The Great Beyond

Chapter 30: Turn and Burn (Reign)

 I swung my legs back and forth while I bit down on my tongue, attempting to keep the comments spinning around in my mouth from escaping out as Hiccup pounded away on what was quite possibly his most dangerous invention. I had sort of hoped we'd be able to spend the day working on things that involved a bit more flying on our dragons, because it was such a nice day, but Hiccup had begged for at least a little time working in the forge. The moment he told me what he wanted to work on, I rolled my eyes, but the way his eyes lit up when he tinkered with the thing wasn't something I wanted to take away from him. Besides, it wasn't so bad that him working meant I'd get a little time to just sit and relax.

The sun had moved to sit straight above our heads when Hiccup finally stepped back from his work bench and held up the dark red flaps of fabric held together by poles of metal that shimmered under the afternoon light. Toothless yawned before his rider got the chance to turn around, causing me to snicker.

"So? What do you think, bud?" Hiccup turned to his dragon first, who groaned and looked away from the thing, demonstrating his displeasure. "What? No love for the old Dragonfly Two?" Briefly, he glanced at me, but I just stuck my eyebrows up, reminding him of my disapproval of the death trap. "Oh, come on. You love these wings. They let me fly beside you, they put us in precarious situations that you always have to save me from." Hiccup's attempts at persuading his dragon reaped no rewards.

"Yeah, it's that second part that makes me far less fond of that thing." I gestured sloppily to the Dragonfly Two. "If you could eliminate those risks, I'd just call it useful, instead of 'vaguely helpful, but mostly heart-attack-inducing.'" As I spoke, I pushed myself up from my seat and moved closer to him, resting an arm around his shoulders when I delivered the criticism.

"Yes, thank you for your input, Reign." Naturally, he wasn't listening, far too focused on the excitement of his invention. "All right, I think this is probably gonna need some welding. Hey bud, can you fire up the forge?"

"I'll do it!"

Hiccup and I jumped back, startled, only to groan in exasperation when we looked up to see that the source of the noise was just Snotlout and Hookfang, who somehow managed to sneak up on the two of us. Given Hookfang's massive size, the subtlety was mildly impressive—but mostly irritating.

"Oh, my!" Hiccup took a second to catch his breath before chewing out the Rider. "Snotlout! How many times have I told you not to sneak up on me like that?"

"Uh, well, if you count now, I would say... I don't care." I exhaled sharply and shook my head, doing nothing to hide my annoyance. "Let me light the forge for you." Hookfang's huff served as a reminder that there would be no fire without his assistance. "'Us.' Let 'us' light the forge for you. Jeez, don't be so needy."

"Yeah, I think I'm okay," Hiccup refused, trying to prevent some sort of major accident.

"Hiccup, aren't you two always complaining that I never do anything around here?" Technically, he had us there. "Well, here I am. Snotlout 'the Volunteer' Jorgenson. Ready to do Thor's work."

"And that's what I'm afraid of," I groaned, slapping one hand against my forehead.

"Watch and learn, Hiccup. Watch and learn. Hookfang, hit it." Immediately, Hiccup and my eyes widened, quickly connecting the dots of what was about to happen.

"No, no, no, no! Snotlout, you have to build it gradually!"

He didn't listen. Hookfang blew out a large stream of fire, right into the stone chimney of the forge. Without anywhere else for the rest of the flames to go, they quickly spread onto Hiccup's hut, engulfing it completely. Snotlout and his dragon began to panic, with the latter forgetting he could only emit fire from his mouth and blowing out to try and douse what he'd done. Toothless and Shriek managed to get rid of the fire right in front of us by flapping their wings, and as I began to fear the rest of our hut wouldn't make it, the twins flew in with a large bucket of water, neutralizing the threat. Before they left, Ruff and Tuff glared at Snotlout, shaking their heads.