As flew behind Valka while she led us to where her dragons would normally eat, I saw Hiccup staring in the distance with a thoughtful expression. I understood him; you thought your entire life that your mother was dead, and suddenly, one day, you find her, and discover what she had been doing was a lot to process. I would feel the same way.
"How you doing?" I asked, flying next to him. He turned towards me abruptly, seemingly pulled off a deep thought.
"It's a lot to get my head around" he admitted after some seconds.
"Hey, if you were able to cope with your best friend being dead for five years and then coming back to life, I'm pretty sure you can cope with this" he smiled, making me smile, too.
"I'm glad you are here, 'Lex"
"Great, because you're stuck with me. I'm going to stay here and annoy you for a really, really, long time" I joked, and he chuckled.
Then, we both turned around, and saw the millions of dragons following behind, of all kinds and colours: Blue, Yellow, Black, Green, Pink; Windstrikers, Deadly Nadders, Razorwings, Raincutters, Gronckles...Any species you could imagine was there. It was amazing, if Valka ever came back to Berk with all those dragons, we would have to start expanding the island, because there wouldn't be any space for the Vikings.
Not that I was complaining, though.
"Hey, I-I thought we were going to eat!" said Hiccup, turning back to his mother.
"Oh, we are!" she said happily, and gestured for us to stop flying. I turned back around, and saw that the dragons had stopped, too.
"Woah" I heard Hiccup mutter at my side. Thunderlight then growled glancing at me, and then below us, signaling for me to do the same. I casted my glance down towards the sea, just in time to see the Bewilderbeast coming out from the water, and, suddenly, it was raining fish. Hiccup stared around us amazed, and then looked at me. I smiled happily at him as Valka laughed. If she did that everyday, her life was pretty awesome.
Toothless looked around with his tongue stuck out, he was really excited. Hiccup motioned for him to grab some food, while Thunderlight looked at me as if asking me for permission.
"Thunderlight, you don't have to ask me permission to eat!" he growled happily, and off he went, trying to catch as many fish as he could, while I looked around us. The dragons were all eating, and, then, I saw Toothless, who had around twenty fish in his mouth "You were really hungry, weren't you?" I laughed, and he purred. Hiccup looked over to Thunderlight.
"Thunderlight isn't any better" he observed. I frowned and looked at my dragon, who had twice as more. I chuckled, and Hiccup did the same thing. We stayed smiling and gazing at each other for solid three minutes, before finally landing on an ice platform close to Valka.
"Do you do that everyday?" I asked her while I hopped off Thunderlight, and she nodded.
"Everyday"
"Amazing" she smiled at me, before turning to look at Hiccup, who unfolded his beautiful map and placed it on the floor.
"Ooh, what is this?" she asked, approaching him. I did the same, and knelt down besides the Viking, admiring the map for the second time. I never got tired of it; it was just so detailed and so well done that you just couldn't get enough!
"We found all this during the last years" he said, gesturing towards the map. He explained how Toothless and him had found the places and what they had found there. I was listening to him carefully, but Valka moving in front of us made me look at her curiously, and what I saw left me speechless.
On the surface of the ice platform, Valka was drawing a bigger version of Hiccup's map with her staff. Now I knew where Hiccup's drawing ability came from.
I looked at Valka amazed, and she smiled at me.
"And then, from Dragon Island, I found this archipelago-" I hit him slightly in the arm, he looked at me, and I motioned towards the drawing in the ice with my head. He looked in that direction, saw the drawing, and then stared at his mother amazed.
"No wonder you draw so well" I complimented "It runs in the family" I said, looking at him, and he smiled.
"Like many other things" he chuckled, and I had to agree.
Hiccup had completely taken off after his mother.
