A/N: Thanks for the reviews, yet again! :D
Sorry I didn't get this out to you earlier. EOC's start next week, so y'all better brace yourselves.
If you're lost and alone
And you're sinking like a stone…carry on
May your past be the sound of your feet upon the ground
Carry on, carry on.
FUN - Carry On
(~**~) (~**~) (~**~) (~**~)
The morning eventually dawned over the large island of Berk. And with it, came the freezing winds and damp air. The grass was weighted down with thick drops of water, causing clothes to stick with a disgusting feeling to your skin, and the air to smell humid and green. The sun that was slowly climbing farther and farther up into the sky, and yet it did nothing at all to chase away the stifling-cold winds that racked the smudge of land with freezing gusts. Hiccup's green eyes blinked open slowly, the boy wincing at once as he ducked away from the glare of sunlight that met him.
He'd do a million other things right now than wake up.
He let out a small grumble of irritation, closing his eyes and curling up closer to himself. Astrid rolled over unconsciously, moving away from him as she tossed in her sleep. The movement caused her to tumble a few feet away from him, a newfound crease appearing in the boy's forehead as he lost a lot of the warmth that he had been next to. Blearily, he forced his green eyes to open, pushing his hands underneath him as he pushed himself up to a sitting position.
His hair felt tangled and mussed up, and he imagined that it looked a lot worse than what he could feel. His eyelids fluttered, feeling heavier as they tried to close in on themselves. Reaching up slowly, the boy rubbed his face roughly, cursing himself mentally as he tried to shake off the clinging remains of sleep. He blinked rapidly, forcing himself to perk up as he scanned the area around him. For a minute, he was confused as to where he was, and he fell back into moment of confused panic.
But then he remembered. They were still back in the hollowed-out pine tree. The edges of the tree's shelter were ringed with mud, leftover dirt that hadn't been sheltered enough from the rain last night. But the rest of it held up a lot better than Hiccup had first anticipated. The ground was only a little damp, as if only a few raindrops managed to get through the needle screening. Not for the first time, he thanked his lucky starts that he was such an awkward kid before Toothless came along. Otherwise he would have never found this place on his own.
Twisting around with a slight wince, Hiccup reached backwards, placing his hand gently against his side. The movement caused him to gasp sharply, a wave of pain burning through him as he placed his hand on the wound. For a minute, his head spun dizzily like a top, blackness threatening the edges of his vision as he blinked rapidly to try and clear the sensation. His noise of pain was enough to rouse Astrid, the blonde letting out an incoherent mumble as her blue eyes flickered open slowly.
Her forehead creased for a moment, but eventually she forced herself into a sitting position. She shot Hiccup a deadly glare as she rubbed her eyes, grumbling a moment as she did so. "What?" She asked fuzzily, sounding grouchy as usual. Hiccup started at the sound of her voice, hand slapping back down to the ground as he swiveled around to look back at the blonde. But as he let his arm fall back, intelligence befell over the girl's eyes, catching sight of something that Hiccup hadn't. "You're bleeding a little." She said, voice a little scratchier than normal.
"Huh?" Hiccup looked down at his hand, realizing with a small jolt that it was smeared slightly with a hint of red. His eyes flickered back down, sighing mentally as he saw that it had seeped a little bit through his clothes during the night. It wasn't all that noticeable, but now that it was pointed out, Hiccup could feel the way his tunic stuck uncomfortably against his ribcage. "I guess I am." He said, shocked. Astrid's brow furrowed as she made a move to help him. To the left of the boy, Toothless started to wake up as well, ears perking at the sound of voices.
But right when Astrid was about to place her hand on him, Hiccup realized something with a sudden shot of panic. It was way too bright outside. Feeling a wave of fear overcome him, the boy shot up to his feet, shoving aside the burst of pain he got as he stumbled forward. Astrid got to her feet as well at the sudden action, mood doing an entire turnaround as she tensed her muscles anxiously.
