A Night's Tale

A Night's Tale- Strike Free:

With a look back at Dalton, Strike shook his body back and forth as if he were about to pounce, opening his black and blue wings, and ran forward when something grabbed hold of his broken tail area.

                Screeching painfully, he twisted to see who the captor was. A large Viking who had covered his ears from the piercing sound. He whacked his tail against the Viking and he fell. Soon, four more Vikings were upon them.

                Both grew nervous since Strike couldn’t fly and Dalton was just one Viking.  Dalton grew serious and picked up a long branch from the ground, it was sturdy and strong, and started whacking any Viking who came to close. Strike roared and whooshed out his muddy wings to knock most of them down, or jumped from side to side, confusing them all before attacking them with a head butt or a wing opening.

                Soon, they were able to run off into the distance, Strike realizing that Dalton was still on by the time they reached an outcrop in the land. Dalton jumped off as he saw the dragon realize he was there and leaned back against a rock, the half covering his eye a little knotted and not as straight anymore.

                Strike looked around as the Viking jumped off, releasing the weight on his back. Gold wasn’t anywhere. He wanted to call out, but they weren’t that far away from the group of Vikings and Berk. So, instead, he shot out blue fire-balls into the air, even though he knew it was also a bad signal.

                After a while, he gave up and sat down beside the rock and became invisible, closing his eyes in silent thought. Dalton looked at Strike, knowing he was invisible, but yet he could see the Night Fury, even under the mud. How could he make the mud disappear as well?

                “Gold?” he asked, looking back down at the ground.

                The dragon grunted, but didn’t move to make himself reappear. He felt watched, but by a Viking, hopefully Dalton instead of one in the woods. It made him uneasy, but still he did not show himself, fearful of it being other than the Viking at his side. How did he get him into this again?

                Hiccup. Toothless.

                He hadn’t seen either of them until that day. Had he done the planning to trap Strike? But he wasn’t in the normal raids so how could he know how he moved throughout the sky? Unless…

                “Dalton!” a voice shouted over the wind flapping above him and Dalton. “Where’s Strike?!”

                “How should I know, Astrid? He realized I was on his back, threw me off, and continued down.” Dalton shouted back, anger in his voice, as if Strike did leave him.

                “Grrrr! That sneaky Night Fury! Come on, Dalton, lets go back to Berk.”

                Silence clawed at Strike. He couldn’t open his eyes: he would be revealed and would have to run again, this time without Dalton. What was the Vikings doing? Was he pointing to Astrid where he was, or was he shaking his head? He would never know.

                “I believe he will come back to me.” Dalton finally said, making Strike relax, but not by much. “He’s a good dragon, just nobody has seen it but me.”

                “Fine. Play with the wild dragons. I’ll be back.” Astrid growled before clicking her tongue and both her and her dragon, a Nadder by the sound of wing beats, and flew out of his hearing.

                Someone cleared their throat, but it was close, so Strike opened his eyes and saw Dalton looking at him. “I’m tired of lying about you.”