Hey there everybody. There is a time jump as who wants to watch boring old training right? It will not be instant but slightly into the chapter so watch out for it!

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"Ok Hiccup, I want you to go into your mind and I will instruct you from there." The King said to Hiccup, who sat down with his legs crossed before entering his mindscape. He saw the same rolling fields and the same house as before, except this time there was a door standing next to his house. That was it, just the door. The door was pitch black and shimmered like the scales on Zahnlos.

"Ok Hiccup, I want you to look up." The disembodied voice of the King said to him. "And once you do, I want you to try and touch the sky." Hiccup didn't understand what he meant by the last part, but when he looked up at the sky he couldn't believe what he saw. Despite it being as bright as day, the sky was full of stars of all different colors.

Maybe because this is my mind, I can bend the natural law of Midgard, Hiccup thought to himself. He then imagined himself floating up towards the sky, thinking of the same feeling he had while riding atop Zahnlos, a feeling of freedom. To his surprise, he started to float and rise up off the ground and into the sky at a fast speed. After a few seconds, he reached the sky where he stopped rising.

"Good job Hiccup. You succeeded faster than I thought you would. Now there is one final step needed to view other dragon's minds. You need to punch out of your mind and into the space between minds." The King once again left a cryptic message with Hiccup.

What does that mean? Hiccup thought, trying to understand the message. He tried going farther up but seemed to hit a barrier. He looked around and saw all the stars, now bigger and brighter than before. Hiccup then tried harder to push through the barrier and while it bent and stretched around him like a yak's gut, it did not break. Shortly after a few attempts, a headache set in and he had to stop pushing and when he did the headache went away. Hiccup looked back up towards the invisible barrier and his Viking stubbornness kicked in and he charged at it.

I am going to break through this barrier! Hiccup thought as he hit the barrier going as fast as he could. It stretched and stretched and the headache returned to the boy the further into it he got, but he persevered and kept trying to punch through the barrier. After a few more moments he felt something tear in the barrier and before he could react, Hiccup was through the barrier and rushed out into what the King had called the place between minds. Looking around, the young Viking was awestruck by what he saw, something no human had seen in thousands of years.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" He heard the King say. "Looking at the mind-flame of all those nearby."

"It's....breathtaking." Hiccup managed to stutter out as he took it all in, realizing the 'stars' were actually a different color light coming from the hundreds of dragons that were in the Sanctuary and each dragon had their own unique color. He looked down at what would be his mind and saw that it was a bright white, brighter than any of the other dragons, and that there was some sort of a tether linking it to another mind, one that was pitch black yet shone like the brightest of stars.

"I'd say that's enough for today. Tomorrow we can cover more." The King said to Hiccup, who agreed before sinking back into his mind and then back out to the real world.

"I'm curious, why are some dragon's minds brighter than others?" Hiccup asked him once he stood back up and looked at the great Bewilderbeast.

"Power. The stronger a dragon's mental power, the more mental prowess it possesses, the stronger their mind-flame burns." Came the response, in the dragons' cryptic nature. "Now I suggest you go off and find a place for you and your dragon to stay. It's going to be a long next few months for you with all the training you will go through." With that, the Bewilderbeast started to turn his considerable bulk away from the ledge that Hiccup was standing on and back so that he was facing the majority of the Sanctuary.

"Wait!" Hiccup shouted out, causing the Bewilderbeast to stop its turn and look back at the small teen.

"Yes, Hatchling? What is it?"

"I want to ask a personal question." Hiccup stuttered out under the glare of the King.

"Well go ahead, neither of us will grow any younger by you waiting."

"I'm not sure how I should feel about my mother being alive. I'm happy she is alive and we can be together, but at the same time I'm angry that she never came back." Hiccup confessed to him.

"Let me tell you a story. Fifteen years ago a Stormcutter flew in carrying a human female in his claws and begged me to let her stay here, saying that he had taken her away from her village after she had saved a Nightmare from death, refused to attack him and he could sense something about her. I believed him as I also sensed something different about her so I allowed her to stay on the provision that he would watch her." The King began "I watched as a few hours later they would bond as he was trying to get her up to his cave. Somehow they could talk mentally, but that was it and he was the only one who could bond with her in such a way. She would frequently ask for him to take her back and he would always answer the same way; that it was too dangerous and her village would never change. It would take her five years of constantly being told that for her to stop asking, yet I know she always wanted to go back."

"Well, I know the woman is my mother and the Stormcutter is Cloudjumper. But how does that help me?" Hiccup asked, confused about what the story of how she came to the Sanctuary would help him in his decision.

