Everyone has lost something they thought they couldn't live without. Sometimes, to find it again, you have to be willing to do anything, even look fear right in the eye. Just make sure you don't blink.
I stretched my arms above my head before reaching down to pat my Thunderdrum on the head.
"You ready for some training, girl?" She roared happily and I smiled. I was so happy to have a dragon again, but being a Thunderdrum, she had just about as much of a temper as I did, and that required extra training. "Come on. Maybe we can get there before Hiccup and work on some more hand gestures."
We hovered above the ground to get to the Dragon Academy, finding Hiccup already there. At first, I thought he was getting ready for training, until I noticed him loading fish into his satchel.
"Okie dokie. We'll start in the West islands, and work our way back." He seemed to sense my presence and whipped around with wide eyes.
"Back from where?" I asked curiously, hopping off of Shriek and getting closer to him.
"Uh... uh- just a quick spin around the island," he lied, stuttering. I opened up Hiccup's satchel and pulled out a large fish.
"Uh-huh. Quick spin, huh? With enough food to feed Snotlout's whole family?"
"Do I hear my name?" We both turned to see Snotlout land Hookfang and take the fish from my hands. "Ooh, do I see a salmon?" He took a large bite out of the fish and downed some of Hiccup's water.
"Alright, look, if you must know-"
"And we must," I interjected.
"-I'm going to do something for my father." My face softened as I started to feel sympathy. There was something else behind this, clearly something important. And now instead of just wanting to know, I wanted to help. "Okay, Trader Johann is bringing something for him. Something important, and he should have been here by now." My expression shifted again to one of slight discomfort. I still didn't trust Trader Johann, after all this time.
"You're not trading this fish, are you?" Snotlout took another bite out of it. "Because it's delicious." Hookfang snatched it from Snotlout's hands and swallowed it down without a second thought. "Hey!" He snapped his fingers twice, and Hookfang threw it back up into Snotlout's hands. The Viking shook it off a couple of times, then bit off the meat on the head.
"When do we leave?" I asked. As much as Trader Johann gave me the creeps, this was really important to Hiccup, and I wanted to help him in any way that I could.
"I need to go alone. If we all disappear, my dad will get suspicious."
"Go alone? You without us?" Snotlout mocked. "Like you could handle anything if we weren't there to bail you-" Right as I glared at him, Snotlout started to choke on the fish he had swallowed down earlier. "Help..." I reached over and socked him in the stomach, dislodging the fish and sending it flying across the academy.
"Alright, fine, you two can come," Hiccup caved. "But that's it! Don't even tell the others. Heed my warning, I am serious." I tried to keep a straight face, but after a few seconds, I burst into laughter. "What? What's so funny, Reign?"
"Please don't try and be authoritative," I gasped out before stepping forward and placing a hand on his arm. "It just doesn't suit you."
"Wha-hey!" I could practically hear him shaking his head at me as I got onto Shriek to gather supplies.
"Hey, Hiccup." He glared up at Tuffnut on his dragon. "Snotlout told us there would be salmon, and I love locks."
"I'm pretty sure I said 'don't tell the others.'" he snapped at Snotlout.
"And I'm pretty sure I didn't listen to you."
"Hiccup, aren't you always saying it's better when we work as a team," Fishlegs tried to reason.
"Yeah, next time I say that, just slap me in the face."
"I'll do it right now," Ruffnut volunteered eagerly.
"She will. And she slaps like a guy. It's awesome, watch." She slapped her brother, hard, and I rolled my eyes before flying closer to Hiccup.
"Thanks for actually coming, Reign. I know you don't exactly have a high opinion of Johann." I smiled and reached over to pat his hand.
"I'd rather deal with him than leave you behind when it's something this important."
"Hey, look!" Astrid drew out attentions away from each other, and redirected them to where she was pointing. There was a plank of wood floating in the middle of the ocean, with something- or rather, someone- on it.
"I can't see anything through the tears."
"Thanks for the info, Tuff," I huffed.
"Is that... Johann?"
"I thought he had a bigger boat than that."
