Electrified

Prologue

     It's been a while since I've last seen the old sand wraith that lives around here. He may be buried in the beach, snoozing to his heart's content.  I scan the treetops for any berries, patting the night fury's neck to fly lower. My small, seven year old hands are tiny compared to the massive dragon I'm riding. My thoughts wander back to the sand wraith.
     "What do you think, Lumina?" I ask the night fury. Her sleek black figure glides in the darkness of night. She purrs. "Does he have a family?" The old night fury, maybe twenty two years of age, rattles her head and lands on a sea stack, right next to a bush of blackberries.
     I scratch her head as I pick and eat some.
A few minutes later, we're back in the air again, following the sound of a dragon cry. Lumina's ear plates are standing up, her pupils are slits. "What's wrong girl?" I whisper. An ice island comes into view.
It glistens in the light of the moon as Lumina folds her wings and flies inside. We turn sharply a few times and end up by a dead end. I shiver in the chilly cavern. I slip off of Lumina's neck and walk up to the ice, tracing my tiny fingers along the cool, almost glass like ice. I wipe my sleeve along it, finally seeing what was inside.
     I scream in shock and fear as I peer at the absolutely massive, terrifying beast trapped in the ice. A dark gray skrill with purple markings is frozen -- trapped -- in the ice. It is much larger than my night fury, and it has no lips, exposing teeth sharper than a Nadder's spine. Lumina snarls at the forgotten, deadly beast widely feared throughout the Archipelago.
While I am scared, I marvel at the beautiful, majestic grace of its terrifying form. I remember hearing rumors about the skrill trapped in ice by the present chief of Berk nine years ago. They said that its speed could match a night fury's, its stealth could rival a night terror's, and its strength could overtake even a screaming death. They said it was so beautifully terrifying that even mentioning its name could summon a storm. While a night fury is the most rare, a skrill is the most mysterious, maybe even the most deadly. A night fury can knock down a Red Death in one plasma blast, but a skrill can obliterate a Bewilderbeast with a single lightning bolt summoned from Thor himself.
That is why he was trapped in ice.
And here I am now, standing in front of possibly the last skrill with the rarest dragon at my side. It feels, feels so right. All that power, pure lightning in the flesh, separated from the real world by a few feet of frozen water. If I am ever able to confront, and maybe even befriend it, I would use it for good, establish good friendships, and maybe even fly far away, where the clutches of evil Vikings cannot reach. But for now, this dragon is safe in the cocoon of a watery tomb.
I mount Lumina again, ready to leave this abnormal discovery, when a shriek echoes from the sky. A thundery roar rattles the ice as the sky above darkens.
"Lumina," I whisper, urging her to get us out of here. Fear overtakes my senses as the glacier trembles.
Instead of doing what I ask, Lumina lets out a high-pitched banshee-like shrill. Her eyes are not the recognizable round pupils in used to. I slip off of her neck as she bounds away toward where we came in to this seemingly forbidden place. I look up at a small crevice and the visible night sky, only to see a massive, terrifying, white, blue, and purple lighting bolt barrel out of the sky and strike the glacier. An explosive boom follows closely behind, causing my ears to ring, vision to spot, and fall to the ground, unable to rise because of sheer terror.
When the smoke clears, I struggle to look up and see the dangerously majestic beast I was marveling earlier. It is unrecognizable out of its ice cube.
The colors shift from a dark gray base to light purple spots, to a dark purple base with light gray patches, and finally a black base with cobalt blue and sea foam green spots on the back and wings. It's eyes also change color, from piercing bloodshot, to menacing electric purple, and finally the normal white of the eye.
I can only listen to my silent scream trapped in my throat.
Lumina is the first to act, diving in front of me to shield my eyes from it drawing pure light from the sky. I hear a roar and a shriek. Then, silence. I peer past Lumina's wings to see the skrill peering curiously at me, eyes slightly round. It grumbles, as if greeting me. Lumina relaxes, but the slight movement triggers some kind of memory in the enormous beast before us. Its pupils turn to slits and its colors are black, blue, and green as its body sparks. Lumina cries again in warning, but I step in front of her.
The skrill spreads its wings.
I brace myself for the final, shocking blow.
Thunder booms in the distance. Wind howls.
But my heart is the only thing I hear as I close my eyes.
Another banshee-like shriek, and silence then fills the bone-chilling cavern.
I slowly open my eyes and gasp.
The skrill is rumbling again, head bowed in admiration. Lumina purrs inquisitively as I study the untamable of the untamable. Its colors have shifted back to stormy gray with lavender spots. Its eyes have shifted from electric purple to the normal bloodshot red. My mouth is unable to close.
     I hold out my hand, the same thing I did to Lumina when I first met her. The sparks buzzing just above the skrill's skin vanish. It leans its massive head toward me, pressing its snout against my hand. Pleasant electrical charges run up and down my body. I trace my hand to its neck, feeling no electricity on it. A blank spot.
     I look back to Lumina, eyes wide. "Do you know what this means?"
     The surprise, alarm, and wonder in her cat-like eyes answer my question.
     I have just tamed the most untamable, feared, deadly dragon in the Archipelago.
     And it just tamed me.