Chapter 5
It had been a week since that day the students had returned. It had taken them days just to get close enough to touch the dragons, all the while Toothless watched from his cage, obviously amused. Luckily though they had each taken to the dragons Hiccup had assigned to them.
Astrid with the sky blue Deadly Nadder, which was about as perfect a match as Hiccup could hope to get. The twins had instantly fought over who got which head when presented with the Hideous Zippleback, the senseless type arguments seemingly a habit of theirs. The slow Gronkle and the stoutly boy, Fishlegs, had too, taken to each other, they seemed content in a slower pace. The Monstrous Nightmare had been given to Snotlout who was more focused on the constant power struggle the two had rather then actually getting on it's back. They had all reluctantly named them, after some prompting from Hiccup.
Astrid called hers Stormfly, Snotlout called his Hookfang, Fishlegs called his Meatlug. Tuffnut and Ruffnut named theirs a day later. They had to finish the fight over what head was which, then they fought over names. They had settled on Barf & Belch.
It hadn't taken a week for Hiccup to want to go curl up beside Toothless and watch them flail about with a blatant look of amusement also. He didn't though, and every moment he thought about that, he remembered that joy he had felt when they showed up to class everyday.
They had just finished another training session when Snotlout said the inevitable. "We've been doing these nicey nicey lessons for a week, can't we ride the dragons yet?" He was sat in his bed, polishing same of his armor so smooth he could see his reflection, and he certainly saw it. The other students were sitting around and doing their own things.
"I'm not sure that's a good idea." Hiccup started, he was cooking them all a small meal. The shared house had become a tight fit once the other students had moved in. They had most of their lessons outside, and eventually even some classroom lessons had to be held outside.
"We have a year of training before the exams," Fishlegs chimed in, "we still need to learn the rest of basic military conduct, flight strategy, dragon riding, dragon riding combat, and my personal favorite dragon classification."
"Well... if you're up for it then we can give it a try tomorrow. But first eat, sleep, bathe maybe." He set their dishes down at the table, the students eagerly dropped what they were doing to eat. Hiccup headed up to his room with his own meal. When he got to his own room he took a deep breath, "bathe definitely."
That morning Hiccup had the dragons saddled and ready before the cadets had even woke up. He figured that it would be better to teach them how to put the saddles on later, since in the real army the dragons were saddled by other's anyway. The dragons were as excited as their partners, stretching their wings and running around the arena playing. Toothless was the only one who didn't seem excited.
"Are you doubting me too?" Hiccup asked, sighing when the dragon didn't even blink to answer. "I can't keep them interested in patting their dragons on the heads forever, can I?" Toothless blinked slowly. The dragon looked like he was about to growl something when the bang of the barrack door caught all the dragon's attention.
Astrid stared back, wearing her cadet uniform, she must have woken up not long after himself. The cadet uniform was used for dragon riding mostly, though the bigger schools often had students wear them all the time. The ones for Berk were the same style as all the other ones but different colours.
The shirt, which was made a thick material, was a soft aqua colour. There were five silver buttons on the top, the ones on the lower part were on the inside of the shirt to give it a sleek look. The cadets were free to wear personal armor as long as it didn't cover their crest which was a sigil of the dragon they rode. Astrid's was a black silhouette of the tracker class.
The pants were black and easy to move in; they were tucked into an air of knee high riding boots. The boots came in either black and brown with two matching buttons on the top outside. Astrid had chosen the brown ones.
She walked over the sound of the riding heel more pronounced on the cobbled ground. Her eyes were on Stormfly.
"Can I try riding her?" She asked softly.
"Sure." Hiccup called Stormfly over with a whistle and the dragon responded obediently. Astrid walked over cautiously, but with an improved confidence than before. The dragon watched her approach. Hiccup could see some other students come out to, and was pleasantly surprised to find that their dragons approached them without being coaxed.
Astrid rubbed Stormfly's nose, watching the dragon nuzzle closer to her hand. She smiled softly. It shocked her how just a week ago she had refused to take lessons unless she had a weapon. Astrid moved fluidly towards the saddle, holding the side lightly, and careful raising herself into the saddle. Around her the others did the same, Hiccup just watched as Toothless hadn't been saddled.
"Where are we flying?" She asked, paying attention to how the dragon moved, clutching tightly to the bridle in her hand.
"Just stay in here for now, a few flaps up and down until you get the hang of it."
"What?" Shouted Snotlout, "How are we going to learn to fly like that. When I said fly I meant actually fly. Just because you're a wimp doesn't mean we are." With that comment he gave his dragon a harsh kick, yanking the line and with it, the Nightmare's head. The proud beast didn't like that and with a mighty sweep of it's tail it tried to throw Snotlout off his back. This started a chain reaction.
Meatlug who had lazily let Fishlegs onto his back was grazed by the tail giving the sleepy dragon a fright. It twisted in a delayed attempt to avoid it and Fishlegs and the dragon toppled over. They in turn bumped into the twins, who were already distracted by which was riding which head. Not prepared for the incoming dragon they fell from their own with harsh thumps onto the stone ground. Lastly, Barf tripped up with Belch, who was avoiding Ruffnut and bumped right into Stormfly. The dragon jumped back and Astrid fell to the ground.