"Come on, gang. Let's check it out." Hiccup led all of us diving down toward the wood in the middle of the ocean to pick up an unconscious Johann and land on a rock formation nearby us. "Johann? Johann, get up!" The trader snapped his eyes open and looked around at all of us, trying to figure out what was going on.
"The fog. The fog." He seemed to have gone into a shocked state.
"Johann, where's your ship?"
"No idea. All I know is one minute I was sailing in a perfectly calm sea, the wind at my back, and the next thing I know, my entire ship is pulled out from under me, and I'm shark bait!" Hiccup and I glanced at each other before he handed Johann a salmon.
"I don't understand."
"I do. I was three days late and trying to make up time, and I got too close."
"Too close to what?" Fishlegs asked, his voice quivering.
"Too close too... Breakneck Bog."
"Breakneck Bog!" I looked around at everyone, confused.
"What's Breakneck Bog?" Fishlegs turned to address me.
"Many a ship has sailed into its waters, few have returned."
"My grandfather told me it's pirates."
"That's ridiculous! Everyone knows it's haunted by a Fog Monster." I rested a hand on my hip and raised an eyebrow. I wasn't believing any of this.
"A Fog Monster?"
"Legend says the Fog Monster makes this really creepy moan." Tuffnut made a ghostly noise. "Then, he surrounds you, and scrapes the skin off your bones!" Fishlegs screamed as Tuff lunged at him to scare him. "And then he scrapes the bones off of... whatever's under those."
"That would be bone marrow," I sighed.
"And then, it drops the bones from the sky," Ruff finished.
"Yes, yes it's true!" Trader Johann chimed in. "What he says. It... surrounded me."
"See?" I was still skeptical. "Fog Monster. Pirates," Snotlout scoffed. "Ha, ha. Stupid grandfather." Astrid shot him a glare.
"Johann, we have to find your ship." Hiccup marched forward with determination and gripped the trader's shoulders. "There's something on it from my father."
"Yes, yes, yes, there was! But, it wasn't for your father, it was for you." I uncrossed my arms and looked right at Hiccup. What could have been there for him?
"For me? From who?"
"He didn't tell you?" Hiccup shook his head. "It was from your mother." My eyes went wide.
His mother? But... that shouldn't be possible. His mother's been dead since he was a baby.
"My... mother..."
"That's impossible," I chimed in. All of this was starting to make me even more suspicious of Johann. As an extra precaution, I stepped forward and placed a hand on Hiccup's arm.
"What is it?"
"I have no idea, lad. I just know it's in a chest with a Berk crest on it."
"I-I have to find it." He crouched down to meet eyes with Johann. "Take us back there. You- you show us where you were when you lost your ship."
"No! No, I won't! You can't make me!" Johann stood up with a flash of anger in his eyes, and my hand flew to my sword as I extended the other arm out in front of Hiccup. "I have a knife in my boot!" We stared each other straight in the eyes, until Trader Johann finally broke and looked away from me. "I don't have a knife in my boot," he admitted. "But no more fog, please?"
"Why not?" Before I could further press Johann, Hiccup interjected and gave me a look to stand down.
"All right, just tell me how I can find Breakneck Bog."
"Head due East. There's a group of islands in the shape of a man's hand. Breakneck Bog is the thumb."
"Snotlout, you and the twins take him back to Berk."
"'Back to Berk?' With this clown?" Snotlout pointed at Johann. "And those clowns?" He now pointed at the twins.
"Would you look at him? We don't have any choice. If anything happens, you'll be glad you have them with you."
"Question: what are the rest of us doing?" Fishlegs quivered.
"We're going to Breakneck Bog." As Fishlegs trembled and whimpered, I focused on a bigger issue bubbling in my gut.
"Hiccup, can I talk to you for a second?" I pulled him aside and out of earshot of all the others, then finally looked up to meet his eyes. The green centers were shaking back and forth-- a nervousness I'd only seen a couple of times before stepping forward to take center stage. He was jumpy and jittery, eager to get going and find what was supposedly from his mother.
I couldn't leave him behind on this... but I really didn't trust Johann back on Berk.
