AN: Before I even start, I want to warn everyone that there are mentions of abuse in this chapter. I probably should have mentioned that in previous chapters as well, but I never got around to doing so. And I also wanted to recommend that if you can check out my profile for any news, some of it might be important.

Chapter Thirty Six

"We've been given a call, Been forgiven, risen, We livin' to give him our all, Rise up from your past That's holding you down, This moment is all that matters The future is now, How will the people know if we don't tell 'em? If we fail 'em, They're stumbling in the dark But the lighters that we carryin', Don't have to wonder your purpose Or what you're here for, Reflect his image And show the world what he cares for..." Messengers, Lacrae, Ft. For King and Country

I never did find out what happened to Snowfire's baby. Apparently White Terrors are known for abandoning their babies after hatching in a few days. I was reading a journal entry in Bork's journal after finding a page that wasn't tampered with by Mildew. And he seemed to know a bit about them, but not nearly enough. Either way I was still concerned about it, but Snowfire had simply pushed it away like it was nothing.

A few weeks had passed since Snoggletog. Life on Berk was finally peaceful again, much to everyone's surprise. Hiccup's dad had accepted his ideas on the dragon stables, and even some fire prevention tools for any 'accidents' the dragons might have.

We've been spending the last couple of days working on both. The stables were turning out nicely since they were put in the caves in front of the island. And even the fire prevention stations were turning out nicely as well. We made sure not to place the twins on that work project; they weren't exactly fond with the idea of stopping disasters.

Which leads me to where I was now. Snowfire rested her chin on my leg as I read through the pages of a book on herbs. Thanks to Hiccup I had pretty much mastered the Norse language. A few things were still difficult for me to make out, such as numbers and certain symbols. But aside from that I didn't have too much difficulty now.

'Why do you find such useless objects interesting?' she muttered in annoyance. I sighed and rubbed the side of her neck before leaning against the wall. Berk didn't have a very big library, but the books they had were interesting enough. Snowfire however, didn't see the point in reading.

And judging by the dust covering the shelves on this building, neither did the Vikings. Fishlegs was the only other person I'd ever seen here. I think he was more surprised to see me than I was to see him. The moment he realized that he wasn't alone, he quickly stuttered under his breath and shuffled out of the small building.

"Because this information may be useful later on," I replied after a moment of awkward silence. Snowfire only huffed and shook her head as I started writing notes in my journal.

By now my old journal had really started looking beaten up. It actually looked like one of the older books from this library, with the binding coming out of place and some of the older pages half torn. I was always amazed at how much my life had changed when I read the older pages.

I'd had it since I started middle school. And it's been well used. In the middle of my journal was a picture I had kept after all of these years. The only memory I had left of my mom. I hadn't realized until now how much I missed her.

In the picture she still had that same wide smile, with me standing next to her. She had curly auburn and dark brown eyes with slight freckles covering her face. It only just dawned on me how much I looked like her.

'Is something wrong?' Snowfire suddenly asked, tilting her head in concern. I glanced at her in confusion until noticing that I was actually crying. With a sigh of frustration I placed the photo back into my journal and closed it.

"Nothing," I replied, wiping away a tear. Snowfire only narrowed her eyes and glared. "Look, I'm just…. I never realized until now how much I miss my mom," I finally murmured out loud.

'And reading those books made you think of that?' I looked at Snowfire in surprise before shaking my head. Glancing back at the book on herbs I make a mental note to start writing in a new journal. I didn't have very many empty pages left.

"I guess you could say that I'm an emotional wreck," I started saying before stopping myself. Snowfire made a sound that was similar to laughter, and I rolled my eyes.

"Alex, are you there?" Snowfire and I looked up almost at once at the sound of Hiccup's voice.

"Yeah, come on in!" I called after scrambling to my feet. The door opened seconds later to reveal an exhausted looking Hiccup. "Wow, you look like something the Gronckle dragged in." I couldn't help but smirk at that.

"Glad to see you too," he muttered sarcastically. I hadn't even noticed that Toothless was standing behind him, crooning in amusement. "What are you doing here?"

