Present Day- Daystrid

"I spent that night in the woods with Toothless. The next morning I went back to the village, and tried my best to avoid Dad all day," Hiccup said, finishing his story. "So yeah, I nearly killed Dad. Not too happy about it."

"Wow," was all any of us could say.

"So how did Daystrid find out?" Tuffnut asked, sounding really interested.

"Uh, my story's not nearly as interesting as Hiccup's."

"So?" Ruffnut asked. "I still want to hear it."

"Okay, I literally woke up, after the fire, went to find Firewing in the woods, and accidentally set my hands on fire. That's pretty much it."

"Aw, that's boring!" Ruffnut whined.

"Her story may be a bit boring, but her powers are more interesting than mine." Hiccup tried defending me.

"What do you mean? Don't you have the same ones?" Astrid asked.

"Okay," Fishlegs spoke up, "is anybody gonna ignore that Hiccup and Daystrid are always with their dragons, yet neither dragon is anywhere to be seen?"

"Yeah, I haven't seen Toothless since the middle of the battle yesterday," Snotlout replied.

"Firewing didn't come to my hut with you yesterday, did he?" Astrid asked me.

"Well," I turned to Hiccup, unsure of how to explain that he had been with me.

"Firewing was with Toothless for most of the night." Well that's one way to say it. But now they're gonna have even more questions.

"Wasn't Toothless with us, son?" Stoick asked.

"Uhhhhhh…" Hiccup obviously didn't know what to say to that.

"Didn't think that through, did you?" I asked him.

"Uh, to be honest, no I didn't."

"I'm not helping you explain."

"Neither am I." I heard Toothless say from above us. I looked up and sure enough, there he laid on one of the supports for the roof of the clubhouse.

Hiccup looked quite unhappy with both of us, especially me. I could quite easily help him, actually both of us could.

"Son? Something wrong?"

"Uh, no. Just trying to figure out how to say this."

"One would think this would be quite easy," Firewing said as he appeared next to me.

"Okay, either I'm going crazy or that dragon just appeared out of thin air," was heard from Snotlout.

"You're not going crazy, Snotlout," Hiccup and I said at the same time. Then turning to Firewing, I said, "Well look who finally decided to wake up. And what do you mean this should be quite easy?"

"You could literally just tell them."

"Oh." Hiccup and I looked at each other. "Why didn't we think of that?"

"Think of what?" Toothless asked, hopping down from the roof.

"Are you deaf, bud? Firewing just said it." Hiccup gave the dragon a strange look.

"Oh… I might be."

I burst out laughing, this was too funny. And Toothless says he's the best dragon, that he's got the best hearing.

The Riders and Stoick were looking quite confused. They hadn't understood anything that had just been said, so…

"Okay, um," Hiccup started, "Please don't call me crazy when I tell you this. Cause it's gonna be the craziest thing you've heard all week.

"The dragons hide in tattoos on our arms. I know that sounds crazy, okay? When we say they're in the same place, that's where they are."

Everyone looked stunned at this new piece of information, particularly Astrid and the Chief.

"What do you mean, son?" Stoick asked.

"I mean I literally have a tattoo, well what looks like one anyways, on my arm, that Toothless can hide in." Hiccup then unstrapped his left armguard, as Toothless disappeared with a flash of purple light. He dropped the armguard to the ground then pulled up his left sleeve, and showed us his arm. I'd expected to see something similar to mine, but his was different. The dragon appeared to be laying on his arm, his tail curled around it slightly. His wings were wrapped around Hiccup's wrist.

"Why has nobody ever seen that before?" Stoick asked, more curious about this than any of us would have thought.

"I always have my arms covered, and it doesn't always look like this. Especially since Toothless isn't usually in it." With another flash of light, Toothless was standing next to Hiccup again, and Hiccup showed them his arm again. Only this time, there was what looked like a really weird scar where the dragon had been.

"Woah!" "Cool!" The twins exclaimed.

Everyone else looked as though they couldn't believe it. I decided to show them mine, so I unwrapped the leather around my left arm, as Firewing disappeared into thin air.

On my arm, the dragon was very similar to Hiccup's. But since Nightmares have a longer neck, the dragon's neck looped around my thumb. Hiccup looked quite interested in mine, since it was different from his.

