The Great Beyond

Chapter 36: Between a Rock and a Hard Place (Reign)

                I scanned the horizon in front of me meticulously, trying to spot any sort of irregularity or ship floating along the water. Nothing was overtly obvious, but that didn't mean I hadn't missed any sort of detail while dipping up and down through the cloud cover. Deciding that landing for a bit might help, I steered Shriek down onto a sea stack below us, removing one of Hiccup's spyglasses that he'd lent me from my belt. Heather landed beside me just a moment later, but her shrug indicated she hadn't found our intended target, either.

Thankfully, when I looked through the spyglass, I could see three ships trying to disappear over the horizon. Bingo.

"What are we landing for?" I didn't even bother to look back at Snotlout. "They're pulling away. Hookfang, come on!"

"No," I snapped. "There's too many and they're sailing in tight formation." Snotlout mumbled something under his breath, just quiet enough that I couldn't catch it. Something told me it was derogatory, though.

"Reign's right." I flashed a brief smile at Fishlegs, thanking him for backing me up. "We'll never be able to approach that convoy without being spotted first."

"We need a distraction," Astrid asserted.

I set the spyglass down, trying to think of a way we could distract the convoy long enough so that some of us could sneak onto the ships and free the dragons, when Hiccup slid off Toothless and started digging through one of his dragon's saddle bags.

"Leave that to us." I did my best to bite back my sigh, knowing that whatever he had planned wasn't the safest option. Sure enough, he held up a new tail fin for Toothless, which could only mean they were about to do something incredibly risky.

"Hiccup, this is no time to play dress-up!" Snotlout shouted, not quite understanding what Hiccup was going for.

"And how can you even think of wearing yellow after Snoggletog?" Tuffnut challenged, treating the mild superstition like it was an abominable crime. "That, my friend, is a fashion faux pas."

"How gauche!"

"Guys, let's just hear him out," I groaned, slapping my forehead out of disappointment.

"This one is lighter and stiffer," Hiccup explained as he attached the new fin to Toothless. "It's made of a thin sheet of Gronckle Iron. It's not great for long-distance flying, but..."

"The added stability will allow you to fly along the water's surface without using and wing-flap," Fishlegs finished. "It's ingenious."

"Exactly, Fishlegs. We're gonna glide in right under their sight line. Watch for my signal!"

Just before Hiccup and Toothless took off, I patted Shriek to move closer to the two of them, and reached over to take his hand. He smiled at me and squeezed it back, offering he silent assurance that he would be fine. Still, after he took off and headed straight for the ships, I felt my chest tighten with worry.

"He'll be fine, Reign." I tried my best to smile at my sister as she and Windshear stepped up to my side. "He's Hiccup."

"Yeah, I know, I just..." I glanced down at my hands a moment, watching them fidget. "I don't know why I've been so worried about him lately. He's pretty much given me no reason to."

"It's just because you love him."

She was right. But, I'd loved him for a long time. Why was it getting so intense now? It couldn't have been because of Viggo, could it? After all, he'd been a looming threat for weeks upon weeks, meanwhile this fear had just started recently.