My hair and eyes had changed color a couple weeks before, but I hadn't paid any attention to it. I also somehow had gained an immunity to burns, another thing that confused me.

I heard a rustle in the trees and my hand almost immediately went towards my sword which was strapped on my back. I didn't pull it out because I knew that if it was a dragon, having a weapon in my hand when they first saw me was not a good idea.

The trees rustled once more, and then out jumped Firewing. I laughed, I'd thought he was a dangerous animal, not my best friend.

"You're okay!" he exclaimed as he jumped on me. I've been able to understand him since shortly after my sister left Berk. "I was so worried about you. What's wrong?" he asked, suddenly sensing that I wasn't as happy to see him as I normally would have been.

"I don't know..." I trailed off, not knowing how to tell him that I might be part dragon. Although he might already know, he is a dragon after all.

"Um, you know that wasn't english, right?"

"What?!"

"That was, but when you said 'I don't know', it was dragonese. I didn't know that you knew dragoneese. Usually only dragons can speak it, humans just can't make the sounds correctly."

"Yeah, I know. You've said that before." I didn't know what to do anymore. I could speak dragonese, and I could light my hands on fire? Now I was even more confused.

"Daystrid, what is wrong?" he sounded desperate.

"I- di- I think I'm-" I was finding it hard to tell him one little thing. "-I think I'm part dragon. Y'know like Hiccup is."

"You're right, you are," he responded matter-of-factly, as though he had known for years.

"Wait, what?!"

"I said you're part dragon. And before you ask, I've known since I met you." Ah, that makes more sense.

"Oh. Why didn't you say anything?" I asked.

"I figured it might scare you. You were quite young and seemed like you could get scared easily. And you just spoke dragonese again."

"Oh, you're right. And I can't control when I speak dragonese or english!"

"You should probably go find your sister, and try not to speak dragonese around her. She seemed worried about you last time I saw her."

"That's actually why I came looking for you. Astrid's training new riders. I figured we could-"

"Well then, what are we waiting for?!" Firewing interrupted, he was more excited than I thought he would be. I got on him and we took off towards the arena.

Astrid

I was just starting my second class with the new riders. I had just been about to start class, when I heard a voice from the door.

"Got room for another rider?"

I spun around, and there, in the doorway, stood Daystrid, her dragon behind her.

"Days." I was too surprised to see her to say much else.

"Surprised to see me?" she asked, and I couldn't help but smile. She smiled back, her smile so big it reached her golden eyes...Wait, her eyes were brown last time I saw her, she changed more than I thought she did.

"So, you got room for another rider?" she asked, bringing me out of my thoughts.

"Uh, yeah, just, ummmm..." What's going on? I've never been at a loss for words like this before.

Daystrid looked at me, confusion in her eyes, but went over by the other 6 riders like I had been trying to tell her to. It was obvious that she'd picked up on my loss for words, and was just as confused as I was.

Daystrid

My sister at a loss for words, now that's a new one. Astrid Hofferson was never at a loss for words, just like she was usually fearless.

I joined the other riders, not surprised to see Gustav or Gothi there. Gothi had had her dragon this morning when I woke up, so I just kind of assumed. And Gustav, well, um Gustav, he actually flew all the way out to Dragon's Edge to join the riders. He'd asked me to come with him, but there was no way I was doing that.

Astrid quickly came out of the trance that she seemed to be in, and turned to us."Okay, so today is about trusting your dragon. You're going to take off, fly around the arena, do a barrel roll and shoot at the target. Like this." She climbed on Stormfly, and took off. Doing exactly as she had told us, she had Stormfly shoot fire at the target as well as one of her spines. She landed, looked at us and said, "Alright who's first?"

Everyone took turns doing exactly as she said. Sven's nightmare missed, so he took out his axe and threw it at the target. Gothi had done the barrel roll, but stayed upside down and kicked the target down. That's a pretty good technique, I thought.

"Yeah! Go, Gothi!" I heard someone say from above. I turned only to see Hiccup watching us. If he was here, then why was Astrid doing the training? She probably insisted on doing the training, the other Riders are probably at the Edge, or out looking for Dagur, I answered my own question.

To both, Astrid had said "Fail!" After she said it about Gothi, I heard Hiccup exclaim, "Oh, come on, you gotta count that!"

Gustav was next, and he did it perfectly. "Lucky shot, do it again." was all that was heard from Astrid. He went to do it again, and would have hit the target, had Astrid not kicked it out of the way at the last minute. "Element of surprise, key to any battle," she told us.

From above I heard Hiccup ask himself, "What is she doing?"

"Okay, Days, your turn."

I nodded and mounted Firewing. We took off, doing exactly like she said, but my mind wandered to my newly discovered dragon side. Firewing must have noticed that I was distracted, and that distracted him as well, making him miss his shot. We landed just after Astrid had said "Fail!" I got off of Firewing, still trying to reign my mind in.

"Class dismissed," Astrid told the others, and then walked over to me. "Daystrid, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Are you sure? You and Firewing work well together, you normally wouldn't have missed that shot."

"I know. It's just..."

"Days, if you're still not feeling okay from the fire..."

"No, it's not that. I'm fine, I'm just distracted."

"About what? You know you can tell me, right?"