Ludi, who had been curled up beside her human snugly was jerked awake by the run, flopping limply to the side as she immediately started to complain. She raised her voice to a whiny yowl, flailing her paws around as she lashed her tail in irritation. Mistyeyes shot to her paws at once at the sudden yowling from the cat, blue eyes blazing with anger as she clumsily started to lash out at the unknown attacker. Nightflight's head snapped up, trying to get to her feet blindly. But she staggered at the last moment, falling forward and face-planting into the ground with a hard slap.
"Hiccup, what's wrong?" Astrid demanded, turning around and lashing out at Ludi bad temperedly. She clamped the cat's jaws closed together tightly, the silver tabby immediately started to try and thrash around in the blonde's grip. But Astrid only tightened it with a scowl, rolling her eyes before turning back to Hiccup. Mistyeyes seemed to realize what was going on, relaxing visibly as she drew back. Toothless threw a cautious look over at Hiccup before going forward to Nightflight, leaning down and helping her to her feet without a word. Nightflight's eyes flashed at the help, but all she did was let out a small 'Thank-you' in response to it.
Toothless nodded in reply, pulling away with an oddly-stony look. Mistyeyes blinked, ears flattening slightly at the sight of them two together. Instead, she turned away pointedly, twisting around and looking over questioningly at Hiccup. "Hiccup?" She questioned, tilting her head to the side. "What's wrong?" She could tell by the boy's hunched posture that something was wrong. The younger Viking burst out of the pine tree's screen, arm brushing the branches aside and letting the bright sunlight stream through the new opening. Mistyeyes immediately flinched away from the sharp glare, screwing up her eyes tightly as her wings pressed tightly to her sides. Her head rung from the burst of sunlight, and she could tell by the mutters from Toothless and Astrid that they thought the same. Even Nightflight sensed the change through her darkness, blinking with surprise as her eyesight turned slightly red.
Hiccup wasn't fazed, though. He was far too panicked to even think about the glare. Instead, he whirled around, green eyes round as he looked from one person to another. His eyes obviously stated that the others should know where he was going with this one. But as he got the blank looks back at him, he huffed out sharply, explaining: "We overslept." He clarified rapidly. Toothless immediately snarled angrily, crouching down into a defensive position unnecessarily. Astrid started, turning and looking at the sun with a new look of shock. Realization slowly dawned on her. It looked like it was almost noon. "We overslept big time." Hiccup stressed, letting out a small curse as he did so. He peered out of their shelter cautiously, biting his lower lip. "…such a stupid move…" He grumbled, scolding himself.
"What are we gonna do?" Astrid demanded swiftly, letting go of Ludi and watching for a moment as the cat flipped away from her roughly. The silver maine coon picked herself up dramatically, flicking her paws clean of pine needles as she shot a furious look over at Astrid. Her eyes flashed, and it seemed as though she was making a silently-deadly promise of what she would do if the blonde ever did anything like that again. Unnerved, Astrid turned around, eyeing Hiccup a little fearfully by now. "Do you think that they're out there?" She demanded in a small voice.
"I'll bet anything that they are." Hiccup muttered in reply, eyes dark as he surveyed the land as best he could without showing himself too much. He shook his head back and forth, shoulders drooping. "They probably left as soon as the storm blew over." Hiccup guessed, Astrid's heart twisting a little as she crawled over to be beside Hiccup. She looked over his shoulder, careful not to touch it too much. By her guessing, it's been a while since it stopped raining. Though the sky was still clouded over, (which it usually was, anyway) the ground was much dryer than it had been last night. It was still damp, but as Astrid pressed her hand down against the grass, she realized that there wasn't much mud left from the gale last night. That meant that most of it had dried. Which, in turn, meant that time had passed.
Too much time.
