Heart of a Berserker: Faith (School of Dragons)

Chapter 13

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all." ―Dale Carnegie

Chapter 13

My trip with Heather had me feeling well enough that I could turn on investigation mode and examine the giant chasm now sitting in the middle of our School. Heather, Astrid, and I peered down at the darkness while Snotlout wondered back and forth, checking everything out. Hiccup would have been there, but he was busy searching for a new home away from Berk.

"This is... interesting," I said.

"I can't believe Stormheart's forces were able to sneak into the school," Astrid groaned. "I should have stopped this. This is my fault."

"I can believe it, and I can tell you exactly how it happened."

"I don't think that would be helpful, Brennda," Heather said.

I shrugged. "Just saying. Do you have any thoughts about this?" I motioned to the chasm.

"I think that the cavern must have been hidden under the lake the whole time, and Harald's device just managed to crack open the entrance. Still, it's incredible that a man-made device was able to do so much damage to our home."

"And not good news for us if Stormheart has that kind of power."

"That's for sure," Astrid said.

"At least no one was hurt this time." It would have made all this ten times worse if Harald had injured someone. But then, I doubted he would have gone that far, especially when we were not actively at war.

"Snotlout," Heather said as the Viking made his way towards us, "have you learned anything new?"

"It's weird," Snotlout said. "Listen,I've seen one or two or fifty explosions in my day, as would anyone living near the Thornston twins. I've never seen an explosion leave such a giant hole. If I had to guess, Harald's device must have shattered the ceiling of the cavern. With all that space below us, the lake water probably just drained down. I bet if we go down there, we're going to find a whole host of crazy monsters. And we were all so clueless of the danger just below us! We're doomed, I tell you."

Astrid rolled her eyes. She opened her mouth to respond, but something stopped her. I followed her gaze and watched as a white dragon flew out from the giant hole. She hovered above the hole several yards away and stared at us.

"It's... wow," Astrid said. "She's beautiful."

"There's your monster, Snotlout," I said, my eyes glued on the new dragon. There was something familiar about her, but I could not place my finger on it.

"This is the Light Fury that Hiccup, Toothless and I met earlier. She was skittish around us then. I wonder if being with Toothless calmed her down. Brennda, can you see if you can get closer to her without her bolting?"

I shrugged. "I'll give it a try." It was interesting a dragon so similar to a Night Fury would be afraid of us. Had she had bad interactions with humans in the past? I climbed on Bolt and got into the air. We slowly approached the Light Fury, but she shot a plasma ball at us, which Bolt managed to dodge. Then she started to fly in circles over the chasm so we could not fly down there. I returned to my friends and hopped off Bolt. "Well, I tried."

Astrid nodded. "Let's take this slow. I don't think she wants us to enter that cave, so let's think of something else. The real question is: why doesn't she want us down there?"

"Probably not to hide scary monsters," Heather said.

"Toothless and Hiccup are the best option here for solving this riddle. She may not like Hiccup, but I saw how Toothless acted around her. They were making eyes at each other like a pair of teenagers!"