The Human Dragon and the Estranged Crow
A How To Train Your Dragon fanfic
Based off of Le'letha's "Nightfall" and "Stormfall" fics
Winter is a time for the harshest of biting cold and the gathering of all the Nest and the curling of many dragons together so that their heart-fires keep dragons warm and together and alive. Winter is a time that will freeze wings in flight and make them tear and cripple so they can never fly again. It is a time for dragons to stay inside and for the King to bring the flock food from underneath deep waters as the good King that he is so that all are able to eat without risking the worst weather of the year that even the bravest dare not challenge because it is a fight that cannot be won and is rarely if ever worth it to even try to beat.
It makes it unusual, then, that any dragon might venture out, but this winter has been milder than most and there has been a newcomer to the Nest who has escaped the bite of traps but knows other dragons that have not.
It is a stranger that they think might have been told away from their territory once before, but a stranger with no flock like theirs. Some dragons are solitary, but all dragons are best with a flock and a Nest, and the flock that Hiccup and Toothless belong to is large and their Alpha great. The fact that this dragon is coming to them for help in the deep winter says that it has no large flock of its own to turn to for help or shelter.
It is not entirely unwelcome, and Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss - the two dragons who are Hiccup and Toothless together - always are willing to help dragons from the traps that humans lay for them, though in a time of winter they will have to be more careful than ever. Though humans too, from what they know, prefer to stay in their own nests during this time, it is the weather itself that is the greatest hunter of all, and must be respected for its power and deadliness.
There is much talking of caution and planning back and forth. Only in the breaks of cold weather should they fly, and only when they are sure that the breaks in weather will last until they can land somewhere where they might take shelter. This is an absolute that no clever dragon would argue against, and Hiccup and Toothless pride themselves on being the cleverest of dragons.
The stranger takes them where the need to go, traversing from one small island to another, until they come upon one that is larger and sure to have small flocks of dragons.
Humans, as far as they know, do not like winter any better than dragons do, so to find trappers out in this time of year is strange, and if there is a Nest in this island, pfikingr - Vikings - would be hard-pressed to find it or know that one is here. Even if the snows have been less and the storms not as fierce this time around, there is still much snow and ice, swallowing whole most other things and burying them so that all that can be seen is white. Trees bow and creak under the weight of it, and streams halt their progress, made solid into ice that traps even fish mid-swimming.
There can be no mistake, though - pfikingr have most certainly been through. There are tracks in places in the snow that have been left by humans, and off the shore, the two-who-are-one easily identify a ship with leafless trees rising from the ship-ground that rests close to shore, drifting on the shallow water but not quite so near as to be beached and left dead.
He wonders if the ship and pfikingr may have been caught too far from their Nests to make it back, or if perhaps they are pfikingr without Nests and flocks to return to, just as some dragons are lone wanderers, as they know this is not an island where humans make their home. In any case, it doesn't matter. Humans are trappers of dragons, and Tt-(click)-th-phuh-ss are breakers of traps that harm dragons. This is a true thing. It is a thing they know intimately.
Once they have flown the island from far above and surveyed the shore where they can see the ship and pfikingr milling around it, they begin their hunt for the traps and for the dragons which have been bitten by them. Several are easy enough, as the stranger takes them straight to its friends to be freed. There is first a she who is a loud-voice cousin and another he who is like the blue-spikes cousin Flies-in-Storms but who is more green than he is blue.
Other traps they find empty, and as they are empty and not-sprung they know that the traps are ready to bite and tangle and snare, and so they must be more careful than if they approached a trap that had already grabbed hold of another dragon, and if there are traps under the snow then they must be twice as sneaky and careful about where they put their paws.
Still, the two of them together are the best of dragons, and they have broken and sprung many traps and seen all kinds of them, so they know what to look for when the trap is not so obvious or is well-hidden even so. Biting ground-traps are the hardest to find when they are covered up, but there are also tree-snare traps that they are able to find and break and there are baited traps where pfikingr-beast kills have been left that they know better than to try to eat from because that is when the trap will bite them.
The baited-biting traps they know they cannot land near when they cannot see past the snow, but they also cannot leave them for other dragons to step into or try to eat from and be caught, so instead they land on a thick tree where they know humans do not leave traps and they ponder it for a time. There are some ideas that they think up, but many are not good ones.
First they must find where the fangs of the trap are without being caught by them, and they think back on an old trick of poking around for the teeth with a large stick. It is a lucky thing that pfikingr always put food-bait in the throat of the traps, so they know where the middle is, but they must also know how big the jaws are before stepping down, or they may be caught even if they do not trust the prey-beast meat.
