A/N: Hi guys! Sorry for the late update, but guess what? School let out recently, so I promise to update like crazy! (or try to). But, here's the next chapter!
I'd like to thank those who reviewed:
To I am Number 5: I wait for some of the most obvious things, too, but when they don't turn up, I take charge. And RuffnutxHamilton would be awesome, so I'm putting it in!
To cinnberrytrix: Yes, it will be interesting. Wait 'til you see what I have lined up for the HTTYD cast, it'll blow your mind!
And to viper marie Cahill: Hello!
BTW, I don't own HTTYD or 39 clues. That honor goes to Dreamworks and Scholastic.
The two cars arrived at the Eastern Settlement at the same time. Not surprising, since the first car was being followed.
"What did that girl mean when she said you had a 'useless clue'? Derek asked before getting there. "Are you guys on some sort of scavenger hunt or something?"
The question was met with silence, while the siblings debated their options silently. Finally, Dan said, "Actually, that's right on the money."
Derek said he still didn't understand, so Amy, Nellie, and Dan explained it to him. The clue hunt, the amazing prize, their family. He still didn't understand it completely, but he got the gist of it. Then they arrived at their destination.
The Kabras climbed out of their car first, followed by the Cahill's gang. Amy noticed something for the first time.
"W-where's your m-m-mother?" she asked.
The two kids looked at each other, the Ian said, "She got into some trouble a little while back. For the first time, she couldn't get away with it. She stayed behind, but told us to follow you."
At least we won't have to deal with her for a while, Amy thought. She hugged the book tighter to her chest. Ian noticed.
"Why don't you give us the book?" he asked, smoothly walking up to her. "We'll decipher it, then share our findings. You guys can explore the site." He moved to grab the worn-out thing from her, but was as surprised as she was when Derek protectively shoved her behind him.
"Why don't we both split up our groups?" he said. "Amy, you, and I will work on the book, while Dan, your sister, and Nellie look around."
"Oh, no, kiddos, not me. I'm staying here." Nellie interjected.
"Whatever," was Dan's reply. Nellie moved to the shade of a tree with her earbuds screaming.
Ian thought a bit before saying, "Fine."
And so the groups split up. Amy set the book on the hood of their rental car. Derek and Ian started looking through it, Ian taking pictures with his iPhone and emailing them to a translator. Derek made a few notes.
"What are you doing?" Amy asked him.
"Hm? Oh, uh, trying to translate it." He replied
"You mean you can read it?" she asked, her eyes widening.
"Well, a little. You see that group of letters-" he pointed with his pen- "that says 'kill', I think. This group here translates roughly as 'dragon'. I think that whoever made this book made it for others to learn about dragons and how to kill them."
"That is what it says" Ian said, reading the email from his phone. "The title is 'Berk's Guide to Dragons and their Death.' Charming." he said sarcastically.
"Who's Berk?" Amy asked.
The trio just looked at each other until Derek shrugged and said, "I don't think anyone knows."
"I'll look it up," Amy said at the same time as Ian. The two looked at each other before Amy turned away from him to get the laptop out of the car. "I-I-I-I'll d-do it." She said.
She sat on the ground a little away from the two boys and got to work.
While they were doing this, Dan and Natalie had spilt up. Natalie was looking around outside the houses, afraid to go into the dusty buildings. Dan looked around, not very thoroughly. He only moved things around when he saw something cool, like weapons or armor.
He entered another building and gasped. "Jackpot!" he practically yelled.
"What is it?" he heard Natalie's voice from outside.
"Nothing! Nevermind!" was his reply. He wasn't about to tell her that he found a weapons shed! He tried to pick up a sword, but it was too heavy for him. He moved around the room, trying out various armor, blades, and shields. He came to a wall that wasn't covered in weapons; instead it had a map on it. The map was about two by two feet, and had a dagger in each corner keeping it up. Another dagger, this one newer-looking than the others, was near the center of the map, on an island. There were letters from that strange language on the island. Underneath, written in sloppy handwriting, was one word: Berk.
On the actual island, one of its inhabitants was bored.
Ruffnut Thorston sighed as she walked to the dragon stables. She had absolutely nothing to do. She challenged all the warriors of the village to a fight and won every time. Except when she fought Astrid. Then they were usually tied. Whenever she got like this, she flew. Not the one she and her brother rode when defeating the Red Death, no. She now had a new one, still a Zippleback, but very different from the one she and Tuffnut shared. She blew some of her blonde hair out of her face as she remembered when she got it.
