Chapter 13

"I said quiet!"

Dad's voice cleaved into my brain like a wedge. Again. This time though, I wasn't going to blame him. It was the only way to be heard over this crowd of rowdy Vikings. Not that all of them listened.

It seemed like every Viking above the age of ten had been stuffed into the Great Hall. Body heat and sweat-turned-vapour had turned the place into an oven. On a different day, we might have propped the doors open to get rid of the excess heat – and the smell – but it was nasty out, and we didn't want rain, or dragons seeking shelter, to get in. There were enough of us in here already.

With no windows, you couldn't actually see what the weather was like outside, but the humidity was undeniable, and the occasional clap of thunder rolled over the building. There was a drip in the corner, slowly filling a bucket that had been placed there just for this situation. I wouldn't mind taking a dip in that.

He roared again: "Everyone QUIET!"

The chattering started to die. The ruckus broke into smaller groups huddled at the ends of their tables. Most of the Vikings were sitting, but not Dad. He prowled behind the Head Table, tossing his head from side to side like an angry ox. Gobber stood back at the corner, waiting for his cue as he always did. Astrid was at the Head Table too, seated, speaking in my place. And to remind everyone of that, I was on the tabletop in front of her. For that reason only. Not for any other. Seriously.

Dad ceased pacing. He rested his hands on the table, and leaned on those for support. "Now, I know we have a bit of a situation here . . ."

"A 'bit'?" someone shouted. "We leave for the Chief Gathering in two days! How are we supposed to explain that the chief's son had turned into a dragon?"

"We don't." Dad said that nice and slowly, putting enough force into that second word that you would have thought he was thrusting a knife into someone's chest.

"Then how do we explain his absence?"

Gobber shrugged. A fishbone stuck out from between his teeth as he said, "Eh, we'll just tell them that he's back at home. Tell them that there's some sort of sickness going around and he needs to run the place."

To my surprise, Snotlout spoke. "Uh, we already used that excuse three times before, remember?"

I blinked. They did? When was this? Dad and Gobber were occupied, so I looked back at Astrid for an explanation. She avoided my eyes.

"Doesn't matter," Dad said. "They've seen Hiccup these last couple of years. They know we have no reason to lie anymore."

Lie . . . anymore? What? A feeling of being ignored swept over me; I was almost getting the feeling that Dad had forgotten I was sitting at (on) the table in front of him.

"Just tell them the truth," Gobber said. "Say there's a big problem at home involving dragons, and Hiccup is off dealing with it."

Astrid piped up. "We're trying to promote peace with dragons. Not give them yet another reason to hate each other."

"Astrid's right," Dad said. "They'll be looking for any reason to start up another war. We stick with our first idea."

Spitelout leaned forward. "That may work, but you're forgetting the bigger part of the problem: the Night Fury. Without Hiccup, we don't have a dragon to show."

"Uh, excuse me, but I'm sitting right here," Snotlout protested. "Me and Hookfang can put on just as good a show as Hiccup and his dragon can!"

"Yeah." Ruffnut's voice hitched a little when she snickered. "We'll show them."

I heard Astrid groan. When I glanced back, her forehead was resting in her palm.

She said, "Fishlegs and I will present the dragons."

But Spitlout wasn't done. "It was going to be the Night Fury that won them over."

"Stoick, can't you control the beast?" someone asked.

"To an extent. But Toothless obeys Hiccup above all others, and I doubt the dragon is willing to leave him." Wood creaked under Dad's weight. He wiped his brow as he scanned the crowd. "They're expecting to see a Night Fury. To come with anything less . . ."

Astrid's touch passed across my shoulders. She was staring at me thoughtfully, biting down on her lower lip. I could see the light of an idea growing in her eyes.

She stood suddenly, and walked in front of the Head Table. "So, we'll give them a Night Fury. We'll give them a Night Fury that's perfectly trained; a Night Fury who's perfectly at ease in a crowd."

Stoick frowned. "I don't think Toothless is that sociable . . ."

"No, not Toothless! Hiccup. We give them Hiccup."

With that dramatic announcement, a hundred eyes were on me. Astrid swung around, pointing at me, just in case people had somehow missed the dragon sitting on the table. I tried to smile; I unsheathed my teeth a second later.

"That could work," Dad said.

Gobber grinned. "You up for show biz, Hiccup?"

I waggled my shoulders, and tried to spit out a little fire. But all I ended up with was a little drool. I don't think anyone noticed.

"Then that's settled." A loud thump echoed through the Hall as Dad slammed his fist down. "We take Hiccup with us."

Fishlegs put his hand up. "What about our dragons?"

"I'd rather we avoid any shenanigans." Even as he said that, Dad's lip had curled into a little smile. "Leave them here."

As he marched toward the exit, Dad called out, "Prepare the ships. We leave at noon tomorrow."

The storm had ended. The clouds had faded from an intense black to a darker grey. The trees were heavy with rainwater; every gust sent another barrage to the ground. Little beads gathered between individual blades of grass, glinting in the light like a sheet of fireflies.

