(A/N: I gotta say, this was really quite the debate for me personally. I really wasn't sure if I wanted to write the episodes "We Are Family" my way or the way it's shown in the show, but I was finally able to make my decision. I'll leave it to you, my readers, to figure out which one I chose.
The poll for this story is doing very well, for those of you who are wondering, but it's still a long way from conceding. That being said, I'm kind of struggling with the name of the dragon Helene should get and I'd like to see what people think her dragon should be named. I do have a few names in mind, but they're for specific dragons and there's no guarantee that Helene will get the dragon the name is specific to.
With that in mind, I want people to go crazy and be creative with whatever name they can come up with. Just make sure they're appropriate to the TV show and to all readers, nothing insulting.
This doesn't have to be done, but it would still be nice. I'm the type of author who likes a little audience participation.)
O-O-V-o-V-O-O
It was Bork Week time and everyone was busy getting ready for it. People were baking cakes and pies, Gobber was setting up a statue of Bork himself, his ancestor, and the riders were practicing and preparing for the dragon parade.
This was the first time Helene had ever stayed for Bork Week and she was excited for it. She never got to stay around for it before because she and her father were always at sea when the event took place.
While she was happy to finally be there for the celebration, she never thought that she would be a part of it. It would certainly be exciting being in the dragon parade with her friends and their dragons, but that was what worried her.
Smog was the only Smothering Smokebreath for hundreds of miles, he would be the only one in the parade. His species was naturally hostile and territorial, but it still made her sad that he wouldn't have other Smokebreaths there with him during such a big celebration.
However, now was not the time to think about it. Now, everyone was in a ravine watching as Hiccup hollered into the wind. It sounded like a wyvern call, but it was higher-pitched and almost sounded like it had a hint of a canine's howl in the back of his throat.
When nothing happened when he stopped the call, Snotlout remarked, "Oh, look! Nothing happened!"
He held up a finger, "Now, now, wait for it."
He tried the call again and this time Toothless arrived. He came down the rocky wall that led down into the ravine.
Hiccup looked back at Snotlout with a smirk, "Would you look at that? Toothless!" The Night Fury came up to him and got scratched under his chin.
"Alright, now it's my turn." Astrid climbed to the top of a rock and let out a howl. The call sounded like the kind of howl a wolf would make, but like the call Hiccup did it was rather high-pitched, although there was a silvery tone to it.
Stormfly and five other Deadly Nadders flew overhead upon hearing her call. It was certainly impressive to see the six dragons coming out after only one howl; first try and that was it.
"Great job, Astrid!" Helene grinned.
"Thanks, Hele." She began to get down from the rock and upon jumping down she told her, "Your turn."
She took in a breath and exhaled, "Okay." She held her hands close to her mouth and started to make whoops in what sounded like high-pitched growls and snarls.
Smog appeared and fluttered his wings as he hovered above her. He chirped and she gave him a soft-shelled crab as a treat, which he ate happily.
"Alright, now it's my turn." Fishlegs took in a breath and was about to do his dragon call when he was stopped by Hiccup.
"Sorry, Fishlegs, that'll have to wait, I promised my Dad we'd all have some role in the dragon parade for Bork Week," his voice was a little rushed.
"Can someone tell me why we celebrate this Bork guy?" Ruffnut remarked. "Wasn't he a dragon killer?"
"In self-defense, Bork studied dragons, lived them, and without him we would have no Book of Dragons," Fishlegs explained.
"Okay, so who's he going to fly with in the parade?" Snotlout pointed a thumb at Toothless. Hiccup frowned.
He never thought he would ever find himself agreeing with Snotlout, but when he's right, he's right. Toothless was, as far as anyone knew, the last of his entire species.
Helene looked at Hiccup when she noticed his expression, she knew how he felt. While she didn't know exactly, of course, she did know what it was like to feel like to feel completely alone.
They went back to the village to practice for the parade. Everyone except for Hiccup and Helene were practicing, they had no other dragons besides their own to practice with.
