How to View Your Dragons Chapter 8
"Are you two about to get in trouble?" Sizzle asked as they watched a bitterly resentful Astrid running away from the cove. If she told her village about Hiccup and Toothless, the consequences would probably mean exile for the human and death for the dragon.
As if he heard the Terror's comment, Hiccup sang, "Dat da-dah, we're dead."
"Oh, no, we're not," Toothless rumbled as he turned and looked for a good place for a quick take-off.
"What were you planning?" Stormfly asked.
"I knew that she meant to harm us somehow," Toothless replied. "I also knew that my human friend didn't want any harm to come to her. So my plan was to give her an attitude adjustment. She needed to change her mind about me and about Hiccup, and a nice scenic view of the trees and the coastline wouldn't be enough to make that happen. I had something a little bit more drastic in mind."
"Fire?" Hookfang asked hopefully.
"No, she'd expect that from a dragon," the Night Fury answered. "I wasn't going to play into her preconceived notions of who we are. It's like Hiccup said - everything she knew about us was wrong. So I was going to set her right, instead of giving her the same-old, same-old."
They watched Astrid running at breakneck speed through the forest. She leaped up onto a fallen tree, jumped... and kept going up as Toothless caught her shoulder pads and carried her off. She screamed in panic.
"Now you're not so brave, are you, mighty dragon-slayer girl!" Hookfang chuckled.
"I admit, I used to love the sound of Vikings screaming in the morning," Barf nodded.
"It sounded like... victory!" Belch chimed in. Toothless carried her to the tip of the tallest tree and dropped her; she caught herself on a branch and hung there, well over a hundred feet above the ground.
"Did that change her attitude?" Meatlug wondered.
"Not even close," Toothless shrugged. "But I had to put her in a position where riding me was her only option, and that seemed like a good way to get the show started."
Astrid had changed from fearful to angry in half a moment's time. "Hiccup! Get me down from here!"
"You have to give me a chance to explain," Hiccup nearly pleaded.
"Oh, skip the useless words!" Hookfang urged him. "Just give her a little fire - not enough to kill her, just enough to singe her hair and smudge her makeup. She'll stop giving orders quickly enough!"
"But that wouldn't change her mind about dragons," Toothless objected.
"So what was your plan?" Stormfly wondered.
"It was a two-stage plan," Toothless said. "I couldn't change her mind as long as her mind was closed. So, first, I had to break her. I'll admit, I had a little too much fun with that part."
"Break her?" Hookfang wondered. "How do you break a Viking with stubbornness issues?"
"Well, let me put it this way," Toothless explained with a predatory grin. "I wasn't going to rub under her chin!"
"I am not listening to anything you have to say!" Astrid was snarling.
"You weren't kidding about her mind being closed," Meatlug nodded.
"Then I won't speak," Hiccup answered. "Just let me show you. Please, Astrid." She looked straight down and realized that she didn't have many options. She made her way inward on the branch, climbed up onto it, and reached for Toothless' flying gear. He snarled, "Remember what I said about not hitting my friend!" Hiccup reached to help her, and she swatted his hand away.
"Well, she can't say I didn't warn her," Toothless said offhandedly.
"Ooh, I bet this is going to be good!" Sizzle grinned, bobbing his head up and down in anticipation.
"What was Hiccup planning? Do you know?" Meatlug asked.
"I suppose he just wanted to take her for a ride in the sky and impress her with how much fun it was," Toothless answered her. "Apparently, he thought that would be enough to change her mind. That's one thing about him - he always assumes the best about people, even when it's unwarranted. He avoids making enemies that way, but it gets him into trouble way too often."
The girl hesitantly climbed onto Toothless' back, doing her best not to touch Hiccup. "Now get me down," she ordered.
"Okay," Toothless commented sourly, "if that's what you really want..."
"Toothless, down! Gently!" Hiccup said. "See? Nothing to be afraid of."
"At first!" all the watching dragons chorused with glee. On the flat panel, Toothless spread his wings and shifted his weight, and the bent-over treetop launched them into the sky like a catapult. The background music shifted to the same wild theme that had played when Toothless first took off with Hiccup clinging to his tail.
