The Girl with the Changewing Cloak (RTTE Fanfic)

One

Hiccup's POV

With a 'whoosh!' the dragons took off, each flapping their wings quickly in a desperate attempt to get ahead. Cheering their dragons on, the riders streamlined themselves, heading in all directions.

"There's one, bud," I whispered, confident that my dragon, Toothless, heard me. As one, we shot through the woods, leaning to grab a sheep.

"Squaark!" A dash of blue whirled past as Astrid and Stormfly grabbed the sheep. I groaned in frustration. I really wanted to win today. We all did. After all, it was the last time we would dragon race on Dragon's Edge.

With polished precision, Toothless and I angled both tail fins, gaining a burst of speed. Like a big black bullet, we shot above the rider that was flying away with our sheep. I locked Toothless's prosthetic tail in place, balancing on his back. I leapt, opening my fake wings and glided onto Stormfly's tail. Before Astrid could react, I ran up and snatched the sheep from her grasp and jumped back on Toothless.

With a laugh-like gurgle, the night fury twirled, enabling me to drop the sheep in their basket.

Currently, Astrid was winning with six points and Fishlegs was losing with one. The twins and Snotlout both had two. As this was the last Dragon Race on the Edge, Heather joined us, with three points.

Carefully, we searched for the ten-point black sheep. Only it could allow anyone other than Astrid to win, as she had a lead.

To everyone's surprise, Fishlegs and his gronkle Meatlug were the first to find the black sheep. Trying to look inconspicuous, they flew in a zig-zag pattern to the nets. Fishlegs whistled slightly and Meatlug's yellow eyes were wide. Not subtle. I patted Toothless, leading him towards them. I prepared to jump-

"Let's go Barf!"

"Come on Belch!"

The twins jumped off their dragon, falling in front of Fishlegs. Barf and Belch knocked Meatlug. The black sheep fell. Toothless angled himself, reaching out with his claws. As the zippleback caught its riders, Toothless grabbed the sheep and tossed it into our basket.

That left us with thirteen, and a victory. Smiling like an idiot, I flew down. Shortly after, heavy wing beats thundered behind me as an irritated hideous zippleback landed beside us.

"No fair Hiccup, you and T just swept in when we did all the work," Tuffnut complained as he got down. I rolled my eyes. It was typical of the twins to jump - quite literally - into a plan with such a simple flaw.

"Yeah! That was totally ours, even though Tuff did mess up the fall," Ruffnut backed up, only to have Tuffnut parry that she didn't execute the leap properly either. Ignoring them, I turned and watched as the other dragon riders arrived. As expected, each had a reason as to why they in fact were victorious- which they argued for as they walked to the clubhouse.

Snotlout, Fishlegs and the twins were very distracted by their argument, whereas I just looked at the scene in front of me with a sad sigh. I would miss the Edge: the adventures, the dragons, the danger, the people. Sure, we would see each other on Berk, but it wouldn't be the same. Everyone would get jobs and get on with their lives, and knowing my Dad, Stoik the Vast, he would get more to do more 'chiefly duties'. I also needed to get rid of the two Dragon Eyes, something that I was very conflicted over.

Astrid caught my sorrowful gaze with her sharp eyes and walked up to me.

"You know, we should be jumping for joy right now."

I raised eyebrow. "How so?"

"Well, for starters, we won't have to deal with 'twintuition'. I mean, How many times have the twins gotten us into a sticky situation because of it?"