Fog rose when we breathed. The moisture was thick enough that Ruffnut was occasionally compelled to grab a handful of her hair and squeeze it, as if she had just been swimming. Our steps echoed; most of the dragons were still hiding from the nonexistent rain, and the village was emptier than I had ever seen in months. The dragons' feeding stations were filled to the brim with water, and in some cases, fish corpses had spilled out onto the cobblestone. Toothless, one of the few still outside (he had been perched on top of the Great Hall), happily guzzled up those in his path. He seemed to glide across the ground from shadow to shadow, like the champion of the night he really was. I was a little jealous.

"That could have gone a lot worse," Astrid said.

"This time, there wasn't even any yelling," Tuffnut said, sounding disappointed. He shivered. "It's cold out."

"Then let's go burn something," Ruffnut suggested.

At the same time, Astrid and I said, "Not anything that doesn't belong to you."

Ruffnut rolled her eyes. "You're no fun."

"Then stick around," Astrid said. "You'll get fire."

. . . What?

Astrid led us purposefully out and away from the village . . . for some reason. I wasn't too clear on her plan. There would be fire, that I knew. But why?

I frolicked ahead of them, spending some time slithering around in a mud puddle . . . so I could go back and rub up against Snotlout and the twins. Hah! I think it was Tuffnut that once said it: revenge is sweet. And I needed some kind of revenge after that incident with the Dragon Nip yesterday. It had been bad enough with Astrid there while I was at home still under its effects, but then Dad walked in . . . I honestly don't remember much, but according to Astrid there was lots of swaying and chewing of beards.

Anyways. Revenge, It worked on Snotlout. The twins just made fun of each other, and then got it in their heads to start a mud-fight. All of us, not just me, ran away from the wrestling siblings. You never know when they would decide to stop fighting and decide to team up on someone else.

We stopped in the middle of an open field. Astrid silently communicated with Fishlegs, and then took a deep breath.

"Alright, this is it," she said. "Time to get started."

"Uh, what exactly are we going?" Snotlout asked.

"If Hiccup's going to go on that ship, he needs to figure out how to control his flame." She smiled at me. "Not that I don't trust you, Hiccup, but I don't want to take a chance when we're on a wooden ship in the middle of the ocean."

Fair enough. No offense would be taken.

"Okay . . . so go!" She clapped her hands together.

I stared at her.

I coughed.

"You did it before." She couldn't keep the whine out of her voice.

"Well . . ." Fishlegs wrung his hands together in front of him. "He didn't really. He was sneezing. It seemed more like an involuntary action."

"Great. Just what we needed."

I felt my ears droop. Astrid was right: we needed to get this fire problem dealt with before tomorrow. But I had no idea where to start – and I was the dragon! Granted, I wasn't a real dragon but –

Toothless!

I squawked. Pay attention to me. I had no idea if dragons even had a sound that referred to fire, so I hacked and tried to mimic spitting a fireball. Toothless cocked his head to one side, and then the other. His throat clenched as he made part of his harsh, laughter sound.

I nodded. I think he understood –

He promptly spat up half a fish on my head.

Never mind.

The fish splatted against the ground.

Behind me, I heard Snotlout say, "So, let's just make him sneeze."

The next thing I knew, there was a piece of grass under my nose. Snotlout was tickling it.

Astrid pulled him away. "Are you trying to get your hand burned off?"

"At least I'm doing something!"

I left them to their squabble. As much as they seemed to need it, it wasn't really helping. I sucked in a deep breath, blew it out sloooowly . . . that didn't do much either. Huh. This might be harder than I thought. Snotlout might actually be on to something with that whole 'make him sneeze' thing. At least then I would have a starting point.

Making yourself sneeze was harder than it looked; Toothless was looking at me with concern. Couldn't blame him too much. I sounded like I was dying. Plus, even though I wasn't actually sneezing, my body still twitched like I was.

Toothless poked me.

"I'm fine!" I complained. "Just getting a little frustrated, that's all."

My next attempt ended up with a string of drool hanging from my mouth. I decided that was enough.

"How do dragons learn to do it?" Astrid was asking.

"Oh!" Fishlegs practically jumped to his tiptoes. "From what I see, they just kind of seem to stumble into it. Like one day they suddenly realize they can breathe fire, and that's it!"

"Wonderful," I said. My chin hit the ground. Smelled earthy.

"Hiccup, we've got to figure this out somehow." Astrid's fingers gently pinched the scruff of my neck and pulled me off the ground.

I stared at her, trying to communicate that I had no ideas.

"Maybe he just needs some encouragement." Before I knew what was happening, Ruffnut had me. Most of her left half was soaked with mud, and both of the forearms she was using to hold me.

This would not turn out well.

"Come on!" she hissed, shaking me a little. "We want fire."

"Fire! Fire!" Tuffnut chanted.