"Toothless! What is wrong with you? Bad dragon!" Hiccup shouted. Astrid could do nothing but scream in terror again, and overcome her reluctance to touch Hiccup; now she was clinging to him for dear life. Hiccup tried to reassure her. "Ha! He's not usually like this... oh, no." Then the Night Fury folded one wing and rolled to the right, and they plunged straight down.
"Scream, dragon-fighter! Scream like a scared little girl!" Hookfang couldn't get enough of this. "We love it when you scream!"
Stormfly was irritated. "Can I remind you that you're talking about my rider and my best human friend?"
"You're the one who said she changed," Hookfang retorted. "I'm mocking the girl she used to be, not the girl she is now."
"That's a technicality," Stormfly snapped.
Belch shook his head. "You have to admit, she was quite a jerk before she changed her mind."
When they reached the ocean, Toothless didn't stop, but plunged both his riders into the ice-cold water three quick times in a row. "Toothless, what are you doing?" Hiccup demanded. "We need her to like us!"
"Were you sure that your plan would work?" Meatlug asked him.
"I was sure that my plan was better than his plan," Toothless answered. "His judgement was clouded by his attraction to the girl, so I had to do the thinking for the both of us."
Now the Night Fury zoomed back upwards, but only to gain some altitude so he could pull his next maneuver safely. That maneuver was a wild mix of rolls and flat spins that made some of the dragons dizzy just watching it. "And now the spinning," Hiccup said in a bored tone, as though he went through this kind of aerial insanity on a regular basis. "Thank you for nothing, you useless reptile."
Toothless' eyes went wide for a moment, but he quickly returned to normal.
"What did he just call you?" Barf demanded.
"Useless?" Belch asked. "Isn't that what the other humans called him?"
"Is that what he really thought of you?" Hookfang wondered.
"He thanked me later," Toothless said to the other dragons. "But he really had no idea of what I was trying to do."
As they spun and dove seaward again, Astrid finally hit her breaking point. "Okay, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Just get me off of this thing!"
On the panel, Toothless suddenly smiled. The Toothless who was watching explained, "There! She said the magic word!"
" 'I'm sorry' was the magic word?" Hookfang asked, confused. "I would have held out for something better, like, 'I surrender.' "
"She admitted that she was wrong," the Night Fury went on. "That was what mattered. No one will ever change their path as long as they're convinced that they're already going the right way. She had to break before I could put her back together in a better way. Now she was broken; it was time for Part Two of my plan."
"And how did you do that?" Sizzle asked.
"I gave her a very small taste of the good side of what it's like to ride a dragon," Toothless said. "Watch!" Just like that, their wild ride stopped, the out-of-control black demon turned into an obedient winged steed, and the equally wild background music changed to a peaceful theme.
He took them up to the clouds, not in an insane zoom climb, but in a gradual ascent that brought them just beneath the cloud layer. Astrid's curiosity overcame her earlier resentment and terror. She reached into the clouds and felt their tiny drops of moisture on her hand, and allowed herself to smile. Then she let go with both hands and gave herself over to the feelings of flight, as Hiccup also smiled at her reaction.
"See?" Toothless said to his friends. "All of a sudden, she's not begging to 'get off of this thing.' Now she'd like to stay for a while."
Stormfly was riveted to the screen. "So that's how you did it! The old 'touching the clouds' trick. When I take my new hatchlings for a ride on my back, and they start acting up, that's the best way to settle them down."
Toothless nodded. "When your rider had gone for a few minutes without screaming or giving any orders, I knew I was doing something right, so I kept on doing it."
The sun went down; the sky darkened; and the Night Fury gave no sign of ending their flight. He took them up through the clouds to places where only dragons go. The Northern Lights broke out and shone down on them as they glided silently through a landscape of white. Then Toothless found the hole in the clouds that he'd been looking for, and Astrid forgot the last of her fears at the sight of her village from the air. The Night Fury couldn't see what the two riders were doing on his back, but Hiccup seemed to be contented, and that was good. He glided next to the island that he'd so recently tried to attack, and hoped that the peace that his friend and the female had found on his back would continue.
