I'd never admit it, but I sometimes like it when Dad goes on the expeditions – it gives me a break.
The fleet left towards Helheim's Gate a few days ago (they should be there by now), I've never been there before but I used to listen to the older Vikings in the Hall when I was still mostly accepted. They told tales of a great fog, no matter rain nor sun, which dragons hidden atop seastacks grading the entrance to – well we have no idea.
I mean, Dad is probably right, just a massive beehive where we would just seal off all exits and incinerate all the dragons inside. But imagine if it's something else, what if it's the real gate to Helheim and the Dragons enter Midgard to sow destruction on those who follow the right gods – I could see Hel doing that.
I know that's wrong though, there is no conceivable way Toothless would be that evil, he drew me! I saw him chase after a reflection yesterday, it was hilarious let me tell you.
What if, and bear with me, I might have either had another one of those ridiculous idea or maybe a terrifying one, what if Toothless is the only sane dragon? I'd dismissed it before because the dragons in the arena are completely caged and terrified but when I had grounded Toothless, he didn't kill me, he could have returned and killed me, but he didn't. I had stolen his ability fly and he didn't go after me but those dragons in the arena went after me when I just chasing a shield.
So, what if the dragons in the arena are just beasts and somehow Toothless was just forced to raid the village? That makes sense because what else would he be doing here, using the towers as target practice? If that is the case, what forced Toothless? Dad sometimes speaks of a Queen of the nest, a lot like the Kings of England where there is no questioning their words, are dragons like that? Scary to think about.
Today Gobber is having us fight the Terror, I have an idea how to beat it (the same trick that got Toothless). I know I shouldn't be doing this; Astrid is suspicious of something; Gobber must be too (how could they not be?) I just can't help myself; Dad will be proud of me. No more disappointed scowl whenever he looks at me, I might even get a smile (pathetic, right?).
Anyway, I'm out of ink – I'll finish this journal entry later.
Wow this was high.
It didn't help as a gust of wind sent Toothless banking to the left, I lent right but he had already leveled out, "Okay there, bud. We're gonna take this nice and slow."
Right turn, I ran over my cheat sheet briefly until I found the needed tail position (position three), 'Here we go. Here we go… position three, no four." I flicked my foot downward slightly as to not accidentally move to the fifth.
The tailfin moved correctly, and I couldn't help a sigh a relief as Toothless seemed happy with it after his glance. A flap of wings later, we were banking northward, I checked my sheet was still in position and chanced a glance at the tailfin – it all looked good.
I flicked the peddle upwards, the tail followed my commands perfectly. "Alright. It's go-time. Its go-time." Despite my perfect reasonable self-assurances, my (admittedly always white) hands tightened their grip behind Toothless' ears as we went into a steep dive.
My stomach dropped for a moment, and I regretted all the actions I had taken to get myself in this position – riding a Night Fury leagues in the sky!
It lasted only a moment as fear was replaced with exhilaration. This was brilliant! "Come on! Come on buddy!" Toothless angled us underneath a massive seastack arch, his wingtips grazed the frothy whitecaps, and the wind pushed us around lightly.
We glided beneath the arch; seagulls joined our flight with their chirps and cries, and I felt so free. "Yes! It worked!" I leaned forward and directed Toothless between two seastacks – only to hit one, the wind knocked out of me, I grasped at the handles behind his ears to stop falling off. "Sorry!"
We then went ahead to hit the other seastack.
"That's my fault." I'll leave the piloting to the dragon (whose been doing it for years now). Toothless, growled, whipped me with his ear in the cheek, then growled some more. I barely felt it with the cold causing me to lose sensation in my face, but I got the message. "Yeah, yeah, I'm on it. Position four, uh, three."
I reset the peddle, and the tailfin flew open to match the real one. We turned upwards, I felt Toothless's wings rubbing against my calves and hips, but I couldn't find it in myself to care as we defied gravity and kept going.
We flew higher than the Gothi's hut on the second highest peak and the Prayer Springs at the very highest peak of the island. An entire days' worth of hiking done in a minute; nothing came close to flying.
It was amazing! The cold and the wind in my hair – something flew out over my shoulder, and I registered it a second too late.
My cheat sheet was falling!
I flailed my arms to try and catch it, I touched it, but it slipped again through my fingers. I reached backwards on Toothless and managed to grab the sheet in my fist, relief flooded me for a second and the beauty of the clouds, the sea and the mid-afternoon sun hit me before I felt a sudden different type of weightlessness overcome me. I looked down and all words froze in my throat (I locked eyes with Toothless and we both had the realization) – I was no longer attached to him!
We fell.
I barely heard Toothless's terrified scream over the rushing wind while mine never reached my ears. I saw him flailing his wings and tail, "Oh gosh! Oh, gods! Oh, no!" I tried to 'swim' through the air to get closer and thank the gods that it worked, "Alright! You gotta kind of angle yourself! Okay, no, no, no… come back down towards me! Come back down—YOW!"