Hiccup looked around in confusion when he noticed where I was. I stepped back to let him in and glanced at the book I was reading earlier.

"Just catching up on some reading," I explained sheepishly. "I didn't really have a lot of time for that when… you know." I added the last part with a shrug, not wanting to mention what had happened weeks ago.

"I've always found it odd that the library never got burned down," Hiccup said thoughtfully.

I had to laugh at the irony of that. It was true that the dragon raids, and everything else, had never burned down the library. Especially since it was rarely used by anyone else.

"Don't let the twins hear that, or they might just use it as an excuse," I warned him after closing the book I'd been reading.

And that much was true. For some reason they lived for destruction. Hiccup let out a sigh and leaned against a wooden beam as Toothless warbled in concern.

"You had another nightmare, didn't you?" Hiccup's question caught me completely off guard. I looked at him in surprise before noticing the concern in his eyes. Out of all the people on Berk, he was the only one who knew. And of course he could read me like an open book. Kind of ironic now that I think about it.

"Is it that obvious?" I sighed as I straightened up a little.

I could barely remember the last time I had a nightmare like this one. But as usual it was an image of my father, always coming back to haunt me. Just when he was ready to strike I would wake up, gasping for air. It was like his fingers were still wrapped around my neck, holding on until I couldn't fight back.

Hiccup sat down next to me and glanced back at Toothless, who was now cleaning his wing. Snowfire watched us both curiously with her chin resting against the nearest table.

"You wanna talk about it?" he asked, sounding a bit more off than usual.

Really, talking about it wasn't exactly my thing. I think I'd rather face my father than actually talk about what he did to me. Instead of an actual answer, I just froze up and shook my head reluctantly. There was no way I was ready to tell anyone what he really did.

"Some things are better left unsaid," I murmured warily.

Fortunately Hiccup just left it at that. He knew better than to press for more information. The only thing talking did was bring back more painful memories, memories that I wasn't ready to deal with just yet. An awkward silence followed shortly after.

"So, uh, dad said the stables are almost finished," he said, changing the subject.

"Good, maybe now people will stop complaining about the dragons escaping all the time." I tried not to smirk at what had happened just the other day.

Apparently Stormfly had managed to escape her stable. Again. Astrid made a good point to keep her in the stable, because Stormfly had a tendency to rest on the roofs of people's homes. And the roofs weren't exactly capable of holding a dragons' weight.

'Why must you make things so quiet?' Snowfire demanded when another awkward silence followed. I had to laugh at that, mostly because she did have a good point. Even Hiccup was grinning sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his hair.

"Sorry," he finally muttered. I only rolled my eyes at that and leaned down so that I was sitting as well. "You know you never did tell me what your world was like," he suddenly added in an accusing tone.

I looked at him in surprise, once again before thinking over what to say next. There were so many things about my world that I'd often longed to share with others. No one seemed to care what happened or what sort of things could be seen or done in my world. Then again I could understand why.

"Well, for one thing the world isn't flat," I started, and Hiccup only grinned at that.

"I kind of already figured that out," he told me with a nod of agreement. I simply nudged him playfully and we both laughed before I continued.

"We don't need dragons to fly, but it's a bit more complicated," I added, going into detail about planes and how they worked. It was kind of difficult, considering I barely understood them myself. But for the most part Hiccup understood what I meant. Then I started telling him about what I did before waking up on Berk.

I was even more surprised that Hiccup listened to everything I said. Most people wouldn't have that kind of patience, let alone care. For a moment we just sat there again in silence after I told him about the traditions we celebrated during Christmas, which was pretty much like Snoggletog.

"Your world sounds amazing," Hiccup sighed once he took it all in.

"It's not exactly the best world," I admitted. I bit the bottom of my lip, debating whether or not I should tell him about all of the wars and whatnot. Maybe for a later day. Our worlds weren't totally different when it came to violence. "But it was all I had, until I woke up here," I suddenly added.

