"Hey, bud!"
I greeted my dragon when I arrived to the cove. It was nighttime, but I could see perfectly well, and so could him.
One of the perks of living alone was that I could leave the house whenever I felt like it; I didn't have any adults telling me 'It's late, stay here' or 'Go out and do something; you've been in here all day!' I could eat what I wanted, sleep when I wanted to and wake up when I felt like it.
No one would check my house looking for me except, perhaps, Hiccup, but he knew what I did at night so there wouldn't be any problem.
When Thunderlight saw me, he growled happily and licked my face "Aw, c'mon!" I complained, but he didn't stop; I hated it when he did that "You saw me four hours ago!" but he didn't care, as usual "Okay, okay, that's enough" I said jumping to one side, dodging his 'kisses' "What do you think, bud? Ready for the usual night flight?" he growled happily and I hopped on his saddle "Let's go!" with that, we took off.
That had become a usual activity since Hiccup made the saddles for both of our dragons. I was already thinking about having one way before I met him, but I had no idea how to build it. And then he came along.
Making them was easy, or at least it seemed like it from outside. I never touched the materials or tools Hiccup was using because I would have probably ended up setting something on fire; I was just there for moral support and to bring food.
I know, I know, I'm a lovely person.
Most of the time we stayed in the workshop all through the night working on the saddles, and when I say all through the night I mean that we literally left at six AM everyday. We even fell asleep there once, and the next morning we had a lot of explaining to do to Gobber who found us.
Getting the dragons to use the saddles was the hard part; they ran from one place to another with us following behind for like fifteen minutes before we finally managed to place them on their bodies. I've always wondered if they did it on purpose. Knowing them, they probably did.
We trained for quite a long time until we finally became moderately good, and we always raced during daylight against each other. Our dragons took it very seriously, they were very competitive, while Hiccup and I did it just for the fun of it (Although sometimes I could get carried away)
At night, I always went out with Thunderlight on a flight. It was kind of our thing. You are probably wondering how I could see anything in broad nighttime, or how Thunderlight could see. Let me explain:
The first time we tried this was a couple of days after our first race, and the night was beautiful. Not a single cloud could be seen in the sky. The moon and stars were shining brightly, and there was no wind blowing in the air. Everything was perfect, so I thought it would be pretty cool to ride on a night like that one; nighttime had always been my favorite time of the day, I was a night owl.
But Thunderlight wasn't very keen on it. When I arrived to the cove, he was sleeping and I felt really bad for waking him up; he grunted several times before finally accepting I wasn't going to leave, and allowing me to sit on his saddle.
I would like to say that everything went smoothly and we had no problems at all, but, in reality, it was a complete mess.
We couldn't see anything, and we crashed with several rocks several times, but I wasn't going to give up so easily.
I came back the next day. Although Thunderlight still didn't like the idea, he didn't complain as much as he had the previous night, and this time went a little bit better. I mean, we crashed with several more rocks, but, at least, we arrived to our destination, bruised and tired, but we arrived.
After some more days, Thunderlight finally got used to me coming back every single night. Eventually our vision got better and better, until we could finally fly without crashing with anything; that's why I had a sharp eye, because I trained it. We could both see perfectly well, and it made us love nighttime even more.
After that not so short story, let's go back to the present.
We flew above the clouds with Thunderlight, we always did the same because we couldn't risk anyone seeing us from the ground, and started to dodge the usual large rocks we found every night. To make it more entertaining we created an obstacle course, which also helped with our races with Hiccup and Toothless.
My eye then caught something moving in the distance, and I ordered my dragon to go faster so I could see clearly what it was.
We were flying some miles behind it, when I saw the familiar prosthetic wing. I only knew one dragon with that particular characteristic.
"Toothless?" I asked to myself "What is he doing here?" the Night Fury got into the clouds and we lost sight of him. Thunderlight growled in response "Let's go find out, bud!" I ordered, and we made our way through the white, puffy cotton.
We finally got close enough, and we could see that Hiccup was on top of him, but he wasn't alone; a girl with a blonde braid was touching the clouds with her hands, while sitting behind him.
