"Follow me! Low-level evasive manoeuvres! Come on, bud."
My 'beloved' brother often likes to say that when riding a dragon, communication is key. That you almost have to read each other's minds. Most of the time, I agree with him, and the majority of that time is when Snotlout crashes his dragon in the forest.
"Hey! What are you doing?!" Snotlout yelled hysterically at his Monstrous Nightmare was they flew into the thick trees of the gloriously large forest of our island. The Nightmare, in turn, roared as in agreeing. "We gotta go back, I think you missed a branch." What he attempted to accomplish by that phrase, other than suicide, I have no clue. The Nightmare returned to the trees and disappeared for a moment, but the sounds of crashing and bashing were still present, so they hadn't landed yet. They emerged above the tree tops, Snotlout's face even more deformed with tree twigs and branches poking out of his nostrils and mouth. "Got it."
And you have to have an open mind, because sometimes your dragon knows better than you. He kills me with these long lectures … imagine living in the same room, with your brother, who doesn't know when to shut up about dragons.
Astrid and Hiccup were having a staring contest or competing with each other through their minds or a lovey-dovey moment, but whatever, Astrid got distracted and she and her dragon were head straight for a fallen tree. "Stormfly up!" The Deadly Nadder, did the opposite, went down, threw her rider in the air, Astrid went flying through the air and landed back in the saddle. "You were right, Stormfly, it was down. Huh, I almost died."
"Almost died? I would have died." Snotlout flew up taking out a twig out of his nose.
"That's a good look for you." Astrid said, and immediately Snotlout put the twig back in.
Meanwhile, Ferno wasn't evading anything, he and Shriek were hovering in the air, laughing at their companion's attempts.
"Enjoying ourselves are we?" Hiccup flew up to his brother.
"I just … can't stop … myself." Ferno said through fits of laughter.
"Ferno when are you ever gonna grow up?" Hiccup sighed in annoyance.
"Soon, big brother, soon … just not now. Let me live a life." Ferno slumped forward, leaning on Shriek's horns.
"When have you not 'lived a life'?" Hiccup rolled his eyes. "You know, one of these days, matureness is going to hit you like a rock and I won't be there to help you. Now get down there and start doing low level evasive manoeuvres! Now!"
"You know, you're starting to act like dad." Ferno's light-hearted mood turned dark, and nudged Shriek's horns, sending Hiccup a disapproving glare. "And to me, that's not the best person to have for a brother." Shriek sped off to the bottom of the woods, narrowly and swiftly avoiding trees and branches, in almost perfect synch with his rider's commands.
"Hey, has anyone seen Fishlegs?" Hiccup flew beside the other riders, noting Fishleg's absence.
"I saw him yesterday, does that count?" Ruffnut commented.
Hiccup groaned and motioned for Ferno to follow him. The two brother's reversed their dragons and retraced their steps.
They found Fishlegs and Meatlug stuck in separate trees.
"Great, ya crash landed." Ferno groaned in annoyance, as they landed, not bothering to get off his dragon. He was sent a glare from Hiccup.
"Fishlegs, are you ok?" Hiccup walked up to the tree.
"Yeah, just hanging out, not like I crashed or anything … ok I crashed." Fishlegs said. Ferno rubbed his temples.
Hiccup tried pulling Fishlegs out of the tree, the result was him pulling off Fishleg's pants instead.
"And there goes my dignity?"
"Whoa, bro, don't let Astrid see you with those." Ferno smirked from Shriek's neck.
Hiccup sent him another glare. "You know you could help."
"Nah, the view is great from here." Ferno laughed.
Hiccup rolled his eyes. "Toothless, come over here, bud. Fishlegs, I know how to get you down, but you have to remain perfectly still."
"Why? What are you gonna do?" Fishlegs asked, concerned.
"Careful, bud, he's not wearing any pants." Hiccup warned the Night Fury.
"What? Wait a minute? What does my lack of pant have to do with—?" Fishlegs couldn't his sentence as the Night Fury, blasted a harmless blast at the suspended Viking, sending him flying in the air, and catching him, before he landed.
