If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were." -Kahlil Gibran. Seemingly overnight, Hiccup had become a hero when he befriended a dragon. He threw away everything he ever had, and gained everything he never knew he always wanted. However, sometimes the most important things get lost by hiding in plain sight.
A/N:
Hey, FizzleMcSchnizzle, will you write a story on HTTYD 2?
- No.
Fizz, write a story on HTTYD 2.
- I don't wanna.
Fizzy Wizzy, I really like that one story you wrote.
- Thanks!
And you should totally write a HTTYD 2 story.
- I said-
Yo Fizz-
- Fine!
At least, that's about how I think it went. I actually had some ideas knocking around in my head ever since I finished my first story, Dragon Whisperer, for a HTTYD 2 story with my telepathic dragons shenanigans. I just never really felt all that motivated to write a story on it because, well, I hope this doesn't make us enemies, and excuse me while I hold up a riot shield, but I didn't really like the 2nd movie.
Now, don't get me wrong, it was a fun movie with great graphics and cute and adorable Toothless being all cute and adorable. However, the plot was… well, too many ideas only half-baked and poorly implemented. "Oh, gee, what's-his-face died. I am totally crying tears of sadness because I had developed such strong sympathy for him yeah not really. Oh no, that one other dude died. It's a good thing I saw the first movie; otherwise, I wouldn't know I'm supposed to care."
So, I got some ideas to flesh out some of the plot elements the movie sorta glazed over.
Oh, and show some love for Colorful Crayola. She's beta-reading my story for me. If this is looking a bit more polished than usual then we have her to thank for that.
By the way, I guess one might call this the third story in a series. I delved into shenanigans with telepathic dragons and riders in "Dragon Whisperer," then followed that with "Dragons 101," and then this story. "Hookfang's Tale" is a non-sequitur, but it delves quite deep into the realm of dragon telepathy (I sorta had no choice since my main character spent 2/3 of the story trapped in a dark cell). Still, it is of high importance to me that any story I write should read just as well if it's the first you've read. So, unlike the Marvel movies, don't feel like you need to "catch up" on anything before this story.
Obligatory Disclaimer:
I don't own HTTYD. In fact, nobody does because Toothless has no master!
Taken
RAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Toothless rolled his eyes and chortled at his rider's frustrated roar as he continued flying along. For the moment, he was content just being a dragon as they skimmed over the clouds, and at the moment, from a dragon's point of view, everything was perfect. The sun was bright and warm against his black scales. The air he breathed in deep was cold and crisp. His wings felt the wind as a gentle caress.
However, his rider, his precious little Firefly whom he'd kill for and die to protect, was in a mood that was quite unlike the current flying conditions. The poor land-strider was never one to dream small. He had heard of some sort of new threat moving into this area, something about a land-strider warlord who was supposedly amassing a large flock of dragons to fight for him as he conquered the world. Nothing special, just the usual drama.
Firefly's sire came to the obvious conclusion that wiping out this threat would be a good idea. However, it was no surprise that Firefly vehemently disagreed. He was always the strange one. In spite of what others did around him, he has always been the one to find a more peaceful solution. When others bare their teeth, he presents tribute. When others growl, he croons. When others fight, he asserts himself into the middle of it all and, well…
Toothless shook his head. It always drove him crazy how his rider, his precious little Firefly, would always risk his own life for the benefit of others, including his enemies. Firefly had a history of doing reckless things for no other reason than "it just felt right", leaving Toothless' heart in his stomach on multiple occasions as he frantically clawed his way to his rider to keep him out of harm's way.
It was always so tempting to chide his rider for taking foolish risks to try to be everyone's friend. After all, it's common knowledge that any dragon who refuses to crack his own egg will die trapped inside. Obstacles and threats need to be broken down until they are no longer a cause for concern. It is the way of nature to meet opposition with aggressive force.
Firefly, though, was nothing like that at all. Were he trapped inside an egg, Toothless was convinced he would somehow befriend the egg, convince it to allow him out, then make it his stout ally in overcoming some even greater obstacle.
As silly as that sounded, even to Toothless, that was simply what Firefly always did. He stood up for the very dragon all of his kind hated the most. He showed kindness and compassion to a dragon for whom such concepts were foreign and strange. He brought dragons and land-striders together by taking uncountable risks of unfathomable magnitudes to end a seemingly unending war of attrition. If it wasn't for that very same drive that Firefly had to befriend his enemies, Toothless would have died long ago or, worse yet, never would have escaped the mind snare of the demonic queen that had dominated his mind so completely for most of his life.
