After the break, Astrid and Hiccup came with the dragons. The wild dragons had had some quick basic training, just so the dragon riders knew they could handle them. The villagers had to do the rest. Every dragon needed their own rider, and both rider and dragon had to learn to trust each other and work together. Not all of the men would have a dragon to ride, but all of them had to learn to trust them, or at least accept them. There were 8 dragons, so there would be 8 riders.

Some of the men were terrified of the dragons, some pretended that they weren't afraid, but Eyla and her friends could see that they were a little afraid. And some of them just seemed to think they could just not be trusted and hated them. One of them was Gunnar. He wasn`t afraid of the dragons, he just hated them, and to trust them was out of the question. Eyla didn't know how to make him see that the dragons could be wonderful creatures.

The goal for today was just to get the men a little more comfortable around dragons. Eyla didn't know if she thought they succeeded, but it was only the first day. Hopefully next day would be better. They didn't have much time. What made it even worse was that they didn't know how much time they did have.

Eyla sat on a rock by the water. She had a lantern standing on her left, and Storm was lying behind her. She didn't feel as relaxed as she usually did when she sat by the water. All thanks to that giant monster at the north coast. And now that it was dark she probably wouldn´t even notice it until it was right in front of her. The thought scared her and she shook her head to get rid of the thought. Storm felt her fear and wrapped his wing around her. Eyla was thankful that the dragon was there. And as she looked up at the stars, she knew that no matter what happened, she would be forever grateful for this once in a lifetime experience. He was a dragon, but he was her other half.

The next day, Eyla and the men walked through the forest to the east coast. When they came there Hiccup and the others were already there with the dragons. All the men would continue to work with the dragons to learn to trust them, and Hiccup and his friends would choose who would ride the dragons. And when they had done that, they would get up on the dragons and learn how to fly them.

Hiccup and Astrid had observed the men a little extra when they worked with the dragons the day before, to see who of them would be a good rider. They had decided about two men rather quickly, and now they just wanted to see if everything went well today as well. They had six other riders to choose too, and Gunnar would most likely not be one of them. He tried though, at least it looked like he was trying, even if unwillingly. But they could all see that he hated the dragons.

Four men had tried riding some of the dragons, Ben and Tork were two of them. They did well for being the first time, but they were not as cocky as they usually were. Eyla couldn`t help but smile when they saw them take off and saw how scared they were even if they pretended they were not.

No one really saw what happened, but suddenly a dragon`s tail hit Gunnar and sent him off the edge. He screamed as he flew through the air and started falling towards the water. It happened so fast, no one had the time to react, they just looked at the man flying through the air.

One of the dragons, a big green dragon, rolled his eyes and sighed before he spread his wings and took off. He looked nothing like Snotlout's Monstrous Nightmare, but the expression he made was similar to the way Hookfang often looked when it came to his rider. They watched the dragon go after Gunnar and catch him before he hit the water.

When Gunnar got his feet on the ground again, they could see that he was scared, but also very angry.

"I told you…" he began, his voice filled with anger, but Eyla cut him off.

"See, I told you, dragons are not that bad…"

"One of them sent me over the edge, and you want me to trust them?!"

"I'm sure it didn`t mean to", Eyla said. "And one dragon went to get you, don`t forget that."

Gunnar glared at her and then he glared at the green dragon, who looked at him and rolled his eyes again.

The dragon riders couldn`t help but find the situation amusing.

This chapter is short, but there is finally a new chapter. I haven`t updated in a very long time, but I´ve had writer's block for a long time. Now hopefully you won`t have to wait so long for the next chapter.