Night Furies: the Next Generation Chapter 5
The wind in Agnarr's face was strong, but refreshing. He glanced over at Agmundr, and wasn't surprised to see a huge smile on his brother's face. Agmundr had fallen in love with flying from the first moment he'd climbed onto a dragon's back, and he'd probably never get tired of it until his dying day. Unfortunately, that day might be a lot closer than they'd expected.
"Question: you really feel okay?" Agnarr called, speaking in Forge.
"I really feel okay, no pain, nothing bad," Agmundr replied. "You really feel okay?"
"Yes, really." He switched to Norse for clarity. "Let's compare memories of that dream, so we don't miss any important clues."
"Okay. I remember a volcano full of water, with the sun coming up kind of behind it."
" 'Kind of' behind it?" Agnarr pressed him.
"Yes, it was a bit to the left of the mountain."
"That might be very important. I don't remember exactly where the sun was. If it was the way you remember, that means the mountain was a little to the south of us, as well as to the east."
"So we should head east-southeast, not due east," Agmundr concluded. "Got that, Six?" Both dragons banked gracefully and turned slightly to their right. They discussed the rest of the dream in detail, but could draw no new conclusions.
On they flew. The dragons wanted to race, because they didn't know how much time their human friends had left. The smith twins wanted to go slow, so the dragons wouldn't wear themselves out at the very beginning of what promised to be an extremely long journey. Their trip became a series of slow speed-ups, each of which would end when one of the humans would call, "Too fast! Go slow!" They flew high, just in case they encountered another tribe that had invented the crossbow and was eager to use it on anything that moved.
By the end of their first day, they had crossed what would now be called Norway and Sweden, made their way over a wide body of water that was partly frozen, and made landfall again in modern-day Finland. They found a clear spot by a lake where the dragons could go fishing, made their camp, cooked and ate some trout that the Night Furies caught for them, and lay down to sleep.
"We're already a long ways away from Berk," Agnarr said sleepily. "We're going to go places that no Viking has ever gone before."
"Maybe we should be making a map as we go," his brother suggested. "Too bad we didn't bring paper or drawing sticks."
"Oh, well," Agnarr said as he closed his eyes. "I hope we can find our way home again."
Neither one said what they both were thinking – "If we live that long."
They slept well; the Night Furies had to wake them up with fish-breath to get them moving the next morning. The dragons caught a couple of fish from the lake for their human friends, then stuffed themselves with raw fish while the human twins cooked and ate their meal. They struck camp, packed their belongings, and –
"Look up, right!" Night-fury-six-shooter exclaimed. "Thing flying!"
"Two things flying," her brother added.
Agmundr looked at his brother and did a facepalm; he didn't bother looking up. "I think we've been followed."
Within a minute, Night-fury-smallest-girl and Night-fury-newest-boy landed in their clearing, looking very pleased with themselves. The older dragons were almost flaming mad; the humans weren't sure what to do.
"You two need go home," Agnarr suggested.
Night-fury-makes-one-heck-of-a-bang was a little bit less diplomatic. "You little idiots better turn around and get yourselves home, now! Can you imagine the tail-smacks Mother and Father are going to give you?"
"That's why we're not going home," Smallest-girl replied saucily. "We're going to go with you, and come back as heroes, so they won't swat us!"
"No, you're not," Six-shooter answered. "We're just going to sit down and wait here until you get bored and turn back, even if it takes days."
"I don't want to sound cruel," Smallest-girl said, "but your human friends can't wait that long."
Bang grimaced. "She's got us there." He turned to Newest-boy. "And you! I thought you were the responsible one! What are you doing here?"
"Looking out for her," he answered, as though it were obvious. "One small Night Fury in the wilderness is begging for trouble. She told me what she was going to do, and I tagged along to keep her safe. Plus, I figured she'd need an extra pair of eyes to help find you."
"Well, you found us, and she's safe now, or safer now, so you might as well go home," Six-shooter suggested firmly.
"She'll be safe when she's home," he replied. "Besides, I'm not looking forward to a round of tail-smacks from my parents any more than she is. If I know my father, he'll slap me silly anyway, but if I come back a hero, he won't be mad when he does it, so it won't be so bad. I'm already in trouble, so I might as well do a good job of it."
"Look, what's the problem?" Smallest-girl demanded. "We can keep up with you, we can catch our own fish, we can add to your firepower if a fight starts, so why can't we go along?"
"Well, let's see," Bang began. "We've got two sets of parents worried sick because they don't know where their children have gone, we've got the entire future of the Night Fury race headed into the unknown with no adults around, we've got two inexperienced yearlings who refuse to understand that this isn't just a joyride... shall I go on?
While they argued, the human twins stood aside. "Do you think any of them is going to interpret this little discussion for us, so we can understand what's going on?" Agnarr wondered.
"It's pretty obvious what's going on," Agmundr replied. "The young dragons want to tag along with us, and our dragons are against it. If I know Bang and Six, they'll work it out and then translate it for us, so we might be here for a while. Let's change our bandages while we wait."
Their wounds didn't show much sign of healing. The black skin had spread slightly, and was beginning to show hard round black dots near the wound. "Night Fury scales," Agmundr decided. "Maybe we're going to turn into dragons."
"That's not what Gobber and Gothi said," Agnarr objected. "They don't know everything, but they seemed pretty sure what our end game would be." He glanced at his brother's wound. "I'd rather not turn into a dragon, but that still sounds better than the 'painful death' part."
"Here comes Six," Agmundr said. "I think we're about to get our translation."
"Much disagreement; no one happy," Night-fury-six-shooter began. "Young dragons stay with us because we cannot make them go home. They take orders from all of us, even you. Newest-boy learn to speak Forge; we all teach. Smallest-girl says she left note for mother, father. We fly now."
They secured their bags on the Night Furies' backs (the two young ones got to carry a small bag each) and resumed their voyage into the unknown. None of the various twins felt like talking, but the silence got depressing. They filled the void with Forge lessons for Newest-boy, who was a fast learner. They made their way steadily across Finland and into the land of Rus, avoiding human towns and cities as best they could.
"Tell me something," Night-fury-smallest-girl asked as they bedded down for the night. "We're Night Furies. How come we're flying in the daytime instead of at night?"
"The humans sleep at night, and this trip is all about them," Night-fury-makes-one-heck-of-a-bang replied. "Even if they could sleep on our backs while we flew, I'd worry that one of them would fall off. This is the best way to do things."
"But that doesn't make sense!" Smallest-girl protested. "We own the night! In the daytime, we could get shot! I know you're older and all, but I think you still have some things to learn about being a Night Fury."
"I think you still have some things to learn about friendship, little sister," Bang answered softly.