With the long stick, he moves the prey-beast from the throat of the trap he knows is there, and as he expects, the trap springs and snaps its jaws, breaking the stick between its teeth in two, but otherwise its jaws are closed with no dragons inside them, which is how it should be. Still, they are careful, and do not trust that there might not be another trap, as some pfikingr put many in one place, so Hiccup hangs down from Toothless's shoulders - and Toothless in turn keeps them anchored from touching the ground with a tail that is tightly coiled around a branch - while he works to break the mechanism on the hinge so that the biting trap cannot simply be opened and set to bite again.
There are many other traps after this that get similar treatment, but all are generally easy for him to break, if not requiring a bit of time and patience to do so.
It is just after they have recently broken one of many traps that they hear the loud sounds of pfikingr clumsily trying to walk their way through the snow, perking and trying to pinpoint where it is coming from. Once they have figured out a direction, the dragon-pair turn and fly the opposite way. They are not unable to fight pfikingr, but if it can be avoided, they will flee when they can and remain hidden, and there may be more traps for them to break ahead of the pfikingr, and break more empty traps they do until finding another that has a dragon within it, this one a rock-skin cousin.
At first the dragon is wary of them and snarls in defense of itself, unsure of the motives of the two newcomers, but Hiccup and Toothless are sure to make themselves look non-threatening as they approach and greet the dragon companionably with hello hello friendly us good dragons yes friendly helping no-threat us good us free you friendly calm.
There is a little bit of uncertainty, but the rock-skin cousin relaxes a little bit, suspicious but at least not openly hostile now. Seeing this, Hiccup slides easily from Toothless's back and approaches with a tentativeness, chirping reassurances as he gets near the trap.
It is a metal snare that that has caught the rock-skin cousin's leg with a locking piece on the end that keeps the snare from loosening even if the dragon were to stop moving away, with the other end going up into the trees. It is one of the more elaborate snare traps he has come across, but not entirely new to him.
He chatters a still be still you calm relaxed helping break trap free you calm easy us good we help and sets to work on trying to break the small mechanism free so that the rock-skin cousin will be able to pull its leg loose and be on its way. While he works, Toothless keeps watch and listens for pfikingr that may be approaching, as when Hiccup gets deeply focused on a task like drawing on paper or working to break traps he sometimes forgets his surroundings until something has snuck up on him.
The trap itself is stubborn and to make its stubbornness worse, there is snow through the crevices that has crusted into ice that must be chipped away, but hopefully the freezing will have made the mechanism more brittle as many things become in winter.
It is while Hiccup is still working that Toothless perks, rotating his head and ear-flaps and warbling a soft coming pfikingr maybe threat hide-watch-pounce maybe coming quick us hide clever ambush in his throat so that only Hiccup and the rock-skin cousin near him hears it. They will not leave the dragon to be preyed upon by pfikingr, but they will be at a disadvantage if they are the ones surprise-pounced and not the other way around. The best attack is the one enemies are not aware of until it is happening, a strategy they have learned many times from hunting and from trying-and-seeing.
Hiccup wordlessly agrees and swings back onto Toothless's shoulders, the black dragon leaping up onto an overhang of large rocks and onto the other side to wait and watch and probably to pounce once they see who their enemies are and how many. They are careful to lie flat and Toothless folds his wings in close so they don't stick up and stills his tail from twitching so that it does not brush against anything to make noise.
They see the movement peering out from the snow and rocks of a pfikingr clumsily stomping through the trees towards the trapped dragon, and to their best of luck, it is completely alone and smaller than most pfikingr they are used to.
It causes a moment of wondering if the he-pfikingr is young, not quite a hatchling but maybe a fledgling that has not yet grown into its adulthood, but it has a foul-angry look to its face and a large scar that suggests maybe it has more years than it looks to them. Hiccup after all is one of the smallest of the nest, averaging only the size of most hatchlings although he is already grown, and though he does not consider himself human, he is so in body and still smaller than many humans are, so he does not think of it as strange that an adult human may be small as well. Stranger than that are the ravens that sit on his shoulders when he first appears.
They watch as the pfikingr stops, watching the rock-skin cousin and thinking, shifting his weight slightly as he sizes up the rock-skin cousin and glances for other following pfikingr. He seems to come to a decision and begins walking forward, the two ravens leaving his shoulders to disappear into the trees, and the two-who-are-one watch the steps and judge the distance before he will be within pouncing range before they make themselves seen.
As soon as they rise from hiding, they see the he pfikingr go still in his steps, the look one of genuine surprise, though not of total shock. Toothless grips the stone and wriggles for the best purchase for only a second before springing to leap upon the small pfikingr. It is a surprise that the scar-faced human manages to leap out of the way of their pounce in the deep snow, but it is also of little consequence.
They are two together and Toothless is big and together they are bigger, and the pfikingr is small and alone. If he is smart - they think together - then he will turn and flee.
But he doesn't.