They were sitting in some grass when Astrid and Stormfly landed near them. "Guys, look," she pointed up at the sky, "I finally got my Nadders flying in perfect formation." The five Deadly Nadders from earlier flew overhead in a tight V-formation.
While it was certainly impressive to see the dragons flying in a tight formation like that, it did little to make them feel better. They were still very saddened by the idea that their dragons were alone.
She noticed their expressions and asked, "Hey, what's wrong? What's on your mind?"
"Nothing, it's just that-" he sighed, "Stormfly has other Nadders, Hookfang has a whole herd of Monstrous Nightmares, and Toothless has, Toothless has no one."
"And- And what about Smog?" Helene added. "He's the only Smokebreath for hundreds of miles."
"Yeah, who do they have?" he questioned.
"They have both of you," she claimed. She looked over at the said dragons, who were playing together in the grass. "And if you ask me, they look pretty happy."
They looked at their dragons and watched as they played, they were pretending to fight each other. Smog would pounce onto Toothless' back and breathe out a small smoke cloud, Toothless would then throw him off and pin him with a claw. He would then let him up and playfully run into each other, which would end up with them rolling around in the grass.
Astrid and Stormfly were about to leave, when she remembered why she originally went to find them, "Hiccup, your father's waiting for you in the Great Hall. Helene, Gobber needs your help with the Bork statue, he says there are some cracks he needs help filling in."
She nodded, "Okay, thanks."
Astrid left to continue training her Nadders for the parade, leaving the two of them to themselves and their dragons again, but not for long. Helene stood up and stretched her limbs, they were a little sore after sitting on the ground for a while.
She whistled for her dragon, "Time to go, Smog."
He squawked when he heard her voice and flew to her. Reluctantly leaving his Night Fury friend by doing so.
She gave a brief wave to Hiccup before they left, "See you later, Hiccup."
"See you later," he replied. He turned his attention to Toothless, who was scratching his back in the grass, "C'mon, bud, we better get going, too." He got onto his feet and stretched, Hiccup did the same while muttering, "I wonder what Snotlout and the twins did this time."
Helene and Smog met up with Gobber behind the Bork statue. He had just finished with a meeting with the Berk Council and reluctantly gave Hiccup the papers Bork wrote on dragons.
"Okay, so what do you want us to do?" she
asked.
He tapped the metal with his hook, "I'd just like you to fill in as many cracks as you can find. If there's something that can't be fixed, just meld some more metal to it. Think your little dragon can do it?"
She nodded and scratched Smog's head, "He can do anything, can't you?" He chirped.
"Perfect, we'll start off low and make our way up," he gestured from the foot of the statue up to the head.
Smog got started right away by checking the legs. She checked as well, just so that there was an additional set of eyes.
She got her dragon's attention and pointed at a small crack she found near the thigh, "Right here, Smog."
He crawled over to the spot she pointed at and began to melt the metal. It cooled when he was finished and the crack was no longer visible.
This was continuously done again and again throughout the day until the sun started to set. The entire back side of the statue was finished and so was most of the front side, the only thing left to inspect and fix was the head, but it was too late for that, it would have to be done the next day.
She whistled for Smog, who was sitting on the statue's shoulder, "Come on, let's go home."
He got off the shoulder and flew down to her. He decided to walk on the ground next to her, he was tired after all of the flying and welding he did that day.
They went home and he immediately went to their room as soon as the door was opened, she couldn't blame him though. Astrid's mother was making dinner, it smelled like it was almost done.
She went upstairs to Astrid's room to see if she was home yet. She was, she was sitting on the bed, cleaning her axe.
"Hey," she spoke to get her attention.
She looked up from her axe with a smile, "Hey. How'd it go with the Bork statue?"
"It's almost done, just the head needs to be checked," she replied. "Smog's in my room, he's pretty tired. I heard about Bork's papers, did Hiccup find anything?"
"Yeah," she answered, "he says he found a map that could lead to an island full of Night Furies."
