Ch. 5
A Day with Mother

Toothless and I flew closely behind my mom and Cloudjumper. We were outside of the island and flying over the icebergs and sea. I had no idea where she was trying to take us, but the rumbling in my stomach told me to be patient. Then, from behind me I heard a screech. I turned around, and saw that we were being followed by what looked like every dragon from the island. I blinked as I stared at them.

"Uh…"

'You're just now noticing them, huh?' Toothless asked.

I nodded. Shaking my head, I turned back around to look at my mom.

"Hey, I thought we were going to eat?"

"Oh, we are!"

Her and Cloudjumper suddenly stopped moving and turned around. She held her hand out and Toothless stopped, flapping where he sat.

"Uh, what're we doing then?" I asked curiously.

But she just smiled at be before looking down. Toothless and I both shared a glance before we too looked down at the sea below us. I saw the water turn violently before something large broke the surface. It was the Alpha. He bellowed loudly before opening his large jaws, and tons of fish sprayed out. The fish had gone up so high that it now looked like it was raining fish. I gasped as I stared around in amazement. My mom started laughing. From all around me, the other dragons started chasing after the falling fish, grabbing as many as they could carry.

'Hicca!' Toothless looked up at me excitedly. 'Can do that too? Can I, can I?!'

I chuckled before gesturing down. "Go ahead. I'm not stopping you."

'YEAH!'

Without hesitation, Toothless suddenly dove down along with the other dragons. As he leveled out I saw his head snap from side to side as he caught several fish in his very large mouth. I looked down to see that Toothless had gone cross-eyed before he started to chew all of his fish.

"Don't choke," I said, half laughing.

Suddenly, something fell right into my lap. It was a single fish. I looked up to see my mom and Cloudjumper hovering above us. The dragon tilted his head and chortled.

'You're welcome.'

I laughed.

"So," my mom called down. "How about after you eat, you tell me everywhere else that you've been to."

I smiled up at her.

After eating my fish, my mom led us around the island before taking us to edge of the island that was covered in snow. She leapt off of Cloudjumper and waited for me.

"So?" she asked, looking a little excited.

I hopped off of Toothless and walked over to her. I reached into my vest and pulled out the sketchbook and opened it. She looked at it curiously.

"This is where I've mapped all the places I've been," I said as I kneeled down into the snow. "And all the new land that Toothless and I have discovered."

I slowly and gently started to pull out and unfold the map. I unfolded and revealed every little addition that I ever made. I looked up at my mom, and I was happy to see an amazing look on her face.

"My, my," she said. "You two certainly get around."

"No kidding," I pointed to one spot on the map. "See, this here is Berk. And this island over here, that's Dragon Island. It's got more dragons on there than most of the islands around us, but the rest of them have plenty. My friends and I once went to this little island, here, and it was filled Changwings. But, we were trying to save this Scaldran that got stuck on land, so we just had to be careful. Oh, and then, from Dragon Island, I found this archipelago, and…"

But when I glanced back up to look at her, I saw that she had moved. I looked around, saw her in front of me, and my jaw dropped. She was using her staff to draw all of the islands that I had drawn on my map into the snow. She just finished the end of one island before backing up next to me.

"There," she said.

I looked down at the snow before smiling up at her. She smiled back. Then, I heard a familiar groan and turned around. Toothless was waltzing around the snow, drawing squiggly lines all over the islands that my mom had drawn with a large icicle he held in his mouth. I let out a small fit of giggles as I looked up at my mom.

"Don't worry," I said. "He's always like this."

She chuckled, and we both watched as Toothless dried to drop the large icicle, but it just stuck to his tongue.

After getting the icicle off of Toothless, my mom brought us to this little spot on the island farther towards the ocean. Air seemed to come from nowhere and lift us up without Toothless having to flap his wings.

I held onto the handles of my saddle to keep from floating off of Toothless. I looked up and saw that my mom was simply standing on Cloudjumper's back, not even holding onto anything. I gotta learn how to do that! She looked over at me and smiled. Then, to my surprise, she walked across Cloudjumper's wing and landed on the back of a nearby Nadder. She walked across it and leapt down to a nearby dragon that I think she called a Snafflefang. She tiptoed across his wings and hooked herself onto another dragon using her hooked staff. The dragon floated over towards us and she then landed on Toothless' right wing. She smiled at me as she quickly walked over. She leapt over me, ruffling my bangs as she landed on Toothless' other wing. She walked backwards a bit before slowly sliding off. I gasped slightly as I looked down, then laughed when I saw her on Cloudjumper's back once more.

She smiled at us before they turned and started flying away. I patted Toothless' head, and he quickly followed him. My mom waited until I was level with her before speaking.

"Oh, when I'm up here," she breathed. "I don't even feel the cold. I just feel…"

"Free," I finished.