"Thank you." Fishlegs said timidly, getting off the Night Fury's saddle, and turning to Hiccup. "I believe those are mine." He gestured to the pants, and, without hesitation, Hiccup threw them to their owner.
"Now, what are we gonna do about Meat—"This time it was Hiccup's turn to be interrupted. His brother's Boneknapper, smashed its body into the tree. Ferno had a brain but looked immature using it, somehow he enjoyed doing that. Although the Gronkle had a pile of trees on top of her, she would be able to get out of them. "—Lug."
"Nothing, a good smashing and bashing, can't solve." Ferno said, proudly examining his work, from Shriek's back instead of neck, to hide from flying shards of splinters. Hiccup sent him 'The Look'. "Bro, if I got a brick for every glare you gave me, I would have rebuilt Valhalla by now." Ferno got off his dragon, ignoring the glare.
Hiccup shook his head and looked at Fishlegs. "How did this happen?"
"I don't know. I was just flying along, taking notes on the flora and fauna … typical guy stuff…"
"Yeah, because that's what typical guys do." Ferno said, crossing his arms on his chest. Hiccup didn't bother to glare at Ferno this time, he just rolled his eyes.
"…And something weird jumped out of the bushes. It was like a … faming squirrel!"
Both brothers shared a deadpanned expression. "Really? A flaming squirrel?" Hiccup asked.
"Or a chipmunk…?" Fishlegs suggested, but the sceptical look the brothers were giving him didn't budge. "Or some other flammable rodent … I don't know, guys, it scared us, isn't that enough for you?" Fishlegs mounted his Gronkle and flew.
Hiccup turned to Ferno. "Did you hear that? A flaming squirrel." He laughed.
"Or maybe a cross breed between a Monstrous Nightmare and Terrible Terror." Ferno continued to laugh.
Suddenly, with their laugh, their earlier tension eased up, and they were back to normal. Unknown to the other, each brother was wondering what in the world got over him. They used to be close siblings, and more importantly, the best of friends. Internally, they promised themselves for that sort of incident to not happen any time soon, again.
They mounted their dragons. "Everyone knows there's no such thing as—"Hiccup began, while Toothless was about to take off. Something, as bright as the sun and as fast as a Night Fury, whizzed past both Toothless and Shriek.
"FLAMING SQUIRREL!" Ferno yelled and finished the sentence, as his dragon threw him off his neck in panic. "Wow, you guys saw that right?" His questions was directed at both Hiccup and dragons.
"A bit hard to miss." Hiccup commented sarcastically, the top of his head and his green eyes peeked out of the fallen tree, to see a part of the tree smoking. A pair of stormy grey eyes joined his green ones.
"So what do we do now?" Ferno's pupils concentrated in the dark hole in the rocks.
"Find out what it is?" Hiccup jumped over the rocks and cautiously approached the small cave.
"I hate it when you get curious." Ferno groaned, but followed anyway.
A horned head pocked out of the boulders. It had intense yellow eyes and an orange colour. Ferno didn't remember seeing anything like it in the Book of Dragons.
"What is that thing?" Ferno cocked his head to look at the small dragon.
"Hey little guy, who are you?" Hiccup kneeled beside the entrance of the small hole and outstretched a palm to pet the dragon, but the small dragon, in fear no doubt, snapped at him with a collection of quite sharp teeth. "Whoa there, settle down big fella. I've never seen anything like him." Hiccup stood up, shoulder to shoulder with Ferno, scratching his chin.
Suddenly the black dragon pushed both the Haddock brothers away from the boulders.
"What's with him?" Ferno stumbled back a bit, from the force of the Night Fury's push.
"Whoa, hey, Toothless! What has gotten into you? Looks like he's hurt!" Hiccup pushed the night fury away, and walked up to the small dragon taking out some dragon nip.
