- Where's Hiccup?

- Never where he should be.

I was starting to get tired of Snotlout's constant comments. Stoick, Spitelout, Astrid and Halldis were already waiting by the gronkle's den. But how were we supposed to tame the creature without the dragon rider's help? Stoick explained why he wasn't here.

- Hiccup's getting the night fury here. He should arrive at any moment.

I looked down in the hole. The dragon was lying on the ground and didn't move.

- I saw the meatlug breathing earlier, so don't worry. Or maybe worry, that's up to you.

- Aw, come on! Is that really gonna catch?

Ignoring Snotlout, I continued to stare. The whole dragon was drenched in mud.

- Are ya looking for something?

A tired looking Gobber walked up to us, a strange contraption in his hook. Stoick started explaining, but as soon cut off by the blacksmith.

- I told him to work on something to get the dragon flying after you left yesterday...

- And forced me into a crafting all nighter of something that hadn't even been thought of one month ago. Behold! The result of my mead-powered effort!

That last statement wasn't reassuring, but it explained why his nose was so red.

- Pay attention kids. A bit of leather latched in the wing's hole should be enough to make your beast fly. Ya latch it in the wing. See this red mark I made? It has to be upwards or you're doing downwards. Last thing, ya pull this rope to get the whole thing off. So I suggest ya don't use it in flight.

His explanation left some of us dubious.

- How...

- Now if you lads excuse me, I'm off to bed. See ya!

The next hour was an unproductive slog. After a few failed attempts to remove the ropes bounding the mouth, it was my turn to try. To everybody's surprise, the gronkle didn't charge at me when I walked down the ladder. I cut the rope, finally allowing the creature to devour the now half rotten fish. Unfortunately, this meant that our dragon was now energetic and fully capable of firing at us. After a few fiery close calls we gave up and accepted we couldn't do something before Hiccup came back.

- DRAGONS!!!

I was chatting calmly with Snotlout when the shout made us leap up. I looked around for anything to defend myself with, as did the others. In less than two seconds Astrid was turning her head wildly into the sky, axe held tightly in her right hand and legs tense ready to bounce at a moment's notice.

- False alarm! Go back to your posts!

If there was anything that could calm down hundreds of battle-ready vikings it was Stoick's order. But that didn't leave the fact that a black dragon was flying overhead, carrying something on It's back. It didn't take much effort to see what was going on. Thinking back, it was obvious that this wasn't a raid, in the middle of the morning when someone was supposed to bring a dragon here. But the reflex learned in the endless raids was hard to forget.

- I can't even bring a little night fury here without you panicking?

- Stop causing heart attacks!

Ignoring his dad's words, Hiccup and Toothless looped over Berk before landing about ten meters from us. As much chaos at it was causing, dragon riding seemed to be the most incredible thing ever. And maybe the most useful too.

- They're friends Toothless. Don't be afraid of them.

Hiccup was worried about his dragon. Because of course he was. Seeing the black dragon gave me chills, but apparently he was afraid of us too.

- The unholy offspring of lighting and death itself. You're welcome.

For some reason the bitter sarcasm was still in his voice. I was starting to believe he wasn't so keen on the whole "dragons for defence" thing.

- Can you explain why the gronkle has been a little asshole all morning, except towards Fishlegs?

As usual, Astrid was cutting straight to the point.

- Oh no, how could that possibly happen?

I raised an eyebrow. How where we supposed to know?

- What do you mean?

- You haven't exactly been nice to her, despite what I told you.

Awkward and somewhat guilty glances were exchanged among us.

- So Meatlug is a lost cause?

I guessed this meant we had officially found a name. Hiccup was busy scratching the night fury behind his ears, but stopped to stroke his chin, making the dragon whine in complaint.

- Probably not, trust can be gained back. Legs' should be the one to ride her.

I took a step back. Nobody had told me I would have to go on a beast.

- Why me?

- Because you didn't push her into a hole yesterday. You're the one she trust the most.

After a few intense minutes of arguing I was chosen, mostly because we didn't have the time to make her trust anyone else. Toothless had watched us curiously from Hiccup's side the entire time.

- Fine. I'll ride her. How do I do?

- You've got the prosthetic?

- Yeah, here.

Hiccup took the machine and turned it a few times in his hands, seemingly understanding how it worked, something none of us had done in the last hour. All that work in the forge must have helped.

- Alright, let's go put it on. We also need something Meatlug can eat.

Spitelout walked away looking for fish, and in the meantime Hiccup insisted that we met Toothless. For some reason he wanted me to go first. Was this the thanks I got for being the only viking that wasn't a jerk to him?

- And you're saying he will come to me if I hold my hand like this?

- Yes don't worry. Now look away.

