Hiccup gone half fury.
A/N: a few notes:
There are other authors I know I've taken inspiration from; From what I've heard from them they're fine with it.
Reviews are, of course, welcome.
Do you want pronounced (best friend) relationships? Tell me if you do by PM or review.
This is the 3rd/4th updated version. Minor patch.
End A/N
Chapter 1:
[After the HTTYD 1 starting sequence: Berk landscape shots then the apocalyptic scene of a dragon raid, the only difference? Mangler misses.]
Hiccup walked sullenly towards his home, briefly examined by the Vikings he passed, until they realised he was just going home. He had managed to miss the Night Fury, he would have to wait for another night now the Fury had finished its attacks; and that meant getting past the Vikings to the firing spot again, when they would be far less understanding of his intentions than this time.
This meant they would be willing to punish him harder and be on the lookout for him at night, what a nightmare.
The only thing left to do in this situation now was to go to bed. With luck, the extra rest should help him tomorrow; a wishful thought, but his only solid reasoning. He opened the heavy door, noting the fire marks on the wood, 'I could've contributed to fighting them, now I'm just a waste, like always.' He thought glumly.
Hiccup reached his room and curled up onto his bed. He hoped to escape the dangerous world around him, get lost in dreams, maybe even create another invention. He didn't get the opportunity. An alien sensation came to him; dragon presence, a strange feeling that he somehow understood, where was it? here? Downstairs? It felt close; and getting closer.
Eventually, the presence seemed right next to him; he sat up, gasping, and scanning the room. It was a figment of his imagination, it seemed, but the feeling refused to go away, sticking around even with this realisation.
He lay down again, hoping that his action would help resolve his thoughts, it didn't. The thoughts kept coming, now eyes, claws fire. Hiccup desperately suppressed these thoughts. Finally, they relented, for a short while.
Hiccup started trying to go to sleep again. The air burned with ferocious intensity with the burning buildings, burning fields, and the night vision torch damage from his earlier mishap, painting the sky a flickering orange.
Here, under a scene like sunset in the middle of the night, as he lay tossing and turning, he wondered what destiny he had here on Berk; a land of courage, strength, and endurance.
He didn't have a lot of strength, courage, or endurance himself; a fact proved too many a time during the numerous dragon attacks that he had to deal with, by hiding in a corner. Attempts to take on the beasts, to show his courage, ended up with minor wounds and a very irritated father; who was the single reason he was alive and well.
As well as this, he caused disasters everywhere just by accident; major disasters like burning a house down, medium intensity disasters (the very existence of a scale is bad enough) like spilling weapons in the path of charging Vikings, and small accidents like stubbing my toe just to remind him that He's cursed by Loki. He even once had 4 disasters occurring at the same time, Lucky him.
He was a walking accident, who was also a 'talking fishbone' as regarded by other Vikings (one of them compared his recently eaten fish skeleton to his body; it was basically the same shape, it was also a very narrow fish). Clearly he wasn't meant to be here. Thor knows how he's still alive.
He didn't even have friends to boast of; he had a few when he was younger, but they moved on as soon as they realised he was never going to be able to join them. He would stay at home whenever they did something useful around the village. The initial forgiveness of my clumsiness soon turned to dulled acceptance that it was never going to end.
The only reasonable talent he had, the only excuse he had, was a rare gift in innovation; drawing after drawing of exotic inventions never before seen in the archipelago.
Although the Vikings did not think anything well of this; these inventions were a mixed bag, but never entirely successful. Mostly they would break apart, harming the user.
Or they would fire, but too weak. And once, just once, his contraption fired too well; A shot that had seemed to defy gravity as it sped through the air far faster than Hiccup had thought it could. It missed it's intended target; a certain black dragon.
As a sigh emanated from this sad excuse of a Viking he was suddenly aware of the low rumbling of a dragon coming from the darkened forest.
This caused him to wonder; what dragon could possibly still be roaming the land around him?
The raid dragons had all returned home and those who stuck around were being carted away by the village's dragon hunters to the ring; he thinks one of them was the monstrous nightmare trying to kill him. He supposes he will have to go and ask him to finish the job tomorrow.
Cautiously, He went downstairs, making sure that Stoick wasn't there to catch me trying to leave the house again.
Then he cautiously opened the door, only a small bit so he wasn't burned instantly, and looked out to see where the noise was coming from.
he hadn't been hit yet, that's a good omen, at least one god wasn't looking for his instant death this time. Was the door on fire? No… at least, not at the moment… strange.
When was the next threat to his existence going to make itself known?
Seeing nothing at first in his narrow field of view, he looked closer and saw two poison green eyes at the forest edge, scanning the village.
The iris glowed unnaturally warm against the pitch black around itself, like a green ember in the darkness.
