Copyright: How to train your dragon and Night Furys belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Crowell. Characters and story belong to me.
A/N 1: The story is set in the How to Train your Dragon-Universe, but plays somewhere in the north of Scotland. The people there have never heard of Berk, the dragon-war or Hiccup, they have been at peace with the dragons for centuries and integrated them into their society.
A/N 2: Dragonese is in this story a mix of body language and sounds that dragons make. It doesn't get translated literally but correspondingly, like a human would put what the dragon said into words.
A/N4 3: Beta was Akozu Heiwa. Thank you very much!
...********...
In retrospective, she should have known. Still, it hurt much more than her injured wing. To be simply left behind without a look back; forgotten, like she was nothing but an annoyance for her pack, for what had been her family since her mother had died.
She had screamed her fear to the dark, unresponsive sky, where she last saw them. She had even begged for their help, for the loyalty that any member of the pack, no matter how low ranking, could expect. But none of them had answered.
No one had returned for her. They had left her.
.
She waited some time. Perhaps they were just scouting the surroundings to check for imminent danger, and then they would come back, when they thought it safe enough. Surely none of them would put themselves into danger for the lowest ranking among them, for the dragon they always considered more of an obstacle than a worthy member of the pack. But even as she waited longer and time went by and her broken, useless wing hurt more with every passing moment, she herself couldn't find any danger. She was all alone, no one around her, not even the harmless animals of the forest that her crash had probably scared away.
The dragons, into whose fight she had gotten unintentionally, had gone long ago, too. None of them had, obviously, spared a look back at the dragon they had knocked out of the sky.
She could only speculate that she got involved into that fight the way she got involved into any sort of misfortune as long as she could remember. Her bad luck started right at her birth, when some angry fate gave her, unlike any other of her kind, light grey markings on her wings and back. All the others she knew were either entirely black or had slightly visible markings. She stood out like a colourful blob among them, and she always gave them away in the dark, one of the reasons why she was the least favoured member of the pack to go on a hunt with.
It didn't help that shortly after her hatching, when she was still clumsy and uncertain in her moves, she had accidently run into a branch. It had knocked back to her face, with so much force, it had hit her eye and all she remembered was pain. Pain so strong, it had made her cry out for her mother, who had crooned at her and tried to help the best she could. It had turned out despite her best trying she couldn't save her eyesight. Since then she was blind on her left side and although her right eye was perfectly fine, she was still hindered in her perception. She couldn't see anything that approached her from her left, making her wary and jumpy whenever she heard something there. It also made her a worse hunter and fighter than any other of her pack. It was no wonder she ended up on the lowest end of the ranking scale.
She had long given up on trying to change that. Even the slowest and stupidest dragon could defeat her in a fight as long as it attacked her from her blind side. She couldn't impress them with big preys as she would startle any dumb deer too early for her to catch it, or would run into a branch she couldn't see at the worst time possible.
So she settled with her rank, suffered the occasional short biting when someone wanted to fortify his own rank by humiliating her, and was just glad that she was still allowed to travel with the pack. At least she still belonged to them; she was no outcast and she could count on the little bit of support the pack gave to any member.
At least, she'd thought that.
She growled softly under her breath and tried to take another look at her useless, hurting wing. As if the pain wasn't bad enough, it was her left wing and, with the way her head was built, she couldn't even look properly at the damage done. She could only guess at how awkward it dragged behind her movements and how much it hurt and that she wasn't able to beat or even lift her wing anymore, that it was broken. Badly, it seemed.
It looked as if her misfortune had beaten down on her again. And this time it could be very well the last time. A dragon which could not fly was a dead dragon after all.
It had all happened so fast; she had had no time to react. One moment she was flying together with the others of her pack, the next she was hit with enormous force as something slammed into her bad side and knocked her straight out of the sky. She was too surprised to even try to avoid the hit; she had thought she was hidden in the dark of the night and of course she didn't see it coming. Obviously either she hadn't been (thanks to her colouring, again), or it had been sheer coincidence. With her luck, it might as well have been the latter.
There had been a sickening snap, pain had washed over her and her left wing wouldn't respond, let alone carry her anymore. She had fallen, screeching in pain and sheer terror, further and further, until she had hit the trees that slowed her down. She couldn't see anything as she had crushed through the plants; there was just pain and fear.
