Time for Test Drive! I hope I did it justice!


Entry 82

I didn't think it was possible to bring my mood back up after that… revelation, but it is. And it's all thanks to Toothless.

When I went back to the Cove, I apologized for not stopping by yesterday, explaining what happened. He seemed to understand, then gestured to his back. I realized he wanted to go flying. Thinking he was being inconsiderate and impatient, I made an annoyed remark, but he gestured again to his saddle, then to me. "What about me?" I asked. He extended his wings and smiled, pointing his nose at me again. Was he implying that flying made ME happy? I blinked, amazed he picked up that. It was true… I really liked flying; and he KNEW that. He… was trying to cheer me up.

A sense of gratitude filling me, I mounted the saddle, feeling better the moment I slipped my feet into the stirrups. "Let's fly!" Toothless took off, and I re-clipped my cheat sheet to his saddle. A couple of times, I got confused and switched positions at the wrong time, but overall, we were getting the hang of it. Feeling ambitious, I asked if he wanted to test it out in the open sky, and to my surprise, he agreed. We flew out past the cliffs of Berk, with nothing but ocean and sea stacks below us.

At first, it was pretty slow going; it always took me a moment to match the correct position, and the wind caught the leather differently than his real tailfin, sometimes throwing him off balance. But I can't even begin to describe how it felt, diving through the air with no restraint, just the cold wind in my hair and the pedals beneath my feet. It was… freeing.

Until we almost died, of course.

I took Toothless into a steep climb, soaring well into the clouds… and then, my cheat sheet came out of its clip. I yelled for Toothless to stop, and somehow, we ended up in just the perfect position for my tether to come out of its hook. Before I knew it, I was falling, and so was Toothless. I tried to coach him to get into a better position, but he lost all control, panicking and spinning rapidly in circles. His tail hit me, nearly knocking me into a sea stack, and I fought as hard as I could to get back to him. I managed to get a hand on the saddle, and pulled myself back into the seat, resetting the stirrups and leveling out our dive. As soon as his balance returned, Toothless spread his wings like a giant sail, stopping our descent just before hitting the trees. But it wasn't over yet; we were coming up all too quickly to a maze of sea stacks. I had managed to grab my cheat sheet when we were falling, but there was no time.

I threw the sheet away, with nothing to rely on but pure instinct. And there's no words for what happened next.

It was as if Toothless and I had become one being. I no longer felt the stirrups beneath my feet, just MOVED them. Each and every shift, in perfect harmony, as we soared between sea stacks and dove around rocks. I had no thought of what I was doing, I just DID it. It was as if… as if I'd been doing it my entire life.

Finally, we broke out into open sky again, and I couldn't contain my excitement. Neither could Toothless, it seems, but while I simply cheered, he fired a plasma blast… and flew us right into it. Luckily it had mostly fizzled out by time we went through, but I still ended up with the tips of my hair singed and my clothes coated in soot. A small price to pay, I guess, for such an incredible flight.

We're on a small island now, Toothless laying beside me and a Terrible Terror curled by my hip. I've been petting it for a while, and it's enjoyed every touch… how wrong I was, thinking these animals to be monsters. They're nothing short of amazing… and I think it's time to tell Toothless the truth. About how I'm the one who shot him down, took away his ability to fly on his own. I hope he'll understand, and still want to stay with me, but I completely get it if he doesn't. I'm going to open up to him, and pray that it's enough. I really don't want to lose him… he's the best friend I've had in years, and we don't even speak the same language. But… I feel like I understand him in a way I just don't understand people. I hope he feels the same.

Until next time…

-H