"I don't know, Hiccup, maybe we should listen to Toothless about this." Ferno patted the head of the rejected Night Fury, throwing a glance at his Boneknapper who had settled on the ground, resting.
"Relax. It's just one small dragon." He showed the dragon the nip. "Hey, there big guy. Calm down, it's just a little dragon nip." He seemed to have gotten the trust of the injured dragon. Toothless began to make disapproving noises and grunts. "Hey, settle down, play nice." The horned dragon flew onto Hiccup and kept its balance with its claws. "Ow! Little dragon, big claws." Hiccup unpinned the dragon's claws from his chest.
"Oh, I am going to make great friends with this guy." Ferno muttered, getting on Shriek, with a mischievous grin.
-000-
"Oh this is so exciting! It's a whole new species!" Fishlegs squirmed like a little girl in the Academy after this.
"Doesn't look like a flaming squirrel to me." Tuffnut commented, looking at the small dragon.
"We have no idea what it's capable of." Fishlegs was still bouncing in excitement.
"Flame, do it." Tuffnut lowered his head to be face to face with the dragon. At once the dragon pounced on him and began to bite his nose. Ruffnut sniggered at her brother's suffering, until the dragon attacked her. "Hey that is funny." Tuffnut smiled.
"You guys, this is serious." The small dragon pounced on Hiccup, without actually harming him. "We have to figure out what to do with him. He's hurt."
"He's hurt?" Tuffnut said, rubbing his bitten nose that was now red.
"He's just really scared. He'll settle down." Hiccup rubbed the head of the dragons.
"Uh, new dragon, remember?" Fishlegs said. "We actually don't know what he'll do."
"Well someone has to take him home." Astrid said, and at once everyone stepped away, except Hiccup, who was holding the orange dragons.
"Well, buddy here's your somebody." Hiccup looked at the dragon, ignoring the annoyed groans and protests his brother was making behind him.
"This is just great. Why did I have to be your brother? Why did we have to share a room? Why do your decisions always have to pull me into them?" Ferno muttered. "You know, dad, is not going to be very happy about this." He called from his dragon. "And I am not helping you with that, I have a date with the woods and my sword." The Boneknapper flew off at full speed towards the woods.
-000-
Ferno crawled through the window in his room's ceiling, jumping, lightly on his bunk of the bed. He peered over the wooden frame to see whether his brother was there and asleep. Hiccup had his elbow behind his head and his emerald eyes closed. Ferno internally sighed in thanks. He quickly stripped the armour and shirt of himself and rolled his trousers to let the scars rest.
He signed and put his head on the soft pillow, closing his storm-coloured eyes.
"So your back?" Hiccup's voice interrupted his attempt of slumber.
"Sorry I missed dinner, but I have training, flying, sword practise, then troublemaking then hunting." Ferno smiled at his schedule. "So how did dad react to another dragon in the house of one of the most notorious dragon slayers?"
"At first hesitant, then Torch blew up the fireplace and we kept him." Hiccup replied.
"Torch?"
"Yeah, dad named him. Don't know why, don't ask?" Hiccup shrugged.
-000-
The next day in Dragon Training, the two brothers entered at the same time, Hiccup holding Torch, while the other teens waited.
"Ok, Torch, let's figure out what you are." Hiccup set the orange dragon onto the table.
"Oh! This is so exciting! Documenting a whole new species … learning all about it…!"
Ferno visibly rolled his eyes, even though deep inside him, he was an eager book reader, who often snuck out to the library to read, telling everyone that he went off to training. "Of course it is for you." He said sarcastically.
"Wait, learning?" Tuffnut slumped his shoulders.
"No, thanks." Ruffnut said in disgust.
Hiccup, in the meantime, was flipping through the Book of Dragons, with his brother overlooking his shoulder. "There's nothing in the Book of Dragons that looks anything like him."
"We even get to determine what it's called … that is a really big responsibility … I don't know if I'm ready for that." Fishlegs babbled on.
"I am. I'm gonna name the Snot out of it." Snotlout, confidently, butted in.