The One-Eye bares a long, metal sharp-claw at them and stands his ground, calculation flitting through the single blue hue. They can see him watching Toothless in a way that is familiar - many pfikingr when faced with Toothless look at him with a sense of focus that is hard to miss, sometimes with awe and others with covetousness and more still with fear. In this encounter, there is little of that, if any at all, only a sense of cold thinking, weighing the worth and the risk with a sort of indifference.
The One-Eye's gaze does not linger on Toothless for more than a few seconds before shifting to Hiccup, but the look there is different. There is a moment of confusion, the slightest tilt of his head in seeing something new for the first time, before it twists into something like loathing and disgust.
Underlying all of these reactions is something that neither of them like, but they cannot pin down exactly what the thing in the One-Eye's face or his posture that unnerves them so. Trappers are nothing new, and they do not fear humans when they have a clear advantage, so it is all the more troubling to prickle at some foreign thing about this human that they have not faced before and cannot identify.
All the same, the enemy before them is only a pfikingr, and they know how to fight those. They are not an unseen thing like nightmares in the mind. They can be blasted and bitten and clawed. They can be wounded and killed. The two of them together have little to be afraid of, and they will know to be cautious of the unknown thing that nips at their tails.
The pfikingr tilts his head in challenge, eyes sharp and mutually unafraid, and there is a sharp bark that leaves his lips, speaking a question that is as much the clearest of taunts. The One-Eye will find that pulling their tails will not end well if he does not back away.
There are only snippets of the words that Hiccup understands, but it is enough to know the meaning, and he motions with a swipe of his claws to go-away.
"Pfikingr kkko!" he snarls, Toothless lashing his tail to emphasize their command. They will give him this one chance to turn and leave before they attack, and one chance only before they make good on their threat. "Drakkkn herrr! Pfikingr nuh!"
He could see the few moments of struggle to understand, and in the time he has had dealings with the people of an island he knows by the sounds of Buh-rrrrKK, he has come to expect that it takes many moments for humans to understand when he tries to speak as they do - but its a compromise he must make, because pfikingr cannot or understand properly as dragons do.
Verbally, he knows not to expect a reply that is as a dragon understands it, but the posture of the One-Eye speaks many things. Once he seems to understand the command, he hackles as much as a human visibly can, and the way he holds himself speaks Defiance! and the way his eye flashes screams Challenge!
Hiccup meets his challenge by baring his throat to see if he will make good on it, waiting to see if the pfikingr will pounce for it or if he will back down after all, but he is met instead with the same motion in return so that now the only thing to do is for someone to leap first, and a motion that he has come to recognize as come here from the she pfikingr whose name the closest sound he can make is Uh strrrTT gives him invitation to leap first.
But he is clever and he is two dragons together. He will not leap straight into the sharp-claw that the pfikingr holds, and in silent understanding, Toothless whistles fire in the back of his throat to meet the challenge being made to them both.
The One-Eye leaps out of the way of their blast and races around the side of the clearing where the trap was first laid, the two of them standing between the rock-skin cousin and the running pfikingr that is circling them. Another shot is better aimed, and it only barely misses because the small pfikingr moves quickly to avoid it and scrambles behinds rocks for cover where they cannot blast.
With a strong thrust of wings, they lift themselves skyward to be above the pfikingr who is in-hiding. They have seen no flying sharp-things or the branches that make them fly, so to be in the air should give them more of an advantage to the grounded One-Eye who has only the one sharp-claw that they can see.
It is only shortly after they have taken to the air and are readying to swoop that the One-Eye appears again and hurls a chunk of ice and rock that hits Toothless squarely between the eyes. It is more of a surprise than a hurt, but in the couple of moments that he is shaking his head and moving, he runs into the side of the rock that the One-Eye took to hiding behind, leaving him stunned.
They both understand stunned, and that it is a bad thing to be in a fight or among enemies. It gives them a chance to attack and to reach the vulnerable places that would normally be protected because it dulls the senses. So while one of them is stunned, the other must fight and defend until Toothless can recover.
He scrambles from Toothless's back and arches himself up atop the rock, having an advantage of height above the pfikingr, but he is still aware of the brandished sharp-claw in the One-Eye's paws and instead holds his ground between his enemy and Toothless, snarling and displaying himself as a threat to be taken seriously, pacing one way and the other as he watches for an opening.
He sees the look in the enemy pfikingr's one eye and knows that without Toothless, the other sees him as less of a threat, as he is only half of one dragon who is two, but he is still a dragon himself and knows how to fight. He has been having to fight pfikingr his whole life, many much bigger than this one, who is still smaller than himself. He will not be beaten easily, and Toothless should recover any moment now.
When he sees a good spot to leap down to, he does so and immediately turns his claws on the small human, bowling him over and raking claws into his unprotected belly. He is satisfied to see the grimace that creases the other's face in a snarl, but the clawing does not go entirely unreturned, and he feels the bite of the sharp-thing dig shallowly into his shoulder.
