Everyone was silent. Starfire and Toothless came downstairs and were shocked when everyone seemed to have been made into statues.
Astrid was the one who spoke first "Freya. You would leave us just like that?".
"It would be impossible for any of you to understand. I am very grateful for your generosity and friendship but I can't live like this forever. I can't live the rest of my life knowing there could be someone spending their's searching for me." I said.
"Freya that's not what I meant at all." Hiccup started his speech a little shaky "I didn't mean that I wanted to stop you from searching. I actually wanted to put you in charge of exploring and researching dragons.". He continued "I don't want to make it so that it is impossible for you to find your family with your job. I wanted to use your motivation to find your family to motivate you with your new responsibilities.".
"Explain." I said entering the house and sitting down.
"Well ... one of your responsibilities would be researching dragons and to do that you would need to travel to the said dragons habitat and study or train them. This would allow you to venture out and visit other tribes and search for any sign of your past.".
I sat there for a minute and contemplated Hiccups proposal and then said "Ok".
"Ok what?" Stoick asked.
"Ok I'll take the promotion." I said, my mood lightening.
Hiccup sighed in relief and turned to his father and said "This is why we should have soundproofed that door a long time ago.".
"So do I get a rank?" I asked trying to defuse the tension. Astrid scowled at me, hating the idea that I might outrank her.
Hiccup noticed Astrid's demeanor and said "If you were listening that whole time, you would have heard that ranks are not important.". Astrid's glare intensified and so I decided not to press the matter. Astrid left in an unhappy mood and I spent a few hours visiting Starfire. Me and Hiccup discussed the specifics of what I would be responsible for and when and how I would do them. I stayed the night sleeping on the Haddock's bench as I had several times before in the last few weeks. Starfire was getting more friendly with Toothless and she would refuse to sleep outside of the Haddock residence. There wasn't much we could glean out of Starfire's past but by her behavior it was apparent that Toothless was the only other Nightfury she had seen either. Astrid didn't like it when I stayed over so in the mornings she would always come and barge in Hiccup's door and wake us both up early for dragon training, although I think that she was ensuring distance between us. I could understand why, Hiccup was as enthralled at the presence of another Nightfury as Toothless and we often spent allot of time together as our two dragons would seek each other out.
Sure enough, the next morning someone barged in the front door.
I didn't even open my eyes to check that it was her when I greeted "Good morning Astrid.". Starfire was curled up beside the bench and acted like a stove, radiating heat, the entire night.
To my surprise the voice of a young boy yelled "Chief!". This got everyone in the hut to get out of bed.
Stoick sprang out of his bed and instinctually grabbed his axe and yelled "What is it? Are we under attack? Speak Gustav!".
"The sun is dying!" the boy screamed in a very panicked voice. Out of instinct to protect his people Stoick marched out the door to attempt to cure the sun of it's mortal predicament. Hiccup ran down the stairs and gave me a quizzical look but I just shrugged and got off the bench. We both got outside to see that the sun had a black center. I was shocked at the sight but Stoick and Hiccup started laughing.
"What is wrong with you two?" I asked thinking that the sun was indeed dying.
"It's an Eclipse!" Stoick barked out in laughter. I wasn't getting it.
Hiccup saw my confusion and explained to both me and this Gustav boy "The moon is just casting it's shadow on the sun. It will be over in a few hours.".
"Well I guess they don't have 'Eclipses' where I'm from or I would know the word." I said with my tension easing.
Hiccup explained turning around "I wouldn't count on that. Eclipses don't happen very often. This is the first one I've even seen, I've only read about them from a book Fishlegs gave me.".
Just then Fishlegs came running towards Hiccups house and screaming. When he got to us he was too out of breath to speak but he franticly pointed to the eclipse.
Hiccup almost started laughing as he said "Fishlegs it's just an eclipse. You should know that better than anyone.". Fishlegs, who was still out of breath, grabbed Hiccup by the shoulders and turned him away from the sun and pointed out into the early morning sky. There, far away from the sun, was a crescent moon about to disappear from the horizon. Hiccup immediately had a look of fear on his face as he realized what this meant.
"Dad!" Hiccup called over to Stoick who turned to see the moon "Sound the horn.".
Stoick was stunned for a second but then replied "We don't even know what this is. I'm not causing panic.".
Stoick continued to look at his sons face and they both realized what it was when Hiccup said "... Dragon". There was a unidentifiable roar that sounded like someone was using bellows to blow through a flute. The shadow then left the sun and flew high into the air. It was impossible to judge how big or far away it was as darkness rippled all around it, consuming all light that was near it. It flew right above us and grew larger and larger. Then a powerful wind swept through the village. The wing caused by its hovering put so much force on me that I was forced to take a knee. Then came the terrible, wheezing roar again. After it finished I looked up to see several houses that had fires erupting from their torches. Suddenly, there was an explosion and I looked up to see a Nadder shooting fireballs at the shifting dark shape above us. Then a gust pushed down on us with enough force to push me onto all fours. The gusts died down and I got up to see the dark shape leaving in the direction of Dragon Island.
Astrid landed after scaring it away and asked "Hiccup! Are you alright?". She rushed over to him who like me was hunched over from the massive gusts of wind.
"Ya Astrid I'm fine" Hiccup said as she helped him up. Fishlegs was still curled up on the ground and I don't think I ever saw Stoick go down but he would have ben unable to move from the powerful gusts that were upon us.
"Is that one you just forgot to put in the book of dragons because I don't remember reading about that one?" I asked Hiccup mostly as Fishlegs was still incapacitated on the ground.
"No we've never seen that one before." Hiccup said with a frightened look on his face.
