Thistle Part 1

Thistle

Our story begins with a baby girl in a crib holding someone's hand. We then see that the hand belongs to her mother Valka. She picks the baby up out of her crib and is getting her ready to go out somewhere. As she goes about this process we see that the baby has a birthmark in the shape of a thistle on her shoulder. We also see a man and a little boy in the house preparing to go out as well. The man is Stoick the Vast and the little boy is a young Hiccup. The family discusses what to pack for a special picnic lunch in honor of the little girls first Birthday as well as how to carry the baby who they refer to as Adalaide. They devise a papoose style knapsack for her. Valka dons the knapsack and they leave the house and go out into the beautiful summertime Nord forest. They begin to climb a mountainside. As Valka struggles under the weight of the baby in her knapsack she trips, loses her balance and nearly topples over the side of a cliff. Stoick catches her arm just in time; however the baby falls out of the knapsack. As the baby falls we hear the screaming and see the horror on the faces of all her family members. They lose sight of her as she falls through a cloud cover. They assume this is the end of her and fall to their knees in grief.

The baby is seen falling further but landing in a soft straw nest situated on an outcropping of the cliff. In the nest with her are a bevy of beautiful, golden scaled baby mood dragons. As the startle of a strange being dropping out of the sky into their nest begins to wear off they calm down and curiosity causes them to investigate the baby. As they do so their scales begin to turn a dark blue. When the baby coos and smiles at them they turn various shades of iridescent pink. This goes on for a little bit before a great whooshing sound is heard and the mother dragon descends into the nest. The babies get very excited, turn bright orange and crowd around the mother. She drops fish out of her mouth into the mouth of each baby. After they move away to eat the mother spots Thistle lying in the nest looking wary and confused. You are held in suspense wondering how the mother dragon is going to react to the newcomer. She approaches Adalaide with interest and nuzzles her with her snout. The baby giggles and places her small soft hands on the mother dragon's nose which is warm and moist. The mother dragon opens her mouth wide and for a moment seems to be about to eat the baby but instead drops a last tiny fish out into the babies lap. The baby looks at the fish warily but when her tummy rumbles picks it up and slurps it down with a smile.

The mother dragon takes care of the baby year after year and we see her grow and learn all of the skills that her dragon siblings do. Hunt, fish, and forage for survival. However, when it comes to flying she gets more than just a little help. They literally give her a lift on their backs to wherever it is they are off too. One day as they were looking for lunch along the brush of the mountainside. They hear strange noises coming from the other side of a boulder. Just as they peek over the rock to check it out, a handsome blond man in a Viking helmet pops up in front of them. All of the young dragons, except for one, scatter leaving Adalaide and the smallest sibling behind in their haste. The man looks at the two of them in surprise and assumes that he has arrived just in time to save her from being the dragons snack.

The handsome Viking's name is Asher. He brought Adalaide and the small dragon, as a prisoner, back to his village on the island of Meatheads. Since he had no way of speaking her dragon name he began to call her Thistle in honor of her birthmark. He taught her how to shoot a bow & arrow, how to swordfight, how to use a slingshot and to speak Norse. He began to think of her as his own adopted daughter. All the while she was still able to gain comfort in the fact that her dragon sibling, who she now called Straya, was still with her even though she was always under close watch because the Vikings could never quite understand the strong bond that could be between a human and a dragon.

At the age of 12 Thistle was helping on the Meathead farm but as in many years past always at this time of year, small dragons would come and blow up the houses and destroy their crops. The meatheads would salvage what they could but it was never enough to keep everyone from hunger. Thistle knew this could not go on any longer so she and Straya set off to find help but did not know exactly where to start until they heard rumors of a Viking named Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third of the Hooligan tribe on the island of Berk that had saved his village from a giant dragon known as the Red Death. Thistle and Straya thought that now they should go to Hiccup for help. So they set off on a boat with another of Thistle's buddies, Knicknack the blue, yellow spotted pocket living lizard.