"She never gave up on trying to get back to you or your father. So don't be mad at her for being held back. Something else to ponder, if she had come back then your fate would have changed and we would not be standing here having this conversation."

"Thank you, King, for the help."

"You are welcome Hatchling." The Bewilderbeast said as he once again turned to face the nest as Hiccup also turned and took a few steps away from the edge.

"Zahnlos, where are you?" Hiccup asked through their mental link.

"I'm with Specter and Penumbra; what's wrong?" Came the quick response.

"Nothing is wrong, I just finished with the King and he suggested we find a cave to call our own."

"Ok, Spector and Penumbra are going to help us find one since they know their way around. Be there soon Rider." Zahnlos said back to Hiccup after a moment. Indeed, a moment later the three Fury's landed before Hiccup. Zahnlos gestured for Hiccup to get on his back, and so Hiccup climbed onto Zahnlos and they quickly took off into the air with Spector and Penumbra in the lead. They soon came to a medium-sized cave that looked to be carved out by a Whispering Death. Once landed, Hiccup got off Zahnlos and they walked into the cave together as the other two Fury's took off to leave them some privacy to view their new home. In the back, there was a small hole that could be used as a firepit to cook in. There was a good amount of light streaming in through the cave mouth and being diffused through some small ice fissures that broke up the rock in the ceiling.

This could work, Hiccup thought as he started looking over things and thinking about what he would need to make it livable for him.

"So Hiccup, what do you think?" Zahnlos asked his rider.

"This could work very well with only a small amount of work. I will need some furs to keep warm while I sleep so we should leave to find those..." Hiccup answer, stopping as he let off a yawn.

"Nonsense! You shall sleep in my wings, for now, we can acquire those furs some other time." Zahnlos interrupted the boy, gently nudging into his side.

"Ok then. Do you mind if we get some sleep now then? It's been a long twenty-four hours." Hiccup asked as he turned to look at the Dragon standing next to him.

"Of course." Came the expected reply as Zahnlos went to lay down near the back of the cave and motioned for Hiccup to lay down in his opened wings, which the teen did. As soon as the Night Fury closed its wings and curled in upon its rider, Hiccup was asleep in the warm and comforting embrace.

-Three Months Later-

Hiccup had been training hard with the King over the last three months. He had learned how to connect with another dragon's mind to talk without having to go through the same long process like he did the first he broke into what he had taken to calling, the Void. Through the process of learning that, Hiccup accidentally learned how to protect other dragons from an Alphas call. To say the King was surprised would be an understatement as only another Alpha dragon had the power to do something like that. During that time, he'd also gotten to reconnect with his mother and learn about the two other people that lived in the Sanctuary, Unole, and Ivar.

Unole was the smaller of the two, being about five foot eight, around 150 pounds, and twenty years old. He was a lot like Hiccup in that they both could be playful, sarcastic and would rather talk things out than fight. His hair was black, neck length, and he kept it wild and untamed. Something that Hiccup noticed early on was that his eye color would change. Unole could not offer up an explanation on why it happened, but he knew that they changed based on his mood and would start to glow if he was under a large amount of emotional stress. His eyes would normally be brown, but change to a light blue if he was curious or hopeful, a forest green like hiccups eyes when he was happy or determined, grey when sad or fearful, yellow ringed with red when he desired something or someone and finally an amber, almost gold color when he was angry. Hiccup had only seen them as light blue, green, and brown and never had the want to see any of the other colors. The two had instantly hit it off and Hiccup, with the help of Valka, had taught him sign language so they could talk.

Ivar was almost the exact opposite. Standing at six and a half feet tall and 200 pounds, he towered over everybody else. While he was only twenty-five years old, he already had the look down that said he had seen some seriously bad things in his life and one could see that bleed through his blue eyes. With the short brown hair and the fact that he always had his twin swords on, he looked more like a grizzled veteran of many battles than a mid-twenties dragon rider. He was more reserved and it took some time for Hiccup to make it through that gruff and seemingly uncaring exterior of the man to see what few people saw. A man who cared deeply for only a few people and dragons. He hid that well and it took Hiccup almost three months to reach that point with him and there were still a few things that Ivar kept secret.

They may seem like opposites, but that was what made them such a good team. While Unole was the more adventurous one, that wanderlust was offset by the seriousness of Ivar. Unole didn't like to fight while Ivar would always be up early to train. Their dragons were mirrors of their riders and Penumbra, Unole's White Fury, seemed to always have curiosity and happiness flowing out of his blue eyes and would happily play with anybody who came along. Spector, Ivars Night Fury, was more reserved about what he did. He would typically stay by Ivar's side and had the same kind of look in his red eyes as his rider did.