She came across it while she was walking, after a fight with her brother about what to name the dragon(s). It was a snowy day, and Ruffnut felt like she would freeze if she stayed out any longer. But a flash on the ground stopped her from turning back. She looked around for the source of it, and gasped when she found it. It was beautiful! The dragon swooped through the air doing twirls and flips, the sun bouncing off its bright fiery-red color. When she (the dragon was female) came down, Ruffnut saw that she had a base color of red, but also had flecks of gold and orange dotting her body. Her two heads dipped down to greet the teenage Viking, as if she had been chosen to ride the dragon. The dragon's eyes were the most startling: on one head, they were a dark purple color; on the other an ocean-blue.
Ruffnut in the present reached the stables: the arena where the kids as students learned about how to kill these wondrous beasts they now called friends. The chain roof had been removed so that the dragons could come and go as they pleased, and the old dragon cells had been changed to rooms that held riding equipment. She opened the door to enter and immediately her dragon ran forward to greet her. After a quick tickle from her friend, she moved to the old Zippleback cell and got out solo riding equipment. She wrapped the leather collars around each neck (there were six in all: two wrapped around the base of each neck; the next two in the middle; the last, which had the reins attached to it, near the head). She then strapped the saddle on and put on her riding vest. She grabbed the reins and pulled the dragon into the open. She climbed into the saddle then they took off.
Ruffnut and her dragon(s), whose names were Thunder (the purple-eyed one) and Fire (the blue-eyed one), enjoyed the flight for the first bit. But then Ruffnut noticed her partner grow uneasy. They were over water then, dodging rock formations and other dragons. Ruffnut had to yank the reins with all her might in order to make over a pile of rocks-and just barely. Thunder and Fire were looking to the west, toward open water, instead of focusing on their flight. So Ruffnut, curiosity getting the best of her, pulled her dragon in that direction.
After several minutes, they came to a boat wreck. Ruffnut saw the wreck and immediately knew what happened: fog had obscured the view of the captain and he accidentally crashed the boat into an unseen rock. Now, there were four people and one - dog? - treading water. She landed on the rock where the remains of the boat were sinking. She got off Thunder and Fire and told them to get four more dragons plus their riding equipment. After they left, the young woman tore off her vest, helmet, and shoes, then dove into the water. Amazingly, no one noticed her entrance on the giant reptile, but they all noticed her swimming to them.
"Who are you?" one man asked. He had big muscles and was wearing a purple track suit. Ruffnut noticed all the people were in purple track suits. Her gaze travelled to each one, the two girls, and second to last was an older woman's face filled with worry. The final thing she saw was a boy, about her age, passed out in the woman's arms. She was the only thing keeping him a float, but she looked worn out, like she would pass out at any moment.
"Is he ok?" she asked, moving to the woman. The woman, who also had blonde hair, moved back a little.
"He's… fine…" she replied, none too sure.
Ruffnut swam towards her and took the boy from the woman. She threw one of his arms over her shoulders and swam to toward the rock, saying, "Follow me. There's a rock over here." She climbed on top of the rock and laid the boy flat on his back. She knelt beside him and checked his breathing, finding shallow. "Dammit," she said to herself as the others plopped themselves onto dry land. She looked to the sky muttering for her rescue squad to hurry. Several minutes later, the boy's breathing stopped completely. "Dammit, dammit, dammit," she said, cursing.
"Watch your mouth!" the man said. "I have kids, you know!" He pointed to the other two people, two girls who looked like younger versions of their mother. They looked exhausted, but were able to roll their eyes at their ridiculous father.
Ruffnut wasn't paying any attention to them, though. She was focused on the boy. She knew what she had to do; she just wasn't very experienced at it. She did it anyway. She lowered her head and wrapped her lips around his. She then pinched his nose closed and breathed into him. She had learned this skill when strangers, who also shipwrecked, came to live on the island. They called it CPR, or mouth-to-mouth, and it was one of the only things they remembered. So she performed CPR on this stranger, this boy she rescued from the cold clutches of death.
The mother noticed her lip-lock with her son and knew what was going on. "Oh, my God, he quit breathing! Eisenhower, Hamilton quit breathing!" Subconsciously, Ruffnut took note of the boy's name.
She started the compressions on the boy's chest. Suddenly, he started coughing and sat up spewing water. Ruffnut pushed him down again, telling him to be careful. He groggily asked what happened, only to be answered by his family crowding around him and pushing his savior away and back into the chilly water. After learning the story, he sat up and smiled. "Reminds me of the Little Mermaid," he said, moving to help the girl out of the water. "Only, you're not a mermaid."