She opened her eyes and looked over at me. I smiled at her, and she smiled back. Her smile widened as she looked forward and threw her arms out, as though imagining that she was flying.

"This is what it is to be a dragon, Hicca!" she said loudly and happily.

'She's not wrong,' said Toothless.

I smirked. "Yeah, it's all well and good to call yourself a dragon," I said as I undid the hooks on my belt. "But can you fly?"

Without waiting for a response, I leapt off of Toothless' back. I dived down several feet before pulling the loops by my feet, and my wings expanded. The wind forced me up, and I whooped and hollered. I laughed as I turned onto my back, but suddenly, I didn't see any of them above me. I saw movement to the side, and I looked over to see my mom flying next to me. She smiled at me as she rose up. I let out another holler of joy as I turned back onto my front.

Suddenly, I found myself heading straight for large stone pillars. My mouth dropped as I gasped in shock.

"Oh, no!"

'Hold on, Hicca!'

I felt a pair of large, powerful arms wrap around me before I landed hard on the ground. The arms disappeared as I felt myself surrounded in something cold, and I knew that I must've slipped out of Toothless' grip and dove into the snow. Sure enough, when I opened my eyes and I was surrounded my white.

'Hicca?' Toothless called out.

I smiled to myself before jumping up out from underneath the snow.

"Ha!" I called out, and suddenly I was laughing. "Whoo-hoo! Man, almost! We just about had it that time, bud!"

Toothless let out a sneeze and shook his head. I giggled. He snapped his head towards me and gave me a very unamused look.

'You know what? That's it. I'm done with you.'

Suddenly, Toothless' tail swung out from behind me and knocked me off my feet. I yelped as I fell back and landed back into the snow. I grunted as I spat snow out of my mouth. As I got up to my feet I heard laughter as my mom suddenly ran up to me. She walked around me and examined my suit with amazement in her eyes.

"Incredible," she said as she examined the spikes on my back.

I smiled. "Well, you're not bad yourself."

She wasn't listening to me, but walked around to stand in front of me as she looked me all over, touching parts of my suit. Suddenly, in her hast to examine, her hand landed on my cheek. She quickly took it off, hesitated, and then gently placed it back on. I closed my eyes as I leaned into her palm. I opened my eyes to look at her, and she smiled as she moves my bangs behind my ear.

"All this time, you took after me," she said softly, then her face fell. "And…where was I? I'm so sorry, Hicca. Can we start over?" she looked up at me hopefully. "Will… will you give me another chance?"

I looked up at her for a moment. For the first time since I was a baby, I finally had a mother, and here she was, begging to be a part of my life again. I looked at her for a moment before I smiled widely, and gave a small nod. How could I say no? As soon as I nodded her face lit up and a smile grew on her face.

"I can teach you all that I've learned these past 20 years," she said quickly as she walked around me and went over to Toothless. "Like…"

She raised her hand and placed it on the back of Toothless' neck. She started rubbing circles into his neck, and he groaned. Then I heard a loud snapping noise and I looked up. The spikes along Toothless' back had all snapped apart, now forming two rows of spikes from his back down to his tail.

"Wow," I breathed.

My mom smiled. "Now you can make those tight turns."

Toothless shook his head, looking like he had just come out of a trance. He looked behind him, saw the spikes, and gasped. He then looked at me, his face beaming.

'Hicca, look!'

He chortled happily as he bounced over to me. I laughed as I reached up and patted his head.

"Did you know about this?"

'Of course I didn't!' he squealed as he started to make his spikes clap. 'Why else would I be this happy?'

I giggled as I kissed his head. Toothless happily licked my cheek before he started bouncing around. My mom laughed as she walked up to me.

"How did you do that?" I asked in amazement.

"Don't worry, there's more where that came from," she said, smiling.

"Wow… wicked!"

She chuckled as she placed an arm around my shoulders. "Every dragon has its secrets, and I'll show them all to you. We'll unlock every mystery, find every last species together, as mother and daughter."

I looked forward when I saw Toothless leap into the snow and dive down, as though it were water. He crawled around a bit before suddenly jumping out right next to Cloudjumper, snow flying everywhere. A large amount of it landed on the larger dragon's head, and he frown in an unamused sort of way. Toothless', oblivious as ever, didn't pay him no mind and just beamed over at us, licking snow off of his lips. Me and my mom laughed, and then laughed even more when Cloudjumper tilted his head and dumped the snow off onto Toothless' head instead.

"This gift we share, Hicca, it bonds us," I looked over at her as she gripped my shoulder. "This is who you are, dear. Who we are. We will change the world for all dragons. We will make it a better, safer place!"

"Yes!" I said excitedly. "Yeah, that's sounds amazing! It's all I've ever wanted…!"