He immediately leaps back before the claw can bite deeply, keeping weight from the one leg and only balancing on the other tree as he distances himself and whirls around to face his adversary head-on. It is in this moment of distancing himself and making sure his back is not turned and exposed to attack that the smaller pfikingr does just that, leaping for the opening he sees.
He is surprisingly fast, but the One-Eye is small and does not look strong so he probably must make up for these things with being quick of fang and claw. Hiccup barely has the time to leap back, and the claw manages to slash just beneath his eye, far too close for his comfort, and flicks free when it meets the arch of his nose. The look on the One-Eye's face is one of satisfaction and triumph at his scratch, and only a scratch though it may be, it is more than many pfikingr manage to land on him in the few times where he has fought one-to-one.
It is an impressive thing, but not one that he would commend, as it shows the nature of pfikingr as enemies who hurt and kill dragons, and there is no respect to be had in that.
He stands up more fully on his hind legs, snarling hatred and fierce me fierce you enemy pfikingr fierce me you not give up go-away! and he can see, to his own satisfaction, a brief moment of hesitation at their difference in sizes even without Toothless, and that gives him some confidence, though not enough to lose sight of the danger and become reckless.
There are sounds of more pfikingr now that there wasn't before and of approach, and he angrily snarls and turns to scrabble up the rock to where Toothless has recovered and pounced on top of. He can feel the tremble of rage that travels from wings-to-tail in Toothless at seeing the slash that came too close to his eye - that a pfikingr would leave his Hiccup-beloved-one wounded in two places and try to blind him!
But together, they need not worry about that. Together they are strong. Together they are the best. They will show this one-eyed pfikingr that they are not easy to fell and that they will be the ones to triumph and see the trapped dragons freed!
They roar this together as Challenge! Us strong together fierce fierce triumphant! You little pfikingr enemy can't-win go-away you enemy bad bad pfikingr go! Us fierce! Us victorious together-strong fierce!
They can see the second-guessing, the slight retreat and hunch in the shoulders and head that is like submission and giving-up but there is still a look of intense thinking like he is considering surrendering and then pouncing when they have given mercy and an escape now that the One-Eye's flock is coming to help him. There is still a held-ground challenge in the one eye that watches them without looking away or bowing out, though his legs shift in a way that says going-to-run and they are not yet sure what to believe he will do.
It is when the other pfikingr appear, fresh to the fight and angry, that the One-Eye turns and bolts away before either dragon-pair or other pfikingr can fully figure out what is going on, and by then their attentions have turned to each other and the One-Eye is momentarily forgotten in favor of dealing with these new enemies.
Toothless charges fire in his throat with a keening whistle that makes many of the pfikingr come up short and immediately search for places to hide and seek shelter from the incoming blast. They all scatter to the sides when he fires, and then start to regroup shortly afterwards. Unlike the other, these ones are armed with flying sharp-things, and they know to avoid the sting of them, diving behind the rock they had at first perched on.
Sprinting around the stone on the ground, they leap upon the first pfikingr they see that isn't already armed with a sharp-claw that could seriously wound either of them, knocking the wind from the enemy, and then whirling on the rest. One Toothless whips his tail into and sends them careening against the rock, and another that tries to lunge at his flank gets flung back by a wing. One that charges with a sharp-claw in hand the dragon grabs by his forearm and throws him with a quick snap of his head, while Hiccup dives under the legs of another that is charging at the same time and knocks them off balance and onto their face, before snarling at another who has not yet decided what to do.
In only a short amount of time, they send the pfikingr sprinting back from where they had first come, defeated, and yowl their victory after the retreating trappers before returning to finish undoing the trap on the leg of the rock-skin cousin. When it finally comes off, the dragon offers its gratitude and quickly takes to the sky and away, unwilling to linger any longer.
It is then that the One-Eye enters their thoughts again, wondering if he will be a problem they have not yet solved, as he ran a different way than where the Hunters have set up their ship nest. There may be more traps and more dragons caught by them, and it looked as though the One-Eye was fleeing under the distraction that the others caused rather than backing down out of fear of being outmatched. He may be going to get other caught dragons from under their noses right now, and they resolve to find him and be certain.
They fly and follow the tracks in the snow, not needing to look very hard to know where he has gone. Other times they would need to stop and scent and listen, but the winter and white that covers the ground makes tracking the easiest it could ever be, so long as they do not let themselves be caught and frozen by the weather.
It is only a short time of flying and following the trial that they soon see him, struggling to plow through the thickness on his own and making his way at a painfully slow pace compared to the two-who-are-one, who are impeded by nothing but sometimes strong winds when they fly, and they dive down and pounce on their target.