A/N: I struggled with writer's block while writing this chapter. Hopefully things will begin to flow more easily starting with Chapter 8. We welcome Dagur back next chapter as well!
CHAPTER 7
"Astrid?" Tengan mumbled up at the vaguely blond blur through sleep filled eyes. "What's going on? Don't you have flight patrol this morning?" She sat up slowly, pausing here and there to stretch out a particularly stiff limb.
"Yup!" Astrid replied with way too much enthusiasm for the current time of day as she yanked the blanket off Tengan's bed. "And I need to see you off before I go!"
"Ah! You brat!" Tengan screched as the chilly morning air hit her. She made several desperate but futile grabs at the stolen blanket. "What do you mean? I'm studying with Gothi today. AFTER you all head out. I still have a couple hours." She whined, still pawing at the rapidly cooling bed cover.
"Nope! Wrong. It's all been handled. Now get up!" with a devious smirk, Astrid rolled her protesting house guest onto the floor.
Tengan bounced up, torn between frustration at being so rudely awoken and lamenting the loss of her warm bed. "Will you just tell me what's going on?" She snapped.
"Why don't you go outside and see for yourself?" Astrid maintained that infuriating smirk as she crossed her arms.
Tengan, eyes narrowed, stomped across the large living room , past her bed and makeshift nightstand of an old stump, before wrenching the front door open. Hiccup and Toothless sat in front of the house, the latter's outline wavering in the still mostly dark sky. "What are you two doing here?"
Toothless, roaring his delight, all but squashed the girl under his fore paws as he raked his tongue up her face and into the wild mass of tangled, curly hair. Hiccup had to spend several moments wrestling with his partner before the dragon would back off. Smiling apologetically, he gave the much stickier Tengan a hand up. "Sorry about that, he's just excited we'll be taking a trip to Dragon Island."
"And this is why you two woke me up?" Tengan asked, bewildered. She glanced between the two teens as her fingers automatically found their way to the dry patches behind Toothless' ears. "To see you off to Dragon Island? Don't you go often?"
Hiccup laughed. "No, you don't understand. Last night I realized as leader of the Dragon Training Academy I had been neglecting something, or more accurately, someone. You've been a rider in all but name sine, well, basically since you landed here. It's way past time we found you your own dragon, Tengan."
Tengans fingers froze mid-scratch, much to Toothless' displeasure. "I- you- what?"
Astrid nudged her in the ribs. "Go on! Go find your dragon!"
Hiccup swung into the saddle, reaching back to pat the patch of worn leather behind him. "You ready?"
Not trusting her voice to form any kind of coherent worlds at the moment, Tengan pulled Astrid into a tight hug for several seconds before scrambling up into the saddle behind Hiccup. Wrestling the feelings of anxiety and euphoria, she made an attempt to speak once they were winging out over the ocean. "Hiccup, I've been thinking a lot and, if possible, I'd like to try to bond with a Deadly Nadder."
"Yeah, I figured. Snotlout is going to be mighty disappointed. He has this grand idea about you flying back on a female Monstrous Nightmare." Hiccup chuckled.
The island came into view shortly after dawn. Within a seconds of Toothless' feet touching sand, they had to take off and circle back to another clearing after a Gronkle charged the trio with an uncharacteristically savage roar.
"Woah, ok, he was having a bad day. Let's see if we can find that flock of Nadders that usually beds down by the stream." Hiccup continuously glanced over his shoulder as he spoke, eager to put some distance between themselves and the grumpy boulder class dragon.
They landed a little ways away from the Nadder's streamside territory at Tengan's request. "It's possible Toothless set off the Gronkle. I don't want anything to spook these guys." She whispered as they slid out of the saddle.
"Good point. Bud, you stay here. We'll be right back." Hiccup pushed Toothless' chest back, urging the reluctant dragon to stay put. "Alright, Tengan. Lead the way! Remember to stay in the blind spot and-"
Tengan giggled quietly. "I know Hiccup. You forget I've read the Book of Dragons almost as many times as Fishlegs has." She crept forward, eyes scanning the flock. A purple Nadder with pale yellow and baby blue markings caught her eye as it forced itself in between two quarreling adolescents before curling up at the edge of the group, it's head rapidly twitching to keep the entire group in its field of vision.