"All right, I admit it. This is pretty cool," she finally said. "It's... amazing! He's amazing." She reached down and patted the side of his head. He grinned.
"I win!" Toothless crowed as he watched the screen. "Dragons 1, Dragon-fighters 0, and I didn't even have to hurt her."
"That's the same way Hiccup won in the training ring," Stormfly realized. "He overcame all of us, and he never hurt us. Maybe Hiccup was rubbing off on you."
"It's very possible," the Night Fury admitted.
"Rubbing?" Barf snorted. "Like a chin-rub? I see what you did there!" Belch chuckled; Stormfly groaned and rolled her eyes.
"Can you tell me something?" Meatlug asked. "What if she didn't break? What if she'd stayed stubborn and angry? What would you have done?"
"Paws!" For a moment, Toothless' face hardened. "I guess I would have taken her for another thrill-ride, only even crazier. If that didn't work... then I would have done whatever it takes to protect Hiccup. In the cove, I was ready to pounce on her. At this point in the story, I was over water, it was dark, and no one ever would have known if a certain dragon-fighter had gone into the drink, weighted down with metal shoulder pads and all those spikes on her skirt."
Meatlug and Stormfly were both aghast. "You would have killed her?"
"No," Toothless said quickly. "She deserved it in the beginning, but I know that's not what Hiccup wanted. But I definitely would have given her a scare before I rescued her. Blowing a few bubbles never hurt anyone. If she still put up a fight after that, then I'd have dunked her again and again until she finally broke."
"Somebody needs to tell him that Vikings have stubbornness issues," Hookfang stage-whispered to Stormfly.
"Then I guess I would have pushed those stubbornness issues to the limit," Toothless decided, "and found out if that particular dragon-fighter was willing to choose life with humility over death with hatred. Those would have been her choices, and I promise you, I would have protected Hiccup, no matter who else got hurt. Honestly, I'm glad it didn't come to that."
"Do you still feel that way about her?" Meatlug asked.
"Of course not!" the Night Fury replied. "She's changed. I still don't like it when she hits him in the arm, but he seems to be getting used to that, so I suppose it's not that bad. She has put herself in the category of 'People Whom Hiccup Likes,' and those people are under my protection, almost as much as Hiccup is. Unless she totally reverts to her old ways, she has nothing to fear from me."
"While we're on the subject," Hookfang cut in, "how do you feel about my rider?"
"I suppose you all want to know the answer to that question," Toothless said, and all the other dragons nodded. "For starters, they're all in the 'People Whom Hiccup Likes' category, so I'd never harm any of them now. Meatlug, your rider is probably the one who's the least threatening to Hiccup, and he's shown me proper respect on the few times he's ridden me, so I'm on pretty good terms with him. He just needs to lighten up on giving me nonsense orders."
"Nonsense orders? What do you mean?" Meatlug wondered.
"Well, do you remember that time when you ate the magnetic rocks, and you flew away with Hiccup's metal leg stuck to you? Fishlegs got on my back so we could overtake you, and he had the nerve to ask me for 'more Night and less Fury.' As if I'd ever honor a request like that! What was he thinking? Am I even capable of flying that way? I don't think so! If you're going to sit in my saddle, then you're going to get the whole package, just like Astrid did!"
He turned to face Hookfang. "Your rider rode me when he stupidly got thrown off your back onto Outcast Island, and Hiccup went to rescue him. I can't think of any other reason I'd let him stay on my back for more than five seconds. I'm glad that you and he get along so well, but his attitude totally rubs me the wrong way."
"What's wrong with his attitude?" Hookfang asked. "He seems pretty normal to me. For a Viking, that is."
"He wants to be the boss all the time!" Toothless burst out.
"Yeah, he's got that delusion," the Nightmare nodded, "but it's no big deal. Every time he tries to boss me around, I just ignore him, or do the opposite of whatever he says. Someday he'll get the idea that I'm the boss and he isn't."
Toothless turned and stage-whispered to Stormfly, "Somebody needs to tell him that Vikings have stubbornness issues." Stormfly snorted and tried not to laugh out loud. Hookfang scowled.
