Episode 3: Animal House
Another mostly sunny day on Berk despite the constant cold. While the Vikings were hard at work, the dragons were wheeling through the air, chasing each other around the skies or just trying to get somewhere they needed to be.
Here on Berk, the people have made peace with the dragons. They were all finally living and working together. And it only took them three hundred years, which makes this peace a hard-won one. But there was one slight problem…
…they forgot to tell the animals.
Chickens, sheep, and yaks alike all scattered as a Monstrous Nightmare and a Deadly Nadder landed in their space. They'd been watching the two dragons playing in the skies, shaking, and just knew that the two were going to land in the farm they resided in. And they did. Oblivious to all the animals in distress, the two dragons wrestled and batted at each other with their wings and tails.
Bucket and Mulch hurried to their farm at the sound of their sheep's terrified bleating.
"Oh, not again!" Mulch grumbled and worked with Bucket to shoo the dragons away. "You go on now… No! You get, get! Shoo! Now you know you're not supposed to be in here!" he scolded the Monstrous Nightmare and the Deadly Nadder.
Both dragons finally took the hint and flew off. Bucket sighed with relief and gently picked up frightened chickens to place them back in their coops.
"Alright, everybody, time to earn your keep," Mulch said and herded the animals into their respective corners. He selected a sheep that wasn't as skittish as the others and started clipping off chunks of its wool.
Meanwhile, Bucket had just placed the last of the hens into the chicken coops. Looking at them, he remembered that he needed to collect their eggs while Mulch sheared the sheep. But…
"Mulch?" When his partner glanced at him, Bucket ducked his head into the chicken coop. "It's chickens who lay eggs, right?" he asked.
Sighing, Mulch released the sheep he just sheared and stood up. "Do we really need to go over this again?" he asked Bucket.
Bringing his head out of the chicken coop, Bucket looked down at his boots. "No…"
Mulch sighed. This was nothing new. Ever since Bucket got one too many lightning bolts to the head along with a few whallops from dragons in the old days, his memory wasn't what he used to be.
"Apparently we do," he declared and had Bucket stand in the middle of their farm where he could see all the animals. "Well, pay attention, Bucket."
"Wool." He pointed to the sheep.
"Eggs." The chickens in their coop.
"Milk." The yaks chewing their cud.
"There. Was that so hard now?" Mulch then turned to Bucket. The latter hummed and scratched his bucket-clad head, still looking lost.
Groaning, Mulch approached one of the yaks. Milking them was one of Bucket's chores, but he sometimes needed a demonstration.
"Observe. Just grab the udder, like so, and pull." Mulch gently took one of the yak's udders and pulled down. To his confusion, no milk came out. Furrowing his brow, he tried again. And again.
"Pull!"
At the last pull, the yak snapped and kicked Mulch away. The hapless farmer collided with a pile of milk buckets. Tipping one of them over as he sat up, Mulch took note of the milk he had spilled.
Which was none.
"Uh oh… I think we're empty…" Mulch mumbled and looked around. Bucket, having finally remembered what animal gives what, was trying to milk the yaks. When no milk was given, he moved on to the chickens. No eggs from any of them. As for the sheep, Mulch noticed that they were trembling. Just like the one he'd sheared earlier.
No milk. No eggs. And the sheep were probably too busy shaking to give any more of their wool…
"That's not good," Mulch muttered as he and Bucket realized that the animals' odd behavior was going to affect the village's supplies.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, on one of Berk's mountain slopes, four Dragons Riders were oblivious to Bucket and Mulch's dilemma. They had far more important matters.
"Yahoooo!"
"Ha-ha-ha!"
"Yodel-ay-hee-hooo!"
"Wheeee!"
Like seeing whose dragon could sled down the mountain faster.
'I'm glad you found a mountain with a smooth cover of snow. The other mountains were too rough for my tender skin,'Embla said to her Rider, Erland, as they zipped down the mountain.
"Glad to know at least one of Berk's mountains meets your standards," Erland chuckled and turned into a curve, Embla's sleek crimson form slaloming through a trio of pine trees.
The two of them were currently fourth place, but were catching up to Zenna and Stryka. The one-eyed Fiersome and her equally one-eyed Night Fury were chasing first place, which was currently being held by Astrid and Stormfly as well as Hiccup and Toothless. The dragons' roars mingled with their Riders' cheers as they sledded down the mountain.
Astrid caught Hiccup's gaze and grinned as she and Stormfly took the lead. Hiccup didn't mind, focusing on helping Toothless navigate. Oh, what a thrill it was to zip down the mountain at top speed! To zigzag through trees and snow banks and then to launch off the larger ones and sail through the air for a brief moment before landing on the snow again!
Zenna and Erland soon caught up to Hiccup, their dragons flanking Toothless on both sides, Embla on the left, Stryka on the right.
Zenna was the first to see Stormfly raise her tail and yelled, "Nadder spines!"
"Whoa!" Hiccup yelped as Toothless angled his body to avoid the projectiles, which landed in the snow inches from them. Zenna and Stryka did the same, narrowly avoiding colliding into a tree. Embla and Erland were far from Stormfly's range and stayed on the course.
"Hey! Astrid!" Hiccup exclaimed as the blonde Viking girl looked over her shoulder.
"Oops, did I do that?" Astried asked with an innocent smile.
"Since when was attacking fellow sledders part of the rules?" Erland hollered.
"Cheater!" Zenna accused.
Catching up to Astrid and Stormfly, Hiccup nudged Toothless. His Night Fury warbled and extended his right wing, blocking the pair's view.
"Hey!" Astrid lowered herself on the saddle to try and see the path ahead, but Toothless raised his wing up and down. "No fair!" she complained before Toothless folded his wing back.
Astrid saw the tree branch up ahead too late.
"AH!"
Astrid wiped the snow from her face and gave Hiccup a playful glare. "So it's gonna be like that, huh?!" she yelled.
"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Hiccup shot back, pretending to be innocent, while Toothless rumbled with amusement.
"It seems that they have forgotten about us," Stryka remarked to Embla as they sled down the mountain side-by-side.
"Such is the nature of competition," Embla said, rolling her eyes in amusement.
Zenna glanced at Erland, who was watching the competition up ahead of them, smirking. Erland met her gaze and grinned.
"Shall we see how they sabotage each other and then seize victory for ourselves when they're caught unawares by their own tricks?" Erland proposed.
"We shall!" If she'd been closer to her tricksy friend, Zenna would have high-fived him.
Stryka and Embla watched as Toothless and Stormfly raced each other, the latter firing a blast at a large snowdrift up ahead. Hiccup yelped as the shock of the explosion sent him and Toothless into a spin.
"It was her idea, but I approve!" Astrid laughed as the boys struggled to right themselves.
