chapter 2

  I didn't know how to react.  I just sat there looking at it. I remembered when dad found Toothless.  He was trapped in the cove, because without a tail he couldn't fly out.  This dragon wasn't trapped though, it was on the beach near a rock slide. I couldn't stop myself from getting closer to the dragon.   Curiosity was driving me, possibly, to my doom.  I slid down to the rock closes to the dragon.  I peeked over the top of the rock, and saw why the dragon didn't fly away.  One of its wings was stuck under a rock.

"You are trapped." I thought to myself. "But how am I suppose to help you?" I may not like showing the way I feel around others, but this was different.  This dragon needed my help, and I intended to do that. I went to the front of the rock slide. I was going to walk up to it from the front so I didn't scare it from behind.

   I went into a crouch.  I was only yards away from the resting beast.  I walked slowly up to it.  I tried to steady my breath, I didn't want to wake it up because of my hard breathing.  My heart pounded against my chest.  It felt like it was going to jump right out of my chest.  I had to ignore it.    A life was at stake even if it wasn't my own.  Now I was only inches away before I jumped away, for the beast opened its eyes.    This was something I hadn't noticed, the dragon had violet eyes.  I've never seen anything like it before, then again, I've never seen another Night Fury before.  But did Night Furies have violet eyes? Toothless had yellow eyes, so I don't know if this was a Night Fury or not.  That's not important now!  An unknown dragon was trapped under a rock slide and I had to help it. It narrowed its eyes at me. I froze instantly.  It was glaring at me, like Bottonlout was glaring at Comet.  Why was he doing that anyway?  No!  This is not the time to think about that.  I decided to take another step closer.  It was wide awake now.  It stood up as far as its wing could take it.  When it couldn't get any farther it tugged on its wing some more. If it kept that up, the wing would be broken for sure!  I did the only thing that came to mind.  I stretched out my hand to seek the dragon's nose. When I didn't feel the scaly skin I looked at it again.  Its eyes were wide like it was seeing sunlight for the first time.

    I let my hand fall to my side, and took a step closer to the wide-eyed beast.

 It didn't move.  

I took another step towards it.

It didn't move.

"Okay now I'm confused.  Why are you not moving?" I said crossing my arms in confusion.    It just tilted its head at me.  It just looked at me until its eyes narrowed again. I took a step back.

"What is it?"  I asked the dragon.  I looked behind my shoulder and heard voices. It was Comet and Bottonlout.  "These guys just don't stop do they?" I, again, asked the dragon.

   If they were this persistent I knew they wouldn't just leave.  You would have to give them what they want or they won't leave.  And what they wanted, was me.  I turned back to the violet-eyed dragon.  "Stay here and don't move." I said motioning to the dragon to lay down. The dragon did as I asked it to. It lied back down to the position I found it in. "Good boy.  Girl.  Thing." I stuttered.

   I didn't want the boys to see my new found dragon so I decided to meet them half way. I couldn't stand the fact of what would happen if they found it.  Even though we don't kill dragons anymore, I couldn't help but think something would be awfully wrong.   But if I keep this up something awful is bound to happen.  The boys turned the corner, and sure enough, I ran into Bottonlout. But this time I didn't just run into him, I fell on top of him. Turns out they were actually running toward me, not walking.  I instinctively closed my eyes right before the blow.  When I opened them again I saw Bottonlout's closed eyes right below me.  When he flashed open his pale blue eyes my cheeks flushed red. "Are you... blushing?" Bottonlout asked in a concern voice.  He was still clearly disorientated by the blow. When I heard him ask that question I pushed away from him and got to my feet as quickly as I could.  Comet came by me and put a hand on my shoulder.

"Are you okay?  Why were you running?" He asked. I looked at him trying to return my cheeks to their original color.  

"I could ask you the same thing." I said, brushing off the dust from my shirt.  

"Oh we were just..."

"Just what?" I interrupted him. Just then, Bottonlout wobbled up to his legs.

"We were coming to see if you were okay." He said trying to regain his balance.

"I don't need help, so you can leave now." I retorted trying to make it sound believable.

"Everyone needs help." Comet said.

"Well not me!" I shouted at him.  Comet stretched out his hand and rested it on my cheek. His thumb gently ran across the front of my eye.  His hands were so warm and soft, I wanted him to keep them there for forever.