"Okay, but what about how you two looked yesterday? You looked pretty weird," Tuffnut asked. Ruffnut punched him, muttering, "You can think that, just don't say it."

"Oh…" Hiccup rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "Yeah, that was our, uh, second form." He doesn't know how to explain this does he? He's probably never had to before.

"Your second form?" Astrid asked, looking between us.

"As Halflings, we can take two different forms: human and halfling. You normally see us in our human form." Hiccup answered. He seemed to know what he was talking about a little more. "We were in our Halfling forms yesterday."

"Cool! Can you do it again?" the twins asked at the same time.

"Uh, I'd rather not," Hiccup and I said, as we looked at each other.

"Well, we could, but…" Hiccup started. Toothless and Firewing must have sensed how uncomfortable the situation was getting, because Toothless put Hiccup on his back, and took off, giving Hiccup little time to get his prosthetic in the pedal and open the tailfin. Firewing just simply grabbed me and took off.

As we flew off, I heard Snotlout say, "Kidnapped by a dragon, typical Hiccup."

"I see you decided to follow me," Hiccup said, as I caught up to him.

"You say that like I had a choice to come up here."

"Well, I know that you didn't, really… cause I didn't. Toothless just grabbed me and took off, but y'know, you didn't have to follow me."

"Eh, I prefer to be around someone who knows the area, like you. I don't like getting lost."

"Oh, that makes sense." He paused, as if wanting to say something, but unsure of how to say it. "Uh, I have a question for you. This may seem a little weird, or like it's none of my business, but when you go flying with Firewing, how far out do you guys usually go?"

"About to the edge of our waters, why?"

"Okay…" He muttered something under his breath that I couldn't hear.

"Um, how would you feel about having a fake name? Like a second life, that you just leave sit and don't touch unless you needed to." Hiccup asked after a while.

"Uh, I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"Because it might be safer for you to go flying if you have one."

"What do you mean?" I was starting to get confused. Is he hinting that he has a second name, that none of us know about? And if he does, why? And why would it be safer?

"I mean that there's a tribe of Dragon Trappers out there that take pride in capturing and killing Halflings and the original Fyrests. I've had a couple really nasty run-ins with them, and it's easier to have a name to give them without giving them your actual name."

"So you have a different name?"

"Yes, my father doesn't even know about it. I'm guessing you want to know what it is?" I nodded, and he turned towards me and smiled: "Ever heard of Night Rider?"

"Yeah… wait, are you Night Rider?!" There was no way he'd bring Night Rider into the conversation if he didn't have something to do with what we were talking about.

"Yep. You weren't expecting that, were you?" he asked, smirking.

"No-no, I wasn't. I'm finding that a little hard to believe. I mean, Night Rider's had run-ins with the Outcasts and Berserkers, people who know you."

"Do you know what Night Rider is known for doing?"

"No."

"Keeping quiet and hiding in the shadows. Never speaks and wears all black."

"Okay, I'm seeing how you could be Night Rider now."

"Could be?! Daystrid, I am Night Rider. There's no 'could be' about it.

"I'm just thinking that if you were to come up with a name like that, if you were caught by the Trappers, then they can't trace you back to Berk, which keeps Berk safe, as well as you when you're on Berk. But you would have to hide your identity too. Like if you're caught."

"Okay, yeah, you have a point. So how would I go about coming up with a name?"

"You could make it similar to mine, that would show that we probably know each other… and make it easier for me to remember. Or you could come up with something all your own."

That got me thinking: He did something that had to do with his dragon side, that would be the easiest. And similar to his… I got it! "What about Flame Rider? Would that work?"

"That works, but you need to find a way to hide your identity quickly. I don't know how well I can help you with that.

"One more thing," he started. "How much does Firewing know about how to help you with your abilities?"

"I'm not sure," I responded. We'd never really talked about it. He'd taught me how to fly and how to tell if I'm speaking dragonese, but other than that, we didn't really talk about anything else. When I'd used my fire during the battle, I'd gone off of instinct. I had some of an idea of how to use it, but it wasn't something that I was confident in.

"Well… I'd suggest making sure you can control everything. I'm always here if you have any questions for me." Hiccup smiled. I nodded in response. "We, uh, we should probably head back to the Edge, before they come looking for us."

"Yeah," I replied as I turned Firewing around.