The rest of the night going into the early morning, they were traveling through the river to reach Spine. With three pieces of the Dragon Gem down, there were only two of them left. Taking a look at the map to make sure that they were on the right track, Raya watched as a piece of shrimp fell down on it.
Looking over to the side, she noticed the Ongis and baby were still eating everything in sight. Seemed that Boun has had enough of them eating everything as he jumped out from behind the table.
"Hey!" Boun called them out as they freaked and ran away. "Stop eating everything!"
In their panic, they knocked over some hot sauce into Tuk Tuk's food bowl. Didn't seem that he even noticed as he took a mouthful and started to chew. The moment he finally found out about it, he started to freak out and ran to the edge just in front of Raya. She chuckled as Tuk Tuk spat out the food over the edge and knew she should do something about this.
"Sorry, buddy, I got this," Raya said as she stood up and decided to help control the chaos.
"Did you just throw a shrimp at me?" Boun asks the Ongis or baby, hard to tell which one did it. "That's not even edible!"
"Hey!" Raya called out softly to the kids. "Guys? Do you wanna play hide and seek?"
That seemed to gain their attention as the Ongis and the baby stop running around. All of their attention was turned to Raya as they liked the idea.
"Alright. Ready?" Raya asked as she quickly covered her eyes. "One." And immediately the Ongis and the baby run off to find some hiding places. "Two."
"Thanks." Boun sighed as Raya stopped covering her eyes and walked off.
"Two and a half," Raya said as she walked over towards Hiccup. "Three."
Hiccup was working on the tail fin when Raya walked over and dropped to the table with a sigh. He chuckled at her exhaustion from dealing with the three animals and baby since picking them up.
"Remind me to never have kids," Raya asked of Hiccup with a sigh.
"Can't say that I'll be around long enough to warn you forever." Hiccup reminded her as he got the metal rods in the right position.
The only thing that he needs now is the fabric to get his tail working again and they could get out of there. This could mean that they can run and hope that the Dragon Hunters would follow him and Toothless.
"How's the tail coming?" Raya wonders.
"Going great. But I still need the fabric to finish the job." Hiccup tells her.
"And when it's done...what's the plan?" Raya wonders what he was going to do.
"With Krogan and the other Dragon Hunters here, I have to get out of your home." Hiccup explains to her what he has to do. Nothing has changed. "They'll follow me and Toothless and leave your home."
"And then what?" Raya was worried for her...friend?
Does she actually consider Hiccup as a friend? He has risked his life and his dragon's life to help her and saved her life. But yet again, her life was in danger because of the Hunters he brought with him. But he didn't mean to do so as he didn't know he was being chased.
"What will you do then?" Raya asks him.
"Just...keep going." Hiccup guessed that there wasn't much else that he could do. "Everywhere we go, they'll keep coming for us. We'll keep putting others in danger. Just look at what we did here. You already had enough trouble as it is, and all we did was bring our own problems here."
"Hiccup, you can't run forever," Raya said to Hiccup.
"It's not like we have many other options left." Hiccup informed her. "Not as long as those Hunters are always right behind us. All we can do is take care of their operations. Take them down one ship at a time."
"And how long will that take you?" Raya wonders.
"Hard to tell. Every day we take down one ship, another rises out of the ashes." Hiccup explains to Raya. "But that's our problem. You just need to worry about what's important to you."
"And what if you're part of that?" Raya asks him, can't believe she's admitting this. "You're my friend, Hiccup. I'm worried about you, too."
Hiccup stopped working on the tail and couldn't help but look surprised. "Friend?"
Raya knew that was coming and rolled her eyes. "Yes. You're my friend, Hiccup. Happy?"
"Well, considering all I really wanted was your trust, it's quite the step up." Hiccup had to admit with a smile. "But as I said, there's nothing you can do."
"What if we stopped the Hunters from the head?" Raya asks Hiccup. "This guy, Krogan, you said is their leader, right?"
"Yeah, but he's not the head for no reason." Hiccup explains to her. "He's not going to go down easily. And when we do, we don't want to put others in danger."
"When have you ever thought of yourself?" Raya was now curious to know.
Hiccup thought about it and couldn't even remember. "That's not something I do too often."
Raya couldn't help but smile at how he has looked after others than himself. But that came at the cost of never having a home.
"Why did you leave your home again?" Raya asks him.
Hiccup had a small flashback to his home. "I ran to protect Toothless. If I were to stay there, then they would have killed him."
Raya nodded and saw that even running away was to protect someone else. "You're quite the noble guy, Hiccup."
"Thanks." Hiccup said with a smile. "Not many people have said that."
"You kind of remind me of my father. He would have liked you." Raya admitted. "He never really put himself ahead of anyone else."
"Well, that's the curse of all rulers or soon-to-be rulers." Hiccup sighs, remembering when he was supposed to be taking the mantle of Chief of Berk. "But even when we're thinking of everyone...they just don't see it."