"Your eyes are red." I said gently. " A sure sign of tears." For what seemed like the thousandth time, my cheeks turned red once more. This time they were hotter than ever before. And if I could feel how hot they were Comet was bound to as well. I slapped his hand away, knowing that it might be ages before I would feel those soft, warm hands again.  Even though I slapped his hand away he still had a warm smile on his face.  I was in a trance.  Deep in thought, and lost in his hazel eyes.  I came back to earth when I remembered the injured dragon.  

"Um, you two have to go." I said trying to hurry them.  Comet's smile went away.

"W-why?" he stuttered.

"Yea why?" asked Bottonlout, butting in as usual.

"Because, um...." I panicked trying to think of an excuse.  I spoke the first thing that came to mind.  "Because your house is on fire!" I said while pointing to Bottonlout.  

"What! My house is on fire!" he screamed.

"Y-yes it is! And I suggest you hurry, I can smell the smoke from here!"

"I got to go! Come on worm you're helping me!" He grabbed Comet by the shirt and dragged him off. Before either of them could say something, I ran back to the trapped dragon.

"Man, he's dumb. I can't beleive he fell for that."  I said to myself pleased that my plan worked. 

   I finally made it to the dragon again.  I was only a few yards away.  It opened its eyes, but instead of narrowing them, they stayed plain.  

  This is the first wild dragon I have ever seen.  I had no idea how they acted, what they ate, or what they think.  

  When Dad was younger he found a new dragon once.  It's now called a Typhoomerang.  It's a strange dragon, with a huge wingspan. almost as big as the Timberjack, maybe even bigger!  It had horns like a ram, but the face of serpent.  And it wasn't hard to know when a Typhoomerang was around.  They leave giant Scortch marks in a circular pattern. It was a sight to see but they are very protective parents.  Just like my dad. Although, that dragon was a baby. This one was obviously an adult and trapped. 

  The dragon sat up and eyed me. I went into a crouch once more.  I knew this thing wouln't know who or what I am and I didn't want it to fire at me.  So I tried to think of a plan.   I couldn't ask anyone for help, I just couldn't.  So, I did the only thing I could think to do:  I sat.

   I got my plan from what my dad did when he found Toothless in the cove.  Toothless din't trust him yet, so I might as well try it.  I walked a few yards away from the dragon and onto a rock near the ocean.  I opened the journal dad gave me for my birthday three years ago.  I loved to draw and write things that I discovered.  I opened to the next open page.  I took several glimpses at my newly found dragon and began to draw.  I took notes on what I saw about the dragon as well.   I wrote how it looked like a Night Fury and has violet eyes.  I stopped there because I didn't know anymore about it.  I was interrupted by a growling noise.  It was my stomach, I was starving.  I looked up to the sky and noticed that the sun was about to hit the mountains in the horizon.  I dropped my journal and pencil.  I was always told to be back before the sun reached the tips of the mountains, now I was going about to be late.  Not to mention in trouble.  Leaving my journal and pencil in the sand, I ran as fast as could back to the village. 

    I made it to the village right when the sun reached the mountains. I was going to get in trouble without a doubt.  I reached my house once half the sun was out of sight.  I opened the front door to only to see my mother tapping her foot with crossed arms.

 " Oh, hi Mom. I said slowly shrugging my shoulders.

" Don't 'hi' me! I told you to be home once the sun reaches the mountain." She said angrily.  I lowered my head.

 " I knew I would be in trouble. Sorry Mom." I muttered.

" What in the name of Thor were you doing anyway?" she asked.

" I was, um." I stuttered.  Mom opened her mouth to say something, but Dad came into the room with woven plates piled with loaves of bread, fish, and chicken. Mom put a smile on her face and walked up to her husband.

"What's all this?" she asked sweetly.

"A present from the neighbors in town congratulation Freya's first day of training." he answered.

"Yea, because I did  a lot of training today." I thought to myself.

"Well, Hiccup she was late for getting home, so I thought you can punish her." Mom said.

"Why me?" Dad said shocked. Mom just gave him 'the evil eye'. She does that every time we don't listen to her.  That includes grandpa.

"Fine." Dad said to Astrid giving in. He looked at me and said, " Go upstairs and get ready for dinner." 

"Yes, Daddy." I said trying to act like a little angel. I always act like a daddy's girl whenever I'm in trouble.  It gives me an advantage since Dad usually picks my punishments.

" What! That's it?" Mom said aghast.

"Well, she was probably talking to all her friends about her first training day and lost track of time. Besides she's never been late before, so we can't be too hard on her. Right?" Dad said, convincing Mom to go easy on me.

 "Right."  Mom replied. "But I'm still not happy about it."  

  I was sent to my room after that.