"I just..." The dark green was starting to sparkle. There were very few things I couldn't say 'no' to, but that look he was giving me- granted, unintentionally- was one of them. Caving, I reached out and took his hand. "I want you to know I'm right beside you on this." I smiled. "Everyone, let's move!"
Hiccup, Fishlegs, Astrid, and I climbed up onto our dragons and followed his eager lead. Despite the fact that he was going much faster than us, Fishlegs managed to catch up with Hiccup.
"W-What if I gave you something from my mother?" He really didn't want to go to Breakneck Bog. "Or I could give you my mother? You know you love her crab cakes." Astrid swooped down closer to Fishlegs' ear.
"The fog..." she whispered eerily. "The fog..." He screamed, and she started laughing.
"Tears, Astrid! Is that what you want to see?" I shook my head and focused back on Hiccup. The look on his face was so determined that he was bordering angry at this point.
"Hiccup?" He snapped his head over to me, looking shocked that someone was talking to him. "Hold on." I patted Shriek to tell her to keep flying on her own, then eased my way over onto Toothless and rested my head against his shoulder after wrapping my arms around his waist. "We'll find it, I promise." For a second, he smiled back at me, but his attention was diverted by our end goal.
"Look! There it is!" He pointed to a rock formation that looked less like a hand, more like a claw.
"Breakneck Bog..." We did a couple of circles around before landing on the rock that was meant to be the thumb, and with caution, the four of us inched our way through the ground-level fog. But no matter where we looked, we couldn't find any traces or semblance of a ship.
"I don't get it. We flew all around the island. No boat."
"Not even the remains of a boat..."
"You know who would take a boat? A Fog Monster." There was sudden rustling from the bushes, causing all of our dragons to go on alert.
"Settle down, bud."
"It's okay, Meatlug. It's okay."
"What was that?" Astrid asked as she attempted to get Stormfly to stop stomping.
"Only one way to find out." Hiccup and Astrid urged Toothless and Stormfly forward as Fishlegs lingered in his spot, terrified.
"Wait a minute! We don't go towards the weird, scary sound."
"Yeah, we do," I argued. "We always do."
"I hate that about us." He reluctantly followed many paces behind as we got closer to the source.
As we got deeper into the woods, we all decided it best to climb off of our dragons in hopes of not making ourselves too obvious, and to give our dragons a break. As the world around us started to get darker, I gently reached out to take Hiccup's hand, attempting to ignore the fact that we had just stepped over a line of bones. It almost seemed like we weren't going to find anything, when Stormfly suddenly snatched up Astrid and pulled her back as an anchor dropped down from above us.
An anchor? But, that means...
"Wow..." I raced over to her and looked up to meet where she was looking. There was Johann's ship, resting up in the very tops of the trees, teetering on edge and threatening to fall at any moment.
"Trader Johann's ship."
"Wow. He really got off course."
"Fog Monster." We all glared at Fishlegs.
"Come on. We have to get up there and find that chest." Fishlegs whimpered at the thought of getting on the ship. "For Hiccup." He shook his head, but got on his dragon like the rest of us and followed Hiccup up to the top of the trees. We tried to land our dragons on the deck, but every time we tried, they'd flinch and go back up.
"Stormfly."
"Shriek, what's wrong?"
"They're afraid... and they're dragons. So we should ask ourselves: 'what are we doing?'"
"The boat's not gonna hold them. We have to jump down and send the dragons below."
"Great. Just great." Hiccup jumped down, first, followed by myself, then Astrid, and finally, Fishlegs, who crashed down with a clumsy 'thud.'
"Toothless, ground." The Night Fury roared at the other dragons, and the four of them descended back down below the cover of the trees.
"Stay where you can hear daddy?" Fishlegs called down to his Gronkle.
"Okay, so let's just find this thing, and get out of here. We're looking for a chest with the Berk crest on it." Out of nowhere, a single bone dropped down onto the deck of the ship. My heart jumped in my chest as I stared at it with an intense gaze.