For a second, I thought Toothless's unintentional tailwack to my face would send me spiraling into a seastack in an ironic twist of five minutes ago. Yet, somehow, Toothless managed to get under me, I likely had strained my shoulders and arms to grab the handles around his neck and pull myself onto the saddle.
The wind rushed past us, trying very hard to grab me off the dragon's back. I pulled my cheat sheet into my vision, but it was impossible to read. The ground became a slightly more gentle slope as the mountain became a forest: the sea was close.
But there wasn't any sea, only the jugged spikes of the seastacks welcomed us. If we did nothing, we would die. Toothless spread his wings in a sickening crack in an effort to slow us. It was worth nothing, there was no other choice: I let the cheat sheet fly away and crouched down on the dragon's back.
He felt it, I felt it. Something ethereal was created just then. We flew into the seastacks together, I pressed down the peddle once, twice, we twisted and spun, I had a sudden surge of hope. We would make it!
In the same second, that fledgling feeling of hope twisted and died.
We were in front of a wall of rock – too fast to stop. There was no way around it, no hole to get out of, no way we could make it over, the gods were cruel. They gave me a moment of happiness with the enemy of my people and then took it away.
I covered my face with my arms and Toothless dove into the ocean. Could we survive that? Water always saved me when Snotlout and the twins would push me around when we were kids, maybe it would? Maybe there was a passage below?
Well, I'll have you know, that in fact, if you hit the water going as fast as we were going, there is very little difference to hitting that rock wall we were trying to avoid. If I could have sighed then I would have because, looking back on it, I'm not surprised we died then.
I'm sure I didn't fall asleep on a beach – the logistics of that just make no sense. Why would be there anyway, the closest beach to the village is four hours away by Viking Walk (seven by mine). I blinked a few times, and the world came into focus, an almost too sharp focus.
I could see strangely well. My vision was not bad, although nothing to scoff at either (I could see the runes on paper and the dragons in the sky during raids – that was all that's needed in Berk).
This was like living blind and waking up with full vision one day. I could see the tree line at the edge of the beach, its branches, and birds nestled in its leaves. The different grains of sand around me, that strange black scaled shell type material all around me were all in perfect detail.
I could hear the small chirping from said birds, the rustling of crabs scurrying along the beach and the slow movement of a lynx attacking its prey a hundred meters away.
My stomach growled and demanded food, the different scents arounds registered to me now, the strange mix of minerals and stones that made up sand, all manners of small critters along the beach, the sea smelt differently, now the blue expanse was a series of distinct smells: I could smell the algae, the myriad of different fish, the faint smell of wood from Viking boats and… something I couldn't place but that made my hair stand on end. Danger – other dragons!
The question of where exactly I was an easy one, I must be on the beach north of Raven's Point because of the western sun and the seastacks jutting out of the fog to my right.
Seastacks. Seastacks. Why did that seam so important all of a sudden?
Seastacks! Toothless!
Memories flooded back to me: the bola launcher, finding the Night Fury and somehow not being killed for grounding the dragon. Finding him again and eating that horrid fish he regurgitated, the drawing he made and the time he let me touch him! Our flight test and our first flight that ended in…
Failure.
It hit me like a ton of bricks (or brick logs because we don't make our houses out of stones), I had failed again! What was I thinking? That I could make a dragon fly again? I just delayed the inevitable, as usual Gobber was right and I just spent too much time and energy on something else that ending in failure and someone getting hurt.
But this time, the injured wasn't just someone from the village who spent their time ignoring me – it was someone who opened their heart to me when he had three hundred years of war of reasons not to.
I was overcome by a feeling of guilt so strong, I staggered to the side, my paws scrapped on the sand, pebbles and what remained of the small cracked black shell, pain shot up legs, but I couldn't care.
Wait.
Paws?
And just like that the rest of my world fell apart. Where my hands should be, blueish black scales meet razor sharp claws. Something terrible shot through me again – a fear rose to my chest. I rose shakily to my legs, all four of them, which didn't seem reasonable but natural.
No, no, no.
I looked for something with a reflection, that black scaly shell thing. The end-of-afternoon sun reflecting against it, I turned towards it and saw my own eyes staring back at in but instead of a scrawny human body I saw a sleek black figure.
The wings and tail which I hadn't noticed dropped to the ground, the knees felt weak, and the body flopped onto the sand. That frail but unique sense of identity I had built around myself to shield my self-worth from my non-vikingness shattered and my universe fell apart around me.
I found my own reflection again in that shell, I tried to shed tears but was even denied that basic dignity, because, of course, of course, dragons were strong creatures and don't shed tears.
I roared at the sky in rage, sadness, grief and guilt; it sounded, even to my ears, like a dragon.