"Well." Astrid huffed angrily, leaning back and sitting on the balls of her feet. Hiccup turned over to look at her, expression radiating self-loathing at the fact that he had not waken up sooner. Astrid would have liked to tell him that it wasn't his fault, or the fact that she didn't blame him for it either way. But the past few days, Hiccup seemed to only bristle more at the fact that she was trying to comfort him. So she did her best to swallow the words, choking them back and changing her mind instead. "We can't just go out there." She reasoned, Hiccup's face creasing with thought at the statement. "I mean- it's morning. Two kids with a cat and four Night Furies? We'll kinda stick out like a sore thumb."
Shadowclaw had taken to curling up beside Ludi off to the side, his ears flattened at the motion, looking over at the cat with a small frown. Ludi was trying her best to pay attention, but her eyes kept drifting off to the side, being distracted by a stray pine needle that was rolling across the dirt ground. Ears flicking back and forth with intensity, Ludi flattened herself down to the ground, narrowing her eyes as she started to stalk the fluttering leaf. Shadowclaw rolled his eyes, huffing out a short breath through his nose as he leaned over, clamping the cat's tail down against the ground, yanking her backwards in the process. She let out a sharp yelp, slipping clumsily to the side as she fell down against the ground.
Hiccup turned at the sound of the cat starting to spit again, blanching a little as he took in the sight of the Night Furies. They were all slowly edging towards one another, whether they had been aware of it or not. They sidled to the side, clustering together slowly as they reached out for some kind of comfort. The scene caused Hiccup to hesitate on the sloppy plan that was doing its best to establish inside his head. He turned over to Astrid, mouth ajar as he searched for something to say. But he didn't know what to say. What could he say? That he wanted to talk to his dragons in private to try and figure this whole thing out? He'd look like an idiot.
As he stared over awkwardly at Astrid, the girl seemed to understand a little of what he needed. He thanked the gods that Astrid knew more than he did at times as the blonde pushed herself up to her feet. "How about I go scope out this place?" She prompted, eyes flashing as she gave Hiccup a small grin. Hiccup did the same, reaching up and using his good arm to grab tightly to a tree branch, pulling himself up to his feet with a sharp hiss. Astrid looked a little worried at the notion, but Hiccup brushed her off quickly. "Are you sure?" He asked, suddenly worried. "I wouldn't want you to get hurt…"
"I'll be fine." She assured him swiftly, clasping her hands tightly behind her back. "Besides, I think you might need a few minutes to think. You look a little overwhelmed." Hiccup rolled his eyes sarcastically at this, but Astrid merely smile back at him. Her eyes darted to the dragons quickly for a moment before turning, starting back out of the shelter with a cautious look around. Glancing back at the boy, she added: "Besides, I'm too quick to be caught. I'll just have a little look around. I'll be quick as a bunny."
Hiccup tried to smile, but it came out more as a grimace. "I'll hold you to that." He warned her.
She only shrugged listlessly, eyes glimmering with amusement as she held his gaze. Then she turned with a skip, crouching a little lower to the ground and darting out of the hollowed-out pine tree quickly. Hiccup watched, heart in his throat. The girl got farther and farther away, little by little. Pretty soon, Hiccup could only see the top of her blonde head as she darted in between the covers of the tree. His hands wrung together nervously at the thought of her all alone out there. But he forced himself to shake it off quickly. She was fine. She was Astrid. If he even tried to sneak up on her, she would turn around and punch him all the way into next Tuesday. Which he knew from past events. So it wasn't like there was any guessing on his part; he still had the bump on his head to prove it. She could defend herself well enough. Or at least stall things long enough for Hiccup and the others to get to her before anything particularly bad could happen.
Or at least…hopefully she'd be able to.
Hiccup watched as she vanished in the foliage of the forest, continuing to stare at the place she had disappeared before finally turning around. The other Night Furies were standing attentively, ears perked as they looked at Hiccup steadily. For a moment, nobody spoke, and Hiccup gave a small wince. Turning, he rubbed his bad arm a little gingerly, grimacing as he did so. It had stiffened up while he was sleeping, and while it hurt to move it in general, now it caused even worse pain. Mistyeyes spoke up, cutting off his thoughts as she flicked her ear a little dismissively. "You can tell her, you know." She said, not having to explain what she was thinking about.
