Birds of a Feather Chapter 01
A/N
Everyone on Berk has come down with a strange illness they caught from the dragons. They desperately need a cure, and Fishlegs might be the only one who can find it. This was not the best time for him to come down with an even worse problem.
This story gets my usual T rating for adult themes; the language is all K.
o
It was the day after Berk's first Snoggletog with the dragons, and the Vikings were nursing a massive collective headache.
The young people of Hiccup's generation weren't expected (or permitted) to drink like their elders. But, as young Vikings, they were expected to be part of the festivities, which meant they'd been up almost all night long. But they still had to get up early to do their morning chores. They had gathered in the training ring afterwards to commiserate together. They hoped that their new friends, the dragons, might offer them some sympathy, but the dragons were oblivious to their riders' exhausted misery. Stormfly and Meatlug were focused on their new hatchlings anyway.
"Somebody explain to me why staying up all night, and then getting up early, is called a 'party'," Astrid moaned as she held her head.
Snotlout smirked. "It's better than drinking that awful yak-nog of yours!" She threw a half-hearted punch at his arm, which he tried to avoid and failed.
"Where's Hiccup and Fishlegs?" Ruffnut wondered.
"Hiccup is probably out flying with his other half," her brother muttered. Tuffnut lived for experiences that were fun, crazy and potentially dangerous. This kind of fatigue was none of the above.
"I think I see them over the ocean, headed this way," Astrid added. "They'll be here in a few minutes, and we'll see if Hiccup is as miserable as the rest of us."
Snotlout shook his head slowly. "Probably not. He's too wimpy to stay up as late as the rest of us."
"What you call wimpy, I call smart," Astrid replied. "Someday I'll be able to party like an adult, but today isn't that day. At least Hiccup knows his limits and doesn't do anything stupid."
"You would take his side," Snotlout said snidely.
"It's a good side to be on," she replied casually.
They were distracted by a shuffling sound from the training-ring entrance. "Good morning, everybody!" Fishlegs called semi-jovially as he stumbled into the ring, burdened with a large, heavy basket that took both arms to carry. He was looking slightly under the weather, but not nearly as badly off as the others.
"What'cha got there, Fishlegs?" Snotlout inquired.
"To quote our illustrious friend Hiccup, I've got enough fish here to feed a dragon," Fishlegs replied as he gestured at Meatlug.
"I don't suppose you brought enough for all our dragons?" Astrid wondered.
"I don't think one person could carry that many fish," Fishlegs said confidently. "No, these are just for my Boulder-class beauty. Meatlug, I've got a present for you!" He popped the lid off the basket. Meatlug quickly caught the scent of fish and ambled toward him hopefully... as did Stormfly, Hookfang, Barf and Belch, and all the Gronckle and Nadder hatchlings, who also smelled the fish.
"It looks to me like what you've really got is a problem," Astrid commented. "They're all feeling hungry now! I hope you don't think those dragons will turn away and go hungry just because you tell them the fish aren't for them?"
"Uhh... uhh..." Fishlegs definitely had a problem. Four big dragons were staring down at him, licking their chops, while over a dozen tiny ones gathered at his feet, batting their eyes and looking up at him hopefully. The big dragons weren't trying to look threatening, but their sheer size would give any Viking pause, and there were four of them. He was surrounded by hungry dragons. That's never a good place to be.
Stormfly put her head down right next to the basket and sniffed deeply. Hookfang thought she was trying to take the fish and let out a warning growl. Whatever solution Fishlegs came up with, he had to do it fast. "Uhh... maybe if we all stood in a circle around the basket, then each of us could feed our own dragons?" he suggested.
"That works for me," Astrid said as she joined him near the basket. Snotlout nodded in agreement.
"Why should we get in the middle of a dragon fight?" Ruffnut growled.
"That's fine; we'll feed your dragon for you," Fishlegs said. "That way, Barf and Belch will think nice things about us instead of you. You know how much Zipplebacks love food, right?"
"We're in!" both twins exclaimed as they scrambled to join their friends next to the basket.
For the next few minutes, the only sounds to be heard in the ring were the "snap" and "clomp" of dragon jaws slamming shut on fish that the humans tossed to them, and the occasional sounds of a mother Nadder or Gronckle coughing up mouthfuls of partially-digested fish for their hatchlings. Hiccup and Toothless arrived when the fish were halfway gone, but they just stood aside and watched the show. Apparently, Toothless wasn't hungry.
"Here's another one for you, Meatlug!" Fishlegs smiled. He tossed the fish from about two feet away; the Gronckle's huge maw slammed shut, then opened wide a moment later. Dragons didn't chew their fish, but swallowed them whole. It made the eating process speedy and efficient.
"Oh, by the way, Meatlug, I'm sorry I thought you were a boy," the big youth went on. "That must have been very embarrassing for you. At least I've got it right now. Right?" The dragon made a head gesture that probably meant, "That's nice; now hurry up with the fish." Fishlegs pulled another good-sized cod out of the basket.