Then she had hit the hard, unresponsive earth and blacked out for a moment from the sheer force of the impact. But, as she was awake again, she had instinctively jumped to her feet, ignored the pain and tried to get back into the air, where she would be safe, where her pack would be, but she hadn't been able to do so. Her wing had betrayed her. No matter how desperate she had tried to beat it, there had just been pain. She couldn't gain any height; she couldn't even move it properly.
She had been chained to the earth.
At this point she had called for the help of her pack, for them to return. But her screams hadn't been met with an answer. They had left without even looking back!
And now that she had waited here for so long, she slowly lost the last bit of her faith. They wouldn't return. They had moved on, they were probably even glad that they finally got rid of her presence.
She was alone.
She wailed as pure terror took over. She knew that she was doomed to die. With a broken wing she couldn't fly, she couldn't hunt; she would starve to death, and, if not, an infection would kill her.
She closed her eyes, curled into herself and accepted her fate. She didn't even realise that she blacked out, finally giving in to the pain and stress.
.
...***...
.
Cailin was startled awake in an instant as a strange scream echoed through the night. Eyes wide open to try and see in the darkness of her small chamber, she listened hard. There, it was again. Powerful, scary, but at the same time very desperate and filled with so much loneliness and fear, it made her heart ache.
Which animal made such a sound? She had never heard anything like that before. It couldn't be one of the animals that lived on their island. And a dragon? She knew all the dragons on Eilean, and none of them cried like that.
Curiosity made her slide from her simple haybed and go to the door of the healers-house where she was allowed to stay. She stared into the darkness and, as the cry repeated itself one last time, she could make out a vague direction. Perhaps she could take a look when she had some spare time. In the dark it didn't make much sense, so she went back to bed, although it took her some time to get asleep again. That desperate wail kept her awake.
.
The next morning, she had to make some herbal teas, but after that, her teacher gave her the permission to go into the forest and collect some more herbs.
She learned how to treat the ill and injured from their villages healer, as no one else wanted to teach her a profession. Cailin was comfortable with that; she liked the handling of the herbs, the treatment of the ill and when they eventually get better. It was a work that suited her and she was glad that Maisie was willing to teach her.
Besides liking the work, it also served her well, as it would get her at least somehow noticed. Cailin was neither extraordinarily beautiful nor strong nor rich, nor did she have any other reputation that would give her some status. She was just the healers apprentice and, of course, the girl without a dragon.
Her people had been riding dragons for centuries; it was not only normal for any children to pick a dragon at an early age, it was what defined their life and status within the village. They lived with dragons, they hunted with them; dragons defended their village and people, and her people did practically everything from the back of a dragon.
But unfortunately it was not a one-side-choice. Not only did the human choose the dragon he wanted to live with, the dragon also had to choose the human. And that was the point where Cailin had failed.
As she went as a child together with the other children to the dragon-caves, no dragon would even sniff at her. All other children returned with a dragon, she returned alone.
She had tried it numerous times since then, every time without any success. She didn't know why. She had taught herself Dragonese, the language of the dragons, and spoke it better than anyone else in the village, but the moment she asked a dragon if it would like to share its life with her, she always got an outright 'no.'
They told her, she was not the right human for them; that they didn't feel the connection, whatever that might be. She never found out why the other children had no such problems, when they choose their dragons. But the effects that the dragon's strange stubbornness had had on her life were easy to see. She might not be a bad person, but the fact that no dragon wanted to stay with her made her some kind of outcast.
Everyone had a dragon. She was the only exception. Therefore, something must be wrong with her. Probably she was cursed by some god or inherited some bad fate?
Whatever it was, if not even a single dragon from the many, many ones, that lived on the island was able to trust her, no human could be expected to do so as well, and so she was left alone most of her life. People talked to her if they had to, they accepted the medicine that she made, but they avoided any further contact.
Cailin had been surprised that Maisie had actually agreed on taking her as an apprentice, but it was probably because no one else wanted to do the job, as most other teenagers were not interested in medicine or just too dumb to be trusted with complicated healing.
.