"Is where you came from really that bad?" Raya was curious to know.
"We are a village of people who only know to fight and hurt others." Hiccup said as he remembered his dark past. "They'd rather fight to the death than look for another way to change the situation."
Raya was surprised to hear the background that Hiccup came from. He never really gave her much to go on about where he came from. "I am surprised that you've actually become as..."
"Levelheaded as I am?" Hiccup finished her thought for her.
Raya laughed as she didn't really want to say it
Toothless watched them connecting and decided to give them some space. He stood up and wandered around the ship when he noticed Sisu was sitting on the edge of the front, deciding to sit with her to get away from the kids and leave Hiccup and Raya to bond.
"Well, looks like our humans are bonding." Toothless joked as he sat next to Sisu at the front of the ship. "It's kinda nice." He tried to get Sisu to at least talk to him. She has been a little distant after the incident in Talon. "Hiccup hasn't really talked to a person that didn't want to kill him, harm him, or capture him in years. So, what's new with you?"
"Being people is hard." Sisu finally spoke to him.
Toothless was happy to hear he was at least getting a word out of her. "Yeah, tell me about it." He laid his feet down in front of him and wiggled his toes. "These human body parts are odd and weird. I like it better to walk on fours with my wings."
"It's more than just that," Sisu said as she pulled her legs closer to herself. "They have small legs, no tails, they lie to get what they want. Like that Chief back there."
"That's just how some people are, Sisu," Toothless said, thinking back to some terrible experiences Hiccup and himself have had over the years. "There are just some people that can't be trusted."
"It can't be as simple as that." Sisu denied that, getting Toothless to groan.
"Listen, it may not be nice, but that's how it is." Toothless was sorry to tell her. "You were gone for a while, so you weren't here to see how terrible things have gotten for our kind. At least from my end of the world." He then thought back to before he even met Hiccup. "I didn't know my family because as a hatchling, I was separated from my mother and father after humans discovered where our nest was because of me." He thought back to that day in sadness, getting Sisu's attention. "I didn't know they were Vikings or Dragon Hunters, or whatever they were, but they followed me to our home. I will always remember that grin that man had as he drew that blade through my mother's heart."
"Oh my..." Sisu was shocked to hear what Toothless had gone through.
"Father tried to save her, but they were skilled. Knew what they were doing. He was the next to die." Toothless said as he wiped some tears away. "I only survived because he saved me first. So...I flew away. Flew as far and as fast as I could. That day, I learned an important lesson...you can't trust anyone." Then he chuckled and looked over to Hiccup, who was still talking to Raya. "Then one night, a clumsy idiot shot me out of the sky. I thought that was the end. He was going to kill me...then by some miracle, he didn't." Then he turned back to Sisu. "He earned my trust by not killing me. So, I returned that and didn't kill him."
"But that's my point!" Sisu tried to turn that story on her terms. "You didn't think you could trust Hiccup, yet you two became friends."
"More like we needed one another. Our friendship grew over time." Toothless corrected her. "From mutual respect and the trust grew from there. I didn't trust him overnight or blindly trust him. I saw if he was even worthy of my trust. When I finally saw he meant me no harm, that's when I started to embrace him. When I started to trust him." Then he stood up and looked over to Hiccup again. "He thought he could change things. We both thought so. But that thought is what got us here. Having faith that someone will change if you try to prove them otherwise of what they believe, or think doesn't always work out." He then once again looked down at Sisu. "No matter how much you want to believe otherwise. Some people will never change, no matter how much you want them to see."
Sisu started to think of what Toothless was saying as he walked off to take a seat somewhere else. She did hear him. In fact, she was starting to wonder what he was talking about near the end. Who was the someone they were hoping to change? Were they capable of changing? Why didn't they listen?
"So... what are you gonna do?" Hiccup asks Raya, wanting to keep the conversation going. "I mean after you get the Dragon Gem back together and save the world?"
Raya chuckled as she never considered that. "I... never really thought of what comes next." She then looked down at her jade purse and thought of it. "I've been obsessed over this for the past six years. When this is over, I'd get my village back...I'd get my ba back..." then she sighed and knew that the world he wanted for her would never come to be now. "But the dream world he wanted will never come true." She then slumped back in her seat. "We can never be Kumandra again." Then a worried thought entered her mind. "But he won't see that. He will still believe he can unite our lands."
Hiccup chuckled as he gestured to the dragon, keeping his eyes focused on the work for the tail. "Sounds like he and Sisu would be great friends."
"They're just as stubborn as one another." Raya had to agree with him with a chuckle. "But I'm worried next time, he won't be turned to stone, he'll..."
Hiccup knew how she was feeling. "I know how you feel. I tried to do the same thing as your father. Tried to bring peace to a world that was at war for a long time. But...it didn't go well. I was chased off from my home." Raya felt sorry for him and placed a comforting hand on his. "But you don't give yourself credit, Raya."
