Explanations
HICCUP
I keep my gaze locked on Tuffnut as he tells his tale, looking for any sign of a joke. Surprisingly, I didn't find any. I jolt back into the present as he pauses.
He sighs, then continues.
"After Ruff went inside, I stayed there, waiting for Dad to come out. He never did. I waited for 5 hours straight, until I finally had to come inside. I lay awake all night, just thinking. I was afraid that Dad would always be…" He stopped, seemingly thinking.
"Listless?" I supplied.
He nodded slowly. "I guess…he was so…dead, but he was alive at the same time. It wasn't the same as before. I know that makes no sense but…you probably think I'm crazy."
I almost laughed at that. I knew Tuff was crazy. I was about to crack the joke, but I noticed his forlorn expression. I shook my head slowly.
"No, Tuff, I don't think you're crazy. I believe you."
He sighed again.
"I'm not finished. The day after, Dad was back to normal, cheerful, cracking jokes. I was confused, but I was happy at the same time. Maybe it would all go back to normal. Maybe it was all just a prank. But, when I asked him about it, he just shook his head and frowned, and said, 'I don't know what you're talking about."
"I thought maybe it was a part of my imagination...and for a week nothing happened. I was lulled into a sense of security, I guess...'cause it was the next day when it started. A Nightmare must have flown over our house and flamed up, and some of the gel dripped down or something...
"It was the middle of the night. I was stealing food, don't ask me why, when the fire started. It wasn't big, but it was hot—very hot. I could feel it next to me, and that's how I noticed it. I looked over, and wasn't too worried. Just a little fire—no big deal, right?"
Tuff looked down in shame.
"The buckets were kept by the window, so they would stay cold. I turned around to grab one. I felt the heat on my back…and then the burning started."
Tuff rubbed the back of his neck, seemingly unconsciously, as if fingering a long ago injury.
"I fell to the ground. I couldn't walk, I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. It felt like a bonfire on my skin."
He winced. "That's the last thing I remember from that night. Ruffnut was freaking out. Dad thought I had taken a beam to the head. Mom was just mad. The whole house burned down that night, and while I could have stopped it, I was sleeping. She made both of us move out. Dad build us a new house on the other side of the island, and that's where we've lived ever since.
"I soon learned that whenever I was exposed to extreme heat, my back burned. Ruff caught me once, but she just tried to trick me into thinking I have a tail. I pretended to go along with it, just for fun."
I remembered when Tuff thought he had a tail, way before dad...a long time ago, when the Berk Academy was still being used. I thought he was actually that stupid. Now, a new side of him was being revealed—broken, sad, and serious. I knew which side I like better: this was starting to creep me out.
He wasn't finished. It seemed like he was telling me everything that had happened since then—why he chose a Zippleback instead of another dragon (only sparks) and why he stays away from Terrible Terrors, which have some of the hottest flames. My mind thought back to all the times he had shied away from the volcano back at the Edge, how happy he was to leave. Now it all made sense.
I snapped back into reality for the second time, but Tuff continued talking, oblivious to all else but his story.
"After a while, the pain got better. I could deal with it better-instead of my whole back, now it happened on specific places-I could never figure out why. Then, I remembered."
"You're saying your Dad drew on those places?"
Tuff nodded quickly. "Yes. Dad drew something on my back when he went crazy. I had to know what it was. So, one day I held a torch to my back while looking at my reflection on Macey—and symbols appears, burning yellow in the light. It hurt horribly—but I needed to know. It looked like a language of some sort, but not one I knew. I remembered a symbol, and drew it later. I asked Dad about it, since he was the one who drew it, and he told me it was a language from far away, used by strange people with giant ships and catapults that could destroy 20 dragons. Latin; that's what he called it. He asked me where I saw it, and I told him in an old page of the book of dragons. I couldn't tell him the real reason."
I frowned as I digested this. "But Tuff, you haven't read the book of dragons." He gave me a look, and understanding flooded. "Oh. Yeah. I get it."
He drew breath to keep speaking, but I suddenly remembered why I came to Ruff and Tuff's house—I wanted to tell them about the note!
I brought it out quickly, and Toothless to flamed up. The lines appeared on the page again: but now, under the continuous light, I could tell they formed symbols. Symbols from a language neither of us knew. Symbols of...Latin.
He looked at me with haunted eyes, full of emotion, not saying a word.
Then he smiled, for the first time that night.