"Care to explain that?" Suddenly, a mass amount of bones started raining down on us, striking my hands hard as I covered the top of my head.
"Below deck!" We followed Astrid down the stairs and under cover. Almost as soon as we were gone, the thudding and clattering above us came to a slow halt.
"This is just a little... bone shower. And it passed."
"You say that like it's normal for bones to start falling from the sky!" I wildly gesticulated my arms in the air.
"Bone shower. I'm the only one who thinks that's weird?"
"Um?" I stuck my arm up, and Astrid quietly raised her hand.
"Okay... it's a little weird."
"A little? Hiccup, I think you've gone off the deep end." Hiccup stood and started to look through some of the crates as a scraping sound replaced the bones falling.
"So is that."
"Okay, let's just start looking for the chest, and quickly. That doesn't sound like friendly scraping." I shook my head in disbelief as the others followed behind.
"There's such a thing as friendly scraping?" After a few seconds of no response, I split off in another direction and started to look for the chest, but all there were only the same wooden crates all in a row.
I jumped at the sound of Fishlegs screaming, and after taking a moment to collect myself, I sprinted over to where he was. But instead of finding a threat, I only saw him staring at Hiccup, holding a chest with the shining Berk crest in his hands.
"You found it," I sighed, relieved.
"Oh, thank Thor," Fishlegs gasped. "There was a hand... no skin... all scraped off." Another thud slammed against the deck above us.
"It's coming after us!" We all looked around in panic.
"Hide! In there!" Hiccup pointed to a cabinet, and we all raced inside, and I slammed the doors shut behind us, backing up until I brushed against Hiccup. "Nobody... breathe..." he whispered. The doors started to rattle as whatever was on the other side tried to break its way in.
"I just want you to know, I love you guys." As the door flew open, I reached for my sword and almost swung it out, but had enough time to stop myself and realize that on the other side of the door was Ruffnut, Snotlout, and Tuffnut holding a skeletal arm.
"Hey, guys. Need a hand?"
"Ugh!" Astrid lunged forward and tackled Tuffnut to the ground, beating him with the arm he had used to scare us.
"Ow! Ow! Ruffnut! Do something!" His sister reached for the arm and started hitting her brother with it. "Ow! Ow!"
"All right, all right, break it up, guys!" Astrid hit Tuffnut one more time before getting up off of him. "So let me get this straight: this was all you?"
"The bones? The scraping?"
"That's right! And this was all you: ooh! Aah! Eek!"
"Actually, most of that was me," Fishlegs corrected.
"Why would you do that?" I snapped, starting to get threateningly close to Snotlout. "What were you thinking?"
"I was gonna make Hiccup pay for sticking me with Trader Johann!" That brought my attention to the other issue.
"Where is he?"
"Don't worry about him. He's fine."
"He better not be on Berk all by himself."
"Relax, Reign. I'm not that stupid." I scoffed and set my hands on my hips as Astrid picked up the arm.
"Just so you know, I'm never going to forget this," she threatened Snotlout. "And what's with that stupid necklace?"
"You likey? Yeah, just a little something I found on deck. I can grab one for you if you want." Everyone went silent and our eyes went wide as the boat began to list back and forth, before it fell from the trees and jarred us all off our feet as it crashed to the ground.
"Everybody okay?" Hiccup asked as we all attempted to get back on our feet. I reached down to help him up so that he could keep one arm on the chest. That thing seemed like some sort of security blanket for him. He had refused to let go of it since he had found it.
The grip on his hand remained, however, when a hissing noise started to filter its way down.
"Run!" We tried to sprint up the stairs, but were stopped right in our tracks by a grey fog filtering its way down. It started to encircle our feet and creep its way up to blind all of us.
"Just so you know, this fog? Not us."
"Okay, I'll admit. Starting to come around on the 'Fog Monster' theory." I reached out and grabbed onto Hiccup as the fog completely covered us, and something started to swarm around us. We all screamed as it made laps around all of us, likely trying to determine which one of us was the most fitting prey. It made three more shadowy laps before the fog started to fade away.
