A New World, Complicated

Chapter 21: Live and Let Fly (Reign)

        The light of torches danced across the dark cave walls, barely revealing the identity of the figures just on the edge of the light. The ropes were starting to itch against my wrists while I attempted to make my undoing of them subtle behind my back. My heart raced against my chest as I looked over at the other figure tied up beside me, his head hanging low.

"Tell us about the dragons, boy," a low and gravelly voice demanded from the shadows. "Tell us how you train them."

"I won't talk," Fishlegs stated, his voice surprisingly stern. I continued to work on my ropes while he stalled with the interrogators. "You can't make me."

"Oh, I think we can."

One by one, the torches were blown out, eventually leaving us in total darkness. I started to panic and struggle against the ropes faster, knowing that the dark was one of Fishlegs' weaknesses. If I didn't move fast and get us out of here, he'd spill everything.

"Hello?" I could hear his breathing getting close to a level of hyperventilation. "Is anybody there?"

The first knot came undone, and the rope fell to the floor silently.

"You can't- you can't leave me in here!"

I started to work on the knot keeping my arms bound to the back of the chair, hoping my free legs would help me if someone tried to attack me.

"Okay! Okay, Hiccup is the leader of the Berk Dragon Academy!"

Dang it... I started to untie faster.

"He rides a Night Fury named Toothless. And there's Reign! She's got a temper, but it's really useful in fights. She rides a Thunderdrum named Shriek that has a seriously powerful sonic boom. Th-then there's Astrid! She's mean, but in a nice way!"

The rope was starting to loosen as Fishlegs spilled literally everything about all of us.

"Her dragon is a Deadly Nadder- shoots spine, her and Shriek love chicken." He chuckled at the end of his sentence. "Snotlout rides a Monstrous Nightmare. We're not actually sure who's more monstrous: him or the dragon. And then there's the twins. They share a Zippleback... actually, they fight over it."

Just as the rope around my arms fell away, there was the sound of a blast building up, and Toothless' purple plasma lit the torches once again. The group looked at Fishlegs, all with either angry or disappointed expressions, forcing him to talk once again.

"What? You know I hate the dark!" he defended. Toothless gave the boy an unamused look before padding back to his rider.

"Great. Fishlegs, more like Guppy Legs," Tuffnut insulted. "Jeez..."

"Fishlegs, you can't give in. Alvin will do a lot more than turn out the light to get you to talk. He had Reign and I locked in a dungeon, ready to be executed. Toothless was chained and muzzled for days." He took a deep breath as his face started to contort in order to calm himself. "You need to stick with what we discussed: your name, where you live, and nothing else."

"All right, I'll work on it."

"Mean? I'm not mean," Astrid muttered as most of the group turned to leave the cave.

"It's okay, Astrid. I like mean girls." I couldn't help but roll my eyes at Snotlout's advances, and they weren't even directed towards me. I stood up from my chair and caught up with Hiccup, falling in step beside him.

"So what's the point of tying me up again?" I questioned, sighing as I rubbed my red wrists. I was likely going to have a slight rope burn because of this, and if no one offered a good explanation, I wasn't going to be happy.