But Hiccup only scoffed. "And tell her what?" He questioned.
But Mistyeyes only shrugged invitingly. "I mean- it's better than lying to her." Her voice turned slightly bitter at this sentence, and Hiccup blinked, a little miffed.
"I'm not lying." He retorted. "I'm just not going to get into something even I don't understand until I know how I'm gonna do it." Nightflight's shoulders hunched guiltily at this, but Hiccup did his best to ignore it. He would have flashed the dragon an encouraging smile. A don't-worry-about-it-it's-not-your-fault kind of smiles, but he realized that she wouldn't be able to see it anyway, so he didn't bother. He shook his head to clear it, beginning to talk with his hands like he always did when he got nervous. "We need to figure out what to do, guys." He said quickly, hands moving a mile a minute as he flailed them back and forth. "We're running out of time, and we didn't really help our case when we overslept. The others could be anywhere on the island, and I'm pretty sure that we don't have a lot of time left." When the other dragons didn't offer up any kind of encouragement, Hiccup groaned loudly. "C'mon! You guys helped to clear the island of the Night Furies to begin with! Where are your good ideas now? Right when we need them, they don't come?"
"Maybe we could get off the island?" Toothless suggested, catching Hiccup off-guard as the boy turned over to the Night Fury with an odd look. His tail lashed as he spoke, but his voice sounded pretty sure of itself. "With the Vikings looking all over the island, we're not all that safe in the first place. So…why not leave it? It's not like we'll leave forever. Just until we can clear our minds and think clearly. With all this suspense about whether or not we'll make it, there's really no way that we can really make a logical plan."
"I can see that working." Mistyeyes offered in her input, a little reluctantly.
Toothless glanced over at her, green eyes flashing.
"What if we go back to the island from before?" Nightflight suggested, speaking for the first time as she shuffled her paws. All eyes turned to her, and the Night Fury seemed to grow warm underneath the stares as her ears flattened a little self-consciously. "You know, the one that we were on during the Raid." She said, meaning the words to be directed to Hiccup. "It was pretty close, but the other Vikings would probably take days to find it. With that time, we could already have a plan of what to do when it comes." Hiccup paused, mulling over the idea as he hesitated. "…I'm not sure I remember how to get there." He explained a little awkwardly, reaching up and rubbing the back of his neck. He was kinda too busy fearing for his life to be paying attention to where and what direction he had been going. "We could try to find it, but…that could take us days. It would kinda defeat the purpose." Nightflight deflated at this, but seemed to see sense in the explanation as she quieted down.
"I suppose." She sighed softly, ducking her head a little as she looked away.
"I guess that's out of the equation." Mistyeyes sighed, almost a little loftily.
"No, wait. Hang on a second." Shadowclaw said suddenly, getting to his feet and pacing forward. Hiccup felt a small twinge of surprise as he looked at the Night Fury, a little shocked. He'd forgotten that Shadowclaw was even there in the first place. Usually the dragon had a habit of fading to the background of things. Though the thought was a little saddening, it was true. But now, he suddenly looked a lot more thoughtful as he looked down carefully to Hiccup's fake leg. His ears angled themselves this way and that as he thought, but then he brightened considerably. He straightened, suddenly looking much more self- assured than he had before. "We go back to Night Fury Island." He declared, eyes sparkling with excitement as he grinned toothily.
Mistyeyes had been observing the ocean outside the fronds of the pine tree, but she immediately stiffened at the suggestion. Toothless choked on his own air, and Nightflight started to shrink away, like a turtle did when it retreated back to its shell. Even Ludi stopped in her tracking of the stray pine needle, picking herself up off the ground and looking oddly over at Shadowclaw. Hiccup tensed at the idea, but refused to turn it down too quickly. From the reactions of the other dragons, he could tell that they were immediately going to douse the idea. So he spoke up before they could.
