Lightning And Death Itself Chapter 6
The next morning, Hiccup unwound himself from his tree-fork nest and padded down to the water for a drink. He found Astrid there, looking sadly at her reflection. He sat down next to her and said nothing.
At last, she sighed and said, "I guess it could be worse. He might have turned me into a Hideous Zippleback or something." Hiccup nodded wordlessly, not wanting to say the wrong thing, and took his drink.
"Rise and shine," Toothless called from the other side of the water. "Dragon school is now in session, and today is all about flying lessons. We'll start with the take-off."
"When do we eat?" Hiccup asked.
"We eat when you learn how to fly and catch fish," Toothless replied matter-of-factly as he glided across the water to join them. "That won't be today, and it probably won't be tomorrow, but don't worry. Your new bodies can go without food a lot longer than a human can."
"You're starting to irritate me with all this talk about how much better off we are now," Astrid snarled. "If we're that much better off, why do you have to keep telling us about it?"
"Because certain dragons in this cove are fighting their new nature, tooth and claw," Toothless answered. "You're used to seeing life from a human view, and you're overlooking the advantages of any other view, just because it's not what you're accustomed to."
"I am not going to get accustomed to this... this body!" she snapped. "I am going to find a way to go back to being me!" She stalked away angrily. Hiccup followed her.
"Astrid, whether you find a way or not, we have to learn about these bodies we're in!" he said. "This isn't about giving up hope; it's about being able to feed ourselves and take care of ourselves." He stepped towards her. "We have to be able to –"
She pulled away violently. "No, you don't! You're not sticking your nose into my emotions again!"
"I wasn't going to do that!" Hiccup protested. "Toothless says TrueSight only works if both of us are willing."
"Toothless says, Toothless says, Toothless says! When did we stop thinking for ourselves, Hiccup? When did we start taking orders from dragons?"
"No one is taking orders from anybody. But he's the only one who knows how these new bodies of ours work." He sat next to her, making a point of not looking in her eyes. "Astrid, my dad loves to tell about the time when he was a boy, and his father told him to beat his head against a rock. That rock split in two. But when I try it, all I ever get is a headache.
"I want to go home as badly as you do. If I could snap my fingers and get my body back, I would. But it looks like this is what we are. I want to eat, and I want to be able to get away in case our friends start throwing spears at us. I'm not going to be stubborn and beat my head against a rock. I'm going to learn what he's teaching us. I think you ought to do the same."
"Hiccup, I can't handle his condescending attitude."
"He is a little condescending, but can you blame him? He's teaching us stuff that real dragons would have learned right after they hatched. We're like children to him, we know so little. And it's not like he's had much practice in running a school for dragon wannabe's."
"I do not want to be a dragon!" she almost roared.
"You know what I mean. He's cutting us all kinds of slack; can you cut him some?"
"Oh, I'd love to 'cut him' some! If I only had my axe..."
Hiccup did something he never, ever imagined he would do. He raised a foreleg and gave Astrid a hard shove, knocking her off balance. "May I remind you, he isn't just our only hope for survival? He's also my best friend!"
Astrid sprang to her feet. Her teeth were bared, she was lashing her tail, her legs were tensed to leap at him. "Hiccup, if you ever, ever do that again –"
"Good attack posture, Astrid," Toothless commented as he joined them. "But you need to tuck your wings in; you've left them half-out and vulnerable. Always protect your wings in a fight. Now let's get back to our flying lessons."
Most of Toothless' advice boiled down to "your body knows what to do; just start the motion and don't fight your own reflexes." After a few false starts, Hiccup proved to be a fast learner. By noon, he was gliding back and forth across the water with growing excitement, and while his landings were about as graceful as a Gronckle's, at least he wasn't crash-landing any more. Astrid was determined to keep her actions under her own conscious control, which meant she was fighting her body's instincts. It didn't go as smoothly for her.
"Astrid, I don't mean to be harsh, but you're being a control freak over your own body," Toothless told her at one point. "Some aspects of flying are hard work, but this is supposed to be the easy part. Relax a little!"
"Relax a little," she muttered under her breath. "When I've got my own body back and my own voice back, when I'm back in my own home with my own family, and when the only dragons around are the wooden ones guarding our front doors, then I'll relax."
As the sun was setting, Hiccup took his first experimental flight above the trees. He wasn't going very high, but he was flapping on his own, turning and banking with fairly good control, and apparently having the time of his life. As the sun dipped below the horizon, he coasted in for an ungainly landing.
"Oh, baby!" he shouted. "What a feeling! Toothless, I thought it was great flying with you, but flying solo... wow! I don't know if I..." He glanced at Astrid and stopped.
"What, Hiccup?" Astrid demanded. "You don't know if you 'what'?"
Hiccup was suddenly sober. "I was about to say, I don't know if I could ever go back to living and moving on the ground all the time."
Astrid let out an explosive, angry grunt and stomped away. The other two watched her go.
"It's just like I promised you," Toothless said. "You're starting to think and react like a dragon, and that makes everything easier. You're making very good progress, considering you just grew your wings at this time yesterday. Can you help me out of this saddle harness? I don't think I need it any more."
Together, they managed to remove the straps and rods. Some of the leather had to be bitten off. Hiccup used his mouth to toss the saddle onto a rock; he'd worked so hard on it, he didn't want it to be ruined by leaving it on the ground. He looked around. Astrid still hadn't returned.
"How can we get her to understand?" Hiccup asked sadly.
"You can drag her by the tail, but all that will teach her is how to go backwards," Toothless counseled him. "When a dragon hatches out of its egg, its first instinct is to learn how to fly, even though it can't fly right away. You've got that same instinct; you got a taste of flight, and now you don't just want more – you need it. I don't think you'd be offended if I said you were born to be a dragon, and all I did was make it possible." He peered into the darkness and shook his head.
"Astrid doesn't have that desire, my friend. Maybe it's hard for her to break the bonds to her old life because her old life was pretty good. She has a full set of dragon instincts, and they'll keep nudging her in the right direction. It's just a question of time."
"Do you have that much time, bud?" Hiccup asked sadly.
"Even the oldest and wisest of us can't see the future," Toothless replied. "We could stay here for months, or my time could run out tomorrow. If it did, I know I've had a fine life, I've had some fun and some excitement, I've done my duty to the nest and the other Night Furies, and I've known a true friend. That's not bad, for a dragon."
Hiccup was too torn up at the thought of losing his friend. He said nothing. He just rested his forehead against Toothless' head. They stayed in that position, without saying a word, for several minutes before turning and finding places to spend the night.
"There's got to be a way," Toothless heard him mutter.