Eyla took the hampers and walked to the docks. It was a nice day and for some reason she was in a good mood. Some people wished her a good morning, and that did actually not happen every day.
When she came down to the ships, she walked out on the pier.
"Eyla, catch!" someone said.
She turned around and saw something come flying towards her. By reflex she dropped the hampers to catch the thing someone threw at her. She caught it, stumbled backwards and fell into the water. She screamed as she fell. Some of the hampers bounced on the pier when she dropped them and fell into the water around her.
"Get the hampers out of the water", someone said.
The hampers? What about me? Eyla thought. She walked on the shore with water dripping from her clothes, angry as a bee. She walked up on the pier again, took the hampers that needed t be fixed and walked straight home. She didn`t look at anyone as she left, but if she could, she eyes would have shot lightning bolts. Why couldn`t they just leave her alone?
At home, she threw the hampers on the floor, and went to her room to change to dry clothes.. Then she took her notebook and a pen and walked through the house to the front door. Her mother called after her, wonderng what happened and why it was wet everywhere. Eyla just said she was going to the woods.
She had walked through the woods to the coast and was now sitting on the cliffs, at safe distance from the edge. The ravine she had planned to jump over was on the other sides ide of the island. The sky was blue and the water down there glittered. It was a nice view. She liked the view from here, but she always stayed away from the edge.
She took out her notebook and pen and started drawing the blue dragon. Then, for some reason, she started drawing the incident that happened this morning.
"Hello."
Eyla gave a low scream and almost fell on her back out of surprise. When she sat up again she saw Hccup and Toothless in the air. Still looking at them she grabbed a stone with her left hand and threw at Hiccup. He ducked but the stone still hit his head.
"Ow." He looked at her. "I thought you were right-handed."
"I`m both."
Toothless landed on the cliff and Hiccup got off.
"At least I warned you this time", Hiccup said and smiled.
"Not much of a warning", she said.
"So what are you doing?" he asked and sat down next to her.
"Just drawing", she said and made some lines.
Hiccup looked at the drawing that started to take form. It looked like Toothless.
From the corner of her eye,, Eyla saw Toothless walk towards the trees, then she heard the sound of a tree breaking. Eyla looked at Toothless, who walked on his hindlegs and drew lines with the tree on the ground. Eyla pointed at him while looking at Hiccup, not knowing what to say. Hiccup smiled.
"He likes drawing too. But don`t step on the lines. He hates that." He looked at her notebook. "Can I see?"
"I… eh… sure." She handed it to him.
He looked at the drawing of Toothless. It was good. He looked through some of the first pages, and then skimmed some pages.
"You´re good", he said. "I like drawing too, and inventing things." He turned some more pages. Another dragon. He stopped at the drawing of the mornings incident. "What`s this?" He held up the notebook so she could see.
"Yeah, well… it… it happened this morning", she said and kicked a stone over the edge. "They think it`s fun. I just want them to leave me alone."
It`s like when… He didn`t finish the thought, distracted by a dragon that came flying and landed on the cliff. The dragon was quite big and dark blue with yellow eyes. Hiccup looked at Eyla and saw a hint of a smile. He stood up and walked towards the newcomer.
"I´ve never seen a dragon like this", he said. "He`s beautiful. What kind of dragon is it?"
"A blue dragon?" Eyla said, raising her shoulder.
Hiicup slowly reached out to touch the dragon and he lowered his head to meet his hand. Hiccup looked at Eyla.
"You`re not afraid."
"No. I… eh… I…"
"You know him. I saw the hint of a smile."
"You know when you scared me half to death on that cliff?"
Hiccup smiled and nodded.
"Well, I met this dragon first, actually I grabbed his tail when I fell off the cliff. He threw me up again, and came after and just… looked at me. And…"
The blue dragon nudged her.
"I´ve seen him a few times after that", she continued and smiled when the dragons greeted each other and started playing. "Somehow he seemed curious. And it was like… When we touched it was like the time stood still. It was like…"
"You had a Connection", Hiccup said.
Eyla nodded.
"That`s because you´re special", Hiccup said.
Eyla looked at him, with raised eyebrows. That was not what she expected to hear.
"Uh… I… uh… Hiccup said and put his hand on the back of his head. "I mean… I mean, you understand dragons."
"I do?"
"Yeah, you do", Hiccup said and smiled when the blue dragon came to put his head under Eyla`s hand.