"That was a pretty large blast…" Zenna observed, having felt the shockwave from where she, Erland, and their dragons were. She heard a rumble and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Both she and Erland looked over their shoulders.
To their horror, an avalanche was rolling down the mountain behind them.
"AVALANCHE!" Erland yelled before he and Zenna took to the skies on their dragons.
Having heard Erland's shout, HIccup and Astrid also looked over their shoulders. While Astrid and Stormfly were able to lift off, Hiccup and Toothless weren't lucky.
"Toothless, what's wrong?!" Stryka roared in distress.
"It's my tail!" Toothless roared as he thrashed his tail around in an attempt to try and break the ice coating his prosthetic tail fin.
"His tail's frozen!" Hiccup tried in vain to open the fin while the rest of his friends anxiously hovered over him.
"Hold on!" Erland hollered and had Embla fly close to the avalanche. Concentrating, he created a shield wide enough to block the incoming rush of snow and ice. Erland grit his teeth as his shield shook with the weight of the avalanche.
Meanwhile, Astrid and Zenna and their dragons landed beside Toothless just as he and Hiccup flew over a snowbank and landed on flatter ground.
"Can Stormfly melt the ice?" Hiccup asked as he got off the saddle to inspect the frozen tail fin.
Astrid nodded and guided Stormfly over to Toothless' tail. "Low flame, girl. Just enough to melt the ice," she coaxed her Deadly Nadder.
Stormfly chittered and opened her mouth, forming a small fireball inside it. Holding her mouth close, she let the heat do its job. But, she'd just started to melt the first coating of frost when suddenly…
"Argh! NO!"
Erland clutched his aching head, his shield cracking and then disintegrating into several golden sparkles. He and Embla watched in horror as the avalanche cascaded down the rest of the mountain. Stryka roared and covered Zenna with her entire body as the snow swept over them. Hiccup and Astrid weren't so lucky, the two of them and their dragons getting carried away by the rush of snow and ice straight down a crevasse a few feet away.
"Nonononono…" Erland babbled as Embla landed. Once his boots hit the snow, he was running.
"Hiccup! Astrid! Zenna!" Ignoring his headache from having overexerted his magic, Erland looked around with desperation.
'I couldn't hold the shield up… Norns above, I really thought I'd gotten the hang of that aspect of my magic already…' Erland thought, guilt clawing at his insides.
"Hiccup? Astrid? Zenna? Toothless? Stormfly? Stryka?" he wandered nearer to the crevasse. He'd just taken a look over the edge when a weak plasma blast erupted from behind to his right.
Erland whipped around to see Stryka crawling out of the snow, a shivering Zenna clutched in her front paws.
"Cold, cold, cold, cold, c-c-cold…" Zenna mumbled as she wiped snow off her arms and hair.
"Oh, thank Norns…" Erland jogged over to her and hugged her tightly. "I'm so sorry. I thought my shield would hold…" he mumbled.
"Hey, hey, shhh…" Zenna carded her fingers through his dark hair. "It's okay. I'm okay. Stryka and I are okay…" she murmured. When Erland let go of her, she took him by the hand and led him to the crevasse.
"Hiccup! Astrid!" Zenna called out into the gaping darkness while Stryka roared for her mate and Deadly Nadder friend.
Down below, Hiccup blinked his eyes open. Shaking snow off his head, he looked around and saw only darkness. "Astrid?" he called out through chattering teeth.
"Over here…" Astrid's voice answered back, a few feet away from him. "Hiccup, I'm freezing…" she mumbled.
"I'm here!" Hiccup reached out into the darkness and, to his relief, felt Astrid's hand brush against his. He pulled him to her and wrapped his arms around his crush's shivering frame. "You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah. Nothing broken…" Astrid nodded, resting her head against his shoulder.
"Where are the dragons?" HIccup wondered out loud. Everything was pitch black, but it was odd to find that he and Astrid hadn't been buried alive in the snow.
To answer his question, a plasma blast exploded upward into the darkness.
"Toothless?"
Hiccup heard his best dragon friend softly growl as another fireball came up, followed by a chitter.
"Stormfly?" Astrid perked up when she heard her dragon.
Another fireball punched through the snow above the two teens' heads, letting in sunlight. Now that they could see, Hiccup and Astrid saw that Toothless and Stormfly were shielding them with their wings. Their friendly faces were a welcome sight.
"I see daylight," Hiccup said, looking up.
"We're getting out of here," Astrid chimed in with relief.
Hiccup smiled at Toothless, the Night Fury giving a gummy smile in return. "Look what they did," he told Astrid.
"They saved our lives," Astrid said as she saw that her brave Nadder and Toothless had formed a shelter for them with their own bodies.
She also noticed, a second later, that she and Hiccup were essentially hugging each other. She and Hiccup looked at each other, blushed, and then scooted away from each other.
"Uh, um… that was… so…" Hiccup stuttered while Astrid cleared her throat. "So, we're good now?"
"G-good as new…" Astrid answered before punching Hiccup in the shoulder. She grinned when Hiccup rubbed his shoulder, shyly smiling back. At least things weren't awkward now.
Getting up, the two of them then heard Zenna and Erland's voices calling out to them. Mounting their dragons, they flew up and out of the crevasse.
"I'm sorry I couldn't keep the shield up…" Erland mumbled once the couple and their dragons were with him and Zenna.
"You did your best." Hiccup patted him on the back with a reassuring smile.
Erland nodded but, deep down, he couldn't help but chastise himself. 'I once blocked a full-on fire blast from the Red Death at close-range! I should have been able to fend off a measly avalanche…' he thought.
"Maybe, next time, we should have a rule of no fireball launching while sledding," Zenna suggested.
"Agreed," Astrid replied before they all got on their dragons and left the mountain.
Meanwhile, back on Bucket and Mulch's farm, Stoick and Gobber had been called over to assist the pair with their animal troubles. Presently, Gobber was under a yak, trying to milk it.
"Hmmm… Aha… there it is, mm-hmmm!" Gobber pushed himself out from underneath the yak. "Just what I thought. She's not giving milk. None of them are," he reported to the chief.
"We know that, Gobber. We want to know why," Stoick told him, his brows furrowed.
"This reminds me of the time I moved my mother in with my goat. She was mean, ornery, ate everything in sight." Gobber looked out at the other farm animals, reminiscing and connecting the dots. "The goat was so scared of her, she couldn't give milk."
Ignoring the fact that Gobber's mother had been scary enough to stop a goat from making milk, Stoick asked. "So, what are you saying, Gobber?"
"Mothers and goats don't mix. Same with farm animals and dragons. We stopped fighting dragons, so now they're around all the time. The animals are spooked," Gobber explained. And then, as if to prove his point, a wild dragon flew over the farm close to a small group of sheep.
The sheep couldn't move and one even keeled over, dropping sideways.