"20 inches for the wings." Astrid said, taking the measurements of the small dragon.
"That's a big wingspan." Hiccup commented, jotting down the measurements into the Book.
"Big wing. Big span. Big-wing-span." Snotlout tried to name the dragon, only to be rejected with a series of rolled eyes.
"May I have the honour of administering the claw test?" Fishlegs said formally, taking out a piece of parchment and holding it out in front of the dragon. Torch understood what he had to do and shredded the paper into pieces with the talons on his wings. "Look at these talons. They're razor like." Fishlegs inspected the sharp claws.
"Sharp-claw! Razor-feet! Razor-sharp-claw-talon-feet!" Snotlout spurted ideas out at random.
"Hold on. Is he serious?" Tuffnut looked at his sister.
"Well, if you realised that it was stupid, then there must be no measure of how dumb it is." Ferno smirked, ignoring the glare.
"You know what's next, don't you?" Fishlegs put his arm on Hiccup's shoulder, as if sounding obvious.
"No, not really."
"Only the single most important test to determine a dragon's reaction to eels." There was a beat of silence. "The eel reaction test."
"Yeah, 'cause that was totally obvious." Ferno said, walking up to a basket with eels, taking out one at random one. At once all the dragons flew away, in fright terror of the long, yellow and black fish worm. "I never did understand what is so terrifying about this thing." Ferno eyed his retrieving Boneknapper. He walked up to the orange dragon holding the eel in front of him.
Torch smelt the slippery fish for a moment, then with the snap of his jaws, the eel was in his mouth, being slurped up like a noodle.
"He ate it! He ate the eel!" Fishlegs bounced with excitement.
"Yeah, we can see that." Ferno said, deadpanned.
"Eel eater!" Snotlout shouted to Hiccup, who simply walked away. "Come one that's perfect."
"Fishlegs, has there ever been a dragon, who wasn't afraid of eels." Hiccup approached the book worm.
"Never in recorded history. We're in uncharted waters my friend." Fishlegs said in awe, imagining greatness and legacy.
"Well, recorded history of dragons afraid of eels is not very long, so get out of your daydream." Fishlegs clicked his fingers a couple of times in front of Fishleg's face.
"You hear that, Torch? You're one of a kind." Hiccup said, as Torch jumped on him and cooed, affectionately.
Ferno's gaze suddenly, turned to the one dragon that hadn't re-entered the training ring nor had left it in the first place. Toothless. The Night Fury was sitting on the cliff, over-watching the sea and village. The thick eyebrows knitted in confusion as to why the Night Fury, which was so devoted to his rider, sitting on the peak of a cliff, instead by Hiccup's side.
"Toothless! Let's take a ride bud." Hiccup called out to the Night Fury, proving Ferno's confusion, when the Night Fury didn't budge. "Toothless!"
"Ha, ha. So much for the Dragon Trainer." Snotlout said, boastfully, walking up to his Nightmare. "We've got this." He sat on Hookfang's neck. The Monstrous beast, blew off at full speed into the clouds, performing all sorts of tricks and pranks on his rider, by almost killing him. A half-dead Snotlout landed into the arena, after about 30 seconds of insane flying. "Ok, your turn." He looked at Torch. "But don't think you have to live up to that."
Torch jumped to the floor and crawled around on his wings and legs, inspecting the area around him.
"What's he doing?" Ruffnut asked.
"I think something is wrong." Astrid quipped in.
"Oh great, we broke him." Tuffnut deadpanned.
"Maybe he can't fly." Hiccup concluded.
"Everyone be quiet, look." Ferno pointed to the peculiar spark forming on Torch's back. Torch spun around, the spark burning brightly, and after several seconds of spinning in the air, he landed in the same place where he left. A massive burn mark was left on the stone floor of the Academy.
"You are one incredible little dragon." Hiccup said.
"Whoa, look at that burnt mark." Ruffnut exclaimed.