This scared him, instinctively, into slamming the door and taking up a protective position behind a nearby wall, panting heavily (his 'trademark' reaction to a dragon).
But with no forthcoming sounds of dragon blasts, or pain, he peeked out the door …again. looked into those eyes …again. And didn't die, surprisingly … again.
With no sign of aggression from the dragon, as far as he could tell, and no sudden moves from Hiccup himself they both kept staring at the other, before the mysterious eyes turned back into the forest and distant heavy footsteps could be heard.
The swaying branches, catching the moonlight, were the only evidence that the creature had gone
A short time later, after snapping out of his long stare, he contemplated following this beast. Normally, he would decide against this, but he was curious at this non-aggressive behaviour (after all Gobber always talked about how the dragon 'goes for the kill' while working at the forge) and wanted to see more.
Also, he had been pressured by his dad to be something other than '…this' giving him determination to try to kill this beast (a laughable attempt, but maybe, in the most fortunate instance, it could happen).
Helheim, he might even get himself killed, and see where the non-warriors went when they died.
He mentally prepared himself to go after this beast ("I am a Viking… I AM A VIKIN- (voice cracks)").
After spending a good amount of time steeling himself, although still woefully scared, he decided that he was ready to give chase as fast as his scrawny legs could carry him; not very fast at all.
Thus, he ran after the retreating noise of this curious creature's footsteps without his knife, having forgotten it in his house. Had he noticed this deadly error he should have stopped and would not have taken this risk.
Should've stopped, shouldn't have taken that risk, but it's Hiccup, the Gods are against him (apart from one, but he didn't know about that).
But, he didn't, and he didn't relent his chase. He 'dodged around trees' (correction: haphazardly bumped into trees),
'flying (not literally) over boulders', (correction wheezing up one side of the rock and then falling off the other).
After a long time, spent stumbling through the forest following the large footprints of this massive creature by the strong moonlight, the noise having long since retreated into the distance and obscurity, Hiccup finally began to admit another defeat.
He came to a sharp stop as he realised the footprints had stopped in the middle of nowhere.
From this confusing realisation, Hiccup quickly scanned around the area for any signs of the tracks restarting or the dragon itself, if cursed by Loki; Got to love that troublesome god; life would be boring without him.
But, having found no other trail, he decided that the creature had flown away, being a dragon, obviously, having wings and a tail to get himself airborne. The silent forest resounded with the depressing pessimism of his thoughts.
He therefore knew he couldn't track it. After these thoughts and a brief temper, a.k.a stubbing his toe on a tree for losing a massive beast so easily.
He let the anger fade, before starting to take the long walk back to the village; unaware of the two poison green eyes following him as the beast detached from the tree it hid in.
Following closely and preparing for a pounce.
Hiccup kept casually walking back with a bit of disappointment, but also relief since he was not fit to fight a dragon.
He stopped at the sound of rustling from behind him, of a large presence behind him that detached itself from the background silently.
Turning around he was quickly surprised with a strong push from a creature now in front of him. Dazed by his collision with a rock behind him, he looked into the eyes of the aggressor.
Into the same lime green eyes as before.
Startled, he tried to back away but was trapped between this beast and the rock. After some more looking for an escape route and subsequent failure, he resigned himself to his fate as target practise for this strange creature all the while cursing himself for the stupid decision to follow the dragon in the first place.
His waiting was not interrupted by flame or fury
(pun intended, though Hiccup still doesn't know that)
and after a time, curiosity returned his gaze back to the dragon. This dragon, black; as the human could see, was watching this small human with his head curiously cocked, struggling to comprehend his vision as he saw this humorously weak-looking Viking in front of him.
This was a new sight to the dragon; who was used to seeing the bodies of the dragon-fighters of the village; who had simply astonishing amounts of muscle.
This boy was certainly no such fighter.
He was also up against a beast that was a definite killer; at least in the eyes of the Vikings.
What could he do? Run like a coward or fight like a fool?
Hiccup had a rush of determination, from who knows where, and decided to try to bring this beast down. So, he performed a heavily improvised trick to try to kill this beast; He surged forwards with a high pitched, cowardly yell into a standing position, hand quickly reaching for his weapon and stabbing forward to reveal… nothing in his hand.
It was at this moment he realised he forgot his knife; and this thought, as well as the fact that his move had not, of course, been executed well, meant he fell painfully back on his rump awaiting his death.
Now he was defeated AND humiliated, by his own hand no less, an element of foolishness that seemed to be a cruel repayment for his pride in intellect. His death did not come quickly, like before, and he was now wondering why he still wasn't dying.
Thus, he again looked back into the beast's eyes and he suddenly had a theory, an absurd, stupid theory, that this dragon may be friendly! But how? And why?
