.How to lead a Return Migration.
SUMMARY: While leading a return migration, some problems were just bound to happen. Set: Gift of the Night Fury. Not good English, a little of OOC and intelligent Dragons. Three-shot.
WARNINGS: This is the fic from the foreigner. Keep that in mind. My fourth fic in this fandom. Set in the Gift of The Night Fury (so I do suggest those who didn't watch it, to watch it) directly after the scene where Hookfang and Hiccup flew away.
A/N: It's short three-shot fic, and not really that funny or cute, but I really wanted to write it. ;D Though I should probably work on the Defiant One… but plot bunnies are incredibly insistent.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own How To Train Your Dragon or Gift of The Night Fury.
BETA: I.F.T.S
Chapter 1: How to row a boat through the air.
Hiccup frowned down at the hatchlings who tried pathetically to flap their scrawny, fragile wings in imitation of their parent's graceful flight.
"That won't do it." Hiccup sighed, before an idea came to his mind. "Oh, hold on, I've got just a thing!" Hiccup patted Hookfang's neck, signaling the dragon to follow his lead.
Well, at first it seemed to be a good idea for Hiccup, but probably he had miscalculated a few… details. "Come on Hookfang! Just grab it across a nose and tug!" He encouraged the dragon from his perch on the Nightmare's neck.
Hookfang warbled something back at him that sounded suspiciously like – Oh yeah? If you are so clever, try it yourself! – as he tugged the old Viking boat stuck between the reefs. The creak of the wood filled the foggy air and Hiccup yelped, "No-no-no! Too strong! Geez, this is not going to work." The teen sighed in frustration.
The Nightmare, who let go of the boat on Hiccup's command, narrowed his bright yellow eyes at the stubborn piece of wood. An irritated snarl escaped him, as he gathered the gas for a shot- "Wait! No fire, no fire! You will blow it up!" Hiccup flailed, feeling with his knees that Hookfang's neck tense for a launch, efficiently stopping the dragon. The red-scaled reptile grumbled, but didn't shoot, letting the gas harmlessly sip from his mouth.
"You are the one for extreme measures, aren't you? Just like Snotlout." Hookfang snorted at the name of his rider and Hiccup smiled at it. The dragon and the teen stared down at the boat a little more, before Hookfang grunted.
–So, what next?-
Sometimes Hiccup amazed himself with how well he could read dragons.
"We need some help and something to get the boat out of there without destroying it. Maybe there are ropes down there?..." Hiccup squinted through the fog at the ship. "Let me down." Hookfang flew lower, craning his neck to allow the little human to look for a safe spot to jump on.
Hiccup swung his legs on one side of the dragon and jumped, landing with a grunt on the wobbly wooden surface. "Get some help! I will try to find the ropes." He yelled up to the dragon, then pausing. "And don't get distracted!" Hookfang roared somewhat offended and flew back towards the Egg Island, how Hiccup had dubbed it.
The teen carefully made his way through the debris of the boat, looking for bits and pieces of ropes that will suffice as a tool to help the dragons to tug the boat. The auburn haired Viking silently wondered how the hell everything had came to this: he - wandering somewhere unknown, with a bunch of dragons and newly-born dragon-hatchlings for a company, searching for something that will let those said hatchling to travel back home. Yep, just an ordinary day for Hiccup. The only thing he missed was the one black-scaled dragon.
Truth to be told, the worry ate Hiccup away. Anxious and terrifying worry for Toothless, who was somewhere out there… without him. What if his dragon had abandoned him? What if he decided that he had enough with the scrawny Viking? Was… Toothless tired of him? But, no, it couldn't be. After all, they were the best friends. It couldn't be that… Toothless had just tolerated him before? He played all Mr. Nice for the sake of the human, while he himself didn't want to be… with him. And given the chance he had fled, leaving the domestic life on the Viking Island. Hiccup sighed despondently. He should stop thinking – it made him even more anxious and scared of the situation. He probably should concentrate on the problem at hand, before-
Hiccup's prosthetic leg caught in a loose plank and he came down through the deck onto the lower level, his surprised scream cut off when his face met with more wood.
-something like that happens.
"Arrrgghhhh-" Hiccup groaned, face stinging and full of disgustingly warm and moist moss, and chips of old and broken wood planks. His body groaned in protest with him, every inch of skin hurting as he flopped himself on his back, trying to assess the damage. Well, it looks like all his other limbs were intact and nothing was broken, besides his ego. Really, Hiccup, being the awesome dragon trainer you are and to be defeated by a simple, old boat. Pathetic.
Inside the boat it was dark and his only source of light was a Hiccup-shaped hole over him. Hiccup tried to stand up, but he didn't move far from the moist floor, because his legs were tangled in something long and slick-
"Ahhh!" Hiccup recoiled, trashing in the grasp of the unknown foe, only to stumble and face-plant on to the floor once again. Body tense, Hiccup slowly lifted himself up and felt with his hands the foreign hold.
"Oh." He brought a dark brown slippery thing to his face, "It looks like I found the ropes." Hiccup drawled with a roll of his eyes. Typical, like Astrid would say.
