Inner Dragon

Chapter 3 - Dragon Eye Of The Beholder: Part 3

Authors Notes:

Lots of fun stuff happening in this chapter. Must say, it was a joy to write. I hope you enjoy! :)

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the edited plot, my OC's, and my original dragon species.

I also do not own this episode. Only my original scenes. If I owned RTTE, then the episodes would have a high chance of being longer.

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Hiccup had to try very hard to convince the twins not to investigate the Reaper. He himself had not planned to enter its desolate planks either. However, now he found himself landing on the supposed 'haunted' ship. Ironic.

The moon shone bright against the dull hull of the Reaper. It was late evening, or early morning, depending on your point of view. He could see the sails were ripped and the decking had entire sections of wood completely charred and burnt away. Some planks even seemed hacked into, which was rather unusual. Green cages aligned the edges of the ship.

He shivered; he could see why people thought it was haunted. Burned and ripped into by dragons, sure. Every viking above and some below his age had experienced that to some degree, but several axe marks in the wood? Green cages? That was a whole new level of weirdness.

Hiccup walked along the ship, Toothless trailing behind him. "This boat, is definitely not from the archipelago." Hiccup eyes were drawn again to the green metal that appeared to be cages. "These carvings. The design on the sail, I-I've never seen anything like this." Walking over to the nearest cage, he crouched down, testing the feel of the strange green metal beneath his palms. "And this metal."

Toothless approached cautiously behind him. Sniffing the cage, he growled. The low hiss cut though the emptiness like a dagger through yak butter. Painfully reminding Hiccup that they were on an abandoned, shipwrecked, rumored to be haunted, ship. "Come on, bud, it's just an empty cage." He rubbed the dragon comfortingly.

Hiccup yelped, a small shadow darted across his vision, while something soft, yet hard, slapped his face on its way out. Toothless grumbled with his best attempt at sarcasm. "Okay, now-now it's an empty cage."

Hiccup rubbed his cheek. Thankfully the bird, he assumed, hadn't hit his hurt cheek. It had rammed the other one instead. It stung slightly but was quickly fading. It was probably just resting for the night when they disturbed it. Standing in his foot and peg, the brunet dragon rider stepped cautiously across the wooden deck, the worn wood creaking ominously beneath his foot. Toothless beside him, stepped just as cautiously, if not more so.

"We should probably try to be as fast as possible, bud. I don't like how creaky the wood is sounding. It sounds like it could break right through if we're not careful." He mumbled, staring in concern at the rotted wood under his boot. Toothless growled in agreement.

Looking away from his feet, Hiccup spotted what appeared to be a ship hatch just ahead of them. "This looks to be it." Glancing to his Night Fury friend, Hiccup noticed the wary glint in his companion's eyes. "Come on, bud. Don't you want to see what's down below?"

Toothless growled, at this point he would like nothing more than to leave this Ancient's forsaken ship. Unfortunately, he had Hiccup as a brother and rider, so that wasn't likely happening anytime soon.

Hiccup sighed, shrugging his shoulders. "Alright, fine. Guess I'm going alone." Crouching down, he prepared to open the hatch. But something wrapped around his leg and pulled him towards the ship railing. "Ahh, whoa!" He shouted. His body was banged unpleasantly in all sorts of places as he was dragged out.

Toothless shrieked and gave chase, shooting a small plasma blast that blinded Hiccup for a few seconds. Enough that he couldn't see the deck edge as he was dragged with the momentum of the released line against the deck railing.