(Untitled)

[a_real_viking]

Living on a magically beautiful tropical island and having a dragon at his back, it was easy to feel immortal. It was easy to fly up close to the sun, lean forward to grin recklessly at Toothless, and laugh as he unhooked his leg from the pedal. They were so high up that the air almost felt cool, despite the cloudless sky and warm sun, and the wind

Comments

[lastof_five]

One of Helen's favorite things to do was watch Hiccup and Toothless fly and when she caught sight of the dragon wheeling overhead, she couldn't help but stop and stare for a moment. She did gasp, though, when they swooped toward the ground and shook her head, laughing it off; Hiccup was far more experienced in dragon maneuvering than Helen would ever be.

"That was quite the show, you two," she said fondly, beaming from ear to ear. "I do so love to see you fly."

[a_real_viking]

He'd been so engrossed in the book he found that Hiccup almost didn't notice her. Then he looked up, grinning widely, as Toothless bounded over to say hello.

"Thanks." Quickly, he flipped the book around to show her. "Check this out!"

[lastof_five]

"Oh, what is this? Some sort of field guide?"

Helen always liked to have more knowledge at her fingertips and peering at the book, she saw it was a page about Toothless, specifically, or his species anyway.

"Night Fury. Hmm, you don't seem terribly furious to me, Toothless. Don't worry, I'll keep your secret."

[a_real_viking]

Hiccup grinned, running his fingers over the runes. "He's pretty fearsome when he's angry, but right now. He's just...calm."

He flipped to another page, this one showing a Hideous Zippleback, "My friends, twins, ended up sharing this one."

[_kinginthenorth]

Considering it hasn't been that long since Hiccup and Toothless got back into the air at all, it's a pretty impressive thing they've doing. Reynald, of course, thinks it's brilliant, and tugs Robb to a stop so he can tilt his head so far back he looks like he's about to fall over backward and wave, enthusiastically, with both arms.

Once boy and dragon are out of sight, it takes Robb and Reynald a few moments to catch up to where they've landed. Reynald runs toward Toothless, beaming proudly. "Doofus fly!" he declares gleefully.

[a_real_viking]

Toothless noticed them first and was on his feet and sniffing happily at Reynald's hair before Hiccup was even finished standing. He walked over, grinning, the book held open against his chest.

"Yeah, he's pretty awesome at it," he agreed.

[_kinginthenorth]

Reynald beams and reaches up to 'pet' Toothless, which mostly just means half-batting, half-rubbing at his snout. Robb watches, but has long since stopped worrying--at least about things Toothless might do on purpose. What trouble Reynald might get them into by accident is something else entirely.

"What's that?" he asks, motioning to the book.

[a_real_viking]

And in return, Toothless was more that happy to ease himself down onto his belly, making it even easier for Reynald to express his affection.

Hiccup, meanwhile, grinned and lowered the book to give Robb a good look at it. "Back home on Berk, they made us study this to prepare for battling dragons. But, uh, I just found it and I'm going to be making some adjustments."

[other_valentine]

When Hester saw Hiccup and Toothless flying, she stopped to watch. It still amazed her to see boy and creature moving as one, very much a part of a world that she had briefly tasted in a far clumsier airship. Behind her scarf, she smiled as they came in to land.

Then Hiccup stumbled on something in the sand, and he stood up, looking confused. He picked up a book that hadn't been there before. Curious, she came forward. "What have you found?" she asked.

[a_real_viking]

"This," Hiccup said, grinning, "is the Dragon Manual they made us read back home, learning to fight dragons."

He quickly found the page on Terrible Terrors. "Except that this needs a lot of correcting."

[other_valentine]

Hester frowned at Toothless thoughtfully, then looked over at Hiccup. "Starting with the fact that you don't fight dragons?" she asked.

[a_real_viking]

"Yeah, that's the biggest error we need to work on," Hiccup agreed, lightly crossing out yet another row of runes that said 'extremely dangerous, kill on sight.'

"We didn't know that, at the time."

[teambatgirl]

"Wow." Stephanie had been on the beach toweling her hair off, but at the sight of Hiccup coming out over the trees she stops and glances up. Her hand's up to shade her eyes, and her mouth is pulled up into a wide grin. "Wow."

She comes up on the sand when he lands, pulling a t-shirt on over her suit. "Wow. Hiccup! That was amazing."

[a_real_viking]

At the sight of her, Hiccup put the book aside so quickly that Toothless glanced between them and then seemed to roll his eyes just a little. Humans.

"Couldn't have done it without him, though," Hiccup said, laughing.

[teambatgirl]

"Yes! Toothless, you were terrific." She reaches over to pet his head and glances over at Hiccup. "You really get to do that every day? Because that is really, deeply cool."

[a_real_viking]

Hiccup grinned a little, rubbing Toothless' neck on the other side. "He wouldn't let me take a day off. Not that I want one."

[honestlyrubbish]

Having spotted Toothless and Hiccup in the air from some distance away, Hermione saw no reason not to take a slight detour on her walk back home. With elections only just having been decided and an accident in the Compound not long ago, Hermione was feeling generally under the weather, and had in fact spent the majority of her time in the clinic in the past couple of days. However, never being one for remaining stagnant for too long, she decided that it was high time she started reaching out to her friends again, one by one. Her feet sifted through the smooth sand, and in her arms she carried a bottle of water, should her throat protest along the way. Fortunately, by the time she reached Hiccup, she was not overly fatigued, sitting down gently next to her friend.

"Find something interesting?" she asked, her voice slightly more hoarse than it might have been normally for the damage done by the poisonous gas.

[a_real_viking]

She moved so purposefully and quietly that Hiccup almost didn't notice her until she sat down, absorbed in scribbling down runes as he was. Still, he was glad to see her and more than happy to rotate the book toward her, giving her full view of one of the illustrations of the Thunder Drum.

"Back on Berk," he explained, turning a page. "When you were training to fight dragons, this was the manual they made you read. Except, you know, I'm not interested in fighting them. So I'm going to make some adjustments."

[honestlyrubbish]

"They had an actual manual?" Hermione asked, fascinated as she moved closer to glance down at the pages, brows raising with the sudden realization that the runes from Hiccup's time were nearly identical to those she'd studied in Ancient Runes. Biting on her lower lip, she scanned the page as quickly as she could, fingers running along the paper as she sounded out the words on the sheet with bated breath. "Thunder... drum? Is that correct? Thunder drum. When... shocked- or scared, or startled, I suppose- they can produce a strong, resonant? Sound that can kill a man from a close distance. Some of the forms are a bit ambiguous, but I've seen runes like this before. I took extensive classes on them, in fact."

Pressing her lips together, Hermione's eyes narrowed as she peered up at Hiccup once more, trying to contain her excitement. "If you wanted... help with this, or to translate it into English, which most people on the island read, I'd certainly love to lend whatever help I can."

[a_real_viking]

"Yeah, that's about right," Hiccup nodded, lightly crossing out the instructions to kill it before turning his head quickly as the ful and proper realization hit him that Hermione had read the runes.

"Wait. Wait. You can translate that!?" Excitement started bumping up in him. "You can read these? I didn't know anyone else could do that!"

Beaming, he grabbed another piece of charcoal and held it out to her. "I can only read some English, so that would be amazing."