13. Seeing Less and Stormfly Returns

A/N:

For the sake of the narrative I'm going to make it (more like I made it so it already was so) so that the hierarchy (on Berg) goes: chief>jarl>karl>thrall. Yes, they will have thralls on Berg. I'm not going to break realizm for a moment of pink world. I might go more into detail in the future, but tell me if you want this or not, same for dragon hierarchy. I didn't dive into it before, because I'm not into any sort of 'royal drama' or whatever.

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"You can write?!" I didn't know if I should be annoyed or amused at her reaction, but since I was already annoyed I still decided to retort. 'Wait, don't be impulsive. You already almost messed up earlier today.'

After some more consideration, I finally wrote. "Unfortunately, yes. I can write, HUMAN." I think she got the message since she flinched slightly when reading the last word. Afterwards, I just slid around her and continued with my walk to the cliffside.

It didn't take long before I heard Astrid calling out after me. "Ah, sorry. Hey, Zoya, wait a second!" I didn't wait. I still wanted to vent for this 'dragon-talk'. 'Who even calls out to people like that? That's like calling out to someone: Hey, human, can you tell me how to get there? You just don't do that. Even dragons use species, if nothing else.'

She was still stumbling through the forest like a blind chicken, but in hindsight, she probably did better than most people would. After all, it was in the middle of the night and no light pollution to help out either. 'Now that I think about it, with my new eyes I will likely never experience actual darkness of the night ever again.'

Walking slowly through the forest to make sure Astrid could keep up, my thoughts started to wander. 'One time I saw true darkness in my life was when I was in Greece, I think it was on Thasos island, with my parents and brother. The only reason they took me, was because I was too little to stay home alone and no one could take me in for a week when they were out.'

'It was really beautiful. I snuck out, or more like just left for a walk, in the middle of the night, during a new moon, so only its purplish outline was visible in the clear sky. The stars shone brightly along with the planets. You could tell, because they were more colourful and were shining brighter than the stars.'

'In the background, there was the Milky Way. A large belt of brightness splitting the otherwise dark blue sky in two. It was probably black, but when everything except the sky was pure black with no shapes or shades, it felt dark blue. Like there was just the sky and nothing more.'

As I finished my musings, we arrived at the top of the cliff facing the gate and I sat at its edge. Not long after I heard Astrid panting. "Huf, huf. I asked you to wait. Couldn't you stop for a second?" She complained and sat beside me. 'Must have been really lost in my thoughts...'

Though, there was this one thing nagging at my brain... "Shouldn't you be more cautious around a dragon you just met?" I scratched into the ground and as if to prove my point Astrid moved closer to me, probably to see better. "Can I have some light?"

'... OK, that's on me.' I thought and made a small blue torch flame in my mouth. "Cool. Oh... probably?" 'I feel like the movies just lost a lot of credibility over characters' personalities.'

POV: Hiccup (about two days later)

I've been standing in this storm for a few hours and there are still no signs of Astrid. 'I hope she is just waiting out this tempest.' She was supposed to come back two days ago, but today in the morning, just as I was going to leave to look for her, this tempest suddenly crashed into Berg.

They usually occur only in winter. One of the main reasons we still need to gather food supplies for winter even after we started living with dragons. It's just that they should have already receded from here at this time of year.

"Hiccup, get inside. Why are you standing in this niflish rain?" Fishlegs shouted over the roar of the wind and waves crashing into the island. "She is not going to return in such rain and going out is suisidal. Just go inside, and we can look for her when the tempest passes."

We were no more than a few steps away from eachother, but he still had to shout for me to hear him. This made me worry for Astrid even more and added another layer of reason behind his words. "Fine, I will go." I didn't shout so he probably didn't hear me.

Nonetheless, we returned to the main hall where Tuffnut, Ruffnut and Snotlout were waiting for us at the table. 'Except the twins are sleeping rather than waiting, but who could care at this point they are The Twins, of course they are sleeping.'

"Is the lover boy still worried about his precious~?" Snotlout said as we entered. 'What was I expecting from him?' But I still have to at least appear like I scorn him for that. "Show at least bare minimum of respect to your Chief, Snotlout."

'This job is honestly a pain. Thank Frigg', mom is helping with the Jarls.' It's really hard to appease everyone and still accomplish anything. I had to once again chase away the urge to demote every Jarl and just get rid of this class altogether.

'Now, now. Don't go tyrant merely half a year after becoming a chief... I wonder, if I had done better at that time...' I was however interrupted from my thoughts. "Hmpf, like you actually care. You two are as insufferably sweet as mead."

"H-huh, who's insulting mead in my mighty presence." Tuffnut said, probably woken up at the mention of mead. "That's right, whoever said that, may they face my wrath." And Ruffnut obviously followed.

"Leave it be, you two. He has his tastes and you have yours." Fishlegs mediated before it escalated. "Should we discuss where is each of us going to look for her after th-"

*Boom-kreak...*

The loud sound of something crashing into the main door was easily heard by everyone even over the rumble of the tempest outside. I locked eyes with Fishlegs for a second and ran for the doors, swiftly opening them up.

As I did so, Stormfly rushed in dizzily and clearly panicked. Fishlegs closed the door as I was more focused on the new arrival. "Where is Astrid?" Not like she could answer, but she still tried... however she could.

"Hunters? Searching? Storm? Lost? Fell? She fell into the sea while you were flying through the storm?" I would have been impressed with myself for getting it this fast, if not for the content of the message that I just decoded. My brain evidently worked on overdrive to get that out.

"How do you even understand what she wants?" Snotlout commented sceptically. "My dear friend, can't you see that our chief is well versed in Panic?" Tuffnut asked no one in particular in a sagely voice.

"We have to go-!" I commanded, but Fishlegs stopped me. "No, we should wait for the tempest to pass. Based on how tired Stormfly is, she flew for almost two days non-stop."

He waited for me to calm down a little and continued. "Disregarding everything else, just this time alone makes any swift help impossible. If she survived until now, and I'm sure she did, then it wouldn't make a difference for her, if we leave now or in a day or two. Stormfly, however, is very tired right now, and we need her in full strength to find Astrid, yes?" He said it as a question, but we all new that he was just being polite.

After taking a few breaths to calm down, I finally responded. "Yes, you are right. Let's bring out a map and let Stormfly show us around where she lost Astrid. She can go rest then and we will discuss the rescue plans. Sounds good?"