The Second Dragon Rider || Eret son of Eret ||

30. Battle Ready

Two and A Half Years Later

"So, ready for training?" Skyla asked Eret.

"You sure you want to do this?" Eret asked as he drew out one of his swords as Skyla tightened her grip on her staff. "I might...knock you down and hurt you."

"Yes I am sure, I need this training. Besides, I can't always count on my powers to save me."

"You're choice....milady."

SKyla snorted. "That's Hiccup and Astrid's thing."

"Well I need to have nice nickname for you that fits. Like ice queen, blondie-" Eret was cut off when Skyla's staff made contact with the back of his legs and sent him sprawling. "Hey no fair!"

"No one is ever ready for a battle, expect the unexpected." Skyla responded as she expertly twirled her staff over her head and got into her battle stance. "Want to go again?"

"Fine, but don't hit me over the head again. You're not Gothi." Eret muttered as he got to his feet and drew both his swords out to battle. "I already have one woman smacking me on the top of the head with her staff and I don't need anoth-" He ducked this time to avoid the staff and swung his sword to block it. "Ha!"

The two continued their mock battle, their staff and swords colliding more than once as the ducked and leapt over and over to avoid getting hit. Eret counted the number of times Skyla came close to hitting him and he felt a swell of pride when he went over his record of the number of times he avoided getting hit.

"Good, you can now block me." SKyla chuckled as she lowered her staff.

"And you've been getting better at fighting with one arm." Eret said and patted her left shoulder. "Would have liked to have seen you battling with two though, you're almost as good as Valka."

"She was the one who taught me in the first place, and the one who had to reteach me everything. She can't have me being defenseless, what if my powers don't work?" Skyla replied as she smiled at him.

"So, shall we head back home and wash off the sweat?" Eret asked as he lead her to the  entrance of the training arena.

"We hardly got started love, why do you want to leave so soon?" Skyla asked and received a smirk from him, causing her to blush. "Oh...oh dear gods Eret!"

"i'm kidding!" He laughed and received a smack on the back of the head from her. "I said I was kidding!"

"Sh-shut up!" Skyla stuttered as she hurried ahead of him to where Skullcrusher and Starlight were napping in the shade. The dark blue Whispering Death lifted her head at the sound of her rider approaching and slithered out of the shade to greet her.

Moron. Skullcrusher muttered as he heard his rider running to them and felt Eret fling himself onto his back.

She's flustered. Starlight noted as her rider swung onto her back.

Don't take off just yet. Let them work this out. Skullcrusher said as he shook Eret off his back and Starlight did the same with Skyla.

The two dragons watched as their riders picked themselves off the floor and start to talk, Eret making sure Skyla didn't leave when he was trying to talk to her. Eventually Skyla smacked Eret across the face, causing both the dragons to flinch, before giving him a good scolding and stormed off.

Well that went well. Skullcrusher muttered sarcastically to Starlight before she gave him a dry look and slithered after her rider.

"Well...at least we didn't break up." Eret muttered as he rubbed his sore cheek. His dragon gave him a look before walking off to follow the other dragon and rider. "Right, a walk back to the village sounds nice." Eret muttered as he ran to catch up with them. As he managed to catch up with Skyla, Eret caught sight of something in the distance.