My mom beamed at me for a moment before rushing forward and wrapping her arms around me. I froze for a moment, stunned by surprise. Then, I smiled before hugging her back, resting my forehead into her shoulder. I couldn't remember the last time I was this happy. This was amazing, this was wonderful.

"Wow, this is so great!" I said as I lowered my arms and stepped back. "Man, it's better than great! Now you and I can go talk to Drago together."

"What?" she shook her head. "There's no talking to Drago, dear."

I raised my eyebrow. "What?"

'It's too dangerous,' said Cloudjumper as he walked over to us. 'Besides, he would never listen to us.'

I frowned. "But, we have to-"

"No," my mom reached up and held Cloudjumper's face. "We must protect our own."

I shook my head and groaned. Not her, too.

"Come on," she said. "We should be getting back."

I sighed. "Alright, c'mon bud," I looked around. "…Toothless?"

Toothless looked over at me, still beaming as he clapped his new spikes. I giggled in spite of myself.

Austen's P.O.V.

It didn't take us long to follow Eret's lead to where Drago was hiding. Thanks to a little persuading, he led us to this gigantic island that looked like a glacier. We flew into this cave that was filled with snow and ice.

As we passed through the cave entrance Stormfly released Eret from her grasp. He landed in the snow with a loud thud and a grunt. Then he got up and quickly started to run.

'Oh no, you don't!'

Stormfly quickly dove down and landed right on top of him, pinning him down in the snow. I smirked as I got off of Stormfly.

"Okay!" Eret spat. "Look, I got you here, now get this thing off me!"

I shook my head. "Nope, can't do that."

"What?"

"Never take a toy from a dragon. Don't you know anything?" I looked up at Stormfly. "Keep an eye him, babe."

'No problem.'

I smirked as I turned around. The others got off of their dragons and followed me as I crawled up a snow-covered hill. As I neared the top I crouched down and crawled up until I was on the ledge. I peeked over to get a better look, and gasped. I was staring down into the water below at what looked like a whole armada of ships. They all seemed to fill up the entire area of the water. As I looked closer, I could see that the biggest one, as well as many others, seemed to be sitting in a circle around a small area of the water from which massive bubbles kept appearing on the surface.

"What's down there?" I said. "It has to be some kind of dragon, right?"

"It must be," Fishlegs pulled out his info cards and looked from them to the water and back. "Large diameter bubbles, massive lungs, cold water deep dweller… I'm thinking class five leviathan, maybe six."

From behind me, I heard a soft growling. I turned around to look back at the dragons. Stormfly appeared to be standing up, looking around the cave.

"Stormfly?"

Suddenly, she screeched and took flight, shooting into the air.

'Guys! Run!' she shouted.

Before any of us could move, I saw movement from the snow. I saw several men dressed in polar bear furs and holding blowing dart pipes. They started blowing darts, and they all started to hit the dragons. They growled and roared for a moment before falling to the ground. I sprang to my feet and withdrew my axe as I ran down the hill, the others following behind me.

"Hookfang!"

"Meatlug! What's wrong, girl?"

But, even as we reached them the men in the furs leapt out, brandishing their own weapons. Only now did I realize that there were more of them than there were of us.

"Don't move!" one of them shouted.

I glared around at them as I lowered my axe. From next to me, I saw Fishlegs drop his cards and throw his hands into the air. This did not look good at all.

I wish I could say that I've been in worse situations, but I couldn't think of any right now. And even if I could, being tied up and sent straight to Drago's ship would still probably be at the top of the list.

"Drago!" Eret said with the air of someone trying to play polite.

I looked up at the upper level of the deck, and saw a tall dark figure approach us. He was just as Stoick had described, scars and all. And he was in a long cloak of dragon skin. I cringed slightly. I don't know why, but that black skin and those scales looked suspiciously like that of a Night Fury.

"Get off me!" Eret snapped at the man who was holding his arms. He glared at him and then smiled at Drago. "Haha! Always great to see you, my friend! Keeping warm up here."

Drago didn't speak. The ironclad dragons who were dragging our still unconscious dragons stopped moving. They bowed their heads and looked away as Drago passed them. A crew member walked up by Eret and quickly snatched both of his swords. Eret stared for a moment before adopting a tone of casualty.

"Well, as you can see, I'm right on time with a new batch of dragons," he said. "Just like I promised."

Then, ahead of me, I heard sudden growling. I looked over to see that Hookfang had woken up.

"He's waking up!"

"Give me some backup, here!"

The men around him grabbed the ropes that were wrapped around the Nightmare's neck. Hookfang snarled and roared, snapping at them.

'How dare you! Get your hands off me!'

"Drop the ropes!"

I looked down to see Drago walked up to Hookfang with no worry on his face and swagger in his step. The men did as they were told and ran off. Hookfang growled at the man before opening his jaws and spouting fire out at him. For a moment, it looked like the dragon had killed him. But, as soon as the fire stopped I saw that Drago was still standing, and was holding the dragon skin up as a shield. He dropped the cloak and continued to walk forward. Me and the others stared in surprised. Even Eret looked unnerved.

