Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock... My life was wasting away as I just sat there, hoping for something better to happen than to know each second I wasted staring up at the sky, waiting to die, my life was wasting away naturally. How, you might ask, was it so important not to waste time? My generation of Vikings was cursed after our(my peers and my) parents slaughtered a village of people, including a medicine woman. She cursed our generation when they were teenagers so that they would have to marry quickly, or at least find love, and have children that would be cursed as well. The last words of Medina the Sprite was...

"You people are better off dead. I curse you to hell and back for what you've done. You, your children, your children's children, and the all the generations after that will perish at the hands of time for greed and selfishness. No love, no life." She spat, her body cracking and crumbling into dust. When the people of our village went home, they woke to find watches, tiny ones, on necklaces that were permanently attached to them, meaning they could never take them off. Each day they didn't find love, the hands of their lives would go down by one half hour, so, as you can imagine, half of our people were dead before they were old enough to have children, except for five couples, harboring between them four boys, including me, and two girls cursed with the pocket watches as they called them.

"This is rediculous!" My father growled, picking me up by my watch choker that was leather and unremovable by any means.

"H... stop that! I can't breathe!" I gasped, holding the necklace back so that I would choke. My father set me down on my feet. I was scrawny and not fit for fighting, so he said I was as good as having a daughter than a son. That was nice to know; I'm considered a girl! /\

"Go out!"

"And do what?"

"Get food! That's what the women do."

"I get it already, I'm going." I spat, snatching the basket from his large, burly hands and tossing it on my back. I just wanted to get as far away from him and the village as it was humanly possible and all the shit over slaughtering dragons. Frankly, I see nothing wrong with them. Yeah, they steal our food, yeah, they ruin the village, okay, they might depleat our food, but they're cool as shit! Especially the one that no one has ever seen and lived to tell the tale.

The Night Fury. No one knows what it looks like, how fast it is, oh, and it doesn't have a firing limit. The only description we have of it is, 'The child of lightening and death itself. Run if ever seen.'

"I'll show him a dragon. I'm going to catch the Night Fury." Oh, did I mention that it never misses? All you hear before it fires is this shreek or a thousand screams and then purple light as it fires its signature blow. Just like... this. "Holy shit!" I shout, ducking down under a log. The shreak came loud and clear, in DAYLIGHT! I waited for the crack or the thunderous boom, but it seemed it was firing in the the air, at the air. "N... Night Fury..." I gaped, catching a glimpse of the swift, agile, black dragon of hell. I had to catch one.

I jumped over the log and ran at full speed to where I could see the great masterpiece carved by the gods. All I had to track it by was the direction it was headed and a nice crash path it left, breaking trees, shattering rocks, and even digging a three foot hole in the ground as it slid into a well-like paradise full of a lake, trees, green grass, and, to my unfortunate accuracy, one Night Fury Dragon, pissed as hell itself. The black fury of the gods was trying to escape the paradise, as if its beauty stung, his inability to fly shocking me. He couldn't get more than ten, maybe twelve feet off the ground.

"You're trapped here aren't you?" I whispered to myself, leaning over a rock ledge, tiny pebbles cracking off, the ledge giving way. "Oh come on!" I shouted, gripping the ledge, the moist mosses and dirt the only thing to hold onto. The Night Fury shot his eyes up to my direction, his teeth bearing in my general location. Oh shit... Why was it that I had to be cursed for death, dragon food and/or death by falling? WHY?

My hand began to slip, my grip loosening. I was falling, gripping my basket so it wouldn't shatter. At least then my father would have some good memories of me.

'All I can say is... Thanks for not crushing the good basket son. RIP.' I can almost hear it now.

"Don't move." A voice shouted, my body being slammed sideways, shock over coming my mind as I was thrown into the water along with my savior. for some unknown reason, I took in a gulp of water, choking and loosing consciousness fast.

My entire body was numb, no feeling in any part of me. I could feel air being forced in my throat, in my lungs, my eyes shooting open, reflexes causing me to bolt upright and throw up all the water I'd "breathed" in nearly drowning. I took in deep breaths of air, my lungs in pain from being starved of oxygen for so long. My eyes shifted from the ground to my sopping wet clothes and then to the person with white hair and green eyes staring at me. He was sopping wet too and he was sort of angry at me. Was he the person that rescued me?

"The last time I checked, you people weren't so ignorant as to commit suicide." The man snapped, standing up.

"I... I wasn't trying to..." I stammered, my entire body shaking as I realized I nearly came that close to death.

