Black Wing, Blue Wing

4 - Hiccup

"Whenever cadets with...special promise enter your Wing, it's up to you to take care of them. Special promise makes a special soldier, and your superiors will always define what's special." -Article Seven, The Wingleader's Guide

At my feet lay my Wing, the third years looking up with grudging respect, the second years with set jawlines, ready for another year of hell, and the first years are trembling, terrified, their eyes drifting above my own to find Toothless behind me.

They're looking at you, I tell him through my mind. The first years.

Let them look. Besides, they're looking at their undoing, not at me. They look to my fangs, my claws, my fire, my eyes. First years never look at the dragon, only at death, Wingleader, Toothless muses.

Don't call me that! I snap in my mind.

It's what you are.

You of all things should know who I am. Don't lie to me, don't try to gaslight me, don't try to comfort me. I've been through it all in the last month, you know that, so don't you add on to any of it.

Toothless pauses for a moment, and I can feel his body behind me sink lower, as though he's considering my words, adding weight to his back.

You're on edge, he finally says.

Of course I am! It's Conscription Day! Parapet. I've watched fifty-six people die today.

You've seen death before. Why does painless, bloodless, thoughtless death scare you now? It's the most merciful thing you've seen within these walls in the last three years, Hiccup. So why now?

I don't answer. My eyes flit down to the reason, to the girl I'm sure I know, but snap back up again to the other Wingleaders as they command their Wings.

It's the girl. That woman-cadet you scared.

My breath hitches.

Toothless's legs fence me in, claiming me as his own, showing every cadet below who I belong to, what I'm destined to be.

I'm right. And you're terrified that I am.

I'm terrified of a lot of things.

Toothless scoffs in my head. If you were often terrified, you wouldn't be standing where you are now.

"Fishlegs!" I call out to my best friend, a third year, and always ready to leap at any challenge. His sandy blonde hair sprouts up like leaves, and the short fuzz hanging off his chin does nothing to disguise his round face. "Lead the first years to the barracks. I expect you all in Battle Brief in exactly three hours."

"And if we're late?" Some smartass first year below me says. I try to ignore the fact she's standing right next to the girl I know.

"Then you'll be considered dead. And corpses aren't allowed to take classes within Basgiath."

"Chilling," I swear I can almost hear her say. Not her her. Just the smartass girl. If she talked, I don't think I'd ever stop listening.

You know her, Toothless pipes up. I can tell.

"Fishlegs," I ignore him. "Go."

My Wing begins departing, leaving the courtyard and its dangers behind, but there's nothing I can do to send away the voice in my head.

Why are you so hooked on her? Toothless asks.

Bad memories. My answer is short, not nearly enough, but it's the only one I have.