"Well," I told myself, "at least I had dinner."  I crawled into bed with the clothes I already had on. I wans't going to bother myself with them. I pulled the thin piece of cloth that was my covers up to my chin, then began the restless night that I was forced to go through.

  Morning came and I was at the doorstep of the academy. On my way there Dad told me Gobber told him everything. I was hoping he didn't mean everything. 

   I walked in the academy wearing an identical shirt from yesterday , but this one was green. I was wearing the same skirt as yesterday and black leggings under it.

Dad was already gone when Gobber wobbled in and started a speech about training dragons.

"Today we will train a dragon. And as I said before your first dragon will be a...."

"A gronckle!" Buffnut and Scruffnut blurted out at the same time and, as usual, started punching each other playfully. 

"Right." Gobber said annoyed once again. He wobbled over to the huge gate where the dragons were held.

"Wait, aren't you going to show us how to train a dragon first?" asked Bottonlout nervously.

"I believe in learning on the job." Gobber said with a smirk. He pulled down a lever that opened the gate doors. Out of those doors came an orange and yellow gronkle. I caught one glimpse of that thing before I ran for my life.   

   Like roaches, we all scattered around arena.

"Now what's the first thing you need?" I heard Gobber yell, over the shrieks and screams of everyone else.

" A doctor?" Salmonfoot guessed.

"A way out of this crazy place?" Bottonlout suggested.

"A shield." I answered wondering why they would guess such stupid answers.

"Right, a shield. If you have a choice of a sword or a shield take the shield." Gobber yelled. I heard a loud boom. I looked the direction of were I guessed it was coming from. I saw Scruffnut and Buffnut on the ground rubbing their heads. A hole in the ground, that was still burning, was in between them.

   The gronkle must have shot at them. As I was told before the gronkle blasted lava so I geuss the twins should be cowering in fear.  I ran toward the pile of Shields that lay in the middle of the arena. Before I grabbed my own I saw Comet and Bottonlout grab the same shield and started to fight over it.

"Let go, worm!" I heard Bottonlout yell.

"Get another one, you pile of dragon dung!" Comet responded. I didn't hear the rest of their useless argument.

  "Boys quite fighting and grab a shield!" Gobber shouted at Comet and Bottonlout.

"I saw it first!" Bottonlout argued.

"I grabbed it first!" Comet continued.

"Bottonlout give Comet the shield." Gobber said. But before Bottonlout get let go of the shield the Gronkle flew into it knocking them both over. I ran to the other side of the arena to the weapon holder. I turned to look to see where the Gronkle was, and found that it was yards away from me. I didn't know exactly what I did, but I was trying to slow the Gronkle down by hitting it with my shield and tucked-and-rolled. By the time I got up from the roll I had no shield. I looked back towards the weapon stand and saw bits and pieces of broken wood.

  I felt a hand grab my arm and pull me up. I swiped the hair away from my eyes and saw Bottonlout with his eyes following flying beast. I had no idea what to do so I let him make the first move. 

 Another Boom sound went of. A ball of lava was flying toward the front gate.

"That thing is trying to escape." I heard Bottonlout say to himself. I guess Comet thought the same thing because he started flailing his arms around shouting.

"Hey! Hey over here!" He shouted. The Gronkle turned to him and flapped its little wings faster. It was heading for him, at first. Surprisingly it can turn on a dime, and was heading for Bottonlout and me. 

   Before I knew it Bottonlout ws no longer by my side and was running away. Once again the Gronkle was headed rapidly toward me. Then I thought, 'This is a dragon training academy, not a dragon killing training course.' So, basing my actions on what Dad told me about his stories of training Toothless, I held out my handing seeking the scaly skin that I've known to become the hide of a dragon.

  I closed my eyes seeking the scaly creature's bumpy nose with my hand. I heard a bump on the ground and felt the vibrations that traveled through the ground and into my shoes . I opened my eyes, hoping for the best. When I did, I saw a Gronkle panting with it's nose in my palm.

I looked around to see what was left of the arena. Several burning, hot holes on the wall and on the rocky ground. I saw everyone staring at me in awe.

"No way, how did you do that?" Buffnut asked.

"Well, I just realized we were trying to train dragons, not kill them." I answered.

"And that's exactly what I wanted all of you to learn." Gobber exclaimed wobbling across to the dazed Gornkle.

"We don't kill dragons," He continued, "We train them, we befriend them."

"Then why did you tell us to get Shields?" Salmonfoot asked.

"Well, this is a wild dragon." Gobber answered, " You didn't want to get a limb burned off, now do you?" 

