EPILOGUE

The horns of welcome brought Énjal and Stoick out to see who the arrivals were. Not ships, but two dragons were winging in.

Even from a distance Énjal could see light reflecting from something on what looked like a Deadly Nadder. Could they be new Dragon Riders? Impossible. There was only the one "Knight" Fury they knew of, and that was certainly what the other dragon was. Privately Énjal opted to change the spelling for the dragon. She felt it was more appropriate to the protective and heroic nature of their black drake.

As they got closer, Énjal grew more excited. She recognized her daughter now, and she was wearing a new adornment on her left upper arm.

Stoick was nearly pulled off his feet when a very excited Énjal began bouncing and spinning around the bigger man. "What has you in such a tizzy, my dear Énjal?"

She just pointed rapidly at the incoming dragon riders. Stoick spotted the cause of Énjal's exuberance, pushed his chest out proudly and prepared to greet his son.

The two riders barely had time to dismount when they were assaulted in turns by the mother of Hiccup's fiancee.

"Is that for real? Did Hiccup really propose to you? Did you really propose to her?" Her hands moved so fast, that Hiccup could barely register the questions.

"Yes, yes, yes Mom!" Astrid was only too happy to confirm.

Hiccup was knocked off his feet when Énjal threw herself at him for a bear hug. Fortunately for Hiccup, Toothless saw the mother of his girl careening towards him and braced Hiccup for the impact. "Oh, you wonderful boy. I love you son." Énjal said with sincere delight over those words.

More stately and calmly, Stoick approached the excited homecoming. "Congratulations you two! Would you care to make it a double date?"

Hiccup and Astrid blinked several times at what Stoick just signed.

Énjal raised her left sleeve to reveal her own arm band. Astrid screeched in giddy delight, and Stoick, after shaking a finger in his ear declared. "It's a good thing I know ASL now."

THE END

(Two "B" shaped hands {flattened fingers closed, thumb tucked in}. Dominant hand has the finger tips pointing out, secondary hand is horizontal palm facing sternum. Edgewise on the baby finger, the dominant "B" hand slides along top of secondary hand, when it reaches the end of the finger tips, it drops suddenly, reaching the end.)

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A/N: I would like to thank several die-hard readers for their dedication to following my story through to the end and for their regular comments in the reviews: Guest; of which their may be more than one, but I'm pretty sure one of you was pretty dedicated with frequent and regular reviews with detailed comments. Thank you for your very encouraging words. Thanks again to dabzzygirl, KitoH, P-Artsypants for your regular and encouraging feed back as well.

An extra special thanks I must extend to Grizzly98 for busting my chops with her excellent proofreading and editing talents. I cannot express my thanks to you enough for offering to help me, and therefore helping my story to look a lot more polished. God created you special, and I pray He continues to strengthen and uphold you.

An additional thank you for some extra proof reading by 348joey.

Thanks I also extend to all the other readers who patted me on the back with compliments, and constructive criticism. I received far more affirmations than I had ever hoped to receive.

I am in the outlining stages of a sequel, but don't hold your breaths. This one will probably take me much longer to put together. I want to keep a promise I made to P-Artsypants to complete an Audiobook I am creating for her "Roses and Lilies" Fanfic.

Update: As I warned previously, the sequel is a work in progress. I'm still working on it when I have spare time.