Chapter 2

Heading Out

When I reached the village in the late morning, I noticed right away something was a bit off. None of the gang could be found anywhere. Usually I could at least spot Ruff and Tuff pulling off some prank behind some poor villager's house, but none of the teens were visible as I glided over the village. Getting a little concerned, I headed in the direction of the forge to find Gobber. He was where he was supposed to be, at least.

"Hey, Gobber, you haven't seen Hiccup recently, have you?" I asked as I popped my head through the door. "I mean, he is your assistant after all." He looked up from where he was fanning the bellows. "Nae fer a while actually," he replied, turning and grabbing a bent sword and throwing it on the coals. "In fact that whole group of teens disappeared this mornin' fer some reason, and no one seems te know where they went." He faced me. "Though I am sure they didnae leave without ye," he assured. I sighed and turned to leave. "Let me know then, if you happen to see any of them." Gobber chuckled. "Will do."

I left the forge and headed toward the forest on the opposite side of Berk. There were plenty of places they could be hiding, but I could find them quickly enough if needed. However, halfway across the village, I was suddenly forced to halt as a blast of fire scorched the road in front of me. "Hey, will you watch where you're…" I began to yell, looking up, but trailed off as I turned and spotted the dragon curving back the way I had come. It looked extremely familiar, and one that was not from around the island: long, thin and gold. Hold on a minute, I thought, peering closer, that looks just like-"OOOOOOFFF!"

Note to self: when suspicious things are happening, always keep an eye out in every direction.

Something leapt onto my back from behind, tackling me to the ground using my moment of surprise. When I hit the dirt, however, I regained my senses and whipped out a long tail, using it to push me off the ground and spin around, coming down hard and pinning my attacker beneath my feet and tail. Only then did I manage to get a glimpse of who it was.

"You know," I sighed, "I'll admit, I really should have known. You are the only person I can think of who would attempt to tackle the dragon boy, Cami." Said blonde Bog Burglar burst out laughing, clearly not caring that she was the one on the ground now. "Oh, who cares!" she giggled. "I finally got you, fair and square! Ha ha!" I shook my head, but couldn't help but smile in amusement as I let her up and held out my hand. She took it and righted herself, dusting off her clothes and still chuckling the whole time.

Bits of laughter came flittering out between the houses as the rest of the missing teens appeared. I locked gazes with Hiccup as he appeared from behind a grove of trees with Toothless, and they were both grinning like idiots. "I take it you were all in on this?" I asked. They nodded. "What, finally decided to try and get me back?" "Yeah, we decided it was about time you were the butt of the joke," Astrid explained, hopping up onto Thorn, "and ever since the Thing last year, Cami's been itching for a chance to pull a prank on you, so…" she just chuckled instead of finishing the sentence.

I glanced back at Cami. "So are you two the mysterious add-ins to our team for this exploration?" I asked. "Not the only ones," Snotlout replied for her, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. I turned, and sure enough, one more Viking-dragon pair was walking up to the group.

"Well, well, it's been a while hasn't it, Thuggory?" I greeted, smiling and extending a hand. He shook it and replied, "Yeah, nearly an entire year." "Well, good to see you again, and," I turned to look at the dragon following him, a large, silver-hued Nightmare, "I see you brought a new friend along as well!" Thuggory nodded. "Met him this past winter. This is Silverwings." I grinned. "Aptly named. And might I say thank you for not placing some death-related moniker on your friend, too."

Silverwings bent his neck down and looked at me closely. ::So you are the one he keeps mentioning,:: he said. ::Nice to finally meet you in person.:: I smiled and tipped my head. "Pleasure to meet you as well." He dipped his head in return.

