Key:

Normal speech

Thoughts/emphasis

Dragonese

Telepathic communication

Chapter Five: Sibling Reunion

Kyra and Windwalker hauled in another net of fish – at this rate the village wouldn't be going hungry for another week and that included the dragons (guests as well as residents). After receiving the word from her father that one more catch should do the job, Kyra flew back into the skies with Windwalker to hunt one last time before she would turn in for the evening.

"He'd better not put us on hunting duty for another week," Kyra grumbled, not bothering to keep it to herself.

"Hey, Snotlout's next on the rota, isn't he?" Windwalker pointed out. "If we hadn't caught so much today we'd probably starve this winter." Kyra snorted – her dragon had a point. Snotlout was terrible when it came to hunting so she was half glad that she'd caught so much – with any luck it should make up for any likely small catches Snotlout might make. Her attention was suddenly caught as she sensed the presence of one of the other dragons nearby (the Riders of Berk dragons were the only ones she could pick up nowadays). Squinting through the darkness and closing her right eye to make use of her left dragon one, Kyra could just about see the familiar silhouette of Toothless...wait, how was he flying?

"Why would Astrid be flying Toothless at this hour?" Kyra wondered aloud. Toothless didn't let anyone apart from Kyra or Astrid take him out for flights since Hiccup vanished so it made sense for Astrid to be the one flying the Night Fury – it just seemed odd for the girl to be out this late seeing as she was always in bed early (first to rise, first to turn in, as Kyra always said). She shrugged it off and headed down to the sea for the last catch of the evening.

Flying back to Berk, Kyra suddenly halted Windwalker in mid-flight. She suddenly sensed something but it wasn't any of the other dragons – this was new, something she hadn't felt since her powers were stripped from her three years ago. She cast her gaze to the now moonlit Raven's Point where she could see a faint shadow resting on the cliff gazing out to sea. It looked like a fairly large animal, possibly big enough to feed a family for a few days – Kyra smirked. This would be a prize catch and a half.

"Alright, Windwalker," she smirked. "Let's see if this one's up for a chase." She quickly dumped the net of fish back in the village and raced back to Raven's Point, leading her dragon into a dive and snatching the creature from its perch. "HA!" she crowed with delight as the thing shrieked in surprise when they took to the air but her triumph turned to confusion when Windwalker's balance started going all over the place as the creature started struggling and flapping something leathery...

It had wings.

"PUT ME DOWN!" a voice screeched. Kyra's eyes went wide – okay, now it could talk?!

"What in Midgard?" she frowned, leaning over to look over Windwalker's shoulder to have a closer look at her catch – she couldn't see much as the leathery wings prevented her from having a closer look but her attention was caught by a roar from the ground. It was Toothless, without a rider, meaning that Astrid was still back in the village. So, if Astrid hadn't been flying Toothless, who had?

"Quit struggling for a bit, would you?" Toothless' voice sounded in Kyra's head but she had the feeling he wasn't talking to her. She turned back to look at her catch and screamed in shock, losing control of Windwalker and crashing down towards the ground. Her face was sprayed with leaves and twigs as Windwalker lost her grip on the creature and it clumsily flew a few feet before vanishing – they'd landed near the Cove. Kyra untangled herself from a gorse bush whilst Windwalker righted herself, having crashed headfirst into a fallen tree.

"You saw that too, right?" Kyra panted. Windwalker grunted in reply and shook herself down. Kyra scrambled to her feet and whipped out her silver dagger before racing over to the Cove. At first she couldn't see anything so she clambered down the rock face for closer inspection, closely followed by Windwalker and Toothless. She cast her eyes around frantically, slowly walking around every boulder in the near vicinity and keeping her dagger in front of her at all times.

"Where are you?" she barked. "Show yourself!" she ordered, rounding a boulder by the lake. "Whoever you are you'd better show your face soon or else I swear to Thor, I'm gonna...AH!" she yelped as she bumped into something. She whipped around at full speed, her dagger swinging in front of her and her fist coming into contact with a scaled creature with dark leathery wings and a long tail.

"OW! What the...?" it yelped as Kyra's fist came into contact with its eye. Kyra screamed and ducked for cover in shock – the creature did the same except instead of going behind a rock it dived into the water. Kyra panted heavily – there had been no mistaking that that creature had been some type of dragon. She'd never seen any dragon like it before. It seemed so...human. It had even been standing on its hind legs like a human and Kyra could have sworn it was wearing something similar to a tunic. She calmed herself down and slowly edged around the rock – the creature was nowhere in sight so she guessed it was hiding under the surface of the water. Maybe a gentler approach would work – she tried telepathic communication, although it was a long shot nowadays.