"Would you care to explain?" He prompted, voice a little higher than normal.
Shadowclaw was painfully aware of the reactions around the room, squirming a little as he lost some of his self-confidence. "umm…" He swallowed back the lump in his throat, forcing his voice not to waver as he backtracked. "If you could describe the way that you got the other Vikings to understand that dragons weren't bad in one word, what would it be?"
Immediately, answers were fired out by those who knew the story.
"Terrifyingly-dangerous." Toothless snorted.
"Borderline ridiculous." Mistyeyes offered.
"A little overboard." Nightflight grumbled, tail twitching.
"…Hard?" Hiccup asked, wincing as he tried to find the right word.
"Big." Shadowclaw answered for him, Hiccup giving a nod of agreement at the word. It would suffice, he guessed. The brown Night Fury paused a heartbeat, planning what he was going to say before he went on. "What you had to do…granted, it was hard. Most things are. But it was big, it was huge, and it was noticeable." He looked skeptically at Hiccup, and the boy nodded once again. Shadowclaw nodded in turn, sweeping on. "Well? Don't you see? In order for us to get anywhere with this, we have to do the same thing. We have to stand out, and we have to step up. Hiding here, we're not doing anything. We want Night Furies on Berk? Then we have to go to the root of the problem. And we have to fix it there. The fish rots from the head, right? If we take off the head of the fish, such as the hostility of the Night Furies…then the disease stops."
"You make it sound like its easy, that way." Toothless growled. "But you've forgotten one thing, Shadowclaw. Every single person here has had some kind of bad falling out with the other Night Furies. I was exiled along with Mistyeyes, and Nightflight is a 'human-lover' now. Accompanied with two humans, if we walk in there, we're dead meat." The others nodded in silent agreement, looking saddened by the news as they looked at Shadowclaw almost mournfully. Shadowclaw drooped, looking a little disappointed. The cards were on the table, and yet nobody was even trying to pick them up and observe them.
"Isn't that the point, though?" He demanded. "I thought the moral of this whole thing was Second Chances."
Mistyeyes blinked at this.
But Toothless wasn't moved. "Shadowclaw, this is entirely different." He snapped. "I won't risk any more lives. We can't just waltz in there and demand that they come to Berk. You're forgetting-"
"That they helped us in the Raid?" Shadowclaw demanded, cutting him off rudely as he narrowed his eyes. Toothless stopped short at this, straightening considerably as he went silent. The younger dragon's eyes flashed, as if he knew that he had struck a nerve with that one. "They helped us before, which means that we made them see sense before. Maybe without Nightflight there controlling them anymore, they'll be different. Maybe they'll be able to see reason again. You never know." He hesitated before backtracking on himself. "At least, a majority of them might. If we just get a few of them to come back, we can show that Night Furies aren't all that bad."
"Or we show up with what looks to be an ambush party." Mistyeyes commented dryly. "There's always that factor."
Shadowclaw blanched a moment, looking down and staring at his paws. "…well, that's true." He said stupidly.
"No." Hiccup said suddenly, eyes starting to light up slowly as he pointed from Mistyeyes and Toothless to Shadowclaw. Ludi seemed to feel left-out of the pointing, leaping up from her recently-pinned pine needle and racing over towards them. She straightened, bouncing from foot to foot as she pushed herself into the conversation. "I think Shadowclaw might be going somewhere with this." Hiccup said stiffly, ignoring his cat for the time being. Grouchily, Ludi scowled over at him, blinking before turning around and heading back to her pine needle. How she remembered the one specific pine needle from all the ones that were littering the ground, Hiccup wasn't sure. But she pounced forward, landing squarely on the one she had been on less than a moment before.
"You do, do you?" Toothless asked. "Please, enlighten us."