"Hiccup! Get your dragons saddled and ready to put out those fires." Stoick commanded as he gestured to all of the small fires that had erupted out of Berk's torches. Hiccup got up and looked at all the fires in bewilderment. We then got Fishlegs up and flew over to the academy.
As we were fitting the fire control saddles to our dragons Hiccup asked "Did anyone see it shoot?".
"I was a little more concentrated on the soul crushing void it surrounded itself with." Fishlegs said with lot's of fear in his voice.
"All those fires just started from our torches after it roared." I said. Everyone shivered when they remembered that horrible sound the dragon made. Before we left Snotlout and the twins came to the academy on their dragons and Hiccup instructed them to help with putting out the fires. A few of the fires were extinguished by the towns people and some had grown much larger. After the fire, only one home was completely burnt and a few others had some repairs needed. We unsaddled our dragons from the firefighting gear and put the normal saddles on.
"Where to now?" Astrid asked Hiccup. Hiccup just stared into space for a few seconds, like I've seen him before, weighing his options.
He finally responded "We need to get to know this thing if it comes back. We are going to Dragon Island to scout this dragon so we can better defend against it in the future.".
"We are actually going towards the giant black ball of death?" Fishlegs asked timidly.
"Come on Fishlegs do you really want to sit around here and wait for it to come back with no idea what it is or how to defend against it?" I asked him.
"Er ... um ... gee ... No." Fishlegs responded.
"Alright, travel light but arm yourself. We may end up having to fly away or fight it." Hiccup cautioned. I had been practicing shooting a bow off of Starfires back and so I armed myself with a bow and arrows. We took off and I got a glimpse of Stoick looking confused as to why we were leaving before we got over the open seas.
"Yes. Finally me and Hookfang get some action. What type of dragon are we attacking again? I kind of slept through the attack." Snotlout stated.
Astrid rubbed her hand down her face and asked "How do you sleep through a dragon attack when its wings create enough wind to make a hurricane jealous?".
"First of all Snotlout we are not attacking it. We just need to get a proper look at it so we can try to defend against it. Second of all HOW DID YOU SLEEP THROUGH THAT!?" Hiccup stated.
"Hey it takes allot of energy to move all this muscle around all day." Snotlout replied arrogantly.
Hiccup then turned his questioning towards Astrid and asked "How were you able to take off under the downdraft of it's wings?".
"Oh I was already out taking a flight with Stormfly, you know taking in the morning air." she replied, unconvincingly.
I chimed in and said "You were mad you didn't get the promotion and couldn't sleep so you went flying didn't you.".
"What thats ... thats ..." Astrid started but she realized that she couldn't convince us otherwise and stopped, pouting on the back of her dragon.
I then turned to Hiccup and said "Hiccup you have got to promote her to something fast.".
He nodded in agreement and then we flew the rest of the way to Dragon Island in silence.
Before we even saw the island we could hear it's roar.
"How can it already know that we are here?" Astrid asked.
"It couldn't ... it must be roaring at a another dragon on the island." Fishlegs said. As we got closer and closer to the island we could see that there was a bright light illuminating the fog around it.
"Whoa. Did this dragon just set the whole island on fire. I'm beginning to like this thing." Tuff commented. When we broke through the clouds we could see that the island was not on fire but there was the dragon in all of it's shiny glory.
"Wait I thought you said that the dragon that attacked Berk was all dark" Snotlout stated
Fishlegs's dread turned into excitement now as he said "It must be like a Skrill. It can take in and redirect sunlight instead of lightning. It must have been taking it in in the morning and now it is redirecting it.".
"Alright Fishlegs use my spyglass and break down what weaknesses this thing might have." Hiccup said as he tossed his spyglass over to Fishlegs.
"All right." Fishlegs said while catching the spyglass "Obviously it has the powers to take in and redirect light which either way shouldn't be too dangerous to us, I'll give it +2 firepower. It really is massive and looks to be about half the size of the Red death in body mass and hight but just bigger than it if you count the wing size and span. I would recommend not staying underneath it while it's in flight. Larger wingspan also adds +40 to it's speed. Four legs, very typical, two hind have inverted knees and the two front have normal joints. Not very large limbs considering it's overall size but I'd still give it +25 attack. Moderate to heavy armor all over it's body, all clear scales with white edges. Clear crest over its head that reaches all the way down along the side of it's snout. Hello! No mouth or teeth.".
"What!? Fishlegs I think you have been staring at the bright dragon for too long." Snotlout said.
"No, there are more than a dozen holes in two columns down it's neck but there are no teeth or a mouth." Fishlegs added.
"Great we know it can't eat us but are there any weak spots that we can exploit if it comes to crush, claw, or bludgeon us." Hiccup asked.
"As I said it is pretty well armored so the only weak areas are on it's wings and I don't think we should attack them." Fishlegs said.
"Why not I always hit Tuff where he is already bruised and that works on him." Ruff stated.
"Because we want it to use it's wings to fly far away from us. Dragon Island is still too close for comfort." Hiccup explained.
Fishlegs was looking at the dragon again through the spyglass as he said "Hiccup I'd like to add two things to my observations. One, it is looking right at us and two, I think I know what class of dragon it is.".
We all looked down to see the dragon now looking at us. However, the more alarming sight was the pack of roughly a dozen wild dragons from various species flying up at us.
"It's an Alpha! Run!" Fishlegs screamed as he started to retreat back to Berk.
Author's Note: Hi guys sorry for the recent lack of uploads. I have gotten to a part of the story where I'm beginning to think about certain scenes farther down the line. I've been busy writing down my ideas for these scenes and even the stories conclusion.