After spending all morning playing Touch-And-Run (Tag) with the other Night Fury's, Hiccup and Toothless decided it was time to go and were zooming across the tops of the waves.
At first Hiccup was lying down creating as much streemlineness as possible as together they pulled off daring stunts that could only be done by them avoiding the rising and diving Thunderdrums.
Eventually Hiccup got into a sitting position and slid his foot into the pedal, clicking it for the tail to flare out and making them shoot skywards rolling and tumbling and spinning through the ever lasting sea of clouds.
Finally coming to an end, they were mid way between the soaring Timberjacks and the roaring Thunderdrums.
"So what do you think bud?" Hiccup asked through the mask putting down the handle on the newest saddle design for him to hold onto for things like that "You want to give thing another shot?"
'Do and I'll shoot you out of the sky,' Toothless grumbled not looking too pleased.
"Toothless it will be fine..." Hiccup said laughing slightly as he set the tail and locked it into place, then unclipped the his safety line keeping him on the dragon. "Ready?" he asked not waiting for an answer before he let himself slip off his friends/brother's back. "YEAH!"
Rolling his eyes Toothless dove after him catching up to him, smiling despite his feeling that something will go wrong.
After a bit Hiccup stuck his arms in the leather rings on his suit and quickly flung them out letting the sheets of stretched leather that was folded together out letting them catch the wind and after a few seconds and him unclipping the dorsal fin on his back sending him gliding over the clouds, Toothless, his wings now out too, gliding along beside him.
After a bit Toothless could see Hiccup was falling slightly and shot a blast just below him to let the air heat up and keep the boy aloft a bit more.
"THIS IS AMAZING!" Hiccup cried not believing that this was actually working.
Just as if Loki, the God of Tricks, was listening the clouds shifted slightly and showed that they were heading right for a giant rock formation.
"No longer amazing! Toothless!" Hiccup cried looking over his shoulder looking for his brother and help.
'You just had to tempt Fate didn't you!' Toothless called pumping his wings harder and harder trying to get to his brother but because of the locked tail not being able to make it.
At the last second, Toothless shot a blast at the rock formation and wraps his wings around his idiotic brother as they fly through it. Toothless coming out and tumbling through some trees of the neighboring peak coming to rest on a small plateau.
Slowly Toothless unfurled his wings letting Hiccup to come out and switch his foot to 'Walk Mode' as he stowed away his wings.
"Whoo that really came out of nowhere," Hiccup said glee in his voice jumping and looking back with Toothless as the peak collapsed.
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'This is what happens when you don't listen to me!' Noche cried out. 'If Humans were meant to fly they would of been born with wings.'
"Yeah but I'm not a human am I Brother" he empathized the last word. "We really need to work on your solo gliding there bud," he said not noticing the glare Noche was giving him. "That locked up tail makes some pretty sloppy rescue maneuvers," he said finally finished and taking off his helmet and looking out over the horizon.
Out there in the new land were numerous sea stacks and not known to the areas around Berk trees, everything bathed in the afternoon light.
"Hah... Looks like we found another one bud," Hiccup said smiling out to the scene.
Noche was beside himself as to how Hiccup was acting then seeing a small pebble used his claws to pick it up and flick it to the back of Hiccup's head making him spin around.
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"Aww... What you want an apology?" Hiccup asked in a baby voice "That why you pouting Big Baby Po?" he asked getting gruffs and grumbles from Toothless who was avoiding him. "Well try this on!"
Suddenly Hiccup was attacking Toothless who looked like he couldn't give anything about it.
"Yeah... Yeah... You feeling it yet?" he asked shifting to have a better chance of tipping his brother "You feeling all my heartfelt remorse? All the Vikingness? All my Dragon Strength?"
Rolling his eyes Toothless just got up onto his back legs and walked to the edge stretching out his neck so Hiccup was hanging over it.
"Oh come on you... you wouldn't hurt your own one-legged-..." Hiccup said looking over his shoulder jumping when he saw how high they were.
'Got anything to say?' Toothless asked smiling.
"Er... You're right, you're right you win. You win," Hiccup said smiling laughing as Toothless fell back then flipped over trapping him. "He's down, it's ugly..." he said patting at Toothless' paws as he pretended to attack him "Dragons and Vikings... Enemies again... Locked in combat to the bitter... Ughh..."
'Got ya...' Toothless said as he began to lick Hiccup gleefuly getting spit all over his suit and face.