Our next stop was a cliff. Valka's dragons jumped off, and spread their wings in mid-air. There was a breeze coming from below, so they floated back up. Valka went next with Cloudjumper, then Hiccup & Toothless, and then us. Thunderlight, at first, seemed rather scared, but I assured him that everything was going to be alright and, after some more minutes of struggling to convince him to do it, he finally agreed. He jumped off, and opened his wings. We stayed hovering in the air for some more minutes, until I decided to do my characteristic trick, which all of you already know what it is.
"Okay, listen up, bud" I said to Thunderlight, who looked at me "We are going to free-fall, okay?" he growled loudly, expressing his disagreement with that idea, but I rolled my eyes "Thunderlight, it'll be fine!" he groaned again, but agreed slightly. I smiled and pet his head softly, to which he purred.
Next, I unhooked myself from the saddle and did the trick. I spun a few times, Thunderlight spinning with me but, just as he was about to fly underneath me and catch me, I saw Hiccup in the distance; he and Toothless were below us. I smiled, and pointed towards them with my finger, Thunderlight follow the direction and saw them. He growled in response as he flew besides me instead of underneath.
"Where is 'Lex?" asked Hiccup, just as I landed behind him in Toothless' saddle.
"Right behind you"
"GAH!" he shouted and turned back towards me, while I chuckled "You scared me!" I chuckled even harder.
"I could notice that" after some seconds, he started to laugh with me.
"I should have realized, though, you are well known for your surprise attacks" I giggled.
"Thanks" then, I stood on my feet in the saddle "But yes, you should have realized" next thing I did, was to jump off, landing on my dragon's saddle.
That trick never got old.
I looked over at Valka, who smiled and flew towards me in Cloudjumper, I smiled back. I didn't feel embarrassed anymore, I felt like I could finally speak to her. You know, have a decent conversation.
"That was a pretty good trick" she said, the smile never leaving her face.
"Thank you, I invented it a couple of years ago"
"And your dragon is beautiful" she said, putting her hand on my dragon's side. Thunderlight purred softly "He may be one of the only ones of that color" I looked at her surprised "At least, I haven't seen many of that colour yet, I've only got one" she gestured to one dragon behind us, and I looked back to see him flying just some meters away from us "I found him some days ago, rescued him from the trappers' ship" he was the exact same colour as Thunderlight, and he had a small cut in one of his wings, probably caused by a trap he fell into. Poor thing, but it didn't seem like it bothered him. I decided to thank Valka by complimenting her on her dragon, too.
"Cloudjumper is really beautiful, too. I've never seen any species like him before" I looked at him amazed, and the woman smiled.
"He is a Stormcutter, he may look tough, but he is really gentle in the inside" I nodded smiling, he was amazing. He could turn his head 360 grades like an Owl, who else could do that?!
Valka then backed away a few meters, before finally jumping off Cloudjumper. I stood on my saddle worried, but then saw another dragon flying up, and she was on top of it.
Awesome.
Hiccup thought the same thing I did, maybe a little bit more impressed, because his mouth was opened wide.
"Close your mouth, Hiccup, we don't want any flies getting into it" I joked. He closed it immediately, and blushed slightly, while I giggled.
We stayed flying there, we were already away from the cliff, watching Valka jump from dragon to dragon, until one of them got closer to Toothless & Hiccup, who were smiling at her. Valka floated over her son and ruffled his hair in a very motherly way, while I just smiled. Then, she let herself fall off Toothless' wing, and came back up on her dragon.
I closed my eyes and enjoyed the wind, the breeze blowing my hair, and the sun, warming me up with its sun rays.
"Oh, when I'm up here, I don't even feel the cold. I just feel..." started Valka.
"Free" I said, opening my eyes, but someone else said it simultaneously. I looked to my left, and saw Hiccup smiling at me, Valka flying beside him. I didn't even apologize that time, I felt much confident.
"This is what it is to be a dragon!" said his mother, sticking her arms to the sides.
