How to View Your Dragons Chapter 6
The flat panel shifted back to pictures of the cove again. Toothless, now wearing his full Hiccup-made flying rig, was trying to pounce and catch a spot of light reflected off of Hiccup's hammer. The young man was smiling broadly as the dragon repeatedly failed to capture his elusive quarry.
"Oh, he thought teasing me was funny?" Toothless burst out. "After all the work I put into finding his missing helmet last Snoggletog, now I find out he thinks it's cute that I can't find something? Well, the next time that stupid spot of light shows up and starts dancing all over the landscape, he can catch it himself!"
Stormfly turned to Meatlug with a smile and whispered, "He doesn't get it."
"He just needs to lighten up a little," Meatlug replied. "When I'm with my rider and that spot of light appears, I don't waste any effort trying to catch it. I just turn my back on it and go to sleep. When I wake up, it's gone. Problem solved."
Again, the scene shifted to the dragon-training ring. "Meet the Terrible Terror!" Gobber's voice came from the flat panel.
"Yeah!" exclaimed Sizzle. "This is my big scene! Everybody watch me!" They watched as the tiny dragon emerged from a tiny door in the base of a cell door that was meant for much larger dragons. He blinked in the sunlight and trilled.
"Ha!" Tuffnut laughed. "It's, like, the size of my -" His words were cut off when the Terror leaped at his face, knocked him flat, and began gnawing on his nose. The other teens scattered in panic.
Hookfang's face was nearly pressed against the panel. "The size of his what? The size of his what?"
"I'm pretty sure you don't want to know," Toothless said solemnly.
Tuffnut endured barely a few seconds of this torment before he fought off the little dragon and ran away, shouting, "Ohh, I am hurt! I am very much hurt!" Then Hiccup used the metal of his shield boss to cast a reflection on the ground and lure the Terror back into his cell. "Wow! He's better than you ever were," a red-nosed Tuffnut said to a seething-mad Astrid.
"Your big scene wasn't that big," Barf grinned down at Sizzle.
"At least I took one of them down, just like you did!" the Terror answered hotly. "And I got him to yell that he was very much hurt, just like you did."
"And he didn't get an eel thrown at him like you did," Stormfly added. "But, Sizzle, why did you fall for that reflection trick? I thought that worked only on cats."
"It was a shiny object," the little dragon said. "I love shiny objects. I never see enough of them, especially when I was locked in that dark cell for days or weeks at a time."
"You're way too distractable for your own good," Hookfang said, trying to sound wise. "You need to stay focused, especially with Vikings around, or you might - squirrel!"
"But did you notice Hiccup during that last scene?" Meatlug exclaimed. "He's totally confident! He's completely in control! There's no trace of that earlier nervousness or fear of failure. He's really changed since he got to know you, Toothless."
The black dragon managed a smile. "I bet you never thought of me as a good influence, huh?"
"A good influence on Vikings?" the Gronckle grinned back. "Never in a million years!"
Suddenly the scene changed to the forest; Astrid was practicing her axe-throwing technique as hard as she could. "She's going to kill that tree if she keeps it up," Stormfly commented. "The Viking chief said that Vikings could 'crush mountains, level forests, tame seas!' Is she working on the 'level forests' part?"
"I think she's tired of Hiccup making her look bad," Hookfang suggested. "She's practicing extra-hard against a tree so she'll be a better fighter against, uhh, things that aren't trees."
Meatlug disagreed. "I think she's just letting off steam at the expense of that poor tree, because she's so angry."
"It's too bad she didn't know Hiccup's secret," Toothless said. "She could have worked with another dragon and, combined with her fighting skills, she might have become the ultimate dragon killer. Wait, what am I saying?"
"Even if she knew, I don't think she would have done it," Stormfly corrected him. "She still hated us too much. Even the thought of winning her contest would not have been worth the shame of compromising her values by teaming up with a dragon."
"It's just as well," Barf added. "I'd hate to think of an axe-thrower like that who also knew all our secrets."