"What are you hiding from me?" she asked gently. A crackled disjointed voice sounded briefly – she couldn't make out the words. "Sorry? I didn't catch that." Suddenly something snapped and the interference cleared. The voice was now crystal clear in Kyra's head, something a new voice hadn't been for years, but it was so familiar that Kyra felt spooked.

"It's...it's just that...I didn't...want to scare you, that's all," it answered. It was a nasal, male voice – Kyra knew she'd heard it somewhere before. There was only one way to confirm her suspicions.

"Come out – let me see you," she ordered. The voice hesitated in answering.

"Uh...you sure you want to see this?" it stammered. Toothless suddenly joined the mental conversation.

"Oh, for crying out loud! You said she's the only one who can help you so quit with the telepathic stuff and get out already. It's not as if you look any better than usual." Did Toothless know this dragon?

"Fine!" the voice snapped back. "But if she impales me, I'm laying the blame on you, bud!" Bud? Only Hiccup called Toothless that. Slowly, but surely, something came out of the water and the creature stood in the moonlight in front of Kyra. Now that she'd calmed down, she was able to take in its appearance – the creature was covered in pearly green scales from head to toe, although on its head there seemed to be hair that had become even darker than normal due to prolonged exposure to water. On the thing's back were wings almost the same length as a Deadly Nadder's except they didn't have a torn appearance – rather they were a dark turquoise and bat-like, a lot like the giant dragon who had attacked three years before. A long tail extended behind the creature with tail fins matching the wings and it seemed to have human like limbs, even hands with webbed fingers. Then there was the face...

The face.

"What have you done to him?" Kyra growled threateningly, clasping her dagger so tightly that her knuckles went white. The creature took a step towards her.

"It's not what you think..." it began, in a voice so familiar that Kyra lost it again. She swung her dagger upwards and began attacking the creature head on.

"WHERE IS HE?!" she shrieked. Had the dragon from three years ago stolen her brother's soul or something and transferred it to one of its own? Was that why this thing looked so much like Hiccup? She was determined to weasel the truth out of the creature. "WHATEVER YOU DID, CHANGE HIM BACK!" she screamed in fury.

"Kyra!" the creature cried out desperately, narrowly avoiding the silver blade of Kyra's dagger. "Kyra, cut it out!" It dodged Kyra's attacks with a clumsy agility that was, once again, too much for Kyra to handle and she prepared for one last assault.

"I don't know who you are or what you've done to my brother," she hissed, pretty sure that her right eye was flashing Night Fury green right now - it was one of the few things she had left, even if it was just an anger indicator. "But, by the gods, if you've hurt him then I'm dragging you to the deepest area of Helhiem I can find and get you to dig further! BRING. HIM. BA...Oomph!" she grunted as the creature grabbed her wrist, snatched the dagger out of her hand, threw it away and tackled her, slamming her against a boulder and clasping a webbed hand over her mouth. She screamed and struggled in its grip but it was stronger than she anticipated.

"Kyra, it's me!" it hissed again. "Just shut up and listen for a second!" Kyra ceased her struggling and looked into the eyes of the creature – even in the moonlight, she could see the deep emerald-green irises that matched the one in her right eye. In the moonlight, she could see the sincerity and concern almost shining in those eyes. As the thing took its hands away from Kyra's mouth, she struggled to believe what she was seeing. There was no way...the creature had told the truth. There was no mistaking those eyes.

"Hiccup?" Kyra muttered in awe, picking herself up as the dragon-ified Hiccup stepped back a small distance. "What happened to you?" she asked, although she could guess the answer. "I mean, you've..." she struggled to find a word. "...changed," she decided. Hiccup sagged and turned his back.

"Yeah, I'm a half-dragon," he groaned. "And I think you can guess why." So that was what the sea-dragon had done – changed Hiccup into...this.

"Well, course," Kyra shrugged, still in disbelief. "Oh, man...this can't be...I told Dad he'd undercooked that chicken at lunch..." she rambled for a bit.

"Oh, would you stop that?" Hiccup huffed irritably. "Besides, I've been this way for three years now, almost to the day." Kyra frowned.