I had a lot of complaints but still did as he said. Soon I could feel the hot breath on my hand, and after a few seconds that seemed to last ages I felt the night fury's snout. I had expected it to be as hard and scaly as the rest of the dragon, but it's nose was soft, and even slightly wet. I looked over at the night fury and saw that his eyes were closed. He trusted me enough to get vulnerable, and that was simply amazing. The started faces of the others told me they thought it as well. Sadly that contact was broken when Spitelout announced he was back. Without further talk, Hiccup gave me a fish and dragged me towards the gronkle's hole. He left his night fury unguarded.

- Are you just gonna leave Toothless here?!

Hiccup sighed at Snotlout's comment. This was going to be a long day.

- How can you have a night fury fighting at your side if you can't have a night fury at your side? You know what, you befriend him while we take care of Meatlug. Just do the same thing as Legs'.

And then he walked down the ladder. To the dragon that had tried to burn the last person that walked down there. We immediately sprinted to the side of the hole, just to see Hiccup calmly petting the creature's scales.

- Fishlegs, are you coming?

- How did you do that?!

After hearing me the dragon looked up and saw me. And everyone else too. She started growling aggressively and walked back into a defensive stance. Hiccup spoke really calmly to cool her down, but the words weren't for the dragon.

- Everybody but Fishlegs, get the fuck away from Meatlug.

They got the hint and walked away from the hole, and the dragon immediately calmed down.

- Are you coming?

I finally ignored my fear and walked down the ladder. With two vikings and a dragon there wasn't much space left.

- Give her the fish.

I did as he said. The gronkle gulped down the cod as soon as it came within reach for her slimy pink tongue. My hand touched Meatug's snout in the process. She burped happily.

- You're already becoming friends! Now, see if you can cool her down enough for me to put the prosthetic on?

Using gentle words, scratches and some dragon grass that Hiccup had given me, we managed to calm the dragon down enough for her not to leap anyone that came near the wound on her wing. Finally, after mud had officially covered everything we owned, the contraption was on.

- Sooo… what do we do now?

- You climb on and fly her.

- Just like that?

- Just like that.

He gave me the prosthetic's rope that I, after a moment of hesitation, attached to my wrist. I started to doubt my own idea. Sure, dragons fighting for us would've helped, but turning the beasts against each other wasn't as straight forward as I had thought.

- And when I get on… how do I steer?

He gave a small chuckle. There were high odds that I'd die in the next few minutes and he was laughing?

- You pull the rope when you want to stop the flight and… that's it actually. Have fun!

If my heart beat was fast before it was nothing in comparison to now.

- There's nothing I can do to control her?!

The gronkle stirred at the same time as I raised my voice and I made a mental note not to repeat that mistake.

- It's a prosthetic wing, not a tail. So you have to communicate with the dragon to get where you want.

- Great, there's nothing that can possibly go wrong with that.

- Perfect, let's get you in the air.

Normally I felt bad for Hiccup with everything the other teens did. But right now I wanted to punch him in the face.

- He's gonna climb on you. Stay calm, he's not dangerous.

I stopped petting the side, and took a big breath, reaching up to the wing to climb. But despite everything, I didn't want to die.

- I'm not doing it.

- Listen. Are you gonna stop the dying or not?

- I don't want to die!

- How many times do I have to say this? They're not dangerous. Right Meatlug?

The creature purred gently under Hiccup's hand but this didn't count the fact of the hundreds of people we had lost to the beasts. For a moment I was ready give up Operation Baldhead for good. But I missed the good old Baldhead. And his death really wasn't fair. I had to stop this.

- Yolo.

I climbed on. And although the dragon tensed up, she didn't slam me in the wall as I had feared. Hiccup gave me the final instructions, before doing the same with the gronkle.

- Fly where he tells you to ok? We've put on a prosthetic so you can fly.

I didn't even have the time to pray to Thor before the wings started flapping, carefully. She probably wanted to check if the prosthetic could really make her fly.

- Meatlug, fly out of the hole.

The wings' flapping sped up, and air flowed around me. The prosthetic seemed to hold. And then we flew up. In a few seconds we were out of the hole. With the heart beating itself out of the chest, I couldn't believe this was working. That's when Mealug caught sight of the group, and Spitelout.

In the split second that it lasted I saw that they were all tensed up and hesitatingly standing and about five meters from the night fury, that looked somewhat bored. The next thing I saw was the world spinning, as the gronkle turned around and started flying away from them as fast as she could, bringing us over the ocean. Soon we were dangerously high, removing the only control I had over the flight. I couldn't remove the prosthetic without falling to my death. Gronkles were one of the slowest dragons we knew, but right now it didn't seem true. I latched myself onto her head to not fall down.