"That axe looks really hurty," Sizzle nodded. They watched as Hiccup nearly took the axe to his forehead by accident, made a quick escape, and then began fastening an improved flying harness onto the Night Fury as Toothless gorged himself on fish from a basket. Then they saw the two of them them flying... except they were tethered to the ground by a rope tied to a tree stump.
"What's with the Night Fury kite?" Belch asked.
"I think he was trying to get more flying practice and cut down on the crash landings," Toothless said. A moment later, the rope broke and they crashed anyway. This time, Hiccup's saddle tether didn't come loose; the mounting hook was bent flat by their rough landing. After the sun went down, they saw Hiccup greet the night watchman, wait for him to pass, then sneak a twenty-six-foot-long dragon into the village and hope that they wouldn't be noticed.
Incredibly, they got away with it. "That was one un-watchful watchman!" Barf burst out.
"I wish he was that un-watchful when our riders are trying to get away with stuff," Belch threw in. "He takes all the fun out of having fun." They saw Hiccup trying to straighten the bent hook, get interrupted by Astrid, and run for safety.
"Did he ever get the hook straightened out?" Sizzle wondered.
"Obviously, he did," Toothless said. "He isn't stuck to me right now, is he?"
Then they saw a half-wrecked Viking ship pulling into the docks with a large chunk missing from its hull. The chunk was surrounded by burn marks. The sail was shredded and perforated; it was a wonder that the ship had gotten home at all. "Gronckle burns," Stormfly nodded.
"I didn't see any Nadder burns on that ship," Meatlug said archly.
Stormfly glared down at her. "When a Nadder burns a ship, it doesn't come back."
"Why are there so many Vikings on board?" Sizzle interrupted.
"Three ships went out; one ship came back," Toothless said. "That one ship is carrying all the survivors from the two ships that sank, as well as its own crew."
Stoick was clearly in a foul mood; his latest mission had failed as badly as the previous ones, and they'd taken a beating from the dragons they had set out to destroy. He was soon distracted, though, by a succession of happy Vikings commenting on Hiccup.
"They're making it sound like Hiccup is dead!" Stormfly realized.
"That wasn't nice at all," Meatlug decided.
"I'm sure they didn't mean it," Hookfang said. "I mean, if they were trying to break the chief's heart, they would have come right out and said it, instead of saying stuff with double meanings. That's what Vikings do, right? No subtlety, just bludgeon them full-force, right?"
"You're probably right," Toothless nodded, "but that didn't make it any easier for Stoick, until Gobber set him straight."
"Who would have thought it, eh?" the old smith was saying. "He has this way with the beasts!"
"Oh, if he only knew!" Meatlug chuckled. She stopped when the background music suddenly swelled; they had learned that this was a sign of something important about to happen. They saw Hiccup riding Toothless, then saw that they weren't tethered to the ground anymore. Indeed, they looked to be several hundred feet up.
"You're really flying at last?" Stormfly exclaimed.
"Yes, for another minute or so," Toothless said. "Then it gets scary!"
"Another crash landing?" Meatlug asked sympathetically.
"You have no idea!" the Night Fury answered. They saw him trace a tight circle in the sky as Hiccup fumbled with his tail settings, fly straight and level for a few seconds, then dive nearly straight down to sea level and fly under a huge stone arch.
"Why does Hiccup look so nervous all of a sudden?" Hookfang wondered.
"We were flying under a flock of seagulls," Toothless said, his eyes never leaving the flat panel. "Sometimes seagulls make a mess on whatever is underneath them."
"I suppose that would make you nervous," the Nightmare nodded. "But it all looks pretty tame so far. What went wrong?"
"Just watch," Toothless said shortly. "I need to see how the heck he pulled this off!" They flew into the rocks once, twice; Toothless ear-slapped his rider in frustration.
"Did you really expect him to know everything about flying at that point?" Meatlug asked him.
"I expected him to not crash us into the rocks!" Toothless shot back.
Then Hiccup pulled them into a steep climb, and Toothless responded with all his heart. They soared up into the sky, Hiccup reveling in the newfound sensations of flight, Toothless enjoying them even more because he'd feared he might never be able to fly like this again.
