Chapter 8

Flight of the Fury

"When Hiccup started winning, I wondered where she got off to during the day." Astrid looked at Kiefer now. "One day I was out by Six Reeds Ridge, taking out my frustration on a tree, when I spotted her. We were far away from town, so I had to wonder what she was doing there. She gave me the slip, but I managed to track her to Long Shale Cove, but then her trail ran cold. I didn't know how she lost me at the time, but I'm sure she went flying went Toothless.

"When she disappeared after stealing best-in-class, I ran to the cove and beat her there. Obviously I didn't stop to pack. So I sat there and waited. Eventually I started sharpening my axe, just to give me something to do. Honestly, I don't know how I missed a one-ton dragon in the cove.

"Night Furies can be sneaky when they want to be." Kiefer shrugged. "What happened when Hiccup arrived?"

"Well, I wanted answers. And I demanded them. She was clearly panicked before she saw me, and when she did she couldn't even form coherent sentences. She admitted to cheating, though she gave me some yak dung about something I don't remember. She was so desperate to drag me back to the village that I knew something was up. I was so angry at her for lying; I pulled my arm back hard enough to make her stumble and punched her in the side, demanding the truth. That's when I met Toothless — he's hard to miss when he roars at you.

"He was just protecting Hiccup. I know. But at the time, all I saw was a very angry dragon bearing down on us. I was . . . I don't know if terrified is the right word. I felt a certain calm if anything. I yelled at Hiccup to run and readied my axe. I knew I was going to die, but I needed to give her time to get away.

"But Hiccup jumped between us. She grabbed my axe and wrenched it out of my hands with a strength I didn't know she had. She faced down the dragon, urged him to calm down, and then . . . introduced us. I just stared. Toothless growled. And I was so confused."

"You looked like I had betrayed you."

"Did I?" Astrid scrunched up her eyebrows. "I don't remember feeling betrayed. I don't remember feeling anything but confused. I think I figured that Stoick needed to know about this, so I ran for the village. I was halfway to Six Reeds Ridge when Toothless caught up to me and, well, caught me. He picked me up, flew to a treetop, and dropped me on its highest branch. I then saw Hiccup on his back and demanded she let me down. She said I had to let her explain."

Kiefer's eyes locked on Hiccup. "You were going to run away. Why did you need to explain? She could have told your secret to the whole village and it wouldn't have made any difference."

"I . . ." Hiccup paused, her mouth agape. Why had she needed to explain? "I don't know. Maybe if it had been Fishlegs or Ruffnut I would have. But I . . . I guess I just needed Astrid to understand. Maybe I wanted her to come with me; be my milk-sister again. Or maybe — if she accepted dragons, we could get everyone else to accept them as well. I don't know. I wasn't thinking about that. I just couldn't stand that look of betrayal. I felt . . . I mean, it would've . . . I couldn't . . . I . . ."

She paused to take a breath.

"I'm not making any sense, am I?"

He just smiled. "You've explained well enough. Continue."

"Well, after we caught up with Astrid and I convinced her to hear us out, she climbed up onto Toothless with me. He . . . He was still mad at her. He went a little nuts. He did spins, loops, twirls, dove into the ocean; he did everything short of fireballing to scare her. The worst part was that I had to participate. He can't fly without me controlling the tail, and 'not flying' while in the air is . . . bad. So I couldn't fight him, other than to beg him to stop."

"He was just after an apology," Astrid said. "Once I gave it to him, the flight smoothed out and I had a chance to look around. I saw Berk as I never had before. Toothless was calm, gentle and . . . powerful. She had him take us to some beautiful places. The sunset from above the clouds, Aurvandil's Fire months before it would arrive at Berk . . ."

"Aurvandil's Fire?" Kiefer looked between them.

"The green and purple ribbons of light that sometimes appear in the sky." Hiccup looked at him as he cocked his head. "It comes down from the north near the end of Devastating Winter. It completely fills the sky."

"I'd like to see that. We don't have anything like that anywhere in Mesa del Cadre."

"It's really pretty." Hiccup smiled. "Imagine a sunset at midnight, but the orange and yellow replaced by green and purple." Rather boldly, she blurted out, "I could take you to see it!"

"I might take you up on that." Kiefer's smile made her heart do a flip. He looked back at Astrid. "I can see how that would be persuasive. Was it enough to convince you?"

"No, what convinced me was how loyal Toothless was. And when I realized that she had earned the loyalty of the dragons in the arena, I thought she could do that with all of them. She could bring an end to the raids and we could live in peace. But then we learned there was something stronger. Something that she couldn't train."

"Toothless was called by something." Hiccup said. "He joined a flight of dragons all carrying fresh kills."

"We were raided that night." Stoick nodded. "I remember it well, people wanted to see Hiccup put her skills to use. I knew she went into hiding after training, she didn't like the fame, so I figured she'd just gotten caught up in that. Although it was odd that Astrid didn't show up to help with the fire brigade."

"Whoa, we were attacked?" Hiccup scowled at her dad. "Why didn't anyone tell me when we got back?"

"Well it wasn't a very big raid. No Night Furies and you didn't — y'know — collapse the bridge, so it slipped my mind. I was more interested in the graduation fight the next day."

Hiccup jerked back as if struck. "Come on, I only did that once, and it was an accident."

She sighed and massaged a temple. Were they ever going to let her live that down? They should look on the bright side: Gobber got good at rock climbing while the bridge was rebuilt.

"Anyway, Toothless followed the flight back to the nest," Astrid said. "We call it Dragon Island now. We found that the dragons weren't eating the food they raided, they were delivering it to this mountain sized dragon we call the Red Death. It even ate one of them when it didn't give it enough food."

"An Alpha," Kiefer said quietly. "We call it tyranodraconis: the Dragon Tyrant. Tyrants have a song that subverts a dragon's will. Even the most loyal dragon, who's been with you since it hatched, will kill you if the Tyrant wills it. The Alphas are the biggest threat we face as dragon riders."

"Big, yeah. They are that," Hiccup said.

"It seemed to notice us," Astrid said, "and Toothless just took off, like he was running from Hel herself. When we got back, I tried to convince Hiccup to tell her father about it, but she was afraid he'd kill Toothless. Not an unreasonable fear — no offense, sir."

Stoick simply grunted.

"Hiccup convinced me to hold off telling him. She said she'd reveal everything to everyone in the fight the next day. I punched her arm for kidnapping me, then hugged her for trusting me." She looked at Hiccup and they smiled at each other over the shared memory.

"What happened the next day?"

Hiccup sighed. "Dad happened."