Hiccup tries to teach Toothless to fly from his arm on a rainy beach, but the dragon clings tight and refuses to budge. Fishlegs watches and cracks jokes while Hiccup gets increasingly frustrated with his stubborn dragon.
Fear, vanity, revenge, and silly jokes. March turned into April, and April turned into May. After Fireworm's remark about the pathetic bunny rabbit, Toothless never pooed in the kitchen again. But Hiccup hadn't made any further progress in training him. It was still raining, but it was A warm rain. The wind was blowing, but it was a less furious wind. It was just about possible to stand upright. The gulls' eggs were hatching on the rocks, and the parent gulls dive-bombed Hiccup and Fishlegs when they came to the long beach to practice. Kill, Horikow, kill! said Fishlegs to Horikow. who was calmly perched on his shoulders. You could have that back— black-backed gull for breakfast. He's barely half your size. Honestly, Hiccup, I give up. I don't know how I'm going to pass the hunting section of this test. Horikow just doesn't have the killer instinct. She'll never survive in the wild. Hiccup laughed loudly. You think you've got problems? Toothless and I are failing right from the beginning. The basic obedient commands, the retrieval, the compulsory exercises, the hunting, the lot. Can't be that bad, said Fishlegs. Watch, said Hiccup, and the boys moved along the beach a bit, out of the range of Gulp. They started practising the most basic commands of all.
Go!
The dragon was supposed to stand Bolt upright on the handler's outstretched arm. The handler would then bark the command as loudly as possible while simultaneously lifting his arm to fling the dragon into the air. The dragon was supposed to soar gracefully into flight when the handler's arm reached its highest point.
Horakow.
Yawned, scratched, and slowly flapped off, grumbling to herself. Toothless was even less obedient.
Go!
yelled Hiccup. Hiccup flung his arm up. Toothless hung on.
I said go!
Hiccup repeated in frustration.
Why go?
shuddered Toothless, gripping even tighter. Just—
Go, go, go, go, go!
screamed Tippo, flapping his arms up and down frantically, with Toothless hanging on to it for dear life. Toothless stayed.
Toothless, said Hiccup, as reasonably as he could, please go! If you don't start going when I tell you, we are Both going to be thrown into exile!
B-but I don't want to go!
Toothless pointed out equally reasonably. Fishlegs watched the whole process in appalled amazement. You really do have problems, he said in an awed voice. Yep, said Hiccup. He finally managed to uncurl Toothless's claws which had relaxed their grip for a second, and pushed him off. Toothless landed on the sand with a squeal of outrage and immediately attached himself to Hiccup's leg, getting a good grip on the sandals with his talons and wrapping his wings around Hiccup's calf.
N-not going!
said Toothless stubbornly. It can't get much worse than this, So I'm going to try a new track. He took out the notebook in which he had been jotting down all he knew about dragons in the hope that it might be useful. Dragon Motivation, Hiccup read aloud. Number 1: Gratitude. Hiccup sighed. Number 2: Fear. That works, but I can't do it. 3, 4, 5. Greed, vanity, revenge. Those were all worth a try. 6. Jokes and riddle-talking. Only if I'm desperate. This has got to be the first, drawled Fishlegs. But I'm with Gobber the
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