Today, both of the men were out on a scouting mission somewhere that they wouldn't tell Hiccup. Zahnlos was with the King so Hiccup was with his mother's Stormcutter, Cloudjumper as his mother was off somewhere in the nest.

"Cloudjumper, why did you take my mother all those years ago?" Hiccup asked him while he was practicing some of his mental powers.

"This was before Unole and Ivar arrived and took over the role of scouting, so the king would send one of us out to scout for dragon trappers and keep a lookout in order to keep the Sanctuary safe and a secret. It was during one of these searches that I came across your mother." Cloudjumper started explaining.

"It was during a raid, wasn't it?" Hiccup asked as he stopped practicing and looked at the owl-like face of his mother's dragon.

"Yes, it was. First I was just going to watch, but I saw your mother save a Nightmare that had been shot down from having its head chopped off out of the corner of my eye as I was watching another dragon land and start digging into a house. I had sensed something coming from the house and I felt the need to protect it, so I slammed the other dragon off the side of the house and caused it to fly off." Cloadjumper said to the young teen. "My curiosity got the best of me however as I felt the same feeling from early come from inside the house. I went inside to find a human hatchling in its bed and so I started playing with him. It was then that she burst into the house and grabbed a sword to protect what I assumed to be her hatchling."

"That was me, wasn't it?" Hiccup asked him.

"Yes, and now I know why I was drawn to your house at that moment. When I turned to look at your mother, I scratched you right on the chin, which is where that scar came from." Reaching with one of his wing claws, he gestured to the scar on Hiccup's chin that he never knew how he got. "As I looked at your mother, she dropped her sword and we just stared into each other's eyes. It was as if her soul reflected my own. Suddenly an axe went sailing between the two of us so I turned and blasted fire at whoever threw the axe. She tried to stop me, but I had already set most of the room on fire. She was right next to me and I knew she didn't belong as the only one trying to save dragons in a society that glorified killing dragons, so I grabbed her and flew off back to the Sanctuary." He finished, looking down sadly. "I never meant to deprive you of your mother...It happened too quickly once that axe flew between us."

"I see. It's okay Cloudjumper, if you hadn't taken her then none of us would be here today." Hiccup reassured the dragon, stepping closer to scratch the side of his head. "Do you know why the dragon was trying to get inside? That's something that has never happened before, they normally only go after the food." Hiccup asked, trying to understand the events that led up to the "attack".

"I vaguely remember him saying something about capturing you for the Queen, but I might be mistaken as it was such a small thing that happened so long ago." It was at that time that Zahnlos walked into the cave that the two were in as he was done with the King. Hiccup didn't know why the two would get together so often as neither would tell him but he thought it had something to do with him.

"Hiccup, want to go flying?" The Night Fury asked as he walked in. During the first month that Hiccup and Zahnlos were here, Ivar and Unole had gone out and made Hiccup a saddle and some protective clothing so the two could fly together and not have to worry about the young teen falling off or somehow getting injured. Since receiving that gift the two had bonded much moreover being able to properly fly together.

"I would love to." Hiccup replied as he waved goodbye to Cloudjumper, who acknowledged it and went his own way. "Let's go!" Hiccup said as he jumped onto the saddle and hooked himself in.

"Don't have to tell me twice!" Zahnlos said as they blasted out of the cave and out of the Sanctuary. Once they were out into the open air they just flew, not talking. To be fair, with all the outrageous stunts and maneuvers that the two were doing it would be hard to get any talking in as they were both focused on flying. They would be doing all sorts of acrobatics for some time before Zahnlos suddenly leveled out of an inverted spin and went into a hover.

"What's up bud?" Hiccup asked, looking around for anything that might have caused such an abrupt stop.

"I thought I heard something in distress." Came the response. Hiccup started to listen for any sort of noise as well. Over the last three months, part of his training was to increase his senses using the bond that he shared with Zahnlos so any sense he increased was as good as most dragons. While he still could not hear, he could help analyze what sounds Zahnlos heard to help determine where they came from.

"To the left." Hiccup said after 'hearing' the noise, Zahnlos was already starting to fly that way. They flew for a few minutes before coming across a small island that was the source of the distraught noise. The pair landed on the beach and as soon as they did they noticed a bright object that looked like a rock near the tree line. As they approached Hiccup started to reach his mind out across the island to see if he could find the dragon and help them find it faster, but he couldn't find anything. As they neared the odd rock it suddenly burst open to reveal a dragon, snarling at them and causing the pair to take a step back.