Then Hiccup's cheat sheet came loose from its clip, and he screamed, "Stop!" Toothless understood that command perfectly, and turned his wings into air brakes. Just like that, his forward motion nearly stopped. But Hiccup's forward motion did not. They suddenly came apart.
"Oh my gosh!" Stormfly burst out. "Without him in the saddle, you can't fly right!"
"And Hiccup can't fly at all!" Meatlug added.
"I can't watch," Sizzle whimpered, and covered his eyes with his wings.
They had two chances to reconnect as they tumbled, and they missed both chances. Incredibly, they got a third chance. Hiccup got one hand, then both hands, on the flying gear, and pulled himself back into the saddle. They stopped tumbling and resumed forward flight... straight into a maze of sea stacks that no sane dragon would try to navigate any faster than dead-slow. The contrails whipping off of Toothless' wingtips showed that their speed wasn't even in the same latitude as "dead slow..." although the "dead" part might be far too accurate.
"Tell me when it's over," Sizzle sobbed.
They saw Toothless scream, "No-o-o!" They saw the panic in Hiccup's eyes as he tried to read his cheat sheet at nearly 200 miles per hour.
"Just drop the stupid cheat sheet and fly!" Stormfly shouted at him, even though she knew he couldn't hear her.
But that was exactly what he did. They saw his expression change from fear to rock-solid determination as he discarded the cheat sheet and leaned into the slipstream. Toothless sensed the change and, having no other options, he let Hiccup take control. They turned; they banked; they spun; they turned back; they flew like an insane dragon with a madman for a pilot; and they did it perfectly, as though one mind was controlling both their bodies, with zero margin for error. As the dragons held their breath, they watched Toothless fly like no dragon had ever flown before, and emerge unscathed on the other side.
"Yes! He did it!" Meatlug shouted.
"They did it!" Stormfly corrected her.
"Unbelievable!" Hookfang gasped.
"Now that was impressive," Barf said.
"Nice work, for a human," Belch added.
"Is it over yet?" Sizzle whined, his eyes still covered.
"Yes," Toothless puffed. "It's over."
"Toothless, why are you breathing hard?" Stormfly wondered. "I mean, you already knew how this was going to end, right?"
"Yes," the Night Fury admitted, "but it was still the scariest thing I've ever done. Even facing the Queen didn't terrify me like that half a minute when I had to trust my life to a human who knew just about nothing about flying. One small mistake from either of us, and we'd both be dead, and the war would still be going. If reliving it in these images got me hyperventilating, imagine what it must have been like to do it in person!"
"That was really amazing," Meatlug said. "But I have to ask you - did it change anything? Was it just a lucky escape, or was it one of those life-changing moments that we keep seeing?"
"Definitely a life-changing moment," Toothless answered her. "One of the biggest life-changing moments, in fact. Before that flight, Hiccup and I had an understanding. Afterward, we had a bond. Before, we trusted each other; afterward, we relied on each other."
"Is that why you just flew through your own fireball and cooked your human medium-rare?" Hookfang asked.
"Oh, that," Toothless said, embarrassed. "That was a celebration shot. Honestly, I was so happy to still be alive, I forgot that I had a passenger who wasn't fireproof. If I'd hurt him, I would have felt terrible about it. Fortunately, it just blackened him around the edges. If I could have talked to him at that moment, I probably would have said something like, 'Welcome to the amazing world of flight, and thank you for helping to save my life! Next time, stay in the saddle.' "
"That was quite a smile on your face as you exited those rocks," Meatlug noted. "Were you happy because you realized that Hiccup was a perfect candidate to be transformed into a Night Fury?"
"No, that's a different fanfic," Toothless answered her.
Now they saw Hiccup, still blackened around the edges, sitting against Toothless on a rocky beach somewhere, cooking a fish over a small fire; Toothless was enjoying a pile of fish in front of him. Hiccup looked shocked and stunned.
"Now what's his problem?" Hookfang demanded.
"I think it was a delayed reaction to that insane flight we just took," Toothless explained. "Remember, I'm accustomed to flying, and that ride shook me up! It's hard to imagine the effect it must have had on him."