"As for your riders," Toothless said to Barf and Belch, "they're both out of their minds."
"Tell us something we don't know!" Barf chuckled.
"Anyway, I can't trust them to use my flight gear correctly," the Night Fury went on. "If I gave them enough time, they'd probably put me into a death spiral or something. Them riding me is just bad news waiting to happen. They've helped Hiccup out of a jam a few times, so I'd never do anything bad to them, but I prefer to keep them at a wing's distance from me, just to be on the safe side."
Belch looked thoughtful. "As smart as you are, I'll bet you could put on a 'crazy' act that would put those two to shame! Have you ever tried it?"
"If you do," Barf added, "I'd love to watch."
"Forget it!" Toothless burst out. "The last thing I want to do is pretend I'm just like them. They'd probably learn something from me, and the whole world would be worse off. You can share your insanity secrets with them if you want to, but I would not love to watch. In fact, if you do it, let me know so I can take Hiccup a hundred miles away, so he'll be safe."
Finally, he looked down at Sizzle. "You nodded your head when I asked if you all wanted to know how I feel about your riders. You don't even have a rider!"
"Well," Sizzle said apologetically, "there's this mouse without a tail, named Reepicheep, who wants to ride on my back sometimes. I'm not sure if I should let him."
"That's from a totally different dragon story," Toothless said firmly. "I'm not going there. Let's get back to our own story. Play!"
Toothless was gliding silently through the night. Astrid realized, "Hiccup, your final exam is tomorrow! You know you're going to have to kill - " She stopped herself and murmured in his ear, "...kill a dragon!"
"Don't remind me," Hiccup moaned.
"Hey, she got the idea!" Sizzle exclaimed. "She isn't just thinking differently about Toothless; she's changed her mind about all of us!"
"No one ever called her stupid," Stormfly said proudly.
"My rider did, once or twice," Hookfang rebutted her.
"And how many hundreds of people and dragons call him stupid?" the Nadder shot back. "Anyway, she sure changed a lot in a short amount of time. When she got up that morning, killing dragons was all she ever wanted to do. Now she thinks it's a bad idea. Who knew that humans could be so flexible in what they believe?"
"Especially the ones with stubbornness issues!" Belch smirked.
Suddenly, on the flat panel, they heard the calls of nearby dragons. Toothless' eyes contracted to fearful slits and he went into a fast dive. They soon found themselves in the middle of a great flock of dragons. All of them except Toothless were carrying some kind of prey in their claws.
"Hookfang, are you sure you miss the bad old days?" Meatlug asked.
"Well, I sure don't miss that part," the Nightmare admitted. Then the flock went into a dive, straight into a maze of fog-wreathed sea stacks, and Astrid nearly screamed again. They swerved and dipped until a great, red-glowing island came into view through the mist.
"Home sweet home. Not!" Meatlug grunted. "Oh, how I hated that place!"
"It wasn't a bad place for dragons to live," Stormfly added. "But the landlady..."
The dragons dove into a narrow passage that soon opened out into a huge cavern. Toothless was looking down into the glowing mist with a look that approached pure terror.
"What are you so afraid of?" Barf asked him.
"It's not like you never went into that nest before," Belch nodded.
"The queen tries to eat any dragon who comes back without enough food," Toothless explained nervously, even though he knew that these images were from the past. "The Night Fury never steals food. Do the math! Every time I flew into that nest, I had a bull's-eye on my tail." In the moving images, Toothless broke away from the rest of the dragons and found a hiding place as quickly as he could. They watched a young Gronckle cough up one small fish... and, a moment later, pay with his life for displeasing the Queen.
"I hope that wasn't a relative of yours," Toothless said softly to Meatlug.
"I didn't recognize her," the Gronckle said with a shudder. "She must have been hatched after the Vikings captured me and imprisoned me."
Then the queen caught a whiff of the humans and lunged at them. Toothless made a desperate escape, which succeeded only because an unfortunate Zippleback got in the queen's way and became her meal instead. The Night Fury flapped up and out of the volcanic island and made a full-speed beeline back to Berk.