"Huh, and look at this burn mark." Tuffnut's sleeve was slightly smoking. Ferno ignored him, instead look at the orange dragon that was once again in Hiccup's arm.
"Did you see how it flew? It spun like … like a typhoon!" Fishlegs observed, looking at Astrid.
"And he came back like just like a boomerang." Astrid slapped her hands together to empathise.
"Hot-spitter! Flaming-combacker!" Snotlout attempted desperately.
"No … Typhoomarang." Fishlegs made a gesture as if seeing the name on a silver screen.
"Typhoomarang? … No, I don't get it."
-000-
Ferno vanished to the woods, to train with an assortment of different weapons of destruction. Hey, his brother was a blacksmith and his surrogate uncle was always ready to give away free weapons, he had to make use for those two really important contributing factors.
-000-
The Fire-bearer entered his room, in the middle of night. His grey eyes saw the scorched mark on the floor and that the Night Fury was nowhere near the house. In his place was the small Typhoomarang. Seeing that his brother was already asleep, Ferno decided not to wake him up. Without a word, Ferno climbed onto the top bunk bed.
A very large man, very muscled, about Stoic's stature, with vicious grey eyes, a messy black beard. By his face, you could say that his was a dangerous person to cross. One who had fought battles with an iron fist and punished his prisoners with merciless punishments.
He somehow felt familiar … Ferno somehow knew that he was supposed to know this man … but he didn't recognise him.
"Your time is coming, when you will find out something … something that will crush your perfect world … your happy childhood will be wiped clean from your memories … and you will have to face me and my wrath, going to Hel but not back, in the process."
Fire raged through the dream and Ferno's eyes blew open, the teenager sat up from bed, gasping for breath, desperately.
"Strangest dream … something that will crush your perfect world, wipe away your happy childhood from your memories and face someone's wrath, going to Hel but not back, in the process … what in Thor's name is going on with my head?" Ferno frowned, ran his brunt hand through his ink black hair and put his head back onto the pillow, though he got no decent rest whatsoever.
-000-
The next day, went as usual. Ferno got up, saw his brother was long gone, so he ate his breakfast, morning flight, training in the woods, lunch and then Dragon Training.
"You did the right thing with Toothless. He'll snap out of it." Astrid said, while sitting atop of her Deadly Nadder.
"Yeah, but what if he doesn't. Then you wouldn't have a dragon to ride, and if you don't have a dragon to ride, then you can't be the leader of the Dragon Academy. Ha!" Snotlout formulated a plan to take over the Academy, aloud.
"You do realise that there are two Heads of Academy? Hiccup and Ferno, right?" Astrid said and when Snotlout was about to add something. "And don't even think about second-in-command, I fill that position for both of them."
Meanwhile, Ferno, ignoring them, was making his way towards Hiccup and the Typhoomarang.
"Hey, you ok?" Ferno put his burnt hand on Hiccup's shoulder.
Before Hiccup could answer the Twins flew in on Barf and Belch. "You guys would not believe what we just saw…" Tuffnut said.
"Excuse me, we're having a power struggle." Snotlout said, irritated.
"Snotlout, you're not going to be the Head of the Academy or second-in-command, even if you're the last person on Berk." Ferno sharply stood up and sent his cousin a look.
"We're not having a power struggle." Hiccup beckoned for the Twins to continue.
"The whole forest … ultimate destruction." Tuffnut explained.
"It was beautiful." Ruffnut commented dreamily. "The whole thing was torched."
Hiccup looked at the Typhoomarang in his arms. "Torch?" He looked at the Fire-bearer who was eyeing the small orange dragon. "Show me." He turned to the Twins.
-000-
The riders flew to the area, where the Twins claimed to be the most beautiful place on their island. Everyone knew that their definition of beautiful, included several explosions, weapons and destruction, lots of destruction. They weren't disappointed. There was a massive scorch mark in the middle of the forest.
"Like we said, ultimate destruction." Ruffnut said.
"We've seen that burn mark before." Hiccup said.
"Not this big." Astrid awed the colossal size of the black rings.