"No." He answered

"Know off to the great hall to eat, and talk about everything thing you did wrong!"

"No need to be so harsh Gobber." Comet said just loud enough for Gobber to hear. Gobber ignored him and he headed for the great hall.

      At the top of a hill lied the great halls. Gobber opened its massive doors to reveal multiple tables with a large roasted chicken on one of them. As I expected the twins headed for the table and started drooling over the steaming chicken.

"Get back you little hooligans!" Gobber shouted at them, while shoving them off the table.

"Yeah, save some for me!" Bottonlout said knocking Comet down and running to the table. Salmonfoot extended a hand to help him up. Comet accepted while I headed to the table without saying a word. 

Once Gobber finally got us all to sit down, he started a conversation that I didn't want to get into. "So, what did Scruffnut do wrong?" Gobber said.

"She was born." Salmonfoot said.

"She has stupid hair?" Bottonlout guessed.

"She's my sister." Buffnut answered. Gobber tapped the table with his metal hook he calls a hand.

"Be serious about this!" He said in a low but threatening voice. "Now what did Buffnut do wrong?" Gobber continued. 

"He's my brother?" Scruffnut answered.

"Enough. The sooner we get finished with this the sooner you little miscreants eat!" I have to give Gobber this: he really knows how to handle kids like them. Everyone shut up until we got to Bottonlout. "So Bottonlout, since I know everyone will just say something stupid, what do you think you did wrong?"

"Me? Doing something wrong? Ha! I'm too prefect to be wrong." He said running his fingers through his hair and lifting his chin to the ceiling. He winked at me once he was done with his 'display' and my face flushed red. I put my hand on my cheek and faced the front doors and wished I could escape.

"Now what did Comet do wrong?"

"He grabbed a weapon." I answered remembering everyone had done the same thing.

"Thank you, Freya! That's what you all did wrong." Gobber said.

"Wait didn't Freya grab a weapon too?" Salmonfoot asked.

"No," I said turning my head to Salmonfoot,"I grabbed a shield."

"She was about to!" Buffnut said.

"And didn't she hit the gronkle with a shield?" Scruffnut asked.

"Well I didn't want to get eaten!" I shouted back.

"All right, all right, calm down. Now that we're done you all can eat."

I wish Gobber didn't say those words, because everyone jumped toward the chicken in the center of the table and started pulling out out chunks of meat. When someone got too close to them they would push them away. Even Comet was in the mass of young vikings. 

I looked to Gobber not knowing what to do, all he did was shrug.

"What the heck." I thought to myself, and hurdled into the chaos. After every last morsel of chicken was gone we all returned to our seats.  

"Okay, now that you pigs are done..." Gobber said flicking a chicken crumb off of his shirt, "you all can go home now." We all calmly left the table without saying a word. That is until Bottonlout stopped me when I was about to leave.

"So about yesterday..." 

  I didn't like where this conversation was going. "I was just going to say," He began. I  decided to finish this. I grabbed his shirt collar and pinned him against the wall.

"Don't ever speak of that day again!" I said pointing to his face. I walked out of the great hall in quiet rage. As I left I walked by Comet. He looked disappointed , and I guess my quiet rage wasn't so quiet. After I passed him my face softened. I turned back to say...something, but when I looked he was gone. 

  I looked to the sky to see where the sun was. Surprisingly it looked like it was only about midday. I looked around to see if anyone was around, and all I saw were the distant silhouettes of the group of dragon-riders-in-training. After making sure the coast was clear I made a bee-line to where I saw the mysterious dragon.

    I made it to the edge of the cliff and looked down to see the beach. I slid down the steep hill, crossed the beach to the rock slide, and stopped.

"H-hi there." I stuttered. The violet eyed dragon lifted up his head and eyed my again. I reached for my journal, but it wasn't there. The dragon let out a small rumbling sound. It lifted it's one free wing, and revealed my journal and pencil. "How did you get that?" I asked it. The dragon just looked at the journal and looked back at me.

   I felt silly talking to a dragon, so I walked slowly toward it.  I wanted to get my journal back, but the only way to do that was to get close to the unpredictable winged beast.

  Step by step I drew closer. All it did was stare at me, with wide eyes, and perked, of what I thought to be the equivalent of ears. I was finally close enough to touch it. I reached my arm, not making any sudden movements, closer and closer to where my journal lay. Suddenly it pushed me with it's muzzle and I stumbled back.

"Hey, what was that for?" I asked it. The wild dragon looked at me with playfulness in its violet eyes, and had Its ears perked with a cocked head. I gave it a smile, "Very funny." I said teasing it. The dragon lifted it one free wing showing my journal again. 