Consequently, Toothless felt helpless to even passively hint at Firefly to change his decision-making process. It was Firefly's seemingly insane compassion that spared a dragon when he would have gained so much by delivering the killing blow. It was as if Firefly had voices whispering in his mind, telling him that taking some foolish risk would give him the ultimate victory that nobody could have ever seen coming.
Still, this silly land-strider warlord with his enthralled dragon army that Firefly was worried about would learn an explosively painful lesson in humility if he was foolish enough to attack Firefly or his nest.
Firefly gave his dragon an affectionate pat on the back. {Don't worry, Bud. I won't let anything happen to you. I promise.}
Toothless snorted at the assurance in his rider's projected thoughts. It's not me you should be concerned about, he thought to himself. Firefly was still going on about this land-strider warlord. There was no cause for concern.
Still, Toothless appreciated his rider's reassurance. In fact, he always enjoyed hearing his rider speak. Normally, when land-striders speak, when they think with their lips, they project their thoughts, but it comes across as a muddy spattering. Firefly still spoke aloud when he projected his thoughts as a lifelong habit of how land-striders communicate, but he had spent years focusing on making his projected thoughts crisp and clear. By now, he almost sounded like a dragon for how concise and well-formed his projections were.
Beyond the focused projected thoughts, Toothless could feel his rider's passive hum. The many lobes that crowned his head, clusters of corded nerves encased in hide and scale, allowed him to pick up on the faintest subtleties from all land-striders and dragons, even some prey such as elk and boar. This hum always carried the primal emotions that a creature was feeling at the moment, like happy, remorseful, or scared. Toothless had always exploited this ability when hunting to discern if he should continue to quietly stalk his prey or blow his cover and sprint for it.
Such a discerning sense made it as clear as a cloudless sky that Firefly was still quite turbulent inside. Oh, sure, he attempted to exude confidence but Toothless was not so easily deceived. Inside, the rider was uncertain. He didn't know where to start or what to do in dealing with this new threat and it rankled him to the core.
Toothless was about to respond to his rider but only a startled yelp emanated from him as something to the side caught his eyes. At first, it looked like the horns on those spike-tailed bipedal dragons, or deadly adders as the land-striders called them. However, as this something rose from the bank of clouds, he could recognize it must have been a land-strider.
It - no, definitely female based on the subtle undertones in her passive emotional hum - lurched up to reveal a dragon on which she stood. The dragon swooped in front of Toothless to cut him off and he had to backwing to avoid a collision. He took a moment to fly in place - a tiring task for almost any dragon - to closely examine these interlopers.
The land-strider was wearing what appeared to be carapace plates and spikes from various dragons. She carried some sort of stick that curved sharply at both ends into a hook. The dragon on which she stood was much larger than Toothless, with a head that rotated like an owl's, golden scales and a silver belly, two legs instead of four, and four wings instead of two. Confusingly enough, both this strange dragon and his… rider… were clearly radiating sympathy and concern.
Firefly was trying to talk to the strange dragon rider. His heart leaped into his throat at the thought that he may have actually found the world-conquering warlord. However, she made no response.
Her dragon, though, was not silent, and projected a calm reassurance. {Be calm, black dragon. We are here to help. My name is Cloud Jumper and my rider is known as Dragon Savior. She and I are dedicated to freeing trapped and enslaved dragons. Your subjugation to that land-strider on your back ends now.}
Toothless wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. He was not trapped or enslaved. What absurd nonsense this silly dragon was spewing forth!
WHUMP!
Something slammed into Toothless from below. He could feel Firefly fly off his back, but the tethers held him close. Toothless looked up to see the foreign land-strider, Dragon Savior as her dragon called her, leaping over. She cut Firefly's tethers with a quick flash of her shiny claw, grabbed him, and jumped off and onto her dragon, allowing someone else to grab Firefly in his talons.
Toothless shrieked in indignant anger. How dare she! And her dragon was allowing this?! She was no savior. No, she was a monster! A demon! A repulsive beast!
{You are free now, black dragon. Fly and be free!}
Toothless glared at Cloud Jumper and gave a venomous snarl. That gave way to a surprised yelp, though, as he tilted left against his will. He had lost his tailfin earlier in his life, but without Firefly on his back to control the prosthetic replacement he had fabricated, Toothless was quickly losing control over his flight.
He started to plummet, both physically and emotionally, lost in shock and grief. His rider had been taken, he couldn't fly, and they were surrounded by so many dragons that all seemed to be following the lead of this demonic land-strider.