Now dismounted, the students scrambled back in a desperate attempt to avoid the now frenzied dragons, who either were stumbling to stay on their feet or avoid the other dragons and the cadets. Toothless let out a screech trying to calm them, but hearing the quiet dragon scream just seemed to worsen the anxiety.
Soon the arena had become a mess of nervous screeching dragons and frightened cadets and Hiccup was still trying to keep up with the domino effect that had just happened. When the students had managed to crawl to the walls of the arena on pure instinct and Hiccup had shushed Toothless he dealt with the dragons.
He stepped in quickly, both hands raised and remaining as calm as he could. The first dragon he reached was Hookfang, the first domino. He raised his hand, placing one on the dragon's nose and the other underneath it's jaw. He looked in it's eyes, remaining calm and the dragon let out a halted breath. He helped Meatlug up and the dragon calmed quickly. Barf and Belch had managed to calm themselves down and stuck their heads over for Hiccup to pat. He rubbed their scaly necks before looking over at Stormfly.
The dragon was staring at Astrid, who had her back against the wall. The dragon looked almost apologetic but Astrid looked upset. Not at the dragon, Hiccup thought, but with herself. The dragons themselves had gone back to the center of the arena, none the wiser of how they had scared their partners.
"That's enough for today, it's probably better to let everyone calm down." The other students nodded blankly.
"Is it usually like this?" Fishlegs asked, raising his shaking hand. Hiccup walked over to them as they started to stand.
"No, that was a certain over achiever's fault." Hiccup started as he nodded his head in Snotlout's direction. "Tomorrow we can try again if you want, I wanted to get some things fixed on my own saddle anyway so it benefits me to cut this short. Are you guys fine with stopping now?"
"It's fine." Astrid huffed, brushing dust from her pants and storming back to the barracks. The other cadets followed in silence. It had gone much worse then Hiccup had expected.
After unsaddling all the dragons and returning them to their cages, he did fix a small tear in his own saddle. It had several scars which had been repaired with various colours of string. The saddle was old but he had made it at the forge at his clan. It used some of the finest materials they had. He wasn't about to trade it for a military issued saddle. He had just finished when Toothless had bounded over and wiggled his little, 'let's fly' wiggle. Seconds later he and his dragon were dancing through the sky.
Astrid watched from inside the barracks, her peers were grumbling behind her. She watched as the small figures flew through the sky, looping and twirling with the ease of professionals. The ability they displayed in a minute topped what they had just done by 100000%. Her cheeks still burned with embarrassment.
"He's amazing!" Came an excited voice from behind her, it was Fishlegs, who watched the aerobatics with sparkling eyes.
"Yeah," She replied in a quiet voice, "so is his dragon."
"It must have been hard for him in the army."
"How so?"
"Yeah, he's a Major already I doubt he had a hard time." Called out Snotlout, the twins mumbled through their mouthful of hardtack bread in agreement.
"That's exactly why. He's the same age as us but he had to command people older than him, probably people who had served longer than him. I doubt they liked that. And he knows all these maneuvers so well he must practise all the time."
"He must really love this country." Astrid murmured.
"Not as much as I love this country." Snotlout said, rooting through the hardtack bag that the twins had been hoarding.
"I want to be able to fly like that." Fishlegs says, ignoring Snotlout's comment and instead watching as the figure loops through the sky.
"Me too." Astrid says almost dreamily. "We'll have to practise hard, like he did. And we're going to have to get back on the dragons."
"Of course were getting back on the dragons, one little mishap won't stop us." Snotlout muttered sitting down on his bed with his own hardtack. Astrid rolled her eyes, they hadn't been shaken up for long.
In the sky the dragon stopped its aerobatics and started to fly straight towards the forest, they watched until the two were out of sight. They all knew that someday they wanted to ride a dragon like that.
Hiccup had returned to the barracks much later, when the sky was stained by dusk and the students were all studying their books by themselves. In his hand he clutched a sealed letter. He didn't greet his students even though they looked up at him as he walked in. He headed straight up the stairs.
As soon as he got up there he opened the letter and glanced at the thick black ink. As he and Toothless were flying the caught sight of a rider-less dragon approaching the island. They went to greet it and saw that there was a letter tied to it. It had the Bewilderbeast seal and Hiccup had spent some time in the forest reading it over and over before returning.
Now he read it again.
"Hiccup, we wouldn't contact you so recklessly unless it was important, which you know. Something is happening in the Vitikean court, we don't yet know what. Lips are tight but soldiers seem to be avoiding the court more and more. We don't think they've noticed the spies in the court or they would have acted by now. Since you are the only spy in their higher ranks we hope that your return may bring us more information. We have won you some favour back in the court and although you haven't been gone long we recommend that you write a request for transfer. If something is up we need to know soon,
The council of the Bewilderbeast clan."
And once again, Hiccup found himself writing a letter he didn't really want to. He had influenced the training of these cadets, they were doing well too. Today's failure had been a minor setback and his leaving might bring the wrong idea to them. But even with the regret he dipped his quill into the black ink and started to write.
"I courteously acquire your acknowledgement of my request, I feel my skills would be better utilized in the ranks of..."