The Courtship of Toothless Chapter 3

"Guana?" Night-fury-mother-of-twins was astonished to see the newest member of her species padding up the path toward her house, with her husband close behind her.

"You probably want to know what I'm doing here, and how I got here, and where's Toothless, and what happened with the flying lessons, and what's going on, right?" Guana answered her.

"Well, yeah, but I wasn't going to hit you with all those questions at once." She noticed that New-night-fury was blinking expressively at her, which was their signal that he wanted a long-distance TrueSight. None of the dragons seemed to know if TrueSight had a range limit, so they frequently tested themselves from greater and greater distances, mostly just to say "I love you." This time, Hiccup probably had a lot more feelings to share than that, so she waited until he was about fifty feet away before she gazed back at him.

The instant sharing of emotions, with a few thoughts and opinions cleverly piggybacked onto them, told her the story without having to ask Guana any questions at all. When she saw Hiccup's delight in her quick flying progress, and his pride that his idea had worked, that also communicated the idea that "She's learned to fly." His concern that Toothless had left sent the secondary message, "They aren't getting along." She saw the reason why when she saw his puzzled reaction to her revulsion at their unwilling transformations.

"Okay, that's not exactly how I expected this relationship to work," she began.

"You and me both," Guana answered as she reached the Nest. She had to look almost straight up to see Astrid on the second floor. "Hey, how did you know about that? Are you two mind-readers or something?"

"No, we just did something called a TrueSight. I guess we didn't tell you about that yet."

"Oh, yeah – Hiccup did that to me back in the cove. I forgot about that for a minute, I got so distracted by flying."

"Hmmm. It sounds like Hiccup has taught you quite a bit in one morning." Other females might have felt stirrings of jealousy, but she'd just seen all his emotions and there was absolutely nothing to be jealous about. "Hiccup, do you think you can coach her to flap up here, so the two of us can talk?"

"Actually, that might be easier than taking off blind," Hiccup said thoughtfully. "Guana, back off about twelve steps. When you're ready, I'm going to count to three. One means 'spread your wings and get into a crouch.' On 'two,' I want you to tense up your wings, and spring off the ground with your front legs. On 'three,' flap hard and spring with your back legs. Three flaps should take you up high enough, and you'll still be moving slowly enough that you'll have no trouble landing. Are you ready?"

"I think I can do this," she said grimly.

"Okay," New-night-fury said. "One... two... three!" The newest Night Fury burst into action. She flew a bit crookedly, but that wasn't a painful failure at short distances like these. The next thing she knew, she was up in the Nest again. The last time, she'd been carried there on a dragon's back because the stairs were too painful for her to climb. That was only three days ago! This time, she'd flown there herself. She quivered with amazement that her life had changed so much, so quickly.

"Nicely done, for a beginner!" Astrid exclaimed. "My first flight wasn't anywhere nearly as graceful."

"I'm not sure you should talk about my flying and use the word 'graceful' in the same sentence," Guana replied. "But I'd be lying if I said this wasn't amazing and fun."

"So you haven't changed your mind about being a dragon?" Astrid asked.

"Oh, no, not at all!" Guana exclaimed. "When I was up in the air, looking down on everything, feeling the wind in my face... I felt like I could stay up there forever!" She paused thoughtfully. "Could I stay up there forever?"

"Every dragon fantasizes about that," Astrid grinned. "Eventually, your wing muscles would get tired, even if all you did was glide on the thermals, but food and sleep would bring you down long before then. We could probably make a deal with the Vikings to throw fish up in the air as we fly by, so we could snap them up and keep flying. Sleep is the real problem. If we pull a Gronckle and doze off in mid-air... well, the Gronckles can take a face-plant into a mountainside a lot better than we can. Toothless once told me he spent a day and a half above the clouds, just to see if he could do it. He said he probably wouldn't try it again unless he had to."

She noticed Guana's face fall, ever so slightly, at the mention of Toothless' name. "How confident are you in the air?" she asked. "I think we need to talk, and if we stay here, it's just a matter of time before we get interrupted and I have to sort out some other dragon's personal problems."

"I think I'm good, once I get off the ground," the new Night Fury replied. "Hiccup, can you get me up in the air again, like last time?"

"Sure," he answered from below them, "but I don't think I need to. You've got the skills, you've got the desire, and you've got some high ground to take off from. Just do exactly what you did in the cove, but with your eyes open."

Guana looked out at all the buildings that surrounded the Nest. If she flew face-first into one of them...

Then she heard something behind her. It sounded suspiciously like a dragon giggle. She looked back sharply, and saw that she was being watched. Astrid looked over her shoulder and made the same discovery.

"How long have you two been listening in on our conversation?" she demanded of her children.

"We just got here, honest!" Young-boy-night-fury protested.

