To anyone who reads my other fanfics: I would be working on them, but the files for them are on my windows computer, which my older brother has practically commandeered over the holidays. So, as much as I hate to say it, I'm not able to work on them for a while.
This fic was started because I watched How to Train your Dragon, and absolutely loved it.
One thing about it struck me, as I'm sure it has everyone else: Toothless was the only Night Fury in the entire movie.
Sure, it adds a bit of mystery to him, but something that got me was that there simply HAD to be than just him at one point.
So, I came up with this fanfic. I'm pretty sure it could be improved upon, so if you could, please review, and tell me any errors you see. And I mean with just about everything, pace, any info dumping occurring, anything you can see that could be improved. Consider this chapter to be a teaser.
He looked on as the two dragons fought, each seeking to end the other's lfe.
He was only young, reaching the beginning of his adolescence, barely twenty-one full turnings of the seasons, and yet this was almost all he knew. Despite his youthfulness, he showed extreme promise, and his parents and elders had been teaching him everything they knew. He was faster than any had been at his age, he could breathe fire just as explosive as any older dragon could, he was the pride of the Furies.
This was what had almost gotten killed several times.
He cowered as the larger of the two dragons he was watching flailed it's clubbed tail around desperately trying to hit him. He'd seen a Fury struck by that kind of tail before, and it hadn't been pretty.
He didn't know what kind the other dragon was, had never been told. What he knew was that they were trying to kill him, and his fellow Furies were willing to sacrifice themselves to prevent that from happening.
He spotted a chance to end the conflict before him when the large, serpent-like dragon fighting his eldest brother reared it's head. Without hesitating, he quickly diverted a portion of the highly flammable gases his second stomach produced to his mouth, igniting it with a sudden rasp of his tongue across the top of his mouth, hurling it straight into the enemy dragons mouth before it could even think about launching it's own fireball.
The very first thing he'd been taught about fighting other dragons: No dragon was fireproof on the inside, and could easily be killed if a full force fireball was rammed down its throat when readying it's own fireball.
He watched impassively as, while his brother tried to recover from his near-death experience, the dragon died, burning from the inside out.
"Thanks Nightbolt," the larger Fury gasped. "He nearly had me there…"
"Which makes it easier for me," came a deeper voice. And huge clubbed tail came swinging down from the air, crushing his last family member.
Thirty full turnings of the four seasons later.
He pulled himself out of his ruminations. He didn't need to be reliving that memory. The only good thing about that day had been meeting Ebonyte.
Nightbolt let out a breath as he flew over the nest, wincing as he saw the numerous bodies littered here and there over the mountainside.
Quite a few different species had lost members of their own over the last few Turnings, so it wasn't merely Furies he saw down below, but Nadders, Gronckles, Nightmares, Terrors, and Zipplebacks. As well as the species almost solely responsible for their deaths.
'Curse those Grounders,' Nightbolt thought savagely as he saw smashed eggshells and torn bodies of young dragons, barely half a Turning old in their eggs. 'I can't believe that they'd stoop this low… The other species have nothing to do with the war, and they're killed anyway.' He shook his head, lost in his own grim thoughts, until a voice jerked him out of his reverie.
"Hey Nightbolt, stop thinking so hard," it called out playfully. "You'll do yourself an injury, thinking like that. Or should I say thinking at all?" He snorted before flaring his wings and flapping vigorously, bringing himself to a sudden and almost complete stop, hovering in the air. In only moments, his fellow Fury swept past, quickly performing a half corkscrew combined with a half loop, in order to face him.
She was the only other of all the furies confident and skilled enough to perform such a manoeuvre so quickly, aside from himself, and for that alone, if nothing else, she had his respect.
Although she had it for more than simply her flying ability. Ebonyte was far and away his oldest and closest friend. Most Furies, especially those few around his age, were intimidated by his flying ability, and his prowess at fighting Grounders. Ebonyte was intimidated by neither of these things, despite being a lot less skilled at fighting. Besides, she could dish out insults that would distract just about any opponent. It was unusual for someone to not be very distracted when they were being called a toothless, clawless, scrap-winged, cowardly son-of-a-newt.
Nightbolt had fallen for it so many times he'd lost count. He'd gotten better at ignoring her lately, but he still had a while to go before he had complete immunity.
He growled playfully at her, knowing that she'd be annoyed at having to stop to be able to talk with him.
"Can it, you!" she growled back. "I hate it when you do this… Can't you at least glide?"
He flared the 'points' at the back of his head (A draconic equivalent of raising one's eyebrow) before replying, "Just because I can, doesn't mean I will. I might like simply staying in one spot."
"In other words, you just want to annoy me," she snapped.
Nightbolt flared his headpoints again. She was clearly a bit peeved about something. Past experience had taught him to ask what it was, or she'd start accusing him of being an uncaring, insensitive jerk. In much more floral and descriptive language.
"Do you mind telling me what's wrong, Ebony?" he questioned, hoping to Thor that she wasn't going to simply blow up at him. He still had nightmares about the last time that had happened.
She sighed. If had been anyone else, she would have vehemently denied that there was anything wrong. But this was Nightbolt. He'd know that something was up, no matter how convincingly she lied.
So, she motioned with her tail for him to follow, gliding over to one of the many rocky pillars that surrounded the chosen home of Green Death. It's top was quite broad and flat, easily able to hold both Furies.
Nightbolt landed facing her. He sat back on his haunches, waiting for her to speak.
His eyes drifted briefly over the volcano behind her.