"We're alive. Right?" Tuff flicked his sister's shoulder. "Ow!" She socked him in the stomach as payback.
"Can we please just get out of here?" Hiccup looked down and gasped. The chest he had been holding was gone, somehow snatched up in all the mess.
"Wait! The chest! I-I- It's gone! I just had it."
"Too bad, so sad. See you back at Berk." Fishlegs, Ruffnut, Tuffnut, and Snotlout ran off behind us, leaving Hiccup, Astrid, and I to solve this. I shook my head at them, and my gaze happened to fall on my left hip, where my sword usually rested. But instead, all I saw was an empty sheath.
"Oh, great. It took my sword." I turned to Astrid and sighed. "You head back with the others, keep a very close eye on Trader Johann. Hiccup and I will sort this out." He had gone on deck to talk to the others before they left.
"Are you sure?"
"I can probably help sort something out." She looked up for a moment, before smiling back at me.
"No. We're not gonna let you do this alone." She patted my shoulder and had me follow her up on deck. "Hold on, guys. That chest is from his mom."
"Yeah, touching story. Gotta go." I started to understand why she was so determined to keep them around.
"Put yourself in his shoes," I continued for her.
"Shoe."
I can't believe he's still on that...
"Ugh. What if it was your mother?" They all stopped in their tracks and turned back to look at me. "You all got the privilege of knowing your mothers. You don't know how it feels to never know who she is, wonder what you have in common with her. You got supportive, loving hugs whenever you came home, and the warm food she'd make, and the advice she'd give you." I felt Hiccup grab one of my hands, and Astrid the other. "Hiccup... never got any of that." I hadn't noticed I was getting choked up until I had finished what was on my mind. "Sorry about that."
The four looked at each other, then back at me several times before climbing off their dragons and inviting us down.
"I hate you," Snotlout declared as he pointed a finger at me. "And this does not mean we're really friends."
The smile on Hiccup's face was undeniable as he looked over the four who had decided to, or rather been guilt-tripped to, stay.
"Thank you, guys. I mean it. Now let's go find that Fog Monster."
We knew we were closer as the fog got denser. It was almost impossible to see below us, yet somehow, Astrid was able to spot the Fog Monster traveling back to its lair.
"There it is!"
The thing she was pointing at was moving in an odd way. It wasn't seeping or tumbling, like fog should, but instead, it almost looked like it was floating or flying.
"Is it just me, or does fog not move like that at all?" I pushed Shriek to get her to speed up and dive closer to the supposed fog, but as soon as we got close enough, it somehow split off into two monsters.
"There's two of them!"
"Astrid!" I pointed in the opposite direction.
"On it!" She led Snotlout and the twins behind her, while I brought along Hiccup and Fishlegs. It weaved back and forth between the trees before zipping around a corner and disappearing. The others came back and met us where we had landed, having no success themselves.
"We lost it," I sighed.
"So did we." Everyone climbed off their dragons to see if it would be better to find it on foot.
"Uh... it didn't lose us." Everyone snapped their heads to where Tuffnut was pointing to see a cloud of fog slithering its way closer to us. It broke up again and surrounded our group, engulfing us in fog just like last time. Toothless roared in distress, as though trying to call for someone.
"Settle down, bud." The dragons flapped their wings to hover just above the fog.
"What are they doing?"
"They're leaving us..."
"I knew Hookfang never liked me." I shook my head and pointed to the dragons, showing the way they were flapping their wings.
"They're not going anywhere. Look!" The fog started to clear away, and I thought that would be it, but when we looked around, the fog revealed itself to be covering a bunch of tiny dragons.
"They're dragons!"
"Yeah, angry ones." They screeched and roared as they glared down at our group.
"Well, look on the bright side, Fishlegs: no Fog Monster."
"I feel so much better," he deadpanned with a shaking voice.
"What are those things?"
"They're like smoky dragon-pirates, but without the eye-patches."
"Smothering Smokebreath dragons..." Everyone turned to glare at Fishlegs. "What?"
"You knew about these things?"
"Well, I've read about them, but I didn't think they actually existed."