"Kid..."

"I mean... H... Have you seen a Night Fury around here? Black dragon, green eyes, sort of like yours, no one's really seen it."

"Oh, him? He's around." The man chuckled, slicking his hair back.

"So... you've seen him?"

"No."

"Then why did you...?" I stammered, the man's entire body morphing INTO the Night Fury, his toothful grin wide and terrifying as he crowched over me. He didn't speak, he didn't do anything, he only grinned, staring deep into my eyes.

He morphed back into his normal self, sitting as far as he could from me as he was allowed.

"Y... you... you're... that was... YOU!" I stammered, shaking, still on my knees.

"Welcome, idiot, to my world." He grinned wide.

"Y... you're a... n... n... Night Fury. You, you're a night fury DRAGON!" I stated the obvious again, my eyes bluring, my head spinning, my stomach gurggling.

"Good observation. The name isn't Night Fury, it's Void Night."

"V... Vo... Void?"

"Right."

"G... Good to know... then why can't you... fly?"

"I can fly!"

"Ten feet."

"Why do you care?"

"I... I guess..."

"You don't. Just like the rest of the Viking's that don't care about us, only our hides."

"Th... that's just... I... What do you want from me?" I sob, uncontrolling of my actions. He sounded just like my father. Disappointed, unapproving, ec cetera, so on and so forth. I jumped up and ran, slipping back into the pound on the slick rocks that lined its three foot shore line. I sucked at swimming, so naturally, I began to drown again.

"Seriously?" Void snickered, swooping down and picking me up like a hawk on its prey... or a dragon on its prey...

"Gah!" I gasped, coughing up water again. "That's... thank you..." I managed, flushing red as I gasped for air.

"You'd think roaming the seas you'd know how to swim."

"I don't... I don't go with them."

"You're a Viking aren't you?"

"Is that supposed to mean anything? I'm a reject."

"..."

"Don't you get it? Haven't you ever wondered why we have these watches?" I asked, shaking the damn thing, accidentally speeding up my death by ten minutes. "Oh come on!" I shouted at it, my head getting lighter.

"I just thought you idiots needed to tell time."

"That's a better way to see this curse."

"Curse?"

"It's none of your business, it's just a way to say that I'm not going to make it through this life." I whispered, staring at the watch, ticking and tocking away my seconds, the choker becoming more attached to me as I waited to die.

"Duck!" Void shouted, pushing me into a rock cave, inlet as a massive black shadow creeped across the paradise, an icy gust brought with it.

I was tempted to call out his name, but I knew that something was wrong, other than the mass black shadow that engulfed the day. If I thought it was dark then, it was black now. I couldn't see the hand in front of my face, the rock wall, the ground, I couldn't even see the body I was attached to. Voices, low, high, medium, all snickered and laughed as they came closer.

"What are you doing Void?" One of the deeper voices snickered.

"Probably can't fly." Said a woman's voice, letting out a laugh. How could they see and not me?

"Get out of here, both of you and take that sad excuse for a pet with you." Void's voice spat, swiping the air.

"I don't think that's fair. There's an attack tonight. You are of course the star of the show."

"I'm not helping you hurt them anymore. Agnis can wait."

"What? Has Night Fury Void fallen for a maiden of the monsters?"

"I said LEAVE!" He shouted louder, a crack of purple light lighting the darkness. I could see, for a split second, one girl, one tall man, and a dead person, bite marks in their arm. The spark lit the place just so that my eyes reflected the light back for the girl to see me. Oh shit.

"I see now... you're hiding a boy are you?" She grinned wide just like Void, walking over to me, or so I could hear.

"Hnn..." I winced, a wave of fear spreading over me.

"What a pretty little face. I guess barberians can make gems as well." She smirked, lifting my head to her eyes, red with demonic power. "Such a shame. He should taste good." She grinned, a row of white teeth shining in the dark.

"NO!" I shouted, jumping up and running, tripping, running, tripping again and again, trying to escape her as she walked to catch me. I was such and an idiot because I slid right back into the deepest depths of the pool, vines holding me down from frantically, and unsuccessfully, swimming to the surface.

"Kid!" Void shouted, jumping into the pool, I could feel the bubbles that were leaving my skin as the oxygen was being sucked from my body, cold seeping into my soul. I had just enough time to open my eyes to see his firey green ones wide as I began to die...

If this is it, at least I won't have to know that I didn't discover something amazing.

Dragons were more than meets the eye.

They were people.