"Like I said, spooked," Gobber remarked.
Stoick frowned at what his friend was saying. If the animals were too scared to produce the milk and eggs, the village's food supplies would dwindle. And if that wasn't bad enough, it was getting close to winter. The summer and autumn harvests had been well but not what he'd call a bounty. The village stores had some food stored away, but it wouldn't be enough to feed the village through a long winter.
His musings were interrupted by Bucket, who suddenly clutched at his bucket and started groaning.
"Uh-oh. Your bucket's not tightening up on ya, is it?" Mulch asked in concern.
"No, I'm just…" Bucket managed to say before his bucket tightened around his head so hard that it felt like his very brain was being squeezed out. "FIIIIIIINE!"
Mulch noticed Stoick and Gobber's confused looks. "Well, whenever his bucket gets tight, it means a storm is coming," he explained.
"No storm, everything's fine!" Bucket said quickly and straightened up.
"Bucket…" Mulch looked at his friend knowingly.
"I don't want there to be a storm! If lightning strikes me bucket, I could end up less intelligent!" Bucket exclaimed before screaming as his bucket tightened again.
"Oh, ho ho! That's one tight bucket!" Mulch marveled. "And the tighter the bucket, the bigger the storm."
"But that's crazy. Storms don't hit this early in the season," Stoick said, incredulous.
"And besides, who ever heard of predicting the weather with a bucket? That's what chicken bones and goose feet are for," Gobber chimed in.
"If you recall, that bucket of his predicted the Blizzard of Olaf," Mulch reminded them.
"That was a bad one. It took us a week just to dig Mildew out," Bucket groaned as he tried to loosen his bucket to no avail.
"And the rest of our lives to wonder why we bothered." Mulch shrugged and patted Bucket as he let out another howl of pain before looking at the doubtful chief. "Trust the bucket, Stoick," he said.
"You trust the bucket. I want a second opinion," Stoick replied before he and Gobber left to visit Gothi. If anyone could predict a storm, it would be the village's wise woman.
Gothi looked at the chief and the blacksmith expectantly when they arrived.
"Gothi, I've come for your counsel. Is there going to be a storm?" Stoick asked her.
Taking up her staff, Gothi wrote her reply in a pile of dirt she'd placed on the wooden ledge jutting out from her hut.
"What's she saying, Gobber?" Stoick asked.
Gobber, being one of the few who could read Gothi's mysterious scribblings, looked over Stoick's shoulder.
"She says: "What do you think?" Huh?" Gobber muttered. He and Stoick glanced at each other and shrugged, perplexed.
Sighing, Gothi pointed at her hut with her staff. Turning around, Stoick and Gobber saw that she'd fortified it. A table had been used as a cover for the doorway. Sandbags propped up the posts. And the windows had been boarded shut. The old woman had prepared.
Turning back to her, Stoick asked, "How can you be so sure? Was it the chicken bones? Or the goose feet?"
Gothi resumed writing in the dirt and let Gobber translate.
"Mm, eh heh… She says she could hear Bucket's screaming from way up here," Gobber revealed.
That made him and Stoick pause for thought. Who'd have thought that a bucket could predict the weather after all?
Once they arrived at the Dragon Training Academy, Hiccup, Astrid, and Zenna couldn't help but recount their narrow escape from death by freezing to Snotlout and Fishlegs. Erland leaned against the catapult the group was lounging around, brooding.
"Ha! So you're telling me that our resident seidr could use a shield against a fire, but not a pile of snow?" Snotlout snorted, earning an icy glare from Hiccup and Zenna accompanied by Erland flipping the bird at him.
"I hadn't expected the sheer volume to break through my shield's defenses, Snotlout." Erland folded his arms tight against his chest. He glanced at his two best human friends and sighed, "And it won't happen again…"
"It was a one-time thing. We'll be more careful next time," Zenna added before looking to Hiccup who decided to continue the story and steer it onto a more positive path.
"And then the dragons used their wings to block the snow. Meanwhile, Stryka had thrown herself over Zenna to protect her from the avalanche up top," Hiccup recalled.
Fishlegs was all ears. "I've never heard of anything like that. Not even in the Book of Dragons," he said in awe.
"I know! It was incredible! It was as if their protective instincts just kicked in," Astrid remarked as Stormfly and Toothless stood behind them, rumbling protectively.
"Who'd believe it?" Hiccup smiled at Toothless, the Night Fury giving a gummy grin back at him. "The dragons we fought for years came to our rescue."
"With bonds like ours, it was as natural to them as breathing," Zenna chimed in, gently scratching Stryka behind the ears, the one-eyed dragoness purring.
"Yeah, if it weren't for them, we would have frozen to death," Astrid agreed with her.
"You know what? You could have used your own bodies to keep each other warm," Fishlegs suggested.
Both Zenna and Erland covered their mouths to muffle their snickers as Hiccup and Astrid scooted away from each other, having realized they were sitting together quite closely.
"You think they…?" Zenna glanced at Erland, her one violet eye glimmering.
"Oh, I'm sure they did," Erland whispered to her with a cheeky grin. Zenna giggled and turned back to the couple as they tried to get over the awkwardness.
Snotlout looked at Astrid and said, "Hey, Astrid, if you're still cold…" and opened his arms and made a kissy face at the blonde Viking girl. In response, Astrid elbowed the catapult.
This time, Erland and Zenna and even Hiccup couldn't hold back their laughter as a large pile of snow fell from the snow and buried Snotlout.
"Hey!" the disgruntled Jorgenson shouted, his voice muffled by the snow.
"In some places, that is called karma," Erland remarked as Snotlout crawled out of the snow.
Snotlout looked at Zenna, who merely said, "Don't even think about it, Snot," and took out one of her battle sticks and waved it over her head. Snotlout swallowed and backed off.
"Hey, Hiccup!"
Hiccup glanced down and saw Ruffnut and Tuffnut below the catapult. Both of the twins looked up at him expectantly.
"Your father's looking for you," Tuffnut told him.
"He looked angry," Ruffnut added.
"He's looked angry since the day I was born." Hiccup got on Toothless' back, followed by Zenna and Erland mounting Stryka and Embla. "But I'm sure there's no connection," he said, looking at his brother and sister not by blood but by bond.
"I hope there isn't," Zenna mumbled.
"It's probably just stress," Erland helpfully supplied before the three of them flew to the Haddock house on their dragons.
When they arrived, Stoick and Gobber told them of the impending storm.
"There's a bad storm coming. We could be locked in. We might not be able to hunt or fish for months," Stoick informed the trio.
"But it's way too early for a storm. We're in the middle of winter. Devastating Winter isn't due for another month," Hiccup said.
"Not according to Gothi," Stoick countered.
"You classify winter as regular and devastating here?" Erland whispered to Zenna.
