The Soul of a Dragon

Chapter 21

Vara

"Arrrrgggh," I groan and rub my upper leg which landed on the ground with a suspiciously loud cracking sound. I don't even bother to stand up again and roll onto my stomach to fold my hands behind my neck. Closing my eyes, I mutter to myself, "You could at least try."

A deafening plasma blast hits the tree standing dangerously close to my face. "Seriously?" I glare at the light fury over my shoulder. She's simply sitting and licking her paws like a very innocent cat. Liar, liar, pants on fire.

I growl angrily and pull my legs under my stomach to quickly get on my feet. Gripping my hips with my hands, I tilt my head and fixate the dragon with an irritated expression. She stops grooming herself and tilts her head like me, nothing but mischief sparkling in her yellow eyes.

One last time, I tell myself. Breathing in deeply, I pick up a new fish by its gills from the pile I brought with me and slowly approach her. She observes me idly whilst her ears are slightly raised with curiosity. I think I see admiration swiftly flash up in her eyes but it could be hallucination. After all, my head hit the ground countless times today. I should have myself checked by Gothi. But this beast seems to think its head is thicker than mine.

Well, let's just see about that.

Biting my lip in concentration, I continue stepping closer until I'm three or four feet away from her. I can feel her deep and soothing breathing on the bare skin of my arms, sending goosebumps all over them. Her eyes are still showing no indication of what she's clearly about to do, but I remain calm and act as if I'm oblivious to her slender tail slowly sliding into my direction. I wait...and wait...

Just as she wants to swipe me off my feet with her tail, I jump forward and instinctively find the spot under her chin on her head's left side. I press it with my index and middle finger, causing her to fall into a serene state of sleep. The light fury closes her eyes and purrs blissfully. I dust off my hands and gloat at the dozing dragon.

"That's what you get for being glib."

"Remind me to never get on your bad side." Hiccup's laugh tears me from my victory and I shriek embarrassingly, which only makes him crack up even harder.

"Hardy-har-har. Very funny." I keep dusting myself off although it's not seeming to help. "You try feeding her next time. Then we'll see who's laughing at the end."

He crosses his arms and looks me up and down. "Challenge accepted."

Right on cue, I hear the female grumbling lowly as she's waking up from her nap. She takes her time to stretch herself, after which she nudges me with her head. But the warmth in her gaze tells me it was all a game and she's apologising for my hurting butt. I smile at her and scratch her under her chin.

At the movement of something, her eyes dart left to Hiccup stocking up on some fish. The dragon and I fleetingly lock eyes, then she sits down again and gives Hiccup a I'm-ready-look. I back away and am so happy to be a witness to this.

Just like me, Hiccup slowly walks towards the patient dragon and mutters soothing words. For a moment, I really think she's going to accept his offer instead of mine. But as Hiccup stretches out his arm to feed her the fish, the light fury narrows her eyes and grins menacingly like a human. Hiccup widens his eyes in surprise and a millisecond later he's lying face-first on the ground. Now, it's my turn to laugh at him. Uninterested, the female turns her back on us and draws herself a warming circle with her own fire to rest in.

I crouch down next to Hiccup and tilt my head to look him in the eyes. "Told ya." He rolls his eyes and sighs deeply. Without saying anything, he lifts his hand and I pull him up. I ignore the way my body reacts to our hands touching, and say shrugging, "She's a wild dragon. Nothing we can do about it. She'll probably catch her own food."