Urbanator: I had to look that one up...
Obiben27: Here you go. After this one, there are just two more!
DragonKing49: Yay! Stay on the lookout for a sequel—once I finally get it finished. Must go and do some more on that. Why is Quora so addictive?
I'll be the lightHow are you?
'Can't complain!' Toothless roared back, flinging us straight up into the air. I rejoiced to merge my Flame with his again, our purples flowing together seamlessly, and frowned at the thirst and hunger I felt there. Vikings really didn't treat their captives very well, did they? Fortunately it wouldn't limit him much. We flashed away from the sinking ships and headed straight toward the enormous dragon terrorizing my friends.
Was that Snotlout on her head?!
I watched in astonishment as the twins, fighting and shoving each other, flew past her and Snotlout managed to leap into the grasp of Barf and Belch. Astrid and Stormfly were also pulling away, trying to leave us a clear shot like I'd told them to.
'You brought Stormfly?!'
I got the only dragons I could find!
Astrid and Stormfly followed the twin's curve but the Queen was ready this time. To my horror, she tugged on Stormfly with a powerful inhale, slowly dragging the struggling pair towards her razor sharp teeth.
What now?!I panicked, out of ideas. My creativity had only gotten me to Toothless, no further.
'I've wanted to do this for a long time!' he roared, plunging up and into a steep dive towards the Queen's mouth. I bent down and pressed myself flat against his back, holding back a whoop to be properly flying with him again.
'Come and get me!' he screamed at the Queen, his explosive fire impacting on her lower jaw with a large shockwave that knocked Stormfly out of the sky and Astrid off her back. We slid up and twisted over in a tight manoeuvre that made the most of our momentum, doubling back faster than we'd arrived. My heart leapt into my throat as we zipped past Astrid's screams.
"Did you get her?"
'Of course,' Toothless said, indignant that I was questioning his skill, and I hugged him tighter with my legs. If we didn't get out of this alive, the most likely outcome, I was glad I'd seen him again. We circled around the sea stacks again, slowing just enough to avoid dragging Astrid into a bloody smear on the rocks, and flew straight at the Queen.
'Cover me?'
Always. I wrapped my Flame tighter around his in a shield, something I was getting quite good at, and we approached her, her massive frame terrorizing more boats. They didn't run around as much as Vikings did. I squinted at her through the blistering wind as we passed, struggling to see anything through my streaming eyes, and thought I caught a glimpse of leathery wing membrane.
"That thing has wings." The beginnings of a plan hesitantly waved at me, drawing my attention. "Okay, let's see if it can use them."
'I like the sound of that!' The savage pleasure of revenge in Toothless' Flame was shocking but not unexpected. Twelve years of forced servitude, the Queen taking over his body and mind… I wanted that monster dead as much as he did.
He spread his wings, angled upwards slightly, and we spun vertically in a split second, complete masters of the air. We were moving so fast that I barely saw the hit and even the explosion was muted somehow though I knew he would never miss.
"Do you think that did it?!" I had to scream to make myself heard over the whistle of air.
'I'd think so,' he smirked.
I turned around to see her flat on the ground, knocked over but by no means injured by our blast. Still, the immense power behind that strike… It was intoxicating. I could feel the fight-thrill rushing through my veins as I merged deeper with Toothless' Flame, bracing myself for the barrage against my Flame. Massive wings lifted into the sky, crumbling at the edges from age and disuse, and flapped once, lifting the Queen's heavy body into the air.
"Well, she can fly." The immense winds her wings stirred up tore against us, and for a moment, Toothless seemed to struggle.
I flicked the tail fin with a twitch of my ankle and we spun sideways into a group of sea stacks, twirling and dodging while she took longer to avoid them.
You're out of shape!I thrust at her blackened Flame, trying to get her angry. You couldn't catch a Gronckle like this!In a fair fight, weight always won. We needed to cheat, and the less she was thinking, the easier it would be to trick her.
The air was knocked out of my lungs as she retaliated, slamming tar-like tendrils into me. I gasped and shuddered, clinging to the saddle, but stayed conscious and aware enough of my surroundings to operate the tail fin. That was all I needed.
A sea stack crumbled behind us as she barreled right through it, the rock barely making a dent in her thick skin. Apparently, tall columns of solid rock were only inconveniences for her. Even low to the ground so she couldn't use the full length of her wings, she was gaining on us. A plus side of her rage was that she became more focused on squashing us physically, and the attack on my Flame lessened, freeing me to desperately cobble a plan together. It was dark, the clouds thick and black, almost like night. That's it!
"Okay, Toothless, time to disappear!" We slipped upwards, always just out of her reach as he struggled to keep ahead. "Come on, bud!"
