Chapter 8

He nodded towards Geralt before walking back to his house.

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After heading home he waited for sundown before going back to the forge. After his first attempt at flying with Toothless had ended with his bum hurting from sitting on the uncomfortable dragon scales. So he chose to create a saddle.

Putting it on Toothless however was another issue in its entirety. The dragon started running around and avoiding Hiccup until he managed to bribe Toothless with a large basket of fish.

Once he managed to strap on the saddle, his second attempt at flying ended up with him in the lake, after his pulling the attached to the fake wing a little too hard, which ended up making Toothless suddenly turn to the left, throwing him off board.

His failed attempt sat flying though were not always met with failures. After spending time with Toothless he learned of many weaknesses dragons had, like itch grass, or scratching the dragon around its jaw.

All of these weakness he exploited in the dragon training ring, which had started earning him a favourable reputation between the spectators.

Not only that, it seemed the group of recruits had started to surround him constantly, which made him even more cautious of his secrets being found.

The only one who was left unconvinced was Astrid, who constantly felt like something was off.

And the one time she caught Hiccup heading off deep into the woods, made her even more convince of her suspicions. At one point she had enough.

She managed to corner Hiccup in the forge, in the middle of the night, and started questioning him.

"Astrid, hey. Hi, Astrid. Hi Astrid. Hi Astrid" Hiccup muttered over and over again, hoping it would hide the noise, Toothless was making, however it only weirded Astrid even more.

"I normally don't care what people do, but you're acting weird. " She paused "Well, weirder."

Against all of her expectations, instead of answering her questions, Hiccup jumped back into the forge window, which shut right after him.

Astrid slammed it open, only to see that Hiccup was no longer there. He had vanished into thin air, leaving her even more suspicious than before.

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The Berk port,

The state of the returning ships left the Vikings in thought. It seemed like the exploration party had lost a few more ships and those that returned were the lucky of the bunch.

Stoick's hard and tired look, spoke more than enough of the success of the raid.

"Well, I trust you found the nest at least?" Gobber asked his friend. And the response was the same as he expected "Not even close."

"Excellent." Gobber took a page out of Hiccup's book and chose to sarcastically reply. He hopped on one leg quickly to catch up to Stoick.

"I hope you had a little more success than me." Stoick asked Gobber, without any of the hope he was referring to.

"Well, if by success, you mean that your parenting troubles are over with,... " Gobber replied cryptically ,"... then, yes." Which puzzled Stoick. Until Refda, one of the Vikings, coming down the port stairs called out to him. "Congratulations Stoick! Everyone is so relieved."

"Out with the old, and in with the new, right?" Tearnash called out right after

"No one will miss that old nuisance. The village is throwing a party to celebrate." Another one of the Vikings called out, leaving Stoick even more than confused, however that confusion turned into hope. "He's gone?" He asked Gobber with hope this time.

"Um, yeah, most afternoons, but who can blame him?" Gobber replied knowing full well that was not what his friend meant by that. "I mean, the life of a celebrity is very rough. " He continued, " He can barely walk through the village without being swarmed by his new fans."

"Hiccup?" Stoick asked with disbelief. Was it really his son they were talking about.

"Who would have thought it, eh? He has this way with the beasts." Gobber 's reply seemed to remove some worry off Stoick 's shoulders. His son had finally grown up.

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Somewhere, in the sky, above Berk,

"Okay there, bud. We're gonna take this nice and slow." Hiccup called out to Toothless. This was another flight attempt of his after countless of failures. Although he had learnt a lot from the failures. Such as the correct times to use for each position of the fake wing.

"Here we go. Here we go. Position three, no, four." His excitement was almost leaking out of him. He pressed the petal, making the wing expand. Toothless, seeing this, started to slowly turn to the left, towards Berk cliffs and beach.

He turned to look at the wing one last time, before turning back

"Alright, it's go time. It's go time. " He muttered to himself. Toothless hearing the words, started to dive downwards, towards the cliffs, nearing the ocean water,

"Come on, buddy. Come on, buddy." Hiccup called out to his dragon friend

The duo started to hover right over the sea, and flew straight through the arched cliff.

"Yes, it works!" Hiccup shouting in excitement, obviously missing the boulder in front of them, which lead to Toothless bashing into it.

"Sorry!" However the trouble did not stop there when the Toothless flew right into another boulder

"That's my fault." Hiccup apologised once more. The dragon just slapped him in response.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it. Position four, uh, three." He stated before pulling upwards at which Toothless started to steeply accelerate upwards.

"Yeah! Go baby!" He called out in amazement. "Oh, this is amazing! The wind in my..." He tried to grab the piece of paper that slipped out "... cheat sheet!"

