Shadow was walking down towards the arena early in the morning the day before the new moon. Today was her last day on Berk, then she had to leave. Emotions tugged at her heart, making her feel horrible and lonely. She had nothing to look forward to once she left, just a few weeks of traveling and staying hidden, only coming out to hunt.
She sighed and continued walking. Today, she thought, she would spend with her new friends, and let them know how much she valued them before she would slip away in the night.
Once she made it to the arena, she could feel that something was off. She couldn't tell what it was, or what was going to happen, but the black beast told her to be wary.
Once she went inside the giant stone bowl, she noticed the inhabitants. Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, Tuffnut and Astrid were all there with their dragons. The latter were still giving her stares which made her uncomfortable. They could smell it on her. They knew what she was, what she would become.
Thankfully, when teaching the teens how to speak and understand Dragoneese, she neglected to teach them how to understand their dragons if they tried to rat her out. She smirked internally at this. They wouldn't catch her. And hopefully, she could return in the future without any of them ever knowing her secret.
They all said their good mornings, with Shadow still acting slightly shy like the first time she met them. Since Hiccup hadn't arrived yet, they decided to just lounge around and talk. Hiccup was by now either still on his morning flight, or talking to his father.
Shadow could see Fishlegs slaving away over a pile of papers, and went over to look. They were notes on the Black Moon, everything they had gathered since the day she arrived. Shadow was surprised to see that they actually had quite a lot of information.
Fishlegs saw her reading his notes, and spoke to her. "Um, Shadow. I hope you don't mind, but we really want to learn as much as possible about your dragon to put it into the Dragon manual. Would you mind answering us some of our questions?" he hesitantly asked.
Shadow felt slightly apprehensive, but agreed. Internally, she promised not to give anything too big away, but they deserved to have their pages for the book. At least she could be immortalised in their history.
"What do you want to know?" she asked.
"Lets start off easy. What is the Black Moon's food of choice?" he asked.
Shadow smirked. "Shark. There are no bones in it to sift through when its eating." She answered. Fishlegs wrote some more notes in his pages.
"Ok, a bit harder this time. What is the length of its body?" he asked.
Shadow had to stop and think, because she wasn't entirely sure how big it was. Coming up with an idea, she politely asked Hookfang to come over, and she compared her other self to that of the Monstrous Nightmare.
"Approximately seven and a half meters long from snout to tail last I checked. And with a wingspan of roughly nine meters from wingtip to wingtip. Although I could be wrong." She said.
Fishlegs hummed in thought, and wrote down the information. The twins wracked their brains for good questions.
"Does it have a shot limit?" asked the female twin. Shadow shook her head. "It has unlimited shots. But with its lightning, it requires a lot more energy."
All throughout the day, they asked Shadow questions. Everything she knew on the Black Moon was asked, and she did her best to answer without giving away everything. It was hard, since they asked very specific questions about the dragon, questions which she didn't really want to answer. But she managed to state their curiosity. Although she had to admit, some of those harder questions were answered with a lie.
At some point during the day, Hiccup – who showed up after a late breakfast – had to leave for the Forge to help Gobber. Astrid left about half an hour after he did to help her parents with something that Shadow soon forgot about.
But once the late afternoon rolled in, they started to doubt the answers she gave them, and challenged her on the things she said. Snotlout especially went against her on the things she said. The more and more she spoke, the more agitated he got.
"Bah! I don't like any of this. You've answered our questions on that stupid dragon, but none on how you are connected to it! Why is that? Why are you hiding that dragon from us?" he demanded. "Why don't you tell us where you are hiding it?!"
Shadow growled at him once she realised what he was doing.
"That information is strictly confidential and need-to-know. I can't just go blabbing to every egotistical jerk all the secrets that I keep. That information could be the death of me if it falls into the wrong hands, which is why I'm not telling you where it is!" she yelled. Shadow growled at him as his face contorted into one of anger.
"Oh yea, as if! You just think its some sort of big fun game, trying to feed us lies and see how far you get until you get caught. Well guess what! Game over!" he yelled at her, standing chest to chest with the shadowy girl. Shadow snarled at him and narrowed her eyes.
Her blood was boiling and she was itching for a fight, since he seemed to be hell-bent on starting one. She cracked her knuckles and flexed her claws, and bared her fangs at him.
"Oh, what's this? Is the little shadow girl getting mad? Does she think she can start a fight to get out of this? Well here, dragon girl, sniff some of this and calm down."
Before she could react, Snotlout threw a ball of what she could only guess was Dragon Nip at her face, and the sweet smell instantly permeated the air near her nose. Shadow couldn't control her body or her senses once she came into contact with the dragon nip, and she instantly became calm.