"What's the Little Mermaid?" was all she said.
Hamilton laughed. "It's this story where a prince is rescued by a mermaid. She falls in love with him, but she can't be with him 'cause ya know, she lives in the water while he lives on land. So she sells her voice to a sea witch so she can have legs, but if the prince falls in love with someone else, she'll turn into sea foam. When she gets to his palace, the prince does fall in love with someone else. The night of their wedding, the mermaid's sisters come to her to give her a knife they sold their hair for. If she kills him with it, she'll be a mermaid again. But it turns out she can't because she still loves him, so she throws herself into the sea and turns into sea foam."
"That's not how it ends. She-"
"Dad, I'm talking about the book."
"Sounds like a lot of nonsense if you ask me," Ruffnut said, retrieving her discarded garments. "I mean, mermaids? Come on! Dragons are better."
"Dragons?" one of the girls asked. "What are you talking about?"
"Uh, dragons, what else?"
"Dragons aren't real." The other girl said. "Just like mermaids."
"What are you talking about? Of course dragons are real, 'just like mermaids'" the Viking replied, mimicking the girl's voice.
"I do not sound like that!" the girl yelled, moving closer to the stranger.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," the mother said, getting in between the two, "why don't we all just calm down, we don't even know her name." She turned to Ruffnut with a calming smile. "Hi, my name is Mary-Todd Holt. This-" she gestured to one of her daughters – "is my daughter Madison. The other one is Reagan-"
"Twins?" Ruffnut asked.
"Er… yes." Mary-Todd answered.
"Me, too," Ruffnut said. Mary-Todd moved to her husband.
"This is Eisenhower, my husband. And you saved Hamilton's life. Thank you, for saving my son."
"N-no problem." Ruffnut blushed. She wasn't used to this kind of interaction. She was used to getting into fights. Hamilton got up and walked to the two women holding a pit bull.
"Aren't you forgetting someone, Mom?" he asked. "This little guy is Arnold. You now know all of the Holts!"
Ruffnut smiled. "My name is Ruffnut Thorston. My twin brother is Tuffnut. Our family pets are Thunder and Fire, and Kick and Ass. Thunder and Fire should be getting back here soon, with help. I'll take you to our village."
"What kind of pets do you have?" asked Reagan.
"I told you, they're dragons."
"… Yeah, sure."
They fell into a comfortable silence then, only broken when one of the Holts, usually Hamilton, asked a question about her and her village. Several minutes later, Arnold started barking like crazy. The family wondered why, until they heard something only his keen dog ears heard until then: the whoosh of huge flapping wings. Something landed on their small rock, shaking the pebbles at their feet. The family was surprised to see a giant reptile sitting there. It had a squat body and two long, thin necks. There was a head on each of the necks, as expected.
Around them, on four other rocks, four more of the beasts landed, only one of which resembled the one on their rock. All had leather items hanging from its mouth.
The family moved away from the one on their rock while Ruffnut moved to it in a scolding manner. "What took so long?" she said. "One of them almost died!" She grabbed Hamilton's wrist and pulled him closer to Thunder's head. "Go on," she said to him, "pet her. This one is Thunder, by the way. The other head is Fire." Thunder and Fire started head-butting each other to get the boy's attention, earning a few giggles from Madison and Reagan.
"They remind me of us," said Reagan. Madison quickly agreed.
Eventually, the whole family was petting the Zippleback, earning purrs from it and grunts from the others.
Ruffnut realized this and shooed Thunder and Fire to another rock while gesturing to a Gronkle to approach. One by one, she introduced each dragon and named its type while putting the saddles on. She realized that there weren't enough dragons for all the Holts when she was giving out riding vests.
"Oh," she said, "one of you will have to ride with me."
"Wait, we get to ride these things?" Eisenhower asked. "Cool!" he said with the joy of long-forgotten youth.
"Yes, but there aren't enough vests. Someone will have to come with me."
Everyone started arguing about it. They all wanted to go with the awesome Viking girl who saved them and introduced them to these awesome flying lizards.
In the end, Eisenhower rode on the Gronkle, Madison on the Nightmare, Reagan on the Nadder, Mary-Todd and Arnold on the other Zippleback, and Hamilton rode in front of Ruffnut on Thunder and Fire. Ruffnut yelled to the others to just let the dragons follow her, since they were inexperienced at flying them.
There you go! And, I could use some names for the dragons. So, when you review(please?) tell me some names I could use for the other dragons, k?