"You know what this means. Big burn mark …" Fishlegs looked at the Haddock brothers.
Suddenly, Ferno came to realisation. He looked around, his eyes scanning the sky for what he feared was there. "Big Typhoomarang." Hiccup and Ferno said in unison.
Just as expected, a massive red Typhoomarang, larger than Shriek, who was the largest dragon in the group, flew around in the sky, blasting fire at everything it saw.
"He looks really mad." Tuffnut viewed the deranged dragon with wonder filling his eyes.
"Uh … it's not a he, it's a she. That's Torch's mother." Hiccup said.
"Torch is a baby." Astrid realised.
"That's what Toothless was trying to tell me." Hiccup voiced his thoughts.
"Whoever get between that mother and this baby … is gonna get fried!" Fishlegs, who currently was holding Torch passed it to Tuffnut, who gave him to Ruffnut, who handed him to Snotlout who shoved him off to Hiccup.
The massive dragon must have saw the teenagers with her baby, because she instantly made a beeline for them.
"Uh oh." Hiccup put the small dragon down. "Now, go to your momma." Hiccup shooed the dragon away, but it was too late, the Typhoomarang mother threw a blanket of fire at the teenagers.
For a brief second, Ferno stopped dead in his tracks, as a horrid memory flashed before his eyes, and if Shriek hadn't grabbed him by the back of his shirt and pulled him out of the range of the blazing flames.
"Thanks, buddy, don't know what got over me." Ferno patted his dragon's snout, then noticed his brother making the run for the forest. "Hiccup, what are you doing!?" He yelled.
"Lead the others, back I'll lead her away from the village!" Hiccup yell-answered back.
Ferno watched as the dragon went after his brother. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth, saddling Shriek. "You heard him, Astrid." He yanked the horns of the Boneknapper.
"What are you up to?" Astrid eyed him suspiciously as they all got onto their dragons.
"Saving our saviour." Ferno said and immediately the Boneknapper sped off. When the Fire-bearer arrived there, the Dragon Tamer was already in the skies on his Night Fury. "Oh, so you two made up." Ferno yelled, as he caught up to his brother, while they were being chased by the Typhoomarang.
"What are you doing here? I thought I told you to go back to the village." Hiccup shouted, clearly irritated.
"Yeah, like I ever listen to you when you decide to commit suicide." Ferno barked back, affectionately, before sharply ducking his head to avoid a blast of fire.
"Why won't she stop?" Hiccup said, as the two brothers flied through the skies.
"Maybe your passenger has something to do with that." Ferno yelled in an impatient tone, as the mother Typhoomarang was catching up.
"What the? Torch!?" Hiccup realised the orange dragon on the back. "You need to be with your mother."
"Looks, like I'm not the only one that doesn't listen to you." Ferno said. "So what do we do now?" He looked back at the deranged Typhoomarang, which was still chasing them.
"Use her size against her. Fly up. When we get to that clearing, use Shriek's tail like a bludgeon."
"That's what I'm talking about." Ferno said, as he steered Shriek to the sky. He patiently waited as his brother was being chased by the Typhoomarang. They came out of the clearing, above the ground, and Ferno took this as his turn, positioning his dragon into attack formation. Shriek performed his famous smashing technique and the Typhoomarang fell to the floor.
"Hope she's ok?" Hiccup said as he landed.
"I don't do 'ok', with my victims." Ferno smirked as he landed Shriek and slid off the back.
Torch hopped off Toothless and ran up to his mother, nudging her until she woke up. From her wings, came two other of her children a yellow and blue baby Typhoomarang.
"Nice job guys. Everyone is back where they belong."
I have to admit that Hiccup was right. Communication between dragon and rider goes both ways. And I witnessed what kind of devastation could have happened otherwise. Half the forest was destroyed, that's got to be a wake-up call to swallow one's pride. Not only must the dragon follow the rider's lead. But the rider must also listen to the dragon as well, because sometimes, but your dragon is saying, is what you really need to hear.