"So that thing...it really did this to you?" she asked in amazement. Hiccup nodded and lifted his left hand – in the pale moonlight, Kyra could just make out the dragon shaped burn that matched the one of her right hand. "The curse mark!" she exclaimed.

"The Mark of the High Diving Darkwing," Hiccup explained. He sat down near the lake, unable to believe that he was finally making contact with his own kind after so long. "That's what it was – apparently its magic is some of the most powerful in the dragon world."

"Got that right," Kyra grimaced, sitting down beside him. "I've never seen anything like it." She paused. "Why haven't you come to us before now? We've really missed you...Astrid's really missed you," she added. Hiccup's emerald gaze met her own.

"Really?"

"Mmm-hmm," Kyra nodded. "She's not been the same since you left - she's gone back to the whole 'all-work-no-play' regime," she explained with her usual sarcastic tone. Hiccup couldn't help but smile – it was kind of good in a way to know that he'd been missed. It was more than could be said five years ago before he'd become the Dragon Tamer. "So, why haven't you come? I mean, from the sound of things you broke every other rule beofre now. Why not this one?" Hiccup paused before answering.

"I...I guess I was scared," he admitted. "I mean, look at the welcome I got," he added cynically. Kyra flushed in apology. "There's just no way anyone would recognise me like this. Wavewing was worried about me so he never let me wander too far from the school..."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Kyra interrupted. "Who's Wavewing?"

"He's the Elder dragon of a school of Weedsnakes," Hiccup explained. Kyra's frown deepened. "Yeah, I've never heard of them before either. I guess no one's ever seen them 'cos they're not in the Book of Dragons. Anyway, he said he'd try to help me out but he didn't want me coming back because...well, he did seem kinda worried about me – heck, he put his own life on the line when the others put forward a suggestion," he grimaced.

"What did they suggest?" Kyra asked. Hiccup quickly explained what had happened to him earlier – Kyra was horrified. "A full dragon?! Have they completely lost their minds?!" she spluttered. "Humans are not supposed to be part of these transformations to begin with, let alone be turned into a complete dragon!"

"That's rich coming from you," Hiccup pointed out – it earned him nothing except a slap around the head.

"I don't count!" Kyra snapped. "Look, I know how powerful dragon magic can be but those Weedsnakes or whatever they are need to get their heads on straight because it is harder to reverse a full transformation! You know it took me a month to change Fiddlesticks back into a cat after I turned him into a Terrible Terror by accident," she reminded both Hiccup and herself, embarrassingly. Hiccup chortled at the memory.

"Personally, I thought he was more useful as a Terror – kept the mice under better control," he joked. Kyra glowered at him.

"Now's the time you choose to tell me – could've saved me a month of trying to figure out how to cheat my own magic," she groaned. Hiccup's mind flashed back to Odin's words - it is almost impossible to cheat a dragon's curse – and remembered why he was there in the Cove to begin with.

"Oh, that reminds me, I need your help," he grimaced. Kyra nodded. "I...uh...actually got here just before sunset – saw you and Windwalker head off hunting – and, well, I was going to turn in for the night when..."

"What?"

"You're gonna think I'm crazy..."

"What?"

"I don't know if it really happened..."

"You're stalling."

"I think Odin spoke to me," Hiccup finally spat out. To his surprise, Kyra didn't so much as smirk. "What? You don't think I've lost it?" Kyra shrugged – the number of times the gods had randomly pulled her out of her life for a few moments just for a quick catch up had been too high for her to keep track.

"They have a habit of showing up when you least expect it – that kid's turned up more times in my life than I care to count," she noted. Hiccup remembered – once Kyra had fainted during a meal about two months after she'd returned home. Turns out the gods had pulled her consciousness – her spirit – out of Midgard so that she could be introduced as the new incarnation of the Goddess of Dragons to the rest of the gods in Asgard. Since then, she'd tolerated them at most. These moments didn't occur very often but they happened during the most inconvenient times, most of which Kyra really didn't want to mention. That and there had been the occasional appearance of a strange boy every now and then whom Kyra had seemed to recognise – having now met Odin, Hiccup could now make the connections.

"Yeah...anyway, he told me that there was a way to fix...this," Hiccup continued, gesturing to himself. Kyra didn't bother going into the running gag. "Don't see why Wavewing didn't come up with it sooner – maybe he did, I don't know."

"I get that he didn't want you coming back out of interests to your safety," Kyra recited, frustrated. "What did His Godliness tell you?"