Something went very wrong. The fish was sticky somehow; when Fishlegs swung his arm, the fish stuck to his fingers. Meatlug saw food, lunged at it... and somehow stopped herself from slamming her jaws all the way shut. But the damage was done. Fishlegs pulled his bleeding arm back with a cry. His hand was still there, but his forearm was marked with multiple punctures from a Gronckle's sharp teeth.
"You gotta be careful with dragons," Snotlout said off-handedly as he tossed Hookfang a fish from a respectful distance.
Fishlegs didn't even hear him. "Oww! That hurt! Meatlug, why did you do that?" The lumpy dragon backed off and looked very ashamed. "Oh, I'm sorry, I know you didn't do it on purpose. But... ow, that really hurts! I think Gothi needs to look at this."
"Maybe you should let Gobber check it out," Hiccup suggested as he ran over. "He's our expert on dragon injuries."
Fishlegs shivered. "I'd rather see Gothi. Gobber has only one treatment for dragon injuries: chop it off! Uhh, sorry, Hiccup, that came out totally wrong."
"Wow!" Snotlout chimed in from behind them. "I guess you and your dragon are competing to see who can mess up the worst!"
Hiccup looked at Fishlegs' wrist and winced. "Yeah, you definitely need to have somebody look at that," he said with distaste. "It's a good thing Gronckles have such an overbite, or you'd be down by one extremity."
"Just like Hiccup!" Snotlout added maliciously. Astrid hit him again, harder this time.
Meatlug was still cringing in a corner. Fishlegs reached out with his left hand to stroke her nose horn; she visibly relaxed. "It's okay, girl. I'm okay!" He flexed his right wrist by accident, and fought hard not to cry out in pain. "Less okay. But please don't feel bad! I know it was an accident. I'll just wear a bandage for a week, and learn to do everything left-handed for a while, and then I'll be fine."
"Unless it gets red and swollen," Tuffnut added. "Then Gobber will have to chop it off!"
"You are so stupid!" Ruffnut cut in. "Fishlegs, ignore my idiot brother! Gobber doesn't chop things off when you're injured. Everybody knows he saws things off!"
"You're not filling me with happy thoughts," Fishlegs protested weakly.
"It's not going to come to that," Hiccup said firmly. "You can see Gothi later in the day, and she'll –"
"Later in the day?" Fishlegs was dismayed. "I need to see her now!"
Gobber joined the conversation as he ambled into the ring. "Gothi isn't as young as she used to be. She was up all night wi' the rest of us, an' now she's gone to bed, probably until after lunch. Ye dinna want to wake her unless it's a matter o' life or death. What seems to be th' trouble?"
"Meatlug bit me by accident." Fishlegs showed him the wound.
The smith's eyes lit up. "I've not treated a dragon bite in months! This one's nae so bad, compared to some I've seen. I've got just th' thing fer this, back in th' forge."
"Uhh, that's okay, Gobber!" Fishlegs stammered as he pulled away. "I'll just wait until Gothi's awake."
Gobber looked puzzled. "Why are ye so afraid of a bandage?"
"A bandage?" The big youth relaxed. "I guess that's not so bad. Okay. To the forge, then!"
Tuffnut leaned around him to face Gobber. "Do you want my sister and me to go with you, so we can hold him down while you –" and he winked maliciously "– bandage him?"
"Ye won't have to do that," Gobber said cheerfully. "There's no need to be sawin' things off with a minor wound like this one. We'll wrap it up to keep it clean, Gothi can put some herbs on it in th' afternoon, an' ye'll be fine in a week." He and Fishlegs headed for the forge, leaving the others to explain to the dragons that the fish basket was empty.
When Gothi finally roused herself halfway through the afternoon, there was a line of people waiting to see her, mostly hoping for some kind of herbal cure for their party-induced headaches. Fishlegs had to wait his turn. When she finally saw him, she unwrapped his bandage and made some tisk-tisk noises.
"It was an accident! She didn't mean to bite me," the young man protested.
The aged mystic shook her head, selected some dried leaves from several clay pots, and ground them with a mortar and pestle, adding water to make a greenish sludgy paste. She smeared it all over his wounds, covered them with another bandage, and made two short lines on the floor with her staff.
"Come back in two days?" he guessed. She nodded. His time with the healer was over; others were waiting. He went home and did the rest of his chores as best he could; it was hard when his right arm hurt whenever he moved it. Meatlug lay down in their front yard so she could watch him coming and going with loads of firewood and buckets of water. He made a point of patting her nose every time he went by, to reassure her that he wasn't mad at her. After a while, she fell sound asleep, as Gronckles will usually do, given the slightest opportunity.
He finished his work, ate supper with his family, and fell into a restless sleep. He kept moving his injured arm without meaning to, and the pain kept him awake. Two sleepless nights in a row would make it very hard for him to function tomorrow, but there didn't seem to be much he could do about it. Once his arm was healed, things would be fine.