"Careful Hiccup, that's a Razorwhip and they have a history of not liking other dragons or people," Zahnlos said to Hiccup, who simply nodded his head in affirmation. Now that Hiccup knew where to look, he started looking directly for the dragon's mind so they could talk while Zahnlos started, well attempted to start, a conversation with the dragon but it wouldn't respond, only keep snarling at them. As Hiccup was looking over the dragon he noticed it had a few arrows in its side that had somehow managed to get past the armor plating that covered the dragon from snout to tail. After a few moments of looking, he finally found the dragon's mind, which was not surprising as Razorwhip's often hid their mind in order to avoid being detected.

"Don't be afraid. We aren't here to hurt you. We heard your cries for help." Hiccup said to the obvious surprise of the Razorwhip if its expression was anything to go by.

"How is this possible? A human?" A feminine voice filled Hiccup's head.

"Long story short, I am special and somehow have the same abilities as an Alpha. Now can we help you with those arrows...?" Hiccup responded to her, leaving the last part open as he didn't know her name.

"Yes...you may. My name is Windshear." The now named Windshear responded hesitantly.

"Hiccup and Zahnlos," Hiccup responded as he grabbed a first aid kit from a saddlebag and went over to the dragon. Zahnlos had been able to listen in on the conversation due to the bond they shared and Hiccup letting him, so he knew what was going to happen.

"I'm going to pull the arrows out now, this is probably going to hurt." Hiccup told her as he gripped the shaft on the first arrow.

"Go ahead." Came the response, so Hiccup yanked the arrow out causing Windshear to howl out in pain. Even though little more than the head had penetrated, having it yanked out was painful for the dragoness as the tip was barbed. After pulling out all five arrows from her side, Hiccup spread a paste made from Zahnlos's saliva on it as they found out it helped the blood to clot and thereby heal faster.

"Thank you Hiccup," Windshear said as she bowed to the boy once he had finished.

"You're welcome. There is no need to bow to me Windshear, I'm not important enough to receive that honor." Hiccup said, even though he full well knew why she was doing it as he had seen other dragons do it to his mother when she helped heal them.

"But you are Alpha, you said it yourself."

"No, I merely have the power of an Alpha, I am not an Alpha but the King is." Hiccup replied, noting to not use the word alpha in the future when talking about his powers with new dragons.

"King?"

"Yes, back at the Sanctuary. You should come, it is a place where all dragons are welcomed and protected by the King, one of the last Bewilderbeasts in existence." It was at that point that Zahnlos said something to her, and she responded to him and the pair proceed to have a short spoken conversation.

"She will be staying with us in our cave until she grows accustomed to being around other dragons and finds her own cave," Zahnlos said to Hiccup, knowing the other wouldn't mind. In fact, Hiccup had just been thinking of suggesting that very idea but was waiting for the two to finish talking so Windshear wouldn't have two conversations at once.

"Ah, you stole my idea bud." Hiccup said to his dragon jokingly, who returned it with a smug look of his own.

"Whoever said I stole it? It might have been your idea, but I was the one to tell her." Came the response. Hiccup didn't respond, yet simply launched himself at Zahnlos and the two started to wrestle with each other. After a few moments, Zahnlos had Hiccup pinned underneath his body and was just laying there with a smug expression on his face.

"Alright, you win you overgrown salamander. Now let me up." Hiccup said as he conceded to the argument about who actually had the idea.

"Uhm, shall we get going back to this, Sanctuary?" Windshear said, causing both of them to look up at her sitting and waiting patiently for them to finish.

"Right." Hiccup started as Zahnlos let him up and into the saddle. "Follow us and we should be there in about thirty minutes." Hiccup finished as the three of them flew into the sky and back to the Sanctuary.

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So surprise Windshear! I had no plans to include her in this story; she just inserted herself into it.

"Of course I would be in it! Why would I?"

"Windshear, get out of my room! And close the door on your way out, I don't want to be distracted so close to the end."

"Gosh, no need to take it out on me. I'm just happy I was included."

Ok, sorry about that. Ya, sometimes a character will just appear out of thin air and I can't stop it, like now. So what do you guys think? Confusing, not so confusing? Please leave a review if you need/want more information on anything here. I would be happy to explain it!

So with the hearing thing, think of it like when you hear something and your brain says "That sound came from this direction." Basically, Hiccup gets that same feeling but he doesn't actually hear the sound. So that means he can't just use Zahnlos to suddenly hear.

And yes, I know this took forever. I severely overestimated my motivation. I'm going to try and get out a new chapter every other week but no promises.

Semper Fi,

Thearizona