The Great Endeavor - A Tuffnut Love Story (HTTYD/RTTE)

20. The Climb

"There are stairs?" Ruffnut asked excitedly.

"Not exactly stairs," Endeavor clarified. She let go of the star and looked to the group. "But these stars are frozen in place," she explained, "we can climb them."

"Uh, not all of us can," Fishlegs spoke in embarrassment.

But Endeavor wasn't leaving anyone behind, and neither were the dragon riders. "I'll help you get up to them, then you'll be able to," Endeavor offered. She then signaled for everyone else to climb up onto the tallest ledge they could find. "Now reach up," she ordered, "it feels like some of the stars are closer than others."

Everyone eagerly did as they were told. Only Snotlout, who was the shortest out of the seven, could not reach a star. He jumped and waved his hands around in frustration, but couldn't reach anything. Until he felt the his shirt tighten; Endeavor had lifted him by the back of his vest. Finally, he grabbed a star. "Haha! Snotlout!" He shouted proudly.

Endeavor rolled her eyes as she let him go, leaving the boy hanging a couple feet above the ground from the single star. When he began to panic, she sighed put her hands on him again, thrusting him high up into the air. Snotlout screamed until he caught a higher star. One of his feet landed stably on another floating rock. Endeavor grinned in amusement. "Alright, let's get going," she urged the others.

Before long, everyone was in the sky, climbing through a precarious maze of small stars. And when they got up high enough, Tuffnut looked down. He was nervous to see how far from the island they'd gotten. But his nervousness soon faded into frustration as he shouted, "EYE."

Everyone stopped climbing and gave him a confused look. Tuff gave Fishlegs a deadpan look and pointed down, repeating, "eye."

Looking down, the riders were shocked to find that the island did, in fact, resemble an eye. It was shaped like an almond, the rock wall making the outside of the iris, which was colored green by the jungle. The lake acted as a pupil, staring at them as they ascended.

"Huh," Fishlegs huffed in surprise, "I guess it is an eye..."

"I TOLD you," Tuffnut gloated, now pointing at Fishlegs. However, this action caused him to lose balance. His foot slipped off of the small star and he began to fall. He shouted in surprise until grabbing onto Ruff's leg. But this only caused her to slip as well.

"Woah!" She yelled as her own feet slipped. Now dangling from a single star, she looked down nervously. "Tuff, get off of me," she ordered in annoyance, "you're gonna pull us both down."

"There's nothing to hold on to down here!" Tuffnut argued back, hugging her leg tighter.

Ruffnut looked back up. The other riders were slightly ahead and hadn't seen what happened. "Hiccup!" Ruff shouted. As the others turned around, the rock in Ruff's hand began to fade. Her eyes widened; it was going to disappear. Just as she was about to fall, a hand caught her wrist.

There was a sudden rush of wind around both of the twins' bodies. The two had been flung upwards. Ruff was able to grab onto a star right next to Fishlegs, while Tuff promptly landed on Fishlegs. Looking down from the large Viking's back, Tuff smiled at Endeavor, who was climbing swiftly back up to the group. "Thanks," he muttered with an embarrassed, crooked smile.

But Endeavor didn't smile back. Her face seemed tense and determined; she was only focused on escaping now. "It would seem that the stars are beginning to disapear as we climb them," she pointed out firmly, "we have to pick up the pace."

"But we don't even know where we're going," Snotlout complained.

"We're going up," Endeavor responded vaguely, as if it were enough of an answer. Not that the riders expected her to have the answer, but they sure wished she had.

As the seven continued to climb, however, as they neared the moon, Endeavor began to feel the reality setting in. Soon, she would be back in the real world. Was that what she really wanted? There were so many things about her that the dragon riders still didn't know. Endeavor had a dangerous secret. And to bring that back into the world would surely cause chaos.

On an island where chaos was normal, she felt at home. But in the real world, there was no doubting it: people feared her. Though she didn't know exactly why she was the way that she was, Endeavor knew enough to know that she didn't belong around people. So if she got off of this island, she knew what she would have to do. Endeavor would have to leave the dragon riders. For their own safety, she would have to seclude herself from people.

It was something she'd failed to do the last time she walked the earth, and it caused much hardship for those around her. Endeavor vowed that she would not make the same mistake twice.