Hello :) I hope you've liked what I have here so far. If you're reading and you've never reviewed, might I encourage you to try it out? It helps me and makes me feel like you guys care ;) even if you don't. Anyways, things are about to take a bit of a turn. Enjoy…

Aeri chased the green Nadder down the street. "Get back here!" One of Stormfly's almost-grown-up hatchlings had snatched her helmet right off of her head, and now she was in pursuit of it, trying to ignore the stares of the other villagers.

Abruptly the dragon stopped, and Aeri barreled around it, reaching up to snatch her helmet from its mouth. "Gotcha!"

"Aeri?" Uh oh.

She turned around slowly to see her parents next to their dragons, none of them looking very happy to see her.

Ash was completely unprepared for this. "Look, Shade, I just don't see you that way."

"But why? I'm not a hatchling, Ash. Not anymore. I'm old enough to know what I want, and I want you."

His words were powerful, but Ash couldn't subdue the turmoil in her heart. "I was practically raised by your parents! You're supposed to be like my brother!"

"But I'm not your brother! I don't care who raised you!"

"You should care! It… changes things."

"No, I see how it is. You like that Night Fury from the colony, Holly's brother, whatever his name is, and now I've gone and made a mess of it."

She was shaking her head. "That's not-"

"Don't deny it!"

"Fine! You have made a mess of it! And I don't know if you're ever going to be able to fix it!" Angrily she leapt into the air, ignoring the slight ache in her wings from the abrupt take off, leaving Shade behind in the cove, shaking with his own anger.

No. He wouldn't be a victim of his own weak heart. Never again would he allow anyone so close, never again would he trust anyone with his feelings or his thoughts. Rejected first by his father, and now by his best friend- something cold washed over him, and the pain went numb. Gone was his foolish pride, gone were his naive dreams.

The only one left to him was Aeri, and he would devote himself to her protection and happiness for the rest of his life. Nothing else mattered anymore.

"Aeri, you have to be more responsible! As much as I trust dragons, you can't leave your little sister with a bunch of hatchlings!"

"I'm sorry, Dad, I just forgot-"

"You always forget, Aeri!" her mother interrupted. "Someday you're going to be responsible for a lot more people than just your younger siblings, and when you are you can't just forget to look after them!" The three of them were in the mostly empty Great Hall, their rising voices carrying up to the rafters.

"I don't-"

"Look, Aeri," Hiccup said, trying to be patient. "I'm not going to live forever. Someday it's going to be up to you to care for every inhabitant of Berk, and now is the time to prepare yourself for that role."

"Those inhabitants don't seem to have a problem with me now!" It was true, for reasons that escaped Aeri, everyone in the village adored her, even with all her mishaps.

"Your father is right," Astrid said. "First you nearly killed yourself with that stunt over the square-" Aeri tried not to wince. She'd tried to make a sheet strong enough to slow her fall when she jumped off of Shade, but it sort of backfired. "-then you almost killed the son of the Chief of one of our strongest allies, then you cut all your hair off, and today you went and left your little sister, who you promised you'd look after, with a bunch of untrained baby dragons! Your irresponsibility seems harmless enough now, but if you didn't have us to clean up after you, where would you be?"

"Clean up after me? Are you serious? I'm not a child anymore! Don't treat me like I'm some kind of embarrassment, some kind of accident!" she shouted, tears pricking her eyes.

Her mother looked incensed, but her father was horrified. "Aeri, you have never been an… an embarrassment, or an accident! Do you think I would ever allow another human being to feel how I felt the first fifteen years of my life? Because that's all I was! Hiccup the Useless! And everyone thought of me that way, including your mother!"

Astrid took a step back, jaw dropping. "Hiccup-"

"No, Astrid, don't deny it. I wasn't just an embarrassment to my father, I was a veritable disaster to the rest of the tribe! They only accepted me after I saved them all from certain death because of their own foolish misconceptions about what it meant to be a Viking! I didn't do the things I've done since then so that my own daughter could be made to feel like she isn't worthwhile! Because that's not true!" he was shouting now, and the few scattered villagers in the Hall were glancing nervously at each other.

Aeri regretted her words, but it was too late to take them back. "I can't take this any more! Dad, I don't want to be Chief!"

"I didn't want to be Chief either, but we don't get to choose who we are born to become!"

"I can and I will choose for myself! Starting right now!" She whirled around and ran from the Great Hall. Astrid moved to follow her, her daughter's name on her lips, when Hiccup stopped her.

"Let her go," he said heavily. "She'll find her path."

Leaping down the steps, her short auburn hair trailing behind her, Aeri turned to see her dragon landing nearby, a dark look on his face. His scowl faded with concern at her distress. "Come on, Shade," she said, wiping her eyes. "I think… I think it's time to go on a little adventure."

He couldn't agree more.

Within the hour they were gone, nothing more than a shadow on the wind.

Hi friends. So here's another request for fan art if you are so inspired to create it. I could use a cover image for the story and I'd love for it to come from one of you. So message me if you are interested in doing something like that, or if you have any ideas for the story.

Speaking of ideas for the story, I'm writing a parallel fic to this one, about a character who will be appearing later on in Choices, Change, and Fate. He's an OC designed by Spartan 10007, (in case you wanted proof of my willingness to accept ideas) with an interesting back story, so keep track of that as I post it so you have an idea of who he is when he appears later on.

Last but not least, I'm writing some one-shots that take place between Of the Night and the sequel, so if any of you have anything you'd like to read more about, let me know! I'll be posting the first of those, A New Baby Sister, very soon, so stay tuned.

Thanks again for reading :)

EDIT- Of the Night: Silver is up, keep track of it, and enjoy it! You guys are awesome!