"Okay, so if we're done with all the boring talking, can we go already?" Tuffnut complained. I laughed and turned back to Hiccup. "I think he's got a point. Are we ready to be heading off soon?" I asked. "Yeah," Hiccup replied casually. "We should have just about everything, though the village will be wanting to see us off." He glanced at the swords strapped to my pack. "I see you're using the straps we made, but, uh, care to explain why you have four swords? I get the idea of a spare, but seems like a lot." I shrugged and extended a Zippleback tail, flaring the split end. "Why not, if I can use them all? Better protection this way," I returned. Hiccup nodded. "Point taken. And before you say it because I know you will, the point is not the one on the sword." I snorted. "So you do know me somewhat." "I've been working on it." We all cracked up for some reason at that. Really not sure why, it wasn't that funny.

We didn't leave that day, since there were a few things still to be squared away at the village (Hiccup had promised to help catch Gobber up on some smith work, for one), and so that evening we sat around the fire of a watch tower and spent time retelling stories of what happened since we'd all last seen each other. Camicazi had been busy making a name for herself among the pirate ships sent from the Roman Empire, because she'd become an impossible-to-catch thief (she had kept to robbing only people who had robbed others, since she knew how I'd react), and Thuggory had been given a position on the leader's council in his tribe. And of course, we regaled them with stories of our own adventures over the months. Our tales lasted well into the night, and eventually we all ended up falling asleep around the firepit. No one fell off the tower, though, so don't be concerned about that.

"Okay, we're off!" "Finally!"

A chorus of goodbyes, good-lucks, and cheers were released as the teen explorers and I lifted off, away from the docks and out over the ocean. I glanced over at Hiccup, who was positively ecstatic at the prospect of escaping the island for a time, grinning from ear to ear as he leaned forward on Toothless. We headed west, taking advantage of the thermals rising off the island and the sea stacks and gaining altitude, before pushing on over open ocean. Luckily, it was a rather clear day, and we could see for miles: glistening blue water far below, speckled with the occasional whitecap wave, puffy clouds dotting the skyscape only occasionally, and in the waters below, the occasional spout from a pod of whales or the jumping of some various creature occasionally made itself known. It was peaceful, it was serene, and it was perfect.

About an hour or so into the flight, I glided over next to Hiccup. "I've been meaning to ask, how has Spitfire been doing?" I queried. "I didn't see him around before we left." Hiccup laughed. "Oh, he's doing fine. He's just been a bit shy. Perfectly understandable considering what he went through," he explained. "He'll hang around me and Toothless a lot, or disappear into the forest for a while." I frowned. "He's getting more social, though, right?" Hiccup nodded in affirmative. "Slowly, but yeah. He's more apt to get to know some of the younger kids, I've noticed." I smiled slightly at that, and slowly curved back over to my spot in the flight formation.

No sooner had I settled back into level flight than I suddenly felt something land square in the middle of my back. I twisted my head to look, and sighed. "Don't you have Stormfly to bother?" I growled. Camicazi snickered. "Yeah, but I do that all the time anyway. Plus riding her doesn't make her irritated." I groaned. "Oh, perfect, you are just here to annoy me. Wonderful. Where did she go anyway?" Cami tapped me to get my attention, then pointed toward Hiccup and Toothless. Stormfly was over there, having a conversation with the Night Fury about who-knows-what. However, I got a clue when she began to blush a bright shade of pink.

::Stormfly, what are you doing over there?:: I called over. She jerked, having been caught, and changed to an even deeper shade of pink. ::Uh, what?:: she sputtered, looking around confused. I glided over. ::rider is on my back instead of yours, and you're using that opportunity to come over here and flirt with Toothless, aren't you?:: I prodded. ::There's a time and place for things like that, and this certainly isn't it. And I can tell Toothless isn't your type either.:: I glanced at the Night Fury and smirked. Had he not been black in color, I'm sure he would have been as pink as Stormfly at that moment, though she was now turning a deep shade of purple. ::I wasn't flirting!:: ::Your scales are also turning purple.::

Her mouth snapped shut, and she dropped her head as I shook my own. ::Mood dragons, you are terrible liars. If you two are going to be a problem on this trip, I won't hesitate to do something about it.::

Both of them snapped alert at that, Toothless jerking Hiccup back as they simultaneously blurted, ::No! we're fine!::

"Hey!" Hiccup snapped. "I'm up here too!" I snorted. "I don't think there should be any more problems, Hiccup," I assured. He harrumphed in reply. I glanced at Toothless, giving him a look. He put on a bashful look, but a sliver of thanks also appeared. I was right: he wasn't the mood dragon's type.