Hiccup shot his dragon a look, but swept on easily. "If we persuade the Night Furies that helped us during the Raid to come back to Berk and see what it's like here, we might have enough evidence to make my dad see sense." Which had to be a lot of evidence, considering the fact that his dad was…his dad. "If we can somehow show the other villagers before Dad, then maybe majority vote will rule in our favor. After all, Vikings can be persuaded if we really push the envelope."
"But you might be pushing it too far." Nightflight pointed out fairly. "There are a lot of Night Furies that might take you up on your offer, but there are probably a lot more that would refuse it. After all, I had a lot of…followers." She said the word a little distastefully. "How can you be sure that they would be able to make such a fast turnaround?"
Hiccup shrugged. "I can't." He said simply. "And you're right: we don't know which will like the idea, and which would turn it down. We don't know how it might end. But I do know one thing. We're wasting time here. We're not doing anything productive; we're just hiding out in a tree and waiting for the other Vikings to find us." He eyed the height of the sun in the sky, feeling his stomach do a few flips with nervousness. Was Astrid okay? "Nightflight, if you go back and tell the other Night Furies how you made the change, they might do the same. After all, you have a big influence on them."
"You mean my eyes?" She asked sarcastically, flaring a little at the idea.
"No!" Hiccup said quickly. "Of course not! We're not going to the island and forcing the Night Furies to Berk. That would defeat the purpose. It's just that…they've listened to you before. And you too, Mistyeyes." The gray Night Fury started at her name, blue eyes lighting up with surprise.
"Hiccup, I haven't led the Night Furies in a long time." She explained, voice subdued. "…I can't do it again. They wouldn't listen to me. There's no use in even trying."
"That's not a trooper spirit." Hiccup muttered in her direction.
Mistyeyes gave him a grouchy look. "Maybe I don't wanna be a trooper." She said, only half-teasing.
"We're all troopers!" Shadowclaw objected, getting to his feet and bouncing. "We're all going to be in this together! There's no backing out now! If we back out now, then we can't even call ourselves Night Furies!" The smaller dragon puffed out his chest self-importantly, grinning a little childishly as he did so. "Night Furies are the bravest and toughest dragons in the world! We can't let ourselves be put to rest by a couple of Viking armed with threats!"
Toothless's eyes softened at the words, tail curling close to his side as he smiled. Mistyeyes started to perk up a little bit, blue eyes flashing as they flickered over to Shadowclaw. Nightflight sighed tiredly, but her ears were pricked as she listened to the youngling's words intently. "We have to show the Vikings that the Night Furies deserve another chance! That just because we've made a few mistakes in the past, it doesn't mean that we can't have our place on this island!"
"Shadowclaw has a point." Toothless finally pointed out. "We have to at least try."
Mistyeyes looked from Toothless, to Hiccup, as if weighing her choices. "…It'll be risky." She concluded after a hesitating moment. "…And dangerous. And stupid. And crazy. Which is why we're doing this, I guess. After all, this is the only kind of plans we can ever come up with." Shadowclaw tilted his head to the side, waiting expectantly for her answer. "I guess that we can give it a try." She muttered eventually. Shadowclaw's face broke into a grin, but she interrupted him before he could say anything. "But I feel like a million things could go wrong, there. I'm not going to let my guard down for a moment." Toothless shot her a look, but she only returned it steadily. She wasn't going to say that her words were merely out of panic. "It's a risky plan at best. But it's all we have. And I'm not going to let you all fly away to your deaths by yourselves. So I'll come along."
"Wait to be encouraging." Nightflight retorted.
"Always." Mistyeyes grumbled angrily in reply.
Shadowclaw turned over to Hiccup, looking excited at the prospect of returning to the island.
Hiccup wondered why that was.
"When are we leaving?" The brown dragon demanded eagerly.
