A New World, Complicated

Chapter 35: A Tale of Two Dragons (Reign)

 I shot awake to the blaring bellows of an alarm horn. Adrenaline pushed me out from under the covers and caused me to jump down the stairs. I swung my leg up quickly over Shriek's body and secured myself on the saddle before taking to the air. I began to fly over the water, keeping an eye out for any sort of large, white dragon that could come barreling in our direction. Things were going smoothly at first, until a bolt of red and orange darted down from the sky, whooping and cheering.

"Snotlout!" I snapped, glaring at him as he pulled up beside me. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," he mocked. "Did I scare your girly little dragon?"

"Out of my way! I have to get to the Great Hall."

"No you don't." He chuckled as he attempted to correct me, cocky in every aspect. "I have to get to the Great Hall. You have to get to the armory."

"Hiccup assigned me to the Great Hall yesterday-- you heard him."

"Tell you what: whoever gets there first-- me-- gets to guard it." I typically wasn't the competitive sort of person, but I wasn't about to let Snotlout take my job. I was confident I was meant to guard the Great Hall, and he wasn't about to budge me on that point.

"Fine by me." I leaned further forward to get Shriek to fly faster. All that training with Hiccup and Toothless was being put to use for the first time. But only a second later, fish were thrown at my face, causing me to teeter slightly. "Aah! Snotlout!" Shriek spiraled a little bit, knocking into someone's wheelbarrow before I got her back into the air again.

"Haha, Reign. I thought you liked cod." I grunted and felt a surge of anger, causing me to fly directly at him. "Oh, no..."

Shriek and I caught up to him and pushed right into the pair, causing both of us to go shooting through the doors of the Great Hall and skidding across the floor. Almost immediately, I jumped up and reached over to try and punch him, but just as my fist came within an inch of his face, a pair of arms wrapped around my waist and yanked me back. I continued to thrash as anger tensed my muscles, despite Hiccup's best efforts to pull me back.

"Reign!" he snapped. "You need to calm down!" He managed to pull me around and placed a firm grip on my shoulders, trying to get me to come to. "Stop it!" The anger in his voice suddenly dissipated mine, causing me to look around at what Snotlout and I had done.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?" Hiccup nodded warily and moved his hands to my arm, bringing me outside alongside him, leaving Snotlout to follow. Chief Stoick was already waiting for us, glowering in my direction.

"When you told me you'd be running a Screaming Death attack drill, I assumed you wouldn't actually try to destroy the entire village!"

"Technically, Chief, it was just the Great Hall." Chief Stoick halted his pacing and whipped around to glare at Fishlegs, getting in close to him. "And I'll let you take it from here."

"Dad, this was supposed to be a practice run," Hiccup explained, clearly trying to find a way to at least get me out of trouble. "It just got out of hand. I'm sorry." My gaze crossed Snotlout's, and the two of us glared at each other.

"Sorry doesn't un-burn Silent Sven's chest hair." Gobber nodded his head toward the Viking.

"No, it certainly does not. Which brings me to your punishment." We all looked at each other warily.

I crinkled my nose at the revolting stench as we looked over the unmanned field.

"Ugh," I scoffed. "Mildew's cabbage field." Fishlegs made his way over to an abandoned head of cabbage and picked it up. He took one whiff, and almost immediately discarded it.