Ingrid of Berk

Chapter Six

"There it is! That's the stream!" Hiccup pointed to a stream filled with glowing algae.

"Aurora!" Ingrid pointed to a glowing dragon feeding from the stream.

Hiccup landed Toothless a good few metres away. Ingrid hopped off and approached the Flightmare slowly.

"Aurora," she sighed, "Oh, how glad I am to see you. I was so worried."

The Flightmare turned its head towards Ingrid and stared at her.

"Um..." Ingrid stepped back.

"Ingrid? Is everything OK?" Hiccup called.

The Flightmare raised itself onto its hind legs and prepared to spray its paralysing mist.

"That's not Aurora," Ingrid said in a panicked voice.

But before the Flightmare could spray her, another glowing dragon launched out of the bushes and wrestled it to the ground.

"Aurora!" Ingrid cried.

Aurora and the other Flightmare clawed and scratched at each other, batting each other with their wings and tails. Aurora eventually pushed the other Flightmare off of her. They hissed and began to circle each other like cats. The other Flightmare stalked, waiting for the right chance. As soon as Ingrid was in firing range, it opened its mouth to spray its paralysing mist again.

"Toothless, plasma blast!" Hiccup yelled.

Ingrid ducked as Toothless fired a purple-ish blue ball of plasma right into the other Flightmare's mouth. It screeched and scampered away.

"Aurora, are you OK? I was so worried about you," Ingrid held her dragon close.

"I've never seen a Flightmare behave so well in the presence of a human," Hiccup muttered to Toothless, "Though I suppose nobody had seen a Night Fury behave so well, either."

Suddenly Ingrid gasped.

"Oh, look at you, you're hurt," she cried. She examined Aurora's leg. A pure white spine was embedded in her scales.

"That's from that Screaming Death, isn't it?" Ingrid said as she carefully dislodged the spine.

"Look at that thing," Hiccup marvelled.

"Much bigger than a Nadder spine," Ingrid dug into a small bag which was attached to Aurora's saddle and pulled out a Nadder spine dagger, "And much sharper, too. Though I wonder if Screaming Death spines have the same poisonous properties as Nadder spines?"

"I don't think so," Hiccup said, "They'd be far closer to Whispering Death spines than Nadder Spines."

"Shame," Ingrid said, then turned to Aurora, looking her up and down.

"Have a bite to eat, girl, your glow is getting weaker" Ingrid patted Aurora. Aurora looked over at Toothless and chirped, gesturing to the night-coloured dragon.

"What's she saying?" Hiccup asked.

"I'm pretty sure she's offering some of the algae to Toothless," Ingrid said, "Because he helped save me. It's her way of saying thanks. They're very territorial, you know, it's rare that a Flightmare would ever share its food source."

Aurora chirped and began slurping up some of the algae. Toothless did the same and a few moments later was glowing blue like lapis lazuli.

"You know, I'd somehow suspected his colour would have been green," Ingrid said, sitting down by the stream, "Well, you live and you learn."

"Yeah, we've seen this happen once before," Hiccup sat down next to Ingrid.

"Call me crazy, but I've actually eaten the algae before," Ingrid chuckled.

"That sounds... concerning, among other things," Hiccup eyed her.

"It was disgusting, but I did discover something pretty interesting," Ingrid peeled a small bit of algae from a rock and swallowed it, gagging a little. Almost instantaneously, she began to glow a fiery pink.

"It works on humans too," she finished.

"That seems like a hazard," Hiccup said awkwardly.

"Now go on, you try it!" Ingrid encouraged.

"Must I?" Hiccup asked.

"Just do it, I promise it's fine," Ingrid encouraged.

Hesitantly, Hiccup swallowed a small piece of algae.

"Oh gods, that's disgusting," he said. To his surprise, he began to glow bright green.

"I knew green was your colour," Ingrid laughed.

"How long until the glow wears off?" Hiccup asked.

"About an hour or so on humans and dragons that aren't Flightmares," Ingrid said.

"What luck," Hiccup said sarcastically, "Because I have to go pick something up from Gobber in a while."

The pair sat together as their dragons fed on the algae. Toothless seemed quite fond of his glow. Ingrid filled a few bottles with the algae water and put them inside the bag on Aurora's saddle.

"You never know when you're gonna need something to glow," she explained.

Eventually the dragons were full and it came time to fly back to the village. As the glowing Toothless and Aurora descended upon the town, they could hear various cries of "The Flightmare is here! The Flightmare has returned!"

They landed outside of Gobber's shop right as he came waddling out.

"I thought Stoick's lad had got rid of the darn thing," he cursed before stopping in his tracks at the sight of Hiccup and Ingrid.

"I've been breathing in too much Zippleback gas again," he sighed, "Hiccup, your dragons are glowing! You are glowing!"

Astrid marched out of the shop with a shiny, sharp axe.

"Sweet baby Thor in a thunderstorm, what did you do?" Astrid barked.

"We found Aurora," Hiccup gestured to Ingrid and her Flightmare.

Astrid paused and stared.

"You're telling me that Aurora is a Flightmare?!" Astrid yelled.

"Might have failed to mention that," Ingrid whispered.

"Might have?" Astrid cried, "How can you not mention something like that? I thought Aurora was gonna be a Nadder or something, not that."

"Alright, everybody calm down, it's only Hiccup!" Gobber shouted to the panicked villagers. Immediately everyone rolled their eyes and went back inside.

"So let me get this straight," Astrid said, "You saw Arvdendales Fire and went after the Flightmare that nobody else knew about and then you found the Flightmare and then you all ate the glowing Flightmare algae and now you are glowing?"

"And some other stuff, yeah," Hiccup said awkwardly.

"And you didn't invite me?" Astrid huffed.

"Yeah, I'm so sorry," Hiccup sighed.

"I have more algae if you want some," Ingrid suggested.

"It tastes worse than yaknog," Hiccup advised.

"Can't be that bad then," Astrid shrugged.

"You really have no idea," Hiccup sighed.