HTLANF: Race to the Edge

Chapter 7 ~ Dragon Eye of the Beholder (Part 7)

Hiccup and I looked towards Dagur as he began to laugh. Did he really not notice the others take flight on their dragons? How is he not concerned about the silence?

"Isn't this exciting? What will he choose, ladies and gentlemen? Saving his friends or capturing his mortal enemy, his brother?" Dagur said through his laughter.

Both Hiccup and I gave him a deadpan expression as I flew in place. He really had no clue that the others got away.

"Dagur, there's no one on the Reaper anymore." Hiccup said blatantly as he gave up on playing along and I huffed in agreement, steam leaving my snout.

Dagur stopped laughing and looked up towards us with anger and utter confusion. His look gave me a triumphant feeling that sent a small smirk to reside on my maw.

'Serves him right for trying to traumatize me.' I thought.

"What?! That can't be possible! That cage was locked up tight! How did they escape?!" Dagur shouted angrily as he roughly took a spyglass from one of his crew members to get a closer look at the Reaper as it slowly sunk into the deep blue waters of the ship graveyard.

I heard Hiccup chuckle atop my back and I purred softly.

"The ship was pretty old Dagur. Everything was rusting and rotting away from the amount of time that it sat unused. The cage was so old that it was easy to open." Hiccup explained to the angered Berserker below us. "What? Did you expect the vessel to be in perfect condition when you locked up my friends?" He asked, amused.

Dagur groaned as he threw the spyglass harshly towards the deck of his ship.

"This isn't over Hiccup! You hear me?! Far from over! Besides, I've got all the gold! All the gold!" Dagur bragged, his anger very noticeable in the way he spoke and gestured with his hands.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever Dagur. We'll see who's victorious in the end." Hiccup said in a nonchalant manner as he adjusted my tailfin and I sped my way out of the graveyard.

The others caught up to us a little ways out of the fog and I smiled at the other dragons.

"You know, that won't be the last time we see him Hiccup." Astrid said and I could tell Hiccup rolled his eyes.

"Thank you for summing that up Astrid. I had no idea." He said sarcastically and that earned laughs out of everyone else, including the dragons.

Astrid huffed and focused on steering Stormfly. I looked up at Hiccup with my signature gummy smile adorning my maw in delight. He smiled back as he scratched behind my left earplate, purrs reverberating from the back of my throat.

~~~HTLANF~~~

Once we got back to Berk, Kala and I went straight to Gobber to see if he knew anything about the item we found. The others chose to follow as soon as they saw me pull it out of the satchel on Kala's saddle just before she transformed into her human form. I ignored this in order to keep a calm manner about myself as I spoke with Gobber.

When we got to the forge, I knocked on the open door frame in a calming rhythm that I grew accustomed to doing to alert Gobber of my presence. The knock got his attention as usual and he smiled at us as he stopped grinding an axe.

"Hey lad. What can I do fer ya?" Gobber questioned, his smile as welcoming as ever.

"Could you help us figure out what this is?" I asked as I held the item out towards him.

Gobber set down the axe and hobbled over to our group, taking the item from my grasp gently and inspecting it. He started to try to figure out how to activate it, clearly struggling.

"Have you ever seen anything like this Dragon Eye before?" Kala asked with curiosity mixing together with fascination in her words.

I smiled at her, agreeing with the name she came up with for the item we discovered.

Tuffnut gave Kala a confused stare. "Dragon Eye? How do you know it's called a Dragon Eye?"

"Because I named it." She retorted smugly with her hands on her hips as she leaned towards him with a smirk upon her beautiful lips.

I stifled a laugh by covering my mouth to restrain myself from having a full blown laughing fit. Over the years, Kala has definitely become more comfortable with being around others in her human form and she lets loose more and more, but it is a very slow process. This is the first time she's acted smug towards the others.

"Whoa, whoa. When did you get so smug Ms. Shy Stuff? Also aren't we supposed to vote on stuff like that?" Snotlout quipped.

"Fine. All in favor, say 'Dragon Eye'." Kala shot back with her arms crossed.

"Dragon Eye!" All of us, except Snotlout and obviously Gobber said in unison.

Snotlout crossed his arms with a pout. "Just wanted to make sure we voted."

"Can you open it, Gobber?" Astrid questioned as she looked towards the struggling blacksmith.

He chuckled, not looking up from his task. "'Can I open it?' I once opened a five hundred year old giant clam at the bottom of the ocean with my bare hook. Can I open it? Ha! I think it's going to be... Huh. Aha."

When Gobber thought he succeeded, a dart shot out of the Dragon Eye and hit Tuffnut in the chest. Kala and I bit our lips, knowing full well that he was going to pass out any second.

"Ugh. What is that? That looks like a..." Tuffnut started to say as he noticed the dart, but he was cut off as he promptly passed out, which led to Ruffnut laughing at her twin's bad luck.

"Well, that was...something, maybe." Gobber commented intrigued.

"Gobber, maybe you shouldn't..." I tried, but Gobber cut me off.

"Trust me. I'm...It's all right," He said through struggles, then Zippleback gas started to spray out of the Dragon Eye.

Kala and I backed away, nervous that Gobber may accidentally light the gas as he fiddled with the Eye. As we stopped backing away, Tuffnut woke up from his knocked out state.

"I'm okay. I got hit with something, but now..." He sniffed the air and grimaced. "No, scratch that." Tuff then fell back down and began to spasm as the effects from the dart mixed with the effects of the Zippleback gas.

"Yeah, I'm thinking we should probably go get Gothi." Kala said nervously as she held her cloak securely around herself.

~~~HTLANF~~~