I blew a bit of hot air into her face, but otherwise did nothing.

"Hiccup!"

Ruffnut wasn't like Astrid; she wasn't gentle. She didn't hold, she squeezed. She had her arms hooked underneath my armpits from behind, so that I dangled like a sack of potatoes. It wasn't pleasant. At the same time I felt her grip was too tight, it was also too loose and I thought I was at risk of slipping to the ground. My ribs ached from the strain.

"I don't think that's going to work," Astrid said, sounding amused.

I squirmed. The weight of my tail jerked me from side to side. Ruffnut didn't adjust her grip once. Instead, the hard bar of her arm dug deep into my chest, and something automatically shifted to accommodate –

Wait, what?

I frowned. Something had moved . . . but I couldn't feel anything amiss. I felt normal. Well, as normal as I could be, given the situation. But something had moved . . .

I did it again.

There was something in my chest. Not a living thing – that would be creepy – but some kind of muscles. Now that I had noticed them, they were as easy to move as my shoulders were. Not that I would be rotating these ones or anything; these weird chest muscles seemed to only be able to clench and unclench.

. . . First my mostly automated tail, then the muscles controlling my wings and now this? What other weird things were hiding in my body?

I couldn't answer that, so I focused on something I could: What did those muscles do? They seemed to be naturally clenched, so I left them unclenched for a while.

It quickly became apparent that keeping them that way stopped me from breathing.

Okay. Great. Plenty of useful things there. Suffocating myself was always an excellent –

Wait a second. Why would dragons have a means to cut off their air, unless . . .

Oh. Oh yes.

My mouth cracked into a grin. I set my eyes on Snotlout's helmet, aimed –

Fire!

It went slightly off course. Didn't hit him, but whipped right past his head. No one realized what was going on at first, until a tree a little ways behind us suddenly caught on fire. Then five pairs of eyes sought me out.

"Hiccup, was that you?"

I grinned and spat another fireball – at the ground this time. The twins cheered.

"Okay, that's one thing done," Astrid said happily. "Stoick will be glad to hear about this."

"We could go show him!" I suggested, wriggling in Ruffnut's arms. Astrid understood me easily enough.

Dad was down at the docks. Gobber was next to him, absently munching on a chicken leg and using the bone to direct the others. They were hauling crates and barrels onto the ships for the journey tomorrow. They weren't the dragon-headed long ships though; for this occasion, Dad had ordered the construction of a more knarrs. They were wide cargo ships, and didn't require as many Viking as the long ships. Back in the old days, Dad claimed we had a fleet of a dozen knarrs or so. But then the dragons started attacking and fire doesn't exactly mix well with wood . . . you can imagine what had happened.

"Stoick, we've done it!" Astrid announced. There was a bit of swagger in her step, but I wasn't about to point it out to anyone. Instead, I proudly spit a fireball at the air above Dad's head.

He laughed. "Excellent. Then you two better start packing for tomorrow."

"Sure, although I don't know if Hiccup has anything to pack anymore."

"Oh, I'm sure he'll find something."

Astrid was about to say something, when shouts caught all of our attention.

There was another ship sailing into the harbour, and it wasn't waving our flag. No need for alarm yet, though. I recognized the ship's emblem as that of the Meathead tribe, a clan that, as Fishlegs put it, was made of your typical Viking: all brawn, not-so-much brain.

"Ahoy, Stoick!" That was Mogadon, chief of their tribe. Though he looked more like Gobber with his peg-leg and eye patch, he was to Dad what Snotlout used to be to me: the rival. Not that you could tell right now. There were no arm-wrestling contests to be won, so the two were smiling brightly at each other.

"Mogadon," Dad said, "are you looking for something?"

The big Viking shrugged. I didn't fail to notice that he refused to look at Toothless or me. "Nah, just thought I'd pop by and say hello. You still waiting for your ship to get back from the witch?"

A pause.

"What do you mean?" Dad asked.

Mogadon said, "The Fiends said you sent a party out to investigate the old hag. When we sailed by, there was still a ship there."

Dad frowned. "We did send a crew. But we didn't send any boats."

Review Response:

Guest (With the longer review): Thank you! Yep, there's still a few things about the witch that haven't been revealed. That said, the witch herself isn't that terribly important - it's the things she's connected to that are.

Hiccup is attempting to go the if-I-don't-talk-about-no-one-will-remember route :)

Guest#2: Thanks!

remark: I dunno if you can Toothless the old and mature dragon. Sometimes, he can be pretty childish too :D

Bonnie: Shh! Don't remind him; he's trying to pretend it never happened.

Greath: Thanks!

randomreader WITH a profile: Even more than a pile of puppies?

Guest #1: I'm going to guess you like it then.

dragoncreators: Well, some people just have the gift, you know. Like ferrets. Ferrets are always adorable.

I'd imagine it would involve a lot of squealing and traumatized Hiccup :)

a random person: That's more or less what I was going for!