In Toothless's eyes

Chapter 2

"I shall name you Myrkr, for you shall tame the shadows and become the greatest of the Night Furies. It will be your destiny to save your kind from the tyranny of the Vikings, and to bring peace to the lands of the dragons once more. I feel this in my bones. You will become a great warrior!"

I remember looking in awe, happy that my great and amazing mother had such high hopes for me, and seemed to be lifted from the melancholy mood she was usually in. Even in my youngest of years I could tell that my mother was not happy with her life. She complained about what had happened to out kind, that we had been picked on by both dragons and humans alike. She got angry at me whenever I asked her where my father was, and why we could never go far from our lair with each other. She seemed to have gone through much suffering and hardship, and was very bitter about it. Do not get me wrong, she was a very great mother, kind, caring and selfless as all great mothers are, but she had these occasional times when her fire was enflamed and her anger aroused, like now when she looked at my future as she named me at the age of five.

It is customary for dragons to name their children at the age of five as they know by then what their personality is like. They feel like they should take this into account when they name them as it is less likely they will hate their name.

Anyway, my mum certainly seemed to have a purpose to keeping me alive. The games we played, the lessons I learnt, they were not just about learning to survive. They were not even just about learning the culture and legends of the dragons. No, she seemed to be training me for a higher purpose.

There was a bitterness and anger about her when she went into her dark moods, and I came to realise that she was angry at someone or something. She wanted revenge. Maybe it had something to do with what had happened to my father and why we had to hide all the time, never staying in one place for more than a week. I was too scared to ask much of her, though, lest I make her too angry and bitter. I really did not like to see her that way. I liked the hopeful, kind mother better than the angry, brooding mother.

When my mother was happy, it was a beautiful time. I remember the times where she'd lift out of her dark, brooding mood and fly with me in the forest, and she'd point out and name all the fish in the river, the ones we could eat and the ones we couldn't. We would talk about all the natural things in the forests and ocean, admiring the sunset, watching the waves on the cliffs and talking about the legends of how they had came to be. My mother and I would dive in the oceans and rivers near the caves we stayed in and roast them by the shores. My mother always like them lightly grilled, while I ate them pretty much raw. When the sun went down we would sit in the shore and mum would tell me stories about the great dragons of the past.

She talked of Flaron who burnt down a whole forest with a single breath to stop hunters stealing a clutch of Deadly Nadder eggs, and Pyreon who flew to the stars to help light the fire if the dragons. She told the tale of a Monstrous Nightmare who got defeated by a Terrible Terror, and of a Night Fury chieftan who managed to drive a horde of Vikings away with just a pile of wood and rocks.