"Wait, is that-?" I narrowed my eyes "Is that Astrid?" my dragon growled again, which meant that I was right. I giggled to myself; Hiccup had finally gotten her to go on a date with him.
After following them for several minutes, several minutes in which I kept smiling like an idiot, we arrived to a place that wasn't surrounded by clouds and what I saw left me astonished:
Above us, scattered through the sky, colorful lights shone brightly, blinding us with its beauty; my mouth opened wide as I gasped in amazement.
"This is beautiful!" I exclaimed, looking at the sky and then back at Thunderlight "Why haven't we seen them before?" we had flown by that place many times, but I had never noticed they were there.
He groaned as I focused back on Hiccup and Astrid, who seemed like they were enjoying it too: Astrid was grabbing Hiccup from the waist, and he seemed quite embarrassed. I chuckled, feeling really happy for them; I had to leave them to their moment.
With one last glance at the teens and the dragon, I swooped down and focused back on my path; I would ask Hiccup about it the next day, maybe tease him a little bit too. Otherwise, what was even the point in being friends?
The next day we were doing our usual races, when I decided it was time to ask the Viking about last night. I smiled at him while leaning back on the saddle.
"So, you and Astrid, huh?" I teased. He looked at me slightly confused, but then his eyes opened wide and he looked away nervously.
"I-I don't know what you are talking about" I gave him my 'Are you serious?' stare.
"C'mon, Hic, I'm not blind, I saw you last night riding with her" he turned to look at me.
"Wait, w-were you spying on us?"
"No! Of course not, no" did he take me by some kind of crazy stalker? "Thunderlight and I were some miles behind you, guys. Remember, night flights?" he nodded, and then asked:
"How could you see us from such a distance?" I shrugged.
"Sharp eye" I smiled proudly "After riding so much at night, we got used to seeing in the dark"
"I guess that makes sense"
"So, how was it?" I asked, pointing out my first question. We had gone off topic talking about night flights.
"It was just a ride as friends" I gave him the stare again.
"Yeah, sure" I rolled my eyes as he dodged a large rock.
"Don't tell me you're jealous, 'Lex" I frowned.
"I am not jealous, I'm just...Curious about the experience. It's the first time a girl shows some kind of interest in you" I said good-heartedly.
"Hey!" he complained.
"Just kidding" I laughed as I got through a hole in one column "But, seriously this time, how was it?"
"G-good. But, she's not really my type" was he really denying it? It was obvious!
"Then who is your type, oh great Dragon Master?" I asked playfully.
"I-I don't know...More calm and peaceful girls, I guess" I nodded, understanding.
"Astrid may be a lot of things, but she isn't the peace type of person" I pointed out, not in a bad way of course, not being peaceful helped most of the time; sometimes brute force was the only way to get things done.
"Exactly" he dodged a column by flying above it.
"But she could also change, you know?" I said as Thunderlight shot a blast of wind to a target located in a large rock.
"I do" he answered.
"In fact, she's already began changing when she decided to respect your decision on not telling anyone about Toothless"
"How do you know she did that?" asked Hiccup curiously.
"Well, you are here and not locked up in your house with seven keys on the door" I said simply, and he chuckled.
"Yeah, that's true" I smiled "And you're right, she can change" he added, focusing back on my argument "But still" he looked nervous. Again "I-I like another girl" the conversation had suddenly gotten more interesting.
"Really?" I asked in disbelief "Who could be better than the beautiful, determined, strong willed and amazing Astrid Hofferson?" I could see the finish line some miles ahead; I looked at him, trying to keep him occupied so I could win the race.
"There is one girl" he said with a tilt of his head.
"Who is she then?" he opened his mouth to say something, but it turned into a smirk. He had seen the finish line.
"Not gonna tell you! C'mon, bud" they rushed forward. Toothless flapped his wings with strength, so a gust of wind was blown towards us which made us lose slightly our balance. I barely manage to escape a rock column while they reached the finish line.
"Hey! That's not fair!" I complained, trying to sound angry, but Hiccup's words were still ringing in my mind.
If it wasn't Astrid, then who?