He could only wait and find out; death or horrendously unlikely salvation?
Toothless:
After his pounce onto the human child, the Night Fury felt an unexpected, forced hesitation upon seeing this scrawny child in front of him. His limbs were not forced into actions, instead he stiffened, unable to summon the rage and anger he would need in this fighting situation.
Not because the human was a child, as dragons knew even a baby could kill; Example: Stoick. But rather because this human was so inept physically that it was hard to take him seriously;
A threat to his existence? You make me laugh.
As he hesitated, this scrawny child decided to push an attack, he was up on his feet and thrusting his closed hand towards his chest in what Toothless thought may have been a stabbing motion, but with nothing in his hand. Toothless was too distracted to notice until he had already finished this pointless motion; it tickled a bit for the large dragon.
After this brief surge of energy, the boy fell over again; into an even more dejected heap on the floor. It was strange and oddly adorable. Toothless had to admit, this was the kind of behaviour you would expect from a hatchling and never anybody after their first year of life.
Seeing this useless show of aggression, Toothless slowly laughed at the ridiculous child in front of him. This child however, not swayed by the Night Fury's shift in behaviour, stayed in this frightened position.
Then at last, strangely for a human, he looked back at the dragon with confusion and then … understanding? The latter part, shown in the brightening of his face, now surprised the dragon.
Who would've thought such violent, thoughtless beings could possibly be understanding of other species?
In his confusion, and the mental shifts that came with it, he was suddenly struck with the strange nature of this occasion: this human had tried to kill him, failed (adorably!), and now seemed to understand the behaviour of the Night Fury, a strange occurrence.
On the other hand, Toothless realised that he hadn't tried to attack the human and didn't understand why (after all the queen was very strict on the 'kill on sight' rules).
However, now the events had passed, he was glad he hadn't tried to kill this small child; the boy was certainly a strange human being and Toothless wanted to know more about him.
And possibly become friends. Although that's unlikely, right?
Hiccup:
Now the dragon in front of him was appearing less and less scary as his peaceful state went on. He could never believe such a feared, cruel creature, as depicted by Vikings, could show such positive emotion
Hiccup himself was feeling happy that this dragon hadn't tried to kill him on sight; as he surely would have died in this situation (especially without Stoick around).
After a few more awkward moments, he decided to interact with this dragon more; to show that he meant no harm (especially now that violent action was out of the question with his humiliation, and of course the pointlessness of the attack without a knife).
He hoped the dragon would understand and not shoot him dead for his insolent behaviour; this hesitation had been present the entire time of his contact with the dragon.
He decided to reach out to the beast and gain connection through touch, through shared contact, since watching each other was getting nowhere.
His first attempt wasn't perfect; the dragon recoiled due to what he later realised was the sight of Hiccup's eyes still on the (magnificent, Hiccup thought now) dragon himself.
After his initial mistake, he now did the same action but with his eyes looking away from the dragon and closed, his thoughts being that this wouldn't be as scary for the dragon and he wouldn't see his death coming if the beast suddenly changed.
After a brief, though stressful, moment, he suddenly felt hard, warm scales pressed against his bare skin as well as a quick breath from the Night Fury. After this joyful, surprising encounter he returned his eyes to the dragon; now that he felt he had gained the dragon's trust.
Toothless obliged the human, and let his hand stay on his snout.
Toothless:
After a continuous, motionless silence between both the dragon and the human boy; the boy suddenly moved his hand towards him and he quickly retreated from this motion, thinking that this motion was another attack.
Most importantly, the boy's eyes were firmly fixated on Toothless; allowing him to attack easier.
However, this action didn't make the boy resolve to fight again, to find a payoff from his trickery; Instead it seemed to make the twig-thin human more sorrowful.
Hiccup took back his hand carefully but, after a moment, he did the same motion; now without his eyes on him.
This trust and understanding was new to me, especially from a human, but I soon decided that this was a motion to gain friendship with me and, with nothing else close to paw, I put my snout touching his palm.
The reaction of the human to his acceptance was endearing to see, especially how Hiccup's once sad face lit up with a smile.
Toothless smiled back and looked straight into the friendly human's eyes. This is when he thought of something else to repay the boy's kindness. A gift of change once taught by his parents to him. A change that can bring them closer together.
Or, at least that's what he hoped.
End of chapter.
A/N
3000+ words due to previous update
Please tell me small corrections which make for better reading without changing the plot. It's normally me working on the corrections and I always appreciate the help I get from others. I'll also be sure to try and collate my helpers somewhere else in this story.
Please give me ideas for the rest of the story (apart from exactly how Hiccup will change, that is currently set.)
Updates are not currently planned in a strict schedule, but I may reconsider.