Somewhere deep inside that thing, in it's cavernous magma chamber, Green Death was hibernating. There were barely ten Turnings left before it awoke once more.
He'd never seen Green Death. The last time it was awake was roughly five hundred Turnings ago. He was yet to reach his fifty-fifth Hatchday. But he'd heard all about Green Death. Every dragon had. Once awake, it'd remain so for at least two hundred and fifty Turnings.
He jerked his eyes away from the imposing sight, as Ebony began saying, "I've just been feeling really down lately… My cousin, Danora, she- she was killed yesterday in a raid..."
Nightbolt reared back slightly. He hadn't heard a thing about that.
Hesitantly, he padded forward, nuzzling Ebonyte's head in an attempt to make her feel better. She half-heartedly tried to push him away, and then gave in, leaning into the friendly display of affection.
"I'm ok," she muttered. "It's just… She was my last living relative… I've got no one left now, apart from you and the others."
He stepped back and grinned at her, saying, "Yeah, you've definitely still got me. You're gonna have to put up with me for quite some time."
She grinned back weakly.
"I don't mind all that much," she admitted. "It's better than being completely alone."
Nightbolt cocked his head suddenly. He was far from being the most sensitive of hearing out of any dragon, but he could tell when a there was a flying dragon within a few hundred metres, particularly when the wind was quiet. Evidently, Ebonyte had heard it too, as her head was cocked in exactly the same position.
"Talk," he mouthed at her.
She nodded, and began spouting nonsense about the Grounders, using a fairly significant portion of her insulting vocabulary to describe them.
He tuned out what she was saying, and concentrated on their surroundings. Someone was nearby, and they needed to be sure exactly where they were. If he listened carefully enough, he should be able to make out the sounds of them breathing, flapping their wings, or even their claws scraping ever so slightly against the rocky outcrops around them.
Wind… Faint gull cries… The crashing waves against rock… There! A brief scraping sound, followed by a quick flapping of the wings.
'Hm, they must have slipped or something,' Nightbolt thought.
He looked at Ebonyte, indicating his head ever so slightly to his right. She nodded, continuing to babble, insulting Grounders in just about every way possible.
This was hardly the first time something along the lines of an ambush had happened to a Fury, and a system had been worked out long ago. One dragon would locate where the assumed enemy was, then indicate their general direction.
Flushing them out was the next step, simplicity in itself. The locator dragon would wink on eyelid three times, and on the third wink, both dragons would attack with fireballs.
Sometimes, it wasn't an enemy, so instead of attacking the actually spot, they would shoot in his near vicinity, to flush whoever it was out, and see whether or not it was an enemy.
Making sure that Ebonyte was looking straight at his eyes, Nightbolt started winking his left eye.
One. Two. Three.
The two of them turned in the direction he had indicated, and hurled rather large fireballs to either side of a large, rather unsteady looking, pillar…
Only to regret their actions as an innocent Nadder, who had only been holding onto the pillar so he could eat a recently caught fish, nearly got fried by the two incendiary projectiles.
"Again," Ebonyte said. "We're really, really sorry we nearly hit you."
"I should hope so!" the Nadder, whose name was Spinewhip, replied. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't blame you for being suspicious, but you should have seen me fishing in the first place!"
Nightbolt winced. It was true; a dark blue Nadder should have been clearly visible to them, especially around the nest. That place never seemed to have any colour around it.
"Just make sure you keep a closer eye on your surroundings! Especially you, Nightbolt! I've heard tell about how the Grounders want you dead more than any other dragon! Doesn't matter if the Nest was been made neutral territory, they'll try to kill you regardless!"
"I know," Nightbolt muttered in reply. "But can you blame me? I haven't been allowed to leave the den for weeks now. They only let me leave today because Ebonyte had recovered from her wing injury, and could fly along with me."
"Ah, so that's it. I suppose that makes sense. One of you, regardless of how good you are, could be taken by a relatively small number of those Grounders, but I have to admit that the prospect of facing the both of you at once is rather intimidating. I've heard about how you fight, Ebonyte," Spinewhip said, arching his tail dramatically. (Nadder equivalent of frowning)
"Well, how about you just fly in the area near the den, hm?" Spinewhip suggested. "Even if it's not far from it, which you'd probably prefer, it's still better than being cooped up, and infinitely better than being killed!"
Nightbolt growled slightly, but he had to admit, Spine had a point. And it wasn't as if he'd be allowed out for a while anyway, after this little debacle.
Nightbolt is Toothless, just so you know. And I do not plan for Ebonyte to be his love interest, merely his best-friend-that-he-happens-to-get-along-with-really-well-and-knows-practically-everything-about. If asked for, I might be willing to change that. But ONLY if asked for, and by a decent number of people.
In this fanfic, dragons are nigh on immortal, which is the main reason why there are so damn many in the movie. They don't really suffer from old age, so they can just keep on coming.
This occurs before the dragon-viking war.
The 'Grounders' are a species of dragon in the DS game of How to Train Your Dragon. I decided to take them into the movieverse and turn them into the villains. Why are they at war with the Furies? Can't tell just yet.
Dragon species in this are basically called the same as they are by the vikings, simply with one of the words removed. Did anyone else notice that? All the dragon species had two words that comprised their names. So yeah, Deadly Nadders become Nadders, Monstrous Nightmares will simply be Nightmares, so on and so forth. It's even the same with the Grounders! In the game they're called Grapple Grounders!
Anyway, I'm sure you're sick of me talking/writing, so I'll finish up here.
-Eidorian999