Anyway, Cailin grabbed her herb-bag and went outside. As usual, no one noticed her and she got into the forest without someone even greeting her. She was long used to that and didn't bother. Instead she tried to remember the direction from where she had heard the strange scream last night and headed for it.
She watched for any unusual signs on her way, but found nothing. Everything was like it should be. Perhaps she had dreamed or whatever had screamed was long gone. But her curiosity made her keep watching, and so she went further and further into the forest. She picked some herbs from time to time; she didn't want to waste her time entirely if she found nothing.
And as she had almost given up, she saw it.
A broken branch. And another one. A whole tree looked like something big had crashed right through it.
Cailin stepped carefully closer, trying to make no noise at all. She was almost sure she stopped breathing, as she climbed over a bunch of broken down branches that still had lots of leaves to them and hindered her sight and could finally see what laid behind. On the other side laid something dark, something big. Very careful to avoid any sound that might startle the beast she crept closer.
As she had a clear sight, she couldn't help but take a deep, surprised breath.
In front of her laid a dragon, but a kind of dragon she'd never seen before. It was relatively small, but had the sleek, elegant body of a fast and agile being. Its main wings were bigger in comparison to the body than every wingspan she ever saw; this dragon was surely a very good flyer. It also had a smaller set of wings at the base and at the tip of its tail two fins. But the most outstanding feature were the dragon's dark scales. They weren't completely black- there were lighter blue-grey markings along the edge of the wings and fins, some legs and the back of the dragon, but it was still the darkest scale-colour she'd ever seen. This surely was no ordinary dragon.
It didn't move and laid totally motionless.
Was it still alive?
Cailin carefully crept closer and sighed with relief as she found the broad chest was still moving with breaths. So it was still alive.
But it was apparently unconscious, as it didn't acknowledge her presence and didn't move any further.
Cailin cleared her throat, first quietly, then louder. The dragon didn't stir. It must've been out cold from the crash.
To check for injuries she circled the dragon carefully and couldn't help but yelp, as she noted the awkward angle the left wing lay on the ground. She had seen enough broken wings to recognise immediately what had happened. It probably broke during the crash and at least in one place. The dragon couldn't be able to fly with such an injury and she knew what that meant. Death.
The tamed dragons of the village could survive a broken wing, because they would get cared for and fed, but not a wild dragon. With this injury it wouldn't be able to hunt and would starve before the wing healed on its own. It needed care. The problem was, that it might just not accept it. Not from her with her dragon-scaring-history.
Cailin shot another close look to the dark dragon, but it was still deeply unconscious. Probably she could at least care for that wing right now and leave some fish in the vicinity. Perhaps it would accept that much from her and she could keep it alive long enough for the wing to heal. And right now, with the dragon unconscious, it couldn't stop her from treating that wing. It might be the only chance she got.
Healer training kicked in and Cailin went for her bag. She hadn't brought bandages with her, but a part of her skirt would do the job too. Without wasting any more time, she set to work. She ripped her underskirt into small strips and prepared a mix of herbs that would cool the broken bone. Then she searched for a branch she could use to immobilize the wing as best as possible. After she found a decent one, she examined the broken bones. Thankfully, as far as she could tell, they were only broken at one point and fairly easy to bring back into their correct position. After that she put some of her herbs to the wing and started to bandage it to keep the dragon from moving it. The bones had to stay in the correct position or they would grow at the wrong parts together and might prevent any future flight. Cailin wrapped her improvised bandages as closely as possible around the bones and the branch and then bound the wing to the dragon's side so it couldn't beat it anymore and had to keep it unmoving. She tried to do that in a way that the dragon couldn't reach; if it tore the bandages apart, her labour would be futile.
After she was done, she took a step back and examined her work. It was the best she could do right now with the limited supplies she had here. Unfortunately, she had no fish or meat with her, she would need to return. Hopefully the dragon was still there then.
Cailin couldn't help but took another close look.
She still wondered what kind of dragon it was. It was a relatively young female, that much she saw right now, but of no species she could recall. She should probably take a look at the Book of Dragons, when she was back in the village.
For another moment Cailin stared at the smooth, elegant lines of the dragons body, but then she reminded herself, that she still had work to do. And she had better hurry, if she wanted to return to bring some fish for the dragon and still get her work in the nursery done.
After one last glance she turned on her heels and went back to the village.