"There's also Catastrophic Winter. That's the worst one," Zenna told him, nodding when Erland gave her a bewildered look.
"Well, what are the three of us supposed to do? We can't control the weather." Hiccup looked from his father and then to Erland, who gave a small shake of his head.
"No, but you three can control dragons." Stoick noticed the pointed look Erland gave him and sighed. "At the very least, know how to reason with them. If they don't stop scaring the animals, we won't have any provisions to live on," he said.
Before Hiccup, Zenna or Erland can reply, Bucket and Mulch arrived with Zenna's parents.
"Any luck?" Stoick asked Mulch who tossed him an empty milk bucket.
"Not a drop. And this is after yankin' on that poor yak for three hours," Mulch reported, dismayed.
"The poor yak," Zenna murmured as her brothers grimaced.
Stoick turned to Edgar and Henna. "What about the collections?" he asked them.
"We've got most of the meat and fish salted and stored away. Some are heading out into the forests and beaches to get whatever fish and wild game they can find," Edgar said.
"The women and children are all bringing in the crops into the great hall along with whatever grains and bread they have in their houses. Astrid's mother and I did a tally. It'll be enough to last a month or two if we ration," Henna chimed in.
"Let's hope the dragons haven't spooked the wild animals off. As for the crops, we'll need to implement rationing if we don't get any milk or eggs from those yaks and chickens," Stoick said grimly.
"But it's not like the dragons are trying to be scary. I mean, they don't even eat farm animals. They eat fish," Hiccup pointed out.
Gobber stepped in. "True. But they're huge, they breathe fire, and now that we've made peace with them, they're everywhere. The animals are terrified of them," he told the young dragon trainer.
"Here's where you three jump in and say 'We'll fix this," Stoick said to Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland.
"Well, I don't think we can give guarantees, but we'll certainly try our best." Erland shrugged.
"Okay. But how long do we have before the storm hits?" Hiccup asked Mulch, who was gently patting a groaning Bucket to somehow ease his pains.
"About a week," Mulch replied.
"No problem. More than enough time," Hiccup managed to say before Bucket suddenly clutched his head and started moaning.
"Correction: three days, six hours," Mulch piped up, gently helping Bucket walk out of the house.
"How can that bucket be freakishly accurate?" Zenna wondered out loud.
"Uh, okay. Less time… might be more of a problem," Hiccup muttered.
"I can't believe you people can predict the weather through Bucket himself." Erland watched Bucket and Mulch leave, making a mental note to add Bucket's bucket to his List of Wonders on Berk.
With such a tight deadline, the trio and their dragons headed out to gather the rest of the Riders. Erland looked up and grimaced upon seeing the darkening clouds.
"Damn it, Thor. Can you not throw a tantrum right now?" he muttered under his breath before a nudge from Embla had him hurrying to catch up to Hiccup and Zenna.
Once they and their friends had some of the sheep, chickens, and yaks in the arena with the dragons, the work began. Starting with trying to get the animals to go near the dragons on the other side of the arena.
"Come on, big boy. You can do it. Come on," Hiccup said as he tried to push a reluctant yak to the dragons' direction. "You'll really like them if you get to know them."
The yak mooed dolefully and gave a toss of its head, backing up when the dragons looked in its direction.
"I don't think pushing them to the dragons is helping them, Hicc," Zenna observed as she held a trembling chicken in her arms.
Astrid tried to calm down the more frightened animals by saying, "The dragons look scary but they're just big, scaly reptiles."
"Just like Snotlout!" Tuffnut joked. To his misfortune, said Viking was standing next to him. Snotlout grabbed Tuffnut and reared his fist back. He frowned and asked, "You're the guy, right?"
"No," Tuffnut said in a high-pitched voice.
On the other side of the arena, with the dragons, Erland was trying to calm the wild dragons he'd brought to the arena.
"Okay, break it up you two," Erland said sternly.
"Hey! It's not my fault this idiot's hogging all the space!" a Deadly Nadder named Venturine snapped at a Monstrous Nightmare named Singescale.
"Just fold your wings and stay in your corner! It's not my fault this place is cramped!" Singescale growled.
Oblivious to the dragons' argument, the yak Hiccup was trying to push freaked out and ran to be with the rest of its herd.
"Just…" Erland pinched the bridge of his nose as he regarded Venturine and Singescale with annoyance. "Just try not to argue anymore for now. Please," he implored.
Fishlegs got an idea. "Okay, what if we look at this from an animal's perspective?" he suggested and got down on his hands and knees. The other Riders watched him crawl towards Singescale, bleating like a sheep.
"Oh, hello, Mr. Dragon! I'm just a little sheep here… walking… doing sheep things… Baaa!" Fishlegs said, his sheep impressing coaxing a tiny smile from Erland who remained with the dragons.
"What a funny human," Singescale rumbled.
"Baaa!" Fishlegs got closer to him and looked up. "You know, he doesn't really seem so big…" he said.
"Hello, Funny Human!" Singescale roared in greeting, giving Fishlegs a closeup look of his teeth.
Fishlegs screamed and ran to the safety of Meatlug on all fours. "Sorry! But I'm siding with the sheep on this one," he whimpered.
Singescale cocked his head to the side and looked at Erland. "What was that?" he asked.
"You scared him with your hello, dumbtail…" Venturine rolled his eyes.
Hiccup and Zenna slowly started herding three sheep towards Singescale, the latter being told to stay behaved.
"It's okay, little guys… You're safe here with us," Zenna murmured to the bleating sheep.
"Look, I've learned that once you have a positive experience with something you're afraid of, it isn't so scary anymore," Hiccup said to the group, Zenna nodding in agreement.
"Okay, here you go, boys… over here…" Hiccup murmured to the sheep once they were in front of Singescale. "And that's what we'll do with these sheep. We gotta prove to them that they have nothing to fear," he said.
At that moment, both Venturine and Singescale decided to breathe fire. The sheep bleated in distress and scattered, with Zenna frantically chasing after them.
"Stop, drop, and roll!" Zenna hollered, taking off her vest to try and smother the flames singeing the sheep's wool.
"Ohhh, at this rate we'll never get any milk or eggs!" Hiccup despaired as the rest of the animals started panicking.
Singescale and Venturine both had the decency to look ashamed when Erland glared at them.
The skies continued to darken as Stoick and Gobber made their way to the food storehouse and inspected the supplies inside.
"Just as I feared. We haven't had time to fully stock the food storehouse!" Stoick grimaced upon inspecting that the village's supplies of smoked and dried fish and meat was only half of what would be enough to feed his people through a regular winter. He knew Edgar had led some men into the forest to hunt what they could, but he didn't have high hopes for them coming back with nothing more than a boar and a few rabbits and squirrels.
He turned to Gobber, face grim.
