TAW Tales: How to Train Your Shifters (#1)

~ Chapter 12 ~

"Toothless!" Hiccup called, his voice echoing through the still forest.

He paused and listened intently, but silence greeted him as usual. He sighed. He wasn't in it as much as before, and he could feel his optimism sapping away. Would he ever be reunited with his dragon?

The amulet around his neck glowed again and he looked down at it dully. What was it for? He never had it before he came here.

Half-heartedly, he sat down on a fallen tree and held the amulet up to his face, illuminating it in a brilliant, sea-green glow. The emerald dragon eye blinked up at him almost hopefully. It seemed to be asking him something, it's dark iris dilating as if it was begging for something.

Hiccup raised one eyebrow and touched his index finger to the eye.

It closed and the amulet's glow suddenly intensified so that it blinded him and he had to look away.

"Gah!" He yelped.

The golden amulet felt hot in his fingers, but he couldn't drop it. It hummed and buzzed, and through his screwed up eyes he could just see the faint outline of something materializing in front of him.

After what could have been a minute but was really only a few seconds, the glow rapidly faded and Hiccup blinked, his eyes dazzled.

In front of him stood a dragon, it's scales midnight-black and glossy. It had flat paws and eight ear-like appendages, the two largest ones at the top acting like cat ears as they pricked up curiously. It had large, pale-green eyes, the pupils huge and black. It flared it's thin nostrils as it picked up Hiccup's scent and the scent around it.

It large black wings were folded neatly at it's side, and it's long tail ended in one black tail fin with another made of red material with a white pattern. It was wearing a sophisticated saddle, and as Hiccup watched it reared onto it's hind legs and hopped about in a happy sort of dance, it's toothless mouth open in a welcoming grin.

"Toothless!" Hiccup cried in delight.