She raised her eyebrows, "Cool, do you think it's real?"
She shrugged, "I don't know, but Hiccup seems to believe it."
"Hiccup will believe almost anything, especially when it involves dragons," she pointed out.
She laughed, "Yeah, isn't that the truth?"
"Astrid, Helene!" Mrs. Hofferson called out from downstairs.
"Sounds like it's dinner time," Helene remarked.
"Yep." Astrid set the axe aside and stood up. She was about to go downstairs, "Coming?"
She took a step back, "After you."
The next day, Helene and Smog went back to Gobber's workshop to finish the statue. She figured that it should only take an hour at most, as long as there was nothing major, such as a large, deep mark in the metal.
He flew up to the head and clung to the neck, he circled it to find anything in need of fixing, but nothing stood out to him. He began to make his way up the head, filling in any blemishes he found along the way.
He continued to make his way up, but he never found anything bigger or deeper than a surface crack. That was until he discovered a massive crack on the back of the statue's head. It was deep, too deep for him to fill in on his own.
He flew down and went into Gobber's shop to find something to cover it with. He needed something flat and easy to melt.
While Gobber did have a lot of metal around, as he is a blacksmith, but he thought that he would be angry if he used any of his weapons, especially the ones that looked shiny and new. The older weapons, however, looked very worn and looked like they hadn't been used in a long time.
He started to collect as many old and broken metallic objects as he could. He hoped Gobber wouldn't mind if some of the weapons in his shop were gone.
He collected broken swords, dull axes, and even a small sheet of metal. He doubted that he would need this much metal, but it couldn't hurt to be prepared.
He figured that one more piece of metal couldn't hurt and looked around for something. He found the perfect thing, a dagger, it was sitting on a counter out in the open, completely covered in dust. It looked old and appeared to have not been used in many years.
He got onto the counter and was about to take it when a hand stopped him. It was too skinny to belong to Gobber and far too old to belong to Helene. It belonged to an elderly man, an ugly elderly man with wiry gray hair and a cane, his eyes gleamed with pure bitterness and hatred.
The man raised his cane and tried to swat him with it. He jumped and growled at the man, he pounced him and started to scratch his face.
The man continued to smack him with the cane, forcing him to release him due to the pain. He fell to the ground and the cane was raised above him and brought down.
Before it could touch him, Helene shouted at the top of her lungs in anger, "What the hell are you doing to my dragon?! Get the hell away from him, now!"
She pushed the old man away and stood protectively in front of her dragon. Smog loosely wrapped his tail around one of her ankles.
"Back off, Mildew," she growled. She doesn't like to use violence very often, but if she has to she won't hesitate to punch him in the face.
They had a brief stand-off, before Gobber walked in on the confrontation, "What in the name of Thor is going on around here?"
"I'll tell you what's going on! That little beast tried to rip off my face!" Mildew yelled.
'Don't get our hopes up,' she thought. "Only after you attacked him and tried to kill him, you bastard!"
"Ain't you ever heard of respecting your elders?!" he spat.
"Haven't you heard that dragons are no longer killed?" she retorted.
He scoffed, "I don't need this! When are you going to have that wheel fixed?"
"It's almost done," he assured, "I'll have it finished by tonight."
Mildew finally left and Smog came out from behind her legs. The air seems to be ten degrees warmer now that the old hermit was gone.
"Is the statue almost done?" he asked.
"Yes, but he found a large crack on the back of the head," she responded. "He was getting some metal to fill it in when Mildew came by."
"Alright then, take as much as you need," he gestured to his shop.
Smog immediately perked up when he heard that and went back into the shop to get the metal he collected. He flew up to the shoulder and left the metal there so it wouldn't fall. He took the broken sword and made his way up to the crack to finish the job.
He filled in the deep crack and checked for any more damage in the metal. When he could find nothing, he flew down with the metal he didn't use.
He gave it back to Gobber and went back to his trainer. She scratched him under his chin and petted him on the head, he purred gratefully and affectionately.
