were at a stand-still, staring across at the dim outline of Astrid and her dragon. She was laughing. I could hear her better down here, the wind had died down as I neared the water. And I could hear her laughing. My face grew warm with embarrassment as I shivered in my dripping seat.
"Sorry," Astrid blurted between giggles, "I thought that your dragon was NOT going to dive straight into the water." That only caused her to snicker more. I sighed and looked away as I looked down at my nice fur coat. It was ruined, completely wet with bitter salt water.
I allowed my temporary instructor to calm down before explaining what we were going to do. "As I said earlier," she shouted, "This is our training ground; Ocean. You're more than likely going to be fighting over the water, since everyone is going to be defending Berk in different terrain." I bit the corner of my lip before replying, "So I get the watery death?" Astrid and I giggled before she answered, "Yeah. Anton gets a village-y death, Christian gets a mountain-y death, and Kirsten gets a rock-y death." "Hypothetically speaking, I hope," I grinned nervously.
"But," I asked with a thoughtful expression on my face, "Why the ocean for me?" Astrid nodded and began to explain. "Well, we picked out who's dragon would be best where. See, if Firroth was sent out to defend the beach and ocean, and something went wrong.. He would die as soon as he would hit the water. But Deadly Nadders are.. more resistant to water. Just like you experienced before, Aroth can swim and survive water longer than anyone else can."
"Don't remind me," I grumbled through chattering teeth, throwing my arms over each other for more warmth. Astrid ignored me and continued, "Viper, Christian's dragon, is able to twist himself around in dense areas. He has quick vision and can understand when things are coming up and.. change his flight pattern. Though Aroth is a Deadly Nadder, which are very good fliers when it comes to things like mountains, he's rather clumsy. If two or three knights on dragons were chasing you through the mountains, he'd probably end up running straight into a boulder and knock himself out. And then you.. would be dead meat."
"I get it," I said when I had enough of her babbling. "So, does this mean I will be flying alone?" "Of course not!" Astrid countered, "We've selected two or three other experienced dragon riders to help all four of you out. They've all been selected by their dragons in previous Dragon Days, so we've got nothing to worry about." I grimaced. All of the dragon riders were helping us? "What about Hiccup?" I blurted, but I immediately wished I hadn't afterwards. Astrid sighed and remained silent for a minute or two. "All of us.. Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Fishlegs, and I.. we're going to.. to.. work alongside Hiccup. He's kindly requested that we don't, but.. how can we? He wants his fame and glory for defeating the lord of Knights, but.. we've heard all of his stories. We know how strong the Knight will likely be."
Astrid eyed me after she was done speaking, but I refused to say anything back. What would I say, anyways? Oh, well I hope you have a fun time trying to help Hiccup! No, I most certainly WOULDN'T say ANYTHING along those lines. It was a terrible way to say 'Hope you're happy when you're dead!' Lucan had said something about the Knights being strong and competitive... This wasn't going to be an easy fight. I felt like crying.
"Trust," Astrid murmured, rudely interrupting my thoughts. "Everyone's relying on us.. the dragon riders of Berk to protect everyone. But, who knows what'll happen of us? We're going to be the Knight's first and main targets, we're going to be huge bull's eyes to them. If our dragon is injured or even killed, where will we end up?" She continued with sadness gleaming through her eyes in the dim moonlight, "That's where trust plays it's biggest role. If we can't trust our dragons to protect us, we're going to lose to those.. Knights.. People are depending on US to fight off the men in shining armor, but really.. they should be depending on our dragons. They're doing all of the work."
She went silent for a minute or two. I found the sound of rolling waves comforting in this situation, though I knew that I had grown very accustomed to it when I was living on Berk. But out in the middle of it... the sound was magnificent. But Astrid broke the sound when she looked up at me. I could tell she was nearly in tears by that time.
"Don't... Don't lose trust in Aroth, okay? People are going to die today.. a lot of people. We weren't prepared. It's up to him to defend as many people as he can. You may be the last girl standing, but don't lose trust. You may be falling to your death, twisting and turning as the smell of your dragon's burning flesh enters your sense of smell.. but please.. don't. Trust is the most important thing you can have with your dragon. If you lose it, you've.. l-lost y-yourself.."
I never forgot those words, even long after that talk.