"We have to wait for Astrid to come back." Hiccup said, already knowing that the girl would be back soon. She'd been gone long enough; if she was gone for much longer, Hiccup would have to go out there after her. "And then we have to make sure that we know for sure what we're doing." He wondered whether he would bring Astrid with him. He doubted that he had much of a choice at the moment, but the thought of bringing Astrid along made him nervous. After all, he wasn't even sure it was the right choice at all to go out there in the first place. "There's a lot of things we need to do before we go, but we don't have a lot of time. So we're going to have to be fast. Does anyone-"
"Hiccup!" Astrid's voice suddenly hissed his name, and the boy turned quickly, heart ramming painfully against his chest. Was she hurt? Were the other Vikings around? Did she get spotted? Was the world ending? All three sounded like possible candidates, and he began to panic as Astrid dove inside of the tree for shelter, puffing for air like she had run all the way back to the tree in a sprint. "They're all on the other side of the island, I think." She gasped, holding a stitch in her side as she grimaced. "But by the time I finally got closer to the tree, they were all heading over here. So you'd better have a plan or something, because I'm not sure-" She broke off, eyeing Hiccup oddly suddenly. "…What?" She asked.
"What?" Hiccup asked, titling his head to the side.
"That look on your face." Astrid said, narrowing her eyes slowly. "Something happened."
"Yeah. I got an idea." Hiccup said a little sassily.
"That's dangerous." Astrid sighed.
"We're going back to the island that the other Night Furies live on." Hiccup explained. "And we're going to convince them to come back with us." He did his best to ignore Astrid's shocked expression, giving her no time to object to what he was saying. "A portion of the Night Furies helped us during the raid, right? Well, I figure that if we go there and show them how much Berk has changed Toothless, Mistyeyes, and Shadowclaw, we can convince them that it's not so bad. After all, they did have enough tolerance to not let us die."
Astrid slowly nodded, stunning Hiccup at the easy win. But then she asked the question he had been expecting: "And the other half…?" She trailed off invitingly.
"The other half can see how much Nightflight has changed in these few short days." Hiccup pressed. "That's the beauty of it! She's always had a big influence on most of them! And if somebody like her can grow to love Berk, then the same will go for them."
"Seems a little optimistic." Astrid commented.
"Granted." Hiccup offered. "But it's the best we have so far."
"And when does the whole 'Berk-doesn't-know-about-this-and-when-you-come-ba ck-they-might- kill-you-on-sight' concept come up in conversation between the dragons?" Astrid prompted, voice layered and layered with thick sarcasm. "I mean- you're going there and offering a safe haven to the Night Furies? It seems kinda like they already have that where they are now. Why would they give up a perfectly-hidden island to go to another one? Especially when the island they're going to might not be very…hospitable."
"…You make a lot of really good points." Hiccup said lamely in reply.
"Well." She said dismissively. "It's a good plan, Hiccup. Just not very thought-out."
"So what do we do?" Hiccup asked.
Astrid hesitated, turning swiftly and narrowing her eyes as she studied the sky. The sun was in its high point by now. Pretty soon, it would start going down, and then night would be on them quicker than they would expect. "We should wait." She decided finally, turning back around and looking at Hiccup carefully, waiting for an agreement. "If we wait until night, we'll blend into the sky better. Even if it is cloudy up there, we'd still be visible."
"So we're still going?" Hiccup asked, raising an eyebrow.
"It's our best bet." Astrid sighed. "I can't believe we're going to do this all for a dragon that nearly killed us, but…" She trailed off, looking over to Nightflight questioningly. But then her eyes softened, and she gave a small smile. "I'll come along for the ride." She said firmly. "As long as you promise it'll all be worth it in the end."
"Well, I can't promise it." Hiccup said. "But I'll try to make it work."
Toothless let out a chirp of agreement, getting to his feet and bouncing forward. He nuzzled Hiccup affectionately in the cheek. The message went unspoken, but it translated to both Hiccup and Astrid perfectly clear. 'I'll make sure that everything will be alright. Don't worry.' Mistyeyes managed a small smile where she sat, subdued as she suddenly turned thoughtful. Hiccup could pick out a few words, and he realized that the dragoness was already thinking of what she would have to do when she got to the island. He watched as she turned to the side, reaching out with a claw and drawing out meaningless-looking scribbles into the sand.
