Heir and Pride

Chapter Fifty

A/N: Wow. Fifty chapters already and still lots more story to come. Many thanks to all of you-your support is really appreciated! Happy New year to you all.

Fifty:

The fog was thick around the houses of Berk, tendrils grasping at the stray rays of light that seeped from under doors and window hatches. A few Vikings were patrolling, peering into the impenetrable gloom with a visibility of only a few yards-but all sensible people were warm in their homes, hunkered down in the freezing night.

Fishlegs glanced across at Meatlug, who was curled at the foot of his bed. Admittedly a full-grown Gronckle couldn't curl especially small and his bedroom floor had needed strengthening to cope with her weight...but to him, she was perfect. He had been a complete dragon geek even before dragon training and he had a copy of the Dragon Manual which he was adding to little by little. The section on Gronckles was exceptionally comprehensive but he also had observations on Nightmares, Zipplebacks and Nadders...as well as Terrible Terrors. In fact the only shameful deficiency was on the page topped by the words NIGHT FURY...because he should know more but was denied the chance.

He sighed. In the six months since Hiccup had gone, Fishlegs had become the authority on all things dragon, even being roped in to try to train dragons with mixed success. The Monstrous Nightmare had really not worked though Snotlout had refused any other species but they had trained another Gronckle, a couple of Nadders and a male Zippleback that turned out to actually be Barf'n'Belch, the twins' original Zippleback. The dragon had just flown back to Berk one day and showed up in the Plaza. And last week, a familiar brown and orange Monstrous Nightmare had arrived at the Jorgensen house...Hookfang. Of course, the dragon had set fire to the roof and batted the Heir halfway across the Plaza but even a cracked rib couldn't remove the grin from Snotlout's face. It had taken a long time but their dragons had returned to them...

Fishlegs had thought long and hard about that and had come to the conclusion that though Hiccup had released the dragons from the Arena, where they were imprisoned most of the time, they had bonded to their Riders and given the freedom Hiccup would have granted them, they had finally found their way back to Berk... He had sighed. The twins had become more circumspect, having lost their home, their shared possessions and their immaculately groomed stuffed yak in Hiccup's final departure but Snotlout seemed to have learned nothing. The stocky boy was Heir again, more puffed up and arrogant than ever and sworn to get his revenge against Hiccup and Astrid.

Of course, it hadn't gone well when the Chief and his select party had taken off the Outcast to try to buy Astrid as a means of persuading Hiccup to return. Fishlegs had been dismayed at the boasting Snotlout had done when he returned and the threats he had made against the girl. He was more concerned because the younger Jorgensen had turned his eye on the only other eligible girl of their age-Ruffnut.

Ruff was certainly no Astrid but she was female and thus supposedly susceptible to Snotlout's imagined charms. She was however immune to any advance, ferociously disparaging and had her brother to help chase Snotlout off-usually with a blizzard of abuse or a fist in some tender portion of his anatomy. Fishlegs had truly hoped she wouldn't change her mind about the Heir...because the two of them were spending more time together. Since her dragon had been missing, Ruff had helped Fishlegs look after the younger children and teach them their basic dragon knowledge...and though she was crazy and wild, she was very good with the young kids and had a knack on engaging even the most inattentive and helping them study with Fishlegs. And he found the time he spent with her was amazingly...agreeable.

He sighed and wrote another line on the Zippleback page. Ruff was helping him with that as well, though she tended to poke fun at his awesome dragon knowledge. Then he heard a thump at the window and walked to the shutter, unlatching it because Ruff seldom came in through the door. What he was not expecting was a wing to shove the shutter up and for a lithe, scrawny shape with a metal left leg to swing through, landing with reasonable agility, his fur cloak wrapped warmly around his shape. A waft of fog followed him in...and finally a black shape squeezed into the room.