A hiss behind me made me twist in the saddle to see the sight of a dragon ready to fire, mouth open and breath drawn in, a greenish gas gathered at the back of her terrifyingly large throat. I forced myself to wait—one Zippleback, two Zipplebacks—and twisted the tail fin forcefully to spin us to the side. "Here it comes!"
We barely lost any speed, still desperately climbing as a solid cloud of fire passed by barely two metres from my face. I ignored the stinging pain and helped Toothless zoom past her face, ducking through a thick cloud of smoke that made me choke, before entering the slightly lighter cloud. It got darker the higher we were for some strange reason, and I felt the Queen quite literally hot on our tail, her teeth snapping closed on the place we'd been barely a second ago.
We'd done it! In opening her mouth to chomp on us, she'd blocked her eyes with her own jaw and we'd slipped out of sight. Toothless slowed a little, panting, and I scrambled for another stage of a plan. Now what? We couldn't let her lose interest in us, which meant we had to be dangerous—where was she vulnerable?
Toothless and I reached the same conclusion in the same instant. Her wings!
He twisted and I followed, somehow making our way behind her. I spared a little concentration to turn my Flame-vision on and blinked to adjust. The clouds were blank white but Toothless' Flame burned bright underneath me and the Queen's blackened tendrils churned in front of us. If she couldn't see me, she couldn't attack.
Where? Toothless asked, and I nudged him a little to the right, trying to anticipate where her wings would be in relation to her crippled Flame.
Can you see her now?
He edged forward and grinned savagely. I still couldn't see anything, but he must have found her. I clenched my knees as he flapped his wings hard to enter a short firing dive, then there was a short screech as he spat purple fire.
It was even more effective than I'd anticipated, and a small smoking hole appeared in the Queen's wing. We circled while she was writhing in the air, trying to find us, and hit her other wing.
'Four,' Toothless muttered to himself, voice tight, and I waited as we made pass after pass, blasting several holes in each wing. With each number his amazement grew, and I wondered what his shot limit was.
'CURSE YOU, SPAWN OF THE AIR!' the Queen screamed, spinning round and round. Fire erupted from her mouth and I yelped, the heat blistering my cheek.
"Watch out!" I threw myself flat on his back, burying my head against the saddle, and still felt the temperature rising unbearably.
Chased by fire, my human skin ridiculously fragile, we burst out of the protective cloud cover into her line of sight.
'Uh, Hiccup?' I glanced back and paled. The mechanical tail, never designed to take this kind of treatment, was on fire. 'Something's wrong.'
We didn't have long left. I glanced at the Queen, my eyes flicking to the dozen small rips in her wings. Too little damage and too slow! But small holes in sails grew in the wind—what if she fell?
'While exploding?' Toothless added hesitantly.
It was a distinctly twins idea, but it was the only thing we had. Let's do it!
"Okay, time's up. Let's see if this works."
We curved and dived in front of her, the glowing fire on the tail fin an obvious target. 'YOU ROTTING OFFSPRING OF AN EARTHBOUND EEL!' Toothless shrieked, his wings trembling with the effort to stay ahead. 'COME AND CATCH ME!'
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIE?! she screamed mentally, beating against my Flame, and I struggled to clear a space to think in.
"COME ON! IS THAT THE BEST YOU CAN DO?!" I shrieked so hard my throat ached, thankfully keeping the terror out of my voice.
We plunged further, the Flames of Stormfly and the others my only reference point. Toothless, even with his excellent eyesight, couldn't see them. Now?He was tense and taut like a bowstring drawn back too far. Hiccup, I can't see!
"Stay with me, buddy, we're good. Just a little bit longer."
I pressed against his instinctive urge to pull up—that would only send us into a fatal spin and the Queen would have time to slow and stop. "Hold, Toothless."
I strained my ears for the telltale hiss of gas, every nerve and muscle stiff and alert. Was that it, or was it the wind? No, that was definitely flammable gas, so close I could smell it—"NOW!"
He slapped out a wing and we twirled in mid air, facing upwards. Spitting fire into her mouth, he struggled to turn right way up again. The Queen, a chain of explosions working through her mouth and throat, bellowed in rage and her eyes widened. We must be near the ground. Fighting the massive air currents she stirred up and the quickly disintegrating tail fin, Toothless snapped his wings out and we fell almost straight into the incoming mouth before we twirled to the side and zipped out the other side. The small holes in her wings grew and tore as she tried to stop, glowing slightly at the edges as they ate into her ancient wing membranes.
She vanished underneath me and hit the ground in a massive explosion that must have been heard by the gods themselves up in Valhalla. First came the powerful shockwave, and the fire wasn't far behind it. Even as the head exploded, the powerful wings were still falling past us.
I gasped in relief as the black tendrils coiled against my Flame melted away.
