A/N: I've been sitting on this for awhile, contemplating using it as the prologue to a larger story, but I think I prefer it on its own. Have some Night Fury family.
oneshot
They're nearly all gone now.
The last few stragglers and late hatchers are finally taking wing under their parents' careful supervision and rising skyward to join the roaring, screeching mass that is quickly leaving the small island behind.
She watches them go. So many of them, she thinks. The first-time nesters with two or three flying alongside; and then the more mature parents with seven or more in their clutch. She turns back to her own nest and nudges at one of the coal black eggs and croons mournfully at it. It remains as still as ever. She looks over to the cliff edge where her mate watches with narrowed yellow eyes at the departing flocks above them. He notices her looking at him and gives her a disdainful huff.
He's disappointed with her, she knows. Her ears flatten against her skull and she returns her attention to her eggs, a low sad rumble in the back of her throat. She nudges at them again.
They're going to hatch, they are. They're just a bit later than everyone else. But they are going to hatch. She's sure they're going to hatch. They will. They have to. She's not sure what she's going to do if they don't.
She hears a frustrated growl and sees her mate approaching her. He barks at her, gesturing towards the sky with his head. Time to go.
Her own green eyes narrow and she bays her irritated disagreement before turning back to her nest. She hears his aggravated growling grow in volume. She doesn't care. She doesn't even particularly like him, but pickings had been slim, and he'd been the least awful option. There had been only three males this year, and she'd been the only female. Altogether less than half as many of their kind as there had been last year.
There had one male she'd liked; smaller and younger and kinder than the others, but weaker too, sickly. The largest and oldest of the males had beat him off swiftly and then tried to mount her without her permission, which she had taken to none too kindly. The remaining male had stepped in to help her fight him off, and afterwards she had decided he seemed her best bet for strong offspring.
Now she finds herself wishing she'd gone after the weak one.
More than anything, though, she wishes she still had her old mate by her side. He'd been kind and charming and affectionate, and had not been disappointed when she had laid a single egg. He had cherished their little hatchling, and had stepped between her and the lightning-breather who threatened them without a second thought. She looks to the water's edge, where the fledgling now sleeps, a half eaten fish still clutched in her little claws. It had cost him his life, but he had saved her hatching, and for that she will always be grateful.
The sun has set completely and they are the only ones left on the island. Her mate comes round to her side and nudges against her shoulder with a rumble. She ignores him, so he shoves her again, harder. She snaps at him, baring her teeth, and he replies with a roar. Her fledgling startles awake and chirps inquisitively. He roars at her and she runs to hide behind her mother.
It's the final straw. She will not allow him to threaten her baby. She jumps to her feet and roars even louder, her tail raised and the spikes along her back split in warning. She cuts off his answering howl with a warning shot near his feet. He backs away and watches her carefully for a moment. She circles herself around her nest and opens her mouth to let him see the blue fire churning in the back of her throat. Finally with an angry snort he turns his back and lifts his wings. With a gust of wind he is in the air and out of her life. She doesn't relax until he has disappeared among the dark clouds.
Her head drops. Her ears fall back, her spikes close, and her tail hits the ground with a thud as she plops back down beside her nest. She scoots her fledgling closer with her tail before turning to breathe white-hot flame against the four eggs nestled in the pile of volcanic rock before her. She closes her eyes and presses her face close to the eggs. Her fire heats them for a moment, but in no time at all they have gone cold again. Just like they have been. They had been warm when she'd laid them, and they had stayed warm while all the other eggs had hatched into chirping, hissing offspring. Several days ago the warmth had faded and all her fire had not been able to bring it back.
She feels a heaviness in her chest as she realizes it never would.
She had seen this happen last year. One of the other females had hatched only two of her three eggs. Of the five eggs another had laid she'd hatched only one, and that into a weak, deformed little thing that had died within the day. She'd been so distraught she'd tried to steal a hatchling from one of the others, and the defending mother had ripped out her throat for her trouble.