- Meatlug… calm down…

That was all I managed to get away as we flew over the ocean, ever higher and further away from home.

- Tell her to turn around!

I looked around and saw Hiccup riding on Toothless, flying towards us. I had never felt so happy from seeing a night fury. Doing as he said, I got the gronkle's attention and pointed back to Berk. But of course that didn't work.

- Can you show them the way back bud?

Meatlug stopped mid air as the night fury flew head on towards her roaring. They turned and narrowly missed us, but that was enough to scare the creature to death. Perhaps this wasn't such a bad thing. I tried speaking firmly.

- Meatlug. Fly back now and nobody is going to hurt you.

My words combined with gentle petting and a very persuasive black dragon made her finally turn around and fly back towards the island. Hiccup had said "they aren't horses that will fly forwards when you kick them". But threatening to kick them seemed to work.

Now calmer, I took a moment to watch around me. After all, flying wasn't something that happened every day (yet). The clouds seemed closer than ever. They were moving fast, so a storm was coming. Apart from the clouds everything looked so… tiny from up here. The large waves of the ocean seemed smaller than the tiniest rings in a cup of water, and Berk was just a speck in the distance. But as we got closer, more and more buildings became visible, and so did we.

- DRAGONS!!!

From out here the shout was barely audible. Meatlug stirred from the sound, but kept flying forwards. Soon Stoick's voice could be heard, and as we got closer we could distinguish words.

- … so shout RAID if it's a RAID and if it's not shout NOTHING! You DON'T shout if there isn't a RAID!

I chuckled. Finally we wouldn't have our ears broken.

- I think that she got scared after seeing Spite', didn't she?

I took my eyes off the village to look at Hiccup.

- Uhh, yeah, I think. But she doesn't exactly like the rest of them either.

- I make sure they won't bother us. You land somewhere safe.

- Got it.

The night fury and his rider flew off towards Berk and I locked my eyes on a nice frozen plain overseeing the village.

- See that Meatlug? Try landing there.

Even though she hadn't five minutes ago, the dragon decided to listen to me and flew there, and I let out a sigh of relief. I'd get to live another day.

We went in for landing and touched the ground smoothly. As soon as the wings stopped flapping I pulled the control rope. The dragon made a screech of pain as the contraption snapped of her wing, but we couldn't afford our dragons escaping.

- That. was. Awesome. What did you think Meatlug?

According sound the creature made she didn't share my opinion. Hiccup could be heard basically scolding the others as I climbed off her back. A few minutes later he arrived to the plain holding two trouts and with a night fury in tow. I took one and handed it over to Meatlug, who swallowed the thing in record time. I looked over at Hiccup that was getting properly soaked in by Toothless' tongue.

- If it's gonna be like this every time I'll stop feeding you!

- Really? He licks you every time?

- Yeah, a nice little habit he picked up lately! And that's making me run out of things to wear!

I tried petting my own dragon, but she took a step back when I raised my hand. It was only after more calming talk that she let me pet her snout. I hoped she would get friendlier over time.

- Where did the others go?

- Out of here. I think they wanted to find another dragon before sunset.

- You trust them not to scare the thing to death?

The break that followed my question was far too long to be comfortable.

- I mean… they're smart guys right?

I decided not to think about it, and went back to petting the gronkle. But then another fear came back to my mind.

- Hiccup, I'm scared.

The small teen groaned.

- Dragons. Are not. Dangerous. How many times do I have to tell you?

- That's not what I'm afraid of.

- What is it then?

Talking about your fears was humiliating in viking culture, but Hiccup was the one person that wouldn't judge me.

- We're supposed to ride the beasts against raiding dragons that will be outnumbering us about ten to one. It's not that I see plenty of ways that can go wrong, I don't see one way this can go right!

He chuckled.

- Who was it that came up with "dragons to fight dragons"?

- Oh, shut up. Sorry I trusted you not to mock me.

- "This is war babe. What else was I gonna do?"

Gobber had answered with these words when the chief had asked why the smith had melted the bronze dragon head in the front of our flagship into axes. Ever since that nobody missed the opportunity to repeat them in Gobbers teasing tone. He was pissing me off. Couldn't he just help me?

- Just... shut up.

- You want to live?

- Yes!

He picked up the prosthetic from the ground and walked towards Meatlug, giving me a daring smile. This couldn't be happening. I was not going on the gronkle's back again.

- Then you need more training. There's gonna be a storm soon, so I suggest you practice now.

- Oh, you son of a

In case you didn't get it, this chapter is written from Fishlegs' POV. I'll try to get the next chapter soon, where we meet another one of the teens' dragons. Can you guess wich? Leave a review and see you next time!