'Watch out!' Toothless was desperately turning and spinning, edging his way up through the spines still falling in front of us. There wasn't any time to turn around, the growing fire was too close, and the tail fin was fast burning up.
We made it all the way up her back, the fire gaining with every wing beat, dodging through the fatal spines with inches to spare. The only reason we'd made it this far was because Toothless was a Night Fury, master of the air, but not even he could fly if the tail fin—
It clicked again, once, twice, and the leather tore away. I glanced back, checking that it was completely gone, and looked ahead again. We were out of the spines, and I dared to hope we might live, even without the fin—before a massive tail, spiked and deadly and enormous and heading right at us, emerged from the clouds.
"No! NO!"
Toothless flapped uselessly, struggling to turn, but he was too slow. Bitterness welled in me. To come so close to surviving, yet fail at the last—
A bone crushing impact was the last thing I felt.
oOoOo
Dark.
It was dark.
A soft pulse caressed me and I relaxed into it, the sense of safety and reassurance so compelling that I couldn't resist as it pulled me closer.
A moment later, I yelped, cocooned in fire. It stung, burning and throbbing against me, and I curled up into a little ball, whimpering.
'That's not your pain,' a distant voice murmured, and the burning sensations faded. What was going on? What was happening? I tried to speak, but my mouth wouldn't move. I tried to look, but when I opened my eyes, it was still pitch black. I started to panic, throwing myself from side to side, begging my limbs to respond.
Nothing.
'It's okay,' the voice—Toothless' voice—reassured me. 'I've got you.'
I reached out with my Flame, comforted when it responded. I could feel his Flame wrapped around mine, but I still couldn't make my body do anything. What's happening?!
He didn't respond.
Hello? Nothing. Can you hear me? Still nothing. Panic returned. What's going on?!I screamed at him, begging him to hear me. Where am I?! Why can't I move?!
In my distress, I didn't realise I was thrusting out with my Flame until my Flame-vision flicked on. I froze in shock.
Purple fire flickered around me, bright and alive and warm. Like a living room with walls that danced and changed shape, I was surrounded by Flame. I tried again, reaching out to Toothless. Hello?
No answer, but I could see his Flame reacting where mine touched it, curling in and cradling me gently. I explored, gently running a 'finger' of Flame over the walls. W—what's happening? It wasn't said with any hope of being heard, just a plaintive plea to know what was going on. I remembered the massive tail and shuddered. Was I dead? Were we both dead? Was Dad dead? Was Astrid dead?
I couldn't make myself heard, which meant the only method of finding anything out was to guess from what I could observe. Sinking a little into Toothless' Flame, I turned my Flame-vision off to avoid any distractions. It was harder than normal—being unable to sense my own body made it harder to feel anything else—but eventually I managed to feel wings and a tail, my head tucked against my chest and my body wrapped in wings. It was hot, so hot I could barely breathe, and fire stabbed at me even through my supposedly fire-proof scales.
Gasping, I pulled back a little. The information was too much, too overwhelming and brutal—but I went back again, my curiosity driving me onwards.
The second time, I also felt a distinct flow of air, the wind ripping upwards—I was falling almost head first. Why didn't he spread his wings?
Something was cradled against his chest, small and vulnerable, and he twisted in the air fearfully, trying to orient himself.
The impact took me completely by surprise, and I flared in shock as pain smashed through my side. Something, or maybe two things, cracked and stabbed through my side. Every breath was a knife in my lungs, and even taking shallow gasps was agony.
Toothless!I shuddered as he suffered, unable to take his pain because I'd somehow lost connection with my body. The ground was hard and uncomfortable against his forelegs, awkwardly bent to keep his weight off my body. It was unsettling to feel my body through another. He slumped onto the side that wasn't burning with ribs that were probably broken, and I could feel the groan run through him, even if I couldn't hear it. No, Toothless…
His thoughts suddenly echoed around me, directed at someone else. What the fire? What are you doing here?
What was going on?!
Of course you flaming did this!
I waited, trembling. Toothless was talking to someone, but I had no idea who.
Go on. What do you need to say?
He sounded like he was reprimanding someone, like a stray child or younger sibling. It was frustrating and stressful to not know what was going on. Pretty much anything could happen and I'd only have his reactions to work out what was going on. Still, at least he wasn't being attacked.
I hope you're genuinely sorry. Why is apologising so hard for Vikings?
I stiffened as he painfully lifted his wings, exposing my body to whoever it was. He must really trust them if he was willing to do that…
He needs more help than I can give. You're his father—you'll do what's best for him.
Hands scrabbled on his scales and scooped under my body, lifting. I tensed. No, wait—
My body lost contact with Toothless and my consciousness winked out like a candle in a draft.