"That's the one?" Hiccup whispered in her ear, eyes locking on to the same Nadder.
"I think so. She's more observant than the others. Almost like-"
"She's taking notes on them?" Hiccup stifled a laugh. "Yeah that sounds perfect for you. Go on, I'll be right behind you."
Tengan nodded and carefully left the underbrush, making enough noise to not startle them but not so much as to come off aggressive. She was well aware of Hiccup trailing closely behind, staying in a half-crouch. "Hey there girl." Tengan spoke softly and evenly, eyes locked on the observant Nadder.
The sound of her voice seemed to set off an explosion within the flock. Every Nadder spun on the spot to face the humans. Several sent spines flying without a moment's hesitation and only the teen's quick reflexes from hours of training let them scamper behind the nearest tree trunks quickly enough to avoid impalement.
Toothless leapt from the cover of his brush, wings half furled to shield the two teens behind his bulk. His maw gaped, teeth retracted, and the telltale whistle of plasma heating in the back of his throat filled the clearing.
"Toothless wait!" Hiccup cried as he tried to navigate the mass of spines pinning Tengan and himself behind the foliage.
The Nadders decided either the teens weren't worth pursuing or that a Night Fury was too much hassle. Either way, they took off and fled the clearing, the purple one taking an additional moment to growl a final warning at Toothless before following the flock.
Several moments passed where Tengan clumsily removed the embedded barbs from the bark nearest her with trembling fingers, pausing to place the more colorful ones in her bag for later examination. "What was all that about?" She asked in a shaky voice.
Hiccup, who had just wound himself out of the barbs, hurriedly adjusted the straps on Toothless' saddle, making several quick glances towards the sky. "I don't know. But it's too dangerous to keep trying today. I've never seen the dragons on this island so aggressive. We're heading back." He swung himself in the saddle before looking down at the still slightly shaken girl.
Tengan's eyes tracked from the spine in her hand to the now empty clearing before settling on the boys. A small forced smile fixed on her face, she climbed into the saddle. "Looks like Snotlout isn't the only one who is going to be dissapointed today." She fell silent as Toothless rapidly took flight, fighting the hard lump in her throat. "You don't think the aggression has something to do with me?" She blinked rapidly. Suddenly the world had become annoyingly blurry.
"No, Tengan. It's not you. Today just wasn't the day. I promise we'll keep searching." Hiccup snuck a quick glance at her out the corner of his eye. "...Let's take the long way back. Toothless and I have been working on a few aerial maneuvers we've been dying to show you."
Tengan was hard pressed to admit It's pretty hard to stay upset when performing tight rolls, dives, and flips on dragon back. Hiccup's promise securely locked in her mind and heart, she was able to fill the rest of the gang in on their misadventure with dry eyes. She even found herself lost in comparing notes with Fishlegs on how and why the normally indifferent wild dragons had become so unexpectedly hostile. She went to bed that night going over which islands she wanted to visit, mentally rearranging the list of possible places to look dozens of times until she drifted off. Her dreams consisted of inky dragons rearranging letters and small pictures of islands on a large piece of parchment before her.
It seemed, Tengan mused a couple weeks later, hunched over in Gothi's hut while the medical woman worked, that she and Hiccup had different ideas on what "searching" meant when it came to finding her a dragon. Every time she had asked when they would go out again, Hiccup would only reply with "soon" or something frustratingly similar before turning back to tinker on a new piece of equipment or take off to lead another patrol. The last time he quite literally blew her off with a buffet of Toothless' wings, she had been so mad she had asked Gobber to set her up with nothing but lessons from Gothi for a few days, hoping the new subject would quell the uncomfortable mix of anger and disappointment that seemed to have permanently settled in her chest.
As interesting as the medical woman and her unique method of communication was, Tengan still found herself she had almost dropped the vial Gothi handed her, earning her a few well deserved lumps on the head from the elder's staff. The pain in her scalp seemed to only exacerbate the pain in her heart. So when Astrid all but demanded she join them the next morning for hand to hand combat practice, Tengan agreed readily, eager for a way to physically release her stress.
