Survivor (Book One- Lei)

15. Unexpected

"I'm feeling overwhelmed right now mom." Lei mumbles as she presses a hand against her forehead. The loud noises of the Mead Hall today were really starting to bother her more than usual. "Why is everything so loud?"

"Go outside then, I'll brief you up on the meeting later." Valka whispered as she gently placed a hand on her back. "If you're still not feeling well, go home and rest or take a walk by the cliffs."

With a nod, Lei quietly gets up from her seat and hurries out of the hall, Toothless following close behind. Once the two were outside, Lei gave a sigh of relief and leaned against the door of the hall.

"You'll get used to it after a while, I know I did." Toothless assured her as he stepped away from the doors to lay himself on the stairs. "Took me a few weeks of course, but after a while I could stand to be in that noisy room for an hour or two."

"I'm still not really used to loud and crowded places like that, especially with all the shouting." Lei agrees with a tired nod before she starts to head to the stairs. "You should head back in before Hiccup notices and worries."

"It's fine, he'll manage the meeting without me and he knows I'll stay by you."

Since late morning nearly the entire village had been packed in the Mead Hall to hear the plan Hiccup had come up with about bringing more dragons to Berk, creating a peaceful utopia with them and his plans on how to do so. As nice as it sounded, Lei wasn't sure if a tiny island crowded with humans and dragons was such a good idea. She had offered to take the trapped dragons they rescued once they found a new island for her and her dragons, but Hiccup insisted they'd be safer on Berk with him and Toothless protecting them.

"Wanna go down to the beach?" Toothless suggests as he follows her down the stairs. "Striker mentioned you liked playing near the water and hunting for shells on your old island."

"Yeah, a walk on the beach would be nice."

Getting onto Toothless, the two soon found themselves at the shoreline of one of Berk's beaches. Lei removed her boots and socks to roll up her leggings and proceeded to walk into the water, letting out a small sigh of relief at the feel of the cool water.

"So, what did you think of your brother's big plan?" Toothless asks as he joins her. "Stacking human houses on top of each other just to make room and crowding the whole place until you humans are neck deep in dragons."

"As much as I find the idea of a human-dragon utopia, I feel like this will be a bad idea." Lei states with a frown and kicks at the water. "Stacking houses on top of each other? Disastrous! The stables are already going to be overcrowded, and think of how many nervous dragons we'd have on our hands who are shy around loud humans!"

"Well we still haven't found an island for you and your flock yet, maybe once we do, you can convince Hiccup to let you take some dragons to keep Berk from overflowing?" Toothless suggests. "As nice as the utopia sounds, I do agree it might be a bit hard to manage. We've already had problems in the past when dragons first started living on Berk and I don't want that to arise again."

"My brother has his heart in the right place, but he needs to understand that this plan of his might not go as well as he expects. I just hope my mother and sister can talk some sense into him if I can't, or maybe Astrid or one of the other riders."

"And speaking of the human riders...you've been getting a bit cozy with Eret." Toothless says with a sly grin and Lei looked at him in horror. "Aha! I knew it!"

"If you don't shut up I will electrocute you!" She hissed and the Night Fury grin only grows wider when he sees her cheeks bloom pink.

"I've seen how you two are, as awkward as juvenile dragonets! Come on, I know you're still a bit upset over the thing with Dagur, but I've heard the best way to move on from awful relationships like that is to-"

"If you say "get with someone better than the last one you were with" I will smack you." Lei hisses and looks away. "I don't think I can trust myself to fall for someone so easily after what happened with Dagur, I'm just...scared that I'll find someone who turns out to be worse than him, you know?"

"Trust me, Eret's waaaaaay better than Dagur." Toothless assures her. "He's severed all his ties with anything involving the dragon trappers and hunters, he certainly smells better, Stormfly adores him, and I think he likes you too. Only problem is, he probably won't make a move because you are the chief's sister."

Lei gives a small laugh and shakes her head. "I'm probably not the kind of girl he's looking to have a relationship or settle down with, if anything we'll probably stay as friends and- what the Thor is that?"

Toothless turns to where Lei was looking to see a large basket floating towards them and could hear something that sounded like muffled crying from inside. The two hurry to it, Lei grabbing it to pull it into the sand with Toothless helping her before prying the top of it off. Inside amid the blankets was a small infant, fair skinned with soft curls of dark hair framing it's face and wailing loudly, waving and kicking it's little arms and legs.

"What...what is a human baby doing all the way out here in a basket?" Toothless asked as Lei reached in to pick up the crying infant.

"I...I don't know, was it abandoned?" Lei responds as she cradled the baby as gently as she could, trying to mimic what she had seen some of the women in the village do to their own infants. "Shhh, it's okay little one, you're safe now. You're safe."

The infant's cries ceased as it blinked open its little eyes to look up at Lei, before it let out a soft gurgle and made what she guessed was a smile at her.

"Aww, it likes you." Toothless laughs before turning serious. "We should get this baby to someone, make sure it's okay."

Lei nods. "I think I know who to go to."