"So you went with 'Fog Monster' instead?" I groaned.
"Guys, can we please talk about this later?" Hiccup interjected. "What else did the book say?"
"They hide themselves in a veil of smoke, they're very territorial, and... uh..." Fishlegs trailed off as his memory eluded him. "I forget the third thing." A few of the dragons lept at us, one of them trying to take Astrid's axe from her. I was ready to defend myself, despite not having a weapon, but before I could do anything the necklace I wore was snapped off my chest.
"Hey! Bring that back!"
"There's too many of them! Let's fall back!" My heart sank.
"No! We can't!"
"Uh... Fall back where?"
"Give us a fire line!"
"Don't have to ask us twice!" Barf and Belch spewed out their gas and lit it on fire to cause an explosion that would push back the Smokebreaths, giving us a chance to retreat. I stared down at the Smokebreaths as they retreated into their cave, my heart hitting my chest as hard as my disappointment. I had to get that necklace back, and now. It meant too much to me to just let them have it.
"What are we doing? Why are we still here?"
"I can't leave here without that chest."
"You don't even know if they have it!" I shook my head and leaned down against Shriek.
"I have a pretty good idea. Let's get a closer look." I stared intensely at where the Smokebreaths had gone. "Uh, Reign?" I looked over at Hiccup to see that the others had already gone, and he was standing at my side.
"They took my necklace." My voice broke, and I jumped down to hug him. "I need it back, now. I-I've never taken it off before. I'm so sorry, Hiccup. I-"
"Hey, hey, it's okay. We'll get it back, I promise." I sniffled and leaned my head against his shoulder.
"And we're getting that chest back, too." He smiled and me, and the two of us climbed down to hide behind rocks with the others. As more flew by us, I noticed they were each carrying something shiny.
My sword... the necklace... Hiccup's chest...
"Fishlegs? Anything more you'd like to share?" I hissed.
"Unfortunately, yes. That third thing? The Smothering Smokebreaths build their nest out of metallic objects."
"That doesn't sound too cozy. Or, does it?"
"Thank you for always adding essential bits to our conversations, Tuff."
"It's not supposed to be. They do it to defend against attacks from bigger dragons."
"I wish I could see in there."
"Yeah, you do." Tuffnut cackled as he looked at his hand through a spyglass, which I was pretty sure he didn't have when we showed up.
"Where did you get that?"
"Duh, the ship. Or whatever that was in the tree." Hiccup grunted and snatched the spyglass from his hands, using it to look into the cave the dragons were building their nest in.
"They're melding them all together," he informed us. "The chest! It's in there! We've got to get them away from that pile of loot."
"Maybe we can lure them away," Astrid suggested.
"With what?" A glint out of the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I slowly turned toward where it was coming from. Snotlout's necklace was shining under the sunlight as he cleaned it against his tunic. He looked up to see all of us staring at his necklace, but remained completely clueless.
"Haha, what?"
"Here, dragons. I've got something for you. Over here." Snotlout dangled the necklace from his hands and taunted the Smokebreaths, hoping to draw them out long enough for Hiccup, Fishlegs, and I to get in the cave and get our stuff back. Sure enough, a large cloud of smoke emerged from inside and went after Snotlout and his necklace.
"Okay, quickly. Those things will be done with Snotlout any second now." The three of us took off on our dragons and steered them into the cave. As soon as Toothless touched down, Hiccup jumped off of him and started to climb up the large pile to where his chest was.
"Um, guys?" Fishlegs' voice quivered. "They're coming." I turned Shriek around to stand our ground against the Smokebreaths to buy Hiccup time.
"Hiccup, look out!" The fog wrapped itself around us and blinded me from being able to see exactly where they were.
"Toothless!" The Night Fury roared and flapped his wings to clear away the fog.
"Let's get out of here!" I cried.
"Aah! Don't leave me!" I rolled my eyes and turned back to face Snotlout.
"Great," Hiccup groaned. "Plasma blast!" Toothless fired three shots in Snotlout's direction to scare off the Smokebreaths, allowing Snotlout to run and climb up with Hiccup. The Smokebreaths chased them in pursuit of Snotlout's necklace. I sighed and patted Shriek to get her out of the cave as the others fled.