The teens watched, gobsmacked, as her pupils widened to impossible size, she smiled, and fell over on the ground into a purring pile of happy mush. Humans didn't react at all to the sweet smelling grass, but Shadow was having a massive positive reaction to it at their feet, rolling around on the ground purring like a cat. Or a dragon.
Snotlout was the first to snap out of shock, and swaggered over to her cuddled up form, smirking like an asshole at his discovery. Shadow finally was able to snap out of it, shaking her head violently, just as the abusive teen smirked down at her.
"Well, well, well. It looks like I was right." Shadow could feel her stomach drop at his words. "It looks like you are more dragon that human."
Shadow was on her feet in an instant, and made a mad dash away from the dark haired teen. Fear circulated her body in a large rush of adrenaline. She only stopped once her back reached the furthest spot away from the dragon riders. Too late had she realised that they were between her and the door. The only way out.
Snotlout saw her eyes move, and ran for the iron gate the moment she moved, beating her there and locking them all inside. Shadow kept on running once she realised she was trapped. Her heart was beating a mile a minute, as Snotlout in his enraged state, grabbed a sword and advanced on her.
She was still dangerous, so he wanted to approach her while being armed. He wasn't going to let her come close to hurting him if she was a dragon collaborator, or a spy. No, he still didn't know exactly what she was, but 'dangerous' was definitely on that list.
As he advanced on her, Shadow lunged in a desperate attempt to scare him off and bolt for the gate, but she miscalculated, and once she managed to get behind him and run, Snotlout swung his sword in a downward arc.
Her back was to him as she was running, and he reacted on instinct. The deadly, sharp sword descended towards her exposed back on an unstoppable path.
Shadow screamed as the blade bit into her back, and sliced down from her shoulder to her hip on the opposite side, and she crashed to the ground in a heap.
Everyone went silent, with the only noise being Shadow's laboured breathing. She slowly turned around and saw the torn shirt on her back, the massive rip almost tearing the shirt off her body.
There was no blood, yet there should be. She shouldn't be moving after a blow like that. Her spine should be shattered, but it wasn't. Instead, the hidden scales on her back protected her from the blow, and were only scratched by the blade, but it was enough to hurt.
The teens couldn't see the scales, but they knew that there must have been something protecting her. Was it witchcraft? But they had no more time to think about it, since Shadow was now back on her feet and snarling rabidly.
They could see no human girl in those eyes anymore, just the eyes and tortured soul of a monster. There was no humanity in those eyes at all, just killer instinct and bloodlust.
Snotlout dropped the sword and ran for his very life as the monster ran in pursuit. It snarled, growled and roared as he screamed in fear around the arena. The twins and Fishlegs yelled and screamed as well as they tried to save Snotlout, but there wasn't much they could do.
Thinking quickly under the pressure, Fishlegs directed the twins to open one of the cage doors, and he screamed at Snotlout to try and trap her inside. Snotlout, too terrified to go against the idea, bolted into the open cage and pressed himself up against the wall, waiting for the right moment.
In her enraged state, Shadow couldn't think properly as to why he was trapping himself in the enclosed space, and charged towards him on all fours, head down to smash him with her horns.
At the very last second, Snotlout bolted towards her, twisting out the way with a hairsbreadth between them, and out of the cage. Shadow didn't stand a chance, and cannoned right into the back stone wall with a sickening crunch. She crumpled to the ground in pain as her head pounded inside her skull. Thankfully, her horns had absorbed the impact and saved her from brain damage. But this also meant that she couldn't move straight, or fast enough to get out of the cage before they locked her inside.
The doors closed with a bang, just as Shadow watched the last ray of sunshine be blocked from her view. Instantly she was cloaked in suffocating darkness inside the cell. The blood froze in her veins as she ran over and pounded the door for an escape. The door bucked slightly, but didn't budge. She scratched at the door, threw her weight against it and even rammed it with her horns, but nothing was working.
The air inside the cage shook with the volume of her howl, and the sound echoed outside so loud that it rattled everyone's bones. She howled and roared and screeched for salvation from her prison, her voice filled with misery and fear, but no one came.
The monster was trapped.
Thank you everyone who has been with me this far, its been great to have you on board. This fanfiction is almost complete, but I dont want to end it. there is so much more I can do with this story. I want all my loyal readers to tell me what they think of my story, and what I could do in a sequel. If you guys just have small little ideas for Shadow and Hiccup, let me know.
Please review. the next update will be coming soon...