A New World, Complicated

Chapter 3: Animal House (Reign)

Here on Berk, we made peace with the dragons. We're finally living and working together. And it only took us three hundred years... There's one slight problem: we forgot to tell the animals.

I held tight onto Hiccup's waist as he slid Toothless down the snow-covered mountainside. The bitter cold stung harshly at my body, threatening a complete shut-down of my brain, but the thrill of barreling down the side of the mountain made it worth it. Intense tricks may not have been my thing, but this was just the right balance between "let's do something interesting" and "I'm going to die".

"Woo-hoo!" Hiccup cried, clearly enjoying the adrenaline rush. I had to admit, this felt pretty amazing. The band that pushed back my hair had long disappeared, but I didn't care. He wove Toothless through the trees and into the air, and every once in a while, I accidentally let out a little scream. "You all right back there?"

"Yeah! This is awesome!" I could have sworn I saw him smile affectionately, but that was quickly ruined as his face contorted, and there was a loud rumbling. I looked back to see an avalanche barreling toward us.

"Uh oh." Hiccup shifted his leg, attempting to get Toothless' tail fin to open, but every time the Night Fury tried to fly, he just fell right back down. I looked back, and my mouth opened in horror.

"His tail's frozen!" I cried. Thinking fast, I ended up crawling my way back to the tail fin and attempted to pull it apart, but it seemed bound together.

"Reign!" I looked forward to see us barreling closer to a cliff that had a large drop-off. I tried my best, but I couldn't get it open, and we ended up tumbling down into the ravine. I slammed against the ground hard, and it took me a moment to compose myself. But when I did, I was left freezing. "Reign?"

"Over here," I managed to shudder out. "Hiccup, I'm freezing."

"Come here." I inched my way toward where it sounded like his voice was coming from, then felt a pair of arms wrap around me. Though it didn't do much to warm me, there was an element of comfort. Cautiously, I inched closer and pressed myself against Hiccup. "Where's Toothless?" A plasma blast lit up above us, revealing that we were trapped under a thick layer of ice and snow. The Night Fury continued to blast at the ice until a hole melted through the top. "I see daylight!"

"We're gonna get out of here," I sighed, relieved.

"Look at what he did." Hiccup almost sounded like a proud father, despite being nowhere near of age for that position.

"He saved our lives." We both turned our heads at the same time and found our faces practically pressed together, causing us to jump apart in embarrassment.

"Uh, ah... um..." I cleared my throat. "So we're good now?"

"Good as new." I flashed him a self-conscious smile, then shoved him a bit, causing him to hit the wall of ice.

"Ow!" Despite that, Hiccup turned and smiled at me. Toothless had this look on his face, but both Hiccup and I ignored it.

"The hole needs to be a little bigger in order for us to be able to escape. It's too dangerous for Toothless to shoot at it even more. We need to wait." Hiccup nodded, and I few moments later, I shivered. It felt like cold was infecting me, creeping underneath my skin.

"Here." Hiccup extended his arms out again, and I gently crept my way back over.

"...and then Toothless used his wings to block the snow," Hiccup continued. We'd been telling the story of what happened to the others. I was still attempting to warm up, so I had grabbed a blanket, and it was currently wrapped around my shoulders.