"Yeah… I'm…" I stopped mid sentence, realizing that I had just spoken dragonese, on accident. I slapped a hand over my mouth and ran out of the arena, Firewing right behind me. Astrid tried to stop me, but was unsuccessful, as I dodged her arm.

I passed Hiccup on my way out of the arena. He looked at me with a questioning look as I ran by, but he didn't try to stop me.

Hiccup

As Daystrid ran past me, my mind was racing. As far as I had known, she was still unconscious from the fire. I had seen her when Toothless and I had landed, but then she had missed the shot, one I know she normally would have made. Then, to top it all off, she spoke dragonese. Something only a dragon could speak, or someone that is part-dragon, like I am. I could tell that it had surprised Astrid, and instead of trying to explain, Daystrid ran out.

I walked up to Astrid, who was still standing in the middle of the arena, where she had tried to stop her sister.

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked.

"Well, um, my sister just spoke in the dragons' language-"

"Dragonese," I corrected.

"Yeah, whatever. But then she just ran out. I'm worried about her. She even missed the shot that I was certain that she would make." She paused, like she was thinking about something. "Wait, Hiccup, you can speak the dragons' language, right?"

"Uh, yeah…" I was surprised to hear the question. I pretty much never used my dragon side around the others.

"So you understood what she said!"

"Uh, yeah. She answered your question, and then was going to say something, but didn't finish the sentence."

"Oh."

"I wouldn't push it, Astrid. She'll tell you when she's ready."

"I know. But I'm just worried about her. You know that my parents hid her from everybody until she was 10 years old. She was cut off from everyone, even me. I don't want her to feel like that again." Astrid looked down at her feet, obviously worried about her sister more than she had been before

"It's okay. Just be patient with her, and talk to her."I put a hand on her shoulder causing her to look up at me, "Anyways…" I sighed. "Astrid, I know what you're doing."

"Really?" she questioned. "And what is that?"

"You're being overly tough on these guys; I saw what you did to Gustav."

"The element of surprise?" She gave me a doubtful look. "How is that being overly tough?"

I shook my head a little, "It's not that… it's you want them to fail. That way you have an excuse to stay on Berk. We both know what's going on here."

Astrid turned around, crossing her arms. "You're wrong, Hiccup. You're wrong."

I sighed. "Astrid, I get it. You want to stay on Berk and protect your family, but you can't be there every second of every day for the rest of their lives." I paused, "... just think about it, okay?"

"I'm gonna head out to the Edge, check on the others. See how they're doing. I'll be back in a few days. We can talk about it more then." I told her. Toothless and I then took off for the Edge.

Several Hours Later

The Edge had just come into view. Berserker ships were attacking the base. None of the Riders were anywhere to be seen.

"Uh, oh. Dagur's found the edge." I told Toothless.

"Well then, we'll just have to help him forget about finding it," Toothless responded.

I chuckled, we headed towards the base, dodging any arrows, boulders, and bolas shot at us. The dome around the arena was closed, I assumed the Riders were hiding out in there. Taking the cave entrance into the arena, Toothless and I soon found out that my assumption had been correct. The twins were sitting on the ground playing with one of the Night Terrors, Snotlout was leaning against Hookfang, and Fishlegs was checking out Meatlug's wing.

"Is everybody okay?" I asked, getting off of Toothless.

"Meatlug took one in the wing, but she'll be okay in a few days," Fishlegs answered.

Snotlout came over, "They got the drop on us, Hiccup, hit us before we knew they were there. If our early warning system hadn't been…" He turned to look pointedly at the twins.

Tuffnut looked offended, retorting, "Hey! Let's not start throwing the twins under the yak cart!"

I sighed. "We have to fight back."

"We tried," Ruffnut reasoned, "but it didn't go so well."

"Dagur has us totally pinned down."

"With a dozen ships."

"And they have this catapult that can launch, like, 20 arrows at a time," Tuffnut explained. "It's actually pretty cool, I'm asking for it for Snoggletog. Think Dagur'll give it to me?"

I sighed, shaking my head, "It doesn't matter, this is our home and we're defending it." I looked around at all of them. "Now think… What are our advantages?"

"We have the high ground?" Fishlegs offered.

"That's right," I confirmed. This seemed to get everyone else seeing possible advantages: good cover, supplies, and dragons (which is pretty much implied).

"Okay," I started, liking the spirit, "We'll send a terror mail back to Berk for reinforcements." I scribbled out a letter and tied it to the leg of a Terror that had flown in while we were talking. I directed it towards the crack in the floor that led to the caves underneath after telling it where to go. I turned back towards the Riders, "In the meantime, we hold the Edge."

Daystrid

I almost didn't want to go back to the arena today. I didn't even go home last night. I spent the night in the forest with Firewing. Astrid was probably worried sick, but that wasn't the main reason I didn't want to go back to the arena. I'd walked out on her yesterday, and I knew she'd question me about it today. But training to be a Dragon Rider won over avoiding my sister, so I went anyways.

When I got to the arena, Astrid was painting something on the ground. I wasn't the first one there, so I knew that she'd wait to question me until after class today.

"Not all combat is in the air. Today is about precision landing. I want you all to practice landing in the circle, like that," she said as Stoick landed in the middle of the circle that she'd painted on the arena floor.

"Astrid. Just got a Terror from Hiccup. Dragon's Edge is under siege by Dagur's fleet."