There had been so much more violence among her kind in recent years. The fewer of them there were, the more fiercely they fought for mates and to defend the few offspring they hatched. She trills mournfully at her nest. If they hatched any at all.
It had not always been this way. She can remember her early years accompanying her mother and brothers to this place, and how many jet-black babies had been romping about. She wonders what became of all those hatchlings with whom she and her brothers had played. She does not even know what became of her brothers.
The night grows cooler as it grows later. She lifts herself onto her feet and the little fledgling rises with her. Her cold eggs exhibit no movement. She turns away from them. She pads to the cliff and looks up into the dark sky and tries to remember when the stars would flicker from the shifting black figures that soared among them. How ironic it is. Her kind has so many advantages over the other species; the ground-children with whom they have warred for generations have never managed to kill a single one of them, and yet here they seem to be dying out anyway.
Her chest feels impossibly heavy even as she raises her dark wings. She crouches down, preparing to take off. Behind her the little one paws at the ground, awaiting her mother's signal that it is time to leave.
Her wings tremble, then collapse. She cannot leave them. Even if her eggs remain cold and still for eternity, she cannot leave them. She slides to her belly and her soft anguished roar fills the night. Her fledgling coos and nudges at her face, confused. She pulls her child close to her again and licks at the small round face. The fledgling accepts that they are staying and curls up underneath her wing. She watches her only offspring as she slips off to sleep.
She is nearly asleep herself when she hears it. A light scratching, a rough tackety noise like the shifting of rocks, a low rumble, and she looks up just in time to see the glowing egg burst and shatter.
She is on her feet and beside her nest by the time the smoke clears and reveals the large green eyes that blink up at her. She shifts her weight on her feet, her tail shivering, far too excited to stay still. The hatchling shakes his head and waggles his ears. He rises to his feet shakily, and tries a few wobbly steps before tripping over the rocks and his own feet and tumbling out of the nest. He squeaks indignantly and rolls over, back onto his feet. Her fledgling watches him curiously from behind her legs.
His little legs finally steady, and he unfurls his wings as he stretches out for the first time. She can't hold back anymore. She leans down and licks his face until he loses his balance and falls over, but he makes a happy little noise when she nuzzles her nose into his belly. She helps push him back onto his feet and looks into his big green eyes. She trills, and her fledgling copies her. She repeats the sound twice more until he picks it up. His sister steps forward to poke at him, and before long they are chasing each other around her feet. He is still getting used to his own legs, but as he wiggles and bounces she can tell he is strong. Stronger than such a late hatchling has any right to be.
She can accept that the other eggs will not hatch. Already she can begin to smell the harsh odor of rot when she noses against them. But this little one. He is special, she can feel it.
He eagerly gulps down the fish she regurgitates for him, and hisses at his sister when she tries to steal some from him. Their mother pushes a fish in her direction and the siblings calm again.
She has just finished building a new nest for the three of them when she hears a distressed squawk. She turns to see her fledgling gesturing wildly towards the cliff's edge, where the tiny black baby is pawing at the ground, wings outstretched. He takes a running start and she roars her warning just before he leaps off the cliff and drops over the edge.
x
She wipes tears from her eyes. She'd been so scared. It was far too soon for him to come into the world, and she'd spent all day worried that she was losing him just like she'd lost the others. She's still so frightened that she'll lose him.
"Oh Stoick," she whimpers, cradling her baby close, "He's so little. So frail. He's just a wee little hiccup. Even healthy babies don't always make it through the night; what hope does this poor small thing have?"
Her husband's large arms are warm and tight around them both. "You're looking at it all wrong, Val," he says, and kisses her temple. "He fought so hard to make it into this world. He's not going to give up now that he's here. He's a strong, fierce little fighter."
"A strong Hiccup?" she asks, daring to believe it.
"You'll see, Val," he says, not knowing that miles and miles away another mother is watching her newborn, staring in amazement as his tiny wings hold him in the air above the cliff face.
"He'll be the strongest of them all."
fin