"Okay, I'm gonna sum this up as quickly as I can," Hiccup nodded, taking a deep breath. "Three tests to complete – Test of Identity; Test of Feelings; and Test of Heart. Complete them all, I'm me again and you get your powers back," he recited at top speed. Kyra raised an eyebrow. "Look, first off, I need to get used to a human routine again – that means no dragon ability usage including telepathic communication; then...Astrid." Kyra grimaced. If Astrid was involved it was going to make things twice as hard if what she thought was coming was coming.

"She doesn't have to fall for you, does she?" she groaned.

"Odin just said she needs to appreciate me for who I am and that I can't tell her anything," Hiccup sighed. Well, that's a bummer, Kyra thought. "Third is the most confusing if I'm honest – Odin said something about 'only a powerful decision made by the heart alone will break the curse entirely'," he recited. "And before you say it, it's kind of a heart vs. head type of deal," he added quickly, knowing what his sister would say.

"And where do I come into this? Apart from you coming back as a human returning my powers to me," Kyra asked, knowing full well that the curse the Darkwing placed on her would not be lifted until Hiccup was returned to his original form, seeing as the curse had specifically mentioned the 'human' she'd been taken from and that meant the human-Hiccup, not the half-dragon one.

"You're the only one who can help me out with this," Hiccup explained. "Seeing as apparently you're not technically a mortal," he shrugged. Kyra punched his shoulder – he was slightly annoyed that she was still as strong as a dragon. "OW!"

"I suppose Odin said that too?" she smirked. Hiccup glared at her.

"Actually he did."

"Oh," Kyra blinked – okay, apparently her Queen of Dragons thing meant that she wasn't completely human...oh, well. She'd never been normal to begin with. "Right...well, the first one should be easy enough – if we can get you into the village and into a normal Viking routine we should have that done and dusted pretty quickly," she noted, already forming a plan. Gobber needed help in the forge/dragon's dentist anyway. "Astrid's gonna be a tough cookie to crumble – I mean, it looked hard enough the first time round," she remarked. Hiccup knew how Kyra knew of his first adventures with the dragons – in the world she'd been trapped in, his story had been made into something that could be viewed over and over again called a film, which could be viewed on a screen called a television. It had been alien language to Kyra then due to her being part of ancient history and it made no sense to Hiccup now.

"Tell me about it..." he grumbled.

"Third one...no idea," Kyra huffed. "May need to provoke a war or something..."

"And why in Thor's name would we need to do that?" Hiccup spluttered.

"Because you make faster decisions when you're in danger and on an adrenaline high," Kyra shrugged.

"He didn't say it needed to be a fast decision!" Hiccup argued. Gods, if you were judging by personalities alone, you would struggle to believe the two were siblings – Kyra was such a thrill seeker! "Just one decided by the heart and not the head!"

"Well, if you can come up with a better idea, then tell me!" Kyra snapped. Hiccup simply glowered at her. "I guess that one's just going to have to happen as it happens," she relented in the end. "I'm sorry Odin had to be so cryptic – he's like that sometimes." Hiccup nodded, scratching Toothless' head fondly as the night drew on. "I'd best be getting back to the village – Dad's probably wondering where I've gone off to," Kyra sighed, standing up and heading over to Windwalker.

"So when're things gonna start?" Hiccup asked quickly as his sister mounted her dragon.

"Don't know – tomorrow earliest if I can help it," she replied. "And Toothless – scat. Dad's expecting you at home as well," she added in Dragonese. Toothless cooed sadly as he nuzzled his friend one last time for the before allowing Windwalker to help him out of the Cove. "Oh, and one more thing – how in Niflheim do you cope with all that chief stuff?" Kyra groaned. "It's driving my head in!" Hiccup shrugged – in all honesty, he had no idea himself.

"Just quickly – they made it official?" he asked, indicating Windwalker and Toothless, both of whom cooed embarrassingly – if dragons could blush, both Night Furies would be bright red right now. "I take it that's my answer."

"They've been waiting for you to get back," Kyra grinned. "Didn't want to start a family without the best friend around," she added. Hiccup couldn't help but feel glad that his best friend would put off having a family of his own to wait for his return. It was a good thing for him that Windwalker was so patient. "Who knows what'll happen this Snoggletog?" Kyra shrugged before heading off into the forest. Hiccup made himself comfortable gazing up at the stars and smiled as he welcomed sleep, happier than he'd been for three years.

He was home.