The Soul of a Dragon

Chapter 54

Nobody

The roar of the dragon is magnificent. Thrilling to the very core of my bones. I will never tire of this feeling. My onyx sword, now stained a satisfying scarlet red, glides smoothly back in its sheath. I look at my victory and relish the fear that lies frozen in its eyes. I roll my stiff shoulders and grimace at the knowledge that I am getting older. Nature has her own way of humbling her subjects. I spit on the ground. Well, fuck that. I won't be controlled by anyone. Slowly, I begin walking until I find a small pond to wash my hands in. The moment I kneel, I hear a rustle behind me and grin at the sky. "Another? Am I this lucky today?" I say as I turn around. But what I see standing in front of me cannot be put into words. My grin diminishes instantly, and a raw scream barely escapes my throat as the world turns pitch black.

Hiccup

"You what?!" she exclaims with her eyebrows raised to the sky. I have never seen her this angry with me. I do deserve it, though. That's for sure. To the 'what did I do' part we'll get in a minute. I need to focus on this fury of a woman in front of me right now. Just let me say one thing: I thought I'd get welcomed back a very different way. I planned on apologising, which I did and it went well, and wanted to proceed to explaining my, well, issues. But a certain someone interfered.

"You should have told her," Snotlout sneers.

"I tried!" I plead for the hundredth time. I really did. But, somehow, she won't let me talk. It seemed a little weird to me, but I figure she is irritated with me for taking off without telling me why.

I look up and the cold in those hazel eyes punches a hole into my heart. I hate this. I hate it so much. Out of everything, I tried so hard to avoid hurting her – or angering her, for that matter. Where did it go wrong? What did I do wrong?

Nothing makes sense anymore.

I just need her to know I would do anything for her. Anything.

And where the fuck are these odd sounds coming from? They sound like-

I jolt awake. "Bees!"

My idiot ass fell asleep underneath a tree. And a particular colony of bees is quite certainly pissed off that I chose their tree. Fuck my life.

I've never been a fast runner, but I am astonished by own legs racing across the meadow towards the village. Instead of waiting for the following day, I flew home right after I had my inner monologue. Toothless, the useless reptile, deserted me for his lady the second we arrived on New Berk, of course. I can't blame him. I wanted to run to Vara the second I set foot here, too. But, instead, I chickened out and fell asleep whilst pondering over the many ways I could start the conversation with her. I started with a very original "Hey, Vara" and got stuck at "Hey, Vara, how's life".

Yeah. I suck.

Now, I must look like a freaking lunatic. I wonder what people are thinking when they see their chief flee from bees and race through the village with surprising agility. In my defence, this kind of stuff is kind of daily business for us Berkians.

What I definitely did not think of, besides the fact that I would end up like...this, is that Vara is one of said villagers. So, my glorious race against the mighty force of those yellow-and-black warriors ends at her very toes.

"H-Hiccup?" she barely manages to breathe out in shock as I nearly knock her off her feet (literally).

I need to catch my breath but also, at the same time, try to act like a normal person again. Yet I open and close my mouth like a voiceless fish – not paying any heed to the fact that fish cannot talk.

"Yes. Me. Hiccup," I say in-between catching my breath.

She eyes me up and down in a worried manner, but then seems to remember herself and crosses her arms. More contained and distanced now, she states, "You left."