"Good boy," she smiled.
"Thanks for your help, both of you," Gobber grinned.
"No problem, it was our pleasure," she replied. "Right, Smog?" He squawked.
"Tell you what, next time he breaks that nest of his, I'll fix it on the house," he offered. "How's that sound?"
"Great," she responded, "thanks a lot."
They left Gobber's workshop and made their way down to the dragon training academy. There was no one there when they arrived and they waited for a few minutes before her friends arrived.
"Hey, guys, where did you go?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing much, just got attacked by a wild Changewing and Thunderdrum!" Snotlout snapped.
"More like we got attacked by a Thunderdrum and you were held like a baby Changewing," Astrid remarked with a smirk.
"Okay," Hiccup rolled his eyes. "We found a map that could lead to the Isle of Night."
"Sorry I couldn't be there, Gobber needed our help today too," she mentioned.
"Don't worry about it, come tomorrow, we'll be on our way to the Isle of Night and finding Toothless' family," he declared.
"You really believe that map is legitimate?" she questioned.
"One hundred percent," he grinned from ear to ear.
She saw the enthusiasm on his face and could practically feel the excitement radiating off him, but she had some doubts. Due to spending the majority of her life out on the sea and trading with people, she had her suspicions right away.
"Can I see what you found?" she asked.
"Um, sure." He took out the papers from his satchel and handed them down to her.
She took them and looked at drawings and writings of these papers. She was immediately sceptical of the legitimacy of them. As the daughter of a seafaring trader, she could tell the difference between real and fake documents.
For one, the ink did not look to be a hundred years old, the paper it was written on could have been that old, but the ink was definitely not, in fact it looked fresh. The mild pungent scent that hit her nostrils confirmed this.
Another thing that caught her attention was that there were some papers that were completely blank. Certainly not something one would expect from the papers of a person who was studying dragons.
She was about to point out these inconsistencies to Hiccup, but then saw how enthusiastic he was when he talked about the papers to the other riders. She couldn't crush his spirits, she just couldn't bring herself to do it.
She gave the papers back to him, "Well, I hope that we'll be able to find some Night Furies tomorrow."
"Yeah, I can't wait! Right, bud?" he asked Toothless, who growled happily.
Darkness fell and everyone was asleep, everyone except for Helene and Smog. She had a feeling that Hiccup's enthusiasm would most likely lead to him and Toothless leaving without them.
If she knows anything about Hiccup Haddock, it's how protective he is of his friends. And that overprotectiveness could lead to him leaving in the middle of the night if he discovers anything alarming about Night Furies.
With that in mind, she decided that it might be best to keep an eye out just in case he did just that. Both she and her dragon would often drift off to sleep during this all-nighter, but they would also manage to fight off the tiredness.
Hopefully this would all be worth it or else she would have a very tired and crotchety dragon to deal with. And she definitely knew better than anyone how upset he can get when he's sleepy.
Then, it all paid off when she saw Toothless flying out of Hiccup's bedroom window. It was a little hard to see due to Toothless' black scales, but it was definitely him.
'It's go time,' she thought.
She nudged Smog, who was asleep, and that woke him up. He stretched his limbs and chirped, his head tilted to the side slightly.
She pointed out the window in the direction Hiccup and Toothless flew off, "Follow them, do not let yourself be seen."
He squawked and leapt onto the windowsill. He fluttered his wings and flew away in the direction she showed him. She hoped that all three of them would be safe no matter where he followed them to.
O-O-V-o-V-O-O
(A/N: Well? How was it? Good? Bad? No matter what, I hope everyone enjoyed it.
I really hope that at least someone considers what I said at the beginning. There is a chance that if I like the name I will use it. But only if I like it and there's a chance that I won't use it.
Helene's skepticism about the papers is, in part, taken from my own personality. I love watching crime shows and how they use even the most seemingly insignificant piece of evidence to solve a case.
I really hope everyone sticks around for the next chapter. I personally can't wait for it and I hope that everyone else is as well.)