He guess it meant something to her.
Shadowclaw gave Hiccup a self-assured smile, a nod of affirmation following the grin. He then got up to his feet, pacing back the way he had come before sitting down once more. He curled his tail neatly over his feet, tilting his head to the side and watching with mild interest as Ludi continued to pounce at falling needles. They were all retiring to their own activities, preparing themselves to wait out the sun.
Hiccup turned, looking sadly over at Nightflight. Excusing himself with a mumble from both Toothless and Astrid, the Viking turned backwards and went back over to the blind dragon. "You okay?" He asked softly. The dragoness looked worn and tired, not at all excited by the newfound plan as the others were. Which would make sense, of course.
"After all this…I didn't think I'd have to go back." Nightflight murmured softly. "I've already had to face what I've done here. Now I have to go back there and do it all over again."
Hiccup bit his lip, glancing back over to Astrid with a panicked look. But the girl was busy gathering up the stray pine needles here and there. And by the amused look the girl kept shooting over in Ludi's direction, Hiccup could only begin to fathom what she was going to do with them when she got them all together in her arms. But he pushed the thought away, turning back to Nightflight and talking back to her in a low whisper. "It'll be okay." He assured her sweetly. "You'll have us with you. Nothing or nobody will hurt you while we're there. The first step to making up for a mistake is to admit that you've done something wrong, and that's always the hardest hurdle. But you'll be able to do it, I know you will."
Nightflight sighed. "Why do you have so much faith in me?" She asked.
"Because I know you more than you think I do." Hiccup said affectionately.
She snorted, but her eyes softened a considerable amount. "…You wont leave me behind?"
"Of course not." Hiccup assured her. "It's just like Shadowclaw said before, we're all in this together." He grinned before adding: "I mean- I know I'm not all that much of a 'Night Fury.'" Nightflight chuckled at this, and Hiccup let out a laugh as well. "But I still think that I can stick with you guys for a while longer."
Nightflight's shoulders shook with a little giggle, Hiccup watching as a little of the tension left her shoulders. "Yes, I suppose." She teased, managing a joke. But then she sobered, blinking slowly as she looked straight at Hiccup. "Thank you." She managed thickly, the dragon suddenly sounding hard of talking. Hiccup smiled gently at this. "Thank you for…everything, really. I don't deserve it. For everything you've done….and for everything you're going to do. I want to thank you for it."
"You don't have to." Hiccup said. "A family helps one another out. It's kinda a package deal."
"I think I like being a part of a family…" Nightflight mumbled, talking to herself.
Hiccup turned suddenly, blinking as he looked around him. Shadowclaw was curled up tightly to himself, watching Ludi jump and twirl through the air playfully, letting out a laugh every so often at her movements. Toothless and Mistyeyes were off to the side now, talking about the storm last night and how Mistyeyes had slept right through it. The gray dragon rolled her eyes, smacking Toothless playfully as he commented on her being hard of hearing. Astrid had gathered up an armful of pine needles, going over to Ludi and dumping the bundle square on top of the cat. Immediately, Ludi yelped, having the sense to stay quiet this time, at least. She started to roll around like a mad cat, spitting under her breath as she barrel- rolled across the ground. Astrid doubled over with laughter, blue eyes glimmering with amusement as Ludi smacked against the trunk of the tree on accident.
"Me too." He said, looking back at her.
(~**~) (~**~) (~**~) (~**~)
A/N: Sorry if this chapter is a little off…
At lot of stuff is happening…so….
EOCs start tomorrow…and a lot of drama is circulating around me….
So…
I could really use some nice reviews to cheer me up, guys. I'm really kinda bummed out. I tried not to let it show through my story though. Sorry if I didn't really manage it…
And my computer did the weird spacing thing, so sorry if that looks bad too~