Dragon Paint

Chapter 1: Familiar Faces

============

Everything hurts when I wake up. I open my eyes slowly, and see a blue sky and four blurry figures standing over me. I blink again, and, when my vision clears, I think the lightning has given me hallucinations. Two humans, whom I recognize but seem different, older, somehow, are looking down on me with concerned expressions. My mind tells me who they are, but I refuse to believe it. Then one of them leans over to the taller one and speaks, and the taller one responds. Yep. Now I think I'm hearing things, because I definitely know those voices: Hiccup and Astrid. Then I reach up to rub my eyes and see only gray scales and blue claws.

I'm losing it, I think, but it's only when Hiccup reaches down to rub my head do I realize this isn't a dream, and that I hadn't had too much coffee last night.

"You're gonna be okay," I hear him reassure. "You just got hit with lightning and broke your wing. We'll fix you up in no time."
Broke my wing? I look over, and sure enough, I am now a dragon. Astrid kneels down to me as well.

"I still can't believe a Night Fury washed up here," she says, smiling.
Night Fury? That's what I am? That's what a well-aimed bolt of lightning can do to you?

Wow, I think. I need to wander aimlessly in thunderstorms more often. I try to say something, but all that comes out is a smoke-filled cough. Hiccup grins, and his grin is more aligned than I remember. He looks twenty, rather than fourteen in the first movie, and he probably is, too. His auburn hair is longer and slightly darker, and he has two small braids behind his right ear. His outfit is completely modernized; he's got a sword on his right leg, his prosthetic leg is way different, the upper half of his body is fabric, leather and dragonskin, and the lower half is leather and fabric. He has two shoulder pads, armbands, a compass on the right arm and a dagger on the left. He also seems to have gained more freckles, and is starting to show signs of stubble around his chin.

Astrid has changed plenty, too. Her face is softer, less angular. Her bangs are noticeably shorter, but still drift over her left eye gently. Her headband is different; the tarnished sequins that once adorned it no longer exist, indicating that this might be a different headband. Astrid's shirt is now reddish-brown, and she has a large fur hood draping over the back of her shoulders. She still has the metal shoulder pads and the armbands, but the armbands are now more like the sleeves of a parka in that they're somewhat poofy and have fur lining the ends where the elbow is. Astrid still has the skulls around the top of her skirt, but seems to have lost the belt. The spikes are still there, but the rest of the skirt is fur or wool or something. Her boots are also way furrier (literally, they are the fuzziest boots I have ever seen, rivaled only by those ridiculous leg-warmers people wear) and she has a fetching pair of kneepads to complete the outfit.

I stand up weakly, my legs shaking. I try out my new, stronger dragon legs, but walking on all fours with no shoes feels weird when you've walked about on two legs in a pair of sneakers your whole life. I stumble forward, and Toothless sticks his head under my chin before I fall flat on my face. He pushes me back up, and I plop down rather painfully on my butt, for my new balance is currently terrible.

I study Toothless; he's pretty much the same, but larger and way more muscular. The spines on his forehead have grown and are more pronounced. He's gained two more spikes on each arm and three more sonar-receptor-thingamajigs on each side of his chin. The saddle, though, is completely different. It runs all the way down Toothless's back, splitting in the middle for the spines. The seat is padded and has two handles sticking out of the sides. The right stirrup looks about the same, but the left one confuses me. A rod sticks out of the shoulder loop, and a lever juts out the front of it. Where's the stirrup for Hiccup's foot? I'm about to ask, but something tells me I shouldn't let anyone know that I know exactly who all these people are. Instead I study the tailfin. It's pretty much the same. The only difference is the skull motif. It's got two jaws, round eyes, three teeth on each jaw, and horns that curve over the cranium instead of sticking out the sides.

When I look back at Toothless's face, he's giving me an expression that can only be described as, "What in Thor's name are you looking at, weirdo?" Hiccup laughed, and then I heard a squawking giggle that could only belong to Stormfly.

She walked over to me. "Toothless isn't the kind to warm up to strangers, kid," she grinned. Toothless shot Stormfly an annoyed look. Stormfly had changed a little, but not too much to notice. She had two more claw-spike-things on her legs, and her horns were longer, but the difference wasn't significant.

I try to stand on my four legs again, and I fall flat on my face in a puddle of water. I look at my reflection, and staring back at me is the most beautiful creature I've ever seen: me. I've got striking blue eyes, and my sonar-receptors are sky-blue along with my ears. I can just barely see black, blue and white stripes on my neck, and I have the most adorable blue freckles under my eyes and around my nose. I've also got a birthmark shaped like a paintbrush and paint running along my left ear. Then I realize that I, as well as Toothless, have three extra sonar-receptors on each side of my chin.

I wonder...., I thought. Maybe I'm the same age as him..... Then I jump as Toothless speaks to me.

"Who in the name of Odin are you?," he says.

I start and blink, flustered. "Uhh, umm," I splutter. "I, uhh, I'm......" I think for a minute. "I'm.....Paintsplash........?"

Toothless cocks his head. "How'd your parents even know about paint?," he questions. "I thought only humans were capable of making and using it."

I shrug. Toothless's questions don't end there, though.

"How old are you?"

I blink. "I'm thirteen," I say.

Toothless gives me a weird look. "No you're not," he argues. "You've got five sonar-receptors on each side. You're obviously somewhere around twenty."

I cock my head, confused. Then it hits me. When the lightning hit me, it turned me from a brunette thirteen-year-old into a gray, scaly twenty-year-old. So, that means Toothless is twenty as well.

I just got seven years older, I think. Wonderful. I just love aging.

"Where did you come from?," Toothless continues.

"I have no idea whatsoever," I say bluntly. "All I know is that I got hit by lightning while wandering aimlessly in a thunderstorm like I do every night since I'm an orphan, and I ended up here."

Stormfly is suddenly babying me and crooning over me. "Ohh, you poor kid. Orphaned, nowhere to live, with a broken wing...."

I cringe away from her. My foster mother always does that, and it's profoundly irritating.

"Okay," I say, pushing Stormfly away. "You can just, you know, stop now. This, this is just weird." Toothless laughs, showing his seemingly fang-free gums. I grin at him, and the look he gives me makes me feel funny. I start to feel a weird, almost-but-not-quite sick feeling in my stomach, and, though it doesn't really show, I can feel myself blush.

Hiccup hops on Toothless, who takes off into the air and carries me with him, since I am currently incapable of flight. Stormfly flies alongside with Astrid on her back, humming a lullaby for no apparent reason.

"Close your tiny maw, little dragon.

Hush and close your eyes.

It's a dark world out there,

Full of terror and fear,

Just close your eyes, ignore the pain,

Your bedtime is near....."

This old dragons' lullaby causes me to feel sleepy. The warm sun on my scales and the flapping of Toothless's huge, powerful wings rocks me like my mom used to when I was in the cradle, and soon I drift off, dreaming of nothing.