"You forcing him to fly through your own firebolt didn't help!" Meatlug scolded him.
"Well, I did what I could to make him feel better," Toothless said. "See?" They watched him cough up half a fish and offer it to his human friend.
"Ahh, no, thanks, I'm good," Hiccup said, and turned back to his cooking.
"The humans really do like their fish burnt!" Barf commented. "Why don't they understand that raw is so much better?"
"I've heard that some humans do like raw fish," Stormfly said. "They call it sushi. They eat all kinds of fish that way - salmon, tuna, mackerel, red snapper, and... uhh..." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "...eels."
"EWW!" the others all shouted.
"Gross!"
"Sickening!"
"Disgusting!"
"Gag me with a mackerel!"
"They actually eat those things?"
"Maybe the eels taste okay to a Viking once he's burned them over the fire," Belch suggested. Then they were all distracted by the arrival of a small flock of Terrors. Hiccup became nervous at their approach; these were not tame dragons, and he'd seen what they did to Tuffnut. Then he got even more nervous as Toothless growled at them and possessively guarded his pile of fish. Was Hiccup about to get caught in the middle of a dragon firefight?
The green Terror stole the half-a-fish that Toothless had offered to Hiccup, and took a small bite. The dark-yellow one tried to steal it, but the green one flamed it away, which didn't help Hiccup relax at all. Then Toothless stared in amazement as one of his fish began walking away from the pile. They saw that a darker-green Terror was making off with it.
"Yeah! That's my half-sister!" Sizzle exclaimed. "Go, Sis! Carpe carp! Sieze the fish!"
"I beg your pardon?" Toothless growled, staring down at the much smaller dragon.
"Well, I have to root for my own family, don't I?" Sizzle asked, backing off a step.
On the flat panel, Toothless was having none of it. He grabbed the other end of the fish, and after a very short tug-of-war, the Terror got a piece of the tail fin and the Night Fury got the rest. He swallowed it and laughed mockingly at the Terror.
"Okay, Sis, you made your point," Sizzle called to her image. "Now get out of there! He's a lot bigger than you!"
The Terror on the screen couldn't hear him. She angrily spat out the piece of tail fin, clawed the ground, and took a deep breath so she could shoot fire.
"Oh, this isn't going to end well!" Sizzle burst out, and covered his face with his wings again. He missed Toothless shooting a puff of flame right down the green Terror's gullet, igniting her fire gases all at once and knocking her silly.
"That's what happens when you pick on somebody bigger than you are," Hookfang scolded her image.
Belch added, "I wish I'd thought of that! Those Terrors stole a few of my fish over the years, too. I bet a few of my sparks down the throat would have done some interesting things to those little thieves."
"Are you talking about me and my family that way?" Sizzle challenged him.
"Look me in the eye and tell me you aren't all a bunch of fish stealers," Belch retorted. Sizzle hesitated and hid his head beneath his wings again.
"Huh," Hiccup said. "Not so fireproof on the inside, are you? Here you go." He tossed a small fish to the Terror, which was still wobbling as it walked.
"What? He gave up one of his own fish?" Stormfly wondered, amazed.
"No dragon would ever do a thing like that!" Barf nodded.
"Hiccup isn't a dragon," Toothless reminded them.
The Terror quickly overcame her woozy feeling and swallowed the fish whole. Then she turned her attention to Hiccup. She trilled and sniffed him several times as she got closer to him, until she was right next to him. She crawled under his arm, lay down right against him, and quickly drifted off to sleep.
Hiccup hesitantly petted the little dragon, an amazed look on his face. "Everything we know about you guys is wrong!"
Stormfly was amazed, too. "It took him this long to figure that out? All the evidence he's seen and heard..."
"...went completely against everything he'd seen and heard while he was growing up," Meatlug cut her off. "He was inventing a brand-new way of thinking. That's never an easy thing to do."
"Is it safe to look at the moving pictures yet?" Sizzle's muffled voice came from within his wings.
"Yes, it's safe to look," Toothless told him. "For now."