renegades, httyd

viii. First Rule of Flight Club

renegades
chapter eight

    Winglash was starting to grow up. No longer was she tiny, as tall as my shin, but was getting closer and closer to the height of my hip. She was nearing her adolescent phase, which I really hoped wouldn't make her more of a chatterbox. She's started to annoy Stormfly to the point of warning snarls for trying to take her chicken. At first it was amusing, but now, I had to try and discipline extra hard every other moment of the day. No, Winglash this and No, Winglash that. She was starting to gain some other colours in her scales. Her ochre complexion was growing in shining burnt oranges and highlights of lemon yellow. She was starting to scratch her jaw along the wood to soothe teething pain, and I had to take her to Gobber to help get some overgrown baby teeth out to be replaced with growing, adult, razor sharp ones.

    In my opinion, she was growing up way too fast.

    And the more she grew, the more fish and chicken she liked to gobble up. Which meant more work for me.

But right now, I shouldn't be focusing on that. Instead, I had to focus in not running straight into the sea stacks.

Flight Club was hard. Or maybe riding Toothless and trying not to fall off from the sheer strength it took to cling on with his speed was hard. Either way, I felt like I was falling behind everyone else. One, they had dragons who were Board Wings. Two, they seemed to fly with them pretty well. Wartihog, Clueless and Speedifist has this chance━unlike me━to get to know how their dragons fly and work around their weaknesses to be fluent in movement. And while I was learning that about Toothless, it would be better if it was Winglash instead. But she still had a little while to go until I could fly with her, and until then, I was stuck here.

Glancing over my shoulder, the wind pushed my hair all over my face, even with it pulled back. I looked back down where Hiccup was watching and waiting with Winglash.

Toothless was a great dragon. Strong, fast, intelligent. But he also wasn't quite open to those he didn't fully trust yet. I've been doing this for a month now, and it took him that long to even think oh, maybe she can fly me okay.

Turning back to the flight path in front of me, I leaned forward in the saddle and switched positions in Toothless's tail. We took a turn left around a sea stack, and I narrowed my eyes to search━

"There, Toothless!" I pointed to the flag and he purred in reply. Switching again, I guided us towards it and wrapped around, following the course Hiccup had set.

I did enjoy the feel of it though, more than I had when I first started. The wind no longer created fearful knots in my stomach, but instead a breath of freedom and a thrill to perhaps go even faster. We dived down and I squinted, waiting for the right moment to pull up. The water parted and we shot through past the catapults.