   This time I walked a little bit faster and didn't crouch so much. I stretched my hand to the dragon stomach but it put his wings down before I had a chance to grab my journal. I looked at it again, teasing like I was annoyed with it, but really, I was having fun.  

   I poked the draon's wing watching its face watching to see if I could see a sign that it was going to attack. It kept the same expression on its face. I finally reached my journal and I quickly pulled it away. I backed up a few steps and opened the pages. 

"Well, at least they're not ruined." I said to myself. I looked up to see the dragon again. It was pulling on its sucked wing, trying to release it. "No, don't do that!" I yelled at it, "You're going to make it worse!" The dragon stopped mid-tug then relaxed its wing. I walked over to it with an outstretched hand. I didn't go another step when it growled at me. I was a little taken back. "Alright, I guess you don't trust me that much." I told it gently. It blinked at me returning its narrow eyes back to its wide playful ones.

    Then it lifted its open wing and sniffed at its stomach. I was confused at first, but then I realized.

"Oh you must be hungry." I told it. The dragon let out a small roar. "Stay right here and don't be seen. This is a forbidden part of the beach because there have been so many ship wreaks. So don't make a sound and no one will know you're here." I said. The dragon lied its down on the sand.

    I thought as I ran toward the village all about the dragon. I saw that without me the dragon could protect itself only so much. If something would attack it, it would fire at the attacker and fight with tooth and claw. But as I thought more I realized it could only do that for so long, and then it would be... it would... I couldn't bear the thought of what would happen. I shook my head to clear those thoughts and ran to the village.

    At the entrance of the village I began to slow down and tried to steady my breathing. I was trying to find the fish salesmen. I walked as fast, but as casually as I could. I was about to reach the market place, all I had to do was turn the corner. But as luck would have it, I ran into Comet. He was running for some reason and he ran into me instead of vise-verse. I fell back, but he stayed standing. "Freya, are you okay?" He said anxiously, "I am so sorry." He took my hand and hauled me up.

 "I'm fine," I said rubbing my head, "but why were you running?" I asked.  Comet looked over his shoulder, and so did I.

"Get back here worm!" I heard someone yell. Around the corner came Bottonlout, running as fast as he can. Comet grabbed my hand again. My cheeks flushed red.

   I was being forced to run behind Comet as he pulled me to an unknown destination. "Where are we going?" I asked him over the sound of the wind hitting against my face.  "I don't know." Comet said with a smile. 

    We finally made it to the base of the tallest cliff on the island of Berk. We lost Bottonlout a while ago, but we kept running, just for the fun of it.

"We're here." Comet said after catching his breath.

 "Uh, where is that exactly?" I asked him suspiciously. Comet, still holding onto my hand, guided me around to the front of the cliff. Looking up you could see the tip of the mountain, looking down, was the ocean and the images of I my life flash before my eyes. 

   Still being dragged against my will, Comet led me into a small cave. My eyes widened as I saw the water droplets dance on the rocks hanging off the ceiling as sharp as spikes. It was surprisingly light, due to the sun beams on the rocks that seemed to shimmer with the colors of the yellow, red, even orange.

"Like it?" Comet asked. "I found it last year during the warm months."

"It's... it's..." I couldn't find words to express how amazing this cave was.

"Here follow me." Comet said walking deeper into the cave. I didn't know where we were going, but for the first time, in a long time, I liked where this was going.

   The deeper we went into the cave, the dryer it became. Not to mention darker, that is, until we came into an opening of the cave. All around me were sparkling slithers of light. "What are those?" I asked still looking in awe.

"I have no idea, but around sunset they turn yellow and red. It reminds me of a dragon's fire." He answered.

"Dragon...? Dragon!" I just remembered why I wanted to go to the village.

"What?" Comet asked.

"I have to go." I said backing up.

"Again? Why do you always have to go?" 

"I just do!" As usual for me, things are turning bad. I was glad there was just enough light for me to run out of the there and back to the mouth of the cave. I forgot  just outside the cave was a sheer drop to the ocean. I stopped in my tracks, waving my arms trying to avoid falling.  Thank Thor I didn't fall in, but I was in a daze by my near death. 

    A warm hand was placed on my shoulder, I didn't bother looking to see who is was I just scrambled to my feet and held on as tight as I could to the body. Slowy, I began to calm down. I lifted up my head and ended up looking into the eyes of Comet. "Are you okay?" He asked with kind eyes. 

"I'm sorry." I whispered. I let go of him and ran to the village.