"It's all well and good to call yourself a dragon, but can you fly?" said Hiccup jumping off, Valka gasped amazed looking underneath us. I just leaned forward to look at him; he had opened his gliding suit, and the woman was smiling at him amazed.
"Show off" I said, rolling my eyes, but happy because he could show his amazing work to his mother.
Toothless looked at us with a confused expression, trying to understand what we were looking at. He hadn't realized what Hiccup was doing and, once he did, he rushed down to catch him. It was part of the trick, that didn't exactly work, because Hiccup felt onto the snow of a small island, with Toothless protecting him with his wings. I knew he was alright, though, so I didn't worry much, unlike his mother, who rushed down to the island, just as Hiccup emerged from a pile of snow with a triumphant scream. I landed with Thunderlight some meters away from them.
"Man, almost! We just about had it that time!" he shouted, while Toothless just grumbled and glared at him, but I can't describe what it said because we need to respect each other in life, and what Toothless was saying didn't exactly have the word 'respect' written in it.
Then, the dragon tripped him, pretty much confirming what I had just said.
I laughed a little bit as Valka went to help him, and, once he was up, she started to admire his suit.
"Incredible" indeed it was, that was Hiccup right there. Every single thing he did could surprise even the most arrogant Viking on earth.
"Well, not so bad yourself" he complimented her, making me smile. Valka was trying to clean off the snow on his suit, when her hand landed on his cheek, and Hiccup leaned into her touch.
Now that was painful.
I remembered my mother doing the same thing every time I was sad, it was her way of cheering me up. That, and a hug. My mother's hugs always felt warm and made me feel really safe, she was always there for me when I needed her to be. I could always come to her for advice on something, anything you could imagine, she had the perfect story for it; her way of teaching me new things was through stories. The clearest story I remember she used to tell me, was one in which there was a girl and her pet, a beautiful white sheep. In it, the two of them were always together and people would never see them separated from one another, that was until the sheep died. The girl was devastated. She wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep, wouldn't go out; she was completely shattered. Her parents tried to convince her that the sheep wasn't really gone; that she was still watching over her from the Valhalla, but it didn't work.
Her father was a painter, an artist, and her mother loved to embroider cushions, so, together, they decided to use their talents to make sure that the little sheep was never forgotten, and to assure their daughter that she was still there. Her father painted a portrait of the sheep; it was breathtaking, while her mother spent days and night embroidering cushions with the pattern of a sheep and a little girl. Once it was done, they showed it to her daughter, who loved it. The cushion with the sheep and the girl became her pillow, and the painting was hung in her wall, so, everytime she woke up, she could see it.
After working and improving her talents more, the mother managed to make a stuffed toy of a sheep that looked exactly as the pet her daughter used to have, and the girl stayed with it till the ends of time.
That was her way of teaching me that the ones who loved us never really left us, they were still present, watching over us.
As for my father, his way of cheering me up was by making me laugh. He would tickle me, always, and he was really loving and caring ever since I was little. He wouldn't stop till he made sure that I was happy again.
Some tears fell from my eyes when I thought about my parents, and I had to turn away immediately so Valka and Hiccup wouldn't notice. Thunderlight did, though, and he purred curiously and a little bit sad, too, while I tried my best to force a smile, but, of course, it didn't work.
I took a deep breath and wiped them for my eyes as quietly and still as possible, but it wasn't good enough, because Hiccup noticed.
"Hey, a-are you okay?" I exhaled the air I had gathered and turned to look at him, Valka was staring at me, too.
"Yeah" I sniffed, much to my irritation "Fine"
"A-are you sure? You don't look so good" I nodded firmly. I couldn't ruin that moment for him.
"Yeah, I'm fine" he stared at me suspiciously, he didn't believe me "Really" I assured "Keep talking, I'm okay" he gazed at me for some more seconds, before nodding and approaching his mother again, who didn't looked like believing me, either.
And she was right not to.
I wasn't fine, at all. In fact, it was the complete opposite thing.
I was broken.