Unfortunately for both her and the boys, minus an absent Fishlegs, slamming them into the stone floor did little to ease Tengan's frustrations. While Snotlout held out a bit longer due to his lower center of gravity, none of the boys were used to her people's fighting style and were readily caught off guard. Wisely, Gobber avoided pairing her with Astrid after Ruffnut flat out refused the matchup altogether. Before she could demand a third round with Hiccup, Fishlegs interrupted the proceedings with a display of-
"The stone of good fortune!" Gobber cried out in awe as the teens crowded around to gaze at the glowing, oblong object.
Tengan's eyes widened then narrowed as the excited chatter seemed to ebb away. The stone looked very familiar to her. Eerily similar to an egg she had seen in the Book of Dragons during those long solitary hours reading in the Great Hall. If it really was an egg, she thought, it would probably be best to let Fishlegs know so he could return it.
'Or', another voice quietly echoed through her mind, 'You could stay quiet. Once it hatches it'll need someone to look after it. And the others will be too busy. You'll have to raise it. I mean, Hiccup promised you'd have a dragon to partner with but he's been too busy to help you.'
Before either half of her could decide what to do the group had shuffled out of the arena and back towards the heart of town, Snotlout dogging Fishles' heels in an attempt to convince the boy to part with his newly found treasure. Tengan followed at a distance, still weighing the pros and cons of speaking up as she started the lengthy ascent to Gothi's hut. As sore she was from sparring, she was loath to earn any more lumps for something as preventable as tardiness. As her calves began to burn at the steepest part of the climb, that same whispering voice drifted through her mind once more. 'Won't this trek be so much easier once the dragon is fully grown?'
Tengan spent the next couple days mentally flip flopping between whether to speak up or stay silent. The very night after Fishlegs had returned, she double checked her notes and was able to confirm it was in fact a Changewing egg. While difficult to train due to their natural camouflage and acid spit in lieu of fire breathing, she had found herself daydreaming riding on an adult's back on more than one occasion. Luckily, Gothi's patience was as strong as her swinging arm as Tengan earned another couple lumps.
Every time she managed to convince herself to tell the others what she knew, it seemed impossible to get a hold of them. Between Fishlegs returning his egg and Snotlout scavenging more to auction off, the persistent crowds around the village never seemed to dissipate. It didn;t help that her confidence in confiding in the Riders always faded with the setting sun. That evening, as Tengan watched Astrid settle Sotrmfly in for the night, her resolve seemed to dry up on her tongue. 'Besides,' she thought 'the other teens were too busy to worry about a problem that hadn't technically arisen yet.' None of the others even seemed to notice it had been six days since they last let her join them for even the shortest patrol flight. Tengan sighed into her blanket as she set aside her journal and quills for the night and closed her eyes.
Astrid was shaking her awake in what felt like seconds later. Their surroundings told of the darkest, deepest point of the night, offset only by eeries patches of glowing green light nearby. Screams rang outside, punctuated by occasional roars and the crunch of splintering wood.
"Tengan, get up! We're under attack by wild Changelings!" Astried cried out before grabbing the girl's blade and tossing it across the room, her own axe already belted on.
Leaping out of bed, Tengan caught the hilt with one hand and pulled her sword belt on with the other. "Oh no..." A cold weight settled into her stomach as she followed Astrid outside. The others were already waiting.
Fishlegs continuously wrung his hands. "Oh this is all my fault! I should have known those were eggs!"
Hiccup patted the boy's shoulder while glaring at Snotlout. "No it's not your fault. This wouldn't have happened if SOMEONE hadn't followed you back to the island and stolen a clutch right out of their nests!"
Snotlout sneered back from atop Hookfang. "Don't look at me! It's not my fault people were willing to pay anything to own a bit of good luck!"
Tuffnut chuckled as a swooping Changewing landed a direct acid shot on a nearby house. "Yeah, I mean who could have known those were eggs? I have to admit, the acid spitting is pretty cool though. Much better than gas. No offence Barfy, my boy." He patted his dragon's chin.
"It is not cool!" Astrid shouted. "They're destroying our homes!"
"Don't yell at him!" Ruffnut shot back.