"Gah..." Hiccup cried rolling out of his position and to his feet "You KNOW that doesn't wash out!" he said flicking spit back to his brother as he laughed at his position.
Grumbling with annoyance, Toothless began to glean himself licking his paw and scrubbing away the mess.
'There was no need for that...' he said but Hiccup wasn't listening, he was already getting out the map and his tools holding out the piece of paper to Toothless to lick positioning it to the bottom left.
After sharpening his pencil and checking his compass, he said "So... What shall we name it?"
Preoccupied with an annoying itch, Toothless just gnawed under his arm not hearing the question.
"'Itchy Armpit' it is," Hiccup said smirking when Toothless came out looking confused as he wrote it down and began sketching. "So whaddya think bud? Maybe a few Timberjack's in those woods? A Whispering Death or two in the rocks? Who knows maybe we'll even come across a new new species of Dragon all together. Wouldn't that be something?"
'You're not going to give up until you find every last dragon Draco made are you?' Toothless asked coming over and sitting next to the boy.
"You know me so well..." Hiccup said smirking. "So what do you say? Just keep going?"
Just then they both heard a familiar screech and looked over their shoulders to see a blue and yellow Deadly Nadder and her rider who got down welcoming Toothless who went to go play with her dragon.
"Afternoon M'Lady," Hiccup said smiling seeing Astrid. "Where've you been?" he asked.
"Oh Winning races what else?" she said as she walked over to him and got to the ground beside him. "The better question is... 'Where have you been?'"
"Avoiding my dad." Hiccup said straight away.
"Oh no... What happened now?"
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As Hiccup was telling his girlfriend what he told Nyx and Artemis earlier - with some difficultly thanks to Astrid mocking him, Noche was telling Stormfly what they had said to him and that he wasn't ready for this.
'Noche, how can you not be excited about this...' she asked bouncing with happyness 'I'd be really excited to have Alpha Colors.'
'But I'm not like you Mi Amore...' Noche said shaking his head not noticing Stormfly blinking at the slip of his tongue. 'Mi Amore' was an old Dragon name for lovers to give each other to show how much they mean for each other.
'You know who your family is, you always have, you've never needed to go out looking for it to find that he's an always picked on runt...' he said looking towards Hiccup and Astrid who had just punched him in the chest with excitement.
Knowing it was for fun but not caring he quickly ran towards him, Stormfly following him bowling over their riders as they went to continue their chat themselves.
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"Yeah so this is what I'm dealing with," Hiccup said being helped up by Astrid.
"What did you tell him?" she asked beaming.
"I... I didn't by the time he turned around I was gone." Hiccup said dusting himself off.
"Well... It's a lot of responsibility," she said picking and folding up the map. "The map will need to wait for sure. And I'll need to fly Toothless because you'll be too busy..." she said gasping and spinning around understanding.
Down the path a bit two dragons heard those words and quietly crawled to the edge of the forest to see what Hiccup had to say on this.
"It's not me Astrid," Hiccup said as firmly as he can repeating what he had said to his Dragon Parents "All those speeches and planning and running the village... That's his thing. I'm not even his SON for crying out loud!"
"I think you're missing the point," Astrid said quietly taking his hand and looking into his face kindly "I mean Chief. What an honor. I'd be pretty excited."
"Yeah well I'm not like you," Hiccup said picking his helmet up "In fact, I'm not like anyone on the Island of Berk am I? And even if I wasn't half dragon, I know I'm not my father, and I never met my mother, so where does that leave me?" he asked sitting back down and looking over the land.
"What you're looking for isn't out there Hiccup," Astrid said as she began to place a new braid into his hair. "It's in here," she said placing a hand to his chest. "Maybe you just don't see it yet. And to be honest, I for one don't care if you're half human, or three quarters or even a smidge. You're still you Hiccup.
You're still the Hiccup that kept setting the village on fire with your inventions.
You're still the Hiccup that kidnapped me to show me what dragons are really like.
You're still the Hiccup that I ignored so many times..." she said yanking his hair a bit and making him cry out.
After an apology and a kiss which she soon regretted, Hiccup replied eyes locked to the land.
"Maybe... But there is something out there," he said.
"Hiccup..." Astrid said trying to get the Night Fury saliva off her lips.
Gently but firmly, Hiccup took her chin and made her look out to the horizon seeing parting clouds and the look of smoke from a very large fire was seen.
Quickly they called for their dragons and were off towards it to investigate what it was.