"I suppose you think it's funny that a dragon has trouble learning to fly," Astrid went on. "Should I tell her about your first attempts at flying? Like the time you took off without looking where you were going, and flew headfirst into a –"

"Mom!" Young-girl-night-fury protested. "Don't talk about that! It's embarrassing!"

"Okay, both of you, front and center," their mother ordered. "Since you're already involved, you're going to help Guana learn to fly! Guana, they're going to take off, one at a time. Watch what they do, and then it will be your turn to do it." She glared at her twins. "No showing off!"

"Aww, Mom!"

"You heard me! Young-girl-night-fury, you go first." The little black dragon paused daintily at the edge of the Nest, then sprang into the air with a powerful downflap. In moments, she was up to full speed, which was faster than most adult dragons could move, and quickly faded to a black dot in the sky.

Her brother was next, and his take-off was also quick and effortless. The temptation to show off was stronger than his fear of consequences, and he did a quick snap roll before he leveled off and followed his sister. Astrid grunted and rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"Okay, Guana, you've seen it; now do it. I'll be right beside you. Are you ready?"

Wordlessly, Guana braced herself, tensed up her wings and legs, and leaped off the edge of the Nest. One flap stopped her downward plunge; another got her moving upward. Why wasn't she going up faster? The tail! A quick change of angle got her head up, and now she was clear of all the buildings and headed for the sky. She felt the air under her wings, saw the town falling away below her, heard the rush of wind in her ears... without thinking, she folded her ear flaps back.

"I'll give you a 'B' for style and an 'A' for effort," Astrid said from just behind her. "With practice, you'll learn to take off without so much wasted energy. Let's gain some height and find a place where we can circle for a while." After a few minutes, they leveled off under a patch of blue sky with no clouds. They glided easily; Astrid made minor adjustments to her flight path from time to time to keep the distance between them constant.

"This is just the most amazing thing that could ever have happened to me," Guana said at last.

"I know how you feel," Astrid replied.

"Do you?" Guana shot back. "I chose this life, because I had no life otherwise. You had a great life going, and Toothless told me he gave you no choice!"

"Is that what this is all about?" Astrid wondered. "Me and Hiccup, and how Toothless transformed us?"

"Tell me something, Astrid, honestly. Are you glad that you are what you are?"

"If Toothless had asked my permission to transform me," Night-fury-mother-of-twins began, "I would have refused, and probably tried to kill him to make sure he didn't do it anyway. When I realized what he'd done to me, those first few days were the hardest of my life. Toothless told us that the Night Furies only transform warriors, because people with weaker minds will crack and go insane, and I believe it."

"So you did hate him for it," Guana commented.

"Yes, for a while, I did," Astrid nodded, which made her flight path bob up and down slightly. "I felt... violated. I felt like he'd taken away everything that ever mattered to me, and all he gave me in return were things I never wanted. If I thought I could have killed him, or beaten him senseless, I might have tried it. I even fireballed him for a rather tasteless comment he made, but I didn't know what I was doing and it didn't hurt him very much."

"Wow," Guana said quietly. Her resentment toward Toothless didn't even come close to what Astrid had gone through. "So... what changed?"

"For one thing, there was Hiccup. He resented his own transformation for about three hours. He had no trouble falling asleep that night, and the next morning when his gliding lessons started... for him, it was like coming home to a place he'd never been before. I couldn't believe how quickly he adapted to a completely alien body and a completely alien outlook... and to be honest, I envied and resented him because he made it look so easy.

"When it was my turn to learn to fly, I fought Toothless' advice all the way. I wanted to do it my way, just like everything else I'd ever done. Unfortunately, my way didn't work. I finally had to admit that he knew what he was doing, I didn't, and if I wanted to avoid starving to death, I had to learn to fly, his way. It was galling, it was humiliating, and the fact that Hiccup was learning it so naturally just rubbed salt in the wound.

"But something Hiccup said to me kept coming back to me. We were talking about being able to trust Toothless, and Hiccup said, 'If you won't trust him, then you have to trust me, because if you don't trust either of us, then you're all alone in a world that you don't understand. I know how it feels to be all alone. You won't like it.' There was absolutely no arguing with that. Any Viking would have given a limb for the privilege of killing a Night Fury like me. I couldn't go back to the company of humans, and I sure didn't know how to relate to other dragons! I couldn't even catch my own food until I'd let Toothless teach me how to fly. I realized that if I wanted to live, I had no choice but to learn how to live, and I had to accept Toothless as my teacher."

"Again, you had no choice!" Guana interrupted. "Yet you say you like what you are. When did that change?"