"If this storm is as bad as I think it is, we're never going to survive."
"Not with this inventory…" Gobber nodded in grim agreement as Stoick shut the doors to the storehouse.
"The crops and what we've got in here won't be enough to feed us through this storm. We're going to need everything we can get from those chickens and yaks," Stoick said as they headed back to the Great Hall.
"I'm not really comfortable putting my fate in the hands of a brainless bird and a big wooly beast that sleeps in its own dung," Gobber admitted, scratching the back of his head.
"Well luckily our fate isn't in their hands. It's in my son's," Stoick said and looked in the direction of the dragon training arena. 'If my son and his friends can handle dragons, they can handle farm animals easily,' he thought.
Unfortunately for Stoick, things weren't going as easily as he had hoped.
"Nonono! Don't go out! Get back here!" Zenna shouted as she and Tuffnut chased after some fleeing chickens. Tuffnut ran to the arena's entrance and held his arms out to the sides and glared at the chickens, who clucked with fear at his assertion of dominance and fled to the relative safety of Zenna's presence.
"Thanks, Tuff!" Zenna gave the male Thorston twin a thumbs up and herded the chickens into a tidy flock. Tuffnut blushed before quickly ducking his head before the one-eyed Fiersome girl or, gods forbid, his sister noticed.
Hiccup decided to try a different tactic at Erland's suggestion. "Another way for the animals to overcome their fear is to show them that dragons are afraid of things too," he said.
"Remember Magnus the Merciless? He was a pretty scary guy," Astrid supplied, making Fishlegs shudder upon remembering the brutish bully who used to terrorize them when they were little. Even Astrid ran away whenever she saw him coming.
"I was afraid of him until I learned that he was afraid of the dark," Astrid revealed.
"So during the day, merciless," Tuffnut snickered.
"And during the night: Tuffnut!" Ruffnut smirked, receiving a pinch from her twin brother.
"Hey! That's a real problem," Tuffnut said defensively.
Astrid rolled her eyes at the twins' bickering and continued. "I'm just saying, knowing he was afraid of something made him less scary to me."
"Yes." Hiccup nodded. "So let's show the yaks that dragons are afraid of things, too," he said just as Erland brought out a basket.
'Sorry about what's about to happen, boys,' Erland thought to Singescale and Venturine.
The Monstrous Nightmare and Deadly Nadder were confused until Hiccup opened the basket and took out two eels. Both dragons hissed in alarm and scrambled back until they were pressed up against the wall. Nearby, the yaks the teens had brought in watched in fascination at the sight of these huge beasts frightened by something as small as eels.
"I think it's working!" Astrid grinned.
"Finally, we're getting somewhere…" Erland sighed with relief.
Hiccup smiled only to yelp as one of the eels slipped out of his hands. Singescale roared in alarm as the slimy creatures slithered over to him.
"I'm out!" he screeched and tried to get out of the arena. A poor sheep couldn't dodge Singescale's thrashing tail and it was hit and sent flying into a wall.
"Or not," Erland deadpanned.
Hiccup groaned and tugged at his hair. Something Astrid and Zenna didn't fail to notice.
"Don't worry," Astrid reassured him, only for Hiccup to startle and frantically say, "Worry? I-I'm not worried! Do I look worried?"
"You're starting to develop an eye twitch. I'd say you're already beyond worried," Zenna told him, feeling sorry for him.
Erland tried to calm down Singescale. As he grabbed the slippery eel and tossed it back into the basket with the other, he looked up. "Shit…" he muttered, seeing the dark clouds rolling in and flurries of snow flying in the air.
The villagers had noticed too and were now making their way to the Great Hall, burdened with whatever essentials they had managed to pack before their chief had sent out the summons.
At the entrance to the Great Hall, Stoick kept an eye on the steady stream of people coming in. "Bring in everything you need! We don't know how long we'll need to be hunkered down!" he called out.
Mulch only had two things: a wheelbarrow and Bucket, who was riding said wheelbarrow.
"How's Bucket doing?" Stoick asked Mulch who sighed and looked at his companion worriedly.
"Look at him! He usually loves a wheelbarrow ride," Mulch said, feeling helpless as Bucket groaned in agony as his bucket tightened more.
Stoick saw Gobber step out after helping Gothi into the Great Hall. He had to stay here and make sure everybody was safe inside, but there was still the matter of his son and his friends still outside.
"Mulch, I'll take care of Bucket. You and Gobber go find the kids and bring them here," Stoick instructed.
Following Stoick's orders, Mulch handed Bucket and the wheelbarrow to him and joined Gobber in hustling down the steps to make their way to the Dragon Training Academy.
"Hey! Calm down!" Astrid chased after the yaks as they ran about the arena, mooing fearfully. "Get back over here!" she yelled.
Ruffnut and Tuffnut were trying to help Erland corral the sheep while Snotlout, Hiccup, and Zenna chased after the chickens.
"You know what I'm learning from all this?" Hiccup scooped up one of the chickens, the frightened fowl flapping its wings. "Chickens are really, well, chicken," he observed.
"You don't say," Zenna deadpanned, two chickens held under her arms.
Fishlegs then carried a basket towards the pair. "What if we showed them how much they have in common with the dragons? They both lay eggs, right?" he suggested before pulling a large green egg out of the basket. "A Terrible Terror laid one last week!"
"I still find it hard to believe that such a tiny dragon can lay such a humongous egg," Zenna remarked.
Fishlegs placed the egg in front of the chickens. Three of them got curious and jumped up to sit on it. The chickens clucked with contentment and Zenna, Hiccup, and Fishlegs all looked at each other and smiled.
"Alright, see? An egg's an egg. Right, ladies?" Hiccup asked the chickens. No sooner had those words left his mouth, the egg exploded and blew all three chickens sky high.
"Until it explodes," Hiccup deadpanned while Zenna tended to the newly-hatched Terrible Terror.
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news but…" Erland called out and pointed to the sky, where snow was already beginning to fall.
That's when Gobber and Mulch arrived, looking frantic.
"Everybody out! The storm is here!" Gobber yelled to the teens.
"But I thought we had at least three days," Zenna said, bewildered.
"The weather's decided to speed things up," Erland said, silently cursing Thor and any other weather deities he knew.
"Alright! Let's get going!" Mulch started herding the farm animals out of the arena, much to Hiccup's concern.
"W-wait! We haven't made any progress with the animals!" Hiccup protested.
"Your father wants everyone in the Great Hall," Gobber told him.
"Take the others. I need to stay and keep working with the animals. They're… they're still afraid," Hiccup requested.
"Hiccup, I admire your determination. But you'll freeze to death out here if you stay!" Erland chided him.
Gobber nodded and picked up a chicken. "Yeh can't get eggs from a frozen chicken! We've got to get the animals in the barn!" he yelled over the howling wind.
