The Dragon Doll
O_N_E
XxX
"...Nine, ten! Ready or not, here I come!" Hiccup exclaimed and removed his hands from his eyes. Toothless was held tightly to his chest. His ears were alert for any sound his friends made and then, he heard a twig snapping. "Ahah!" He ran towards the source of the sound- well, at least what he thought was the source- and then found himself in the middle of the woods.
"What, I'm lost now?" He mumbled. "Great." Rolling his viridian eyes, he sat down on a small boulder and placed Toothless in his lap. The doll faced him, eyes shining with a life of their own and the open-mouthed smile never missing. "What do we do now, bud?" Of course, the doll didn't respond.
As he sat contemplating what must be done, Hiccup didn't see the unblinking yellow eyes focused onto him.
"...Maybe we should retrace our steps, or shout or something..." The little boy mumbled, stroking his dragon for comfort. He was still mumbling when another twig snapped, and he didn't notice the doll's pupils slit or his wings stiffen.
XxX
Onyx opened his eyes. He only saw black. Black all around. His pupils slitted in panic. "Where am I? Why am I here?" He screamed into the darkness, but nothing answered him. His small body trembled more the longer he stared ahead. "Mother! Father! Where are you? Help me!" His shouts echoed eerily. Then, he looked at his paws and gasped when he saw that they were translucent. "Oh no! What is the meaning of this?"
Suddenly everything shook. Onyx screeched in fright and clung to whatever he could, but that was impossible since there was physically nothing he could touch here other than himself. So he settled on wrapping his wings around his body for protection. This position slightly lessened the pain he felt when the tremors shaking the 'ground' beneath him knocked him off balance.
"I hear something..." he mumbled.
'...at do we do now, bud?' The ground shook once more.
"Augh! STOP THAT!" Unfortunately, he was ignored.
The shaking intensified before it finally stopped, and Onyx felt like hurling right there and then. He shook the dizziness from his head and tried to balance himself, only to trip over his own feet. He grumbled and stood once more, slowly walking around.
He found that the further he walked the thicker the mist became, until it turned into a dense fog at one point that he couldn't see more than five feet in front of him. He kept walking ahead and then came to a part where the fog had lifted, and there was a swirling purple portal up ahead.
Curious, he stepped into it.
There was a bright flash, and then he saw his surroundings. Only, he couldn't move. His body felt stiff. When he looked up slightly, he gasped. A human boy was holding him, mumbling to himself. 'Probably about ways to kill me.' Onyx spat before he caught sight of a Changewing camouflaging itself in the tree behind them. 'Curse my good conscience.' he muttered as his pupils slitted even more and his wings went stiff.
Onyx felt a feral growl bubbling in his throat as the Changewing approached, a hungry look in its eyes. Dragons didn't normally eat humans, but if they were desperate, they did.
'I can't move. I'll have to rely on the boy for mobility. You better be fast if you don't want to die, human!' Onyx screeched but the boy didn't hear him. The boy was now in a thinking pose, eyes closed. 'Good. Now's my chance.' Onyx felt a familiar bubbling of gas in his throat and an equally familiar whistle or screech that was the warning before a Night Fury attacked.
'Die!' the plasma blast was released, shocking the boy out of his reverie. Unfortunately, his blast had missed, and only managed to scare the Changewing out of its hiding spot. The human heard a startled roar and looked behind him, paling. "Ch-changewing...I'm so dead!"
XxX
The dragon hissed menacingly and started to rush towards them. Hiccup screamed and hugged Toothless o his chest, praying for some sort of miracle to happen.
XxX
For some reason, when he heard the human boy scream, Onyx felt something in him snap. His slitted eyes narrowed for a split second.
XxX
Hiccup stopped screaming when he saw that his doll was starting to glow a bright white, causing the wild Changewing to hiss in discomfort. He also covered his eyes, dropping Toothless in the process, and squeaked.