Astrid looked thoughtful. "I think I really started to change when we first flew into the dragons' nest, and all the other dragons came out to meet us. I was surrounded by every Viking's mortal enemies, and they were chatting away to me like I was a new neighbor who'd just moved into a new village on another island. They wanted to know my name, and where I was from, and how I liked it here... it was just so normal! Of course, a lot of their interest was because I was a Night Fury, and the nest desperately needed the protection of more Night Furies, but it was more than that.

"I suddenly found out that dragons aren't so different from people on the inside. They want enough food to eat, and a decent place to sleep; they want to live free from fear, and see their children grow up safe; they don't like being told what to do, and they definitely don't like being eaten alive if they fail to do it. I realized that I could be a dragon and still be Astrid."

"Toothless told me he actually made you raid Berk." Guana's tone was accusative.

"We raided a lot of Viking villages. We'd have been eaten by the Mother if we didn't. We bent over backwards to avoid hurting anyone, like we always did." She shook her head sadly. "Hiccup got badly hurt on that raid, emotionally. He had to watch a Viking kill a dragon he was very close to, and when he dove on that Viking to avenge her, he almost fireballed his own father. He'd been through a lot of emotional pain in his life, but that had to be the worst trauma of all. In trying to comfort him, I finally accepted the fact that I was a dragon now, and I was never going to wear a skirt or throw an axe again, and it was time to deal with my new reality, because that was the only way I could reach him."

"Is that when you stopped hating Toothless?" Guana asked.

"I'd stopped hating him long before then," Astrid replied. "I understood why he did it; from his point of view, it was completely logical and reasonable. But up until then, I'd been dancing to his tune and doing things his way, because nothing else worked. When Hiccup went through that crisis, Toothless guessed completely wrong about how to help him get through it. For the first time, I rejected his advice, did it my way, and found out I was right and he was wrong. That was really the beginning of my new life. It was also the first time when I could even begin to think of Toothless as a friend, because now I could relate to him as an equal. That friendship has grown with time."

She glanced at Guana. "Toothless doesn't know everything. He insisted that female Night Furies always lay one egg a year; I've got a set of twins who say he's wrong. Hiccup surprised him several times during the teaching process. I've got a feeling you're going to surprise him, too, with the things you've learned today. But I can't fault him for being the way he is. He was the only one of his kind for so long, he's accustomed to thinking that way. Besides, he's a male, and you know how they can be."

"Actually, no," Guana said sadly.

"Well, I suppose you'll find out soon enough," Astrid said kindly. "Can Toothless be arrogant? Yes. Does he think he knows how to improve your life? Yes. Can he be a little high-handed now and then? Yes.

"But he has been a Night Fury longer than all of us put together. He really does know more about how to be a dragon than we do, and you'll be smart to take his advice on anything that pertains to dragons. He'll be the best flying instructor, fishing teacher, and fireball tutor you'll ever find. He's also kind, generous, unselfish, and totally loyal and loving to his friends. Learn what you can from him. If he's hard to be friends with, give it time. If I could come around, then you'll find a way, too."

"Do I really have to... be his mate?"

"Don't even worry about that! For one thing, there's no hurry – you can't mate until you're a strong flier. Besides, dragons choose mates pretty much the same way humans do, by mutual attraction. Some pair off for a year, some pair off for decades. It's not like being a Viking, where your parents pick your husband and that settles it, for the rest of your life. Toothless isn't your inescapable destiny or anything. If he totally doesn't light your fire, you have the ability to transform someone into a Night Fury, or one of my children could transform someone for you, once they're older. If I were you, I'd relax, forget about mating, and focus on learning how to be a dragon. Toothless will probably be a lot easier to get along with on those terms."

Guana nodded. "I hope I didn't drive him away for keeps."

Astrid chuckled. "He's determined, which is another way to say 'stubborn.' He'll be back. Besides, if I know Hiccup, the two of them are probably talking this whole thing over from a male perspective. We'll get this smoothed over, you'll get back to your dragon lessons, and you can sort things out between you and Toothless at your leisure."

"Thanks, Astrid," Guana said. "Can I ask you one more thing?"

"Sure."

"You said your daughter flew headfirst into something. I'm dying to know what that was."

Astrid laughed. "That was back on the island where we lay eggs; she wasn't even two weeks old yet. She was looking at her brother instead of her flight path, took off fast, and flew headfirst into a Gronckle who was passing overhead. She bounced off him so hard, she hit the ground again and it knocked her silly." She chuckled at the memory. "At least she learned from it. She always watches where she's going now."

Then Astrid's eyes narrowed. "I just realized – I'm the only Night Fury on Berk who hasn't taught you something about flying yet! Get ready to fold those wings. You're going to learn how to dive!"

Guana gasped. "Am I ready for that?"

"There's only one way to find out, sister!" Astrid grinned. "Watch and learn!"