The din of arguing teens and their antsy dragons faded as a wave of revulsion swept over Tengan and the sound of rushing air filled her ears. She spent several seconds digging her nails into her crossed forearms before covering her face and shouting loud enough to be heard over the group. "IT'S ALL MY FAULT!" She cried, tears finally spilling. "I knew what they were when Fishlegs came back with the first one. I thought that if one stayed long enough to hatch I could raise it and…." she gasped, voice shuddering to a halt.
The teens all stared at her, varying expressions of shock on their faces. Snotlout's face rapidly swapped between surprise and something akin to impressed.
"Tengan" Hiccup began. "It's not your fault. I know I haven't been keeping the promise I made you. But you know they have to go back. They don't belong here and-"
"I know." Tengan sighed. "I-I just don't want to be left behind anymore….."
"We can talk about this later." Astrid said with a stern glance at Hiccup. "Right now we have dragons to herd and fires to put out. Tengan, you lead the bucket brigade from the ground. You know as much about these dragons as we do. Help the villagers stay safe. The rest of us will gather the eggs and herd the Changewings away."
Wiping her eyes, Tengan nodded and ran off towards Gobber's hut where many had already assembled to grab water containers. Her heart felt surprisingly lighter after her admission, despite the current danger. Twice, while running alongside someone towards a blazing building, she had to abandon her bucket and push them out of the way as the telltale shimmer of the Changewing's camouflage gave the dragon away seconds before an acid attack.
It was close to dawn when the dragons were finally herded off and the acid contained. Tengan found herself sitting at the edge of one of the town's many cliffs. Astrid and Hiccup sat on either side of her, their dragons snoozing in the grassy patch behind them.
"Hiccup told me about what happened on Dragon Island and what he told you after." Astrid said after a long moment of silence.
Tengan drew her knees to her chin and stared off to the horizon at the fading stars. "I'd understand if you didn't want me to study with you guys anymore. I should have never let my emotions jeopardize everything. I'm sorry. I could have prevented this."
"Yeah and so could have Snotlout is he hadn't stolen dragon eggs right out of their nests." Astrid immediately countered.
"It's actually me who owes you an apology." Hiccup added, rubbing the back of his head as his eyes followed her gaze out to sea. "You've been a great help to us since you got here and I did promise we'd find you a dragon. I've been busy lately but I shouldn't have pushed it aside after one failed attempt."
Tengan sat quietly for several moments. "I've missed you guys a lot the past few days. It's been interesting studying under Gothi but…"
Astrid chuckled. "Yeah, I know. She's not the best conversationalist."
Hiccup cleared his throat nervously. "Tengan, I can't promise we'll find you the right fit tomorrow, next week, or even next month. But I can promise you that we will keep looking. For real this time!" He added as he caught her skeptical gaze.
"...Thank you Hiccup. I believe you. But what can we do until then?" She shuddered at the thought of rereading the Book of Dragons for the twentieth time that week. Berk was lively with culture but sorely lacking when it came to written records.
"We've been talking about it." Astrid smiled softly. "There's really no reason you can't come with us on our missions. You flattened all of the guys in combat practice, something only I had been able to do before now. All of our dragons know and trust you enough to let you fly on them. It might take some weird seating arrangements at times but-"
The rest of her sentence was lost as Meatlug, Barf and Belch, and Hookfang soared overhead. Toothless and Stormfly, roused from their naps, scrambled to their feet and roared sleepily in response to their companion's appearance.
"Come on guys!" Fishlegs called out. "I want to do one last perimeter sweep to make sure all the Changewings got home safely!"
The three teens on the cliff stood, brushing dirt and loose grass off their pants. Tengan heitated for a moment when she saw Astrid following Hiccup over to Toothless. She opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by Stormfly's snout bumping against the center of her back.
"I wouldn't keep her waiting." Astrid called over her shoulder as she settled in the saddle behind Hiccup. "Early morning flights are her favorite."
Beaming, Tengan scrambled into Stormfly's saddle and shifted her weight experimentally. With whooping cries of excitement, she urged the Nadder into the sky, her cries dissolving into laughter as Stormfly, reacting to her rider's exuberance, performed a tight barrel roll while climbing. As they leveled off with the group the sun began to climb over the horizon, casting them all in it's golden glow. Tengan gazed at each of her friends in turn before setting her gaze on Astrid.
"Well?" the blond grinned. "You know the route we usually take. Lead the way!"