Copyright: How to train your dragon and Night Furys belongs to Dreamworks and Cressida Crowell. Characters and story belong to me.
A/N: Beta was Akozu Heiwa. Thank you very much!
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It was late evening when she next had some spare time at her disposal. She grabbed a basket of fish from the dragon's feeding station and crept away in the forest. She had to wander for some time, and started to doubt if she remembered the way correctly, but finally she saw the broken tree. The dragon however was nowhere to be seen.
So she must have woken up.
Cailin looked around carefully, but could not detect any movement or traces where the dragon might have gone. She was seemingly alone.
At least she also couldn't detect any torn apart bandages, so there was hope that her improvised treatment still lasted.
Since she couldn't spot any trace of the injured dragon, she had no other choice than to drop her basket, spill its contents, and then move away. If she was lucky, the dragon hadn't moved too far, and would find the fish and eat it. Right now she couldn't do much more and had no other choice than to return to the village, although Cailin decided to return the next morning.
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As she woke up, everything still hurt, but that was not what set her on alert. There was the smell of a human!
Immediately, she jumped to her feet, ready to defend herself. She bared her teeth and growled menacingly while she tried to see the threat. But even after turning a full circle, she couldn't see anyone. She was alone.
But she was quite sure there had been a human near her, because she couldn't move her injured wing anymore. With a panicked cry, she tried again to move her wing, but to no effect. It seemed to be bound to her body with things that smelled so disgustingly human. Someone had been here while she had been out; a human had touched her without her even noticing, while she was unable to defend herself. It was disgusting, it was strange, and it scared her to no end. She wanted it gone! But she couldn't even see what the human had done, not on her blind side.
Growling with frustration she let herself fall to the ground and tried to bite the things off, but she couldn't get her mouth close enough to the restrictions she felt were running around her body. Next she tried to claw them away, but the human must have known what it had been doing: once again, she couldn't reach it.
Crying with distress, she rolled around on her back, tried to scrap the odd things of on rocks and branches and just managed to make her injured wing throb with pain again.
After an exceptionally bad hit on a tree she yelped with pain and gave up further tries. She couldn't get rid of the things that humiliated her and stole the last bit of her pride. As if being knocked out of the sky and abandoned from her own pack hadn't been bad enough.
With a desperate wail she let herself fall on the ground, exhausted. She was doomed to die anyway, why fight it further?
She could already feel her stomach growl, but she knew she had no chance of catching any prey. Not in her present state.
With another wail she closed her eyes and accepted her fate. She might as well lay here and await her death. So she waited.
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She didn't know how long she laid there motionless as a noise startled her. Something big was moving through the forest and the wind brought the smell of a human to her sensitive nose. She recognised this scent immediately. Although her futile attempts at getting rid of the human restrictions had torn away their stench, she remembered it quite clearly. It had burned into her memory with the humiliation she felt every time she tried to move her wing and found it bound against her body.
It was that human again.
Did it come to laugh at her? Or to kill her for good? She had heard the tales of the humans in the north… that they killed dragons. Did this one return to kill her as well?
And although she was moments ago ready to meet her death, she just couldn't bring herself to let a human kill her. She had at least one last bit of pride left. She might have been abandoned by her own pack, declared useless and just an obstacle, but she would not let a human kill her. She would not sink that deep.
So she jumped to her feet once more and disappeared into the forest, away from the human.
As she thought the distance was safe, she perked her ear fins up and listened. What would the human do, when it found her gone?
She expected an angry yell but nothing came. There was just silence. Luckily the human also didn't go searching for her; it must have thought her gone. Didn't it know that she couldn't fly with only one wing? It must be really stupid.
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For an eternity nothing happened and she caught herself at the curious thought of what the human had done. Did it leave? Did it stay? But why should it?
And then something new hit her nose and made her stomach growl even louder than it already did. The scent of fish.
How did fish come into the middle of the forest? And it came from the direction she fled because of the human.
So it was trying to lure her back with a bait of fish.
She growled angrily. She might be desperate, but not foolish! She would never fall for the trap of a human!
Determined she turned and crept further into the forest. Perhaps she could find a prey that was stupid enough to get caught by her.
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As it turned out, she didn't find any. For seemingly hours she wandered through the trees and tried to find something she could eat, just to find nothing. And then the smell of the fish hit her nose again. The wind must have changed direction and she obviously came close to that spot again without even noticing. She was getting careless.
And she was hungry. Her last meal had been two days ago and although she could go some time without eating she was injured and very, very hungry. Her stomach hurt, but she still refused to give in. She would not get in the humans trap! She would not lose the rest of her dignity!
But as time went by and her hunger was growing even more – she wouldn't have thought that possible – she came to the conclusion that she could at least take a look. It was the deepest, darkest night now and she knew that humans couldn't see very well in the dark. She had the edge over it now.
She hesitated one more moment, but then another wave of delicious smell hit her and she found herself moving without even noticing.
She was very careful, crept from deep shadow to shadow and had all her senses on full alert. But she could not find any trace of the human, just a shallow stench in the air that was some hours old. It wasn't here?
She hesitated once more and scanned the surroundings again for any sign of the human, just to find nothing. It was truly gone! And it left the fish.
Her stomach growled again and she couldn't help herself any more. She stepped into the small opening that her crash had created. No human charged at her, no trap sprung upon her. Nothing happened at all.
