WNoG 3: He Never Jokes, Run
I still own nothing.
Having Toothless would be fun.
Haiku disclaimer.
Astrid was running, but not the run of a coward, no, Astrid's run was the run of a person who had places to be. Astrid was running to the armoury, she was getting her bow and she was killing The Valkyrie. A normal person may think things through a bit more, track the dragon, map the area and lead an ambush on the dragons, but Astrid was a Hooligan, and the traditional Hooligan's plan was: "Get something to kill the dragon with and go kill the dragon with it" and Astrid was nothing if not a traditionalist.
Astrid picked up the heaviest longbow she could find from the rack and ran outside with it, she loaded a Hooligan's arrow into the bow (i.e. A metal ball the size of a baby's head on the end of a plank of wood) and tried to pull the string back with one arm. The string barely moved. Astrid instead tried laying down and holding the limbs of the bow with her feet and pulling back with both hands, the string moved back to the top of her kneecaps, she quickly lined up the shot and released, the sound of the Hooligan's arrow ripping through the air was heard by half the village, the half that didn't hear that, heard Astrid swearing from the pain of having a longbow string scrape off all the skin on the front of her shins. Everyone else heard The Valkyrie screech in pain and then crash land in the forest less than a half a mile away. Of course, if half heard the arrow, and half heard the Astrid, it didn't leave many people in the "everyone else" category. This meant, when Astrid asked if she hit it, no one in the village had any clue what she was talking about, but Hiccup knew, so did the dragons, and the Valkyrie knew about it especially.
Hiccup marvelled at the three new dragons, Toothless happily squirming and trilling like a hatchling underneath him, evidently delighted that he was in the company of his own kind. In the dim light, Hiccup could see that two other Night Furies looked slightly different to Toothless; one was more muscular, much more muscular, almost comparable to Stoick. While the other looked thinner, rigid in flight, almost like someone recovering from Speed Stinger venom, it must have been an older dragon, yet it didn't look aged. And finally the white dragon, three sets of wings: two small sets, each wing barely the size of a Nadder's footprint and one giant set, with a wingspan so wide that it put a Nightmare's to shame. Its body was very long and thin, thinner than Toothless', but it more than made up for it in length, easily doubling Toothless' length and then some. The same could be said about its rider, he was tall man, even by Berk's standards, yet barely had any muscle, his legs were skinny and his arms had less muscle on them than even Hiccup's.
There was a horrible tearing sound, almost like a yak hide being ripped in half, which pulled Hiccup out of his thoughts a fraction of a second before the white dragon screeched in pain and started tumbling down towards the ground. The two other Night Furies that Hiccup was flying with dove after it, one grabbed the dragon's back and the other flew underneath the falling dragon, pressed against its underbelly and holding it up. They stopped tumbling but were still losing altitude. As the dragons neared the ground a shout went up, the dragon on the bottom flew out from underneath the other two and levelled out beside them, the dragon's rider jumped off the glowing dragon onto the gliding Night Fury as it swerved away. The top dragon slowed as much as possible before releasing the glowing body, it tumbled across a small clearing and came to rest next to a large tree. Hiccup flew down after them, landing only a few metres away from the injured dragon.
Hiccup jumped off and worriedly ran towards the downed dragon, from the light the dragon was giving off, he could see that there was a gaping hole in the wing membrane, luckily there hadn't been much damage to the bones of the wing, but the hole would still need to be patched with leather for a month at least. Apart from its wing, the dragon was more or less unscathed. Hiccup let out a sigh of relief. Hiccup heard the rider running towards his dragon from behind him.
"Is she okay?" The rider asked, running towards the dragon.
"The dragon's wing should heal, but it won't be able to fly for a while. I, uh, I can make a false wing membrane to cover the hole until it heals. I just need some leather and you can get flying." Hiccup answered, this happened quite often back at the nest, so it was necessary for every dragon rider to know how to repair a wing. The dragon rider looked relieved. He started fiddling with his pockets.
"Hang on." He pulled a jar of clear gel out of his pocket and stepped forward to the dragon's torn wing, rubbing a small handful over the wound. The dragon's glow brightened wherever the gel touched, Hiccup stood there, gawking as he watched the skin on the wing knit back together. After only a matter of minutes, the entire rip had healed.
"What is that stuff?" Hiccup asked, dumbfounded.
"Nature's Tears." The rider said, showing Hiccup the jar. "Made of mint and rosemary oil. Remarkable healing properties and pretty easy to make. Keep going, get back on."
"Shouldn't we wait? If you keep going, you could injure your dragon." Hiccup warned.
"Not as injured as she would be if a search party finds her." The rider said. "Besides, Lightning Strikers are built for high speeds and, therefore high speed collisions. She's fine. Get back on your dragon. We'll keep going."
"I need to get back to the village." Hiccup said, worrying that someone would notice his absence.
"No, you don't. We're staying at my camp."
"I have a group back in Berk, if I don't get back and someone notices I'm gone, it'll blow my cover." Hiccup explained. The rider thought for a moment, bobbing his head from side to side.
"Come here; rub some of this on your arm. It looks like a burn, but doesn't hurt as much." He told Hiccup, handing him the jar of Nature's Tears. "Don't get it in your eyes, under your arms or on your testicles, hurts like Hell, trust me. Now, I'm going to drop you off near the boat. Rub some ash on yourself and try to look hurt when you get back. I'll throw you off your dragon if you want some help; get some bruises, more realistic, you know?" He said, without a trace of a jest in his mind.
"I'll be fine." Hiccup said, uneasy. He scooped a small amount of the clear gunk out of the jar and started rubbing along his forearm, he couldn't feel anything and started to doubt if it was doing anything. "What's your name by the way?"
"Zyon, I'm kinda like the human alpha of the group, or co-alpha I guess. We both have the same power over the pack, except, you know, she could eat me if she wanted to, or seriously injure me... or blow my head off with explosives any time I annoy her." He said, trailing off. "Just like any good marriage really. Get on your dragon…" He paused for a second "and leave the harness undone."
"What? Why?!"
"'Cause I can't push you off if you're strapped on, can I?" Zyon said, climbing onto his dragon, as if it were perfectly reasonable. Hiccup tried to protest, but Zyon's dragon took off, leaving Hiccup on the ground, staring at the white streak in the sky, flabbergasted.
Hiccup started to stumble around in the dark, trying to find his dragon, around him he heard the other four dragons take off. His forearm began to sting a little. He found Toothless and strapped himself into the saddle, splitting off from the rest of the dragons as they made their way to Zyon's camp.
As he flew over Berk, Hiccup rubbed his stinging arm, the gel had started to make his arm feel very hot and it was getting painful. Hiccup felt something firmly bump against his calf, he looked down at a skinny hand reaching up from beneath his dragon, it gave a little annoyed grunt, then unclipped the metal fastener that held Hiccup into his saddle, it then grabbed Hiccup by the foot and pulled him off his saddle. He fell a metre before being grabbed by a dragon's claw, the dragon slowed almost to a halt, gliding down to the ground, Hiccup expected to drift down and land smoothly, which is why he was so shocked when the dragon, rather unceremoniously, dropped him the remaining four metres. He fell, quite perfectly onto his boat.
Zyon laughed, it was mean, but it would help Hiccup in the long run, well, that's how he thought about it at least. Hiccup would likely disagree.