"Me?" Raya queries.
"You befriend a stranger from an outside land, who you confirmed you trust." Hiccup stated as he gestured himself. Then he looked and gestured to the others. "You trust this boy to be a means of transportation, and even allowed the con baby and her... Ongi's to join us because you trust them. Kumandra might not be coming together in the way your father intended...but you're on the right track."
Raya had never thought of it in that way, seeing her father's dream being acted out by her. And it wasn't even on purpose, she just...met these people. She got to know the outsider, the boy, and the baby protected the two.
"I never really considered that," Raya admitted, looking at Hiccup. "Thanks. You're a good friend, Hiccup."
"Same for you." Hiccup replied with a smile.
That's when the two of them then started to feel like a strange pull to one another. Neither of them knew what it was that they were feeling. But it felt...good. This was the first genuine good feeling that neither of them has had since their childhood. But as they were starting to lean in their faces closer to each other, their moment was interrupted by Boun.
"Hey, guys, I think we're here," Boun called out, getting the two to stop.
Feeling embarrassed about what almost happened, Hiccup and Raya just backed away and blushed at what might've happened. The two then stood up and turned around to see that they were in the land of Spine.
The entire land was filled with giant jagged mountains all around. They were towering over a giant forest of bamboo trees just on the shore of the banks of the river.
"Wow." Hiccup had to admit this was a new one.
But as they were in awe of the new land, Sisu suddenly ran across the boat and picked up a small pot off the counter. She raced and leaped off the boat where she started to leap and run into the woods.
"Hey, my congee!" Boun shouted.
"Sisu! Get back here!" Raya shouted after her. "You're gonna get yourself into trouble!"
But Sisu disappeared into the forest, not listening to Raya's cries behind her.
"Does she ever listen to anyone?!" Hiccup cried out in exasperation.
"I'll go after her!" In a flash, Toothless leaped off the boat and hopped quickly from stump to stump to get to the forest.
"Be careful!" Hiccup called behind him. "We'll catch up!"
"We've gotta dock. Now." Raya raced to the side to find a way to dock.
Toothless sprinted down the forest to try and catch up with Sisu. But it was a little difficult as he is used to running on all fours rather than two legs. She had a head start so was a bit ahead of him, so it was harder for him than for her to keep up. When he finally reached her, they were coming up toward a fortress protected by a towering wall of bamboo wood. She was nearing the gate when Toothless raced up to her.
"Sisu! Come back! Please!" Toothless shouted, trying to catch his breath. "What… What are you doing?
"I'm going to show you that you're wrong!" Sisu answered back as she neared the gate. "Kumandra can exist again!"
"Are you trying to get yourself killed?!" Toothless cried in anger, thinking he was helping her understand just a moment ago.
"No! I'm trying to make a better world!" Sisu proclaimed as she readied herself to knock on the gate.
"Didn't you learn anything back in Talon or from what I told you?!" Toothless was ready to pull out his hair but didn't as he didn't know what that would do to his dragon form. "Why won't you listen?"
"You're the hypocrite here. Don't trust others, yet you trusted someone, and look where that got you." Sisu proclaimed.
"Why do you always have to be so trusting of people you've never met?!" Toothless challenged back as he walked over to the gate. "Look Sisu, you're putting yourself and your friends in danger,"
"No. I'm going to make this place Kumandra again," Sisu turned around and continue to raise a hand towards the tall gates.
"How do you plan on that?" Toothless asked, crossing his arms. "By getting killed or capered by a bunch of no-good buffoons who you barely know?"
"No. By proving the fact that if you wanna get someone's trust, you have to give a little trust first," Sisu stated as she went back to the gate.
"What's the point of giving trust to someone you don't know?!" Toothless exclaimed in anger. "You're going to get yourself in trouble again!"
"I'll show you!" Sisu dodged Toothless's attempts to grab her and banged a handle.
"Wait, Sisu, don't…" Toothless tried to stop her. But it was too late.
The moment she banged it, they heard some sort of mechanism going off from within. They wondered what was going to happen when a trap was activated, and they were caught in a giant net. It sprung out from the snow underneath their feet and sent them upward into a tree and kept them there,
"In hindsight, maybe I was a little hasty," Sisu said awkwardly.
"Little!?" Toothless cried in anger.
"Okay...looks like we're gonna be here a while," Sisu commented. "So... who's hungry?"
"Really?! That's all you can say?!" Toothless shouted. "Look what your stupidity has gone us into now!"
"Yeah, okay, in hindsight, I can see how this is partially my fault," Sisu replied.
"Partially!? This is entirely your fault!" Toothless cried in annoyance.
But their bickering was it interrupted when something caused the two to be knocked out, allowing the Spine residents to come for them.