Untangling himself from the new-found ropes, Hiccup gathered them in his hands, coiling them around his arms. The cords were lying all over the lower deck, looking as if they were deliberately left there. Ignoring the oddity, Hiccup carefully walked around the deck, gathering all the sufficient ropes. A couple of longest cables slithered their way into the darkest corner of the boat and Hiccup tried to tug them from there, but was met with the resistance.
"What the?-" Hiccup grumbled, tugging harder and nearly falling on his rump when the rope didn't budge. "Okay, I hope it is just stuck and there are no sea monsters on the other end of this." Gulped Hiccup, stepping into the darkness, following the rope. Thankfully there were no sea monsters. Taking a few steps forward, Hiccup bumped with his feet something hard and smooth.
"Huh?" The teen blindly reached out to the thing, squinting in the dark, trying to see at least the form. Something round and the size of a chicken was there-
"An egg?"
Bringing the egg closer to the light, Hiccup was surprised to see that it was a dragon egg. He wasn't an expert (because honestly he just saw a dragon egg only today), but the egg in his hands was a little smaller than Gronkle's and in different colour (light green with specks of yellow) but with the same bumpy surface and warm shell.
"What this egg is doing here?" Hiccup thought in wonder, admiring the surface of the egg. The teen wondered why the egg was here all alone, when a sudden thought came and he rushed to check the dark part again.
His suspicions were confirmed; there was more than one egg. Six differently colored eggs (with the main colour of light green and different specks of other colours) were lined under the light along with all the ropes he found, and Hiccup stared at them. He found six abounded eggs in the old Viking boat. Whose eggs were that? And why they were left here, where it is dark, cold and water threatening the life of little unborn hatchlings? How long they were here?
Hiccup didn't know, but what he knew is that he wouldn't leave these eggs here. The only problem was how should he get them out of here? And for that matter; how will he get out of here?
During his 'egg-hunt' he found out that stairs that led to the upper deck were destroyed along with most of the boat's stern. There was only rock and water there, and Hiccup wondered if there would have been storm, and water reached higher levels, would eggs have died?..
His thoughts interrupted by a screech that filled the air and sound of multiply wings beating. Soon, he already could hear and see dragons hover the boat, questioning thrill filling the air.
"I'm in here, Hookfang!"
The boat sagged as the dragon landed on it, the wood groaning in the protest under the weight. A bright yellow eye on the red muzzle peeked through the hole at Hiccup.
"Hey, good to see you came back so fast. I need some help getting out of here." Hiccup smiled sheepishly at the dragon. Hookfang moved, so Hiccup couldn't see him anymore and there were exchange of thrills and warbles through the dragons that came with Hookfang, then a sudden shift of weight and there was another pair of heads slithering its long necks through the hole.
"Barf! Belch!" Hiccup exclaimed happily. He didn't know that the twins' dragon was there too! The Zippleback grumbled in greetings at him, lowering its heads as low as they can, to let the teen touch their horns.
"Wait a sec." Hiccup bended down to take one of the eggs in his hands, "Help me out?"
The Zippleback paused to sniff at the egg in the teen's hands and Belch made a curious noise, nudging the egg.
"I found these guys here in the boat. Wonder who left them here?" Hiccup mused, but was startled out of his thoughts when something slimy snaked over his fingers. It was Barf's tongue, who joined his counterpart near the teen. Barf lifted the egg with his tongue, closing his jaws loosely around the egg, and nudged Hiccup carefully. The teen grinned and lifted another egg, so Belch could take it too. Taking the third egg and hanging the ropes over his chest, he mounted Belch's neck and the dragon resurfaced from the boat.
They did a second round and soon a bunch of ropes and all six eggs were on the deck. Beside the Hookfang and BarfBelch there were four Nightmares, two more Zipplebacks and Deadly Nadders. Hookfang, who was nosing the eggs with curious gleam in his eyes, snorted a puff of fire at them, then licked his teeth and turned to Hiccup, blinking at him.
"Yes, we are taking them with us." Hiccup said sternly, noticing the distaste with which the red Nightmare snorted at the eggs. Not the Nightmares' eggs then.
"Now let's get this boat out!"
There was an exchange of roars between four other Nightmares, and Hiccup looked with interest at their 'conversation'. Were they arguing about eggs? Or- Oh, wait there was a gas- and are they going to?-
"Wait! No fire!"
Wow, it seemed that all the Nightmares had the same set of mind. It took some time for Hiccup to convince the dragons to not to blow the boat up in their eagerness to 'help' and tie the ropes to the ship, so dragons could take the other ends in their claws and tug the boat free. The eggs were safe in the mouths of the Zipplebacks, as all dragons flew high with the boat hanging between them.
Hiccup cling to Hookfang's horns, shooting worrying glances from the boat to the Zipplebacks, as the Nightmare underneath him huffed and grumbled through his intense wing slapping.
-I say we should have blown it up.-
"No, Hookfang."
...
A/N: 1 ready, 2 left.