Without the cheat sheet, he was not sure for what each wing position was for. And the sudden deceleration, was a proof of that.

Toothless had lost all of the momentum he had before and the duo had started to fall

"Stop!" Hiccup called out before finally grabbing the page. However the belt that he was connected to had disatached itself from the saddle, and the started falling separately from Toothless.

"Oh, Gosh! Oh, God! Oh no!" Hiccup started to hyperventilate however Toothless's roar brought him out of it.

He tried to take control of the situation "Alright. Okay. You gotta kinda angle yourself!"

The wing however was not helping and sent the poor dragon spinning." Okay. No, no, no... Come back down towards me. Come back down..." A sudden wing slapped him mid air which surprised him more than hurt him. "Oww!"

Despite that though, Hiccup managed to climb back into Toothless's saddle and reattached his string back, before pushing the pedal once more and changing the wings position.

At the click, Toothless managed to regain some control and spread out its wings as much as possible to slow down their descent. That was before he saw the large amount of cliffs they were heading for.

Hiccup tried to check the sheet for help, however the wind did not allow it. He took a deep breathe before releasing the page into the wing and chose to trust his instincts.

His thoughts had no longer become position 1 and so on but something more primal.

The duo flew passed rocks, boulders, each time barely making it, after teach turn and dodge, the two started to think alike, moving as one, flying as one being.

As they passed the final cliff, and flew into the empty sea, exhaustion and relief overcame them, however Hiccup had an urge to scream as loudly as he could: "Yeah!" In response to which, Toothless let out a small fire breath in front of them and flew right through the flames.

"Come on..." Hiccup muttered to himself.

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After the exhausting adventure of theirs, Hiccup decided to rest on the beach near the cliffs and have something to eat, to which Toothless agreed.

A regurgitating noise pulled Hiccup out of his thoughts, when he looked over too see Toothless offer up a fish head to him.

"Uh, no thanks. I'm good." He pointed out with the crispy fish on his stick.

The smell of the fish however brought a few little intruders. A small pack of Terrible Terrors flew towards the duo, with zero care, and started to move towards the fish Toothless vomited.

Seeing the Terrible Terror's, Toothless started to growl and hide his pile of fish from the little thieves. Despite that, one of the little dragons managed to sneak into the pile and fled away with a fish in its jaws. Toothless, seeing this, chose take back the stolen fish and eat it in front of the terrible terror.

This seemed to anger it, which led to it being shot with a fireball by Toothless.

"Not so fire-proof on the inside, are you?" Hiccup asked gently before throwing over a smaller fish to the depressed dragon, which gobbled it almost instantly. "Here you go."

The dragon, after finishing its meal, walked over to hiccup and lied down near him as a sign of trust, at which Hiccup muttered to himself: "Everything we know about you guys is wrong."

"Aye, that's true" A gruff voice stated behind the group, startling both Hiccup and Toothless. The little dragon however remained where it was.

Hiccup looked over to see, Geralt sitting on a small boulder gazing at the sunset without a care about the dangerous Night Fury at his side.

Seeing the unknown man, Toothless instantly started to growl, however with a wave of his hand Geralt calmed down the dragon. Hiccup was left, with his mouth agape. It had taken him so long to gain the trust of Toothless yet, Geralt did it a few seconds.

"I see this is your familiar, Hiccup" He pointed out, as he stood up from his seat. He walked over and started to scratch the dragon by the neck, which made Toothless fall on the floor with enjoyment.

"Geralt, what are you doing here? How did you do that?" Hiccup questioned the large man who was staring down at the night fury on the floor. He knew Geralt would not harm Toothless, however he was still afraid of the possibility.

"Oh calm down. I won't hurt him" He placed 3 fingers in between Toothless's wings and neck and pressed down hard. At this, sharp flaps appeared at Toothless' back, making the dragon very excited as he started to flap his flaps repeatedly.

"I saw how you passed through the cliffs." He told the teen, before sitting down on the stones. "I opened up his flaps, for easier turns. This way he will be able to pass through the canyon without any difficulty."

Hiccup could not believe what he saw. How did Geralt know this?

"Don't ask kid. I won't answer." He interrupted the teen mid thought. Before gazing back at the sunset. Hiccup saw the man's intentions and chose to do the same, although was slightly unsuccessful with an excited dragon running around with his flaps.

Time past as the group stared into the sinking sun, until it was not longer visible. At that point Geralt stood up, and started to walk away, without forgetting to mention something.

"Soon will be your test. You will have to chose whether or not you will kill a dragon. And also. Remember Hiccup, Toothless is your friend. Trust him like he trusts you and never...." He paused

"never... doubt... him..."

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Hey guys, Hope you enjoyed this chapter

Check out my other novel ATLA: The Master

Cya tomorrow...

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