A man standing next to him held out a spear and Drago took it. Then, out of nowhere, Drago started yelling loudly and started waving the spear around above his head. He sounded mad and deranged. Hookfang flinched as he stared at him. Drago yelled once more before slamming the spear into the deck of the ship. He growled softly, glaring down at the dragon. Hookfang lowered his head until it rested on the ground. Drago smirked as he rested his foot on the Nightmare's snout.

"Hookfang!" Snotlout shouted.

"Hey, what're you doing?" I yelled furiously.

Drago didn't even look at us. "You belong to me, now," he snarled, smirking down at Hookfang.

"And, as an added bonus," Eret spoke up, looking as though he weren't affected by what just happened. "I also caught you their riders. No extra charge."

"What?" I snapped. "Are you frigging kidding me?"

"Aw! But, you were so perfect!" Ruffnut groaned sadly.

Eret ignored us. "Turns out, there's a whole bunch of them out there. They attac-"

Eret was cut off as Drago snatched him by his throat and dragged him down to his feet.

"How many?" he glowered lowly.

I inhaled sharply. "Drago doesn't have them after all," I hissed to the others.

"How many?!" Drago repeated.

"Hundreds," I spoke up loudly. "A whole island full!"

"I wouldn't worry about it," Eret coughed as Drago's grip on his throat tightened. "My men are hunting them down as we speak. They won't now- where you're hiding, I promise you that!"

"Oh yes, they will!" I said as I walked up. Drago glared at me as he dropped Eret. "They know we're missing, and they have tracking dragons. If you so much as touch us, Hicca is gonna kick your-"

"Hicca?" Drago snapped questioningly.

"She's not a problem," Eret rasped. "Really. Trust me."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh yeah, she's no problem," I said. "She's only the daughter of Stoick the Vast, his heir to the throne of Berk, and the greatest dragon master this world has ever seen!"

"Dragon master?" Drago growled. "I alone control the dragons!"

From behind me, I heard the others laugh.

"No. Mmm-mmm."

"Sorry!"

Drago glared down at me. "No man can ever defeat me," he snarled. "What makes you think she can? No woman can handle being chief, let alone fight someone like me!"

I glared up at him with as much anger as I could muster. This was not the first time I heard any sexiest behavior towards Hicca, but this one really pissed me off.

"Because," I said through gritted teeth. "If you don't let us go, right now, she will blast through here on her Night Fury and blow your entire fleet of ships to splinters!"

"Then they'll be crying like babies!" Ruffnut jeered.

The other boys laughed.

"Funny and beautiful."

"Good one, babe!"

"Yeah, like babies," Tuffnut added. "They always cry. Real tiny ones."

I smirked as I looked up at Drago. Hopefully, now he would be convinced to let us all go free. Instead, he reached down and grabbed Eret by the face.

"First, there was one rider, and now, all of Berk!" he growled as he bared his teeth. "And you led them to me!"

He yelled as he threw Eret down onto the ground. Eret grunted as he sat up.

"Drago-!"

"Stop all preparations!" Drago yelled to his crew. "We must attack the dragon rider's nest at once! We will take down their alpha, then… we will take Berk!"

All around me, Drago's crew yelled and cheered in agreement. My whole chest felt deflated and a sick feeling sunk into my stomach. My plan had backfired. What have I done…?

"Drago!" Eret yelled.

"And get rid of him," Drago said, gesturing to Eret.

At once, all of the men on deck turned and aimed their weapons towards Eret, who backed up hastily.

"Oh Drago, please, I…"

One of the men threw a large dagger down towards Eret, who threw his arms up. Suddenly, something big and blue came crashing down and blocked the dagger. It was Stormfly. She screeched at all of the men as she whipped her tail and spikes shot out. From above, I saw a man put a pipe to his mouth, and a red dart shot out.

"Stormfly!"

Before she could do anything, the dart hit her in her neck. She groaned before she fell onto her side on the deck. I gasped as I watched her fall.

"NO!"

I tried to run forward, but one of the men grabbed my arms and held me back. I snarled as I pushed forward with all my might. Several more men ran forward and grabbed me by my arms and held me up so that my feet were above the ground. I just barley heard Drago order to his men.

"Get rid of them all!" he said. "And get that dragon in a cage, now!"

I kicked out furiously, trying to escape the grasp of the men around me. But a few more just grabbed my feet as they dragged me off.

"No!" I screamed. "She's a mother, you monster! You can't do this! Ugh, get off me!"

But no matter how much I struggled and kicked I couldn't get out. I was dragged off along with the others. I looked forward at Stormfly as several men with rope surrounded her. Eret was still standing up, staring down at her.