Hiccup looked at her. He saw a little smile and could tell she really liked the dragon. She pet the dragons head and he seemed to enjoy it.
"Have you ridden on him?"
"Just once", she said and looked at him.
"Then lets go", Hiccup said and smiled.
Eyla looked at him for a few seconds, then a smile grew and she nodded. Hiccup jumped up on Toothless and put the prosthesis in place. Eyla climbed up on the blue dragon and both dragons walked towards the edge and took off. As always, it fluttered in Eyla`s stomach when the dragon left the ground.
Now that she saw them fly, Eyla could see how much Hiccup enjoyed it, how much they both enjoyed it. All she could see and feel from the two of them was happiness, and how free Hiccup felt. Eyla herself, relaxed faster this time. She also enjoyed it more than last time, and she did feel quite free.
The dragons rose higher and higher in a wide spiral around each other. Then they leveled off. Toothless turned upside down. Hiccup let go of the handles and let his upper body hang. He held out his arms. Eyla smiled when she saw them, not that she would dare to do the same.
The happy feeling suddenly changed to horror, when her dragon also turned upside down.
"No, no, no, no!" she screamed.
She had nothing to hold on to, she didn`t have a saddle, and there were no spikes or anything else. Gravity pulled her down and she fell. She screamed. Oh gods, Oh gods. I`m going to die. I`m going to die!
"Toothless!" Hiccup said and grabbed the handles again.
Toothless dived. The blue dragon realized he lost his rider and dived after them.
Eyla tried to calm down, how do you do that when you´re falling into thin air, but her heart was raising and she panicked. She screamed. She closed her eyes. She still had her back down and didn`t know if she would land on the ground or in the water. All she knew was that it would kill her and she had never been so scared in her entire life.
Toothless caught up and Hiccup told her turn around. She didn`t want to at first, she didn`t want to know how close to the ground she was, and he had to tell her again. Hiccup reached out and took her hand, and pulled her up on the dragon.
"Get me down!" she said through clenched teeth, emphasising every word.
They landed on the same place as they took off from, and Eyla walked over to a tree on shaky legs and sat down, leaning her back against the trunk. She pulled up her legs, put her hands over her eyes, leaning the elbows on the knees. She just sat there trying to calm down and didn`t say anything for a while.
"Are you okay?" Hiccup asked.
"Yeah… I just could have died!"
"You weren`t even Close", Hiccup said and sat down next to her. "We caught you. And your dragon dived after you too. You just need some practice."
"I could have hit the water, or the ground."
"But you didn`t. Like I said, you weren`t even close. I have fallen, more than once. The others have too. But I trust Toothless, and they trust their dragons." He looked at the blue dragon and then at Eyla again. "Your dragon is young. That`s why he was curious about you. And he has probably never had a rider before. You need to practice, you need to get to know each other more for more teamwork."
Eyla looked at him for a few seconds.
"Will you help me?"
"I would love to." Hiccup smiled. "Let`s try again tomorrow."
Hiccup had to go back home, but said they would be back n the late afternoon the next day. Eyla headed back to the village. Despite falling towards a certain death, she was excited about tomorrow. She looked forward to see Hiccup and Toothless again so soon, and learn more about flying. She had been terrified when the dragon had turned upside down, and there was no way for her to stop the fall, but there was a freedom in riding the dragon that she had never felt before.
It was in the middle of the night when Hiccup and Toothless came back to Berk, but they still went to the forge to make a saddle for Eyla`s blue dragon. Hiccup was in the middle of making the saddle when Gobber came through the door, wondering what in the world he was doing there in the middle of the night.
"Making a saddle", Hiccup said.
"Toothless needs a new saddle and you can`t wait till morning?"
"His saddle is fine."
"One of the other dragons need a new saddle? Did Astrid ask you to make one for Stormfly?"
"No."
"Then what are you doing?"
"I`m just making a saddle", Hiccup said.
Gobber looked at him for a few seconds, but when Hiccup didn`t explain, he left. Hiccup didn`t really know why he didn`t tell Gobber. He was one of the villagers that knew him best, having been a close friend to his father. Maybe he just wanted to keep this to himself a little while longer.
When the saddle was done, he was really tired and fell asleep. Toothless had already curled up and was sleeping. After only a couple of hours of sleep, Hiccup and Toothless headed back to the island with the new saddle. When Astrid and Valka saw them, they were already too high up in the air to hear them if they would shout at them. But both of them wondered where they were going.