She was alone with a pile of fish. Granted, it was old right now and smelled after laying in the dirt for the greatest part of the day, but it was fish, it was food and she was too hungry to be picky any more. Still she got herself enough self-preservation instincts to check for poison. She found nothing. For all she knew, it was perfectly fine fish.
That was enough for her and soon she found herself gulping it down as fast as possible. It tasted wonderful. It tasted of life.
Perhaps she wouldn't starve this week.
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After finishing her meal she went once more to find a safe place to sleep. She needed to rest. She could decide what to do then; right now all she wanted was some rest.
Finally she found a small overhang she could hide under; she scorched the ground to warm it and then laid down, closed her eyes and fell asleep.
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When Cailin managed to get away from the village the next day, it was almost evening. She was more confident to find the way now and soon reached her destination at the broken tree. As she had expected she could not see any dragon but to her joy the fish was gone. So the dragoness had found it and fed. Very well!
With a wide grin, Cailin dropped the contents of her basket and another load of fish spilled on the forest floor. She didn't know if the dragon was still near, but if she was, she would find it.
If she was lucky she could keep it at least fed and alive that way and she was perfectly fine with that. She would have liked it more if she could check on the broken wing, but she understood that the wild dragon wouldn't trust her, let alone let her touch her. So it was down to feeding right now. Perhaps it would be enough to keep her alive and healing.
After a final look for the silent trees around, Cailin turned to heed back to her village.
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As she woke up, she felt strangely content. She wasn't hungry anymore and her left wing hurt less. She turned to lick at it, but couldn't reach it. Damn human!, she thought. It had bound the wing so far back, that she couldn't even groom it! How was she supposed to keep herself clean? Granted, she couldn't reach her back at her best times- her anatomy just didn't allow that- but right now she felt even more restricted.
With a low growl she started to clean at least the rest of her that she could reach. That took some time, but she didn't mind. She was not hungry and there was no apparent danger nearby. After she was done licking her scales and cleaning herself as good as possible, she jumped to the rock she had slept under. There was a small patch of sun hitting the stone and she promptly laid down there and stretched in the warmth.
Soon she closed her eyes and dozed off.
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It must have been the late afternoon as she finally woke again. Of course she was hungry again. She almost sighted. Apparently her healing process needed much more energy than she would normally need.
Just great. She would still starve.
Just as she thought that, the smell of fish hit her nose.
Fish? Again?
She jerked her head up and sniffed in the direction the smell came from. The same clearing as yesterday? And the same human again?
Wary and hungry she got to her feet and sniffed again. It was the smell of that human. It had been there again?
Now curiosity took over. Sometimes she damned the curiosity of her kind but once picked it became an irresistible force and she felt well enough to risk giving in. After all it has been always the smell of just one human, a female as far as she could tell and not the strongest one either. And since she still felt very well, the fish had not been poisoned, so there seemed to be no immediate harm.
Still, she was very careful and stayed always in the shadows low to the ground to keep the human from spotting her as she crept closer to the small opening. No human was there, she was alone with another pile of fish.
Saliva started to collect in her mouth; she was hungry after all. After checking the surroundings and again finding no danger she stepped in the opening and after a short sniff she started to eat the fish. It tasted so good! She gulped it down as fast as possible- who knew if the human wouldn't come back after all? But she was not interrupted and could finish her meal in peace.
After a final lick to gather some leftover fish oil she turned again and returned to her sleeping place, careful to not leave any trace of her way. She didn't trust that human, after all.
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Cailin didn't see the dragon again, but every time she arrived with another basket of fish, the old one had been gone. So it was still eating it. At least she hoped it was the dragon and not just a bunch of wolves, but they weren't that fond of fish, so chances were good that the dragon was still alive.
Until today she didn't had enough time for it, but now there wasn't that much to do and Maisie gave her the evening free. Since she had already fed the dragon in the woods, she went for the Meeting Hall where the Book of Dragons was kept. It was time to gather some information.
She often read in the books so no one questioned her right to be there and no one cared as she carried the thick leather bound codex to an empty table and started to flip through the pages. There were many dragon species listed in the book and it took some time. She skipped through seemingly endless pages with dragons that looked nothing like the one she found in the forest. Perhaps there wasn't even any information about that dragon available? But just as she thought she wouldn't find anything useful within the pages of the book she opened a page that made her hold her breath.
That was it. That was the dragon that hid in the woods.
Cailin leaned closer to the pages and started to read the little information that was written there. Apparently there was a very rare dragon species called Night Fury. There was only a scribbly illustration, but it showed the characteristics she had observed on the crashed dragon. Relatively small size, large main wings, smaller wing set at the base of the tail, two fins at the tip of the tail, a dark colour of the scales and a sleek and elegant body. Apparently Night Furies were nomads, and, since the breed itself was rare and they used to travel in the dark, it was even rarer to spot one. No wonder information was scarce. The book only said that they were rumoured to breathe a blue, explosive fire and are known further north as "the unholy offspring of lightning and death" and greatly feared. There were warnings that they are very dangerous and should be avoided at all costs.
Apparently not a cuddly dragon, Cailin thought.
Should she heed the warning and not return to the forest the next day?
But, then again, the dragon had not harmed her until now. She didn't even see it and it obviously preferred to stay out of sight and avoid direct contact. It shouldn't be too dangerous to dump her load of fish every day and, besides, she was a healer. She had sworn to treat any injured being and that also included a rogue dragon-lady, that would otherwise starve and die. It was her responsibility.
Thereby the decision was made. She would return to the forest tomorrow.