The dragon doll grew larger, and was about half the size of the Changewing if he stood up. When it stopped glowing, a now alive Night Fury stood in its place, roaring protectively as his tail wrapped around the human. 'Back off, scoundrel!'
'Why are you protecting the boy, Night Fury? They have killed thousands of us!' The changewing screeched. Onyx snorted. 'That's my business, not yours. Scat!'
Hearing the order from a soon-to-be alpha, though still very young, the adult Changewing spat one more time and flew away.
"I-is it gone?" Onyx looked down at the human and cooed comfortingly. Even he didn't know why he protected this human.
As soon as he calmed down, Onyx felt himself shrinking back to his doll-size. He groaned in his mind and closed his eyes.
Hiccup stared, breathless, at the dragon doll. A few seconds ago, it had turned into a real dragon -one that protected him, no less- and scared off a Changewing twice his size.
"Toothless... what are you?"
XxX
Hiccup decided to do the wise thing and kept it a secret. If anyone knew about this, they would probably take Toothless away from him. If anyone believed it, anyway. Hiccup went to the forest behind his house and found that it led to a cove. He decided to call it Toothless' Cove and did all his 'experiments' there. He wanted to know why Toothless tranformed when that Changewing attacked. Was it because he was in the presence of another dragon?
One day, while placing a couple of targets for the 'experiment', Hiccup had accidentally forgotten to place the stabilizer -a rock, really, but stabilizer sounded cooler- on one of the targets, and the large wooden dragon was about to crash down on him. Hiccup had squeaked, accepting his fate but a few moments later, the wooden target exploded into splinters. The wood rained around him, and he saw Toothless revert back to his doll form when Hiccup confirmed he was safe.
Only then did the young boy understand. The dragon wanted a friend. Toothless wanted to protect him.
The days that followed that one event was spent with Hiccup trying to figure out how to bring Toothless out even when he wasn't in danger. "I can't just keep screaming." He said.
Astrid and Fishlegs had asked him why he was so withdrawn lately and he just offered them a lopsided smile, "I'm fine. I was just doing some projects." After that, the two didn't ask anymore. When Hiccup started a project, everyone knew that he would do anything to complete it.
Toothless -Onyx, really, but Toothless sounded nice too- also wanted to know how to stay out of his doll form at will. Staying in there was a pain.
"I really don't know why you want to protect me, buddy, but... thank you." Hiccup admitted one day, a happy smile gracing his childish features. And though the dragon didn't respond, Hiccup knew that Toothless agreed.
XxX
One day, Hiccup had left Toothless in the cove, saying that he had to get something. Toothless didn't mind, he needed space for himself sometimes. He was confident that no one knew about this place othe than them.
Toothless was just about to relax when suddenly, he heard the flaaping of wings and something landing in front of the cove. Toothless cursed his immobile body. 'Grr... Where's Hiccup when I need him?!'
The echoing of footsteps bounced off the walls of the cove. Suddenly, he saw two pair of eyes, one a viridian pair, and the other a purple pair. Toothless knew these... things were powerful. The aura they radiated just screamed 'Alpha' or 'Power'.
"...Onyx?"
Toothless' eyes snapped open. How did they know his name? And why did they... wait. 'Night Furies!' For some reason, these dragons felt familiar.
"Onyx, honey, calm down." Did one of them just call him 'honey' ? "We're not here to harm you or your friend."
Toothless -he liked that name more than Onyx now- relaxed slightly. Then, his eyes widened once more when he put two and two together. 'Night Furies... One called me 'honey'... They knew about Hiccup... Familiarity...'
'Mother? Father?'
XxX
That's it for today. I know that it's probably a bit short, and I would like to inform you about not updating this story until next week. I'm in boarding school, and now I'm at home for a few days.
Thank you, readers, for your kind reviews. I'm really glad you all like it! I'll think up on the plotline some more and then I could write it down sometime. Who knows, maybe you'll get another chapter today!
-Sunday, 21 June, 2015-