The Polar Portals: Pt 1 of 2

I. Somewhere miles away from all traces of snow and ice...

Two figures zipped through the sky, circling each other in a death spiral before aligning perfectly and gradually easing into a parallel position over one another. The black-suited man with the winged arms looked over his shoulder and let the large black dragon know that it was time to connect up. Shaking his head free of a red sash tied around his eyes, the Night Fury attempted to accurately align his limbs with his new co-pilot's and it was proving rather difficult.

"Hey, new leader!" Tuffnut called out to the chief. "Just how in the bowels of Hades is this suppose to work?!" He and his even more erratic twin sister wrestled each other for control as their dragons wrestled each other and them for control. "No, Ruffnut!"

"It's not MY fault the new chief wants us all to form this stupid new protection flight squad; now get off my half of our dragon!"

"I don't know what you guys are complaining about," Eret was exhilarated in both voice and appearance as he glided right over them with immense ease straped beneath Skullcrusher. "This is fun!" he shared a nod with Hiccup who still lingered under his own shaky dragon. The man shared a bizarre look with Toothless while below Fishlegs clung to Meatlog's tail and Snoutlout a scaly neck.

"Sorry, buddy." He apologized to Hookfang, then to Hiccup more aggressively. "Some of us have limits." His dragon bowed a little.

"I'm sorry, guys. But this is a dream I've had for a long time." The chief addressed his men as Snoutlout had to scramble up in order to clutch his dragon's jugular harder. "I want us all to be in actual formation. I..." He hooked himself and latched onto a stiff-looking Toothless, finally, and continued on, "I want us to be a real team."

"We'll be a real team when we can actually be dragon riders."

"We are," Hiccup was still optimistic as they flew in a disjointed, sloping pattern that looked like a weird open-mouth smile. "It's just a new way of flying, almost like we are our dragons. Right, bud?" he looked expectantly up at Toothless who was panicked.

The dragon screeched. Hiccup looked up in time to see a sheer mountain coming up. There was no time for Toothless to curl in on himself and protect Hiccup; he didn't even get the chance to see if his men had made it out all right. Hiccup unlatched himself from Toothless and purposely fell backwards. The Night Fury let out another screech and tried anchoring his body towards Hiccup.

"Toothless, formation." He tried aligning himself with his dragon.

With wide green eyes, he waved his head-side-to-side wildly in protest before eyeing the rocks coming upon them quickly. He turned back and beseeched Hiccup who only crossed his arms while up-side down. Toothless screeched out to him irritably.

"There's only one way we're doing this, Toothless," he was so confident it was absurd. The Night Fury screeched at Hiccup in fear and subdubed outrage. Hiccup shook his head quickly and realized Toothless was truly frightened. "Hold on, bud, hold on."

He air-swam over to the trembling dragon, didn't even bother to hook himself and locked his leg into Toothless's left stirrup before he righted his dragon up. Toothless was frozen mentally, at once grasping with slow anguish what Hiccup had really almost allowed to happen and more to the point, how it had happened again in a matter of a few seconds. He felt Hiccup rub between his sensory flaps and looked up in anxiety and alarm; his friend was regretful.

"I'm sorry, bud." He said earnestly, a shadow had fallen over his face and Toothless grew calmer as well when it dawned on him where he had seen the solemness before. The two flew quietly through a lingering fog as four silohuettes flew far below them.

Toothless looked up curiously at Hiccup, trying to comprehend once again the mysterious new stressors that came with the role of Human Alpha when a flash of dark green caught his eye. Hiccup looked up from his rumination on Toothless at a tiny glowing hole in the center of the rock expanse they had almost collided into. He briefly wondered aloud if there could be baby Bewildebeats inside when Toothless looked up at him with an eagerness to go explore.

Hiccup smiled warbly and patted the side of his neck. "Okay, bud." he said in quiet acceptance that it was time to listen for a change.

...