The Great Beyond

Chapter 37: Family on the Edge (Hiccup)

                Slowly, slowly, the shadow on the sun dial slid to the right point with each creeping movement of the sun setting. I couldn't tear my eyes away from it, afraid of missing our chance by even a second. The dark spot move closer... closer... closer...

"And, go!"

The second I gave the cue, all of our dragons dove off the cliff in front of us, gliding quickly toward the marked wooden boats floating on the water's surface. The jars of Monstrous Nightmare gel clutched against my chest clattered every now and then with the wind's movements, but I kept a strong grip on them. We couldn't afford to lose even a drop right now.

I waited until all of us were over our positions, making sure we'd be able to nail this on the first try.

"Three, two one!"

I stuck my arms out and dropped the two jars down, letting them fall just a bit before I motioned for Toothless to blast them. The jars caught on fire instantly, and the force with which they hit the boat directly below me completely shattered the two next to it, all done within a matter of seconds. Most of the rest of the group managed to do the exact same thing, hitting the targets with precision and speed...

...But then, there was the twins. Not only did they drop their jars in the wrong places, but Barf and Belch lit them too early, meaning the gel was already useless by the time it reached the vicinity of the boats. Frustrated, I landed Toothless and checked the sundial, then turned to the twins.

"Slow and inaccurate. That's quite a combo."

"That was also our parents' nicknames for us." Tuff was completely disregarding the seriousness of what their error meant. "My nickname was 'Slow', which I thought was inaccurate."

I rolled my eyes, wishing now that Reign and Heather had come back from patrol. I had absolutely no idea how she managed to wrangle the twins and get them to listen to her.

"Viggo doesn't know we found his shipyard yet," I reminded them. "We'll only have one chance at knocking out his fleet. We have to get it right."

Finished with chastising them, I climbed up onto Toothless' back, exhausting weight heavy on my limbs. I had forgone sleep lately, for the sake of trying to formulate a plan of attack for Viggo's new shipyard that Reign and Heather had discovered on one of their patrols a couple weeks ago. We still had the advantage at the moment, and I wasn't about to let that go. I had sent the two sisters on one last patrol, just to make sure nothing changed, and once we had the information from them, we'd strike.

However, for now, I decided I finally had the chance to catch up on some sleep. I barely managed to stay upright as I slid off Toothless and made my way into my hut.

"Come on, bud," I yawned. "Let's get some shut-eye before dinner."

I could hear someone moving inside my hut, which at least was promising. I expected to see Reign in there, most likely having just returned from her patrol with her younger sister.

The last possible thing I could have expected, something that didn't even cross my mind, was what I was greeted with instead: Dagur, standing right in the middle of my hut, holding the flaming sword I'd made and staring at it with the wide-eyed gaze of a child. Startled, I cried out and stepped back, unsure of how to really process this.

"Brother!" Dagur noticed I'd taken a step back. "Wait, where are you going? It's me. Where's my hug?" Dagur got far too close to me with that sword in his hands, only making me back up further. It took him a second to realize the blade was still ignited, but when he did, he looked down sheepishly. "Oh, sorry. Uh, how do you turn this thing off?"