Reluctant, Hiccup followed everybody out of the arena and helped guide the animals to the barn. Unfortunately, when they arrived, the barn had been completely buried with ice and snow.
"So much for the barn," Gobber sighed.
"This day just keeps getting better and better," Erland muttered. All around the group, the wind buffeted their faces and snow and ice pelted their bare skin. Erland pulled at his sleeves, trying to keep his arms covered.
"There's no other place to hold them!" Mulch hollered as the wind blew hard, making an eerie howl.
"There's still one place!" Zenna piped up.
"The Great Hall!" Hiccup pointed at the faint smudged outline of the structure in the distance.
"So, we're gonna have the dragons and the animals under the same roof?" Mulch tried to brush ice off his beard, looking nervous. "We know that won't work," he said.
"We have no choice. Let's go," Hiccup said.
Astrid and the others followed his lead, their dragons walking alongside them, their larger bodies shielding them from the wind, while the animals walked on the other side.
"Alright, keep 'em separate!" Gobber instructed the group as they began trekking down the mountain.
"Got it!" Zenna hollered back.
'You alright?' Embla turned to look at Erland, who nodded.
'I'm not that cold, Em. Don't worry,' Erland mentally replied, before his eyes widened and he looked down at his hands. He breathed a sigh of relief. No signs of his skin turning blue, thank the Norns.
The last he wanted was to freak everyone out by having his Frost Giant heritage come out all of a sudden.
Erland shook his head and focused on the task at hand as he and his friends guided the animals.
"This way!" Astrid yelled to some straying yak who promptly trotted back to her.
"Come on, come on! Let's go! Oh, this way, guys!" Fishlegs hollered as he handled the sheep.
Progress was steady and everyone thought that they'd make it to the Great Hall safely as they slowly made their way down the mountain. Suddenly, a lightning bolt struck a nearby tree. The tree fell, startling Stormfly who raised her tail in alarm. Hookfang was right behind her and was startled into flaming up. At the sight of the flaming Monstrous Nightmare, the animals all freaked and broke free from the line.
"Damnit, Thor! You had to spook them!" Erland shook his fists at the sky, fuming.
'That could have been a regular lightning bolt, Loki,' Embla told him.
"That timing was too spot-on to be a regular bolt of lightning. I will be suspicious of every storm from now on," Erland said and glared at the skies. The bleats, clucks, and moos of farm animals snapped him out of his anger and he looked to see the rest of the gang trying to keep the animals calm.
"No, no, no, no, no, come back!" Zenna yelled as she and Stryka tried to chase after some of the sheep. Tuffnut was trying to grab some of the fleeing chickens while Ruffnut was attacked by one of them, the latter flailing as the frightened bird flew into her face. Fishlegs and Erland narrowly avoided getting trampled by a yak, both of them spinning like tops.
"Hey! I got this under control!" Snotlout said confidently and kept his stance wide as the yaks came stampeding his way. The yaks ignored him and kept stampeding.
"Ow! Ow! Ow!" Snotlout screamed at each yak that stepped on him. By the time all the yaks were gone, he'd been tramped into a pulp. "Ow! Okay, everything hurts…" he whimpered
In short, it was complete pandemonium. Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland looked at each other and nodded.
"Where are you three going?!" Gobber yelled as the three hopped onto Toothless, Stryka, and Embla's back.
"I'm going after them!" Hiccup declared.
"And so am I!" Zenna seconded.
"Forget it, you three! We'll never get them rounded up in this storm!" Gobber tried to dissuade them.
"Not on foot!" Erland retorted.
"With Toothless, Stryka, and Embla we can! We have to try. If we don't, we starve to death," Hiccup said to Gobber seriously.
"No! Your father, your parents, and Gothi will kill me if I left you three out here!" Gobber exclaimed, frantic as Toothless, Stryka, and Embla took off.
"Sorry, Gobber!" Hiccup apologized.
"Be right back, Gobber!" Zenna hollered.
"We'll be fine!" Erland reassured the worried blacksmith-dragon dentist.
"Hiccup! Zenna! Erland! Come back here!" Gobber looked to Astrid, exasperated. "Astrid will you talk some sense…" he managed to say before noticing that the Hofferson girl was also mounting her dragon.
"Ah! No, no, not you, to! Astrid! You're not going with… Ach!" Gobber could only watch as the rest of the Riders followed Astrid's lead and took off on their dragons. "GET BACK HERE, ALL OF YOU!" his hollers fell on five pairs of deaf ears as the teens followed the Three Weirdos.
At the Great Hall, the Berkians huddled together under blankets and furs as the wind howled outside. Suddenly, the doors flew open as a powerful gust of wind battered against the hall.
"Move those tables against the doors!" Stoick bellowed.
"You heard the chief, lads!" Edgar shouted and some of the men hurried to barricade the doors.
No sooner had the doors been shut were they thrown open again by a frantic Gobber.
"Stoick! The barn's been destroyed! The animals have scattered!"
The Berkians looked at one another fearfully. What of their farm animals? Were they dying out in the cold?
Stoick bit his lip to keep himself from cursing. And then he realized that Gobber was alone.
"Where's Hiccup and the others?" he asked, anxiety creeping in his gut.
"I tried to stop 'em, Stoick. They went after the animals," Gobber admitted.
"WHAT?!" Edgar exclaimed, looking at the snowstorm raging outside and thinking of his daughter out there.
"You let those kids go out into this storm?! Why, Gobber, I oughta…" Henna marched up to the two-limbed blacksmith before being held back by her husband and Gothi. The latter pressed her lips into a thin line. 'Norns, protect them. Loki, I pray you and your magic will be strong enough to face this storm…' she prayed.
As Stoick, Henna, and Edgar tried to work out a plan to find the eight Dragon Riders, Mulch arrived with two yaks.
"I caught these two. I figured at least with these, we'd be able to start a new herd," Mulch said cheerfully.
Gobber glanced at the yaks as he, Stoick, and Zenna's parents walked past him and said, "You might want to take another look, Mulch."
Mulch blinked before stooping down to take a quick peek. He blushed and mumbled, "Oh! Uh, never mind, boys…"
Unaware of their parents walking out into the snowstorm, Hiccup and Zenna led Erland and the others on the search for the animals.
"You find as many as you can! We'll herd them back to the Great Hall!" Hiccup told the gang.
"Can we swing by my house?" Fishlegs wrapped his arms around himself, the cold already seeping into his bones. "I'd like to get my heavy coat," he pleaded.
"We've got bigger things to worry about, Fishlegs!" Zenna hollered, squinting her one violet eye through the snow.
Tuffnut decided to have a little fun as they rode through the storm. "Check this out!" he said before punching himself in the face. "I'm so cold, I can't feel my face!" he told Ruffnut, who grinned and slapped him. "Didn't feel it!" he taunted her.