"Anything you have that's metal, throw it at them!" Astrid ordered. Everyone started throwing any of the weapons they had, and it seemed to be enough to satisfy them.
"We did it!" I looked over at Hiccup to see one of the Smokebreaths heading straight for his leg.
"Hiccup!" It clamped its teeth down on the metal and yanked Hiccup right from the saddle. He gripped tightly onto his dragon as he fought to kick the little creature away from him. Toothless flicked his tail fin so that he and Hiccup would start spiraling toward the ground, when Fishlegs dove under them and shot up at the lingering Smokebreath.
"You will not haunt my dreams!" he screamed after the fleeing dragon. "Because I'll never sleep again."
I looked at Hiccup and tried my best to hide my disappointment that my necklace was lost.
"Go ahead, open it."
I placed a hand on Hiccup's shoulder as he, his father, and I stared down at the chest. Hiccup had asked me to be there with him when he opened it, and so here I was. With shaking hands, he slowly pried open the top of the chest and looked down at what was inside. It was a small, stuffed dragon that looked as though it had been through everything. Hiccup, however, seemed to recognize it immediately. His eyes went wide as he reached down into the container and held the little dragon in his hands.
"I remember this," he whispered.
"Aye, you should." Chief Stoick wrapped an arm around his son. "Your mother made that for you, when you were just a baby. Scared you half to death." I chuckled. Hiccup, afraid of dragons? That seemed almost impossible, considering what he'd achieved. "You didn't sleep for a week."
"What? I was afraid of dragons?" On cue, Toothless purred at his rider.
"Oh-ho, terrified. One day, we were out fishing, and you threw that thing into the sea."
"How did you find it?"
"Well, it showed up in a fishing net. Trader Johann got it in trade, and contacted me." Hiccup's face changed, and one of his hands reached out for my own. I took it with a smile and squeezed it gently.
"I was so little when Mom... you know. I was starting to get afraid that I'd forget her. But now... I love it." I smiled affectionately at Hiccup's words and tilted my head at him.
"Oh, Hiccup. It would make your mother very, very happy to finally hear that." Hiccup broke away from me for a moment to hug his father.
"Thanks, Dad." He looked at me and smiled, before taking my hand again and leading me upstairs. We both sat down on his bed, and he turned the dragon around in his hands. "I think about my mom a lot. A-And how we... we lost her." He looked over at me, a slightly broken look in his eyes. "And then, I think about all these times I've put you in danger, or you've gotten in trouble and needed help, and I... I'm scared I'm going to lose you, too."
My eyes went wide as I looked back at Hiccup again. How long had he been thinking about this? My heart dropped in my chest as I reached out to grab his hand and started to think about all the times I'd given him the chance to worry. We both did this to each other, but it just came with the job of being Dragon Riders and Trainers. I'd never stopped to think about how much he might worry about me.
"Hiccup, you're not going to lose me." He tried to look away, but I reached out and grabbed his chin with my fingers. "Hey, I mean it. There are things we can't prepare for, but I promise to you that you'll never lose me. There will always be a Hiccup and Reign."
That, right there, got through to him. He reached out to touch my cheek, then extremely gently, - as though he were afraid I was going to get hurt- pulled my face closer to his and kissed me. I sighed and moved my hand from on his chin to his hand, and only when I felt guilty tears forming did I pull away.
"I'm sorry I didn't get the necklace back." I closed my eyes and tried my best not to start sobbing.
"What, this old thing?" My eyes snapped open, and I laughed as Hiccup held up the engraved piece of silver. "It's right here."
"When did you...?"
"I snagged it right before Toothless and I got out of there." He reached around to clasp it back on me.
"I guess I don't need to worry, as long as I have you and Toothless."
Most people are afraid of things because they don't understand them. For me, it was the feeling of losing something I cared about. But then, I lost the most valuable thing in the world to me, and got it back from the most valuable person in the world to me. And suddenly, it wasn't so scary.