This was inexcusable! He should have seen them coming. The lobes crowning his head allowed him to pinpoint the position of any dragon or land-strider in the remote area by tracking the origin of their thought projections. Even just the passive emotional hum would have been enough to see the hostiles coming despite the cloud cover. However, Toothless allowed himself to become so distracted that he didn't even notice their approach.
He shook the doubt out of his mind and let rage wash over. He had almost forgotten that he could still fly. Firefly had done something to the tailfin that involved a twisted piece of iron that wants to untwist, but cannot unless Firefly lifts his foot off the thing that normally controls the tailfin-
Whatever! Toothless didn't care how it worked so long as it did. He flicked his tail and heard the telltale clicks of the fin engaging in the neutral position. It would limit his agility in flight, but it was enough. It had to be enough.
Toothless saw only red. He screeched his anger as he thrust his wings hard to catch up. {Release my Firefly NOW or I will kill you!}
Confusion swept through the whole flock of dragons. This clearly was not the anticipated response.
He snarled. What, did they think he would just capitulate? Did they think they could take whatever they wanted without consequence? Did they really believe Toothless would just abandon his precious Firefly?
Oh, the painful lesson they were about to learn!
Toothless caught up to the rear of the flock. He dug his claws into the tail of a dragon and used the traction to lurch forward, springing off the its head to gain more speed, ignoring the pathetic creature's pained cry.
Toothless just gave a derisive snort. {Be grateful I am not taking the time to kill you for flying between me and MY Firefly!}
He thrust his wings hard and caught another dragon in flight, springing off her and towards the next, closer to Firefly. However, the dragon lurched to the side and Toothless couldn't reach with his claws. Out of desperation, he bit down hard on whatever he could, which happened to be the dragon's wing. This gave him traction to slide over to the torso and leap off to the next dragon.
His latest victim shrieked in pain and started to fall with a lame wing. Two other dragons dropped down to catch her, struggling with their added burden to not lag too far behind the rest of the flock.
That brought an idea to mind. The dragon that Toothless was currently clinging onto gulped and looked back at his baleful expression.
Again, one bite to the wing took three dragons down. All of them were large, ungainly, over-muscled beasts. All of them made the mistake of placing themselves between Toothless and his precious rider. All of them would know regret!
Toothless jumped from dragon to dragon, clawing and biting. He knew he couldn't keep up this pace for long, but explosive bursts of energy were where he excelled. He was a wasp buzzing around a bear, a lynx striking out at its ponderous prey. The other dragons could not cope with it. The whole flock was in a state of bewilderment. They tried to fight back, but could not keep up with Toothless. Lightning was his name and fury was his game. Firefly was his goal and they would regret being in his way.
He made one last leap to the dragon holding his precious Firefly but something slammed into him from the side. Toothless found himself in the clutches of that large owl-headed dragon, Cloud Jumper, who was flying him farther and farther away from his rider.
Oh, that was a mistake.
That was a big mistake!
Toothless gathered fuel in his mouth. His signature banshee shriek sounded out as the highly-volatile mass formed and congealed. Cloud Jumper released Toothless and tried to fly away but it was too late. Toothless released his fire and curled up into a tight ball to reduce the impact to himself.
The shot exploded with concussive force, shoving dragons in all directions. One was knocked unconscious from the shockwave and plummeted. Two others sprained their wings from the force and fell. Dragons from the other group surged back to save them from plummeting into the unforgiving waters below.
Toothless took a moment to purr with satisfaction. He would have made the fireball larger but didn't have the time.
Uncurling himself, he saw that the shockwave had knocked the demonic land-strider off her dragon's back. Cloud Jumper yelped as he tried to recover his flight but Toothless was faster. He grappled onto Cloud Jumper's neck, leaped to the rear of his torso, and leaped off to snatch the demonic land-strider from her fall.
Toothless merely chuffed at the other dragon's sudden fury at this injustice to his rider. {Cloud Jumper, return my rider to me and I will do likewise for you. If you do not comply immediately then I will bite off her head!}
{TOOTHLESS, STOP! STOP NOW! PLEASE!}
Toothless's eyes widened. It was not Cloud Jumper who said that, nor the demonic land-strider or any of the dragons in this flock. It was Firefly. Toothless looked over at his rider. The red in his vision instantly cleared away at the sight of his rider, still clutched in a hostile dragon's talons, fervently pleading for Toothless to stop.
He stared at Firefly, trying to comprehend why he was so insistent on halting this rescue.
He then glanced ahead, where Firefly was frantically gesturing, and saw a massive wall of ice. A couple frantic thrusts of his wings slowed him enough to make the impact bearable. He bounced off and ended up falling into a tunnel.
The rest was lost when he smacked his head into a rock and blacked out.