"That takes all the fun out of it!" Ruffnut grumbled.
"You can punch each other senseless later! Preferably when we're somewhere warm and dry!" Erland reminded them as he scanned the horizons.
Suddenly, Hiccup called out, "There they are!" and pointed to several moving blobs in the blanket of white. "Come on!"
"Let's get to wrangling, everyone!" Zenna hollered as Stryka flew low to start herding some yaks alongside Toothless and Hiccup.
'Can I herd the sheep?' Embla asked Erland, who rolled his eyes fondly at her.
'As long as you don't turn it into a game of tag,' Erland reminded her. With a happy roar, Embla swooped down. The sheep bleated in fear of the giant red dragon, but Embla took care to have them all running in the same direction. Her wings spread out wide as if she were trying to blanket all the sheep within her shadow.
"Yaks to the left!" Fishlegs called out, Meatlug guiding the animals left.
"Chickens to the right!" Snotlout yelled. Hookfang roared and started flying right only to nearly collide with Fishlegs and Meatlug halfway. "Hey! I'm flying here!" Snotlout griped before getting back to the task at hand. "Chickens! Over here! Follow me this way. Come on!" he yelled to the scrambling birds.
Hookfang felt the wind pick up and bucked in midair, switching his flight path to avoid stronger winds. Not that Snotlout knew that.
"Wait! Where are you going? Ahhhh!" Snotlout yelped as Hookfang flew erratically.
"Damn wind! I can't fly straight!" Hookfang roared as he struggled against the gales.
"Zenna and I'll take the rest of the yaks, Meatlug!" Stryka told Fishlegs' dragon.
"Got it!" Meatlug replied and started leading the sheep after Stryka took over guiding the yaks. Fishlegs patted Meatlug's side as she flew low over the sheep.
"Sheep! Hey, sheep, this way! Baaaahhh! Baaah!" Fishlegs bleated. To his relief, the sheep started running in a herd. "Hey, it's working! Baah!" he cheered as Erland and Embla joined him, their own group of sheep joining the herd.
Erland, while glad that Fishlegs' tactic was working, noticed a shape emerging from the darkness. His eyes widened and he had Embla fly higher. "Fishlegs, Meatlug, watch out!" he shouted.
Unfortunately, Fishlegs only had a split second to hear Erland's warning before Meatlug got stuck under a fallen tree.
"Baahhh…" the hapless Ingerman bleated woefully.
"Oops…" Meatlug rumbled, kicking her stubby legs about to try and free herself.
"They'll be fine," Embla reassured Erland, who facepalmed and took over herding the sheep, leading them to Astrid and Stormfly nearby.
"We need a pen!" Erland shouted.
"I got them!" Astrid had Stormfly hover directly above the sheep. "Now!" she commanded.
"You wooly ones aren't going anywhere!" Stormfly declared and launched her tail spines. The spines stuck themselves into the snow in a tight enclosure, effectively keeping all the sheep contained.
"Gotcha!" Astrid whooped just as Snotlout came screaming in on Hookfang. Stormfly squawked with indignation upon seeing her perfectly-made makeshift fence knocked down.
"Snotlout, what are you doing?! You're all over the place!" Astrid yelled.
"YOU TRY HERDING CHICKENS WITH A DRAGON WHO DOESN'T LISTEN TO YOU!" Snotlout retorted as he tried to rein Hookfang in.
"Not my fault you aren't paying attention to where the wind blows!" Hookfang snarled.
'Fly over to where Embla and I are now and stay low!' Erland sharply commanded, the Monstrous Nightmare following his silent order. Once he was sure Hookfang and Snotlout were safe, he and Embla chased after the fleeing sheep.
"Hiccup! Zenna! Erland! Stray sheep!" Astrid yelled, seeing two lambs that had broken from the flock and were heading towards a ridge.
Without a moment's hesitation, the Three Weirdos urged their dragons forward. Stryka then roared and motioned with her head to a bunch of chickens slipping on the ice.
"Stryka and I will get them. Save those sheep!" Zenna told the boys before urging her one-eyed dragoness down. Erland and Hiccup went on ahead, keeping the lambs in sight.
The two lambs couldn't see where they were going and bleated in alarm as they slipped and started sliding off a cliff! And then, with a whoosh, they were caught by Toothless and Embla.
"Good job, bud," Hiccup praised Toothless who looked at the lamb he'd caught, giving it a gummy grin.
"Excellent work, Embla." Erland looked down at the lamb his Changewing had caught. "It's alright, little guy. We've got you," he reassured it, Embla nodding in agreement.
"I see their parents," Embla reported, spotting a ram and a female sheep waiting anxiously at the edge of the flock Astrid had managed to herd.
"Okay. Down you go, little ones," Toothless rumbled as he and Embla set down the little lambs back on the ground. The lambs trotted over to their parents who were relieved.
At that moment, Zenna and Stryka rejoined the group. Stryka had a pleased look as she cradled the chickens safely in her front paws as if they were hatchlings.
"The little chickadees are safe," Stryka purred, glad to see that the chickens were now used to her and calm in her presence.
Astrid then flew over to the trio, looking worried. "Guys, the storm is getting worse! I can't see anything!" she told them.
"Saving the animals won't mean a thing if we can't find our way back…" Erland muttered, brushing his hair out of his eyes as the wind blew it into his face.
"We need some light, Stryka."
"Come on, bud. Give us some light."
Stryka and Toothless both fired out plasma blasts at their Riders' command. The glow of the plasma illuminated the darkness, allowing the team to see a little more clearly.
"Stray yaks, twelve o' clock!" HIccup hollered, spotting the yaks up ahead.
"I see them! And they are huge!" Tuffnut hollered before he and Ruffnut flew towards the yaks.
But, even with just her one eye, Stryka could see far enough and roared to Zenna.
"Translation?" Zenna turned to Erland who said, "Those aren't yaks."
Zenna raised an eyebrow upwards as the Twins snatched the yaks.
"I got the yaks!" Tuffnut said triumphantly.
That's when Zenna looked at the supposed yaks in Barf and Belch's grasp and realized that they'd grabbed her parents, Stoick, and Gobber. "Oh, those definitely aren't yaks…" she muttered.
"Put me down right now!" Stoick bellowed at the Twins. Not wanting to get further on their Chief's bad side, they released the adults. While Stoick, Henna, and Edgar landed gracefully, Gobber had a clumsy landing.
"Do I look like a yak to you?!" Gobber yelled as he got on all fours in a yak-like stance.
"Mom? Dad? What are you two doing out here?" Zenna questioned as she and Stryka came in for a landing.