That much I knew was true. I wouldn't change things for the world. My life may have changed, but I often liked to think it was for the better. Before I had a chance to say anything else, Snowfire tipped over my journal, and the photo of my mom slid out of the pages.

'He has a right to know,' she said to me only. I glared at her when he picked it up, eyes widening in surprise.

"Is that you?" was all he could ask.

"And my mother," I replied after nodding. I let out a sigh as I looked at her once again. "She was always there for me, even when it was difficult for her. She never knew what my father did to me. I didn't want her to know."

I swallowed as I remembered the sudden fear my father would bring to me once she left for work. He always knew how to ensure that I would listen, no matter what.

"You look just like her." Hiccup kept glancing between the picture and me before giving it back. For a moment his cheeks turned a bright shade of red before he brushed it off, and I couldn't help but smirk.

"That's probably a good thing," I said after putting it back in my journal. "Because I'd be afraid of my own reflection if I looked anything like him…." I stopped myself after realizing what I'd just said. "Come on, there's something I want to show you," I suddenly murmured, trying to shake it off.

Hiccup looked like he was ready to say something when he thought better of it. Once I'd put my journal back in Snowfire's saddle, I led the way out of the library and we took off towards one of the sea stacks. Once we landed Hiccup glanced at me in confusion, but I held a hand up towards the ocean.

Dragons were always a spectacle to watch, but there were some creatures that I never grew tired of. And whales were one of those creatures. A pod of Narwhals liked to hunt near the island of Berk. I'd discovered that a few days ago when patrolling the island.

It took a moment for them to come into focus. But eventually their gray-dappled bodies emerged from the water. It was easy to tell the males apart from the females, because they had those tusks. And sure enough I could make out a tusk in the distance poking through the water.

"What… are those?" Hiccup asked in disbelief as they got closer, but only a little. From what I'd read when I was younger, they preferred deeper cold waters. Which Berk was perfect for.

"They're called Narwhals," I explained. "People from my world studied creatures like them. I've always found them just fun to watch." Snowfire let me lean against her shoulder as she stood straight up, keeping an eye on them.

'Why do they have those horns?' she suddenly asked. I tried not to laugh when Hiccup asked the same thing. You'd think that someone would have seen them by now.

"First of all, they're called tusks, and only the males have them," I told them. "I'm not entirely sure what they use them for, but they're not dangerous. They feed mostly on fish like dragons."

"I never realized how much is actually out there, in the world," Hiccup breathed as the whales disappeared back into the water. "It makes you realize just how small we really are."

I nodded in agreement at that. There was still so much that I had to learn about this world. And maybe it was time that I started discovering more possibilities. With dragons just about anything was possible. Other than going back to my own world of course.

"Thank you, for showing this to me," Hiccup suddenly added. I looked at him in surprise before nodding.

"It's a good place to sit and think," I replied. "When I need to of course," I suddenly added with a sheepish grin.

Hiccup suddenly wrapped his arm around me as Toothless and Snowfire stood together, side-by-side. For the first time I realized how safe I felt in his arms. Hiccup wasn't like any other guy I had met. And for that I was thankful. I couldn't imagine my life without him now.

AN: There's the end of that chapter. I know my facts on Narwhals aren't completely true, but I did my best XD They are actually my favorite type of whale, next to the Bottlenose Dolphin :) So starting next chapter I might lead into the second movie... I'm not entirely sure yet. We shall see ;)

silverwolvesarecool - Thanks! I doubt her baby will show up in the second movie (as explained in this chapter), but it may make an appearance later on.

69759 - XD Trust me, you're not the only one who does that. I used to do that when I was younger :P

Guest - I can see why you don't like his mother. Though I can understand why she never went back. It was probably more out of fear than anything else that she stayed.

Reader103 - I hope this chapter explained some of that!

Nightfire260 - I would say either Russia or North Korea. Both countries are kind of mad at the US (than again who isn't?). Frankly I'm not really concerned one way or another, I still have my Nintendo 3DS, and no one hacks their systems XD And thanks, I actually was looking forward to writing it :)