Once that was dealt with, I flipped over without warning, dropping Cami and giggling at her cry of surprise. I quickly righted myself and dove down, catching her of course, before flying over and dropping her back on Stormfly. The shell-shocked look on the Bog's face was priceless, and I heard laughing, glancing over and spotting Astrid giggling, having watched the entire scenario from nearby. She spotted me staring, and quieted down.

By evening, we had reached the southern tip of Iceland. Upon landing, we gave a bit of a scare to the village that had sprung up there that we decided to visit, but upon my changing back to normal, there was great fanfare. Apparently, word of the dragon boy and his friends had spread rather quickly among the Norse tribes further north, and everyone was excited to meet the source of the stories in person. Needless to say, it took a while to finally get the message out that we were simply looking for a place to stay the night. Once the sun had begun to dip toward the horizon (it still never set at that latitude and time of year), we found ourselves nice and cozy in a large, one-roomed house.

Of course things never stay peaceful when you have people like the twins on a trip with you.

"Alright, break it up already you two!" I snapped. Naturally, they either ignored me, or didn't hear me at all. "Troll!" "Butt-elf!" "Fried Freckle-face!" "Fishbreath! Ow!" I glanced over at Barfbelch, who took the cue and swiped his tail under the squabbling pair's feet, knocking them on their rear ends. "WHOA!"

The two glared up at their dragon, who glanced away innocently. "Are you two really going to bicker the entire trip?" I asked tiredly, bringing their attention to me. "Should we happen to run into trouble, we may need everyone's help, and that won't happen if we have two riders who put themselves out of commission." Thuggory leaned forward from where he rested against Silverwings. "Plus, you two keep this up and you'll drive all of us nuts," he added. Everyone chuckled, save for the twins. "That too," I smirked.

"So, what else has anyone actually gathered about this place we're heading to?" Thuggory queried. "What, here?" Hiccup asked. "Or the place we're headed?" "You know what I mean," Thuggory retorted.

Fishlegs sat up straight. "Ooh! Ooh! I heard that it's got this massive mountain range on the eastern side," he began, "straight up and completely impassible by land or sea." I raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, I think we heard that already," I replied. "Sounds like a rather inhospitable place."

Fishlegs shrugged. "Well, you never know. The traders and explorers would've only brought back what they saw or heard. So far, no one's tried really sailing around the end, so.." Hiccup nodded. "So as far as we know, it's only passable along its length by air," he commented. Fishlegs nodded in agreement. "Yeah, and those who have actually seen it said that up on the peaks by the north end here, there were people visible standing high up on the mountain tops."

I snorted. "For people to be visible on mountains that high, they'd have to be giants to be recognizable." Everyone just shrugged. "Well, maybe that's where the Jotunns come from," Cami suggested.

Hiccup yawned. "Maybe," he said tiredly. "But we'll be able to find out tomorrow, which is when we should be able to arrive there. In the meantime, I think it's time we hit the hay." Everyone agreed, as it was certainly late, so we all grabbed the blankets we had brought along and tucked in for the night.

I, however, found it hard to actually fall asleep. Something in the back of my mind kept on nagging at me, like this land really was all too vaguely familiar. I tried to dismiss it, thinking we had just found this world's version of North America, but somehow, I doubted it. After a while, though, I finally managed to slip into fitful slumber.

A/N-So, I realize I somewhat suck at introducing stories in the first few books (promise it gets better as time goes on), apologies for that. But, now that chapter two is up, and the gang is finally off, a new question comes: where do the readers think we are headed? One hint: it is a well known story series, and was made into a trio of movies.

As always, leave a comment in the reviews for what you think!