"Looking for you, love! I can't believe you and Stryka would fly off into such dangerous weather such as this," Henna said worriedly,
"When we get back to the village, you and Stryka are grounded for a week," Edgar said sternly, though he and his wife reached for their daughter to embrace her.
Accepting their punishments, Stryka and Henna huddled close to Edgar and Henna.
"You shouldn't be out here, Hiccup," Stoick told his son as he and Toothless landed. Both boy and dragon faced him, their faces guilt-stricken.
"Dad, I'm sorry I let you down," Hiccup mumbled, looking around at his friends and the farm animals. They were all cold and afraid, and it could have all been avoided if he, Zenna, and Erland had had a better plan.
But Stoick looked far from disappointed or angry. He gently placed his hand on Hiccup's head. "It's not your fault, son," he said and placed his hand on Hiccup's shoulder. "I'm taking you back. All of you."
"Which way?" Gobber asked him as he had the Riders and their dragons organized with Erland's help.
"Follow our tracks," Stoick instructed the group.
"There aren't any," Edgar said and looked around, horror dawning in his eyes. Following his lead, everyone looked at the snow around their feet and saw that the wind and snow had gotten rid of all their footprints.
"So much for that idea," Gobber sighed, a couple of yaks huddling closer to him as the wind picked up.
"Sir?" Fishlegs' teeth chattered. "What do we do now?" he asked. The other Riders were already shivering and trying their hardest to get warm by standing close to their dragons.
"C-c-cold…" Zenna stammered and rubbed her arms while Hiccup and Erland huddled on either side of her. Henna and Edgar tried to take all three into their arms, hoping that their combined body heat could warm them somehow.
Stoick looked at the teens and looked to Gobber and Zenna's parents, who were doing their best to keep them warm. "Everyone, come together," he advised. Nodding, Hiccup and his friends huddled closer to one another while Stoick, Gobber, Edgar, and Henna formed a protective ring around them.
A little apart from them, the dragons watched their Riders battle the cold. Seeing Hiccup and Zenna shivering, Erland wrapping his thin arms around them both, Toothless, Stryka, and Embla stood up.
"Come on, guys. There's seven of us. Plenty of fire to get our humans warm," Toothless told his fellow dragons.
"Leave the first fires to us and Meatlug," Stormfly chirped.
"That's odd…" Edgar murmured upon seeing the dragons walking towards them.
"What are the dragons doing?" Henna wondered out loud.
In response to Henna's question, all the dragons surrounded the humans, stood on their hind legs, and spread their wings wide. Hiccup and Astrid smiled as their dragons stood behind them, shielding them from the storm.
"What are they doing?" Stoick gazed at the creatures, confused.
"They're protecting us," Hiccup and Zenna said, smiling.
"It's their natural instinct," Astrid chimed in, feeling much safer now that Stormfly and the dragons were around them.
"Alright! The wind is blocked. And now…" Meatlug threw up some lava onto the snow, creating a makeshift lava pit. "...something to keep everyone warm," she rumbled, delighting in Fishlegs' joy at being warm.
"Much obliged, Meatlug," Erland said gratefully as Embla wrapped herself around him.
"I don't produce fire, but I hope I'm warm enough, Loki," Embla hissed softly. Erland settled against her flank, relaxing.
'Thank you, Embla.' Erland smiled and stroked her chin.
While the humans were safe and warm, the animals huddled outside of their protective circle, unsure. Toothless noticed the two lambs and chickens he, Stryka, and Embla saved earlier shivering with their fellow farm animals.
"Be back in a minute!" he said to the other dragons before bounding over to the sheep. Gently, he nudged the animals over to their little huddle. Stryka purred as the chickens settled next to the Fiersomes under her shadow while Embla let the lambs and their parents settle under her wings while Erland petted them.
Eventually, all of the farm animals joined.
"They're not scared of the dragons anymore!" Zenna said giddily.
Erland couldn't help but chuckle as he looked at Embla. 'As long as you don't try to play tag with them, they'll be alright with you lot,' he remarked.
'I'll make sure to remind Barf and Belch that,' Embla thought with amusement as the sheep bleated at her.
Seeing the animals accepting the dragons' protection and warmth, Stoick smiled. "Your dragons are really something, son," he said.
"Yeah. They are," Hiccup said, feeling proud of Toothless and all the dragons.
Hookfang and Stormfly breathed out the occasional flame up into the sky to provide light while Toothless and Stryka, as well as Barf and Belch helped keep the embers from Meatlug's lava alight. The storm continued on well into the night and stopped just before dawn. The little group of humans and farm animals had made it through the storm.
Shaking the snow off their wings, the dragons helped carry the sheep and chickens on their backs while Stoick, Gobber, Edgar, and Snotlout carried the sheep. Hiccup, Zenna, Astrid, Erland, the twins, Fishlegs, and Henna led the yaks down the mountain and into the village.
The Berkians breathed a sigh of relief when they heard the wind stop. When the doors opened, revealing their chief, Gobber, the Fiersomes, and the young Dragon Riders, a great cheer rose up from all of them.
"They're back! And they're alright!" Mulch said with relief. Bucket looked much better as well, his intense headaches having ceased as the storm died down. "And the animals are alright too," he added, seeing that all the animals were alive and well.
Mulch then heard the heavy footsteps of dragons and nudged Bucket. "Here come the dragons," he warned, expecting the animals to scatter once the dragons entered. But, to his amazement, he saw a couple of sheep on Hookfang's back. The Monstrous Nightmare huffed as the sheep hopped down, not even the slightest bit afraid.
Even the yaks and chickens didn't seem to mind as more dragons entered the Great Hall.
"Will you look at that…" Mulch said in wonder as Astrid called out to everyone.
Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland - each holding a chicken - held up three newly-laid eggs.
"The chickens are laying eggs again!" The Three Weirdos announced, the villagers cheering with the news that starvation was staved off.
"I was right. Chickens do lay eggs," Bucket said with a grin, finally remembering Mulch's lessons in farm animals.
As everyone celebrated and took care of helping the animals get settled along with the dragons, the Dragon Riders were more than happy to go and grab steaming cups of hot soup and tea prepared by Gothi and the village mothers. Their dragons huddled around them and the farm animals that joined, providing another layer of warmth.
Hiccup, Zenna, and Erland sat together, watching the farm animals interact with their dragons while some of the villagers busied themselves with collecting the eggs as the chickens laid them.
"It's amazing that getting stuck in a storm is what pushed the animals and the dragons to get along," Zenna remarked as she sipped her tea.
"Well, we made our peace with the dragons when we saw that we could trust them. I guess the animals just needed to see that they actually have instincts to protect all of us," Erland observed.
"Thank the Norns for that. Life on Berk's now a little warmer," Hiccup said, relieved.
"I'll toast to that." Erland grinned as he held up his cup, Hiccup and Zenna toasting in reply.